"Do you know where he's going?" Remo asked.
She shook her head. "Wherever it is, he wants to be alone," she said with a sexy Mae West irony. "He's cut all the power lines and locked the outside gate. I've just checked the basement. The treatments for us are gone."
111
"I'm sorry, Posie," Remo said. "I guess the next few days are going to be rough for you. Without the drugs, I mean."
"It's okay, "she said. She smiled, but her face had a hollow, frightened look. "He'll leave tracks that you can follow. That is, if you don't freeze to death. You have a terrific body, but I'd throw something over it besides that toga if I were you."
Remo looked down at the flowing white drape with embarrassment and tore it off. "Can you keep everybody under control here until I get back?"
"Sure," she said. "But don't bother hurrying back. You won't make it in time, anyway."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just get Foxx," Posie said. "He's the one who's responsible for what's going to happen here."
"Is everybody nuts?" Remo said. "You all act like some stupid injection is a matter of life and death."
He hesitated for a moment. Her face suddenly looked drawn and . . . old, Remo thought. But she smiled, and the image passed. Even at seventy, Posie Ponselie was a gorgeous creature.
"Just spoiled," she said winsomely. "Don't worry about us. We'll stay inside and tell ghost stories by candlelight." She touched his face. For a moment, he thought he saw that same impossible aged look creep over her stunning features. "Remo," she asked haltingly, "will you do something for me before you leave?"
"You don't have to ask," he said.
"Kiss me."
He held her close and pressed his lips to hers. The same electric warmth he had first felt with her surged through him again. "I'm going to miss you while I'm gone," he said.
112
She drew a manicured finger alongside his face. "I'll miss you, too. More than you know."
She let him go. Near the door, Seymour Burdich stood waiting, a down parka tossed ludicrously over his toga.
"I don't know what the hell's going on around here, but I'm going with you," he said, looking pale and trembling.
"Forget it," Remo said. "It's too cold, and you'd never be able to follow us, anyway."
"But it's spooky here," Burdich complained. "Everybody's crying bloody murder. There's something terrible happening. I want to help."
"There's nothing you can do. I didn't see a house or a gas station within twenty miles of here. Anyone who went out in this weather longer than ten minutes would freeze."
"You're going out"
"We're different," Remo said. "You just stay inside with the rest. I'll send help when I can."
Before he left, he looked back once more at Posie Ponselle. She was carrying two lit candles into the room from the kitchen. The firelight made her look, in her Grecian gown, like some pale and beautiful statue. He'd come close to loving her, and for that he would always owe her one. As he watched, she lifted her head in his direction. She smiled. At that moment, she was more beautiful than she'd ever been.
Her lips formed one word. "Good-bye," she said, and then she turned away.
113
We Interrupt This Book For a Message from Chiun
After ail my warnings, you are still reading this nonsense?
Shame on you.
Have ! not told you that those two paper-ruiners, Murphy and before him, that Sapir, get everything wrong? And if they do not get it wrong, then Pinnacle Books gets it wrong?
Don't you ever learn anything?
But at last, there is hope. I, Chiun, Master of Sin-anju, have finally written a book of my own. It is called The Assassin's Handbook, and it tells the true story of the House of Sinanju and is filled with wonderful, exciting tales about such marvelous Masters as Wang the Greater. It includes my almost-favorite Ung poem and The Assassin's Quick Weight-Loss Diet and 37 Steps to Sexual Ecstasy.
There is a book inside the book that tells of the death of Remo, my student. Nowhere else will you read this true story.
Unfortunately, the book also has some junk in it, including a picture of Sapir and Murphy. But that is the price we artists must pay to bring beauty to a troubled world.
Buy my book. Buy one for a friend so that he too may appreciate the beauty of the real assassin.
You can get this book by filling out the little coupon below. The book costs $6.95. All the money will go to me. This is as it should be. I do all the work.
-Chiun
By his awesome hand in this 2,712th year of the dread Dragon Wind.
114 TH E DESTROYER #50
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