"He never comes in on his day off. He's got an estate up in Westchester. You can't pry him out with crowbars."
"Tell him someone is defacing the statue."
"I can't do that. I'd be fired."
With two fingers, half curled and pressed together like a single instrument, Remo snapped his nails downward across the raised circle, carved by stone implements in a time that preceded even the memory of the Actatl tribe. Crumpled chunks of pinkish rock sprayed from the path of his fingers. A small white scar the size of an electric cord cut a curve in the circle.
"Now you've done it," said Valerie, pressing her hand to her forehead. "Now you've done it. This place is going to be a madhouse."
"You're going to phone Willingham, right?" said Remo pleasantly.
"Right. Get out of here. You don't know what you've done."
"I think I do," Remo said.
"Look," Valerie said, pointing to the scar. "That's bad enough. But if you're still here, there may be murder."
Remo shrugged. "Phone," he said.
"Get out of here."
"No," said Remo.
"You're too cute to die."
"I'm not leaving."
Since he was thin and Valerie was one of the toughest defensive guards in field hockey at Wellesley, she put her shoulder into his back and pushed. The back didn't move. She knew he couldn't weigh more than 150 pounds, so she tried again, this time getting a running start and throwing her body at the back.
When she was bracing for the thump of impact, it seemed as if the back suddenly dropped beneath her and she was hurtling horizontally toward a wall, and just as suddenly there were hands about her waist, soft hands that seemed to caress her as they guided her softly to her feet again.
"Make love, not war," said Valerie.
"Phone Willingham."
"Do that thing with the hands again."
"Later," Remo said.
"Just a touch."
"Later, I'll give you everything you want."
"There's no man who has that much."
Remo winked. Valerie glanced down at his fly.
"You're not one of those machismo types who's great with his fists and duds out in bed, are you?"
"Get Willingham and then find out."
"There won't be anything left of you. I mean it," said Valerie and with a shrug she went to the wall with a green metal cabinet. The cabinet housed a phone.
"It's not bad enough this rock's had to have running water in the room, but it's got its own private line, too. You ought to see the phone bills that come off of this line. It's incredible. Visitors come and make these free calls at museum expense and Willingham doesn't do anything about it."
Valerie's conversation with Willingham quickly dissolved into her pleas for Mr. Willingham to stop screaming. Waiting for him to arrive, Valerie took eighteen drinks of water, fourteen cigarettes, often lighting three at a time, went to the lavatory twice, and muttered "Oh God, what have we done?" every seven minutes.
Willingham was there in an hour.
He spotted the stone immediately. He was a large lumbering man with large freckles sun-tickled from their winter hibernation. He wore a tan suit and a blue ascot.
"Oh," he said, and "no" he said. His dark brown eyes rolled back into his forehead, and he weaved momentarily in place. He shook his head and gasped.
"No," he said firmly, and as his body regained its normal circulation, his lips tightened. His eyes narrowed and he moved methodically to the stone, ignoring Valerie and Remo.
He lowered himself to both knees and pressed his head to the marble base three times. Then with great force of will he turned to Valerie and asked: "When did you discover this?"
"When I did it," Remo said cheerily.
"You did this? Why did you do this?" Willingham asked.
"I didn't think it was a true yearning of man's cosmic consciousness," said Remo.
"How could you do it?" asked Willingham. "How? How?"
So Remo pressed two fingers tight together in a light curve and with the same loose wristed snap made another line through the circle on the great stone. It crossed the first line at right angles, leaving an X.
"That's how," Remo said. "It's really not too hard. The secret, as in all better use of your body, is in breathing and rhythm. Breathing and rhythm. It looks fast, but it's really a function of the slowness of your hand being slower than the rock. You might say the rock moves out of the way of your fingers."
And with snapping fingers and rock dust flying from the great stone, Remo carved neatly through the spray of Joey 172 and the stiff bird and the curving raised snake: REMO.
"I can do it left-handed, too," he said.
"Ohhh," moaned Valerie, covering her eyes.
Willingham only nodded silently. He backed out of the display room and shut the door behind him. Remo heard a whirring. A large steel sheet descended from the ceiling, coming to a neat clicking stop at the floor. The room was sealed.
"Damn," said Valerie, running to the phone in the wall. She dialed. "I'm getting the police," she said to Remo over her shoulder. "This place is built like a walk-in safe. We'll never get out. Can't reason with Willingham after your insanity. He'll leave us here to rot. Why did you do it?"
"I wanted to express myself," said Remo.
"The line's dead," said Valerie. "We're trapped."
"Everyone is trapped," said Remo, remembering a talk long ago in which Chiun had explained confinement. "The only difference between people is in the size of their trap."
"I don't need philosophy. I need to get out of here."