"She says she's gone to the Amazon to try to find new uses for Dr. Ravits' work with pheromones."
"Gee, Smitty, thanks for reading it first. You can imagine all the trouble it saves me if you read my personal mail." He dropped the note in the wastebasket.
"You're not allowed to get personal mail," Smith said. "Anyway, Dara Worthington has been advised that Drs. Remo and Chiun died in a jeep accident in Uwenda."
"I never died," Chiun said.
"Just a polite fiction," Smith explained.
"Oh. I see. A polite fiction, like some people's promises," Chiun said, as he glared at Remo.
"Smitty, you'd better go now," Remo said. "Chiun and I have something to do."
"Can I help?" Smith asked.
"I only wish you could," Remo said with a sigh. Alone in his office, Smith leaned back in his chair. Barry Schweid's blue blanket lay over an arm of the chair alongside the desk. Smith rose, picked up the tattered piece of fabric, and headed for the wastebasket.
If Remo could do it with Dara Worthington's note, so could Smith. There was no room in the organization for sentiment. Smith had dispatched his secretary's son with no more thought than he would have given the passing of a bumblebee. Or a red-winged fly. Barry Schweid was dead and he had been a useless, needy fool. His only contribution had been to make CURE's computers, in the rooms below and the backups on St. Martin, tamper-proof. Apart from that, he had been a troublesome childish pest.
Smith tossed the blanket toward the wastebasket, but somehow clung to the end of it. He felt its torn silky strands hanging on his fingers, almost as if Barry Schweid himself were hanging on to him.
He touched the blanket with his other hand. Barry had found the only comfort of his life in it. His heart felt weighted.
He squeezed the end of the blanket once more, for himself, and once again for Barry, then let it drop. He put on his hat, picked up the attache case containing the portable computer, and walked out.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Mikulka," he said routinely. "Good afternoon, Dr. Smith."
He was halfway out the door when he turned around. Mrs. Mikulka was typing with the ferocious speed that made her such a fine secretary. Her bifocals were perched on the end of her nose. Funny, he thought. He had never noticed before that she wore eyeglasses. There were so many things he never noticed.
The woman looked up, startled to see Smith still standing there. She removed her eyeglasses, looking uncomfortable.
"Is there anything else, Doctor?"
He stepped foward a pace, still marveling at what his secretary of almost twenty years looked like.
"Do you have any children, Mrs. Mikulka?" he said.
"Besides Keenan?" she asked.
"Yes. Of course. Besides Keenan."
"Yes. I have a daughter who's married and living in Idaho and two more sons. One's an engineer and one's going to become a priest."
Her bosom seemed to puff out slightly while she spoke and her eyes shone with pride.
"I'm glad, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith said. "It sounds like a fine family."
She smiled. Smith tipped his hat and left.
"I am waiting," Chiun announced from outside the bathroom door.
"Hold your horses, will you? This thing's as tight as the skin on a turnip."
"It is an excellent kimono," Chiun said.
"Yeah, sure."
"And you are wearing it to the dining room for dinner," Chiun said.
"That was my promise," Remo said. "And I always keep my promises."
Chiun chuckled. "Remo, I have waited years for this moment. I want you to know that you have brought sunshine into the twilight of my life."
"And all it cost me was the blood circulation in my arms and legs. Great," Remo said.
The bathroom door swung open and Remo stalked out.
Chiun staggered back across the room in disbelief. His tiny silk kimono, hand-painted with purple birds and magnolia blossoms, covered Remo only up to midthigh. Remo's arms stuck out of the sleeves from the elbow down. His shoulders stretched the thin fabric to the breaking point. The collar opening, neat and taut around Chiun's small neck, jutted open on Remo almost to his navel. Remo was barefoot. His knees shone white next to the smooth colors of the garment: "You look like an idiot," Chiun said.
"I told you I would."
"You look like that impertinent creature who sings about the good ship Lollipop. "
"Tell me about it," Remo growled.
"I will go no place with you looking like such an imbecile."
Remo hesitated. It was an opening. "Oh, no," he said. "A deal's a deal. I promised you I would wear this and I'm wearing it to dinner. That's it, case closed."
"Not with me, you're not," Chiun said.
"Oh yes, I am. And if anybody laughs, they're dead." He walked toward the door of their room. "Let's go," he said.
Chiun stepped alongside him. "All right," he said reluctantly. "If you insist."
But at the doorway Chiun stopped. "Hold," he shouted. "What is that smell?"
"What smell?" Remo said. "I don't smell anything."
"That smell like a pleasure house. Wait. It comes from you."
Remo bent his head over and sniffed his chest. "Oh, that. I always use that. That's my after-shower splash."
"I did not know they made such things from garlic," Chiun said.
"It's not garlic. It's fresh. Woodsy, kind of. I wear it all the time."