"What do you want done with her?"
The manager, seeing that she only earned credits by teaching and was not a major donor, said that whatever was convenient for the pistoleros was fine with him.
"But you got to get the guy with the thick wrists."
By the time Remo and Chiun reached the airport, Daphne had told them her life story. She was an especially sensitive person. By age seven she realized that five thousand years of Judaism was not the answer for her. By age fourteen she had joined three cults, all proving to lack the answer to her problems. So did Scientology, est, Sedona, Personality Reunification, and the Hare Krishnas. "In Poweressence I found the answer to the question."
"What's the question?" asked Remo. He looked for the shortest line at a major airline. This airport seemed to be a collection of forty airports, none of them really doing business with the other. It was strange. Chiun was being bothered by a woman who wanted to know where he bought that absolutely lovely kimono.
"It was made for me," said Chiun. "By whom?"
"The mother of Genghis Khan."
"He must be beautifully clothed."
"He's dead. And so is his mother. Many centuries now. But the Mongol women were for a while great weavers of animal hair."
Daphne pinched Remo's arm. She pulled back her hand, startled. She could have sworn the arm pinched back. "You weren't listening when I told you Poweressence solved the basic question of my life. The basic question of my life is who am I and where do I fit in the world scheme of things."
"I don't know of anyone who cares about that," said Remo. The two men in white suits were so obvious that they should have carried signs. While other people walked or strolled, these two were stalking. Their footsteps were stiffer, their backbones more rigid, and their hands never far from the bulges in their pockets. The question was, who were these two looking for? Remo knew Chiun saw them too, but Chiun was busy discussing fabric with a woman who loved his kimono.
The two were looking for something, as though they weren't ready to find it yet. Then unmistakably they made contact with someone across the airport corridor. It wasn't a nod. It was more silent than that. It was a purposeful way of not noticing someone, a smoother move of the head while they scanned. This could not be hidden.
Across the airport were two more men who just as obviously were stalking someone. One of them was looking at Daphne Bloom.
"Do you have any enemies?" asked Remo.
"No. People who truly establish their inner peace don't make enemies."
"Well, there are four men who want to kill someone and they're looking at you."
"They couldn't want to kill me," said Daphne. "I offer no negative threat to anyone. You see, that was my problem before. I would send out all the negativity of my past planetary lives and create enemies. But now I don't."
Daphne was still smiling when the first bullet rang out and Remo pushed her under the counter. Screams filled the airport. People looked for cover, and the four men advanced toward the ticket counter.
As in all crisis situations, almost everyone concentrated solely on saving his own life, and therefore any observation was secondary. So when the police put it together, they got something they had to attribute to hysteria.
There were several men firing pistols. Everyone agreed on that. Then one man or twenty men-no one could agree -began moving at the four men. Some said he moved quickly, so fast they couldn't see him. Others said his movements were strangely slow, as though he actually slowed down the whole world he was in. The gunmen seemed suddenly to become unable to fire accurately, shooting at the ceiling and the floor.
But some witnesses said that was where the quick- (or slow-) moving man was.
In any case, four narcotics enforcers were blotted up from the normally well-polished floor of the airport after the fracas. One man, who was traveling to Los Angeles with his elderly Oriental father, was the only one who said he saw absolutely nothing, and that he hid all the time. Which was just another contradiction in this strangest of all cases for the Dade County sheriff's office. Because he was the one a few people thought was doing the attacking of the gunmen.
"You were sloppy," said Chiun. "You have not been so sloppy for years, and you say you are good enough."
"They're dead. I'm not," said Remo.
"And I suppose that's good enough for you," said Chiun.
"The other way around is no bargain."
"Just to succeed at something is not enough. You must succeed correctly," said Daphne.
Chiun smiled. "She is correct. Listen. Even she knows what I am talking about."
"That's Poweressence," said Daphne.
"That is the truth," said Chiun.
"I'm going up front," said Remo.
"You don't have tickets for up front," said Daphne.
"I'll reason with someone," said Remo.
In a few moments a harried accountant begged to take the seat in the rear of the plane instead of his first-class assignment. He had traded with a gentleman with an absolutely foul personality.
"He's met Remo," said Daphne.
"I have had to live with him many years now," said Chiun.
"You poor wonderful man."
"I do not complain," said Chiun.
"You're so decent and sweet."
"I only do what is right," said Chiun. "I have trained him through the years to do what is right, but he does not listen. He takes this wonderful training and gives it away to madmen."
"That's awful," said Daphne.
"I do not complain," said Chiun. "We have a fine family tradition, but he ignores it."
"That's awful," said Daphne.
"I do not complain," said Chiun.
"You are the most wonderful decent splendid human being I have ever met," said Daphne.
"And you are the most perfect person ever to give a character test," said Chiun. "You are so good at judging them."
At the Dolomo estate, Rubin heard the good news and the bad news. The good news was that the Miami franchise was sending back the million dollars. The bad news was that the money would be returned because it hadn't been earned.
"They killed four of the best hit men in the city, Rubin, and they are coming right for you."
Rubin Dolomo barely had enough energy to get to the Motrin bottle. He emptied it into his mouth and rested against a stack of Level Nine books called Inner Peace Through Peace Power.