"Your testimony."
"Yeah. Yeah," said Drums. "I did that. I did whatever. I remember whatever."
"Good. Because if you forget, I'll be back."
"I swear by my mother's grave, I remember," said Drums. His anal sphincter had released, so Remo left before the odor got to him.
But the next day, Smith was reaching out for Remo again.
"It didn't hold," he said. He had come down in person to the Miami Beach apartment. "Are you all right, Remo?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. I'm great."
"Chiun says you're not correct yet," said Smith. Chiun sat in a gray presentation kimono, one worn before emperors, a dull color to show that the assassin was there to glorify the emperor and not himself. Sometimes a presentation kimono was bright gold, and Remo asked why that wouldn't be a detraction. Chiun had said that was for the occasions when the assassin's glory added to that of the emperor. Remo always felt, however, that Sinanju Masters wore what they felt like and made up reasons for it afterward.
Smith wore his usual three-piece gray suit and lemon-faced frown.
"You don't understand. When Chiun says I am not ready, it means that I can't do things that a Master of Sinanju can do. It's got nothing to do with the needs of the organization."
"What can't you do, Remo?"
"I can't harmonize with cosmic forces on a level that is continuous and smooth."
Chiun nodded. There. Remo had said it. Openly admitted it. Of course, one should never admit anything in front of an emperor, but in this case it served Sinanju well. Remo needed more rest and more retraining.
Smith heard the answer and looked blank. Chiun was nodding and Remo was shrugging, each indicating that he had won an argument that Smith didn't even understand. "I'm sorry, I don't understand," said Smith.
"I can move up and down walls. I can put my hand through solid objects, and I can take any dozen men who need to be taken."
"Not Masters of Sinanju."
"There's only one of you in the world, little father," said Remo.
"There was the evil Master. What if you should meet him again?"
"I'll call you."
"That is not being a Master of Sinanju. Our noble emperor Harold W. Smith has paid tribute for the services of a Master of Sinanju and you must perform as a Master. Otherwise you are robbing him. I will not allow it."
"How am I robbing him if I am working for him, for us, for the organization, instead of resting?"
"By giving insufficient measure."
"He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mention the cosmos."
"Well, it certainly has affected your performance, Remo, I am sorry to say," said Smith.
"How can it? When you harmonize with the cosmic forces it only means enhancing your source of energy and balance. If you have enough energy to move up and down buildings, you don't generally need more."
"Well, you certainly needed something more with that witness, Drumola."
"I turned him back."
"Well, he didn't remember a thing last night," said Smith, taking a sheet of paper out of a thin briefcase-he had on his lap. It was a memo from a U.S. attorney regarding one Gennaro Drumola.
It read:
"This afternoon, subject had a sudden change of heart. As in so many of those cases where witnesses have turned against their testimony and then suddenly turn back, it was mysterious. We have been having many of these mysterious reversions in the last few years, and I saw no need to press an investigation of it at this time. But in the case of this subject, his reversion didn't seem to take hold. He seemed willing enough to cooperate, but when I pressed him for details he didn't remember anything about the testimony he now suddenly said he remembered. Moreover, a medical examination showed he was in a state of high anxiety."
Remo returned the copy of the memo.
"I don't know what happened to him. I know I had him. I know when I have someone."
"You see, little mistakes always lead to big ones. I am glad that you have decided to wait until Remo can glorify you instead of fail," said Chiun.
"I didn't fail. I know when someone has been turned. You, little father, know that I know."
"I understand. I, too, would be reluctant to admit that I failed before such a gracious emperor," said Chiun. He of course said this in English. Remo knew this was only for Smith's benefit. In Korean, Remo told Chiun he was full of the droppings of a diarrhetic duck.
Chiun, hearing this insult from Remo, took the injury to his heart, where he could nurture it and make it grow. One day he would use it profitably against the man who had become his child.
Smith only waited. More and more now, these two would drift into Korean that he didn't understand.
"I want another crack at that guy," said Remo.
"They've moved him," said Smith.
"I don't care where he is. I want him," said Remo. Gennaro Drumola was eating a triple order of spare ribs in the penthouse suite of the San Francisco Forty-Niner Hotel when the thin man with the thick wrists dropped in on him again, this time through the window.
Drums did not know how he could have gotten through the guards, much less to the window. The guy had to climb walls.
Drums cleaned his dripping hands on his great mound of belly covered by a white T-shirt. Thick black hair sprouted from the shirt's every opening. Even his knuckles had hair. This time Drumola would be ready for him. He would not be caught napping. Drumola picked up a chair, cracked it in two with his bare hands, and was ready to put a sharp splinter into the skinny guy's face when he felt himself being dragged by an awesome force right through the window. Drums would have screamed but his lips were pressed together just like back at the camp when he felt a mountain had collapsed on him.
His lips were closed and he was being swung thirty stories above San Francisco by something that felt like a vise. Upside down, looking down at the street as he moved like a pendulum, he wished it were even tighter.
"Okay, sweetheart. What happened?"
Drums felt the man release his lips. He was supposed to talk. He talked.
"Nothin' happened. I did what you said. I said I remembered."
"But then you forgot."
"For Chrissakes. I wish I could remember. I don't remember."
"Well, try," said the man, and dropped him a story. It felt like it was going to be twenty-nine more of them, but something caught him again.