When they turned around, they came face-to-face with yet another pink-robed Loonie.
Remo glanced around. There was no one else in the immediate vicinity. The man appeared to be talking to them.
"My name is Roseflower," explained the Loonie. He smiled a disconcerting, Valium grin. "I have been sent to bestow on you a most valuable treasure."
Remo groaned at the word.
Chiun clapped his hands again. "You see, Remo?" he chirped happily. To the Loonie, he said, "What is my reward?"
"A personal audience with the Reverend Man Hyung Sun himself," Roseflower smiled, nodding.
Chiun could scarcely contain his joy.
"Vat's behind door number two?" Remo asked, just before Chiun elbowed him in the ribs.
Chapter 13
The brides wore white. All fifteen hundred of them.
The giggling women were stretched out in zigzagging lines and clusters that extended from the edge of the dugouts behind home plate to the product-endorsing billboards on the outfield wall.
The grooms wore white, as well. Unlike their brides-to-be, the men still wore their pink saris. Blue sashes knotted around their waists distinguished them from the other male Sunnie disciples inside Yankee Stadium.
A groom had been assigned to each bride that morning. In most cases, the men and women had never met before.
Roseflower led Remo and Chiun down the stands behind the home-base line.
"You mean these are all arranged marriages?" Remo asked as they climbed down the steps. He looked out across the sea of faces awaiting the start of the marriage ceremony.
"That's right," the Sunnie said.
Remo laughed. "I hope you're planning on renting out Shea Stadium for the mass divorce," he said.
"Actually, in those parts of the world where arranged marriage is the custom, divorce is low to the point of being nonexistent," Roseflower explained.
"Baloney," Remo said.
"It is true," the Master of Sinanju said with a nod.
Remo frowned. "Yeah, well, that's probably because you'd get your eyes gouged out by a witchdoctor judge if you even mentioned it," he grumbled.
The stands had been opened onto the field to allow mingling among the Reverend Sun's followers. Roseflower led Remo and Chiun down into the periphery of the crowd.
"Where is the Holy One?" Chiun asked as they walked along just outside the first base line.
"He is preparing himself for the ceremony," Roseflower said. "Your meeting will take place afterward. I thought you might wish to get a better view of the service. This is a good spot, I think."
The Sunnie stopped, still smiling, a few yards away from first base.
Remo looked around. A platform had been set up in the middle of the diamond near the pitcher's mound. It rose high enough above the heads of the many gathered bride-and-groom sets that it was visible from anywhere on the ground.
A few Sunnies were making last-minute preparations atop the stage. Women arranged flowers of yellow and white. The men tested the public-address system on the floral-painted podium. When Remo glanced back at their escort, Roseflower was smiling blandly at the proceedings.
Remo cleared his throat guiltily. "You know, this probably isn't the best time to tell you this, Rosebud," Remo said. He shot a glance at Chiun. "But I don't think we're who you think we are."
The Master of Sinanju scowled. "Of course we are," he insisted. Hazel eyes flamed. "Remo, hold your tongue."
"Chiun, maybe he's supposed to meet somebody important."
"Who is more important that I?" the old Korean demanded.
"I was sent for you," Roseflower interjected.
"No," Remo insisted. "It couldn't be us. No one even knows we're here."
"The Reverend Sun does. He knows all."
Remo raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Forgive me if this insults one of the basic tenets of your religious faith, but bulldookey."
"I do not understand," Roseflower said, his bland Midwest face clouding.
"Hokum. Bunk. Crap. Bullshit," Remo elaborated. "I don't believe in any of this fortune-teller malarkey."
Chiun grabbed Roseflower by the arm, steering him away from his pupil. "Do not listen to the heretic. If he blasphemes, it is merely the product of latent Catholicism. Perhaps Good Seer Sun might perform an exorcism," he suggested, shooting a hateful glance at Remo.
"I am confused. Are you not of the Sun Source?" Roseflower asked.
"Yes," Chiun said quickly.
"Ye-es," Remo hedged. "But not the way you mean it."
"See how he qualifies? It is a nasty habit learned at the feet of wimple-wearing dowagers."
Remo rolled his eyes. "What time are the nuptials?" he asked, surrendering to the two men.
His question was answered by a cheer from the crowd.
The roar started suddenly, at a point beyond the platform. It swept rapidly across the packed stadium like a thundering tidal wave.
Pale arms draped in white rose wildly into the air. Trailing pink ends of saris flapped liked flags caught in a crazed wind as the frantic screaming grew.
And the chanting began.
It was low at first, shouted only by a few Sunnies planted at strategic points in the crowd.
"Sun! Sun! Sun! Sun!"