"Not bad," Remo said, tasting the rice. Sidonie grunted. "Say, what language were you speaking back there with Fabienne?"
"That Papiamento. The native tongue."
"I thought the native tongue was English."
"Oh, we all speak English. Also French and Dutch, some Spanish. This island so mixed up with all the Europeans come to steal her away from us, they teach us all their languages. So we put them together in Papiamento. It easier— also the white man don't understand."
"The girl's white."
"She different. She be here all her life. Her daddy a fine man, too." She shook her head sadly. "Dead now."
"Recently?" Remo asked.
"Couple of year. First he go cuckoo, then he dead." She polished off the contents of her glass and refilled it with the same fumey liquid. "I work for Monsieur Soubise for many year. During the war, he take me back to Paris with him." She grinned broadly. "Monsieur and Sidonie, we fight for the Resistance."
"Is that where you learned to drink like a sailor?" Remo asked wryly.
Sidonie tapped the rim of her glass. "This pure island rum. Good for the digestion." She hiccupped. "Also it give a good buzz."
With some difficulty Sidonie lifted herself off her chair and waddled around the kitchen, straightening containers and dusting the windowsills. "Anyway, Fabienne, she's a good girl. Always have something nice to say, even now that she lose all her money."
"That's funny," Remo said. "She seemed like a rich girl."
"Oh, her daddy very, very rich. But he go cuckoo." In demonstration she twirled a corkscrew in the air beside her temple. "He change his will, leave everything— the shipyards, everything— to the Dutchman. And Monsieur, he don't even know the Dutchman. Cuckoo."
"Who's the Dutchman?" Remo asked.
Sidonie's eyes narrowed. "He no good," she said. "Live on Devil's Mountain in the old castle. He cuckoo, too."
Remo laughed. "I guess the old monsieur was happy to find a kindred spirit."
"Don't you talk about the Dutchman with Fabienne. It just upset her. He take all her money, and she fighting two year in the court now trying to get it back. She very upset, poor thing."
"She can't be that poor," Remo said consolingly. "She's got a driver."
Sidonie snorted. "Dat just Pierre," she said. "He don't cost much. Pierre do anything for a dollah. Don't you talk to him neither. This island, she nosy. And Pierre got a big mouth on him."
"Okay, okay," Remo said.
"You listen to Sidonie, child, you be all right here." She chuckled and squeezed his cheek between fat brown fingers.
* * *
The footsteps banged forward like a fleet of Sherman tanks. How was a being of delicate sensibilities, whose only pleasure in the twilight of his years was the viewing of the pure love stories presented on the touching daytime dramas, supposed to concentrate on the vicissitudes of life with the clamor of 10,000 giants outside his window?
Chiun leaped up and switched off the Betamax, which was airing a 1965 episode of "As the Planet Revolves."
"Out," he shouted to the world at large. "Leave my presence immediately, noisy lout, or..."
Two weary eyes beneath a twenty-year-old straw fedora peered at him over the windowsill.
"Emperor Smith," Chiun said, suddenly bowing obsequiously to the man who sent the yearly tribute of gold via submarine to Chiun's village. "My heart thrills with this honor." His hazel eyes darted back for a longing moment to the blank TV screen. "As the Planet Revolves" was infinitely more interesting than Harold W. Smith, even during the commercials.
"Can I— can I come in?" Smith said with utter solemnity as his head, framed by the open window, craned suspiciously in all directions.
"At your service, o esteemed Emperor," Chiun said, groaning inwardly. Smith's careworn, withered lemon face had "meeting" stamped all over it. The blank eye of the Betamax stared mockingly. Chiun extended a hand to Smith, who was trying to crawl through the window, his face contorted in agony as he sought a toehold with the tips of his Florsheims. With a light flick of the Oriental's wrist, Smith sailed over the Betamax and came to rest on a plump cushion in the corner.
With a smile and a bow, Chiun began to wheel the television toward the door. "One moment, most worthy Emperor, and I will command Remo to your presence here—"
"No," Smith whispered urgently. He rose from his sprawled position on the cushion, reassuming his habitual air of bland dignity. "Remo is in the kitchen talking to the housekeeper. That's why I came this way instead of to the door. I have to speak with you alone."
Chiun's eyes brightened. "I see, o magnificence," he said conspiratorially. "A private mission... an assignment for another government perhaps?" He winked.
"Chiun," Smith said, flustered, "we work for the United States."
"Governments come and depart in the night. But an assassin is a treasure forever. Yet I will do as you bid, Emperor..."
"Good. I was counting on that..."
"As soon as we arrive at a mutually comfortable and honorable fee for my duties. Perhaps twenty thousand in gold..."
"This is part of our original contract, Chiun."
"Oh." The old Oriental's eyes wandered back to the blank Betamax.
Smith nervously rolled his hat in his hands. "Let me explain as quickly as I can, before Remo happens along."
"By all means," Chiun said, stifling a yawn.
"You've probably been wondering why I sent the two of you to Sint Maarten for your vacation."
"Not at all," Chiun said, feigning disinterest. "If you in your wisdom did not see fit to grant an old man his only wish of seeing his village of Sinanju..." He closed his eyes and shrugged expressively.
"I was planning to, but something came up." From inside his coat pocket he extracted a large envelope containing a dozen or more photographs. He leafed through the pictures and handed one to Chiun. It showed a large ship with a crane on its deck hoisting a long rectangular metal box out of the ocean. "A U.S. salvage ship dredged up this truck body nearby, off the coast of the island."
"Ah, most fascinating," Chiun said. "Have you by any chance been privileged to observe the beautiful daytime dramas on the television?" He scurried over to the Betamax. "Perhaps, if we are fortunate, Dr. Rad Rex will appear in 'As the Planet Revolves.' "
"Chiun— really—"
Smith was too late. Chiun had already pushed the magic switch that brought Dr. Rad Rex and the suffering Mrs. Wintersheim back into the room just as Mrs. Wintersheim was revealing her guilty secret involving her daughter's marriage to Carl Aberdeen's podiatrist, Skip. The old man was settled in front of the television, smiling raptly, his lips mouthing the words he had heard thousands of times before.
Brushing a hand over his eyes, Smith knelt beside him. "Chiun, the sunken truck container in that photo I just showed you contained more than a hundred dead bodies of unidentifiable men."
"Tsk, tsk," Chiun conceded.
"The point is, someone murdered them."