With disgust in her eyes, Reva looked around at the bodies. "Sure. Sure. Exactly," she said. "There. That's Wardley. Wardley has been turning all these people on. Wardley got them hooked. Then Wardley went through defensive drills. Then Wardley probably forgot he put bullets in their guns. Then Wardley forgot he poisoned himself."
"What are you, crazy?" said Remo. "Someone forgets he poisoned himself? Someone convinces top scientists to kill themselves?"
"How did you figure out they were scientists?" she asked.
"This place. First, all those scientists vanished from the U.S. Then you hear something about rapid-breeder bacteria. Then all the gas on this island turns to wax. I figured that this had to be the place where they're making the rapid breeder."
"Rieht," she said. "It's a tax loss that went crazy. We needed a tax loss. That, lying there with the silly grin on his face, is my brother Wardley. Wardley could turn anything into a tax loss. Wardley could lose money finding gold; he's an absolute genius at losing money. I
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guess whatever I got, he was deficient in. Wardley took over this company to give Bleem International the tax loss we needed in America." "I follow that," said Remo.
"So Wardley decided to hire all the scientists in this field and create a monopoly. Somehow he got it in his acid-soaked head to prove me wrong about this being a loss operation. And he did."
"What about the scientists he killed?" asked Remo. She looked shocked. "Was he killing people?" "Someone was."
"The idiot. I guess he figured he needed all of them if he was going to form a monopoly. Anyway, he got all these down here at fantastic salaries, creating our tax loss, which was all right with me. Then he got them hooked on this drug he invented, and he got them involved in playing his games of never letting anyone get at you. Wardley played that when he was a kid. If everyone takes drugs, Wardley makes sense. But I thought he was harmless, and he was giving me my tax loss. Now look at this. This is awful. And those goddamned bacteria must be all over the place." "One problem with your story," Remo said. "What's that?" asked Reva.
"I know now why someone wants to remove all the oil from the world. It's you, Reva. Then you can sell
your Pussyjuice___"
"Polypussides," she corrected. "Polypussides at fifteen dollars a gallon." "Except for one thing, whoever-you-are," she said. "The Polypussides won't be ready for mass distribution for another ten years. Working full speed right now, I can make a thousand gallons a day. What the hell does that mean? I spend that much money on hotel rooms. And in ten years, when I'm ready, they're going to have other synthetic fuels. So where does that leave me? With a lot of four-foot people. The idiot. The idiot."
Reva Bleem was screaming. She ran over to Wardley's dead body and began kicking the face.
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r
"I can't kick that grin off. I can't get it to stop grinning at me," screamed Reva.
"Hold on," Remo said. "Hold on." He grasped her shoulders and massaged up to her neck until she was calm. The blue eyes still burned with fire, though. There was a beauty to her anger, Remo thought. And that beauty was strength.
And, yes, Remo admitted, it was unsettling to see a grin on a corpse. He wanted to remove the grin also.
"Wardley has ruined everything I've ever had. Everything. And now he's killed these men. He's killed others, you tell me. And all I wanted was a tax loss."
Reva Bleem's shoulders slumped; her face fell, revealing great, great sadness; and she sobbed. Remo felt her move into his arms.
"We were a poor family. I had to work since I was nine years old. And I thought finally I had enough money for all of us. And now, this. This. And he's killed people too. What am I going to do?"
"I'm not a businessman," said Remo. "But I would say these bodies have to be buried. The families have to be notified. The police have to be notified."
"Is that what you would do?"
"No," said Remo. "I'd just leave."
"Can I do that?"
"Sure," said Remo. "If you show me where all the fast-breeding bacteria are."
"They've got to be here. Everything is in this one factory. He wasn't supposed to get this stuff done for ten years. It's the first thing Wardley ever did ahead of schedule. He usually can't mail a letter."
"Are you sure all of it is here?" Remo asked.
"Oh," said Reva. "Oh, no. Don't tell me."
Pulling Remo behind her, she ran into the office section of the complex and looked around for a computer terminal.
Chiun had followed them. One of the telephones was ringing and Reva answered it.
"For you," she said, handing the phone to Chiun. 119
Chiun took the telephone and Remo said, "Who would know you're here?"
"Possibly someone with taste," Chiun said.
Reva went to the terminal and began operating the computer. She typed in questions, and the computer answered them. Remo tried to follow the terminal action and Chiun's conversation at the same time. Reva's head kept shaking, leaving the beautiful black hair with tremors at the ends, as her lips pursed and she kept mumbling, "The idiot."
Chiun kept saying, "Yes. Quite so. Quite so. You seem to understand, Your Highness. You seem to understand. Quite so. Quite so."
And then after almost two minutes of "Quite so," Chiun said, "Can you phone back again? In a few minutes. Yes, gracious one."
"Is that Smitty?" Remo asked, whispering low enough so Reva's ears could not pick up the question.
"No," said Chiun.
"I was wondering how he would have found out we were here."
"He didn't and we were fortunate," Chiun said.
Remo glanced back at Reva. Her head was still shaking, and she kept muttering, "The idiot."
"Remo," whispered Chiun, "we have just received an offer from one who must be royalty, for he made us an offer we cannot refuse. Now I must insist we stop squandering the talent of Sinanju on a man who refuses to become emperor of your backward country. I must insist we leave that lunatic Smith to his insanity and take the one offer that understands the basic needs of an assassin."
"I've got to finish this job," Remo said.
"Do you know what he has offered us?"
"No," Remo said. "You talked to him, not me."
"What do you want?" asked Chiun.
"Come on, what's the offer?"