Smith didn't wholly agree. The older man knew that on the Barry Duke talk show, as on most shows of its type, there were very few real surprises. The questions, as well as a sketchy version of the responses, were thrashed out well before airtime. What made Smith sit up and take notice were Kaspar's comments about the Wyoming Senate race. Obviously Kaspar felt he had something pretty damning on senatorial candidate T. Rex Calhoun if he was willing to take the risk of mentioning it on national television. Wordlessly Smith began typing rapidly at his computer keyboard.
"What was that stuff about the state department?" Remo asked.
Smith pursed his lips as he continued to type. "I honestly have no idea," he admitted. "Sadly, Kaspar is correct. The assistant-secretary-of-state position is not something most politicians are willing to weigh in on. According to my information, the President has ample votes to place his nominee."
"Then the guy is just plain schizo," Remo said with a shrug.
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Smith's sudden intake of air brought Remo to his feet. The old man was peering at his computer, a look of dread on his lemony features.
"Calhoun was arrested on child-molestation charges three times in the past five years," Smith announced.
Remo bounded around the desk and quickly scanned the information on the computer screen buried beneath the gleaming black surface. It was a police file from Cheyenne, listing Calhoun's infractions alongside the dates the various charges had been filed. A picture of the candidate himself stared glumly up from the screen.
"This is a pretty big thing for the press to miss, isn't it?" Remo asked angrily.
Smith's hands became a blur as his slender fingers dug deeper into the Cheyenne police records.
"The charges in all three instances were dropped," he announced momentarily. "Calhoun was never brought to trial."
"I smell a payoff," said Remo.
Smith nodded as he considered Remo's words. "Calhoun's father-in-law is quite wealthy," he admitted. "It is a plausible scenario."
"You bet your ass it's plausible," Remo griped. "First the skunk buys his way out of the state penitentiary, and then Daddy runs out and buys him a Senate seat. If Kaspar's got the goods on him, I say we let the chips fall where they land."
"Remo," Smith interjected, "we mustn't become sidetracked. Our primary concern remains the Truth Church itself. From what I've been able to determine, Kaspar has been directly benefiting from the subsidiary Truth Church account."
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"It can't possibly help the guy's political aspirations to be hooked up with some nutty doomsday cult," Remo said.
"There is nothing that directly links Kaspar to the Truth Church," Smith explained. "If it came to it, he could always claim ignorance, saying that his organization accepted payment from individual church members only. But there is no doubt that he is in partnership with Esther Clear-Seer. Perhaps she is engineering this entire political movement of Kaspar's to create an ally in the federal government."
"Then let me take her out, Smitty," Remo begged. "I'm going out of my mind cooped up here."
Smith nodded in agreement as he tapped out a few brief commands on his computer. "If it is as I suspect..." he muttered as he awaited the results. "Yes," he said, momentarily. "I've checked with Washington National, and Kaspar is not scheduled to return to Wyoming until the day after tomorrow. We have a window of opportunity with negative press attention in Thermopolis. If you fly into Worland tonight, you can be gone before he returns."
"What if he's one of the bad guys?" Remo said. "Shouldn't I wait and zap him, too?"
"We will deal with that when it becomes necessary." Smith paused. He seemed filled with dread by what he was about to ask. "Where is Master Chiun?" he asked finally.
"He's downstairs sitting on his steamer trunks waiting to catch the next sub to Korea."
"Er, yes. The submarine."
Remo raised his hands, palm up. "Don't tell me,
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Smitty," he warned. "I don't want to know. It's between you and him."
"Fine," Smith said, relaxing somewhat. "You will fly to Wyoming alone."
Remo was quietly relieved. Chiun had been acting strangely ever since he had conjured up a thousand-year-old Sinanju legend from the malodorous cloud that surrounded Esther Clear-Seer. The old Korean would never have allowed Remo to return to the Truth Church ranch.
Another part of his mind hoped that the inevitable blowup over the no-show submarine would happen while he was out of town.
In any event Remo was no longer stuck on the sidelines. And that made him very glad indeed.
"I'll be back tomorrow with the false Prophetess's noggin on a platter," Remo announced as he left the office.
Smith started to push himself to his feet, ready to go after Remo, but he stopped in midmovement. If he objected now, it might prompt Remo to follow through on his threat. Reluctantly Smith settled back in his seat, hoping to himself that Remo was only joking about the final resting place of Esther Clear-Seer's head.
If not, an old coal furnace in the Folcroft basement would become the crematorium for the Prophetess's cranial remains.
Chapter Fourteen
"I just talked to Barry Duke's producer, and he says your positive-phone-reaction ratio was eighty-five percent. They're telling me that Moss Monroe's the only one who ever came close to touching those numbers." Michael Princippi was more excited than he had been the first time he and Kiki had gone "all the way" in the tiny back seat of his Volkswagen Beetle, circa 1963. "They want to have you on again next week," he added happily.
Kaspar was seated in the green room of the "Barry Duke Live" cable program, reading a copy of the Washington Post. He gazed blandly over the masthead at Princippi. "Tell them no," he said thinly.
Princippi was crestfallen. "You've got to do it, Mark," he said. "It's the only way to keep yourself in the public eye. The 2000 presidential race is a good ways off."
"A child must walk before he can run," Kaspar said by way of explanation.
"Huh?"
"Advice given me by the Pythia," Kaspar said.
Princippi glanced around nervously. "Ixnay on the ithiapay," he whispered once certain there was no one within earshot. "Believe me, any whiff of psychic
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sulphur can torpedo your nomination before you're even out of drydock." He folded his hands in supplication. "Please do the show. It'll cement your image in the public's mind. Trust me, the American people have the attention spans of white mice."
Kaspar folded the paper into neat quarters and placed it on the ugly plaid sofa cushion beside him. "We will do Barry Duke's program again," he said. "But we will do it on my terms. There are certain housekeeping chores that I must first attend to. Think of this as a relay race, not a hundred-yard dash."
With a disappointed sigh, Princippi nodded. "Okay, I'll tell them," he said reluctantly. "But they're not going to be happy about it." He paused at the door. "By the way." His thick eyebrows gathered together worriedly. "I was just on the phone with the chairman of my party—"
"Your former party," Kaspar interjected.
"Right," Princippi said, with a nod that dismissed his lifelong political affiliation as irrelevant. "Anyway, he called up screaming to find out what kind of dirt you have on Calhoun. He almost plotzed when they handed me the phone. Guess he figured I was gone for good." Princippi sounded pleased at the prospect of rattling cages in the organization that had shut him out for over a decade.
A slight smile crossed Kaspar's lips, and Princippi half expected to see the tip of a forked tongue dart out from between his near absent lips.