"It'd take camels to drive me away from you."
"Bactrian or dromedary?" she asked.
"What's the difference?" he said.
"One hump or two humps."
"I thought you'd never ask," he said.
She stood back from him, her hands on his shoulders, and measured him with her eyes. "You don't look any the worse for wear," she said.
"Neither do you."
"You just can't keep me in the dark," she said "Have you found out who you are?"
"Yes. I'm PJ Kenny."
"And who is PJ Kenny?"
"I'm still trying to find out," he lied. "But whatever it is, I think it's bad news."
"You couldn't be bad news," she said.
"Are you trying to seduce me with your kindness?" he asked.
"Seduction is for sissies," she said. "I thought you he-men from America preferred rape."
"Have it your own way," he said as his lips muffled her attempt to say "I will." Then he was pulling off her flimsy gown and walking her backward to the bed.
He carefully arranged her on the bed, but then stood up and slowly began to undress.
"Are you trying to torture me?" she asked.
"Eat your heart out."
"Only as a last resort," she said. Then her hands were helping his him with his clothes, fondling zippers, caressing buttons, then she did the same thing with his flesh under the clothing, then the two were naked on top of the red satin coverlet and they melted together in a confluence of arms and lips and legs.
If he hadn't known better, the man who thought he was PJ Kenny would have sworn that he had spent the last ten years in a monastery, building up his strength for this encounter.
He was insatiable, unstoppable, un-drainable. Everytime Maggie tried to talk to him about Nemeroff, he stopped her with sex, and she finally gave up the effort and surrendered to him totally. He took her hour after hour computerishly calculating the effects of his movements on her body. She could only escape her own frenzied lust when she fell into an exhausted sleep at three o'clock in the morning.
Remo slept too.
He slept until eight a.m., when the telephone next to the bed rang softly.
Who the hell would that be? He picked up the phone and growled, "Yeah?"
"This is the bell captain." a heavily accented voice said. "I was told to tell you when someone arrived."
"Who?" Remo asked.
"An old Chinaman. Named Chiun. He registered last night. His room is on your floor. Room 2527."
"Anybody register with him?"
"No. He was alone."
"Anybody register named Williams?"
There was a pause, then: "No. And there are no reservations in that name."
"Room 2527, you say?"
"Yes."
"Thanks."
Remo hung up. So that's what being a professional killer was like. Getting awakened at all hours of the morning. Next to him, Maggie slept on, and as he watched her, he felt lustful again. He reached a hand out and placed it on her left breast, slowly trailing his fingers over the pink-tipped mound, softly and delicately so as not to wake her.
She smiled in her sleep, and her lips opened, then her teeth came down on her lower lip, sparkling white teeth. There was a sudden intake of breath and her body shook, then she sighed and her limbs relaxed, her teeth slid off her lower lip and she smiled again. Remo smiled to himself. Post-hypnotic orgasm. Maybe he could bottle it. The women of the world would find it irresistible. He'd liberate them all from the evil necessity of needing men's bodies. What the battery-operated vibrator had started, PJ Kenny could finish. Onward and upward. Liberation. Freedom now.
He would have to look into it.
But first, this Chiun.
He slipped out of bed, showered and dressed in slacks, tennis shoes and a blue short-sleeved shirt. He looked at Maggie, still smiling, sleeping in the bed, and then slipped out the door. He got his bearings and headed for Room 2527.
This Chiun was probably a Sumo wrestler. Well, that didn't phase him. After Namu, nothing would.
He stopped outside Room 2527, listening. Inside there was a faint buzzing sound. He listened again. It was someone humming. He reached out and touched the doorknob and slowly turned it. It was unlocked, and he turned the knob all the way, then pushed the door open slowly.
He stood in the doorway, looked into the room and smiled.
Kneeling on the carpet, next to the bed, his back to Remo, was a tiny wisp of an Oriental. Even from the back, the man who thought he was PJ Kenny could see he was aged and delicate. He could not have weighed a hundred pounds, and more likely, his weight matched his age which Remo would put at eighty.
The old man knelt there, his head lifted, eyes apparently fixed on a window of the room, his hands folded in his lap, and Remo stepped inside the room and softly closed the door. The chink probably hadn't heard him enter. He slammed the door shut. But there was still no movement from the chink, no sign that he had heard. If it were not for the humming, a tuneless chanting sound, Remo would have thought he was dead. But he wasn't dead. Deaf. That was it. The old man was deaf.
Remo spoke.
"Chiun," he said.
The old man rose to his feet, in one smooth motion, and turned to face the man at the door. The parchment face creased into a small smile.
And the man at the door said: "Where's Remo Williams?"
The room must be electrified for sound so he cannot speak, Chiun thought. He shrugged.