"She is Vietnamese," Chiun said. "You know what I have told you about Vietnamese."
"Yeah, but she might trust you."
"Why? Because we look alike?" Chiun said.
"Well, some Orientals all do look alike," Remo said lamely.
"All you pigs' ears look alike and I would not trust any of you," Chiun said.
"Do it for the country then," Remo said.
"What country?"
"America."
"What has this country done for me?" Chiun said.
"Ask not what this country can do for you," Remo said. "Ask what you can do for this country."
"Did you just make that up?" Chiun asked.
"No. President Kennedy did."
"And where's he now?"
"I don't want to talk to you anymore," Remo said. "I'll handle it myself. Just like I do everything else."
"Good," Chiun said. "It is almost time."
"Almost time for what?" Remo asked.
"It is almost one o'clock. It is almost time for The Gathering Clouds to begin."
"Good luck," Remo said, as he dashed into Wooley's house, with Chiun close behind him.
Remo searched the house for Leen Forth while Chiun inspected the television set, broken by a gangster's head the night before, and determined that it was indeed broken beyond repair.
"She's not here," Remo said when he came back to the living room.
"This set is broken," Chiun said. "If it hadn't been for you… If I hadn't had to protect you, this would not have happened… this set would not be broken." He was working himself up from annoyance, through anger, to outrage.
"Too bad," Remo said.
"Heartless you are. Heartless."
"You find your stupid television set. That poor girl may be with that looney that killed her father. I've got to find them."
"Follow your nose," Chiun said. "Vietnamese smell funny."
Chiun went out on the porch and sat on the top step sadly, watching Remo race off across the well-watered grass of the campus.
It had been more than eight hours since Arthur Grassione had heard from the two men he had sent to Doctor Wooley's house to get the Dreamocizer and to dispose of Wooley.
Finally, he had sent Edward Leung there to see what had happened, and Leung had come back to report that the two men's bodies had been stuffed into garbage pails in the back of Wooley's house.
Leung's heart-shaped yellow face looked sad as he delivered the news.
"They were broken up badly," he said, and his tone of voice sent a chill through Grassione.
"Yeah, what happened to them?" he asked.
"One shot with his own gun. His skull blown away. The other one, no marks. As if he died of fright."
"Just like the others," Grassione said.
"What's others?" said big Vince Marino, standing by the window of the second-floor apartment, looking out into the curved drive below.
"All those people we been losing. All over the country. Just like that. Shooting themselves. Scared to death. There's somebody doing something to us." He looked up and caught a hint of a smile on Edward Leung's mouth.
"What are you smirking about, you goddam fisheating fortune-telling freak?"
"Nothing, sir," Leung said.
"You'd better talk, coolie."
Leung took a deep breath before speaking. Slowly he said, "I warned you of this. All of life ends in death and dreams."
"Aaaah, I don't want to hear your bullshit," Grassione said. "I shoulda left you in that gook carnival where I found you." He rose and walked to the window where he shouldered Marino out of the way. Looking down across the campus, he saw a thin man running. He had dark hair and even at this distance, Grassione could see his thick wrists. Something about him looked familiar. He must have seen him run before. But he had no time to puzzle about it because the telephone rang.
Don Salvatore Massello wished to speak to him.
"Were you responsible for what happened today in the lecture hall?" Massello asked.
"What? What happened?"
"Professor Wooley was murdered. And he had already agreed to our terms."
"Murdered?" said Grassione. ''I didn't know anything about it. Who did it?"
"I don't know. I am told it was a barbarian act," Massello said, "so I assumed it was one of your people."
The insult flew so high above Grassione's head that he did not even hear its wings flap. "Not my men," he said. "We were staying away from Wooley until we heard from you. What about the machine?"
"I have been in contact with the professor's daughter. She is bringing me the machine. So all will work out all right," said Massello.
"Good. That's good," said Grassione with a heartiness he did not feel.