"I'm a paying customer," Remo said.
"Do you have a key, sir?"
"I left it in my other towel," Remo said.
"How are you going to get back into your room then?"
"Don't worry, I'll manage," Remo said.
"Aren't you a little bit cold?"
"I'm too perfect to be cold," Remo said and turned away from the man who was making it difficult for him to think.
The bell captain shrugged and went back to his station. He would give the wierdo five minutes before calling the hotel detective. In the meantime, he called his bookie to put in his bet on No Preservatives Added who later broke her foreleg coming around the first turn. The bell captain's bet at the Wonderland dog races in Revere leaped at the automatic rabbit and got electrocuted. The Red Sox lost 17 to 1. The bell captain's oldest son was booked for possession, his wife got another day deeper into the change of life, and his dog got hit by a car. Looking back on it the next day, he would bet that his run of bad luck began with the warm-blooded guy leaning against the hotel wall with just a towel on.
Remo was still thinking, trying to remember just when it was that he had become perfect.
He had met Chiun in the gymnasium, and he had had a gun in his hand and was ordered to kill the old Oriental for a night off from training. For a night off, he would have done anything, and he had fired six shots point blank at Chiun and all of them had missed. He certainly hadn't been perfect that night.
"Pardon me, sir," said a greasy young girl.
"Don't bother me," Remo said.
"Oh, it won't be a bother, sir," the girl said. "Would you like to take a personality test?"
Remo looked at the girl. She was wearing a pasteboard tag that said, "Hello, my name is Margie from the School of Powerology." Her hair hung down across her shiny pock-marked face like spaghetti in clam sauce. Through dirty oil-streaked glasses, her eyes were a dull powdery brown.
"Sure," said Remo. "I'm trying to find out why I'm perfect."
"We can help you to know yourself better, that will be fifty cents, please."
"Pardon?" Remo said.
"You are taking the test?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's fifty cents for my time and the cost of the test paper, sir."
"Can I owe it to you?"
"Don't you have it on you?"
"Not so you'd notice," Remo said.
Margie stared him up and down, then licked her lips. "I guess you could give it to me later," she said. She giggled and blushed, and the sudden flush of color combined with her natural pallor to make her look purple.
"What is your name, sir?"
"Kay Kyser from the College of Musical Knowledge."
"Very good," Margie said, pulling open a loose-leaf folder she had been holding. "Question number one. Are you happy?"
"No," said Remo.
"Then, sir, you should get our booklet: A Happier You Through Powerology, which is only $3.98 for the first copy and $2.50 for each one afterwards."
"I will seriously consider it," Remo said. "Do you have another question."
"Yes, sir. Lots of questions," she said staring at his chest again. "Question number two. Do you lay, I mean, like your friends?"
"What friends?" Remo asked.
"Yes or no," Margie said. "It has to be yes or no, I can't fit 'what friends' into the space."
"Can't you write smaller?"
"It'll come out 'wha fri.' "
"Okay," Remo said. "No."
"Oh. Then a must for your library would be the Powerology Guide for Better Friendships or How to Win People to Your Side through Powerology. Right now, you could have it for only $2.95, for a limited time, of course."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Margie was staring at his belly button. "Of course, something could be arranged," she said.
"Question three," Remo said.
"Oh, yes," she said, shaking her head and sending beads of greasy dirt flying. "How do you rape, I mean, rate your love life on a scale of one to ten?"
"None," said Remo. "Minus six. Minus ninety."
"Oh, that's a shame, but nothing that couldn't be remedied by How to Pick up Girls and Score Through Powerology for only $4.95 or letting me come up to your room."
"You're losing your scientific dispassion," Remo said.
"Don't tell me that. I can see rape in your eyes."
"That's because your glasses are dirty," Remo said.
"Look, fella, I'll knock up… I mean, off the fifty-cent service charge."
"Not now."
"This is my last offer. I knock off the service charge, throw in a Powerology book of massage and pay for dinner afterwards. What more could you want?"