Sitting cross-legged on his tatami mat, Chiun looked old and frail. He made no move to unpack his things. Remo had even had to roll out the mat for him. Around the Master of Sinanju were his four precious lacquered trunks.
Remo closed the door. Alone in the common room, the guilty breath fled his collapsing lungs.
Eyes downcast, he trudged away from the closed door.
REMO'S GUILT HAD ONLY GROWN by the time he reached Folcroft's administrative wing.
It was 7:00 a.m. and Smith's secretary was now at work. Eileen Mikulka looked up as Remo entered the outer room.
"Oh, good morning," she smiled. "Dr. Smith asked me to see you right in."
As the matronly woman stood, Remo wordlessly waved her back to her seat. She gave him a slightly disapproving look for his rudeness as he pushed his way into the Folcroft director's office.
Still at his computer, Smith looked up over the tops of his rimless glasses when the door opened. Remo closed the door with a click.
"Okay, here's the deal," Remo blurted. "Remember those guys I killed in that East African restaurant a couple of months back? Well, I didn't kill all of them. Flash forward to a couple of days ago, and who do I run into on my connector flight back from Puerto Rico but the goon that got away. I thought I took him out of action without killing him this time, but I guess something went wrong 'cause the same thick-neck was in the car last night with the other two guys who burned down our house. I don't know what happened or how he got loose after I put the whammy on him, but the fact is he did and he led the rest of them right to me. So it's all my fault. Me, me, me. I led them to us. And before you ask, no, Chiun doesn't know."
He had hoped the confession would make him feel better. It didn't. And the critical look the CURE director was giving him didn't help matters.
Smith sat motionless behind his desk. Only when Remo was finished did he place his hands to the onyx slab, fingers intertwined.
"You are certain it was the same man?" Smith asked.
"I wish I wasn't," Remo said, the life seeming to drain from him. He dropped onto the sofa near Smith's door. "I figure he must have tracked me from the plane somehow. I took a cab that day."
Smith nodded agreement. "Do you plan to tell Chiun?"
"Eventually. Someday. You know how he is, Smitty. He carps at me when the cable goes out or when it rains more than two days in a row. I don't even want to think about what he's gonna put me through for something that's actually my fault. Especially something this big."
Smith raised a single eyebrow. "This individual you encountered before," he said. "You met him on the New York to Boston leg of your flight?" His hands moved to his keyboard.
"Yeah," Remo said glumly.
As Smith began typing, Remo stuffed his hands gloomily into his pockets. He was reaching for his small stone-carved good-luck charm when his fingers brushed something else.
"Oh, by the way, here's another one for your collection," he said.
He flung the object across the office. It landed between Smith's outstretched hands with a tiny click. The CURE director picked it up.
It was another one of the small white buttons that Remo's attackers had worn. This one was streaked with smears of black.
"I pulled it off the guy who went kerblocey at that counterfeiter's house," Remo told him.
Smith inspected the button. Like the first, the O at the center was bracketed by twin waving lines that nearly met at top and bottom.
"I have had no luck tracing this symbol," he frowned.
"Well, it obviously means something to those guys," Remo said, "because they're blowing off their own heads to protect whoever's behind it."
Remo had the small stone figure in his hand now. His fingertips traced the carved lines of the small Korean face.
"Or to protect themselves from whoever is behind it," the CURE director pointed out. Smith swept the button into an open desk drawer where it joined the first. "I will continue to research the design," he promised.
He returned his attention to his computer.
Sitting forward on the sofa, Remo pressed his face into one palm. "Why did I just knock him out, Smitty?" he moaned. "I should have ripped off his arms."
Smith didn't look up from his monitor. "Remo, now is not the time for self-indulgence."
Remo peered at the CURE director through halfopen eyes. "You sure? 'Cause it really feels right just about now."
Smith's thin lips pinched unhappily. "Did Chiun mention to you that the Mafia was involved with Raffair after all?" he asked as he worked.
"No." Remo sighed.
"I have deduced that Raffair is verbal shorthand for Our Affair."
"That sounds familiar."
"It should. That is its English translation from the Italian 'Cosa Nostra.' Thanks to the counterfeiter's information, I was able to backtrack to a Manhattan attorney by the name of Sol Sweet. He has several criminal clients. I would guess that he is acting as a go-between for one of them." Before he could give out the name of Sweet's most prominent client, Smith let out a hiss of satisfaction. "Your arsonist is one John Fungillo," he announced.
This brought Remo to his feet. "You sure?" he asked, his voice suddenly even. He pocketed the stone carving.
"He was the only individual removed from your flight by ambulance. According to the records, he was suffering from a mysterious form of temporary paralysis that reversed itself several hours after he was admitted to the hospital. He checked himself out."
"Where can I find him, Smitty?" Remo asked coldly.
"His legal residence is the home of his mother in Jersey City." Smith was reading the scant information available on Johnny Books. "Interesting," he said with a puzzled frown. "He is not a known member of the Scubisci crime Family."
Remo thought after the previous night that he'd reached his quota of fresh surprises. But at Smith's mention of the famous Mafia Family, his hard face relaxed to confusion.
"Scubisci? What've they got to do with this?" Smith looked up. "Sweet's most prominent client is Anselmo Scubisci."
Remo had briefly encountered the Dandy Don once before. "Isn't he in jail?"
"Yes," Smith said. "But it's possible that he is still running his illegal empire from behind bars. It has been done by criminals before. Even so, the connection is tenuous. I suppose we need something more concrete to implicate Anselmo Scubisci."
"You need something concrete," Remo said. "I've got what I want. Gimme that Fungus guy's address."
Smith shook his head. "There is no guarantee that he will be there. If you act rashly now, you could scare off Fungillo as well as his two accomplices. Better to learn who all three are so that we can plan a stratagem against all of them."
Before Remo could argue, an electronic beep sounded from the depths of Smith's desk. The CURE mainframes deep in the bowels of Folcroft's basement had pulled some new data from the Net. Smith brought up the latest information.
"Raffair has finally established a corporate headquarters," Smith said as he read the report the computers had flagged. "It opened in New York this morning."
"Wasn't that place you sent me and Chiun to their HQ?"