Remo would die. There was no helping that. But so would Abner Buell. And the world would be saved.
He told himself he would make the same deal every time.
sChapter Fourteen
On the first ring of the telephone, Remo shoved Pamela Thrushwell into the bathroom. On the second ring, he broke the lock so she could not open the door. He answered the phone on the third ring.
"Did you find out where he is?" he said.
"I've found out where he will be," Smith said laconically.
"Okay. When and where?" Remo stuck a finger in his free ear to block out the thumping from the bathroom door.
"There's a small town named Hernandez-- Remo, are you alone?"
"Not really," Remo said.
"Let me out," Pamela shrieked. "I'll call the police. I'll--" Remo threw a lamp at the door. She quieted for a moment.
"The girl?" Smith asked.
"Yes."
"Get rid of her. I told you before."
"All right, all right, I will," Remo said.
"You can't have her go with you. That's final."
"I said I'd take care of it, all right? Now where and when?"
Smith gave him the directions that he had received from Abner Buell. "Noon tomorrow," he said. "Chiun will meet you there," he added casually.
"Hold on," Remo said. "Chiun will meet me there? I thought you said I shouldn't have anybody with me."
"Chiun hardly qualifies as a pesky bystander," Smith said.
"He can be," Remo said. "And he's ticked at me anyway."
Smith sighed. Remo could visualize him at this moment, pressing the steel rings of his eyeglasses to his face with an index finger. "I thought-- this is important enough-- I thought it would be best if the two of you were there."
Pamela had started screaming again and there were no more lamps to throw.
"All right," Remo said. "I'll look for Chiun there. If he's there, we'll work it together. If not, I'll work it alone."
"At noon sharp," Smith said. "Chiun will be there."
Remo thought his voice sounded cracked and hoarse but the telephone clicked dead in his ear before he could make sure.
Smith sat at his desk for a few minutes afterward, the dead telephone cradled in his hand. Then, feeling very old and very tired, he walked to a locked cabinet and removed a Dutch Barsgod fragmenting shell pistol. The next fifteen hours were going to be the saddest of his life, but no one had ever said that saving the world would be a barrel of laughs.
The guard at Folcroft's front gate said, "Finally going home, Dr. Smith?" and Smith almost said, "No. To save the world," but he didn't.
As had always been the case in his life, the bodies would tell where he had been and what he had been doing.
"It's about time," Pamela said after Remo freed the bathroom door and let her out. "Who was that? The President?"
"Wrong number," Remo muttered. "When I finish working the obscene-calls patrol, I'm going to get transferred to wrong numbers."
"A wrong number that you talked to for ten minutes?"
"All right It was my Aunt Millie. She likes to talk."
"Really?" Pamela said archly. "What did you talk about?"
"She said the weather is good in Butler, Pennsylvania."
"It took her ten minutes to tell you that?"
"Yes," Remo said. "In Butler, that's big news. It's worth talking about."
"I don't believe it was your Aunt Tillie," she said. She wound a strand of Remo's jet-black hair around her finger.
"Millie," he corrected.
"Or Aunt Millie." She nuzzled his neck. "I'll bet I can make you tell me who you were really talking to," she purred.
"Not a chance," Remo said. "I'm beyond tempting."
"We'll see about that," she said. She eased him back on the bed and fiddled with the zipper of his pants.
Remo let her undress him and as her hands strayed over his body, he said, "Seduce away. It'll do you no good."
Long ago, in the early stages of his training, Chiun had taught Remo the thirty-seven steps for pleasuring a woman. They began with the inside of the left wrist and ended with the woman shrieking in ecstasy, although very few women were not shrieking in ecstasy by step seven or eight; it was a male fantasy come true, but it had also made sex boring, mechanical, and routine for Remo, and he rarely thought about it anymore.
"You like being controlled by a woman?" Pamela said as she straddled his body.
"Beats a sharp stick in the eye," he said.
She toyed with his body, with finger and tongue, then stopped. "Are you ready to tell me yet?"
"Not if you're going to stop," Remo said.
"I'll stop if you don't tell me," she threatened.
"Don't stop," Remo said.