Using the crate so as not to injure the creatures, he coaxed them all back out through the gate. Unlike their counterparts in the wild, these zoo lions didn't put up much of a fight. Remo was wrangling the last lioness back out into the paddock when the shed door that led into the park burst open yet again.
"Come quick!" Hank Bindle shouted urgently. Remo was replacing the bolt that Assola al Khobar had removed prior to his escape.
"Isn't anyone afraid of lions anymore?" he griped.
"This is it. We're dead," Bruce Marmelstein cried to himself. He was crouching on the floor amid the damp remains of his precious paperwork. The documents that would have implicated Assola al Khobar as the man responsible for the extravagant spending binge at Taurus Studios were in wet tatters. A bit of the powdered sugar that had attracted the lion in the first place still clung to the shreds of the envelope.
"Hurry!" Bindle insisted, ignoring his partner.
"What's wrong now?" Remo asked wearily.
"Monkeys don't talk!" he cried.
"Okay, that's it," Remo snapped.
Using the same crate he'd employed on the lions, but much less delicately, Remo knocked the two men back out the door. He propped the crate up against the knob to keep them from coming back in. When he turned back around, Reggio Cagliari was just climbing down to the floor.
"Man, dat was close," he panted. He was sweating profusely. Remo could smell the distinct odor of lion saliva on the man's face. There were remnants of damp powdered sugar there, as well.
"You were lucky," Remo told him. "So far."
"Males don't usually hunt," Reggio explained, still trying to catch his breath. "Females do. They must not have been hungry, I guess."
"I guess you know a lot about lions," Remo said.
"Hey, I get by," Reggio answered. The panic of a moment before was already given way to suspicion. The hood that was Reggio Cagliari was reasserting itself. "You a fed?"
"I don't have time for this," Remo said. "Where's al Khobar?"
"Who the hell's El Kabong?" Reggio asked, genuinely confused.
"Koala," Remo snapped.
Reggio balked. "Koalas?" he said vaguely. "Don't know if they got them here. I seen hyenas."
"I told you," Remo said, "I don't have time." Grabbing Reggio by the neck of his sweaty shirt, Remo spun around. He dragged the thug roughly across the floor toward the gate that fed into the lion paddock. As the gate swept toward him, the petty gangster decided that cooperation might be the best way not to while away the evening inside the digestive tracts of a dozen lions.
"He knocked me out!" Reggio cried. "I woke up with dat lion licking my face. I don't know where he went! I swear to God, I don't know."
He was telling the truth, Remo knew. But in this instance the truth was no help.
"Thanks," Remo said coldly. He reached for the bolt.
"Wait, wait!" Reggio pleaded. "Maybe I can give you somethin'." His voice was desperate.
"Doubtful," Remo said.
"Those wires all around town! All around the studios! Doncha wanna know what they are?"
Remo paused. He released his grip on Reggio's shirt. "I'm listening," he said.
Reggio took a deep, thankful breath. "They're hooked up to explosive charges," he said.
Remo frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Whaddya mean?" He sounded mildly insulted. "Sure I'm sure. I use ta use the same sort of stuff sometimes for the Pubescios back before I hadda go to work for dat skunk Vaggliosi. When I picked up Mr. Koala I even sneaked into one of the soundstages at Mammoth Studios just to have a look-see. Dese A-rabs have packed enough explosive crap into the studios around here to blow all of Hollywood down to Tijuana."
Remo thought about all the similar wires he'd been seeing all around the motion-picture capital. Like a picture that had previously been just slightly out of focus, the entire scheme of Sultan Omay suddenly became clear. Remo had a pretty good idea what had been on Smith's missing ship.
"Thanks, Reggio," Remo said with a nod. "You don't even know it, but you just helped out your country."
"Really?" Reggio asked. His eyes narrowed slyly. "Do I get a reward?"
"Absolutely," Remo said agreeably. Reggio smiled broadly.
"What is it?"
Reggio's reward was that he never saw coming the blow that severed his brain from his spinal column.
WHEN REMO STEPPED outside a moment later, a frantic Hank Bindle met him at the door.
"The monkeys!" Bindle cried. "They're not monkeys! They're people!"
"So's Soylent Green," Remo said, heading for the jeep.
Bindle leaped before him, eyes pleading. "You've got to do something!"
"What is your problem?" Remo asked, annoyed.
"I have to have my hands," Bruce Marmelstein groaned from the nearby jeep, unmindful of the others. He sat with the rear door open, his fingers gripping the damp remnants of paperwork. "People without hands don't get invited to the Oscars. I'll never be on ET. again. How will I floss?"
Bindle and Remo ignored him.
"Tom Roberts and Susan Saranrap are in the monkey house!" Bindle explained rapidly.
"Good. They'll be happier with their own kind," Remo said with an indifferent shrug. He turned to the jeep.
"You don't understand," Bindle pleaded, grabbing his arm. "Without Mr. Koala's signature on those papers, we're trapped." He pointed to the scraps of paper in Marmelstein's hands. "We have to make The Movie. And we can't make a movie without our stars."
"Tell me why I should even care about you or your dippy movie." Remo challenged.
"Chiun's script," Marmelstein ventured softly from the back seat of the car.
"What?" Bindle said, wheeling on his partner. Remo merely closed his eyes. He knew already where this was heading.
Marmelstein's eyes slowly came back into focus. Like a patient suddenly waking from a long coma. "His friend's script," Marmelstein explained to Bindle.