"Is it that valuable?"
"Some of it was junk. But after a few thousand years you have to collect some valuable things. Gold, jewels, and the like."
"You make it sound trivial."
"If you don't spend it, what good is it? One gold bar could feed a Korean village for a century. They eat rice and fish. Sometimes duck. They like duck. But they never spent it. Look, don't worry about it. We don't need him to find Brewster."
"But you don't speak Portuguese."
"A friendly manner overcomes all barriers," said Remo.
Remo was right. You did not need a pocket translator to find a policeman who spoke English. You simply grabbed a policeman and twisted, speaking plainly and clearly in English: "Take me to your commander." There was no language barrier this simple gesture could not overcome.
Soon they were in the commander's villa. No decent police career in South America ever resulted in anything less than a villa. And no decent citizen would arrive at that villa to request justice without enough cash to pay for that justice. Remo, unfortunately, had not brought money, he explained.
The commander expressed his sorrow, but he would have to arrest Remo for assaulting the policeman he had by the neck. One didn't come down to a South American country and rough up a policeman without money in the pocket. The commander rang for the guards. Remo took their weapons and shredded them neatly onto the commander's lap. Then he showed the commander a very interesting North American message. It made the shoulder blades feel as though they were being ripped out of the body.
Its purpose was to improve his disposition. Overcome with brotherly love, the commander pledged the honored assistance of his entire police force. Would the gringo guest please replace his shoulder blades?
"Tell your commander they are still there," Remo told the policeman who acted as translator. "They only feel as though they have been ripped out."
Remo waited for the translation. The commander asked if the honored guest could make the shoulder blades feel as though they were back in the body.
"Tell him, when we find a man named James Brewster, he will feel fine. Brewster came down here by plane a few days ago, and he probably has another name by now. We have his picture."
The search was strange from the beginning. The police force was so motivated by the sight of their bent, aching commander that it took neither threat nor reward to mobilize them. Same of the detectives commented that they had been inspired by justice, just like the American policeman "Dirty Harry."
Even stranger, when the policemen located the fugitive, after less than a day, no one handed any of them an envelope of cash.
They assumed Remo was a policeman. They asked how policemen got paid in America.
"By checks from their governments."
"Oh, we get those sometimes," said one of the detectives. "But they're too small to cash."
According to the police, James Brewster was now Arnold Diaz, alive and ensconced in one of the elegant high-rise apartment buildings facing the glorious beach of Rio de Janeiro.
Chiun, having finished recording the meeting with the Anxitlgi, agreed to visit with Consuelo and Remo. Downstairs, in the marble-floored lobby, Consuelo rang the buzzer for Arnold Diaz. Brewster's voice answered.
"Who is it?"
"It's us, sweetheart," said Remo.
The groan that echoed through the lobby came via the electronics from fifty stories up. The intercom suddenly switched off.
"I have a questioning technique that might be a bit more helpful with Brewster," said Remo. "I don't like guys who sell uranium on the open market."
"After what we've been through," said Consuelo. "I could almost agree with you."
"I'll be friendly," said Remo. "He'll tell us everything."
The elevator was paneled with fine wood polished to a gloss. There were even little seats. When an elevator, even a fast one, had to rise fifty stories, it took time. But the people who lived in this building weren't used to discomfort, no matter how brief.
As the elevator sped upward, Consuelo felt her ears pop as though she was taking off in an airplane. Her stomach seemed to leave her somewhere near the thirtieth floor. By the time they reached the fiftieth floor, she was dizzy and resting on one of the seats.
Remo helped her to her feet. They waited by the door. It wasn't opening. Remo looked to Chiun. A loud ugly snap of metal could be heard on both sides of the cabin. Then came a louder metallic crack and the thump of a cable falling on the elevator roof.
Consuelo felt her stomach lurch into her throat. Her body felt light, as though it were being lifted, yet her feet were still on the cabin floor. She couldn't move them. It was as though her blood had decided to flow in a new direction.
She was falling. Remo and Chiun were falling. The entire cabin was falling. The lights went out. The sound of grating, scraping metal filled the cubicle. Consuelo had to catch her breath to scream. When she shrieked into the darkness, she barely heard Remo tell her she was going to live.
She felt a strong hand on one arm and fingernails on the other. Then she felt a slight pressure. Her feet no longer touched the elevator floor. They were lifting her! And then it was as though the world had crashed. The elevator cab landed fifty stories down, shattering the cabin roof, loosening the seat, leaving them all in a dark shambles. Yet all Consuelo felt was a slight bump. Somehow these two had lifted her, and themselves, at moment of impact. It was as if they'd fallen a single foot instead of fifty stories.
Above them, as though from the tunnel of a dark universe, came a single flashlight beam. Francisco Braun shone the light from the top of the elevator shaft down into the rubble beneath him. Way down, he saw a hand reach up out of the wreckage. He saw a face. He tried to make out exactly how mangled it was.
There were the teeth. He couldn't tell that far down if they were knocked out of a mouth. But they were surrounded by lips. Definitely lips. He peered closer, straining to follow the beam to the target. He saw the lips rise on the sides. They were smiling at him. Francisco Braun dropped the light and ran.
The flashlight hit the cab as Remo and Chiun helped Consuelo out of it. She was terrified. She was furious. She checked her body. It was all there. Everything was fine, except she was going to walk the fifty stories to James Brewster's now.
"C'mon. We'll take the other elevator," said Remo.
"Are you crazy?" she asked.
"No," said Remo. "Are you?"
"We almost got killed and you want to take another elevator?"
"We showed you you wouldn't get killed even if it crashed, so why are you afraid?" asked Remo.
"I almost got killed."
"There is no almost to getting killed. You're fine. C'mon."
"I'm not going. That's it. Call me a cowardly woman. I don't care."
"Who's calling you a coward?" said Remo.
"We're calling you irrational," said Chiun. "Not cowardly."
"I'm not going," said Consuelo.
"I'll question Brewster my way, then," said Remo.
"Go ahead. Anything. Go. I am not leaving the ground. For anyone. Anything. I was almost killed. You were almost killed."
"I don't know what she is talking about," Remo said in Korean to Chiun as they entered the elevator that worked. Doormen were running over to see what was the matter. Consuelo leaned against a piece of elegant statuary to gather her composure.