"It's only pheromones," Remo said.
"Huh?"
"I read about them in a magazine. Pheromones are personal odors. Sexual scents. People give them off. Some give off stronger pheromones than others. Me, I got pheromones that won't quit. Which is why I can't take naps during long flights because of the stewardess factor."
"Don't I give off pheromones, too?" she asked in a pouty voice.
"Sure you do."
She bent forward, giving Remo a dose of some fruity perfume and an intimate look at her freckled cleavage.
"Aren't my pheromones good, too?"
"They're okay. It's just that I give better than I get.
Which was the wrong thing to say, Remo saw immediately, because the stewardess fell to her knees and said in a very, very earnest voice, "I give good pheromones, too. I swear."
She lay one hand over her heart.
Remo read her nametag: Stephanie.
"Listen, Stephanie-"
The hand came off her heart to Remo's hand, still warm. "Oh, you spoke my name!"
"Only in passing. Look, I can't help being the way I am."
She took his hand in both of hers now. They were sweating. She looked him dead in the eye and said, "I understand. Truly, I do."
"I was trained to be this way. It's not something I can control."
"I have absolutely no use for control, right now," Stephanie said, making her voice breathy.
The other passengers were staring now. Their expressions broke down into gender-specific categories. The men were envious and the women disgusted.
"You're making a scene," Remo pointed out.
"We can go into the galley. It's private there."
"What about the other stewardesses?"
"I'll stick plastic knives in their backs. We can use them for pillows after we're done. I give great afterglow, too." "Sorry," Remo said.
"I'll hold my breath."
"Let me hold it for you," said Remo, reaching out for her throat. He found her throbbing carotid artery and squeezed until the blood stopped flowing to her brain. After twenty-two seconds, she was out like a light.
Remo hit the stewardess call button and explained to the new stewardess that Stephanie had fainted, "or something."
She was carried to a first-class chair, checked for signs of injury, and allowed to sleep the rest of the flight away.
In Boston, Remo made a point of being the first one off the plane.
He was not surprised when Harold W. Smith met him at the gate. Smith was seated in an uncomfortable plastic chair looking uncomfortable. Harold Smith always looked uncomfortable. He probably looked uncomfortable sleeping in his own bed.
It was early spring, but Smith wore the same ensemble he wore summer or winter, rain or sun. A gray three-piece suit. The only splash of color was his hunter green Dartmouth tie.
He was a tall, thin man of Ichabod Crane proportions. His hair, thin as the first dusting of autumn snow, was grayish white. His skin was actually grayish, as were his weak eyes.
He might have been an accountant or a college professor or a retired undertaker. He was none of those things. He was Harold W. Smith, ostensibly head of Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, secretly the director for CURE, the supersecret government agency that didn't exist-officially.
Smith was reading The Wall Street Journal.
Remo padded up to him on silent Italian loafers.
"Uncle Smitty!" Remo cried. "It's been-what?-years. Am I still in the family will?"
Smith looked up from his paper with genuine horror on his patrician features. "Remo. Please. Do not make a scene."
Smith got up, folding his paper. He pushed back on the bridge of his rimless glasses, restoring them to correctness.
"You old softie," Remo said. "Still shy in public." Then, in a quieter voice he asked, "Where's Chiun?"
"He will be along shortly." Smith was tucking the newspaper under his arm. He clutched a worn leather briefcase in one bloodless hand. It was so scuffed that no selfrespecting thief would lower himself to steal it. It contained the computer link to the hidden CURE mainframes in Folcroft's basement.
They started walking.
"So, tell me about this castle," Remo prompted.
"It might be better if you see it without any prejudicial preconceptions."
"Has Chiun seen it?"
"No."
"You pass papers yet?"
"Yes." Smith avoided Remo's eyes.
"Which means if Chiun doesn't like it, you eat the mortgage, right?"
Smith actually paled. Although he had at his disposal a vast black-budget superfund of taxpayer dollars, he spent it as if the copper in every penny came out of his own bloodstream.
"Master Chiun stipulated a castle," Smith said. "Castles are not exactly plentiful in America. I have found him a perfectly good equivalent. Please do not spoil it."
Remo eyed Smith doubtfully. "You trying to pull something here, Smitty?"