A minute later he lowered himself to sit crosslegged on the mat, facing Chiun, and started again. "Little Father. I failed."
"How did you fail?" asked the little man in a singsong voice that held a deep compassion at rare times. Like now.
"Judith White. She's started killing again. Or one of her litters, anyway." He told Chiun all the details. "She got away from me in the end," Remo said. "If I would have stopped her then, this wouldn't be happening."
"But Emperor Smith and the young Prince believe this is not her," Chiun mused.
"They think it's probably connected to her. A bad batch of her potion that she threw out or forgot about or just didn't care about. A bunch of rabid Rin Tin Tins that slipped through the net. The way they're behaving, Smith thinks they might have even been operating for several months, maybe years."
"So how could you have known of their existence, let alone been responsible for their removal?" Chiun asked in a very straightforward way.
Remo sighed. "I don't know."
"You could not," Chiun summed up. "They may have been created before we last encountered Dr. Judith White at her water factory."
"That lets me off the hook? That just means it was my first kill-Judy failure rather than my second. Either way, I let her get away and now people are dying."
"There is no way you could have known she did not die in the fire. There was no way you could have foreseen her slippery escape in Maine."
"Aren't I supposed to be the freaking Master of Sinanju?"
"You are the Master of Sinanju. There is no 'freaking' and there is no 'supposed' about it. As the Master of Sinanju, you have skills beyond any possessed by other men. But this does not make you omniscient."
Remo frowned. "Omniscient means knowing everything?"
Chiun sighed heavily. "Yes."
"So you're trying to say I don't know everything?"
"Yes, as you've just demonstrated wondrously."
"So how come I feel like I let those people die?" Chiun didn't answer that. He could have harangued on the subject for a half hour if he wanted to. And he probably would. Later.
"Smitty and Junior aren't even convinced it's her or her kids," Remo said bitterly. "Get this. The FBI thinks maybe it's just some guy dressed up in a monster costume. You can buy them anywhere, mail order if you want to skip the stores. Full head and gloves, the feet, whatever. Smitty tried telling me the Feds might be right."
"And the other canine creatures?"
"The theory is they're attack-trained dogs," Remo said. "That's easy. You can train a dog to do almost anything. They had a German shepherd in L.A. a few years back, somebody trained him to snatch purses on the street. In Argentina, when Peron was still around, the state police had special handlers training dogs to rape their female prisoners."
"Trained dogs and monster masks do not explain human saliva in the wounds," Chiun said.
"Smith says maybe the guy's just a biter," Remo said. "I guess stranger things have happened. Look at Dahmer."
"What of the witness who survives?" asked Chiun.
"His name's Jean Cuvier. Some kind of secondstring lieutenant in the Cajun mob before the FBI grabbed Fortier. His specialty was fixing sporting events. He started yapping to the Feds and wound up with a contract on his head and asked the government to help him out. He squealed on the stand about Fortier's dabbling in extortion. He told the jury about Fortier acid-blinding a jockey who forgot he was supposed to lose a race. After the verdict, Cuvier was relocated to Nebraska. Omaha."
"He will be next," Chiun said, not making it a question.
"Maybe," said Remo. "I'm gonna go baby-sit him for a while and hope the wolf man comes back. Then we'll know for sure if it's one of Dr. Judy White's little experiments or a guy in a wolf suit. But somebody is bound to try for Cuvier. Fortier's attorneys have a motion for a new trial pending in the Seventh Circuit, and it could go either way. If it goes back to trial and he's eliminated all the prosecution witnesses, Fortier walks."
"When the killers come for this Cuvier, they will be forced to reveal their true nature," Chiun mused. "This will put your mind at ease."
"Huh? How?"
"To know their origin is to understand them. Once you understand them, then you will know you are not responsible for their being or culpable in their crimes. It is as the Emperor says, Remo-they are not necessarily the offspring of the madwoman Judith White."
Remo wasn't buying it. "But another set of cannibal killers springs up just a few months after Dr. White slips through the net? Not likely."
"Maybe it is. Since we encountered the cannibal woman, Smith has doubtless inveigled his electronic information machines to look for the telltale signs of an attack matching the nature of Dr. White. The killers were there, but only now has it come to the attention of Emperor Smith."
"I think you're reaching for straws."
"I do not reach for straws. Ever. Also, consider that perhaps this creature is not a product of Dr. White and is not a masquerader in a costume, but a true wolf man."
"Huh?"
"Spoken like a true Master. It is unlikely, I agree, that an American would have such powers. All the more since his ancestors came from France. If he was Asian, now, perhaps..."
"You don't believe in werewolves, do you, Little Father?"
Chiun regarded Remo with a frown. "Such tales are not unique to Europe and America," he said at last. "Koreans have never sought communion with the lower beasts, but it is not unknown in China and Japan, where degradation of the species is routine."
"A Chinese wolf man?"
"In fact, the were fox is more common," Chiun replied. "No doubt, the lowly Chinese once attempted to improve their ignoble mental state by interbreeding with a wiser animal. The end result, predictably, was not as they intended."
"You're not serious." Remo had conjured a mental image. "I can't picture it. I mean, I guess I can see a Chinese were-fox, but what I can't picture is the actual mating between the human and the fox."
"I chose not to even attempt to visualize such a thing," Chiun said rancorously.
"Especially since you gotta know the fox is not going to be a willing partner," Remo added before Chiun could continue. "So the poor thing probably had to get tied up or something."
"Doubtless."
"So you're talking about Chinese bondage bestiality."
"No," Chiun replied firmly, "it is you who keeps talking about it."
"It's outlandish. I don't believe it."
"That is because you are incapable of using a computer and thus cannot know that such outlandish things are reality. Ask the Prince Regent to locate such material on the Internet. I seriously doubt he will fail to find photographic evidence of some poor fox enduring what I have described. I'm sure you will find it utterly fascinating and it may pique your interest in a new hobby. Now may I continue with my story?"
Chiun's tone told Remo that it was a rhetorical question and he had better not answer at all if he didn't want to get slapped upside the head.
"It is well-known that in some parts of China there are foxes who can take on human form at will," Chiun said sternly. "For some reason best known to themselves, they nearly always take the form of women, to entice some lowly peasant from his toil and trap him in a web of sensual delights before they rob him of his meager senses and his life."