"Do you know that ninety-nine point eight percent of the women in America do not know how to make love properly?"

"That's nice."

"I'm in the point two percent that does."

"That's nice."

"Are you one of those gigolos that does it for money? You're just a doll, you know."

"That's nice," said Remo.

"I don't see anything wrong with paying for it, do you?"

21."Paying for what?" Remo asked.

"s.e.x, silly."

"That's nice," said Remo and the elevator opened to his floor.

"Where you going?" said the woman. "Come back here. What's wrong?"

Remo stopped mid-hall and smiled evilly. In fact, he could not remember feeling so joyously thrilled with any idea he had entertained in the last decade. The woman blinked her soft brown eyes and said, "Wow."

"C'mere," said Remo and the woman ran to him, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bobbing brightly.

"You want a thrill?"

"With you? Yeah. All right. Come on. Right on," she said.

"There's going to be a man coming down this hallway in about fifteen minutes. He's got a face like lemon juice. He'll be wearing a dark suit and a vest even in this weather. He's on the low side of sixty."

"Hey, I don't screw fossils, buddy."

"Trust me. The wildest time you've ever had. But you've got to say something special."

"What?" asked the girl suspiciously.

"You've got to say, 'h.e.l.lo, Dr. Smith. I've read about you. All my friends have read about you.' "

"Who's Dr. Smith?"

"Never mind. Just tell him that and watch his face."

"h.e.l.lo, Dr. Smith. Me and my friends have all read about you. Right?"

"You'll never regret it," said Remo.

"I don't know," said the woman.

Remo cupped a breast with his left hand and with 22.his right thumbed a thigh and kissed her on the neck and lips until he felt her body tremble.

"Oh, yes," she moaned. "Oh, yes. I'll say it. II'll say it."

"Good," said Remo and leaned her against the wallpapering of the hallway and moved five doors down where he entered.

A wisp of an Oriental in golden flowing kimono sat lotus position in front of a darkened television screen. The plush furniture of the waiting room had been moved and stacked on one side so a blue sleeping mat with its blossoms could dominate the center of the rug.

The set had been working the day before when Remo had left to look at Newark and if someone had wrecked it in between, there would be a body to be disposed of. The Master of Sinanju did not tolerate people interrupting his special television shows. Remo checked out the bathroom and the bedroom. No bodies.

"Little Father, is everything all right?"

Chiun shook his head slowly, barely moving the strand of beard.

"Nothing is right," said Chiun, the Master of Sinanju.

"Has someone broken the television?"

"Do you see the remnants of an intruder?"

"No, Chiun."

"Then how could anyone have broken my machine of dreams? No. Worse. Far, far worse."

"I'm sorry. I have a problem myself."

"You? Do you know what they have done to the beauty of the daytime dramas? Do you know the desecration that has been performed upon the life art of your nation?"

23.Remo shook his head. He didn't know. But what he gathered in the next few moments was this: As the Planet Revolves had been irreparably ruined. Doctor Blayne Huntington had been performing a legal abortion on Janet Wofford, daughter of the shipping magnate Archibald Wofford, who was financing Dr. Huntington's experiments in nuclear transmography, when nurse Adele Richards realized the baby was probably her brother's who was serving life in Attica for leading the prison revolt against anti-feminist literature.

"Yeah?" said Remo who always had a hard time following the soap operas.

"There was physical violence," said Chiun. And as he explained it, the nurse struck the doctor. Not only was there the intrusion of violence, but she struck him wrong. It was not a blow at all.

"But they're just actors, Little Father."

"I know that now," said Chiun. "Fraud. I will not watch another show. I shall stay in America, barren of joy, without the little breezes of pleasure in a stifled old life."

Remo, his voice heavy with sadness, said that they might not be staying.

"This is a hard thing for me to tell you, Little Father," said Remo and he lowered his eyes to the carpeting, which even in the Plaza was becoming threadbare.

"The beginning of all wisdom is ignorance," said Chiun. "It is a shame that you are always at the beginning." And this thought struck the Master of Sinanju as so humorous, he repeated it and laughed. But his pupil did not laugh with him and this Chiun attributed to the famous American lack of humor.

"Perhaps you are right," said Remo. "For more 24.than a decade, I insisted I owed something to this country. For more then ten years, I've been a man without home or wealth or even a full name that is my own. I'm a man who doesn't exist. And everything I've done, I see today was useless."

"Useless?" said Chiun.

"Yes, Little Father. Useless. This country is not one bit different for my being here. It's even worse. The place where I was born is a garbage dump. The politicians are more corrupt, crime is having a full-banner field day, and-and the country is-it's coming apart."

By this; Chiun was puzzled and he said: "You are one man, are you not?"

Remo nodded.

"There is no one emperor in this country, no one judge or priest who rules above all, is there?"

Remo nodded.

"Then, in this country with no ruler, how can you, an a.s.sa.s.sin, granted one given the sun source of all perfection in training, granted that even given the personal hand of a Master of Sinanju, masterhood yourself, a white no less, how can you feel you have failed? I do not understand this."

"You never quite understood what the organization was all about, Chiun."

"I have heard you and Smith talk. He is emperor of your organization that worships the doc.u.ment Const.i.tution and you kill for its glory. This I know."

"Maybe that's how it worked out but that's not how the whole thing was planned." And Remo explained about the Const.i.tution not working, and that it was the basic doc.u.ment of the country and that more than a decade before a president feared that his country would become a police state if the drift into chaos continued.

25.This, he said, Chiun must know because as keeper of the records of the House of Sinanju which had sold its services as a.s.sa.s.sins for countless centuries, he knew of many governments and he must know police states came from chaos.

"Ah," said Chiun. "You sought this chaos so that America could become like the rest of the world and you would be chief a.s.sa.s.sin of this police state. I did not understand it before."

"No," said Remo and he explained that the American Const.i.tution was a doc.u.ment, a contract between all Americans with one another. And it guaranteed freedoms and rights to everyone. It was a good doc.u.ment. But according to its rules many evil men could operate freely. So, while keeping this contract, an American president had set up an organization which no one knew about to make sure that the country could still survive. The organization would make sure that prosecutors got proper information, dishonest judges were exposed, great organized crime families would lose their power, and all the while, the rights of the people would be protected. Doctor Harold Smith, whom Chiun called emperor, headed this organization and Remo, whom Chiun himself had trained, was the enforcement arm.

Chiun allowed that he followed Remo.

"So you see," Remo said, "there were problems. If it became known that we existed, it would be like admitting the Const.i.tution didn't work. So secrecy was important. Well, they couldn't allow a killer arm to go around leaving fingerprints, so what they did was they got someone without a family and they removed his prints from the files in Washington by pretending he 26.was electrocuted. Like when you first saw me, I was unconscious, right? Right?"

"When I first saw you?" said Chiun and he cackled. He did not tell Remo but white man's silliness was enough to tickle the universe. "If your fingerprints, a system of identification you think was invented in the West but was known to us thousands of years ago, if your fingerprints in these records you talk about were so important, where are your fingerprints now?"

"The fingerprints of dead people go into a special file."

"Why then did they not just put the records in the other file instead of bringing you close to death, by pretending to electrocute you?"

"Because people knew me. And they had to create a man who didn't exist for an organization that didn't exist."

"Ah," said Chiun and his long-nailed fingers formed the roofing of a Western chapel. "I see now. Of course. It is all so clear. Let us have sweet sauce for our rice. Would you like that?"

"I don't think you understand, Little Father."

"You are most clear, my son. They killed you to make you not exist so that you could work for the organization that did not exist to protect the doc.u.ment that does not work. All hail the wisdom of the West."

"Well, things aren't working and that's what I wanted to tell you. I've been wrong. Let us go work for the Shah of Iran or the Russians or anyone else you wish to sell our services to. I'm through with Smitty and this whole stupid thing."

"Now you confuse me," said Chiun and his voice rose to the higher pitches of joy. "You have just made 27.a wise decision after ten years of wrong decisions and you are unhappy."

"Sure. I wasted ten years."

"Well, you have stopped wasting your life and you will never regret it. In the East, they appreciate a.s.sa.s.sins. Ah, what joyous news."

And Chiun told Remo he must allow the Master of Sinanju himself to inform Emperor Smith of the termination, because it was just as important to end services well as to begin them well, and Remo should watch closely in order that he should know the proper way to bid farewell to an emperor. For emperors did not lightly yield the cutting edge of their empires which, since history first began, had been their a.s.sa.s.sins.

When Smith knocked approximately five minutes later, the parsimonious face was in a state of frothy hysteria. The thin lips hung open like pink windsocks in a gale. The blue eyes blinked wide. He dropped his briefcase on the sleeping mat.

"Hail, Emperor Smith," said Chiun, bowing courteously.

"My G.o.d," said Smith. "My G.o.d, Remo, there's a woman outside. Our cover. It's been blown by a magazine. The whole thing's come apart. The whole thing. She read about me in a magazine. A brunette. In her twenties. Recognized me. A magazine. Our cover."

"Guess we have to close shop then, Smitty," said Remo, pulling a chair off the pile of furniture at the edge of the room and slumping down into it. His joy unplugged Smith's excitement. Smith's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He picked up his briefcase. He regained his composure.

"Did you see the young woman in the hallway?"

28."As a matter of fact, Smitty, I did," said Remo.

"I see," said Smith. His voice was flat. "And after so many years and so much effort. After so many years of precise covers and broken links just to protect our security, you, for a practical joke and I a.s.sume it's that, just blabbed the whole thing to some strange biddy out in the hallway. I a.s.sume it had some deep motivation such as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

"Nope," said Remo.

"You misunderstand your loyal servant," said Chiun. "He was espousing your glory to the populace, oh wondrous emperor of CURE."

"And you explained us to Chiun also?" said Smith. "He knows what we're about."

"He extolled the glory of your Const.i.tution. The heads of its enemies shall lie in the street. All proclaim the way of CURE," said Chiun.

"All right," said Smith. "Chiun doesn't know. What happened in the hallway? Did you go insane?"

"No. She doesn't understand any more than Chiun. She heard a name. So vhat? Really. Look at it. She heard a name and saw a man. Who is she? No one. And if she could make heads or tails of the whole thing, so what? So what?"

"I beg your pardon," said Smith and he looked for a place to sit.

In one slow movement, Remo was off the chair and it was sliding across the floor where it stopped just behind Smith's legs.

"I see we have tricksters. Our investment is in a juggler," said Smith. "Would you mind telling me what's happening?"

"I went home last night. Not that I have a home. I went back to that orphanage."

29."You were supposed to avoid that area under any circ.u.mstances."

"The orphanage was abandoned. The whole area was abandoned. It was the center of a city and it looked like it had been bombed. And I wondered what I had been doing for the last ten years. And I wonder what you've been doing for the last ten years. The whole organization."

"I don't follow."

"We're failures. We're a waste of time. We were supposed to be this super setup to make the Const.i.tution work. Everyone would have their freedoms while the destructive elements were put in their place. America was going through a trying time, we were supposed to help it out and then disappear with no one the wiser. We'd be here and gone. One country, one democracy saved."

"Yes?"

"What do you mean 'yes'?" said Remo. "We were a f.u.c.king waste of time. We had a president who would have been convicted of breaking and entering if he didn't get a pardon. Half the top government is in jail, the other half ought to be. You can't walk in the city streets unless you know how to kill. You read every day where this cop and that is on the take. Care for the aged has turned into a gigantic ripoff? And all this while I'm up to my armpits in bodies, supposedly ending this sort of c.r.a.p."

"That's just what we're doing," said Smith.

"Hey, I'm no congressman and you're no head of a legitimate government agency. I can read newspapers, you know."