"Moo?" repeated Shane Billiken.
"Moo."
Shane Billiken looked at the little Eastern guy and at the white man named Remo. Then he looked at Chiun again.
"I'm not following very much here."
"Correct. You are not following us. We are leaving now. "
"Well, nice of you to drop in," Shane Billiken said, relief suffusing his puffy features. "Fernando will see you to the hole where the door was."
"Remo, gather up the coins. They belong to us now."
"No, they don't. They belong to Princess Sinanchu, and Princess Sinanchu belongs to me."
"Truly?" said the Master of Sinanju as Remo scooped up the coins and stuffed them into his pockets. "Have you told her that?"
"Yeah, actually."
"Then perhaps you should tell her again."
"Er, you can do it if you want."
"Thank you, I will," said Chiun. He turned to the girl and spoke a few words. She listened carefully.
Then Princess Sinanchu walked up to Shane Billiken. Her face was not pleasant. She slapped his once, hard. He fell back into a Japanese taboret and knocked over an ion fountain.
"Hey!" he said, coming to his feet angrily. "I could sue her for that!"
"Be grateful that she told me of your kindness, otherwise your transgressions would not be overlooked on this day. "
And taking Princess Sinanchu by the elbow, the old man who called himself the Master of Sinanju led her from the room.
On his way out, the one named Remo waved good-bye. "See you later, alligator," he said.
Chapter 7
Outside Shane Billiken's sprawling home, Remo put a question to Chiun.
"Now what?"
"We are going to Moo."
Remo shrugged. "Might as well get it over with." And raising his voice, Remo called, "Moo. Moo. Moo. Or should I give one long moo, like this: mooooo!"
"Are you crazed?"
"You said we were going to moo. I just did. Didn't I do it right?"
"You can do nothing right," Chiun snapped. "And you are embarrassing me in front of the Low Moo."
Remo glanced at the girl. She watched them with an openly quizzical expression on her oval face.
"Sorry," he said, "but I don't think she understands English. "
"She does not. But she does understand Moo."
"She's one up on me, then. Not that I care."
"You should."
"Why? She's obviously not one of the bare-breasted women you keep promising me."
"They are merely a five-day sail from here."
"Sail?"
"Yes. The Low Moo's boat is nearby. Come."
His face gathering in confusion, Remo followed as the Master of Sinanju, the girl at his side, led him around to the back of the house. The girl cast several curious glances over her shoulder at Remo. Remo smiled at her. She smiled back. Maybe the night wouldn't be a total waste, Remo decided.
There was a boat set up on a wooden cradle on the dry beach sand. Chiun looked it over carefully, tugging at the rattan lashings and examining the drooping and tattered sail.
"It is too small," he said in a disappointed tone.
"Doesn't look very seaworthy," Remo agreed.
"Then we will build our vessel," Chiun announced, lifting a triumphant finger. "Come, Remo, let us fall to work. "
"Build? Why not buy?"
"I will not be seen in an American boat. A thing of plastic and ugly metal. No, we will build our own."
"I don't know squat about building ships."
"Then it is time you learned. Ship-building is an honored skill."
"Especially if your relative writes stories about Atlantis." Chiun's face contracted.
"You are not taking this in the proper spirit," he fumed.
"Chiun, I have no idea what spirit I should be taking this in. I still don't know what is freaking going on."
"We are going to Moo, as I have told you."
"Oh, moo this and moo that. And moo to you too. I'm sick of double-talk and runarounds."
"Enough!" Chiun said, clapping his hands. "We will begin by felling some trees."
Remo looked around. There was a palm tree about a mile inland. Everything else was sand and ocean.
"When you get enough of them together, let me know," Remo said, lowering himself onto the sand. "I'll be catnapping." He folded his hands over his chest and shut his eyes.
"Remo," Chiun hissed, "do you want the Low Moo to think I have a lazy slug for a son?" He tugged on Remo's arm. "Up, up! She is a princess. A true princess."
"And I'm a Master of Sinanju, not a boat builder. You want to play Popeye the Sailor Man, fine. But you build your own boat."
Chiun stamped his foot angrily.
"Very well, lazy one," he said finally. "I will give in to your selfishness, but only this once. We will buy a boat."
Remo leapt to his feet. "Now you're talking," he said, grinning. It was a rare day when he won an argument with Chiun. The princess matched his smile with an infectious one of her own, and Remo thought it was a rare day indeed.
The salesman at the Malibu Marina wanted to know if Remo was interested in a racing sloop, a yacht, or a pleasure boat.
"Something fast," Remo said. "With dual motors."
"No motors," Chiun inserted quickly.
"No motors?" the salesman asked.
"A sail craft," Chiun added.
"You want something for pleasure trips, then."
"No," retorted Chiun. "We are going on a long voyage."
"We are?" said Remo. He was ignored.
"Then let me suggest something with auxiliary diesels."
"Sounds good to me," Remo said. "I want lots of chrome trim."
"I will have none of it," Chiun spat.
"Look, Little Father, I've strung along with you this far. I've traveled clear across the country, and now I'm agreeing to tag along while you and Yma Sumac there go off in search of Jacques Cousteau. I think you can bend just a little here."
"I am bending enough. I am not building a boat."
"Look," said the boatyard owner exasperatedly, "if you two could just get on the same frequency, I could help you, but-"
"There!" said Chiun suddenly, pointing past the salesman. The salesman turned. Remo looked. Even the princess followed the Master of Sinanju's quivering fingernail. Remo groaned even before Chiun spoke the next words. "There. That one. It is perfect," he cried.
"Not that!" groaned Remo. "Anything but that."
"The junk?" said the salesman.
"Good word for it," Remo piped up.
"It is authentic, of course?" asked Chiun.
"Yeah. Imported from Hong Kong. The previous owner lost his portfolio in the market crash. Couldn't afford the upkeep anymore. I took it on consignment, but I never expected to find a buyer."
"And you won't today," Remo growled.
"I must see it closer," Chiun breathed. The salesman waved Chiun ahead.
"No way," said Remo, running after them.
"It's really a five-man craft," the salesman was saying. "You couldn't manage it with less than a crew of five. And it's difficult to handle. All those lugsails. It's not like manning a sloop or a ketch. By the way, how much sailing experience have you people had?"
"None," said Remo.
"Enough," said Chiun.
"It takes a skilled hand to pilot a Chinese junk."
"Did you hear that, Chiun? He said it's Chinese. And we all know how you feel about Chinese stuff. You despise them. "
"Not as much as I despise American plastic," Chiun retorted. "Look at her, Remo, isn't she breathtaking?"
"Now that you mention it, there is an odor."
The junk wallowed in its slip like a three-story hovel with a keel. It had five masts, and the odd-shaped sails flapped like quilts in the wind. The junk creaked at every joint, like a haunted house. The name painted on its stern said Jonah Ark in green lettering.
"How much?" asked Chiun.
"The owner wants what he paid for it seventy thousand."
"Fifty," countered Chiun.
"Sixty," offered the salesman.