Face tight, the Master of Sinanju retreated to the mural of Shin Saim-Dong. He looked up at the benevolent features, her hair tied up in the traditional ch'ok, delicate hands properly resting in the lap of her kimono.
It was a good face, he saw. A country face. Solid and of the earth. At least some traditions were honored, in this degenerate colony of his countrymen.
Perhaps, Chiun thought, when the election was done with, he would take up residence here. It would be fitting. His former home had been confiscated by his emperor, due to yet another transgression on Remo's part. He would need a new home. Perhaps here. Once the people were reeducated, they would make good subjects. Of course, the Japanese and Chinese would have to be moved. It would not be seemly for a Master of Sinanju to dwell in too close proximity to such as they.
He was certain there would be a cultimulcheral way to accomplish this.
As the Master of Sinanju considered these weighty matters, he heard a tearing sound. He spurt.
A man--a white, beefy of face-was removing one of the posters the Master of Sinanju had carefully affixed to a wall.
Chiun flew to this man, demanding, "Why do you do this, white?"
"They gotta come down," the white grunted, ripping down the poster in stubborn strips.
"Explain!"
"No union bug."
"Bug?"
He pointed to a black spot on the poster, where the Master of Sinanju had obscured some white graffiti.
"Orders from my union chief. Posters without the bug come down."
With a flourish, the white stripped the wall bare of all remnants of the poster.
"There are many similar posters," Chiun pointed out, his voice steely. "You cannot remove them all."
"Wanna bet?"
"They will be restored."
"All my shop will be out tomorrow to tear 'em down all over again," the white said, in the stubborn fashion of his kind.
"Not if they are dissuaded from this."
"What's gonna dissuade them? We're union. You can't buck a union."
"I understand that the Master of Sinanju himself has endorsed this man Esperanza," Chiun said hoping to appeal to the white's innate sense of respect for his betters.
"Fuck the Master of Sinanju," said the beefy white, spitting on the artfully calligraphed poster that lay on the sidewalk.
Fred Huntoon weighed nearly two hundred and fifteen pounds. He was a pressman. Rotary presses. The muscles he had developed in the course of pursuing his trade had not grown soft in the years since he had become a union steward. If anything, he had become more formidable. Rosary presses do clot punch back.
As he turned to deal with the offending campaign posters plastered all over Koreatown, Fred Huntoon felt every muscle in his thick body spasm and twitch.
"It will stop when the poster is restored to the wall," a squeaky voice said through the ringing in his ears.
"I want it to stop now!" Fred Huntoon howled, feeling his out-of-control feet dance in pain. Even his earlobes hurt. How could that be?
"It will stop," the squeaky voice repeated, "when the poster is restored."
"It . . . it's torn!"
"So too will you be," promised the squeaky voice.
The voice was no more threatening than Pee-Wee Herman's, but what was happening to Fred Huntoon's big body was real. And he wanted it to stop. Lord, how he wanted it to stop.
Through eyes that were blurred by hot tears of pain, Fred Huntoon knelt to the sidewalk and gathered up the poster fragments.
He arranged them in order, and using his tongue, licked the blank sides like a gargantuan stamp.
They would not stick. The poster pieces peeled back, as if treated with wall-repellent.
"It don't stick!" he bleated.
"Lick the wall, too."
It was an excellent suggestion. Fred Huntoon had a tongue as big as his desire to please the owner of the squeaky voice. He lathered saliva onto the gritty brick wall and freshened the application on the back side of the poster. He tried again.
"It sticks! It's sticking! It's stuck!" he said gratefully.
"For now. It might fall."
"I'll stand here and hold it up if I have to," he offered.
"You have to," said the squeaky voice.
Then, and only then, the pain went away. Just like that. Fred Huntoon, when he had blinked the last bitter tear from his face, turned around to look.
He saw the little Asian guy strolling off, casually as can be. He disappeared around a corner. The danger seemed to have passed.
Still, Fred Huntoon decided that he should keep his hands on the poster, at least until sundown.
As people passed him by, Fred Huntoon, to cover his embarrassment, offered a piece of friendly advice.
"Vote for Esperanza! The union guy's friend!"
Gregory Sagadelli was President and treasurer of the California Pressman's Union. It was a strong union. It was strong because the men who comprised the membership roll were strong. Weak men did not run presses. And weak men did not lead pressmen.
So when the first reports of campaign posters appearing in the Asian part of town without the union bug-his union bug-reached his ears, Gregory Sagadelli ordered the membership out into the streets to take corrective action.
"No wonder someone's trying to whack out that Esperanza guy. He's nuts!" he joked, as he ordered his men to tear down every offending poster in Koreatown.
They started coming back in ones and twos. Some limped. A few had broken fingers. Some did not return at all. They were discovered in the hospital, invoking their union insurance benefits.
"This is fuckin' war!" Gregory Sagadelli screamed, when he had heard the same story for the fifth time. A little gook had done this. A little gook working for the Esperanza campaign.
He was on his way out of the union meeting hall when the little gook came in, escorted by two of his stewards.
"This him?" Gregory Sagadelli demanded.
"This is him," one of the pair said, in a dispirited voice.
Gregory Sagadelli gave his trousers a belligerent hitch. "You did right to bring him here," he grunted, jabbing a thick finger into the little gook's stern face. "You, chum, are going to pay for this."
"I am called Chiun, not Chum."
"After today, your name will be mud."
"After today," said the little gook named Chiun, "you will be proud to say that you stand with Esperanza the Cultimulcheral."
"I what?"
"After you have atoned for your transgressions against him; of course."
"Say . . . that . . . again," Gregory Sagadelli said through clenched teeth.
The little gook snapped his long-nailed fingers. Instantly, the flanking union men produced stacks of Esperanza campaign posters.
"You will have your minions and lackeys place these where they will do the most good," said the little gook named Chiun.
Gregory Sagadelli grunted. "You got balls."
"He's also got hands like you've never seen," said one of the flanking men.
"Huh?"
"Mr. Sagadelli," said the other, "if you don't do exactly like he says, we're all headed for traction."
That was enough for Gregory Sagadelli. He was a street fighter, with a street fighter's instincts. Old or not, he took a poke at the frail little gook.
The fist traveled less than a foot. The little gook brought his open hands up to intercept the fist, like a catcher without a mitt.
Gregory Sagadelli felt the impact. He was sure he felt the impact. Swore to it, for many years after.
When they had finished pouring cold water on his face, and after he had batted the smelling salts away with his sprained fist, the membership put it another way.
"You hit yourself in the jaw."
"I hit the gook," Gregory Sagadelli insisted.
"There's a bruise on your jaw, and those knuckles are sprained," a delegate pointed out.
"I felt a fuckin' impact."
"In your jaw. The membership wants to know if we can start putting up the Esperanza posters now."