Her timing was perfect. The white Mercedes came around a corner while rival newscasters were still dabbing water into their smarting eyes.
It came slowly. Ahead, behind, and on either side of it was a mass of strutting teenagers. They wore the blue bandannas of the Crips and the red of the Blood, plus the caps of the Chicano gang known as Los Aranas Espana.
Gasps came from the reporters.
"What? What is it?" Cheeta demanded, craning her long neck to see over their heads.
The cameraman was just tall enough to manage this feat.
"It's Esperanza's car," he reported. "And it's surrounded by gang-bangers."
"They've captured him!"
"Looks like they're escorting him, if you want my opinion."
"I don't. Turn that camera on me."
The cameraman obeyed.
Picking up a mike, Cheeta screamed, "I'm broadcasting live from South Central L.A., one of the most crime-ridden areas of the city, where vicious teenage gangsters have surrounded the Hispanic candidate for governor, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza!"
Just then, voices rose: "Esperanza! Esperanza! Esperanza!"
"They're calling for his death!" Cheeta cried.
"I don't think so," the cameraman put in.
"Stay out of this!" Cheeta flared. "Cameramen shouldn't be seen or heard!"
"Esperanza! Esperanza!"
"What are they doing now?"
The cameraman said, "Looks to me like they're sticking their hands into the car windows."
"They're trying to drag him out!" she said, licking her lips. "A political assassination, and we're covering it live!"
"No," the cameraman corrected, "they're accepting cookies."
Cheeta Ching's pencil-thin eyebrows went for each other like vicious vipers. "Cookies?"
"They look like Oreos."
"Let me see," Cheeta said, jumping up and down.
"How?"
"On your knees, buster."
The cameraman obliged. He got down on all fours and grunted manfully as Cheeta Ching impaled his broad back with stiletto heels, designed to make her stand taller than any interviewee under six feet.
Over the bobbing heads of the crowd, Cheeta beheld a remarkable sight.
The white Mercedes coasted up to the church steps. Gang members were walking along either side. Out of a rear window, a brown hand was passing out dark Oreo cookies.
The smiling gang members accepted these eagerly and passed them around. A few shot clenched fists into the air.
"Esperanza's our main man! Esperanza's our main man!"
Presently, the Mercedes rolled to a halt. The gang members lined up in two protective rows between the rear door and the podium that had been erected for the speech.
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza emerged, smiling. He walked down the path made for him, as the media surged toward the spectacle.
Cheeta leaped off the cameraman's back, crying, "Get off your knees, you idiot! We're missing the shot of our careers!"
By the time they reached the car, Enrique Esperanza had made it to the podium. He wore white.
He began speaking.
"I have come here to make a speech," Enrique Esperanza began.
A hush fell over the crowd.
"But I will not make a speech," Esperanza said.
A murmur went through the crowd.
"Instead, I will have the fine young men of South Central speak for me."
Enrique Esperanza waved to his honor guard. A black youth in Blood colors took the podium.
"My name is Jambo Jambone X, and until this morning I never heard of Mr. Esperanza. But now that I have met the dude, I see that I got hope. No more gangbanging for me. No more crack. From now on I eat Oreo cookies and go to school. Oreos taste better than crack, anyway."
Nervous applause rippled through the crowd.
The next to take the microphone was the leader of the Crips. He took credit for cleaning up South Central. And quickly added that his brothers from the Blood and Los Aranas had pitched in.
"Mr. Esperanza showed me my pride. I say down with crimes. Anybody doing crimes in my neighborhood had better watch out. I see any more crimes going down, and I drop a dime on his crown."
The leader of Los Aranas Espana came next. His speech was shorter and more to the point.
"I say, 'Esperanza mucho hombre.' "
Wild applause greeted this. The Aranas leader rejoined the honor guard behind the podium.
Then a smiling Enrique Espiritu Esperanza returned to the mike.
"I thank my black and brown friends for their kind words in my behalf," he said magnanimously. "They have seen their future. The multicultural future that is uniquely Californian. When I am elected, all Californians, regardless of skin color or ethnic background, will be able to coexist as friends. No more fear. No more hate. No more trouble. This, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza promises you."
From a dozen places in the crowd, placards rose. They read ESPERANZA MEANS HOPE In three languages.
The cameraman, his minicam capturing the most sensational sight in South Central since the last monthly riot, said, "Isn't this something?"
As the crowd roared its approval, Cheeta Ching looked around distractedly.
"See anything of a dreamboat named Ramiro?" she asked hopefully.
Remo Williams was in hiding.
He lay on his stomach, peering over the crumbling edge of an apartment house roof, his eyes guarded.
"Is she still there?" he asked.
"She is looking about with her magnificent feline eyes," replied the Master of Sinanju in a chill voice.
Remo scuttled away. "Get back. We don't want her to spot us."
"Speak for yourself, white," sniffed Chiun. "I only stand on this dirty roof because I know it would anger Emperor Smith were I to appear on the television."
"I'm glad you're being sensible."
"I am willing to wait until I am Exalted Treasurer of California before stepping into the lemonlight," he said.
"That's limelight, and if you get the urge to step into it, remember what happened to me the last time I got my face on TV."
Chiun retreated with alacrity, saying, "Emperor Smith would not dare to require that a Master of Sinanju submit to surgeons of plastic, as you have."
"My face still hurts from that last facelift."
Chiun stepped back even further. His nose wrinkled.
"All glory comes to him who is patient," he said quietly.
"What do you see in that witch, anyway?" asked Remo, climbing to his feet.
The Master of Sinanju turned his face toward the snowy peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains to the east. His long nails touched one another, his bony fingers splayed.
"Once," he intoned, "I was a young man."
"You and about half the human race," Remo returned.
A hand lifted. "Hush!" Chiun said sharply. "You have asked a question, and now you will hear the answer."
"I guess I asked for it . . . ."
"I was young, and the world was wide," Chiun murmured. "It was in the days when I was still a Master-in-training. Now a Master-in-training must perform many feats. Endure many hardships. Suffer much pain. One day, my father, the Master who began my training, called me into his presence and said unto me, 'My son, you must now face your severest test.'"
"I trembled, for before this I had endured much. I could not imagine what my father had in store for me. And he said, 'You must go to the city of which you have heard, many leagues from this fishing village of ours, and dwell there for one month.'"
Remo grunted. "Horrors."
"My father said that many young men before me had gone to the city and never come back," Chiun continued in an arid voice. "I asked him what dangers awaited me, and he said, 'You will not know their face until they have inflicted grievous wounds upon your soul.' And hearing these portentous words I trembled anew, for I did not comprehend this riddle.