"I feel like a porter," Remo had said, loading the large colorful trunks into the car. "Could you make it on one less trunk, maybe?"
To this question, Chiun had had a sudden attack of only being able to speak Korean, and since Remo had picked up some Korean over the years, Chiun could speak only a Pyongyang dialect which Remo did not know.
As they neared the demonstration site, Chiun's English naturally unproved, especially when he found an excuse to repeat the legend of Sinanju. He also had a question. Where could he change paper money for real money, gold?
"Where'd you get paper money?" asked Remo.
"It's mine," said Chiun.
"Where? You picked it up in that poolroom in East St. Louis, didn't you?"
"It belongs to me," said Chiun.
"You played pool for it, didn't you? Didn't you? You gambled."
"I did not gamble. I educated."
"I remember this big harangue you gave me once. The wasting of my talents on games. How when you put your skills to something frivolous, you lose your skills. I mean, you made it sound like I was betraying Sinanju itself. You even told me about your teacher and the balls that could go in all directions. I remember that. I was never to use my skills in gambling."
"There is nothing worse," said Chiun solemnly, "than a talky white man." And he would say no more on the subject.
It was not hard to find Jordan. Remo told one of the girls handing out Wondergrain brochures that he was a magazine writer and he wanted to see Jordan.
Jordan came trotting, fuschia Palm Beach suit, a tie of woven mud and silver, capped teeth, and plastic black hair, wondering in basso profundo how best he could be of service. Remo wanted an interview.
"Mr. Fielding, the great agricultural genius of our times, is busy now but you can see him after NBC News tonight. As of today, you will be speaking to a world figure. That's the whole world."
"The round one?" said Chiun, folding his long hands before himself.
"I want to talk to you, not Mr. Fielding," said Remo.
"Anything to be of help. Mr. Fielding will be ready at 8:30 tonight after his worldwide exposure on NBC. I must run now."
But Jordan did not run far. In fact, he did not run at all. Something was holding the padded shoulder of his fuschia jacket.
"Oh, me. You want to interview me. Fine," said Jordan.
A loudspeaker crackled with a Western voice explaining the limitations of available land as Remo went with Jordan into the smaller of two tents, used as a press shed. Chiun stayed to hear the lecture because, as he explained, he was an expert on starving peoples. Just fifteen hundred years ago…
Two reporters hung, passed out drunk, over a small couch near the press bar. The bartender washed glasses. Remo refused an offered drink and sat down with Jordan across from a typewriter.
"Ask away. I'm at your disposal," said Jordan.
"You most certainly are, Giordano," said Remo. "Why did you have those commodities men killed?"
"I beg your pardon," said Jordan, his black eyes blinking under indoor fluorescent.
"Why did you have Willoughby killed?"
"Willoughby who?" said Jordan evenly.
Remo pressured a knee cap.
"Eeeeow," Jordan wheezed.
The reporters woke up and seeing it was just a simple assault went back to sleep. The bartender, a giant of a man with shoulders like doorways, leaped over the bar with a thick three-foot wooden stick. With a massive swing from his heels he brought the club down on Mr. Jordan's assailant. There was a resounding crack. The crack was the stick; the head was still untouched. The bartender brought a fist smashing toward the assailant's face. The fist felt like it was deflected by a small gust of air and then there was a very funny sting under the bartender's nose and he felt very much like going to sleep. He did, underneath a desk.
"You didn't answer me," said Remo.
"Right," said Jordan. "Answer you. Answer you. Willoughby. I seem to remember the man. Commodities man. Willoughby."
"Why did you have him killed?"
"Is he dead?" said Jordan, massaging his knee.
"Very," said Remo.
"The good die young," said Jordan.
Remo put a thumb on Jordan's throat. It brought the truth out of the man. Gagging, but the truth. Willoughby was killed because he was threatening the greatest agricultural advance in the history of mankind. In the history of mankind.
"What other history is there?" asked Remo.
Willoughby had evidence that the grain market was artificially depressed. Willoughby did not know why but he suspected something big. It was hard to breathe. Would the stranger release his throat grip?
"Whew," said Jordan getting all the oxygen he needed. "Thank you," he said and straightened his tie and brushed flat his fuschia suit. "Vito, Al," he yelled. "Will you come here a minute?" And to Remo he confided they could help explain some things. Willoughby wasn't the only one, nor were there just commodities brokers. There were some construction men too. And oh, yes, said Jordan when two large men in silk suits with heavy bulges at the shoulders entered, there would soon be a reporter who couldn't keep his hands to himself.
Hearing "hands to himself" one of the reporters in a boozy slumber said, "I'm sorry, Mabel. You've got to realize I respect you as a person."
"Vito, Al. Kill this sonuvabitch," said Jordan.
"Right here, Mr. Jordan?" said Al, drawing a large square .45 with pearl insets on the handle.
"Yes."
"In front of the reporters?"
"They've passed out," said Jordan.
"You said it, boss," said Vito. "Maybe we should use a silencer?"
"Good idea," said Jordan, hobbling to his men. "I have important things to do. Don't worry about police. It's self-defense. Defend yourselves."
Remo idly listened to this, drumming on a typewriter roll with his fingertips, legs crossed, leaning back in a chair. When Al aimed the bolstered barrel of a small automatic at him, Remo centered his weight and just in case Chiun might be looking into the press tent, he kept his left wrist very straight behind the typewriter carriage. He had one worry. The chair. But as his spine pressed down suddenly into the chair, it held. That was good. And his left hand was perfectly straight from palm to forearm.
Al was squeezing the trigger when he saw and felt simultaneously the silenced automatic come back into his chest along with something else. It was heavy. He felt himself jammed into a desk. A Royal Standard was in his chest along with, he guessed, the automatic. At least that was where his arm ended and the last time he had seen the gun a fraction of a second before. The return arm of the carriage was jammed into his right ear. The black roller was into where his nose bone had been. He found breathing impossible, largely because his right lung was flat. Which was all right too because the heart didn't need oxygen anymore since his left aorta supplied only a space bar and the right ventricle ended at "D," "F," and "G."
"Keep down the frigging noise, will you?" said one of the reporters. "I'm trying to work." The reporter rolled over on a desk, fluffing a raincoat for a softer rest for his head.
"Jeez," said Vito.
He said it again. "Oh, Jeez," and without silencer he squeezed the trigger of his .45 and kept on squeezing. Unfortunately his target had moved. So had the .45. It was in his mouth and before everything went black forever, which was very quickly, he was amazed at how little it hurt. Sort of one loud sting in the back of his head.
Jordan watched the back of Vito's head splatter against the new fuchsia suit and onto the imported tie with the silver and mud weave.
"We should talk," said Jordan. "Let us reason together."