A weak voice croaked, "Remo. Smith. Call me. Urgent."
Beep.
"Remo. This is Harold Smith. As soon as you are back, contact me the usual way."
The voice was stronger now.
Six messages later the voice of Harold Smith was quite strong. And very annoyed.
The Master of Sinanju had entered by this point.
"Sounds like Smith to me," Remo told him.
"Yes, it does sound like Smith," Chiun admitted.
"Sounds like he's still with us."
"The ronin," said Chiun, shaking his head. "It only sounds like Smith. He has disguised his voice."
Beep.
"Call me at Folcroft. Please."
"How many 1's in that message?" Remo asked Chiun.
"Four."
"Japanese have trouble with their 1's. Don't tell me different. That's Harold Smith."
Chiun's face puckered up. His eyes narrowed. His fingers clenched and unclenched. All except the right index finger, which he kept curled.
"Go outside," he spit. "Call Fortress Folcroft from a pay telephone. If he lives, say nothing of the ronin to him. If it is a trick, you will know it because the answering voice will say 'moshi moshi.'"
"What is a moshi moshi?" Remo asked.
"A Japanese hello."
"I'll be back," said Remo, popping down the stairs.
Chiun called after him, "If you are ambushed, at least you have no fingernails to lose. But mind that you retain your fingers. If you lose one, I will never speak to you again."
"What if he throws a finger in my face?"
"Better you lose a finger than allow the House to be doubly shamed. If you lose a finger, throw it back in his face, Remo."
"Do thumbs count?" Remo wondered aloud.
"Mine, yes. Yours, not at all. Now go."
Remo went out the rear entrance and crossed the street to the Oriental market at the intersection of three streets. There was a pay phone bolted to the brick building. Slipping a dime into the slot-Massachusetts had to be the last state in the Union where the pay phones took dimes-Remo leaned on the 1 button.
He waited for the automatic connection.
The phone never rang. Instead, Smith's lemony voice said, "Remo?"
"I didn't hear it ring," Remo said suspiciously.
"That sometimes happens."
"How can you pick up a phone before it rings?" Remo asked, all the time matching the lemony voice against his memories of Harold Smith's distinctive voice.
"It did ring. On this end. The phone company has instituted a policy of dissynchronous rings. The ring you hear on your end of the line is not the ringing on this end."
"Why would they do that?" Remo asked, thinking it sure sounded like Harold Smith. Right down to the constipated consonants.
"It is to foil persons calling relatives long-distance and hanging up after one or two rings as a signal they have arrived safely. The phone company's lines were being used without charge."
"They sound as cheap as you," Remo said.
Harold Smith cleared his throat. "Actually it is very thrifty of them."
"It is you, Smitty!" Remo exploded.
"Who else would it be?" Smith asked querulously.
"We heard about the train wreck and went bombing down. Three different people said you died."
"A man named Howard Smith was killed. Coincidence."
"Well that coincidence cost me my Dragoon. Someone stole it while we were combing the wreckage."
Smith groaned. Then he said, "I must ask you to return to the wreck."
"Why?"
"My briefcase was, er, left behind."
"I know. I salvaged it."
"You have it!" Smith's voice skittered on the dangerous edge of sounding pleased, and Remo's suspicions flared up again.
"Yep. Figured I couldn't let it fall into innocent hands."
"Its secrets are invaluable."
"Actually it's as wet as a drowned cat. I was thinking of the rescue workers who would've been maimed if they tried to pick the lock."
"It would have served them right," Smith said flatly.
"Spoken like a man with a new lease on life. You know, Smitty, I hear about people having close shaves who see the world differently afterward. I guess we can't add you to that happy list."
"I had a near-miss. Near-misses do not count. The world has not changed in my absence."
"Well, Chiun and I thought you were dead."
"I am not dead. And I have an assignment for you."
"What's that?"
"These train derailments. It is time we looked into them."
"Just because you nearly died in one? Aren't we a little behind the curve?"
"I have been following them for over a year. I suspect sabotage."
"I suspect mismanagement. Didn't the government get involved in Amtrak years ago?"
"It is a quasi-governmental agency."
"Isn't that kinda like being semipregnant?"
"Freight lines are suffering, as well. There was a derailment in Texarkana the night before last. I want you and Chiun to go there."
"What are we looking for?"
"According to the preliminary NTSB report, they cite human failure on the part of the engineer. The report hadn't been released to the public, but I would like you two to look into it. You will be Department of Transportation agents. Liaise with the NTSB chief investigator. He was very quick to cite drugs. Too quick. I would like to know more."
"Want us to hold him upside down and shake the truth out of him?"
"Be discreet."
"Chiun will be wearing a flaming red kimono trimmed with silver-and-gold salamanders. That discreet enough for you?"
"Why are you being so testy, Remo?"
Remo leaned against the brick. "Oh, I don't know. I guess thinking you were dead and finding out I kinda missed your sour old puss put me in a mournful mood. Now I wish you'd go back to being dead. I liked you better dead."
"I am not dead. Go to Texarkana. Report as needed."
"And happy rebirth day to you, too," said Remo, hanging up.
BACK AT THE BELL TOWER, Remo broke the news to the Master of Sinanju.
"Bad news. Smith is alive."
"He gave you the secret password, naturally?"
"What secret password?"
"Arrgh! You failed to verify it was Smith! Must I do everything myself?"
"Believe me, it's Smith. Two minutes into the conversation, I started hating the sound of his voice and he gave us a dippy assignment."
"What assignment?"
"We're looking into the train derailments, starting in Texarkana."
"I do not know that place."
"Oh, believe me, Chiun. You'll love Texas. And Texas will love you."
"Is that one of the flat, square provinces far to the west where the buffalo roam and the roughnecks play"
"The phrase is rednecks and I'm sure we'll bump into a few of those."
"We will go because we are obliged to go. And Texas will be the last place the faceless ronin will seek us."
"Let's go," said Remo as Chiun turned to pick over his steamer trunks. They were half-packed. The open ones spilled elaborate brocaded kimonos, tatami mats and many of the papyrus scrolls Chiun had brought from Sinanju, on which were inscribed the inked histories of his village.
"You will take the silver trunk with the lapis lazuli phoenixes."
Remo groaned. "Not that one again."
"Do not drop it, and above all do not open it under any circumstances."
"Didn't I lug this thing across half of Mexico last time out?"
"Now you will lug it to exotic Texarkana, where men's necks are red and never a discouraging word is heard."
"I think I'm going to rewrite that last part of the song," grumbled Remo, lifting the trunk onto his shoulders.
Chapter 11
Melvis O. Cupper didn't like what he was hearing.
"No drugs," the Texarkana medical examiner was saying.
They were in the county morgue. The body of Southern Pacific engineer Ty Hurley lay on the porcelain autopsy table, his head and a few disconnected parts piled at the top of the table, above the main portion of his torso.