Remo suddenly realized they'd stopped. "Hurry up," he ordered the driver.
"I'm sorry, sir," the limo driver apologized. "The freeway's clogged."
Craning his neck over the driver's shoulder, Remo saw that it was true. Bumper-to-bumper traffic extended as far as the eye could see. At this rate, it would take forever to get to Taurus. By the time he got there, anything could have happened. "Dammit, Chiun," Remo barked.
Tortilli shot him a worried glance. "Did you say Chiun?" he asked, voice betraying concern.
Remo raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Why?"
Tortilli bit his cheek. "Oh, no reason," he said with forced casualness. Tugging the creases from the knees of his purple pants, he leaned forward. He rapped his knuckles on the lip of the lowered privacy screen.
"Hurry up," he whispered urgently to the limo driver.
When he glanced back at Remo, his smile was weak.
THE WARDROBE TRAILER for Chiun's film had been stuffed mostly with police uniforms gathered from the main wardrobe department of Taurus Studios. Since the film wasn't a period piece, the street clothes the bit players and extras wore onto the lot were generally usable for any given scene. Even so, there were still a few costumes other than uniforms hanging on the racks. These mostly consisted of ordinary suits. The wardrobe mistress directed the Master of Sinanju to one of these.
"It'll be a little big on you, but we can fix you up," she assured him, holding out the doublebreasted suit.
Chiun looked first at the suit, then at the woman. "You are joking," he said dryly, as if she'd just asked him to crawl into the belly of a dead horse. "I will not wear that."
The wardrobe mistress was surprised by his strong reaction. "It's just a suit, sir," she stressed.
"'Just' is correct," Chiun sniffed. "The Master of Sinanju does not wear 'just' an anything. The garment defines the man. I am defined by more than just a 'just.'"
Spinning, he marched boldly over to the racks of police uniforms. "I would wear one of these," he proclaimed after an instant's inspection.
The woman laughed, assuming the tiny Asian was making a joke. After all, he'd make about as convincing a police officer as Wally Cox. But when she saw his withering glare, the laughter died in her throat.
"I guess that's okay," she ventured slowly as she replaced the plain gray business suit on the rack. "But any of those would have to be taken in to fit you, as well."
"Yes, yes," Chiun dismissed. He stroked his wisp of beard as he made his way down the line of blue uniforms.
The wardrobe mistress trailed behind him. She'd indulge the little man, even though it didn't really matter. Whatever he picked out, it would absolutely not make it into the finished film. She was only supposed to keep the old nuisance busy. This in mind, she forced a patient expression as she stood at Chiun's shoulder.
As he walked, Chiun periodically reached out to feel material. A sleeve here, a lapel there. He harrumphed his disapproval each time.
At the far end of the rack, the Master of Sinanju stopped abruptly. "This is my costume," he gasped, ecstatic.
Grasping hands stuffed deep into the rack, from the knot of uniforms, he extracted an ornate outfit. Gold piping surrounded the cuffs. Matching braids hung from epaulets on each shoulder. It looked as if it hadn't seen the light of day since the silent era.
"That's a little out of date," the woman warned.
"Fashion is fleeting, but style is timeless," Chiun sang happily. He thrust the uniform at the woman. "Tailor it."
The wardrobe mistress bit her tongue. "Whatever you say, sir," she said tightly. She gathered the material in her arms.
"I will endeavor to find more to complement my costume," Chiun chimed. Face gleeful, he dived back into the racks.
As the wardrobe woman turned from the squealing lump of bouncing costumes, she had already made an important career decision. If this uniform actually made it into the final print, she would petition to have her name struck from the film's credits. For the survival of the uniform into the finished print would be a sign of something much larger. A box-office bomb.
Eyeing the garish uniform, she doubted her career would survive an explosion of that magnitude.
"I THINK he's gonna be gone for a while," William Scott Cain said in a hoarse whisper. Sweat dotted his upper lip.
The simple boom shot they'd just finished had taken more than forty minutes. The crew was setting up to film the same shot from a different angle.
Lester Craig nodded anxiously. Cold perspiration stained his underarms. "Now would be a good time," he hissed. "While they're busy."
"The setups aren't taking long," whispered another extra, whose truck bomb had been parked closest to the outdoor set on which they stood. Nervous red blotches had erupted all across his chiseled face and tanned neck. "They could be ready any minute."
All nine of the bombers wanted desperately to leave, yet not one of them moved. Fear of the crazed Asian screenwriter rooted them in place. Lester's panicked eyes scanned the New York set. There was still no sign of the psycho Korean. "Look," he said reasonably. "We don't have a whole hell of a lot of time to get out as it is. Either we get blown to bits or he kills us as we try to escape."
"He's so damn fast, though," someone said softly.
"And he sneaks up on you like a frigging cat," another offered. "I bet he's out there right now. Watching us."
Nine pairs of worried eyes scanned the area. Lester shook his head sharply. "This is ridiculous. We're gonna be blown up, for Christ's sake. I'm taking my chances."
Shoulders tensed, he took a single sidestep from the group. The rest of the men held their breath. Nothing happened. The demented old Asian who had filled their lives with fear for days didn't come swooping like an angry hawk out of the shadows. Lester took another hesitant step. Then another. The crew failed completely to notice, they were so occupied with their own tasks.
Lester made his increasingly rapid way through the cluster of technical and service people toward the edge of the set.
He was home free. It was clear the old man wasn't hiding nearby after all. The fuse was lit for the rest.
They had almost no time left.
The remaining extras went from zero to sixty in one second. They flew-running, shoving, screaming-across the set. Scripts and wires flew everywhere. Booms toppled into cameras in their frantic rush for safety.
A cameraman was pushed into Arlen Duggal. Staggering, he looked up in time to see his handful of extras fleeing the set like the people of Pompeii before the rushing lava.
Even as he shouted after them, his first thought was that Chiun had returned to the set. But the old Korean was nowhere to be seen. And soon neither were his extras.
THE FREEWAY CONGESTION gave way near an offramp. It was a mad dash to the Hollywood studios of Taurus. To Remo, the time spent in the limo seemed longer than the plane ride that had preceded it.
Remo was greatly relieved to see the familiar broad white walls of the studio and the huge silver water tower rising high above the lot. He had feared they'd find nothing more than a smoking crater.
The limo squealed to a stop at the main gates. Unimpressed by one limousine in a town of thousands, the guard on duty was taking his time walking from his shack until Quintly Tortilli shoved his frantic, knotted face out the back window. "Get your fat ass out of the way!" the director screamed, squinting against the bright sunlight.
The guard recognized him at once. Running into the booth, he raised the wooden arm. As the limo sped onto the lot, Tortilli smiled tightly at Remo. "Fame has its perks," he said.
"Yeah," Remo replied. He was already scanning for the Master of Sinanju. "It gets you into the belly of a bomb that much faster."