"It's not nonsense, Remo. It happens. It's happened down through the ages, and we don't know any more about it today than we did then."
She returned to her position in front of him, leaning back against her desk. Arching backward, her pelvis was thrust out toward Remo.
He had to force himself to concentrate on business. "It's interesting," Remo said, "but it's not what I saw ... I mean, what I'm looking into."
"Which is?"
"Somebody able to ignite his own body, use it as a flamethrower to set other objects afire, then to cool his body down and walk off, without damage to or injury to himself."
"You saw this?"
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"Let's just say I know about it," Remo said. She shook her head. "I've never heard of it," she said. She looked at Remo, and excitement glowed on her face. "Never." "Trust me," Remo said. "It happens." She pursed her lips in concentration, and Remo wanted to kiss her. She looked off into space, and he wished she were looking at him.
She raised a finger as if trying to use it to find something. "Maybe . . ." she said. "Let me look." She walked quickly back to the bookshelves. As Remo watched the smooth, flowing lines of her hips and back and thighs, she pooched around from book to book on the long wooden shelf. "Got it," she said. She spun around. Her eyes were electrified.
She held the book open. "This is a book of pseudo-scientific mythology," she said. "Legends, strange reports, never nailed down by scientists. Here's one. It concerns a small group known as fire children. An oral legend thousands of years old. They were able to use their bodies as torches. Apparently, the power was passed from father to son. They laid waste the countryside . . ." "In Mongolia," Remo interrupted. She looked up from the book sharply. "Yes. That's correct. How did you know that?"
"I've heard the legend," Remo said. "From the source."
'Then you know as much as I do." She snapped the book closed. "You've really made this day interesting, Remo," she said. She put the book on the desk behind her.
He stood up to face her. "I could make it more interesting," he said. He met her eyes and smiled.
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"What exactly did you have in mind?" she said.
"I do parlor tricks," Remo said. "I have extrasensory perception. I can call every one of your little ESP cards without a mistake. Do you love me yet?"
"No. But I could learn to. Can you really do that with the Rhine cards?"
"Sure," said Remo, who wasn't sure what the Rhine cards were.
"We'll see," she said. She took a deck of cards from her desk drawer.
"I've got to warn you," Remo said. "I'm a gambler, and I can only do it when something worthwhile is at stake. What are you willing to risk?" He allowed himself to look at her bosom again.
Doctor Ledore laughed. "I'm sure you'll think of something," she said.
"Yes, I'm sure I will," said Remo. She showed Remo the deck of cards. There were twenty-five cards. Their backs were plain white. On the fronts were either circles, crosses, stars, squares, or wavy lines.
"Look at them," she said. "Five of each kind of marking. Twenty-five cards in all."
"Right," said Remo. "Twenty-five."
"Now, if you were just to guess what a card was, by chance, you'd average five right out of twenty-five. If your score is substantially higher than that, then maybe—just maybe—you have ESP. You want to test?"
"Sure," said Remo. "Shoot."
She shuffled the deck, turned her back to Remo, and laid the twenty-five cards out in a line across her desk.
She turned back.
"Before you start," Remo said, "One thing."
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"What?"
"Lock your office door. And tell your secretary no calls."
Doctor Ledore laughed again. She had a free, easy laugh that seemed to find humor where there was no humor. Remo had always found it the mark of the happy person.
But she did as Remo said, then came back and sat behind the desk. She took a pencil and paper.
"All right," she said. "You start from the left and tell me what you think the cards are."
"Am I allowed to touch the backs?" Remo said.
"You can if you wish," the parapsychologist said. "But I wish you wouldn't."
"Why?"
"Because you might be doing some kind of sleight of hand. Touching one card and peeking at another. Misdirecting me."
"Do I look like I'd misdirect you?" Remo said.
"Yes," she said.
"All right, then, I won't touch them." It was still easy. If Remo had been able to touch them, he would have been able to feel through his fingertips the slight impressions that the printing process had made on the thick cards. Not allowed to touch them, he would have to do it by eye.
He moved his chair to the end of the row of cards, so he could look down the entire row. He narrowed his field of vision, until his gaze was virtually tunneled down a narrow tube, ending at the back of the cards. He cleared his mind, to avoid outside influences, even though he found it hard to clear his mind of the scent of Dr. Ledore's perfume.
He called off the cards, one by one.
"Cross, cross, square, circle, star, star, lines,
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square, star, circle, lines, lines, square, square, circle, cross, star, square, circle, circle, cross, cross, star, lines, star."
As he called out the cards, the scientist wrote them down on her long yellow pad.
"Done?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Want to change your mind on any of them?"
"No. I'm not sure of the last two, though," he said. 'Tour perfume kept getting in my eyes."
She laughed and began to turn over the cards, reading aloud Remo's prediction.
"Cross," she read and turned the first card. It was a cross. "Cross," she read again. The next card was a cross. She began to read faster. "Square, cir-cîb, star, star . . ." Each card she called was the one she turned over. She looked at Remo in amazement. The first twenty-three were correct. She could not keep the excitement out of her voice. 'Twenty four and twenty-five, lines and star," she
said.
"Remember, I'm not sure," Remo said.
She turned the cards over. Lines and star. "You could have been," she said. "You were right." She turned and looked at Remo. Amazement was on her face. She shook her head.
Twenty-five out of twenty-five. I don't believe it. I've never seen anything like that."
"It's going to be your day for surprises," Remo said, as he stood from his chair, put bis arms around Doctor Ledore, and pressed his lips to hers.
She was tense for a moment, as if surprised, then her lips yielded and parted, and her tongue darted out J:o find Remo's. Holding her upright, he carried her toward the couch against the far wall of the
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room. She pulled her lips back from his. He placed her gently on the couch, and she began to unbutton the jersey dress. 'Twenty-five out of twenty-five," she said.
"Forget that," he said.
"I can't," she said. "Is that all you can do?"
It was Remo's turn to laugh.
"No," he said. "That's not all," and he slipped off his clothes and turned to her.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Remo and Chiun were in a light, breezy park near the foot of the St. Louis arch. Nearby was the Mississippi River, here at least partly clean with the biggest lumps removed, but still an American river, and therefore a body of water whose primary ingredient was toxic waste.
Remo wondered if one day, some river in America would self-destruct and go afire just because its chemical content had passed the tipping point. If so, he hoped that little bastard of a firebug was sitting in the middle of it in a rowboat, fishing.
"Why are you sighing?" Chiun asked. The old man was kicking his silk-slippered feet at pigeons that waddled up to him, looking for a handout of peanuts or bread.
"Because I busted it," Remo said. 'Those fire loonies got away, and now I don't have any idea where they are. And now that they know somebody's after them, they'll be holed up out of sight somewhere. How the hell do I find them?"