Smith heard the phone click off in his ear. So that was that. He thought the whole thing had been a simple mistake and he would be able to buy CURE's records back from Barry Schweid. But now, with these other two in it, things had changed. Schweid was no longer just an annoyance, he was a menace. The three of them had become Remo Williams' next assignment.
Remo.
Where was Remo?
Why hadn't he called?
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The telephone rang again and Smith answered.
"Smith, this is Bruce Marmelstein."
"I thought we were done talking," Smith said.
"No, that was just for Schweid's benefit. He's a schmuck. You really want this movie?"
"Yes."
"Six hundred thousand dollars worth?" asked Marmelstein.
"Yes, I'll pay that."
"We'll save you a hundred thou. You've got a deal at 500,000 dollars. But it goes to us. That's Universal Bindle Marmelstein Mammoth Global Magnificent Productions."
"You don't own it. It's Schweid's property," Smith said.
"That doesn't matter. Tonight we'll tell him our deal fell through. We lost our backers. We'll get him to sell it to us cheap and tomorrow we'll give it to you."
"That's wonderful," Smith said.
"Good," said Marmelstein. "We're going to do the best Hammer let you ever saw."
"Hamlet?" asked Smith.
"Right. The immortal Barf of Afton. Hammerkt. Am I saying it right?"
"You're saying it fine," Smith said.
"Who needs Schweid to write Hammerkt? Everybody can write Hammerkt" said Marmelstein. "You'll have a movie to be proud of. 'Mr. Smith presents Hammerlock, a Universal Bindle Marmelstein Mammoth Global Magnificent Production.' You'll love it."
"I can't wait," Smith said.
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"You'll hear from us," Bruce Marmelstein said. "And you'll hear from me," Smith said as he replaced the phone in the darkened office.
"It happened just a few years ago," Chiun said. "About the time that Columbus was stumbling all over your country."
"Chiun, that was 500 years ago."
"Yes. So it was not long ago and there was a master then and his name was Puk. You may not believe this, Remo, but sometimes the Masters of Sinanju have not been nice. And sometimes they have not been flawless. Some have not been perfect human beings, even though you find that hard to believe."
"I'm absolutely devastated by the news," Remo said.
"As well you might be, it being so alien to your experience," Chiun said. "At any rate, this master, whose name was Puk, left the village of Sinanju one day without explanation. He told none of the villagers where he was going and none could guess.
"He was gone three years. Three years without report and without sustenance to the village and many babies were sent home to the sea then. In the old days, Remo, when we could not feed our babies, we "
"I know, Chiun," said Remo. "You drowned them and called it sending them home to the sea. I've heard it hundreds of times."
"Please don't interrupt," Chiun said. "Then one day, Puk returned to our village. He was filled with wondrous tales of the faraway land he had
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visited. It was in a place no one had ever heard of, in what you now call South America, and he told of the wonderful battles he had fought and how he had brought honor to Sinanju. And most of all, he told of how the country he had visited had a mountain of gold.
" 'So where is this bounty?' the villagers cried, and Puk said 'It is coming.' But it did not come and Puk found himself an outcast in his village with none believing him."
Remo said, "South America. That's where Hamidia is. He went to Hamidia."
"Yes," said Chiun. "But he brought back no mountain of gold. Everyone talks about mountains of gold, but no one has ever seen one, it seems. No one except Puk, that is, and who could believe Puk?"
"Is that how you learned to speak Hamidian?" Remo asked.
"That was another master some time later. He went to Hamidia, but he never mentioned any mountain of gold."
"So it's a fairy tale," Remo said.
"For all we know," said Chiun.
"Okay. What happened to Puk?"
"Puk had many assignments around Korea for the rest of his life and helped support the village but he was never truly forgiven for the terrible story he told about the mountain of gold. And when he died, there were none of the ceremonies that usually attend the death of a master. In fact, few mourned. The villagers wrote a song instead. It said, 'Puk, those who would have mourned were
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sent to the sea while you were out chasing moonbeams. If you seek mourners, go to the bottom of the sea.' "
"It's a sad story," Remo said.
"Yes," said Chiun. "Puk did work in Hamidia and didn't get paid for it. That is very sad. Anyway, when you come next to Sinanju, I will show you Puk's grave. The headstone says, 'Here lies Puk the liar. Still lying.' "
Remo left Chiun on the balcony, still shaking his head over the irresponsible liar, Puk. This time the operator got his call through quickly and Smith answered it on first ring.
Quickly, Remo filled him in on what had happened and said, "A scam, Smitty. That's all it was. I don't know why but somebody faked all those plaques and put them around. Chiun says it has something to do with some British assassins, the House of Unisex or something. Yeah, the girl's all right. I think she's mad at me for getting rid of the last Limey who tried to kill her. I don't know. She's wacky. Something about him being her dream man. Anyway, that's the bottom line. No mountain of gold. The dip is out shopping. Naturally. We'll be leaving here tomorrow. No, she doesn't know who we are."
Remo paused and listened as Smith rapid-fired instructions into the phone.
"Hold on," Remo said. "I've been halfway around the world and I need a rest. I don't want to go to Hollywood. Sure, it's important, everything's always important. No, no, no. We; We'll talk about it when I get back. Smitty, you're babbling. Ham-
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let and assassin movies and producers and points. Take a Valium. We'll talk when I get back. All right, all right, if you want them gone, they'll be gone. That make you feel better?" He listened to Smith's answer, then slammed down the phone.
"Yeah, sure," he grumbled to himself. "Thanks for telling me it was a good job. Sure. In a pig's ass. I'm tired of being unappreciated."
Sixteen
"Cuanto?" asked Terri Pomfret.
"For you, Madam, six dollars."
"Es demasiado," Terri said.
"It took many weeks to make," the merchant said. "Is six dollars too much for the work of the three women, day after day, trying to make something that they can sell at a fair price to put bread on the table for their starving children?"
"I'll give you four," Terri said. She was annoyed at herself for her lapse into English. She spoke fourteen languages, and she did not like some Spanish merchant bandit conning her out of a language she used as well as her own.
The merchant shook his head and turned his back to walk away.
That was part of the mercantile courting dance too. Terri put down the shawl she had been looking at and began to inspect a row of shirts hanging randomly from a pipe rack.
The scene was being watched by a man in a tan poplin suit. He looked around and saw that he was, in turn, being watched by a street urchin.
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The young boy was physically small, but he had the wary untrusting eyes of an adult who had lived many years.
The man in the poplin suit called him over and when the boy dutifully stood in front of him, the man leaned over to whisper in his ear. The boy listened, then nodded brightly. His eyes Sit up with pleasure, and the pleasure was redoubled when the man put two dollars into his hand.
"You are a woman without heart," the merchant said in Spanish.
Terri answered in English. "Not without brains though," she said. "Enough brains not to pay six dollars for something worth only a fraction of that. Four dollars."