Suddenly the sheriff's skin was on fire, and even the words couldn't control it. No, he didn't know what any big plan was, just that there was something big going to happen, and every one of the followers was going to be happy forever and ever and ever. And, no, he wasn't sure of the arch-priest's name. But he could be reached at a storefront in San Diego, a small Divine Bliss Mission. Yes, he was sure he didn't know the name. The guy just phoned him once.
"Anything else you can think of?" came the voice from above.
"Nothing," said the sheriff, and then he went on his last bliss of a trip. Total relaxation. Lights out.
Remo stepped away from the body.
"He did not mention Sinanju," said Chiun. "But we do not have to let Smith know that."
"What are you angling for now?" asked Remo. "What did you tell Smith?"
"In the car, the emperor demanded to know about the ancient Sinanju records, and feeling loyalty to him, just as you do…"
"You don't feel loyalty."
"Feeling loyalty, just as you do, knowledge of the ancient records was forced out of me."
"Like wet out of a baby," said Remo.
"And I told Emperor Smith that we had records in Sinanju of the lineage of this Blissful Master creature, whoever he is."
"Just in case one lie didn't get you a free trip back home, another might."
"And Emperor Smith asked me if I remembered what the records said."
"And you couldn't, but if you got a good look again, it would all come back."
"I think that was it. Sometimes my memory fails me; You understand."
"I understand that first we're going to the San Diego mission."
There were mumblings in Korean about ingratitude and how only the most heartless of persons would deny a dying man a trip back home.
"You're dying, Little Father?" asked Remo, eyebrow cocked in an expression of suspicion.
"We're all dying," said Chiun. "Death is but the handmaiden of life."
"I thought it was something like that," said Remo.
At the car, Smith was dozing; the parched face seemed truly relaxed.
"He's your man," Remo told him.
"Did you get a lead?"
"To Sinanju," said Chiun quickly.
"With a stop in San Diego," said Remo.
"Good," said Smith. "I guess we're most afraid of the unknown, and this thing frightens me because we don't know just what it is. You didn't get any indication of what was going to happen, did you?"
"Just something big."
"I believe we have read the prophecy of the ancient Blissful Masters," said Chiun. "It is not clear, but there was to come a time that a calamitous… let me see, a calamitous calamity was to be started, and it would come quickly once it was decided upon. That is what I remember. The rest of it is back in Sinanju."
"You know we might be able to airdrop you two directly into Sinanju by tomorrow," said Smith.
"The sub will do," said Remo. "After the stop in San Diego."
"Chiun knows about these things. You've got to listen to him," said Smith.
"And I know about Chiun. You've got to listen to me. The Master of Sinanju knows what he chooses to know. And what he chooses not to know is sometimes more effective."
"I don't understand that," said Smith.
"Remo just pledged his loyalty thrice over," said Chiun, and now he was angered with his pupil. One did not tell emperors too much about one's real business.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Blissful Master, Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor, chosen by the force of the universe, born of that which had been born before and would be born again, heard the warnings from his priests and arch-priests. He listened from the golden pillow throne to this worry and that worry. Heard his women and his men tell of tales of this follower lost and that one killed. Heard, he did, of warnings from the east. Heard supplications that he delay, if only for a year, the big plan of which he sometimes spoke and which all knew would soon come to pass.
Women with heads shaved, and women with but the forelock left, and women with their hair full around their shoulders pressed their foreheads to the mosaic floors. Sweet incense rose from silver and ruby bowls. New flowers graced the mosaic ceiling.
And the Blissful Master spoke.
"Frankly, I don't need this shit. If you want to know where I'm at, that's where I'm at." His voice was squeaky fifteen, his round face glistened with sweat, his small mustache struggled hopelessly over a young brown lip.
"O Chosen One, O Perfect One, would that you would not turn your perfect face from us. Would that you would consider our supplication," said a man with wizened brown face, an Ilhibad hill tribesman who had come down from the hills with his brothers to serve the father of the Blissful Master and who now served the son, for did not the son have the spirit of the father, and was not the spirit perfect, the way it would lead, the perfection it enjoyed, proof of the force itself that kept the community of faithful alive and fruitful and growing. And especially growing.
"Consider again," said the man.
"Consider. Consider. Consider," chanted the throng.
"All right, what's your name, let's hear it again," said Maharaji Dor to the brown man who was an arch-priest. The old buzzard had been around since Dor could remember, and he was tired of the dippy advice. "Go ahead, what's your name."
"Is it not written that there are three proofs of our truth?"
"Hey, sweetie, I run this lashup. You don't have to go back to basics with me. I'm the Blissful Master."
"First," said the arch-priest, his brown hands arching above his head, "is the proof of reality, of that which is. We are. That is proof number one."
"That's also a proof for Disneyland and the Taj Mahal," mumbled Dor to no one in particular. His eyes settled on the pale neck of the girl who had gotten that black Baptist, Powell, out here with her letter. Why was that man's name plaguing him? Of all the ministers he had seen here, of all the people he had met, that name stuck. He looked at the neck and remembered the Reverend Mr. Powell and, looking at the lines of the young thigh stretched against the pink sari, he thought it might be nice to bed again with what's her name.
"Proof two is that for generations we have always had a Blissful Master."
"Which would prove the Catholic Church more than it would us," mumbled the maharaji.
"And third, and final, absolute proof, we have grown, always grown. From a handful of the enlightened in your great grandfather's day, to more in your grandfather's day, to a large community in your father's day, and now to the worldwide enlightenment in your day. These are the proofs."
"Hail, Blissful Master. Hail him who brings peace and happiness, hail the truth in man's form," chanted the throng.
"All right, all right," said the maharaji.
"Thus we ask, lest wrong ideas about our growth cloud your truth, let us postpone your great plan for but a year until we are more secure from the negative forces," said the arch-priest.
"If we wait until all the negative forces are gone, we'll be sucking our thumbs here in Patna for another generation."
"But a follower has been killed in a disturbing way, a follower who carried arms."
"What was he doing with a gun? I assume it was a gun?"
"He was a sheriff. A man of one of the many governments in America. An enlightened one who had seen the true way."
"I'm sorry to hear that. We are deeply grieved that one of our true ones has suffered an ill fate physically. However, he has had in his life more happiness than those who have not been enlightened. Let us be thankful for his brief happiness. Next case."