"It stands to reason that since Global was the primary target of this rumor, and of the market-meltdown accidental fallout from the maneuver, then one of these companies is responsible for the plot."
"Then Remo will descend upon them and shake the truth from these devious curs," Chiun shouted.
Remo jumped up. "Me?" he asked hotly.
"I would do it myself, but I will be overseeing my vast financial empire," Chiun said importantly.
"No way," Remo said.
"I would like to go along with your idea," Smith said sincerely, "but Remo's intransigence aside, we still have the problem of his face. CURE security demands that we keep him out of the public eye."
"Which brings me to the solution I spoke of earlier," Chiun said brightly. He turned to Remo, who was still seated on the lacquered trunk. "It lies in the trunk you see before you."
"Really?" Smith asked. His eyes went to Remo.
"Search me," Remo admitted. "I don't know what's in it either. But I wouldn't get your hopes up. It smells like a taxidermist's footlocker."
"Silence," Chiun said. "You will open the trunk, Remo."
Reluctantly Remo got up and undid the brass latches. He lifted the lid.
Smith leaned forward, then, remembering that he was in a wheelchair, sent it rolling out from behind his desk.
With a flourish, the Master of Sinanju dipped both hands into the trunk and raised a shaggy brown patch of hide.
"Behold," he cried, beaming.
"It looks like a bearskin," Smith said, puzzled.
"Smells like one too," Remo put in.
"This is not ordinary bearskin," Chiun said. "For it was the hide of the terrible brown bear slain by my ancestor Master Ik."
"Named, no doubt, by the smell his kimono gave off after he returned from the hunt," Remo said smugly.
"Ik is a proud Korean name," Chiun said huffily. Smith rolled up to the skin. He fingered the hide carefully. It felt rough and scratchy. In places the fur was matted. The head was attached by a tube of skin. It lolled over the hide drunkenly, its eye sockets empty. Feet and paws hung from the main portion by furry flaps.
"What is this?" Smith asked, pointing to a beaten gold oval to which a string of bear teeth was attached in joined arcs.
"That is the symbol that will soon make the evildoers quake in their boots," Chiun said proudly. "I made it myself. "
Remo came around to the front, curious.
"That looks kinda like-" he started to say.
"Correct! The dreaded emblem of Bear-Man."
"Bear-Man?" Smith whispered. Remo started edging for the door.
"Yes!" Chiun cried. "Soon to be a registered trademark of Nostrum, Inc."
"I fail to comprehend," Smith said blankly.
Remo called back from the half-open door, "You two sort this out."
"Hold, Remo," Chiun shouted. "For this concerns you."
"No, it doesn't," Remo said quickly. "And there's no way you're getting me to put on that rug."
Sudden comprehension broke over the craggy features of Harold W. Smith.
"Ah," he said.
"You understand?" Chiun asked Smith hopefully.
"Yes, and I'm afraid I must agree with Remo. The problem with his doing investigations has to do with his conspicuousness. His face could be recognized by anyone."
"That's settled," Remo said, coming back from the door.
"Exactly," Chiun continued. "This mighty costume will convert that from a problem into a solution. And incidentally, make us all billionaires. Think of it, Smith. If Americans can believe in the fearsomeness of the lowly bat, what will they think of the awesome Bear-Man, scourge of Wall Street?"
"They will think the circus is in town," Remo said quickly. "Right, Smitty?" Smith didn't answer. His brow was furrowing in thought. Remo started to edge back toward the door again.
"It could work," Smith said slowly. It was almost inaudible, but the words reached Remo clear across the room.
Chiun turned his head. "Remo. Put this on. Show Smith how formidable a figure you cut as the mighty Bear-Man."
"I am not-repeat, not putting on that flea-bitten thing,"
Remo insisted. "It looks ridiculous."
"In my homeland," Chiun explained, "the bear is the most formidable animal. Unlike the bat, which flutters like a mere rag in the wind."
Smith looked up from his thoughts.
"It's absurd," he said, "but it could get us through the weekend. Until the stock market opens again."
"No," Remo said firmly.
"Remo, listen to me," Smith said fervently. "We have only the weekend in which to work. It may be all over by then if the stock market tumbles once more. I've a three-pronged attack in mind. I will conduct an investigation of this Crown Acquisitions, Limited by computer. Chiun will manage Nostrum, which I believe may be the target of a hostile takeover because it owns significant Global stock, without which Global cannot be merged or absorbed."
"Have no fear, Smith," Chiun said sternly. "There is no threat that I cannot fight."
"This one may be different. You've never gone up against a hostile takeover."
"I spit upon those who dare try."
"The third line of attack is to investigate those who bought up large blocks of Global stock. Remo is the perfect person to do this."
"Not me. I don't know anything about stock."
"But you do know about persuasion."
"So does Chiun. He can persuade paint off a fence."
"I must be at my desk to fend off those who would assault my office building," Chiun inserted.
"And I am bound to my desk as well," Smith said. " I would go into the field myself, but as I am now in a wheelchair, I'm afraid my effectiveness is limited. And I am still subject to weak spells. I really shouldn't be under this strain."
Chiun turned on Remo.
"Remo!" he shouted loudly. "How dare you imperil your emperor's health by your stubbornness."
"He's not my emperor," Remo said flatly. "Never was."
"Yet he needs you," Chiun said.
"Your country needs you," Smith added. "And the world. For that is what lies in the balance."
Remo's unhappy expression wavered. He looked from Chiun to the bear suit to Smith and back to the suit again. Chiun held the suit higher so that its dangling-bear-tooth emblem rattled like an Indian talisman.
"All right " Remo said at last. "I'll pitch in. For the world. Not for Smith or the organization."
"Excellent," Smith said.
"But I'm not wearing that cockamamie suit," Remo added firmly. "And that's final."
Chapter 8
Douglas Lippincott was in banking. His father had been in banking, and before that his father had been a banker.
The difference between Douglas Lippincott and his ancestors was, as Douglas Lippincott saw it, that he never foreclosed on widows and orphans.
Douglas Lippincott, president of the Lippincott Mercantile Bank, foreclosed on corporations. Douglas Lippincott was an investment banker. When he lowered the boom, individual families weren't put out on the street. Instead, entire towns went on welfare.
As a result of foreclosures, Douglas Lippincott presided over a multinational corporation that cut timber in Alaska, raised minks in California, processed shale in Kentucky, and made money everywhere else.
He was seated in his plush office sixty floors above lower Manhattan, contemplating his moral superiority over his widow-abusing forebears, when there came a crashing noise outside his office. Lippincott, of the Providence Lippincotts, was old-money. He loved old things. Although the Lippincott Building was barely a decade old, he eschewed the glass and steel of its ultramodern exterior for maple paneling and a solid oak door which shielded him from the eyes of his underlings. Thus he could not see what had caused the commotion, any more than his employees could see into the sanctity of his well-appointed office.
Lippincott ignored the crashing sound. If it was important, he knew, one of his assistants would bring it to his attention. He went back to picking his nose with a personalized silver tool handed down through generations of Lippincotts so they needn't sully their hands pursuing everyday personal hygiene.