The article said there was a twenty-million-dollar price on the deposed Emir’s head, and the article’s title had been circled in red ink.
Remo looked through the rest of the magazine. The classified section in the front was circled in red pen. He turned to the classified section and glanced at the help wanted columns:
WANTED: FEMALE WITH ABILITY TO KILL WITH PLEASURE. RESUME AND REFERENCES NECESSARY.
The ad gave a box number.
There were ads advertising different killing specialties: throwing knives, ripping knives, crossbows, undetectable poisons, guns with special night sights.
Another item circled in red caught Remo’s eyes:
EVER KILL AN EMIR? CHECK OUT THE PRICE. (Another box number.)
ICE AN EMIR. (A box number.)
A third read:
SEND A MONARCH TO THE MORTUARY.
“Chiun,” Remo started.
“I have seen them,” Chiun said. He was reading another issue of Contract magazine. He seemed engrossed. Remo put the copy of the magazine into his back pocket and stood up to check the garage.
He went out the back door of the house and walked to the small detached garage. He saw the widow, Phyllis, in the next yard. When she saw him, her hand went naturally to her teased, blond hair.
“You couldn’t stay away, could you?” she said with a smile.
“Just checking a few more things,” he told her.
“Come in for coffee or something when you’re through. Maybe I can help you with a few things.”
“Sorry. I’m on duty right now,” Remo said.
“When you get off duty,” she said.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
She chose to take his answer as agreement, smiled, and turned back to her gardening.
Remo entered the dark garage, made black even in the daytime by the heavy plastic sheets that covered the windows.
He found an overhead light and flipped it on.
Against the far wall, he saw a large workbench. The shelves that lined the walls were filled with gadgets and devices, apparently the lifework of a committed inventor. Each item was labeled, with the date of its creation.
There were mousetraps that looked like lobster traps. There was a disco light radio. Another item was labelled “Electric Shoe Softener.” It was a big metal foot, and from its hinging, Remo guessed that when it was plugged in, the foot bent and stretched, wearing out the stiffness of any new shoe placed on the device.
Two spots were empty. The sign at one spot said “Pneumatic Nut Cracker.” The other sign read: “Electric Light Oscillator.”
The poured concrete floor of the garage was stained different colors. Some places showed the evidence of burning. In other spots, there were holes chipped into the floor. Probably all by-products of one invention or another, Remo thought.
The center of the garage was taken up with an old wreck of a car, dented, rusted, and obviously painted over quickly with a light-blue spray enamel.
Why would anyone have bothered to paint such a wreck of a car, Remo wondered. And why paint it so badly?
He leaned on the car and thought for a moment. The only reason to paint a car that quickly and carelessly was to disguise it. But what had it been before that it needed a disguise? There wasn’t much difference between an ugly, old blue car and an ugly, old red or green or black car.
Black car.
Remo turned back to the car and began to examine it carefully. In the corners around the windshield, he could see traces of a deep black paint. There were the same marks around the headlights and taillights.
He found a reasonably smooth section of fender and chipped away at it with his fingertips. He was right. Underneath the blue paint was black, and as he chipped away at more and more, he could see that the black paint was the deep, invisibility black that Chiun had found a chip of earlier.
He left the garage and went straight back to Wimpler’s house, pointedly ignoring the posturing and posing of Phyllis in her garden.
Chiun was still reading Contract.
“You were right, Chiun,” Remo said.
“Of course. What this time?”
“He must have tested his invisible paint on the old car in his garage.”
“We knew he had invented that paint.”
“But he also invented a nutcracker and something to do with electric lights,” Remo said.
“The skull-crusher and the device for burning out electric lamps,” Chiun said.
Remo nodded.
“Now that I have done all your work for you,” said Chiun, “don’t you think you owe me some small favor?”
“Such as.”
“Find out who the editor is of this magazine,” Chiun said.
“Why?”
“Because if they pay their writers for these awful tales and essays, think how proud and happy they would be to have me writing for them.”
“I don’t think they’re into Ung poetry,” Remo said.
“I am not talking about poetry, but about a different kind of beauty. They write about assassins and removals, and who could write about these subjects better than I?”
“No one, I guess,” said Remo. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had thought that Chiun had given up on trying to write for a living. But that was a mistake. Chiun had just been waiting for his chance. Writers never quit.
“Good,” said Chiun. “You find out about this publication. I will write for them and you will be my agent. Three percent of all I earn shall be yours.”
“Oh, joy,” said Remo. “I’m going to be wealthy.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEW YORK TELEPHONE Company had built its reputation on taking sixty days to install a telephone and begin service, and only sixty seconds to disconnect a phone. But in his hurried move from his Brooklyn house, Elmo Wimpler obviously had not notified the company, because the telephone in the bedroom was still turned on.
When he reached Smith, there was agitation in the CURE director’s voice.
“Where have you been?” Smith said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Easy. You’ll live longer,” Remo said. “Besides, we’ve been out here solving this case. Your killer is a little twerp named Elmo Wimpler. He invented the invisible paint. He also invented some kind of skull-crusher machine and a gadget that blows out lights. He lived next door to that Curt who got it last night, and those three guys at the Friends of Inventors had turned down his paint invention.”
“Where is he now?” Smith said.
“I don’t know. He split from his house in Brooklyn,” Remo said. “Anyway,” he continued. “That’s the good news. Now the bad news.”
“Go ahead. I’m used to it from you,” Smith said.
“There’s a magazine called Contract,” Remo said.
“I’ve heard of it.”
“We found some copies of it in Wimpler’s house. A lot of stuff in there involved killing the Emir, and he had them circled. Stories, ads and things.” Remo still had the copy of the magazine in his pocket. He took it out and read some of the ads to Smith.
“Here’s one called ‘Ice an Emir,’ “ Remo said.
“That one is mine,” Smith said.
“What?”
“I placed that one,” Smith said. “That’s what I was calling about.”
“You’re responsible for ‘Ice an Emir’? I didn’t think you had it in you,” Remo said.
“I was second in my class at Dartmouth in creative writing,” Smith said.
“Well, don’t think I’m going to be your agent, too,” Remo said. “I’ve already got a client.”
“I placed that advertisement to try to flush out anybody who might be thinking about a contract killing on the Emir,” Smith said.