"Did you ever see Bobbin with a small Oriental?" Remo asked.
She shook her head and then narrowed her eyes, looking at Remo suspiciously. "What has all this got to do with you?" she asked. "With natural resources?"
"Flamma," said Remo, "you're one of our country's greatest natural resources."
"You're right. Even better than oil, 'cause I don't run dry."
She lifted her mouth to be kissed. Remo pressed his lips against her neck and felt her shudder.
He waited until she was finished packing and put her in a taxicab for the airport. As he watched her drive away, he realized he was no closer to the assassin, and who hired him, than he had been before. But there was a feeling, too, in his stomach that that problem would soon be resolved.
Chapter thirteen
Chiun was in Wesley Pruiss's room. Pruiss had his face buried in the pillow as if to stifle some heartrending personal agony and to prevent the world from seeing his tears. Chiun was reciting the same Ung epic. Remo could tell that, as he came into the room, because Chiun was still making the same hand motions to depict a bee and a flower.
Chiun silenced Remo with an index finger upraised in warning. He had just gotten to the big dramatic part of the epic where the flower opens to greet the morning sun and the bee swoops in.
Remo waited in the doorway but Pruiss saw him and his face grew alive and animated.
"Hey, you," he called.
Chiun kept talking. Remo stood as if rooted.
"Come here, will you?" Pruiss said.
Chiun looked at Pruiss, then at Remo, then nodded toward Remo who came forward. As he passed Chiun, the old Korean shook his head sadly: "I think I've lost him somehow."
"You know what they say about casting pearls before swine, Little Father," said Remo.
Chiun went to the window and looked out as Remo stood at Pruiss's bedside. The publisher whispered to him, agonizedly, "Doesn't he ever stop?" He nodded toward Chiun.
"The only way to stop him to is make him mad at you. Tell him you like Chinese poetry better or something. That might work. It's got one drawback though."
"What's that?" Pruiss asked.
"If you make him too mad, he might just fillet you like a flounder. Where's Theodosia?"
"I don't know. I told her to reorder all those solar energy supplies. I heard about Muckley. Was it the same guy who got me?"
Remo nodded. "Andthe three bodyguards," he said.
"The oil companies are bastards," Pruiss said. "I never knew I was getting into this."
"Theo finally convinced you," Remo said.
"Yeah, Well, if they think they're going to frighten me, they got another thing coming. I got them by the short hairs," Pruiss said.
"How?"
"I signed some papers a little while ago. If I die, everything goes over to Theodosia. And I told her to tell the press that. That'll let the bastards know we're not going to be scared off. And if that sucker with the knives gets me, then Theo takes over and the energy project goes on anyway. That should make them think twice before coming after me again, right?"
"Dope," Reno said. He shook his head.
"What do you mean?"
"They killed all this many people," Remo said. "What makes you think they're going to worry about just one more? All you've done is add Theo to the target list. Where the hell is she?"
The impact of what he had done finally sank in on Pruiss. His beefy face looked strained and there were tension lines around his mouth. "It was her idea," he sputtered.
"Swell," said Remo in disgust. He wheeled away from Pruiss and went down the hall to look for Theodosia. But her room and Baya Barn's were empty. He searched the woman's room; his motel room key was gone.
"Chiun, I'm going to look for Theo. I think she might be next."
"I will stay here," Chiun said. "This one has not yet heard the ending of my poem."
"Go," Pruiss said in desperation. "Save Theo," he told Chiun.
"A loving heart is the mark of all good men," Chiun said. "But I will stay here nevertheless. You go, Remo. My place is here."
The only vehicle parked downstairs was the Pruiss ambulance and Remo hopped into it and sped from the driveway.
From a vantage point in the trees across from the house, the assassin watched him go. And hoped he would return soon.
Remo pulled the ambulance into the motel parking lot and ran toward the two rooms he and Chiun had shared when they first reached town.
The door to Chiun's room was unlocked and Remo stepped inside. The room was empty.
He turned to leave and then stopped as he heard voices from the adjoining room. He stepped to the connecting door between the rooms.
He heard a telephone being replaced on the receiver.
Then he heard Baya Barn's voice. "Now we can leave," Rachmed said. "And start our new lives together."
"Yeah, sure," come Theodosia's voice in answer. Her voice was surly and bitter.
"What is it, sweet missssss?" asked Baya Bam. "What troubles you?"
"Look, Rachmed," she said, very briskly. "Our business deal is over. You were supposed to con Wesley into going ahead with the sun energy project. You did it. That's it. Cold cash. Nothing else."
There was a sinking feeling in Remo's stomach as he listened, and then the feeling seemed to swell back up and turn into a bitter burning anger.
"But our love?" Rachmed said. Remo heard Theodosia laugh. Suddenly everything had become very clear.
"Love?" Theodosia said. "Come off it."
Remo slammed the heel of his hand against the door. It shuddered on its hinges, then swung back into the next room.
"That's right, Rachmed," Remo said as he stepped inside. Theodosia turned to him, her face startled. "She never loved you. You're not her type. No man is. Isn't that right, Theodore?"
Theodosia ran toward him. "Oh, Remo," she said. "I've been so worried." He could almost hear her mind clicking as she thought of what story might work. "We heard the assassin had been seen over here and we..."
"Nice try," Remo said. He pushed her away, hard, and she fell back onto the bed.
"Ssssir, you are no gentleman," Rachmed hissed.
"Quiet, pimp. You're so dumb you don't even know this bull dyke conned you."
Rachmed looked stupidly confused.
"That's right," said Remo. "Conned. She used you to keep Pruiss involved in the solar energy thing. Then she kept telling him the oil people were after him, and when she got him fired up enough, he signed a paper she gave him that turned everything over to her if anything happens to him. Isn't that right, Theo?"
She looked up at Remo and a hard glint came into her deep brown eyes. She nodded.
"But our love?" Baya Bam pleaded to her.
"Where'd you get him?" Remo asked. "He's got a loose upper-plate."
"He comes cheap," Theodosia said. "You don't. But you don't have any more brains than he's got. When did you catch on?"
"I didn't," Remo said. "When you were cold during sex, I should have gotten a clue about you. But I didn't. It was only today. Flamma said something about the lesbian around Pruiss. She called you 'Theodore.' It didn't register. You know I came here to save you? I still didn't know until I heard you two talking."
The woman glanced at her thin gold wristwatch.
"Waiting for someone?" Remo asked. "Maybe your assassin?"
Theodosia shook her head, a vicious smile spreading her lips wide.
"No," she said slowly. "He's not coming here. Right now, he should be walking into Wesley's house to do the job right this time. No near-misses like I contracted for the first time. In about five minutes, I give or take a couple, Wesley should be dead."