"Ridiculous," was Skouratis' response to newspaper reporters. He answered with a little smile, as if the comment really were ridiculous.
And he was trapped. He knew Aristotle Thebos was correct. So did Aristotle. So did anyone else in the world who knew shipping. But it was only seventy-two thousand dollars a week, and it was worth seventy-two thousand dollars not to let Thebos have the last laugh on him. Only seventy-two thousand dollars a week. He could live with it for a while. The awhile became years—until lunch with an African diplomat one day in New York City, when Demosthenes Skouratis realized what he would do. He would be famous for it, great for it. Aristotle Thebos would die from envy. Die from it.
Skouratis had kissed the pimply black cheek of the African diplomat and danced around the table at the restaurant. The African diplomat had looked bewildered—until Demosthenes explained to him what he would do.
By the time the United States State Department found out about it, it was too late.
"Are they kidding? They're lunatics."
The officer who said that was talking about the United Nations. And everyone in the State Department agreed with him.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he was supposed to enter the room after the lights were turned out. He had been told everything was arranged which, nowadays he knew, meant that he had probably been given only the right name of the city—Washington, D.C.—and the right name of the building—State Department—and possibly the right room—B Level, 1073.
So there he was outside of B Level, 1073 and the lights were bright enough to film the whole thing and the room was buzzing in a half dozen different languages and some clerk with a gun on his belt and a badge on his chest and a whipped look on his face, as though he were trying to get through life without another incident to rob him of his pride, was telling him he either had to show identification now and enter, or never enter at all.
"No one goes in when the lights go off."
"Thanks," said Reino, and kept moving. He had been told he was not supposed to attract attention to himself, and he had been told that he would have been briefed privately but there was neither the time nor the extensive assistance the organization used to be able to provide.
What extensive assistance Remo was not sure. In the old days, before headquarters had been closed down in America, he had been given identity documents and "upstairs" had told him this person or that person was doing this thing or that thing and he could always get into government offices without trouble. Someone would always be waiting for him, not knowing who he was but knowing he should be allowed here or there without hindrance.
But that was in the old days. Millions spent on very little. These days, things were different.
With a dime, Remo phoned a number written on a piece of newspaper.
"The lights are on," he said.
"Do you have the right room?" The voice was lemony and tight, as if the speaker's jaw hinges had been packed with sand.
"B Level, 1073," Remo said.
"Correct. You should be admitted with the lights off."
"That's what you told me before."
"I'd say, work it out yourself, but we can't afford an incident."
"Swell," said Remo. He lounged against the wall, a thin man in gray slacks and dark turtleneck and a pair of sandallike loafers he had picked up in a shop off Via Plebiscite while doing work in Europe.
He was home now in America and, except for his too-casual clothes, he looked like anyone else with a B-Level pass.
If one looked closer, however, he would see the way Remo moved; he would notice the inner balance that was always with him and the quiet of his breath, and the dark catlike eyes and the wrists as thick as forearms.
And it would still be possible to mistake him for what he was not. Men often thought they had met just a quiet man whose mind was really someplace else.
For women, the reaction was different. They sensed the power in Remo and chased him, driven by even more than the satisfaction they knew he could give them, by some primordial urge to carry the man's seed, as if he alone could insure the survival of the whole race.
To Remo, this attention was getting annoying. Where the hell were all these women when he was nineteen years old and would spend a half month's salary on a fancy dinner and a show and get maybe a kiss? What bothered Remo so very much was not that he had paid so much for so little as a youth, but that he was not a youth now, when sex was easier to come by.
He had expressed this regret one day to Chiun, a Korean more than four score years old, who answered: "You were the richer in your search than those in their achievement. For those who indulge with ease, it is of little value. But for those who seek and make it a great triumph, then it is richer."
He had been told that as he achieved more life force, his problem would not be getting women but keeping them away from him.
"I don't see, Little Father," he had told Chiun, "how casting a hand blow is going to get me a piece of ass."
"A what?"
"A piece of ass."
"Disgusting," said Chiun. "Horrible. Horrid. White dialect manages to be degrading without being specific. I will tell you now and this is so. Sex is but an element of survival. Only when survival does not become a major problem, only when people are under the illusion they are safe from the normal terrors of life, only then does sex appear to be something else. First, perfect survival. Women will know and they will be attracted to you."
"I do okay," Remo had said defensively.
"There is nothing you do okay. Nothing about you is adequate, especially your perceptions of yourself."
"Go spit in a rain barrel," Remo had said.
"He who attempts to transform mud into diamonds should expect to have to wash his clothes often," Chiun had said, and this had bothered Remo because he had known that he was wrong and had spoken out of turn that day so long ago.
He waited for an answer, cupping the pay-phone receiver on his shoulder.
"I don't know what to tell you," came the lemony voice.
"That's an improvement," Remo said.
"What do you mean?"
"At least you're aware of your inadequacies now."
"Remo, we can't afford an incident. Maybe you should just walk away and we'll come up with something else."
"Nah," said Remo. "I'm here already. See you."
"Wait, Remo…" came the voice from the receiver as Remo hung up. He waited for the door to shut at B Level, 1073, then went into a nearby men's room. The urinals were old marble with obvious water seams. He waited until he was alone, getting a small offer from a pervert, which he declined.
Then he pressured an edge of the marble urinal into its seam and cracked it off. It came like a ripe peach pulling easily off a late August tree. Armed with two handfuls of cracked marble, he began throwing one, then another and another, and finally the last slivers and shavings out into the hall. With authority, he entered the hallway pointing to the marble mess on the floor.
"The guard did not do it. He was by the door all the time. I will vouch for the guard."
A man in a gray suit with a briefcase stopped to glance and before he could move on. Remo had his lapels and announced loudly again that the guard did not do it, that the guard had been in front of that door all the time and anyone who said otherwise was a liar.
This trivial commotion drew passersby like mosquitoes to moist flesh. It was something people in the State Department could understand—a broken toilet and a welcome break from foreign affairs.
"What happened?" asked someone in the back of the growing crowd.
"A guard broke a urinal," said the secretary next to him,
"How do you know?"
"Someone's swearing that the guard didn't."
The guard had orders to stay before the door. He had a list of identification numbers of those allowed to enter. He had a badge, a side arm and a pension only fifteen years away. However, wnen he saw supervisors pointing at him and heard a loud, "Why did he do that?" he checked the locked door once more and, with the pad, went to join the crowd to see who might be slandering him. It was not the kind of job anyone expected you to do right, but the kind where you tried not to do anything wrong. And someone was accusing him of a breach of something and he'd better deny it immediately.