"Yeah," said Bludner. "I can make another."
"No. That's all right," said Remo. "Let me watch you."
Bludner served his men, and then with a fork cut a small triangular wedge and raised it to his mouth. A cherry peeked out of the side of the whipped cream, and appeared to fall. Remo watched the pastry, cherry-chocolate paste, whipped cream and cherries disappear into Bludner's mouth.
"Arghhh," said Remo.
"If you are hungry, eat good food," said Chiun and tore some petals from the table daisies. Remo cut them in midair with his fingertips, knowing that the men would not even see his hands move.
Remo got his union card, delegate badge, and Jethro hat from Bludner and returned to his room with Chiun.
The bellboys were bringing in Chiun's large, lacquered trunks. They were told to set up the television device first. The device could be attached to any normal set. But Chiun had had his own set shipped with the device. Once in a Washington motel the television set had faulty wiring and Chiun had missed fifteen minutes of Dr. Lawrence Walters, Psychiatrist. Remo was not sure how a person could miss a segment because nothing ever happened. He had watched the show on two occasions exactly a year apart, and had had no trouble with the continuity.
Chiun saw it differently and had refused to speak to Remo for a week, Remo being the only one who would mind not being spoken to by him.
The television was set up and tuned to a lady's show. Dr. Lawrence Walters would be on in half an hour, followed by "As the Planet Revolves," "Edge of Dawn," "Return to Drury Village." There was a half hour for exercises. Chiun worked Remo on the fall advance, a basic step that Chiun said was learned anew each time a student improved. Remo thought this absurd when he first mastered the step, but then as he progressed in the discipline, he came to understand that just the simple act of falling and then moving forward had many varied and subtle ramifications.
Remo worked hands, torso, and neck; then hips, thighs, and feet; and finally, as he had done every day since the burns of the electric chair on his hands, feet, and forehead had healed, every day for the last eight years, Remo who had been known as Remo Williams when he was alive and had a different face, and when he was a policeman who had suddenly found himself charged with a murder he did not commit, and gone to the chair when no policeman had gone to the chair for more than sixty years and when there was even talk of the death penalty being abolished—Remo, now Remo Jones, worked on his breathing.
He breathed as few men did, straining his lungs, pushing them to painful limits, imperceptibly farther each day, forcing his bloodstream to make greater and greater use of less oxygen, attuning his very nerve cells to a new consciousness.
He was in a sweat when he finished. He showered, shaved, and donned a double-breasted gray suit with striped tie and shirt. Remembering how Bludner and his men looked, he took off the tie.
"I'm going to the convention, Chiun. What am I having for lunch?"
"A Dawn Danish," said Chiun laughing.
"Don't you push me, you sonuvabitch."
"A Dawn Danish," said Chiun, chuckling again. 'Who could eat that?"
"I'll smash that TV. I will, Chiun. What can I have?"
"Rice and water and three ounces of raw fish. Not cod or halibut. Don't eat the scales."
"I'm not going to eat the frigging scales, for Chrissakes."
"Anyone who would eat a Dawn Danish would eat a fish scale," said Chiun. "Heh, heh."
"Heh, heh. I hope they discontinue "As the Planet Revolves.""
Remo arrived at the convention early, as he knew Bludner would. The opening ceremonies were usually attended only by a few wives, a couple of delegates, the incumbent president and his officers. A rabbi, priest and minister offered prayers. Somehow the rabbi got unionism to relate to a greater need for more charities, the priest connected unionism with sex, and the minister alluded to unionism as the social action of its day. Nobody talked much about God.
Remo spoke to a few delegates. They knew nothing about a new building just outside of Chicago. They asked Remo how things were in New York City.
"Rolling," said Remo. They didn't think that was funny.
"How's Abe?" one asked."
"Good. Good. A real stand-up guy."
"Yeah. He's a stand-up guy. How's Tony and Paul?"
"Great. Great. They'll be here."
"Billy Donescu?"
"He's fine. He's not coming."
"I know he's not coming," said the delegate. "He's been dead five years. Now, who the hell are you? You ain't no driver."
"Don't bother me with that nonsense," said Remo. "I'm a driver in spirit."
The delegate called over a man known as the sergeant at arms. The sergeant at arms called over two guards. The two guards called over five more, and Remo was escorted to the entrance. But at the entrance a funny thing happened. The guards stumbled with painful groin injuries, the sergeant at arms suffered a broken collarbone, and the delegates were looking for fallen teeth. Remo strode back to the center of the Convention Hall, whistling pleasantly.
"He's for real," said one delegate. "He don't sound it but he's for real. Abe has got himself a real boy this time."
The news—really important news in the drivers' union travels from mouth to mouth—reached Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner, as he was preparing for the real convention business in the afternoon. It came in the form of a delegate from Louisiana. A redheaded, raw-boned man with a heavy drawl, for whom Abe had done favours from time to time.
"You are some sweetheart," said the Southerner with a grin. "You are some real, real sweetheart. Whoowee."
"What's up?" asked Bludner, opening his collar two buttons.
"Yo' new business agent. Ain't he a what fo'?"
Abe Bludner felt a sudden stretching of his throat. He cleared it.
"Remo Jones? He went to the convention alone?"
"Y'all can bet yo danged mule," said the Southern delegate.
Just like these Southerners, thought Bludner, to castrate a defenceless animal. Well, at least they weren't doing it to minority groups anymore.
"Hold on," said Bludner. "He's all right. A little bit funny, but look. So's Gene Jethro, you know. And every man has a right to act his own way. He's okay."
"Ah know. That son of a gull lizard is one peck o' nails," said the Southern delegate.
"You mean he's got a set of kishkas," said Bludner.
"What're kishkas?"
"What's a peck o' nails?"
"Hard. Real hard."
"Yeah. That's what a kishka is, too, I guess."
"But ah ain't seen nuthin like ah heard he is. Whoo-wee. Is that man a peck o' nails."
Bludner looked at the other delegate surprised.
"Remo Jones? Our business agent?"
"Right."
"Hey Tony, Paul. Did you hear that?"
"Yeah, we heard," they called out from an adjoining bedroom where they were playing gin.
"What do you know?" said Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner. "What do you know?"
"You guys from Local 529 are real stand-up guys," said the Southern delegate. "Real stand-up."
"You gotta be," said Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner. "You gotta be."
CHAPTER SIX
Other people from Remo's organization were at the convention. But he was the only one who knew his employer. Other people throughout the country sent their messages to destinations of which they knew not. Other hands and other eyes worked to stem the events which would lead to a union so powerful that a nation would be at its mercy. Moment by moment the reports, all ending at the desk of a man called Harold Smith, director of a sanatorium in Rye, New York, became worse. The plan to control American transportation seemed invincible. A union clerk, preparing the giant electrical boards in convention hall for the coming vote, noted that everything appeared to be running smoothly. No attempts to tamper with the machinery, no offers of bribes, no sudden influx of repairmen with strange credentials. Just a normal, routine, dull checking-out of the equipment.