That is my curse. And your destiny.

  This did the Master tell the Wa.”

  Chiun looked at Remo. “You understand now why this is dangerous for you?”

  “No,” Remo said.

  “You are really a lump of clay,” Chiun said. “I am the reigning Master of Sinanju. The Master’s curse prevents me from striking down the Wa. You alone must do it, without my help.”

  Remo shrugged. “So we’re facing a Sinanju-trained assassin,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Chiun. He hung his head in shame.

  “And the Japanese that you’re always putting down are really your relatives,” Remo said.

  Chiun said nothing.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Remo said.

  Chiun looked up. “Remember,” he said, “the Wa Japanese are not descended from the villagers of Sinanju. Just from the Koguryo who were an ugly people, whose only skill was in riding a horse.”

  “I never want to hear you putting down the Japanese again,” Remo said. He shrugged. “Anyway, none of this helps. We still don’t know who the Wa is working for. Who hired him?”

  Chiun smiled. “Who knows? The Japs are a greedy and avaricious people. They’d work for anybody.”

  He rose swiftly to his feet indicating the lesson was over.

  The telephone in the room rang and Smith’s parched voice said, “You should know that Will Bobbin is in town.”

  “Who?”

  “Will Bobbin,” said Smith. “He flew in last night. He represents the fossil fuel industry, right out of their main New York offices.”

  “All right. I’ll watch for him.”

  “And the passenger list showed that a woman who traveled only as Flamma arrived in Furlong County this morning.”

  “Got it,” said Remo. He was still thinking about Will Bobbin’s arrival. Perhaps Theodosia was right and the oil companies were behind the attack on Pruiss. Perhaps they had hired the Wa assassin to do him in.

  “And we have the rundown on Rachmed Baya Bam that you asked for,” Smith said.

  “What’s he all about?”

  “He heads something called the Inner Light church. As far as we can make out, he is the only member, but he seems to make a living by being adopted by the rich. His brother is an Indian delegate to the United Nations.”

  “Baya Bam,” Remo said. “The one who’s always making anti-American speeches?”

  “Yes,” said Smith. “That one. From what we can gather, Rachmed is a pickpocket and was arrested once in Yankee Stadium at a World Series game. His brother’s diplomatic immunity got him freed. And there are stories that the two of them run a particularly odious brothel in India, specializing in young girls.”

  After Smith had hung up, Remo went to Theodosia’s apartment at the end of the broad hallway. She was sitting in a satin robe, facing a dressing table, putting fresh makeup around her eyes. Remo walked in without knocking and she looked up at him in surprise that softened to a smile of welcome. He saw his motel room keys on the dressing table.

  Remo stood behind her, put his right hand on her shoulder and inspected her face in the mirror. He still found it hard to believe. Twenty-two steps and she had been almost impervious to them. That had never happened before. Chiun had once told him that Korean women were regularly exposed to all twenty-seven steps of “the method” as he called it, but Remo had seen the Korean women of Chiun’s ancient village of Sinanju and he suspected that the twenty-seven steps might have been as much for the man’s benefit as the woman’s—to give him something to think about besides his partner and what she looked like.

  “Do you know a woman named Flamma?” Remo asked.

  “Flamma? What do you know about her?” Theodosia said. She turned on her bench to look at Remo.

  “Who is she?” Remo asked.

  “She works sometimes for Wesley,” the young woman said. “She… er, entertains for him.”

  “What kind of work is… er, entertains?” Remo asked.

  Theodosia paused. “Okay,” she said, as if forcing herself to tell the truth. “She’s kind of on the payroll as a hooker. When out-of-town bigshots visit Wesley, Flamma is assigned to make sure they enjoy themselves. She poses for some pictures for Gross too. What about Flamma?”

  “She’s in town.”

  Theodosia’s face wrinkled up. Unconsciously she began to pick at her the polish on her shiny fingernails. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “I don’t know. She arrived this morning. There’s somebody else in town too.”

  “Who?”

  “The name Will Bobbin mean anything to you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “He’s a big shot with the fuel industry.”

  She stood up quickly and looked at Remo, almost in triumph. “There,” she said. “The oil business again. Those bastards.”

  “You’re really sure about that, aren’t you?” Remo asked.

  “No one else had any reason to try to kill Wesley,” she said. “No one but those people.”

  “All right,” Remo said. He put his hands on the woman’s shoulders and drew her close to him.

  “Rachmed,” he said.

  She pulled away. “What about him?”

  “He’s a fraud,” said Remo. “He’s a pimp and a pickpocket. He runs a whorehouse for little girls.”

  Theodosia seemed to relax. “I know that, Remo. I know all about that.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “What Rachmed used to be isn’t important,” she said. “Right now, he’s a healer and he’s helping to heal Wesley.”

  “You don’t really believe that about lifting up the blankets and letting the sun shine on his legs, do you?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. What you think neither. What’s important is that Wesley thinks it helps. He wants to live again. That’s worth more than anything.”

  “Whatever you say.” Remo tried to draw her to him. Twenty-two steps and she had shown almost no reaction. He would like to try that again.

  She raised an arm between their bodies to keep him away from her, without it being an obvious rejection.

  “You’ve been busy,” she said. “How’d you find this all out?”

  “Don’t forget, lady, you’re paying us top dollar. Enough money to hire people to help,” Remo lied.

  “When did Bobbin arrive?” she asked suddenly.

  “Last night,” Remo said.

  “And last night our bodyguards were killed.” She raised her hands and touched her fingertips to both cheeks. Remo noticed that her ring fingers were longer than her index fingers. “Those goddam oil people,” she said. “I hope Flamma’s not involved with them.” She wrapped herself in her gown and walked away from Remo.

  “I’m going to check on Wesley,” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE REVEREND HIGBE MUCKLEY had not gotten where he was by being insensitive to how television worked.

  Morning press conferences were no good. First, reporters liked to sleep late. Second, from a morning press conference, they would be reassigned to an afternoon story too, and they would get to thinking they were overworked, so they were grouchy, bad audiences in the morning.

  Afternoon press conferences usually got cut short because TV men had to get their film back to the studio and hustle to write their story in time for it to get on the six o’clock evening news. If their piece was late, they might get squeezed out of the program by some story that was filmed earlier.

  Muckley had learned this by watching television and figuring. The optimum time for a press conference was noon, give or take a half-hour, based on the following indisputable rules:

  1. A reporter had a chance to get up and sober up.

  2. It gave him a free lunch and he could still bill his station for a lunch cost.

  3. It gave him plenty of time to complete and file his story.

  4. If the invitation came from a sexy-voiced woman, the lure was irresistible.

  So Muckley got his secretary, Sister Corinne, on the telephone right away, alerting the television people that he would hold a press conference at noon and he had proof of “a conspiratorial plot by Wesley Pruiss, a plot so cruel and evil that it would stagger their minds.” The secretary read this from a card that Muckley had printed out for her. Then, also at Muckley’s directions, she dropped a hint that a former employee of Pruiss’s, a one-time Grossie Girl, would be at the press conference. And there would be plenty to eat and drink.

  While she was making the calls, the secretary glanced frequently at the office door, worried because she had heard it being locked to keep her out. What were they doing in there?

  Inside the office, Muckley and Flamma were discussing the costume she would wear to the press conference. She had a model’s hatbox with costumes in it.

  “How about this one?” she asked, holding up two flimsy pieces of nylon.

  “I don’t know,” Muckley said. “Better try it on.”

  “Where can I change?” she said.

  “You can change here,” he said. “I’ll turn my back.”

  He turned away from Flamma and watched her in the window as she peeled off her raincoat and put on the costume. She smiled at his reflection as she dressed.

  “Done,” she said.

  Muckley turned and gulped. The nylon costume was transparent, her breasts totally visible. The rest of the outfit was a pair of brief panties covered over with thin nylon pantaloons that showed every pore, every rippling smooth muscle of her long legs.

  “What do you think?” Flamma asked.

  Muckley came close to inspect her. He walked around her as she stood in the middle of the room. He gulped several times as he eyed her milky body.

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the human body, you understand,” he said. “Under the proper circumstances, I think it is the most beautiful of God’s creations.” He cleared his throat. “And, of course, your body is exceptional. From a purely esthetic viewpoint, that is.”

  “Of course,” said Flamma. She had heard that many times before.

  “But I’m afraid, for television, this won’t quite work. With lights, it might turn out a little too transparent and then they might not be able to use their film. What else you got in there?”

  She reached in and brought out a red satin bra.

  “How’s this?”

  “That might do. Try it on.”

  “Okay,” she said, purposely forgetting to tell him to turn his back again. She reached behind her for the bra clip of the transparent top but pretended she couldn’t reach it.

  “Can you help me?” she asked.

  “Of course, girl,” he said. He fumbled with the clip. The palms of his hands were wet with perspiration.

  “How long have you been a dancer?” he asked.

  “Well,” Flamma said, “I’m not really much of a dancer. I can do a turn or two, I guess. But really what I’m good at is tricks. Straight, half-and-half, around the world.”

  Muckley gulped as the bra clip opened. He let his fingers linger on the bare flesh of her back.

  “Of course, you’re not going to say that at the press conference,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t want to harm your credibility. You and me, we’re people of the world. We’d understand how some forces could push a young woman into such a life.”

  Flamma shook her head as she removed her bra. “Nothing forced me. I like it. I always liked it. I still like it. I’d rather do it than anything.”

  “I can understand that,” Muckley said solemnly. “After all, people have needs, desires.” He tried to chuckle but it came out like a chicken squawking as its neck was being wrung. “Even us men of the cloth have needs,” he said, “although most people would try to deny us. They don’t understand the heavy burden we bear, trying to be an example for other people and still having to live with the fires that rage within us.” His hands were still on her back.

  “You got fires raging in you?” she asked.

  “All the time. But I suppress them,” Muckley said. He slid his hands toward both sides of her back. Only eight inches more each and he would have those beautiful breasts in his hands.

  She leaned forward suddenly, pulling away, lowering her breasts into the red satin top. “You shouldn’t suppress them,” she said casually. “It’ll give you pimples.”

  She straightened up, her hands behind her on the two bra straps. “Clip that, Rev, will you?”

  He clipped the bra closed.

  She stepped away from him and turned around, her breasts jutting toward him, two mounds of pleasure and beauty. He had not thought of his bible in a long time, but the Song of Solomon forced its way into his head. Something about breasts.

  “How’s that?” she said.

  “Beautiful,” he said, staring at her bosom. “Excruciatingly beautiful.”

  “Me or it?” she asked. She put her hands under her breasts and lifted them, arranging them inside the bra top.

  “You forget, I’m just a man,” he said.

  “There,” she said as she finished adjusting herself. “Now what do you think?”

  He looked at her bosom through the red satin. “Just a moment,” he said. “There’s a wrinkle there.” He reached forward and touched the underside of her right breast with his fingers as he adjusted the thin piece of satin.

  He let his fingers stay there.

  “Okay now?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said, still not moving his fingers.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll slip on the bottoms and then I’ll get some breakfast before the press conference.”

  Muckley looked glum.

  “And then,” she said.

  “And then?” he asked.

  She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. He let his hands slide down her back to the round mounds of her buttocks. He kneaded them as Flamma told him in detail, full, glorious colorful detail exactly what she had in mind for the two of them after the press conference was over.

  “Praise God,” said Rev. Higbe Muckley.

  · · ·

  The reporters were bored when Muckley appeared. They had been assigned to the Pruiss story for two days, most of them, and with the exception of the small picketing at the country club, which ended before they got there, there had been nothing. No groundswell of opinion in the farm country against the porn publisher; no sense of impending violence, no bomb threats, no death threats, no sign of the person or persons who had put the knife in Pruiss’s back.

  They were prepared to let Muckley die on his feet so they could get to the booze. Furlong County was the dullest place in the world anyway.

  But they came to attention when Flamma arrived, stepping out on the small stage next to Muckley and wearing her belly dancer costume. She told them that Pruiss had planned to make Furlong County into the porn movie capital of the world. She told them that she had been going to star in his first movie, but that the Reverend Muckley had saved her by giving her religion.

  They wanted to know about that first motion picture.

  “It’s called Animal Instincts,” she said.

  “What’s it about?”

  “About a man and his wife who find happiness in nature. She has her collie. He has her, a goat, three girlfriends and me. I’m the lead, because I bring them together again. All at once.”

  “Goats and dogs?” one reporter asked.

  “Yes,” she said haltingly. She covered her face with her hands as if crying. “There is no limit to the degradation of Wesley Pruiss and the perverts who are close to him and how he gets people to do his dirty work for him. Thank heavens I have been spared.”

  Some reporters tried to get her to dance for them, but Flamma demurely said no. Near the end of the press meeting, one reporter asked her for her future plans. They don’t include anything with you, Flamma thought, when she found out that the man represented a small Indiana paper.

  She took a deep breath, which never failed to draw the reporters’ attention. “I plan to pick up the pieces of my life,” she said slowly. “Perhaps go back to dancing school. Unless, of course, something else comes up. I think I can entertain people and bring them happiness in a good clean way and that is God’s work too.” She winked at the reporter for the National Star. A two-page color spread in the Star and she’d be on her way.

  Higbe Muckley finished the press conference by announcing it was now a fight between God-fearing good people and the forces of evil represented by Wesley Pruiss. He ranted and raved some and was going to announce a full schedule of meetings and protests but cut it short when he saw Flamma talking to the reporter from the Star, who got up from his seat and headed toward the door with her.

  “We march on Pruiss this afternoon,” Muckley yelled and jumped from the platform to follow Flamma before anybody else got his hooks into her.

  The local television stations rushed the interview onto the tube and Theodosia saw it with Remo and Chiun inside Pruiss’s room. He was awake and he growled when he saw Flamma telling of his iniquities.

  “That bitch,” he said.

  “She always was,” Theodosia said. “And now those oil people have their hooks in her, she’s liable to say or do anything.”

  “If you see her, you tell her,” said Pruiss, “that she’s through. I’m getting somebody else to pose with the Mako shark.”

  “Good,” said Chiun. “The best revenge is living well.”

  “Try that when you’re a cripple,” Pruiss said.

  “You live well,” Chiun said, “by doing those things you are able to do. You can still print things. You can print great work. You can bring beautiful art to thousands of people. Have you ever heard Ung poetry?”

  “I don’t like much poetry,” Pruiss said.

  “You will like this,” Chiun promised. He began to talk in Korean, a clacking series of throbs and gutturals that only occasionally rhymed.

  Pruiss looked in desperation at Remo who shrugged. Chiun was gently waving his hands in front of his body now, one hand opening and closing, the other fluttering back and forth.

  “This is the good part,” Remo said. “A report on weather conditions in Korea, day by day, for two centuries.”