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  "How much later?"

  "Possibly after the glorious day of election."

  "Somehow I knew you were going to say that. But I gotta tell Smitty what you're up to anyway."

  "I am certain he will understand. I can better serve him here in the outlying provinces of his empire, if I am in a position of responsibility."

  "Don't bet on it," Remo said, hanging up.

  Harold W. Smith should have reached for the Maalox when he received the news from Remo Williams. But his stomach did not flare with acid. He should have grabbed the aspirin and wolfed down two or three chewable orange tablets, but strangely, his head felt fine.

  "Could you repeat that, Remo?" he said into the receiver. His knuckles tightened imperceptibly. The other hovered over the drawer where he kept his array of medicines.

  "Chiun's joining the Esperanza campaign," Remo said wearily. "Says Esperanza has offered him the post of treasurer if he's elected."

  "According to the most recent polls, there is a very slim chance of that," Smith pointed out dryly.

  "That's a relief. But where does that leave me? I've been laid off from the campaign."

  Smith's hand came away from the drawer. He definitely did not feel like a Turns or a chewable aspirin. It was a liberating feeling.

  "Simply await developments," he told Remo.

  "Did I mention that Esperanza knows about Sinanju?"

  "He does?"

  "At least, he claims to."

  "Sinanju is not a secret," Smith said calmly. "CURE is. It is entirely possible that Esperanza is familiar with the legends of the House of Sinanju. He might accept Chiun as the inheritor of a long-dead tradition. Certainly, no more than that."

  "I didn't know, Smitty. Once he understood we were on the job, he acted as if he was immune from harm."

  "Hmmm. Curious."

  "You okay, Smitty?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Oh, nothing. It's just that you usually don't take bad news this well."

  "I do not see a great problem here. Chiun will continue to protect Esperanza, and you will remain in the area in case you are needed. And there is no chance of Chiun's assuming a cabinet post. When he realizes this, I will be in a better bargaining position when we start serious contract negotiations."

  "Makes sense. But you're not acting like yourself."

  "There is still the matter of the dead assassin's photograph and fingerprints," Smith reminded.

  "Not to mention the Cheeta Ching tape."

  "Yes, that too."

  "All are winging their merry way to Folcroft. I just hope the tape doesn't smell too bad by the time it gets there."

  "Why would it be?" Smith asked, his voice puzzled.

  "You'll find out," Remo said, hanging up quickly.

  At the other end of the nation, Harold W. Smith replaced the receiver. His necktie felt too tight, and he loosened the precise Windsor knot.

  Remo, he was confident, was only bluffing. There was no way on earth he had expressed a corpse to Folcroft. It was preposterous.

  But to be on the safe side, Harold Smith stopped to speak with the lobby guard on his way out of the building. He gave explicit instructions that any unusually large crates or boxes that arrived at the front desk were to be placed, unopened, in a storage room and the arrival brought to his attention. Immediately.

  Then he went home, feeling liberated. He was especially glad to be free of his daily antacid pills. He had read that they contained aluminum, which had a tendency to build up deposits in the brain. Aluminum was suspected of contributing to Alzheimer's disease, a fate Harold W. Smith wished very much to avoid. Otherwise, how could he remember to take his poison pill if the need ever arose?

  Chapter 13

  The overnight polls changed the public perception of the California governor's race.

  Before, only two candidates had placed in the running. Barry Black, Junior and Rona Ripper. They had been virtually neck-and-neck in the eyes of an electorate which had come to despise the previous governor and was apathetic about electing his replacement.

  The previous poll had showed Black and Ripper tied, with less than twenty percent of the respondents expressing a preference. Two percent had endorsed Esperanza. Less than one percent wanted the interim governor-the previous California Secretary of State-to continue in office. The remaining seventy-seven percent had declared themselves undecided.

  The new poll put it at a three-way tie between Black, Ripper, and Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.

  When Harmon Cashman read the poll results in the morning edition of The Los Angeles Times, over coffee and Oreos, he leaped from his seat and said, "I'm jazzed! I'm really jazzed!"

  Enrique Espiritu Esperanza came out of the shower, wrapping a terry-cloth robe about his sturdy body and saying, "Good news?"

  Cashman started to dance about the room. "It's a dead heat! Look at these polls! We have a chance! We have a chance!"

  From the living room, a squeaky querulous voice came.

  "Silence! An artist is at work!"

  Harmon Cashman subsided. "Artist?"

  "My very good friend Chiun is preparing new campaign posters," Enrique Esperanza said.

  "What's wrong with the old?"

  "They were in English and Spanish. These are in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese."

  "This, I gotta see," said Harmon Cashman, snatching up a fresh cookie.

  In the next room, the little Asian sat on a reed mat. Offset posters featuring the wide, benevolent face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza were scattered about the rug. The old Korean was dipping a goose quill in a flat shallow stone that was dark with ink.

  Holding the quill over a poster with a seemingly awkward grip, the old Korean stared at the blank space under the image of Esperanza.

  Then he began painting broad strokes, which he bisected by thinner, more ornate ones. When he was through he lifted the quill, laid the poster aside, and exposed another one in its place.

  The quill went to work again.

  Harmon Cashman turned to his candidate. "Chinese?"

  "I am not sure. I just know what he is writing."

  "If you don't know the language, how can you tell what it says?"

  Enrique Espiritu Esperanza smiled. "The word 'hope' is a universal one, my friend."

  The posters began appearing in Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Koreatown by ten o'clock.

  The Master of Sinanju stood on a street in Koreatown, before a mural depicting Shin Saim-Dong, a mother figure from Korean folklore, surveying his handiwork.

  On buildings and light poles all around, portraits of Enrique Esperanza stared out. Passersby paused to look, and read, then walked on.

  The Master of Sinanju allowed himself a tight smile. It was working. Who could not vote for the man called "Esperanza," with the endorsement of the Master of Sinanju?

  As he paused to drink in his triumph, a pair of young Koreans dressed in ridiculous jeans and Western shirts walked past.

  "Who the heck is the Master of Sinanju?" one asked the other.

  "Search me."

  Chiun's eyes went wide. Were these Koreans, or Japanese wearing Korean faces?

  An old woman strolled by, laden with bundles. Her back was bent with a lifetime of cares, and her hair was the color of steel wool. She stopped before a light pole and blinked owlishly at the poster there.

  Chiun approached. He cleared his throat respectfully.

  "This says that the candidate Esperanza is endorsed by no less than the Master of Sinanju," he said politely. "How could one not vote for such a man?"

  The old woman spat. "It is a trick. The Masters of Sinanju are long dead. Besides, of what value is the recommendation of a pack of killers and thieves?"

  "We were never thieves!" Chiun howled.

  "Do not shout at me, old man."

  "I am not shouting, you bony cow! I am spreading enlightenment. You must be from the lazy south."

  "And you from the cold and bitter north."

  "Souther
n farmer's wife!" Chiun fumed.

  "Northern fishmonger!" snapped the old woman, storming off.

  Face tight, the Master of Sinanju retreated to the mural of Shin Saim-Dong. He looked up at the benevolent features, her hair tied up in the traditional ch'ok, delicate hands properly resting in the lap of her kimono.

  It was a good face, he saw. A country face. Solid and of the earth. At least some traditions were honored, in this degenerate colony of his countrymen.

  Perhaps, Chiun thought, when the election was done with, he would take up residence here. It would be fitting. His former home had been confiscated by his emperor, due to yet another transgression on Remo's part. He would need a new home. Perhaps here. Once the people were reeducated, they would make good subjects. Of course, the Japanese and Chinese would have to be moved. It would not be seemly for a Master of Sinanju to dwell in too close proximity to such as they.

  He was certain there would be a cultimulcheral way to accomplish this.

  As the Master of Sinanju considered these weighty matters, he heard a tearing sound. He spurt.

  A man--a white, beefy of face-was removing one of the posters the Master of Sinanju had carefully affixed to a wall.

  Chiun flew to this man, demanding, "Why do you do this, white?"

  "They gotta come down," the white grunted, ripping down the poster in stubborn strips.

  "Explain!"

  "No union bug."

  "Bug?"

  He pointed to a black spot on the poster, where the Master of Sinanju had obscured some white graffiti.

  "Orders from my union chief. Posters without the bug come down."

  With a flourish, the white stripped the wall bare of all remnants of the poster.

  "There are many similar posters," Chiun pointed out, his voice steely. "You cannot remove them all."

  "Wanna bet?"

  "They will be restored."

  "All my shop will be out tomorrow to tear 'em down all over again," the white said, in the stubborn fashion of his kind.

  "Not if they are dissuaded from this."

  "What's gonna dissuade them? We're union. You can't buck a union."

  "I understand that the Master of Sinanju himself has endorsed this man Esperanza," Chiun said hoping to appeal to the white's innate sense of respect for his betters.

  "Fuck the Master of Sinanju," said the beefy white, spitting on the artfully calligraphed poster that lay on the sidewalk.

  Fred Huntoon weighed nearly two hundred and fifteen pounds. He was a pressman. Rotary presses. The muscles he had developed in the course of pursuing his trade had not grown soft in the years since he had become a union steward. If anything, he had become more formidable. Rosary presses do clot punch back.

  As he turned to deal with the offending campaign posters plastered all over Koreatown, Fred Huntoon felt every muscle in his thick body spasm and twitch.

  "It will stop when the poster is restored to the wall," a squeaky voice said through the ringing in his ears.

  "I want it to stop now!" Fred Huntoon howled, feeling his out-of-control feet dance in pain. Even his earlobes hurt. How could that be?

  "It will stop," the squeaky voice repeated, "when the poster is restored."

  "It . . . it's torn!"

  "So too will you be," promised the squeaky voice.

  The voice was no more threatening than Pee-Wee Herman's, but what was happening to Fred Huntoon's big body was real. And he wanted it to stop. Lord, how he wanted it to stop.

  Through eyes that were blurred by hot tears of pain, Fred Huntoon knelt to the sidewalk and gathered up the poster fragments.

  He arranged them in order, and using his tongue, licked the blank sides like a gargantuan stamp.

  They would not stick. The poster pieces peeled back, as if treated with wall-repellent.

  "It don't stick!" he bleated.

  "Lick the wall, too."

  It was an excellent suggestion. Fred Huntoon had a tongue as big as his desire to please the owner of the squeaky voice. He lathered saliva onto the gritty brick wall and freshened the application on the back side of the poster. He tried again.

  "It sticks! It's sticking! It's stuck!" he said gratefully.

  "For now. It might fall."

  "I'll stand here and hold it up if I have to," he offered.

  "You have to," said the squeaky voice.

  Then, and only then, the pain went away. Just like that. Fred Huntoon, when he had blinked the last bitter tear from his face, turned around to look.

  He saw the little Asian guy strolling off, casually as can be. He disappeared around a corner. The danger seemed to have passed.

  Still, Fred Huntoon decided that he should keep his hands on the poster, at least until sundown.

  As people passed him by, Fred Huntoon, to cover his embarrassment, offered a piece of friendly advice.

  "Vote for Esperanza! The union guy's friend!"

  Gregory Sagadelli was President and treasurer of the California Pressman's Union. It was a strong union. It was strong because the men who comprised the membership roll were strong. Weak men did not run presses. And weak men did not lead pressmen.

  So when the first reports of campaign posters appearing in the Asian part of town without the union bug-his union bug-reached his ears, Gregory Sagadelli ordered the membership out into the streets to take corrective action.

  "No wonder someone's trying to whack out that Esperanza guy. He's nuts!" he joked, as he ordered his men to tear down every offending poster in Koreatown.

  They started coming back in ones and twos. Some limped. A few had broken fingers. Some did not return at all. They were discovered in the hospital, invoking their union insurance benefits.

  "This is fuckin' war!" Gregory Sagadelli screamed, when he had heard the same story for the fifth time. A little gook had done this. A little gook working for the Esperanza campaign.

  He was on his way out of the union meeting hall when the little gook came in, escorted by two of his stewards.

  "This him?" Gregory Sagadelli demanded.

  "This is him," one of the pair said, in a dispirited voice.

  Gregory Sagadelli gave his trousers a belligerent hitch. "You did right to bring him here," he grunted, jabbing a thick finger into the little gook's stern face. "You, chum, are going to pay for this."

  "I am called Chiun, not Chum."

  "After today, your name will be mud."

  "After today," said the little gook named Chiun, "you will be proud to say that you stand with Esperanza the Cultimulcheral."

  "I what?"

  "After you have atoned for your transgressions against him; of course."

  "Say . . . that . . . again," Gregory Sagadelli said through clenched teeth.

  The little gook snapped his long-nailed fingers. Instantly, the flanking union men produced stacks of Esperanza campaign posters.

  "You will have your minions and lackeys place these where they will do the most good," said the little gook named Chiun.

  Gregory Sagadelli grunted. "You got balls."

  "He's also got hands like you've never seen," said one of the flanking men.

  "Huh?"

  "Mr. Sagadelli," said the other, "if you don't do exactly like he says, we're all headed for traction."

  That was enough for Gregory Sagadelli. He was a street fighter, with a street fighter's instincts. Old or not, he took a poke at the frail little gook.

  The fist traveled less than a foot. The little gook brought his open hands up to intercept the fist, like a catcher without a mitt.

  Gregory Sagadelli felt the impact. He was sure he felt the impact. Swore to it, for many years after.

  When they had finished pouring cold water on his face, and after he had batted the smelling salts away with his sprained fist, the membership put it another way.

  "You hit yourself in the jaw."

  "I hit the gook," Gregory Sagadelli insisted.

  "There's a bruise on your jaw, and those knuckles are sprained,"
a delegate pointed out.

  "I felt a fuckin' impact."

  "In your jaw. The membership wants to know if we can start putting up the Esperanza posters now."

  "The hell with the posters."

  "We'd like you to reconsider."

  "Why?"

  "Because if you don't, we gotta run your dumb ass through a rotary press to protect our own dumb asses. Sorry."

  It was then that Gregory Sagadelli noticed the little gook standing off to one side, looking stern and confident. It was as if he were looking at the tiny fellow for the first time. There was something cold and deadly in those eyes. They were like steel ball bearings.

  Gregory Sagadelli allowed himself to be helped to his feet. "Put up the damn posters," he snarled.

  He strode over to the tiny Oriental. He looked down. The Oriental looked up.

  "Anything else you want?" Gregory Sagadelli asked.

  "Yes. Your endorsement of my candidate."

  "Bull! We can't endorse someone who doesn't buy union. What'll we tell the press?"

  A low voice whispered in his ear. "Maybe this is the exception that proves the rule."

  That afternoon, with the entire ambulatory membership of the California Pressmen's Union Local 334 out affixing Esperanza posters to walls all over L.A. County, Gregory Sagadelli called a press conference and announced that the entire union was coming out for Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.

  There were only three reporters present. Such was the state of union activity in the nineties. One said, "We understand they don't use union printed placards."

  "This is the exception that proves the rule," said Gregory Sagadelli with a straight face. Or as straight as it could be, with his jaw permanently skewed to the left.

  "We just picked up our first union endorsement!" Harmon Cashman screamed. "I'm hyped! I'm really, really hyped!"

  "Calm yourself," said Enrique Esperanza, hitting the TV remote control. "It is a small victory. We will need much, much more in the weeks that remain."

  "But this is the first union endorsement of the campaign! Sometimes that's all you need to get the ball rolling!"

  "The ball, as you say, is already rolling."

  "What I don't figure is, how did it happen?"

  "It is simple. Chiun."

  Harmon Cashman dug into his pockets and pulled out a minipack of Oreo cookies. "The little guy? How'd he pull it off?"