It was four-thirty in the afternoon when the last commercial on the last show was finished, a movie came on, and Chiun turned off the set.
"I do not like your breathing," he said.
"My breathing is the same as yesterday, Little Father," said Remo.
"That is why I do not like it. It should be quieter within you today."
"Why?"
"Because today you are different."
"In what way, Little Father?"
"That is for you to understand. When you do not know how you are each day, then you lose sight of yourself. Know this, no man has ever had two days alike."
"Did we get a phone call from upstairs?"
"There was a rude interruption, but I did not hold it against the maker of the telephone call. I endured the rudeness and the callousness and the lack of consideration for a poor old man enjoying the meager pleasures in the quiet twilight of his life."
Remo looked for the telephone to return the call. He found a hole where the cord had been snapped clean from the wall. He looked for the detached phone and not until he saw a dark hole in the white wood dresser did he realize where the phone had gone. The cracked body of the instrument was imbedded in the back of the dresser, welding the entire piece of furniture to the wall.
Remo went into an adjacent bedroom and dialed a number. This number did not activate a telephone directly, instead it sparked a series of connections across the country, so that there was no single line making up the connection by the time a phone finally did ring in the office of the director of Folcroft Sanitarium.
"Hello," said Remo. "Uncle Nathan called."
"No," said Dr. Smith. "Uncle Marvin called."
"Yeah, right," said Remo. "I knew it was somebody."
"I tried to reach you before, but we were disconnected and I thought you might have been clearing something up at the time."
"No. The phone rang while Chiun was watching his shows."
"Oh," said Smith heavily. "I have sort of a special problem. An accident happened to someone in a rather strange way and I thought you and Chiun might be able to shed some light on it."
"You mean he was killed in a way you don't know and you'd figure Chiun or I would know."
"Remo, please. There's no such thing as a completely secure telephone line."
"Whaddya going to do? Send me a matchbook with invisible ink on it? C'mon, Smitty, I've got more important things in my life than playing security games."
"What is more important in your life, Remo?"
"Breathing correctly. Do you know I'm breathing the same today as yesterday?"
Smith cleared his throat and Remo knew it was the sound of unhappiness, that Smith had heard something he did not wish to deal with because he was afraid that further answers might confuse him more. He knew that Smith had recently given up trying to fathom him and was beginning to accept Remo like Chiun. An unknown quantity that served well. It was a major concession by a man who loathed anything he could not put in some order, well-labeled and perfectly filed. Mysteries were anathema to the head of the organization.
"On second thought," said Smith. "Send your Aunt Mildred a birthday greeting. She's fifty-five tomorrow."
"That means I'm supposed to meet you at O'Hare Airport information at three in the afternoon. Or is it three in the morning? Or is it Logan Airport?"
"Morning. O'Hare," said Smith dourly, and Remo heard the receiver go dead.
On the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Chiun suddenly marveled at the hidden skills of Americans. Chiun acknowledged that he should have known that there must be other areas of excellence.
"Any nation that could produce As the Planet Revolves or The Young and the Daring must have other isolated pockets of worth," said Chiun.
Remo knew that Chiun thought airplanes were very close to soundly designed flying objects, so he commented that America was the leader in aircraft and that he had never heard of a Korean-designed plane.
Chiun ignored that comment.
"What I am talking about," he said grandly, producing two torn pieces of white paper between his long graceful fingernails, "is here. This. And in America, too. What a pleasant surprise to find such an art so well performed in a place so far away as America."
Remo looked at the sheets. They were filled single space with sloppy typing.
"This, one can trust. I sent him my birthday and place and time of birth to the exact minute, and I sent him yours."
"You don't know for sure when I was born. Neither do I," said Remo. "The orphanage records weren't that exact."
With a flurry, Chiun's hands dismissed Remo's reservations as inconsequential.
"Even with an inexact date, such excellence of accuracy," said Chiun.
Remo looked closer. On the other side of the papers were circles with strange signs in them.
"What is it?" asked Remo.
"An astrology chart," said Chiun. "And in America, too. I am most pleasantly surprised that the great art, so poorly practiced by so many, is done well and in, of all places, America."
"I don't buy that stuff," said Remo.
"Of course, because in America little machines do everything in quantity. But you forget that men of brilliance and insight still exist. You do not believe in the forces of the universe because you have seen fools and charlatans represent them. But there is in America at least one true reader of the planets."
"Dippy dong," said Remo and winked at a passing stewardess, who almost dropped her tray in pleasant surprise. Remo knew he should not have done that because invariably the stewardess would be at him all trip for coffee, tea, milk, pillow for his head, magazines, and anything else that would get her close to him. At New York's Kennedy, two years before, a Pan-Am lassie had followed him from the plane crying that he had left a Kleenex in the seat.
"You may say that," said Chiun, "but let me read to you in your own language the keen insights of this reader of the forces of the universe."
And Chiun read in the manner of story-telling with his voice rising on the significant points and lowering at the serious ones.
"You," read Chiun, "are in tune with the gentleness and beauty of your world. Few realize your wisdom and kindness that is concealed by your desire for humility. You are troubled by the incessant badgering of those close to you who cannot publicly acknowledge your awesome magnificence."
"Pretty good," said Remo. "And what did he write about you?"
"That is me," said Chiun, and he read from the other paper: "You have a tendency to self-indulgence and are wont to function on whatever thought passes through your mind. You do not think things through, but run through days as if you have no tomorrow."
"That's me, I take it," said Remo glumly.
"To the letter," said Chiun. "Oh, does he know you. There is more. 'You do not appreciate the great gifts given you and squander them like duck droppings.'"
"Where?" said Remo. "Let me see where he said that. Where did he say 'duck droppings'?"
"He didn't say that exactly. But he would have if he knew you better."
"I see," said Remo, and asked for the two papers. True. All but the duck droppings was there. But Remo noticed something else. Chiun's chart started under the heading "positive" and then was torn off midpage. Remo's began under "negatives" and did not have a top of the page.
"You took my negatives and your positives," said Remo.
"I kept that which was correct. There is enough misinformation in the world. Let us be grateful that, in a country like this, we have found at least what is half correct."
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