Power Play

Chapter three

Dr. Harold W. Smith's face exuded all the natural charm and sweetness of a clam. It was pinched and tight around the mouth and his eyes were cold and unblinking. His natural expression was lemon twist and if he had been older, he would remind people of the original John D. Rockefeller. Except, unlike Rockefeller, Harold W. Smith would never give away dimes to the starving poor. In a fit of rampant good will, he might have tried to find them jobs — working for somebody else.

He could make the overseer of a Peruvian tin mine look warm. He looked like the kind of man you would want representing you if you were trying to negotiate a contract with a publisher.

He sat in a straight-backed chair in the hotel room, facing Remo. Smith's gray suit was immaculately pressed and unwrinkled, as if it had been built out of fiberglass in a custom auto body shop. His shirt collar seemed a half size too small and was buttoned tightly, and the points were heavily starched. His Dartmouth regimental tie was so stiff it seemed made of ceramic.

Remo sat on the bed. Chiun was in the corner of the room, on his grass mat, sitting lightly in a lotus position, smilingly attacking a bagful of roasted chestnuts that Smith had brought with him. Chuin's technique was to grab the bottom of the chestnut between two long-nailed fingers and squeeze. The kernel of the nut popped up through the top.

"How did you find us?" Remo asked. "We're not in our regular hotel."

Smith sniffed. "I don't suppose there are too many people in the area registered as 'Remo and Glorious One.'" He nodded toward Chiun, who froze his chestnut-bearing hand on its way toward his mouth.

"I told Remo we should use a different hotel, Emperor," said Chiun. "I saw no reason in our spending so much of your money at that other hotel with the high ceilings, particularly when I know you have only so much money and so many demands on it."

Remo smiled. Chiun being concerned about Smith's budget problems could be nothing but the first step in negotiations for a pay raise.

Chiun chewed the chestnut. "How much were these chestnuts?" he asked.

Smith waved a hand in dismissal.

"No," Chiun protested. "I insist upon paying for them. I think a man should pay for what he gets. I should pay for these chestnuts. I would expect that if I were working for someone, he would pay me what I was worth. How much were they? I insist, Emperor."

"All right," Smith said. "A dollar."

"Remo," said Chiun. "Give the Emperor a dollar."

When Remo's hand did not move instantly for his pocket, Chiun said again, more loudly: "Remo. A dollar for Emperor Smith."

Remo reluctantly fished a roll of bills from his pocket and flicked through it, riffling the corners of the bills as if they were a deck of playing cards.

"Nothing smaller than a five, Smitty. You got change?"

Smith reached for the five. "No," he said. "I'll owe you four."

Remo put the bills back in his pocket. "Never mind," he said. "I'll owe you one."

"I will make sure he pays it," Chiun said. "Because I believe a man should always pay for what he gets. This is the way the House of Sinanju has always behaved." The chestnuts were gone now and Chiun pushed aside the empty bag as if it contained something distasteful.

Smith looked at Chiun, a hard look, and then said blandly: "Ruby Gonzalez is in charge of all salary negotiations from now on."

Chiun's face turned sour.

"Who?"

"Ruby Gonzalez," Smith said.

"This is cruel and unkind," Chiun said. "There is no talking to that woman."

Remo laughed. To watch Ruby, the beautiful street-smart black woman who was now Smith's assistant, engaged in contract negotiations with Chiun would be an event you could sell tickets for.

"Where isRuby?" Remo asked.

"On vacation," Smith said.

"I figured that," Remo said.

"Why?"

"Because for the past week it's been nothing but work, work, work. Ruby's a pain in the butt and her voice sounds like glass breaking but she has the good sense to space out jobs for me," Remo said. "You just keep piling them on one after the other."

"I will have to speak to Ruby about that," Smith said drily. He fished in his leather briefcase, once tan but turned brown through decades of exposure to wind, rain and sun, and brought out a TV tape cassette.

"Could I have the television player, please?" he asked.

"Chiun, do we still have the tape player?" Remo asked. At one time, they would have travelled nowhere without it because it was the only way Chiun could manage to keep up with what was happening every day on every soap opera. But then the television soaps became "realistic," which Chiun equated with dirty, and he stopped watching them.

Chiun pointed to one of the fourteen lacquered steamer trunks that lined the walls of the hotel room and contained his "few personal possessions."

"It is in there," he said. "I never throw away anything the Emperor has paid for. I will get it."

He rose like a cloud drifting into the air, opened the top of the trunk and bent down into it. His tiny body seemed almost to vanish into the trunk, like a child bent over a tub, bobbing for Halloween apples.

He finally came out with the TV machine, lifting the heavy instrument with no more effort than if it had been a one-page letter from home.

It nearly dropped from Smith's hands as Chiun gave it to him. Smith lugged it over to the television set, efficiently hooked it into the back of the set, and then inserted the cassette into the top.

"Good," said Chiun. "A show. I have not seen a good show in much time."

The TV tape began rolling and the picture came on the screen.

It was a picture of Wesley Pruiss in a hospital bed, his face wan and drawn, crisp white sheets pulled up to his neck.

"Good," Chiun said. "A doctor show. Doctor shows are best."

"This is Wesley Pruiss," Smith said.

"Who's he?" asked Remo.

"The publisher of Gross."

"Serves him right," Remo said.

Theodosia was on screen now. She wore a white linen pants suit. It was tailored tightly to her body, but the basic business cut of the suit surrendered to the cut of her own full, voluptuous body.

"Too fat," Chiun said. "The women are always too fat on these shows."

Theodosia spoke.

"It was only through good fortune that this cowardly attack did not kill Wesley. To make sure that no such attack will ever again have any chance of success, I plan to spend every penny, if necessary, of Wesley's fortune to hire the best bodyguards in the world to protect him."

An off-camera voice drawled: "Why?"

Theodosia wheeled. Her eyes glared at the off-camera voice.

"I'll tell you why," she said. "Because I love him. Because he is going to make his mark in this world. Because what he's doing out here may be the most important thing done in this country since Kitty Hawk. That's why. That's why I'm going to make sure he lives. Does that answer your question?"

The camera slid back and showed Theodosia standing in front of a big building that looked like a pre-Civil War mansion, talking to a cluster of reporters.

"And that's the way it is here in Furlong County," an announcer's voice said. Then the tape ended and the screen went dark.

"So what?" Remo said.

"That's all there is?" Chiun asked. "A fat man in bed and a fat woman complaining about everything? What kind of story is that?"

"That was on tonight's news," Smith told Remo.

"I don't watch the news," Chiun said.

"Again, so what?" Remo asked.

"I want you to get the job as his bodyguard," Smith said.

"What the hell for?"

"Because when Pruiss moved out to that county in Indiana, he said he was going to make the entire county an experimental showcase for solar energy. He has to be kept alive to make sure that project goes ahead."

"Let the government do it," Remo said. "Why him?"

"Because you know as well as I do that the government can't do it," Smith said. "They'll take ten years passing legislation, ten years writing regulations, ten years bringing polluters to court, and at the end of it, we still won't have a solar energy program and we'll be burning blubber in lamps to try to keep warm."

Remo thought about that for a moment, then nodded.

Chiun said, "Blubber has a funny smell."

"Who tried to kill him?" Remo asked Smith.

"We don't know," Smith said. "Somebody with a knife. God knows he's got enough enemies. But we don't want him killed. Keeping him alive is your job."

Chiun waited until the door was closed behind Smith and said, "That was a stupid show."

"It wasn't a show, Chiun. It's our next job: Keeping Wesley Pruiss alive."

"Who is this Wesley Pruiss?"

"He publishes magazines," Remo said.

"Good."

"Why good?" Remo asked.

"Because now maybe my novels and stories will get published and I can finally overcome this anti-Korean prejudice against great art."

"Your novels and stories won't get published until you write them," Remo said.

"You are not going to discourage me," Chiun said. "All I have to do is put them down on paper. They are all up here." He tapped a forefinger to his temple. "Every beautiful word, every exquisite scene, every brilliant insight. All up here. All I have to do is put them onto paper and that is the easiest part. What is the name of this magazine?"

"Gross," Remo said.

"Yes," Chiun said. "What is the name of this magazine?"

"Its name is Gross," Remo said.

"Hmmmm," said Chiun. "I didn't know you had a magazine named after you."

The Reverend Higbe Muckley could not read or write, but since that had never been a barrier to getting on network television, he had manipulated television very well to become a millionaire several times over. He had always been able to count very well.

The Reverend Mr. Muckley had hit upon the simple trick of selling memberships in his Divine Right church; five dollars to be a deacon, ten dollars to be a minister, fifteen dollars for an auxiliary bishop, one hundred dollars for a full bishopric, along with a life-long free subscription to Muckley's magazine, Divine Right, an almost incomprehensible word-by-word transcription of Muckley's confused ramblings, printed six times a year, more or less, depending on how long it took the copies of the last issue to vanish. Any full-fledged official in the Divine Right church was entitled to men-of-the-cloth discounts in most stores and businesses, and buying a new car at 650 dollars less than the normal going price more than justified the one-time donation to Muckley's church.

Muckley was in his office in the basement of a massage parlor on Ventura Boulevard in West Hollywood when his secretary came into his office. She was not able to read or write very well either, but had achieved professional success in life pretty much by being able to jot down 38-22-36 on application forms. "Wesley Pruiss has been stabbed," she said. "Almost killed."

"Yes," Muckley said noncommitally.

"I thought you should know," she said. "Maybe it would be something for you to do something with."

"Yes," he said again.

His secretary realized he must be thinking of money when he did not try to grab her in his office. After she left, Muckley continued thinking. New memberships were down because he had not been featured on any network news in almost three months. And he smiled, because God always showed the way. He had delivered Wesley Pruiss into Higbe Muckley's hands. He called a "must" prayer meeting for the following day of all his West Coast disciples, or as many could borrow the bus fare to Hollywood.

At Muckley's invitation, all the networks showed up. Reporters liked to cover Higbe Muckley. He was an easy story, and in contrast with his backwoods drawl, they always managed to look smart.

Muckley led his disciples in a prayer that thanked God for goodness, right, money, biodegradable soap and instant mashed potatoes, as long as they were made without any of them godless chemicals. Then he had special thanks for God. "In his charity and mercy and wisdom, God has seen fit to strike down a purveyor of dirt and filth who is trying to carry his disgusting New York City message to the heartland of America," Muckley said. He looked around at the audience. "Can we let this man do that?"

"No," came back two hundred voices, sounding like five thousand and looking like five hundred in the too-small meeting room Muckley had rented.

"That's right," Muckley said. "Get this down, you gentlemen of the press. Tonight I'm going to Furlong County, Indiana, and I'm going to lead a prayer vigil there for all the faithful to make sure that this Westburg Purse..." he paused as his secretary whispered in his ear, "...to make sure that this Westerly Prunes abandons his sinful life."

Later Muckley was asked what if Wesley Pruiss did not abandon his sinful life.

Muckley was thoughtful for a moment. He had learned through experience that pregnant pauses always looked good during television interviews. "Well," he said finally, "in that case we have to remember what God said."

"What did God say?"

"He said that here on earth, God's work has to be done by men."

The sign on the door read "For Useful Effective Leadership." Under it a larger sign warned: "Keep out."

Inside the large room, twelve men sat on straight-backed chairs. They wore metal caps with sensor devices built into them, and attached by wires to panels at the right side of their chairs.

The twelve men were looking at a motion picture screen, still blank at the front of the brightly-lit room.

Behind the men, Will Bobbin, assistant director of community relations for the National Fossil Fuel Institute, nervously twisted a strand of his thinning gray hair, then flicked off the room lights and turned on the movie projector. Its fan began to whir and then the lamp lit and a picture appeared on the movie screen.

It was a picture of a small room, bare of furniture except for two wooden chairs. A door at the side of the room opened and a tall, elderly man wearing just a white shirt and trousers came in. Behind him came a gray-haired woman. She was blind and carried a white cane and wore heavy smoked glasses. Her bluish gray hair was immaculately marcelled and as the man took her arm to help her into her chair, she smiled a smile of pure warmth and love. She looked like everyone's storybook grandmother.

Bobbin glanced around the room. The twelve men were staring frontwards at the old couple on the movie screen. The men did not know it, but they were about to take part in a test that would determine forever their future in the coal and oil industry. Will Bobbin had designed the test.

The old couple sat on the chairs on screen, smiling straight ahead at the camera. The camera must have been hidden because the smiles were unselfconscious.

Bobbin waved to a team of three men he knew were hidden behind a large glass mirror on the right of the room. The signal was to make sure all the sensor-recording devices were on, to measure the emotional reactions of the twelve men to what they were about to see.

After a few seconds, the old couple stopped smiling. The man put his arms around the woman's shoulders and pulled her toward him, as if to share their body warmth. The woman said something to him and, as she spoke, breath steamed in front of her face.

The temperature in the room pictured on the screen was clearly going lower. With his free hand, the man turned up his shirt collar and buttoned it up at the neck. He hunched his shoulders, as people do in the cold, to try to pocket their bodily heat.

The couple talked to each other again but the film was silent and the men in the room could not hear voices. The woman wept. Tears rolled down her pink round cheeks. The camera zoomed in for a closeup and the tears turned to ice drops halfway down the woman's face.

The tall old man got up and walked to the door through which they had entered. He tried the knob. It would not turn. He yanked at the door. The blind woman still sat on the chair, but turned her head from side to side in confusion. The old man pounded on the door, but there was obviously no reply, because his face grew sad, and he came back and sat down again next to the old woman and tried to comfort her.

The film went on. The steam from their breaths frosted into ice in their hair and eyebrows. They hugged each other tightly, but when that failed to keep them warm, the man took off his shirt and put it around the woman. Then he kissed her on the mouth, and they clung to each other, tightly locked in each others arms.

The film seemed to skip for a moment, and then the couple was on screen again. They were in the same position, smiles on their faces, but they were coated with ice and obviously frozen to death. Bobbin heard someone gag in the front of the room. The film skipped again and showed the two people frozen in place, each coated with an inch-thick slick of ice.

It skipped again. Bobbin heard someone start to throw up. The final frames of the film showed the people now covered in a mound of ice, the ice so thick that one had to look hard to discern under the block the forms of two real people.

Bobbin froze the final frame of the movie and flicked on the lights. He walked to the front of the room and looked around. One man had thrown up onto the floor. Another had his handkerchief to his mouth and was gagging into it. They were out of it. They would never move up in the fuel industry. Some of the men seemed shocked. They were losers too.

Three men looked up at Bobbin with questioning eyes that showed no emotional reaction at all. They would probably reach the second level of management.

But two men looked at Bobbin very differently. Their eyes glistened with a vision of positive enjoyment. There were smiles on their faces. These two were comers, Bobbin knew. Some day they would head oil companies or coal companies.

Bobbin spoke. "You just saw a film. That's all, a film."

The man who had thrown up kept retching on the floor. The others watched Bobbin.

"That's all," he repeated. "A film. It's not like we go around freezing people all the time. We didn't even freeze these people at all."

Some of the men looked relieved at hearing it was a bloodless experiment. Bobbin paused to make sure that the sensors recorded their reaction to his remark. The two men who had seemed to enjoy the film looked disappointed at what Bobbin said. But they smiled again when he added:

"No, we didn't freeze them at all. Somebody else froze them." The sick man threw up some more.

"We just photographed them," Bobbin said. "That's all. The freezing wasn't our responsibility. As a matter of fact, and your news networks never mention a thing like this, you never hear that they owed money for fuel bills, the blind lady never paid a fuel bill in her whole fucking life. But the news never mentions that. No. Old people dying is always dramatic so it gets on the news. But it's not the whole story, not by a long shot."

Bobbin stopped. That was certainly enough for the people operating the sensor recorders to give him full reports on the leadership potential of the twelve men, all mid-level executives in the fossil fuel industry.

Bobbin felt good. He would bet that this screening system was going to work and if it did, his reputation was made. It was costly and dangerous for the fuel industry to go grooming top-level executives and then, when they got into the top slots, to find out that they had social consciences and a sense of the responsibility of the fuel companies to the public, and all those other things that were good for political speeches, but played hob with the oil and coal companies' profit and loss statements. Not to mention annual dividends.

"We want to thank all you gentlemen for coming to New York," Bobbin said. "Of course, you realize that this experimental program is being kept absolutely quiet so you will not talk about it. Now lunch is being served in the presidential dining room." He smiled. His fingers strayed toward the wisp of gray hair in front of his right ear.

"Good lunch, too," he said. "Salad with Roquefort dressing, vichyssoise, broiled lobster — fresh lobster, too, none of that frozen stuff. I guess you've had enough frozen meat for one day. Enjoy, enjoy."

The sick man heaved up some more. A loser, Bobbin thought. Just a loser.

After the room had been cleared, Bobbin waved toward the one-way window and a technician in a white smock entered the room.

"Got everything?" Bobbin asked.

"Got it all."

"On my desk when?"

"Tomorrow."

"Fine," Bobbin said.

The man in the white jacket left. Bobbin's assistant ran into the room.

"Bad news, Will," he said.

"What's that?" Bobbin asked, annoyed that he should have to listen to somebody's idea of bad news on a day that had thus far gone so well.

"Wesley Pruiss is still alive."

"Shit," said Bobbin.

"What'll we do? If he goes ahead with that solar energy project..." The assistant did not finish the sentence but his tone of impending doom finished it for him.

"Leave it to me," Bobbin said with a grim smile. "Leave it to me." And he started twisting the hair at his right temple again.