The flight from Montana to Virginia was an exercise in frustration for Remo. As usual, Chiun found someone who annoyed him, and Remo had to hear a litany of reasons about what made this person a particular irritant, from present-day foibles, to the ancient history of the person’s race, and whatever king or emperor had screwed up and caused bad habits to be passed down over generations. This flight, Chiun honed his focus on a slightly overweight German man who sat two seats ahead of them, and who had the audacity to snore while asleep.
“The Hussites would have been successful in their advancement on Prussia, for the House of Sinanju had guaranteed their victory. However, the skinflint named Jan Hus thought our price too steep,” Chiun sniffed. “And so they were repelled, and the Polish and the Lithuanians battled futilely, as Prussia retreated into isolation. To survive in the cold mountains, they invented sausage, and were so enamored of their invention they actually codified the proper method of making it. As if there were a right way to prepare the meat of the pig.”
“Germans. Sausages. Got it,” Remo said, nodding absently.
“No,” Chiun said. “Sausage is merely why the slumbering oaf reeks. What matters is the existence of Germany in the first place. Had Jan Hus shown wisdom, and remitted the pittance for the invaluable services of Sinanju, then the territory would have become his. There would have been no war for Kaiser Wilhelm. There would have been no war for Adolph Hitler. So you can see why assassination is the most benevolent of services: it is not for what it does now, but for what it does for future generations.”
“Kill Hitler, save the world,” Remo mumbled.
Chiun rankled, but turned his attention back to the bald head of the object of his derision. “Tell me again why I cannot have peanuts on this flight.”
“They stopped serving peanuts because too many people were allergic to them,” Remo said.
“When did that happen?”
“Sometime around the turn of the century, I think,” Remo replied. “You don’t eat peanuts, anyway.”
“I do not wish to eat them,” Chiun said. “I simply appreciate their aerodynamic qualities.” He held out his palm and pantomimed flicking an invisible peanut from it.
“You want to throw mini-pretzels at him, be my guest,” Remo offered.
“Bah,” Chiun huffed. “Pretzels do not fly as well. Nor impact as smartly. Heh, heh, heh.”
· · ·
Arriving at the hotel days before the protest bus, Remo was allowed the luxury of picking his own room — which, it turned out, was not that much of a luxury in the first place, as all the rooms were the same. He did, however, get the most advantageously-located one, on the top floor, overlooking the parking lot.
With three days before the protesters arrived, Remo had plenty of time to get the lay of the land. After setting Chiun up in his room, hooking the DVD player to the television set, and breaking the shrink-wrap off another season of As the Planet Revolves, Remo was free to wander the hotel.
That took all of ten minutes, even at his most leisurely pace. The third floor was all rooms, with an employee lounge across from the elevator. The second floor was an identical layout, with the employee lounge replaced by a coin-operated laundry room. The first floor expanded a little further, as the hotel’s front desk, lobby, and common area expanded the hotel’s footprint.
Remo had walked a short, slow lap around the lobby, noting how many dining tables and chairs were arranged there, the length of the serving bar, where breakfasts of egg-like product with egg flavoring would be trotted out each morning, and the comically-large do-it-yourself waffle station.
The walk was not calming him. Remo had felt a prickling along his skin since his flight had landed. It was an inexplicable sensation. Remo had seen comic books where the hero would experience a tingling sensation when danger was nearby. Did he have a Sinanju-sense? he wondered with mild amusement. Probably not.
A clanging from the kitchen area, followed by a wail mixed with what might have been a curse, drew him out of introspection.
“Fudgenuggets!”
Turning on his heel, Remo was through the door into the kitchen in three strides. He found a middle-aged fellow in grey coveralls wincing and vigorously massaging the fingertips of his right hand. A refrigerator coil lay on the ground, still vibrating from its drop.
“Mother of pearl, that smarted,” the man went on. “Hey there,” he said, noticing Remo’s presence. “Sorry about that, fella. Got the ends of my darn fingers caught between the bars of this replacement coil, and…” He shook his fingers and grimaced. “Hope I didn’t scare you.”
Remo relaxed. “You all right?” he asked.
“Eh, I’ll be fine,” the man replied. “Not my first rodeo. You a guest here, or staff?”
“Guest,” Remo said. “So, I probably shouldn’t be back here.”
The man shrugged noncommittally, turning his palms ceilingward. “The more the merrier,” he said. “Name’s Simon. Simon Gaylord. I’d shake hands, but it’s still sore.”
“Remo,” Remo said. “You need a hand with that thing?”
“Love one,” Simon said. “But I’ve got another pair in the fridge.” He nodded toward the walk-in unit against the back wall, just as the door opened to release a twenty-something woman of mixed ethnicity, which Remo quickly mentally assembled as Mexican and Chinese. Her hair was cut close on one side, with the other a wild bush of gelled spikes dyed neon blue.
“You always keep a girl in your refrigerator, Simon?” Remo joked, taking in the tightly muscled form of the tanned girl.
“Oh no, here we go,” Simon said, his eyes closing.
“Ex-CUSE me?” the new arrival said, moving with purposeful strides to Remo. “What did you just call me?”
Remo quickly replayed his words in his head to see if anything he had said rhymed with anything that might be interpreted as insulting. “Uh…‘girl?’” he offered tentatively.
“Why the hell are you assuming my gender?” she asked defiantly.
Remo cocked his head. “So you’re not a girl?”
“Not right now,” she said. “Maybe later. Who knows? Gender’s fluid, my dude.”
“I stand corrected,” Remo said flatly.
“Remo, this is my repair partner. Mei Hernandez, Remo…I don’t think I got your last name,” Simon said, trying to calm the situation.
“Identity is what you make it,” said Mei. “There are infinite combinations of ways to be me.”
“And here I thought it was all XX and XY,” Remo said.
“Why?” Mei countered.
“Yeah, Y,” Remo said. “That’s the one that makes a boy a boy. I could always remember it because the Y has the little stick that hangs down from the middle.” He dangled his index finger and wiggled it a bit for emphasis.
Mei narrowed her eyes at Remo. “Are you having me on?”
“Wouldn’t even dream of it,” Remo said, even as he was aware that his pheromone production had involuntarily spiked. No, he told himself, there would not be a repeat of Billings here.
“I get the feeling you have many sides, Remo,” Mei said, stepping much closer. For reasons she could not understand, Mei was drawn to this infuriating stranger. “I have many sides, too.”
“So I gather,” Remo said. “An infinite combination, if I remember correctly.”
She tilted her chin up at Remo. He could see her pulse in the curve of her neck. “Maybe I could show you a few of them,” she said. “I can be a girl for a while.”
“Uh, Mei?” Simon asked tremulously. “We have to get this coil replaced and get on to the next job.”
“The boss is right,” Remo said. “Work before pleasure.”
“You assume an awful lot,” Mei whispered, annoyed. “Simon works for me. Simon, take lunch.”
“It’s only nine.”
“Take a long lunch.”
Remo steadied himself, telling himself again that there were better, more productive ways to work out whatever was going haywire inside of him.
Mei wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Thick wrists,” she commented. “Like the rest of you?” She looked up at him with hopeful eyes.
Remo smirked, and let her lead him out of the kitchen.
Simon Gaylord shook his head and picked the refrigerator coil off the floor. “Couple of goony birds, if you ask me,” he muttered. “Never saw such a — agh, spacemonkeys!” he cursed again, as the fingertips of his left hand caught in the metal grating.