Unpopular Science

“You just take out a few walls and you’d be in good shape.”

“That doesn’t exactly help me right now.”

“What do you mean? I’ll have it done before you’re back from the little boy’s room.”

“No. Please, no, Remo. And stop invading my privacy. I don’t need to know that you know when I need to—you know.”

“What privacy? You’re shifting around like an eight-year-old in mass. Can I at least get you unstuck?”

Mark sighed. “That would be helpful.”

Mrs. Mikulka returned to find Mark Howard still in his wheelchair, but the wheelchair was now four feet off the ground. It turned and emerged backward from the office. Remo gave her a smile and placed it on the ground again, giving Mark a crash-landing for the benefit of the elderly secretary.

“Unstuck. You could stand to lose a few, Mark. I think I pulled my back.”

“Maybe we have some wheelchairs at Folcroft that are more narrow,” Mark said.

“Mark, you are not going to try to cram yourself inside of that office,” Mrs. Mikulka declared. “Not until you are ambulatory again. Come with me, please.” Remo almost had hold of the wheelchair handles, then found himself facing a mask of maternal determination that sent him into retreat. Mrs. Mikulka wheeled Mark Howard right back to Mr. Smith’s office.

“Dr. Smith has more room than he needs,” she announced, and when they entered the director’s office she explained the difficulties down the hall. “You’ll be more than happy to have Mark as a roommate temporarily, won’t you?”

“Nod, Smitty,” Remo called from outside the door after an uncertain moment.

Smith nodded. “Yes. Of course. That’s an ideal solution. You’ll need a desk.”

Mrs. Mikulka stepped aside as an upended desk rolled into the office, followed by a Folcroft maintenance worker who manned the dolly. “Afternoon, Mrs. M. Where’d you like this?”

Remo couldn’t tear his eyes away as Mrs. Mikulka supervised the arrangement of the new office layout, careful to allow plenty of room for Mark’s wheelchair. Phones arrived and were installed by another maintenance worker. Dr. Smith seemed resigned to the chaos, but in reality it was handled with great efficiency. When the door closed twenty minutes later, Mark was firmly ensconced.

“Just like old times.” Mark grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry to have this thrust on you. Dr. Smith. Don’t think you were given much choice.”

“It’s perfectly acceptable, Mark, but I have to admit, I’ve rarely witnessed Mrs. Mikulka in such a take-charge mode.”

‘I’d say this pack has a new alpha male,” Remo remarked.

“Are you finished?” Chiun asked, slipping through the door. “I have been waiting in the rental car.”

“I thought you told me you were going to the cafeteria for a burger and fries,” Remo protested. Chiun’s look would have curdled yak milk. “Well, my supervision here is done.”

Remo felt oddly ebullient as they departed, despite his current less-than-affectionate relations with Dr. Smith. In the outer office he made a big thumbs-up. “Good work, Mrs. M.”

Mrs. Mikulka crinkled her wrinkles. “Why, thank you, Romeo.”

Mrs. Mikulka watched them go, mulling over the odd pair that had just left. She’d watched them come and go for so many years they had become a part of the scenery.

But she had never been too clear on who they were. Relatives of Dr. Smith, she had been told more than once. She didn’t know if that was true, and she didn’t really care. But two things she had picked up over the years. They ate a lot of rice and they hadn’t aged much. Why, she herself looked older now than the Asian gentlemen, and he had seemed ancient to her at one time.

What was their strange attachment to Folcroft Sanitarium? And what about Dr. Smith’s late nights, and the two men coming at all hours? What was actually going behind those always-closed doors, anyway?

As always, when these thoughts began getting dark and suspicious, a pleasant puff of distraction floated into her mind as if from nowhere to whisk them away. Which was fine, really. Mrs. Mikulka wasn’t sure what was crouching in those dark corridors of suspicion and she would just as soon not know.

Chapter 31

Playing security guard was always boring work. Didn’t matter if it was an office building in Dayton, Ohio, or the White House. You basically just kind of stood there waiting for something to happen.

The security around the White House was always good enough by most standards, but never very good by Remo’s.

“This false president has little respect for us,” Chiun noted as they slipped along the outside of the White House grounds, skirting the cameras and sensors that watched the place.

“He doesn’t know anything about us,” Remo answered.

“You should not talk. Traitor of Sinanju!”

“Come on, Chiun, I’m not a traitor.”

“You have disposed of fifty centuries of learning and tradition.”

“I haven’t disposed of anything. You’re overreacting.”

“Overreacting? How dare you!”

“I dunno, how?”

“I never overreact!” Chiun snapped explosively.

“Sorry, I must have been thinking of somebody else.”