"Destroyer 012 - Slave Safari.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"If only these clowns knew how to talk to people. That's the trouble with having so much money. Everybody thinks they know what you want and they don't bother to find out what you really want. They do all sorts of horrid things in your name. I take it you're all right."

"I'm fine," said Remo.

"You weren't going to destroy that Seurat, were you?"

"I was," said Remo, returning the painting with dots.

"To prove that money meant nothing to you, I suppose."

"Yes," said Remo.

"I'll buy it back."

"No need," said Remo. "It wasn't mine to begin with," and he left Lippincott's office feeling that if only people made their positions clear, half the problems in the world could be solved by reasonable men, reasoning together.


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CHAPTER FOUR
When- Remo returned to the Berkshires, upstairs had left a message. Chiun, who did not follow telephone codes, recognized the words "Aunt Mildred."

"Aunt Mildred what, Chiun?" asked Remo.

"Aunt Mildred. I do not play your little word games. If Dr. Smith wishes to see you, why doesn't he just say, 'I wish to see you?' Instead, Aunt Mildred is very sorry she cannot come or Aunt Mildred will have dinner ready or Aunt Mildred will refurnish the blue room."

"Do you remember which one?"'

"I do not," said Chiun imperiously, as if Remo had overstepped his bounds by asking.

"I only ask because one of the things you mentioned means we should run for our lives and another means that every thing is hunky dory."

"Running for one's life is the surest way to lose it."

"That's not the point, Chiun. It's that they mean different things."

"They mean nothing to me."

"But they mean something to me."

"Then you should be here to answer the telephone instead of fulfilling boasts," answered Chiun, thus closing the conversation to his satisfaction.

Remo waited until early dawn for the phone to ring again, but it did not, and he was about to nap when he heard a car pull up to the driveway. Just by the slow, careful and neat way it parked, by the careful opening of the door so as not to wear the hinges unduly, Remo knew that it was upstairs, Dr. Harold W. Smith, director of CURE. The message must have been Aunt Mildred will have dinner ready. That meant stay where you are. Will contact in person.

"I see Chiun got the message correct," said Smith, not bothering to thank Remo for opening the door or even acknowledging his greeting. "You really shouldn't complain that he can't relay codes. He did very well this time. You're here."

Smith wore a dark suit and a white shirt and striped tie. With the crispness of a mail clerk he walked onto the sun porch. The sun was sending little red cracks into the gray early morning sky over Lake Patusick.

"I don't suppose you have any coffee," asked Smith.