"Destroyer 029 - The Final Death.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)unequalled. As for those other things you mentioned, they no longer warrant my attention."
Remo took a step back from the bathroom. "Run that one by me again. I think it had something to do with your not watching soap operas anymore. Since when?" "Since they have failed me," Chiun said. "Will you please wash the filth of plastic from your body? I will wait here for you." Remo showered and when he came out of the bathroom wearing a knee-length cotton robe, Chiun was scrawling in Korean characters on the sheets of parchment. "Now what's this about the soap operas?" asked Remo. "They have turned to violence and have betrayed their own beauty. I have tried to stop this. I had you mail that letter to Norman Lear to warn him. Nothing has gotten better. Things have only declined." Chiun put down the feather pen and stared at Remo. "So I have written a daytime drama of my own." He waved the sheets of parchment. "You see it now, here before you." Remo snickered. "You've written a soap opera?" "I have written a daytime drama. That is correct." Remo laughed aloud and fell back onto the sofa in the suite's living room. "Don't tell me. I know what you're going to call it. Rove of Rife. Right?" Chiun transfixed him with a narrow stare. "Unlike some, I do not have any problem pro- 35 nouncings R's and L's. If I had, how could I pronounce your names?" Remo Williams nodded. "For after all," Chiun continued, "cretin has an R in it and lunatic an L. To pronounce either wrong would be a disservice to your uniqueness as a semi human being." Remo stopped laughing and sat up. "You set me up for that, Chiun." "At last I have your attention. Now perhaps we may get down to business." "Go ahead," Remo said sullenly. "A daytime drama must be seen to be appreciated," Chiun said. "Even to be believed," Remo mumbled. "Silence. Now there are a number of ways to bring such a work of art to television. But since we do not own our own television station or manufacture baby food in small jars, we must find another way. Pay attention now, because this part concerns you." "I can hardly wait." "I have researched this question carefully and I find that writers who write things which find their way onto television share one thing in common." "Besides talent?" Chiun waved a hand as if to brush away the interruption. "They have agents. This is because of your mail system in this country." "If a writer just put his story into the mail to send it to a television station, what would happen is what always happens to the mail. It 36 would get lost, just as those lunatics have lost most of the mail that a faithful few have been sending to me for these years. So the writer gets an agent. This agent puts the story in an envelope and then he puts it under his arm and takes it to the television station and hands it to the proper people. This way it is not lost. Trust me, Remo, this is how it's done." "That's not what an agent does," Remo said. "That is just what an agent does," said Chiun. "Now for this, your professional agent gets 10 percent of what the writer gets. Because you are just a beginner I am willing to pay you five percent." Remo shook his head, more in confusion than in rejection. "Now, Little Father, why did you pick me?" "I told you. I have studied this carefully. You have the quality that is most necessary to being a successful agent." "Yeah? What's that?" "You have two first names." Remo looked stunned. "That is correct, Remo. All the big agents have two first names. Why this is I do not know, but it is so. You could look it up." Remo opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. He opened his mouth again, then stopped. "Good. You have nothing further to say. It is settled. Because I know you so well, Remo, it will not be necessary for you to have a legal contract drawn. I know you would never cheat me." "Chiun, this is ridiculous." 37 "Do not feel inadequate. You will learn to deliver as well as any agent. I will help you." Remo abandoned further protest as useless. "Well, we'll just stay loose on that for awhile. Now this soap opera of yours. What's it about? As if I didn't know." "Ah, wait until you hear. It tells the story of this young, honest, noble brave man from. . . ." ". . . the village of Sinanju in North Korea," Remo said. ". . . the village of Sinanju in North Korea," Chiun continued, as if he had not heard Remo. "And it follows this young man as he goes out into the cruel stupid world, plying his traditional art. . . ." ". . . of being an assassin like all the Masters of Sinanju," Remo said. Chiun cleared his throat. "Plying his traditional art of personnel management, and how he is misunderstood and not appreciated, but he holds always true to his beliefs, and without fail sends gold back to his village, because it is a poor village. . . ." Remo interjected. "And without the gold, the people would starve and have to drown their babies in the bay because they couldn't feed them." "Remo, have you been peeking at this manuscript of mine?" "No, Little Father." "Then let me finish. And our hero, older now, adopts a son of another race, but the son turns out to be a fat ingrate, who smells of plastic |
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