When the Master turned back to face the magicians, he did detect a scent displeasing to him emanating from the lower garments of the wizards. They spoke in haste to him.

"You'll get everything you want," the sorcerer Bindle gasped.

"I'll personally guarantee it," Marmelstein the Magician agreed quickly. His eyes were filled with terror.

"The new contracts will be ready for you to sign in an hour," Bindle insisted.

"Half an hour," Marmelstein said rapidly. "We'll courier them to your hotel."

"That reminds me," the Master said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I wish you to pay my hotel expenses, as well."

"Done," agreed Bindle.

"I'll call the limo," said Marmelstein. Pulling at his trousers, the magician went off to summon the coachman who would take the Master to his lodgings.

"I'll get the ball rolling with legal," Bindle said, heading for his telephone.

"I will wait outside," said Master Chiun, the brilliant negotiator, for the odor in the inner sanctum of the titans of Taurus was more than he could bear. He left the conjurer Bindle to talk to legal.

Thus did the Master of Sinanju, in the earliest days of what Western calendars inaccurately deemed the twenty-first century (see Pope Gregory XIII: Calendars, Carpenters and the Confusion They've Wrought), arrive in and conquer the province of Hollywood.

Chapter 1

On the evening of his murder, Walter Anderson steered his Ford Explorer up his driveway at the usual time. A hint of the summer Walter would never see wafted through the open driver's side window, carried on eddies of warm spring air.

Commuting through Washington that morning, Walter had been surprised to see that the cherry blossoms were just beginning to peek from their buds. Since he hadn't noticed them on Friday, they had to have started coming out over the weekend. No matter how lousy his mood, the sight of those tiny pink buds always made him feel a little better.