Besides, from the rear, he could better keep watch over her.
Not to mention the fact that he was really getting into the easy sway of her olive drab hips.
Chapter 27
The market town called Chi Zotz was nestled in the shadow of a tablelike mountain range. The air was clean and sweet, laden with budding wildflowers.
An English sign said WELCOME TO CHI ZOTZ. TURNING FOR PALENEQUE RUINS. FOOD, COLD SODA AND SAFE CAR PARKING. BIRTHPLACE OF SUBCOMANDANTE VERAPAZ.
Near the entrance to the town, a shawled woman stood outside an adobe home preparing a chicken dinner. She had the struggling chicken by the neck and, spreading her legs apart, wound up her arm.
She spun the bird in a circle twice. The neck snapped on the second revolution.
Examining the now-limp bird with satisfaction, she turned to reenter the home when Remo called out to her.
"Excuse me. Is Boca Zotz near here?"
"Boca Zotz is no more, senor. "
"Damn. What happened to it?"
"It has been renamed. It is now Chi Zotz, which means Bat's Mouth."
"Boca Zotz is this place, right?"
"No, this place is Chi Zotz. Boca Zotz is no more, senor. "
With that, the women vanished into the shadows of her home.
Remo drove on.
The town looked deserted. No one was in the tiny town square or walked the dirt streets. Painted slogans marred almost every blank surface available. Remo didn't need to understand much Spanish to understand defiant phrases like Solidaridad! Libertad! and Viva Verapaz!
"I caught you eyeing that fowl," Chiun said sharply.
"I was just thinking I could go for some duck right about now."
"I do not know what duck inhabits this land, but I would not eat it. Nor the fish. We will have rice, which is always safe to eat. Besides, chicken is unclean and unhealthful."
"People eat chicken all the time."
"Yes. Unknowingly."
"What do you mean unknowingly?"
"Chicken are incapable of urinating. This failure of hygiene fouls the fowl's tissues. To eat chicken is worse than consuming the flesh of pork."
Remo parked outside a dingy Spanish colonial building that suggested a restaurant because it sported a painted oval sign that looked exactly like a beer label. It said CARTA BLANCA. Soft ranchera music floated out.
When they entered, not a single glance came their way.
All eyes were glued to a flickering black-and-white TV set in one corner of the room. Chairs had been pulled up in a semicircle around the flickering TV light, but many people also stood around.
"Wonder what they're watching?" Remo asked Chiun.
"I do not know, but the odor of fear rises from them."
"Smells like chili and tacos to me," Remo grunted.
As they watched, he noticed a man in a white Texas hat make the sign of the cross.
"Could be coverage of the big earthquake," said Remo.
"I will ask."
Lifting his voice, the Master of Sinanju rattled off a rapid question in Spanish.
"El Monstruoso, " a man called back, making the sign of the cross himself.
"Did he say monster?" Remo asked.
"He said monster."
"You'd think with their capital in ruins, they would have better things to do than watch an old monster movie."
"Ay! El Monstruoso esta estrujando el tanque," a man cried.
"The monster has crushed a tank," Chiun translated.
"El Monstruoso devora el tanque!"
"The monster is eating the tank," Chiun said.
A man began weeping. Others began weeping, too.
"The special effects must be really something," Remo said.
"They are saying that the monster is coming this way."
"They sure take their movies seriously down here," said Remo, grabbing a chair. Chiun joined him.
The waiter was nervous. He sweated. He handed them menus and asked them their preferences in Spanish.
Remo pointed to an item of the menu. Cabro al cabron.
"What's this?" he asked the Master of Sinanju.
"Grilled goat."
"How about pastas de tortuga?"
"Turtle's feet."
"You're making this up so I don't get any meat, aren't you?"
"No," said Chiun, who then told the waiter, "Arroz. "
"If that's rice, make that a double," said Remo in English.
Chiun translated for the waiter, and within a few minutes bowls of steaming rice were laid before them.
They ate quickly. Remo finished first.
The commotion from the TV was distracting, so Remo wandered over and tried to see past the closeclustered heads of the TV viewers. The viewers in the back row were standing on stools. Even getting up on his toes didn't help much.
Getting no cooperation, Remo flicked at the earlobe of a man ahead of him, causing him to glower at the man beside him.
Remo caught a brief glimpse of the screen.
"Huh!" he grunted.
Returning to his table, he whispered to the Master of Sinanju. "Speak of the devil."
"Verapaz?"
"No. Gordons. I just saw him on TV."
Chiun's hazel eyes widened.
"What!"
"Yeah," Remo said casually. "He's the monster." Chiun eyed his pupil stonily. Remo looked back, a poker expression on his face. Finally he let his face come apart, grinning from ear to ear. "Fooled you."
"It was not Gordons?"
"Well, it looked like him. Or like the form he last assimilated."
"The ugly Aztec woman monster?"
"Yeah. Curlicue or whatever the name was."
"How do you know it is not Gordons returned to life?"
"Three reasons," said Remo. "One, we shattered Gordons into loose rock while he was in that form. He's deactivated. Two, Smith made us leave the corpse after the Mexican authorities stuck him back in their big museum. If he's still there, the roof has fallen in on his head by now."
"Those are not convincing reasons, Remo."
"I was getting to number three. Three, the monster on the TV had to be twenty-five feet tall. Cordons isn't twenty-five feet tall. The statue was only eight."
"Therefore, it is not Gordons."
"Can't be."
"Yes, you are right. Besides, how can it be Gordons when Gordons was vanquished by the Reigning Master of Sinanju?"
"I helped, too."
"I found his dense mechanical brain and broke it in his head."
"And I delivered the coup de grace. "
Chiun made a face. "You wasted a blow. He was already dead when you struck."
"Could be. But I was making sure. He came back to haunt us too many times before."
"But he is dead now. Long dead."
"If he wasn't, he'd have come back long before. And in a form we wouldn't recognize."
"I spit on his memory," Chiun said bitterly.
When the bill came, it was for five-hundred pesos.
"How much is that American?" Remo asked Chiun, who asked the waiter.
"Only seventy-five dollars."
"For two bowls of rice?" Remo complained.
"Jou are forgetting the water. It is not free."
Remo reached into his chinos. "I'm kinda low on cash. Discover card okay?"
"There is a thirty percent surcharge for all major credit cards."
"I'd get upset, but it goes on my expense account."
The waiter smiled broadly. The smile seemed to say This is what we count on, senor.
"By the way, we're looking for Subcomandante Verapaz."
"He is not here."
"I'm a reporter with Mother Jones magazine."
"Another?"
"You get a lot of reporters, I hear."
"Si. But not a lot from Mother Yones. They only come once or twice a season now. I think they have a little circulation problem."