As a consequence, Remo had more and more come to enjoy sex less and less.
But he found himself humming as he dressed while waiting until Chiun's honking snores softened to a intermittent snuffle, and then knocked on his door.
"Rise and shine, Little Father. It's the beginning of a new day."
"What is good about that?" said Chiun.
"For one thing, Thrush Limburger's coming to town. And he knows when you've been naughty or nice."
"And I know when you have not showered. I am not emerging from this room until you do."
"Damn," said Remo. And the faint scent of Nalini came to his nose again. "Give me ten,"' he told the Master of Sinanju, ducking back into his room.
Remo hit the bathroom and turned on the shower, preparatory to taking off his clothes.
He got a metallic groan, a driblet of cold water, and the pipe groan resumed, without so much as a drop of water to make up for all the laborious racket.
"Perfect," Remo grumbled.
He called the front desk.
"What happened to my shower?"
"This happens from time to time. It's the drought."
"When will it come back on?"
"We never know," the desk man said.
Remo went out and said to Chiun, "Why didn't you tell me there's no shower water?"
"I had bath water. I took a wonderful bath."
"Well, you took my shower too, because you must have used up the last of the water."
"Now you are blaming me because you smell like a Hindu."
"I do not smell like a Hindu. Look, let's just have breakfast. Maybe there'll be water after we eat."
"I will not be seen in public with one who smells of the Ganges," said Chiun, flouncing off.
Remo let him go. He wasn't that hungry to begin with. He got into his car and drove into Ukiah, thinking he'd look up the local coroner. Maybe he'd have an empty slab and a hose Remo could borrow for a few hours.
Although the more he thought of it, the more Remo liked having Nalini's scent on him. Maybe he'd hold on to it awhile, just to annoy Chiun. Then again, maybe he'd look up Nalini and ask for a booster shot.
Chapter 10
Remo learned by asking around that the Ukiah coroner was also the local undertaker and that brought him to the town's sole funeral parlor. The name over the door was Esterquest and Son. Remo went in.
A properly funereal-faced man greeted him and said, "I do not believe we are waking anyone today."
"I'm looking for the coroner," said Remo.
"Mr. Esterquest is quite busy."
Remo flashed a CDC ID card and said, "Federal agent. I gotta see him. It's about this HELP problem."
The man exchanged his downcast expression for a glum one. "Could it wait? Mr. Esterquest is in the embalming room."
"I have a strong stomach. We can talk while he works."
The man sucked in his hollow cheeks until the bottom of his face looked like it belonged on a white satin pillow.
"That would hardly be proper," he said.
"Look, just tell him I'm here."
The man went away. He was back less than a minute later, wearing the same hollow expression. His tune was different, however.
"Mr. Esterquest says that he takes no responsibility for any unpleasant thing you may see."
"Fair enough," said Remo, and he followed the man into the back, past bare wake rooms and an atmosphere that was faintly sweet with flowers, but somehow bitter to breathe.
The double door had a brass plate that said EMBALMING ROOM, and the man threw it open. Remo entered and immediately cycled his breathing rhythms down so that the strong odor of formaldehyde wouldn't sear his sensitive lung linings.
Esterquest was bent over a body on a slab. The body was of a man, a sheet modestly covering his midsection. He was as gray as a dead picture tube.
He looked up and said, "I thought you were press."
"Center for Disease Control," said Remo.
Esterquest straightened.
"Don't you mean 'Centers'?"
"Who ever heard of something having more than one center?" Remo countered.
"Let me see that ID card of yours."
Remo handed it over. Esterquest was an ordinary-looking man with soft brown hair and no worry lines on his smooth, thirtyish face. He handed the card back with a reddish thumbprint on it.
"Excuse the blood," he said. "You're genuine. Even if you do have a goofy sense of humor. What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking into this HELP business. I hear you autopsied one of the first victims."
"Brother Sagacious. The UCLA professor. He was the only one they didn't dump into a shallow grave, and only because the family insisted upon a proper Southern Baptist burial. Later, I ordered some of the others exhumed for a proper autopsy. Public health regulations, you know. I'm up for reelection next year. "
"Find anything?"
"Yes and no."
"Let's hear both sides of it," said Remo.
"The dead all seem to be from the so-called Snapper wing of PAPA."
"I talked to both sides. Each side said only the other side caught the HELP virus."
"What do you expect from people who eat bugs? Well, I did six autopsies before it started getting out of hand. I'm the only coroner for six towns and I have enough of a job autopsying the car accident victims, natural causes deaths, and the like."
"Tough job."
"I said I was overworked, not that I didn't like it. Actually, it's very interesting sometimes. Take this man. Do you see any mark on him?"
Remo looked closer. "No."
"There isn't one. Not that I can find. But they found him behind the wheel of his car, parked at a rest stop, dead as yesterday's corned brisket. Barely forty too."
"Heart attack?"
"He'd be a distinct grayish blue."
"Carbon monoxide poisoning?"
"He'd be an exquisite cherry pink. There's no trauma, edema, no contusions, no cranial concussion. It's a mystery."
Remo grunted.
The man looked up and his face lost its hangdog look. He smiled. A twinkle came into his colorless eyes. "I happen to love a good mystery. You know, a woman's kinda like a mystery."
"Most women are," said Remo, thinking of Nalini.
"They're kinda like a puzzle every man aches to solve. You take your time about it, of course. You have to. Even with the shallowest woman, it takes time to solve the riddle of her ways. If you stay together long enough, finally you do. If you don't, they hang in your memory forever."
"Better to figure them out quick, huh?"
"Oh, I don't know. Once you crack the code, once you figure out what makes them tick-why their moods darken or lighten when they do-they're no longer quite as interesting. Some women, I think, it's better to leave unsolved."
"What good is a mystery if you can't solve it, right?"
"Which brings us back to this gray gentleman," Esterquest said suddenly. "There is no reason for him being dead that I can see."
"Well, he had to die of something," said Remo.
"True, which is why I'm going to spend all of today and as much of tomorrow as I dare, poking about this man's viscera. Because I know they hold the secret and I ache to solve it. Once I do," Esterquest shrugged broadly, "he's just another poor stiff and I'll go plodding on, embalming accident cases and stroke victims until the next tantalizing corpse comes along."
"Corpses don't tantalize me."
"Nor me. As corpses. But mysteries do. And in my job, I see a really meaty one but once in a blue moon. It's the same with the HELP victims."
"You have any ideas about that?"
"No, not yet. But I've been saving all my data, blood and tissue samples. I think HELP can be explained. It's just a matter of time."
"Let's get to the yes of this conversation."
Esterquest smiled easily. "You'll never be a detective, my CDC friend. You don't have the patience. As I was saying, the bodies I saw were all from t
he Snapper wing. This makes sense if the dreaded thunderbug was transmitting the disease, because the Snappers don't cook their bugs. Cooking would likely kill the viral microorganism, rendering them harmless protein. As you know, a virus is just a bit of genetic material surrounded by a protective protein envelope."
"So it is the bug?"
"Except for one tiny but significant detail. I found no trace of viral infection in the linings of their stomachs, the logical invasion site."
"One federal guy I spoke to thought they could be getting it through mouth sores or cuts."
"A good theory, except that if the bug was carrying a bug, some of the victims surely would show soft-tissue damage in the mouth. And I didn't find any cold sores. Cooties, yes. Periodontal disease, also. But their mouths were clean of viral infection."
"That brings us back to the no-bug theory."
"Except there is something killing these people that suggests a virus. If not a virus, perhaps a communicable disease on the order of Lyme disease or a lethal toxin like paralytic shellfish poisoning. Those possibilities are real enough. But I don't know enough about these things to say how they might work or not work inside the body. The HELP agent doesn't appear to be of a type that could kill a full-grown adult inside of forty-eight hours."
"Why not?"
"Because there are no discernible symptoms or effects. The person just becomes very tired one day, and starts wasting until he dies. In order for a virus to kill, there must be physical symptoms, wouldn't you think?"
"I guess," said Remo.
"After all, warts are a symptom of one kind of virus. Chicken pox and mumps have their signature symptoms. Other viral infections settle in major internal organs, such as the heart or the lungs. None of these organs have been affected in any way I can find. HELP victims waste away and they die. But they don't seem to die of the wasting process."
"Kinda like a stealth virus."
"A good way of putting it." Esterquest gestured toward the body on the slab. "You know, I was about to open this man up."
"Be my guest," said Remo.
Esterquest eyed Remo doubtfully. "You have the stomach for seeing me remove this man's stomach?"
"I was in Nam. I've seen everything."
"If you faint, I'm just going to leave you there."
"Don't sweat it," Remo said. "I only faint at election returns."
As Remo watched, Esterquest made a lateral incision from the breastbone down to the pubic bone, without getting anything in the way of blood. He poked around happily.
"Since I see no external signs," he mused, "I'm going to look at this man's major organs. Examine the stomach contents. Perhaps it was something he ate."
"Like thunderbugs?"
"I hear it's a fad now." Esterquest shook his rumpled head in disbelief. "What is this country coming to?"
Remo shrugged. He watched as the dead man's limp liver-colored stomach was excised, sliced open, and the contents removed and set on a stainless steel tray. It was a milky mass that looked like nothing remotely edible.
"If the virus kills after forty-eight hours, will you find any bugs?" Remo asked.
"Probably not. Carapace material is usually impervious to stomach acid, but that damn bug is almost one hundred percent digestible." Esterquest was picking the mass apart and smearing samples on a glass slide. He looked at it through a microscope.
"No bug parts that I can see."
"Then he didn't eat the bugs."
Esterquest looked up and smiled knowingly.
"Oh, there's still the bowel contents to look at, yet."
Remo's face fell. "That part I think I can skip."
"Everyone has their limitations. Myself, I'd prefer to forgo a bowel incision. Even with a face mask, built-up gasses are the worst."
Remo started to go.
Esterquest called, "Oh, there is one other thing."
Remo turned. "Yeah?"
"Even though there was no viral agent in their stomachs, there was something funny in their blood."
"What?"
"I don't know. Never saw anything like it before. And without an electron microscope, and a whole range of testing dyes and the like, I can't pursue it any further."
"Oh," said Remo.
As he started to go, the man called after him, "Next time you're in town, drop by again. Maybe we can compare notes some more. Lord knows an old poison oaker like me could use the company."
Remo noticed the man's colorless eyes flick to a framed picture of a smiling young woman with curly hair.
"Wife?" Remo asked.
Esterquest nodded. "Be gone six years in October."
"Sorry."
"I'm used to death in my business."
"Ever figure her out?"
Esterquest didn't look up. His no was barely audible.
"Catch you around," said Remo, shutting the door after himself. A hissing of released gas came distinctly through the door and Esterquest, his voice once more buoyant, exclaimed, "Gahh! I hate this part. But it'll be worth it if you give up all your secrets, my silent gray friend."
Remo left the funeral parlor in a better mood than when he had gone in. It was good to come upon unexpectedly, someone who was really excited about his work. Even if the nature of that work wasn't always so pleasant. Funny how someone who deals in death all the time should find in that a way to make his life more interesting.
Remo reflected that he and the undertaker were in the same business. Death. Except Remo was more of a manufacturer and the undertaker a packager of the final product.
The town was pretty quiet once Remo got out into the fresh air. There was no sign of the press and Remo wondered if they had simply camped out at Nirvana West. He wasn't looking forward to going back to that clowns' nest.
On the other hand, maybe Nalini would be there.
As Remo started for his car, from down the road came the blare of rock music. It was loud. It was very loud. And it was coming this way fast. It sounded like some idiot teenager had his car stereo cranked up to one-hundred-fifty decibels.
As Remo got his motor going, he saw in his rearview mirror a big RV barreling through town. It was painted red, white, and blue and the too-loud rock was blaring from a loudspeaker mounted on the roof.
"Damn, another politician," muttered Remo, gunning into reverse and peeling out one step ahead of the approaching RV.
On the way back to the motel, Remo spotted the Master of Sinanju walking along, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his sky blue kimono. Remo stopped and rolled down his window.
"Going my way?" he asked cheerfully.
Chiun looked at him with a wrinkling nose and disdainful eyes. "Have you showered?"
"No," Remo admitted.
"Then I am not going your way, unclean one."
"Oh, come on. Don't be that way."
"You smell worse than before," Chiun said pointedly.
"I just attended an autopsy."
"Then it is doubly important that you shower," sniffed the Master of Sinanju, hurrying on.
Remo let him go. He drove past, watching the one who taught him Sinanju in his rearview mirror with unhappy eyes.
"Every time I meet somebody I like, he's gotta pull this tired old crap," muttered Remo.
Chapter 11
The conventional wisdom was that Thrush Limburger would end up like Morton Downey. His ego is too big, they said. He's growing too fast. People listen to him just to laugh at him, others insisted. Just you watch, once his ratings start to fall, they'll find that windbag in some airport men's room stall, his head shaved, Mirrors of Venus-the symbol for womankind-lipsticked all over his dazed face, babbling that the "Feminasties" are out to get him.
They said that in his first year. They said it in his second. When he jumped to television, they claimed it would be the kiss of death. Thrush Limburger. He's so "hot" he's on TV. Ha-ha-ha.
The conventional wisdom said that when a trend or movement or whatever hit the tube, that meant it was on its w
ay out, if not already dead.
Everybody knew it. Everybody except Thrush Limburger, that is. He was already hard at work on his next bestseller, I Told You So, as his red, white, and blue remote broadcast RV rolled into the town of Ukiah, the proud letters TTT NETWORK emblazoned on the side.
"As I speak to you from the rolling hills of Mendocino County," Thrush boomed into the microphone, simultaneously typing on his portable computer, whose keys were padded so he could write and broadcast simultaneously, "I am struck by how gullible large segments of the American people have become in our electronic age. Let's take Theodore Soars-With-Beagles-I mean Eagles. Now the press is reporting that he's a full-blooded Chinchilla Indian. My friends, I have combed every encyclopedia, spoken to noted anthropologists and ethnologists, and they all tell me that there is no such being as a Chinchilla Indian. Now I admit even I had to look this up. I couldn't be certain. Sure, it sounded funny, but I suppose it's possible for there to be such a thing. After all, there's a tribe calling itself the Pontiacs, and they have nothing to do with the auto industry. So let me share something with you."
Abruptly, Limburger gave his jowly right cheek a slap with his fleshy right hand. The sound was like raw pork chops colliding.
His audience accepted the mushy sound without a qualm. They understood that Thrush Limburger was an excitable fellow. He often drummed his fingers, stamped his feet, and fluttered faxes and newspaper clippings into the open mike. It was part of his on-air persona, he boasted. What he neglected to mention was that Thrush Limburger suffered from a mild form of Tourette's Syndrome.
Thrush was also on a self-improvement program where if he found himself using a mushy word on the air, he would stop and slap himself in the face as an ungentle reminder that he had committed an inappropriate public utterance.
In this case, the mushy word was "share."
"Now Theodore Soars-With-Eagles calls himself a Chinchilla Indian," Thrush continued. "And that is his God-given right. He can call himself a springbok if it so pleases him. But here's a flash. There are no Chinchillas, except the furry ones women wrap around their necks. At great peril to their well-being, by the way, thanks to the animal rights crowd. For the benefit of the adherents of PAPA and Mr. Theodore Soars-With-Eagles, if you can hear me, my fine feathered friend, the correct tribal name is Chowchilla. Not Chin chilla. Chow chilla. Now I ask you, listeners, how seriously can we take the pronouncements of a self-appointed Indian spokesman if he can't even get the name of his own tribe right?"
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