"Let them search," Remo growled. "We had to get off the train."
"We could have got off at Baotou. Stayed few days. Come back. Get off at Hohhot then. Why you in such a big rush?"
"My mission is important."
"Your mission matter a lot if we end up on courtyard with our heads in baskets!" she hissed.
Remo stopped. He looked down at her, his eyes angry.
"Look, get off my back! I can handle it. What's the big deal?"
"You want to know big deal?" she said, shaking an ivory fist in his face. "Big deal is that government very anxious since Tiananmen. Soldiers find body, they make example of innocent peasants and workers. People punished for your crime. Suffer very much. Never see family again."
Remo opened his mouth to vent a retort. But Fang Yu's point started sinking in. "Sorry," he said.
"You not the one who will be sorry," she said excitedly. "If you want Fang Yu's help, you do as Fang Yu say. Not make trouble for poor oppressed Chinese people. We have enough trouble without big-nosed foreign devil causing more."
"You're right," Remo said earnestly. "I apologize."
Fang Yu frowned. "You promise you behave?"
"Scout's honor," Remo said. Her expression didn't change, so he said it again in plain English. "I promise. Are we friends again?"
"When we stop?" Fang Yu asked unhappily.
"I think it was when you called me a big-nosed foreign devil," Remo said seriously. Then he added, "Never."
And he looked both ways in the Hohhot alley before he took her up in his arms and kissed her under the Mongolian moon.
"Okay, what's next?" Remo asked as they walked along.
"Can you ride horse?"
"I went on a pony ride once," he admitted. "But that was back in my orphanage days."
"You orphan?"
"Yes."
"Remo! I orphan too! Cultural Revolution orphan. My parents sent into countryside because they came from bad family."
"Bad?"
"Intellectual. In those days intellectuals were considered bad people by Mao. Peasants and workers were always good-even when they steal and lie. Mao say they good. Everyone go along, because we Chinese. What choice have we? Crazy times. These times are not so crazy, just terrible."
Hohhot proved to be a fairly modern city, Remo found. The main difference between it and what Remo had seen in China so far was the preponderance of Mongolian-script signs instead of Chinese calligraphy. Its value was lost on Remo, who could read neither.
Dress was different in Hohhot, Remo saw as they wended their way through twisting side streets. Native Mongolians went about in colorful long cloth coats girdled at the waist by a sash. They looked as Asian as the passing Chinese, but their features were broader, complexions rawer, their noses more buttonlike.
The Chinese on the street were dressed in identical unisex blue work uniforms. Fang Yu explained that they helped the backward nomadic Mongols manage their capital city.
At one point they passed a mosque with a clock painted on its face. According to the immobile hands, it was 12:45 and would be for eternity.
Fang Yu found a small hotel that didn't ask questions, although Remo got a thorough looking-over by the broadfaced woman at the front desk. She looked more Cheyenne than Mongolian.
Fang Yu handed Remo a key and lifted one for herself.
"Separate rooms?" he said in surprise.
Fang Yu blushed. "What will Mongolians think-a civilized Chinese woman in same room with foreign devil?"
Remo couldn't tell if she was joking until she punched him in the ribs playfully. He gave her a sheepish smile.
They went up the stairs together and parted at Remo's door with a quick kiss.
"Stay in room," Fang Yu whispered. "I make all arrangements."
"You sure you'll be okay alone?"
"Not worry. Chinese women can take care of selves."
Remo found the room cramped and filled with overbuilt furniture. The bed was so high it looked as if it would float to the ceiling, taking the white damask bedspread with it.
What appeared to be a spittoon stood at the foot of the bed.
There was also a phone, and Remo went to it eagerly.
Unfortunately, the instructions were limited to Mongolian and Chinese.
Remo whirled the rotary dial several times, hoping to hit the outside-access number. An assortment of pops and hisses assailed his ears. Finally he got an excited voice speaking Mongolian-or possibly Chinese-but not English, as he found after a ten-minute attempt to get the operator to summon someone who spoke or even had heard of English to the phone.
Remo hung up in disgust.
"So much for calling Smith," he grumbled.
He threw himself on the bed and practically hit the ceiling on the rebound.
Angrily he folded his bare arms and wished he had brought a change of clothes. There was no shower in the room. In fact, there wasn't a bathroom. The thing that stood at the foot of his bed was not a spittoon, he realized, but a chamber pot.
The spittoon was the narrow-necked vessel by the telephone.
Remo decided to ignore both conveniences.
So he closed his eyes and went instantly to sleep. It was easier than dealing with the complexities of Inner Mongolia.
Chapter 20