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."
"Subscriptions have been picking up. So, where can I find him?"
The waiter made his face sad. "Jou cannot, senor. For he is like the wind, unseeable and unfindable unless he wishes otherwise."
"How much?" Remo said wearily.
The waiter's sad face brightened. "For fifty dollars cash I will point you in the correct direction."
Remo counted out the money.
"You go north along the Pan American Highway, senor. Drive to Mexico City."
"Mexico City?"
"Si. Subcomandante Verapaz even now leads a drive to wrest Mexico City from the oppressor. Jou will undoubtedly find him somewhere along the road, crushing his enemies and lighting joy in the hearts of Mexicans everywhere."
"Thanks. You're a big help."
"May I sell you an authorized Subcomandante Verapaz doll, senores? An autographed picture? Get them now because if Verapaz either dies or succeeds, the price will surely double."
"No, but you can tell us why you changed Boca Zotz to Chi Zotz."
"That will be five additional dollars."
"Forget it."
"It is a very interesting story."
"Tell me the story, and I'll pay you what I think it's worth," Remo countered.
"Boca is Spanish. We live no longer under Spanish yoke. Boca becomes Chi so that now we will live in the Mouth of the Bat."
"So what's Boca mean?"
The waiter showed Remo his empty palm.
Remo was thinking it over when the Master of Sinanju said, "It is Spanish for mouth."
"You changed the name from Bat's Mouth to Bat's Mouth?"
"No, we change it from Bat's Mouth to Mouth of the Bat. It is a very great difference to the people."
"It is a very great pain in the boca to find this dump," said Remo on his way out the door.
"The soldados all say this, too," the waiter said smugly, folding Remo's money into his pocket.
Chapter 28
"It is called the give-and-take palm," Assumpta was saying as she broke a wicked needlelike thorn off the weirdly barbed tree. "It is called that because to touch it improperly will cut you. But the bark of the give-and-take plant makes a wonderful bandage with which to bind the very wound it causes, or any wound."
As the Extinguisher watched, she stripped off the bark on long, gauzy rolls almost like Ace bandages.
The moonlight was spectral and it made her black hair shine. Her body was as supple as bamboo. She smelled faintly of coconut.
With sure movements she bound the knife wound and, using one of the long, tough thorns, speared the loose end, cinching it tight.
"The father of my father taught this to me. He was a H'men, which is the same to you as a doctor, but one who uses the plants and herbs of the forest to heal the sick."
The Extinguisher grunted his thanks. It would be something to remember.
They moved on. As they picked their way, she taught him how to recognize the trees of the Lacandon rain forest, which was a weird conglomeration of semitropical vegetation coexisting with oak and pine trees.
"The red-bark one was known as the turista tree, because it sheds its bark the way a sunburned gringo sheds his skin," she explained. "That is the ceiba. And that the Manzanillo."
"Speaking of the turistas," he said. "Give me a minute, will you?"
She waited patiently as the Extinguisher did what had to be done, thinking that this having to drop one's pants every two miles was one hell of a way to win the trust of an enemy.