"Let's hope the motel Nalini told me about has some space," Remo said as they put the town behind them.
"It is no doubt infested with roaches if it serves Hindus," Chiun sniffed.
"Get off it, will you?"
"Only if you promise not to get on that Hindu."
"No deal."
Remo drove on and three miles up the road came to a little ticky-tacky nest of bungalow duplexes.
"Doesn't look so bad," Remo said.
As Remo pulled into the parking lot, the Master of Sinanju said, "This does not meet my modest standards."
Remo stabbed a finger out his window. "Look, see that sign? VACANCY. We're in luck. It may not look it, but we are."
"It is insufficient for my needs."
"After the press gets all the film and quotes they want, they're going to be descending on every fleabag motel from here to Oregon. We're just lucky they're so hot to get their stories they didn't bother to book their rooms first."
"I will consider it."
"Or you can sleep in the car."
"Only if you sleep in the trunk."
They went in.
The front desk was about the size of a kitchen table and had the same kind of green-flecked formica top. The man behind it was under thirty and had dirty blond hair.
"Greetings, innkeeper," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju. "We seek suitable lodgings."
"He means we want a room," said Remo.
"We will consider engaging a room if your establishment suits our needs," corrected Chiun.
"You run a wonderful establishment," said Remo, sliding a credit card across the formica countertop. "It comes highly recommended. Give us a bungalow."
"We will negotiate once we have interviewed your room service chef," proclaimed Chiun.
The desk clerk looked blank. "Room service chef?"
"You provide room service, of course," said Chiun.
"From time to time, yeah."
Chiun lifted his wide kimono sleeves to the ceiling. "Summon the illustrious purveyor of victuals."
"Purveyor of victuals?" undertoned Remo.
"We are in the West," whispered Chun, "I am speaking western."
"Yippie ti yo-yo," said Remo.
"Do you want a room or don't you?" the desk clerk demanded.
"I do," said Remo. "He's up in the air. Consider us separate clients."
The desk clerk looked unconvinced. "You gonna want room service?" he asked Remo.
"No."
"Good, because I reserve the right to refuse finicky guests. There're a bazillion press guys about two miles down the road and I foresee a long, busy night coming. "
"So do I. Where's my key?"
The desk clerk handed Remo a brass key which had a greasy green tag hanging from it with the room number written in faded ink.
"Unit sixteen," he said.
"Thanks," said Remo, signing the credit card slip.
"What about me?" squeaked the Master of Sinanju, his face as tight as a cobweb.
The desk clerk said, "You want room service, I got a night man who'll do a run to the Taco Hell. That's when things are slow. They won't be slow tonight."
"Taco Hell!" huffed Chiun, stamping his feet. "Remo, this is totally unacceptable."
"Not to me. And if I were you, pardner, I'd book a room quick because I feel a cool night coming on and that car looked mighty drafty to me."
"I will take the room adjoining this ingrate," said Chiun quickly. "Be sure to put it on his bill."
The desk clerk eyed Remo. "That okay with you, sir?"
Chiun snapped, "He has no say in these matters."
"Anything that placates him is fine with me," sighed Remo.
"Where does one find true food in these parts?" asked Chiun.
"True . . . ?"
"Rice . . . duck . . . fish."
"There's a Chinese restaurant in Ukiah. Yen Sin's. You might try that."
"Have their best dishes sent to my room and put it in on the white ingrate's bill," said Chiun.
"Sorry, the night man doesn't go into Ukiah. Only to the Taco Hell, which is just up the road."
"I'd have him make an exception in this case," Remo told the desk man.
"I don't see why I should."
The Master of Sinanju reached up and took the charge machine. He eyed it critically. The desk man became nervous.
"Don't drop that, sir."
Chiun looked up. "This contraption is important to you?"
"Definitely. Can't run the business without it."
Chiun nodded. "I will hold it for ransom until I have rice and steamed duck, or unseasoned fish, in my room."
"Sir, you don't want me to come around and take that away from you, do you?"
"I do not care what you do as long as I have proper room service," snapped the Master of Sinanju.
The desk clerk sighed and came out from behind his station.
He took hold of the charge machine before Remo could warn him. Chiun let him hold it long enough to get a good grasp. Then he rammed the heavy embossing slide from one end to the other, catching the desk man's fingers painfully.
His scream was exquisite. He lifted up on tippytoe, found a higher register, and his eyeballs in his upward-pointing face started looking like white grapes being squeezed from wrinkled pink baby fists.
Twenty minutes later, Remo and Chiun were seated on a very clean polyester rug in the middle of Chiun's bungalow room eating rice off fine china supplied by the wife of the desk man, who had been exceedingly grateful to discover that his fingerbones, once he recovered his hand, were miraculously whole.
"Not bad," said Remo.
Chiun made an unhappy face. "The rice has been boiled. I asked for steamed."
"Maybe they don't steam their rice out here."
"Steamed rice is best. Whites insist upon boiling it. Whites and Chinese who try to pass for white."
"Maybe it's the cowboy way of eating rice," Remo suggested airily.
"Do not be ridiculous, Remo," said Chiun, putting the rice aside and attacking his duck. "Cowboys eat cows. That is why they are called cowboys."
Without looking at the clock radio, Remo said, "I'd better call Smith before he leaves Folcroft for the night."
"Leave him be. Smith will not be pleased that we have discovered nothing."
"Smitty will worry if we don't call in. This new President has him antsier than I've seen him in a long time."
Harold Smith picked up on the first ring.
"Remo, what have you to report?"
"Not a heck of a lot. This place is lousy with press and politicians, my two least favorite kinds of people."
"No progress?"
"We seen the bugs, we've seen the bug-eaters and we've seen the bug-eaters eat the bugs. If that's progress, I'm on the wrong planet."
"There may be a break coming."
"Yeah?"
"I was listening to Thrush Limburger today-"
"You too?"
"Everyone listens to Thrush Limburger," said Smith. "At any rate, he is coming to Nirvana West."
"Yeah, I heard," Remo said sourly. "Just what we need-an ex-disk jockey to add to the festivities. All that was missing was a sound track, anyway."
"Limburger claims that on tomorrow's broadcast he will reveal the truth about HELP."
"What's the big deal? People are eating bugs and getting sick from it. The nuns who raised me taught me not to eat bugs when I was five."
"And you minded them?"
"No, I marched right out and ate the first bug I come upon. I think it was a firefly. After I got better, Sister Mary Margaret whacked my knuckles with a ruler and I never ate another bug again. What these dips need is a nun with an unbreakable ruler, and the so-called HELP plague is over."
"The deaths are spreading to the non-PAPA population," Smith said.
"They are?"
"It appears that these bugs are common in many areas of the country. Where they aren't, a black market has sprung up."
"Wait a minute! You mean even though people are dying from eating this bug, they're paying money for the privilege?"