"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 way 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?"