Cortez, Codex, and Cooking
Larry sighed contentedly as he approached the door to the hotel room. It was a large room. Neil had one king-sized bed, and Larry slept on the couch. Neil had been hoping for nicer digs, Larry knew, befitting the crown prince of cuisine. But Larry argued that the money they saved would be better spent on the renovations to Chez Flambé.
Larry didn’t tell Neil that the big selling point for the hotel in his Caffeinated Planet travel guide hadn’t been its cheapness, but its proximity to the best café in the city. Larry had been making his own pilgrimage at every opportunity. Karimba, the barista at Our Lady of Guada-Latte, was both beautiful and a fan of disheveled hair.
The cp guide did warn that the hotel was right behind the enormous national cathedral, but didn’t specify why this was important. Larry and Neil found out on their first night. The cathedral’s enormous bells rang until midnight, and re-commenced the following morning at 5 a.m. Between that and Neil’s snoring, Larry wasn’t getting a lot of quality sleep. He compensated with more coffee.
Neil hadn’t been getting much sleep either, and a kidnapped girlfriend wasn’t likely to help, Larry thought. So he was a little surprised to find Neil snoring away when he opened the door.
“Sleep tight, cousin,” Larry said, carefully laying a blanket over Neil. “There’s nothing we can do right now.” Neil responded with an ear-splitting snore.
Larry winced. There was no way he was going to sleep through that. He carefully tip-toed over to his couch, flopped down as quietly as he could, flicked on his reading light and opened his copy of the Codex Mendoza.
“The codex is an amazing document,” Larry had told Neil, repeatedly. Neil was only interested in the passages about food, of which there were many. “It’s a book, and what a book!” The codex was a first-hand account of the Spanish conquistadors’ encounter with the “new” world’s very old Aztec culture. It was written just twenty years after their arrival, when most of the Aztecs had been wiped out by battle or had died from strange new diseases the European explorers had brought with them.
Antonio de Mendoza had been one of the first governors of the newly conquered Spanish colony, and he’d asked some of the remaining Aztec scribes to write the history of their people. They did this through colorful and often strange pictures of gods, human sacrifice and wars. The Spaniards then added their own notations to explain the images. There were other codices, but this was Larry’s favorite.
Neil snored away in his king-sized comfort as Larry read of the great city that the Spanish leader Cortez had discovered in the Mexican mountains. It had been a bustling metropolis, filled with great artists, commercial tradesmen, busy markets and a vast army. If the Emperor Montezuma had told Cortez to turn around and go home, rather than inviting him inside the walls of the city as a guest . . . well, Larry thought, history would have been a whole lot different. In no time, Cortez had taken control of the city and the country and had shipped as much Aztec gold and jewels as he could jam into his ships back to Spain.
Larry was taking it slow with the codex, drinking in the amazing, detailed drawings of flowers, lakes, gardens, volcanoes, clothing and Aztec deities. It was a frozen moment in time, captured in pen-and-ink just before disappearing forever. But something was nagging him. It wasn’t the book: it was the uncomfortable way Neil was lying on the bed. One of Neil’s arms was dangling over the side of the mattress. The last thing Neil needed in the kitchen was a stiff arm. As Larry tiptoed over to move him into a more comfortable position, he noticed a faint blue, blinking light coming from under the bed. He got down on his hands and knees. It was Neil’s cell phone. He grabbed it and looked at the screen.
“Twenty-five missed calls!” Larry thought. “Neil, I hope you didn’t call the police. Honestly, Boy Wonder, you may know your way around a kitchen, but when it comes to street smarts I’ve seen brainier fire hydrants!”
Larry debated waking Neil, but the last time Larry had woken Neil up after a big duel he’d had to get corrective surgery on his eardrum. “Some people sleep walk. Neil sleep yells,” Larry had explained to the audiologist.
Anyway, Larry knew the PIN to Neil’s voicemail, so he typed it in with his thumbs and listened. The first message made him jump. It was Isabella. She had called just before the big battle. Larry listened all the way through, but the message contained only some encouraging words and a very audible smooch. Isabella ended by asking if Neil would like to visit some flower farm tomorrow. Larry made a note to ask Neil what flower farm she was talking about, then pressed the save button and moved on to the next message.
It was Amber, or maybe Zoë . . . or maybe both. “Neil, um, you got a note . . . that is, we got a note . . . that is, there’s a note. It came three days ago, but we didn’t see it until today, but it says something about flowers and, well, war . . . and Neil, we know you’re in the duel right now, but call us as soon as you can. We’ll call Nakamura, and Angel and, well, anyway, good luck today and all. Oh, and say hi to Larry!”
What? No smooch? Larry thought with a sigh. He pressed save again. The next twenty-three messages were all from one person, Inspector Sean Nakamura, and they were all exactly the same.
“Neil, it’s Nakamura. Give me a call. It’s urgent.”
Typical cop, Larry thought—no tip about why he wanted to talk. There was a hint in the tone of the messages, though. Each went up in urgency and pitch so that as Larry played them back-to-back he got the distinct impression that he was listening to some weird avant-garde choral concerto. Larry dialed Nakamura.
“NEIL!” Nakamura said, recognizing his signature Neil ring-tone, the Swedish Chef song from The Muppet Show.
“Larry, actually. Sorry for the disappointment.”
“No time for jokes,” Nakamura said. “Is Neil there?”
“Let’s just say I’m Sleeping Beauty’s personal assistant right now.”
“I guess that makes you Waking Ugly?”
“I thought you said this was no time for jokes. That was a joke, right?”
“Listen, comedian, here’s the deal: The twins got a note in a fridge delivery.”
“I know. They called and left a message. But they didn’t tell me what it said.”
“Okay. I’ll read it for you. It says, ‘If you come to Mexico we will have no choice but to declare war. The second you begin the Azteca Cocina, the celestial fates will be set in motion. There will be no turning back. It is the Flower Bringer we desire. You must not interfere. Submit to our will and you will enjoy the friendship and protection of the empire. Set foot in our empire, and you will have declared yourself an enemy. This is the first warning. . . .’ And then it’s signed—”
“XT,” Larry said.
“Um, yeah. How did you know that?”
“Someone must have gotten a deal at the Aztec stationery store,” Larry said. “We got an XT note as well, just after Isabella disappeared.”
“Isabella WHAT!?!”
“Well, here’s what our day has been like,” Larry said. “First of all, we won the first duel, I mean battle . . . thanks in large part to my expert chocolate shredding.”
“And . . .”
“Oh, and my expert chili chopping.”
“I meant, and what else happened!”
“Well, turns out Isabella was kidnapped during the duel . . . I mean, competition.”
“WHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAT?”
“Ah. I see we are now into the second movement of the Nakamura Suite in G-Minor!”
Nakamura didn’t say anything. Being used to Larry’s oddness and dealing with it were two different things. He took a deep breath . . .
“Nakamura, you still there?”
. . . and counted to ten. “Larry, who kidnapped her? Do you have any leads?”
“Well, Neil followed her trail to the subway near the opera house, and that’s where it ends. He wanted to call the police. I said it probably wasn’t a great idea until we have a better idea of who this XT person is.”
Nakamura considered this. “I hesitate to agree, but that was probably a good idea.”
“A compliment! My goodness, let me mark the day on my calendar!”
“That’s why I hesitated to agree,” Nakamura said with a note of weariness.
Larry continued. “Listen, jokes aside, this is pretty serious. All the XT guy said in his note to us was that if Neil wins the competition, he’d kill Isabella. If he loses before the final he’ll kill her. And if Neil calls the police, he’ll kill her, so he probably has someone inside the force to tell him if Neil calls. We have a day off tomorrow and we’re going to start our own investigation.”
Nakamura took all this in. Finally he said, “Look, the department has a mobile forensic kit. Let me sign it out and I’ll head down there. You get some sleep and tomorrow we’ll get to work.”
“You got it. Oh, and Nakamura . . .”
“What?”
“Bring some cash as well. I’ve blown most of our budget on coffee.”
“Cute barista?”
“You know it.”
“I know you. Fine. I’ll contribute to the coffee fund, but you owe me.”
Nakamura hung up. Larry smiled. He loved getting Nakamura’s goat, so to speak. This was a serious situation. Larry knew that. But he also knew that humor was a necessary way to deal with stress. He liked laughter.
He looked over at Neil, who was still sleeping soundly. Neil was going to need as many laughs as he could get over the next few days. He was sure Neil would disagree, but that was the way things always were between them. Larry began to flip the cell phone shut. It started ringing. He stared at the screen—número no cotizable—“unlisted.”
“Hello?” he said quietly.
A muffled and accented voice spoke. “This is your third warning. In the subway, you said to not harm a hair on her head. If you need proof of our resolve, please look to your door. Adios.”
There was a beep. Larry stared at the phone, horrified. Was this XT? How had he gotten Neil’s number? And what did he mean about the subway? Neil hadn’t said anything about talking to anyone. Larry flipped the phone shut. He looked with a sense of dread toward the thin sliver of light that crept under the door. An envelope was lying there, with a slight bulge in the middle. He hadn’t heard footsteps or the sound of it sliding under the door. Who had placed it there?
Larry made his way to the door and opened it slowly, making sure not to step on the envelope. The hallway was empty. He slid the door shut and locked it. Larry knelt and carefully picked up the envelope. He held the paper up to his bedside light. There was a clump of something inside. It was . . . hair?
“Oh, man,” Larry thought, looking at the dark curls, “That’s Isabella’s for sure. Or at least, I’m ninety percent sure.” Nakamura and his handy-dandy forensic kit were at least a day away. There was only one surefire way to confirm the hair’s origin right now. Eardrum pain or not, Larry was going to have to risk waking up Neil. He wrapped a pillow around his head and began tapping Neil with his foot.