Happy Trails?
Neil was not very good at disguises; his large nose was a dead giveaway. But today, he really needed to sink into the background. Nakamura, who had been on a number of stakeouts, had a few tips. “A good disguise doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough so you don’t attract attention. Remember, you won’t be in contact with the suspect. You just need to observe him without being observed by him.”
He handed Neil a baseball hat, which Neil placed over his head.
Nakamura nodded his approval. “That’s a good start. Now try on my trench coat.” Neil was both taller and skinnier than Nakamura, but it fit him pretty well. “The red hair and freakish nose are still dead giveaways—”
Neil frowned.
“—so I’m suggesting a wig, a fake mustache, and a beard.”
“That won’t look weird?”
“If someone tries to kiss you or give you a shave, yes. But if you’re just some hipster student sitting at a table with a laptop you’ll look right at home.”
“Won’t the sales staff get suspicious?”
“At what? A university student who wants to grab a seat at a place with Wi-Fi, but who’s too cheap to pay for more than one cup of coffee an hour? Dime a dozen. Don’t tip. That would look suspicious.”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Neil said, adjusting the scratchy beard and whiskers.
“Off you go then, my fine lad,” Nakamura said. “Just remember to lay low and speak as little as possible. And if someone serves you a pastry that’s below your standards, eat it and shut up.”
Neil took a last look at the swizzle stick Larry had used as a bookmark. It was from—where else?—the Guada-Latte Café. The name was embossed into the thin wood. Neil was certain that Larry remembered he’d used the stick to mark the Xilonen passage. That was why he’d dipped his hair in coffee. He wanted Neil to make the connection between coffee, Xilonen and the café. It was, Neil hoped, just the sort of nutso connection Larry would make.
He walked out of the hotel and headed for the café. The plan was to sit there and wait. Isabella had been able to smudge very specific food in her hair. The codex suggested she was being treated like royalty. Neil had a hunch that she was being given the special right to choose her food—and Larry had added coffee to that menu. If Neil’s hunch was right, someone would either have to come to the café a number of times to satisfy Larry’s coffee consumption, or would come once with a humongous thermos. Either way, Neil was sure he’d be able to pick the person out. That’s why he was undercover and not Nakamura. Neil was the only one who could smell if the delivery man or woman had been using Aztec soap and corn oil.
But the whole plan was also a big risk. What if he were wrong? He’d waste hours sitting in one spot instead of doing his best to help Angel and Nakamura. They were going out to scour the city as best as they could, but there were few real leads to go on. He hoped his hunch was right.
Neil took a seat near the back of the café and fired up his laptop. At least he could work on some recipes. Tomorrow he was taking on a chef he actually respected, Mario Bucati, a true wizard with seafood, pizza, and pasta. This was a duel Neil would have to work a lot harder at to win—well, okay, a little harder.
The waitress ambled over.
“Solamente una café, por favor,” Neil blurted out before she could ask him something that would expose his lack of Spanish. Then he concentrated on his blank computer screen as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
The waitress frowned and walked away, mumbling.
Neil could make out a few of the words, including barato and estupido—“cheap” and “stupid.”
So far, so good.
Neil was well into his third page of recipes for mole sauces when the unmistakable smell of corn oil, soap, burned ceremonial herbs and flowers broke through his concentration. He pulled his baseball hat over his eyes, and peered cautiously over the laptop.
A well-tanned man with a mustache was standing at the counter. Neil watched as he handed the server a big thermos. The man was also carrying a large cloth bag stuffed to overflowing with raw corn. As accurately as Neil could tell, in a café filled with coffee aromas, it was new corn, very fresh—Palomero, the same variety he’d smelled in Isabella’s hair. The man looked around as he waited for the woman to fill the thermos to the brim. Neil ducked his head back down quickly and began typing furiously.
XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT XT!
When he looked back up, just a moment later, the man had gone. “Oh no!” Neil said. He threw a few pesos on the table and scrambled to shove his laptop into his backpack before the trail was completely lost. He rushed out of the front door and sniffed the air. The breeze was coming from his right, but the coffee and corn smell wasn’t there. If the man had gone that way, Neil would be able to smell him. Neil turned left.
The narrow street was crammed with stalls and shoppers grabbing their breakfast before heading off to work. Neil bobbed and weaved, crashing into more than a few angry people, and knocking his false beard hopelessly loose. He pulled it off and sped up. Finally, he spied the man up ahead, but a crush of people stood between them. Neil did his best to stay both inconspicuous and close.
He ducked into doorways and hid behind stalls. He fiddled with his baseball hat. He was sure he looked exactly like a stupid kid who was following someone. He was just as sure that Nakamura would be shaking his head in disgust. “Jeepers kid, why don’t you just ask the guy if you can dance with him!”—that sort of thing.
Luckily for Neil, the man didn’t seem to notice that he was being followed. After a few minutes he turned a corner and walked into the Zócalo. It was still morning, but the entire place was packed. Tourists milled about, clutching maps, guidebooks and digital cameras. Anti-government protestors stood in front of the presidential palace, yelling slogans through bullhorns. Aztec dancers shook and swayed and sent plumes of aromatic smoke into the air in front of the cathedral. Neil avoided them all.
Souvenir stands dotted the landscape. Neil hurried over to one and pretended to study the selection of hand-stitched shirts and pants as he watched the man approach a group of laborers. The man seemed to know them and they nodded as he spoke.
“So that’s one group of spies,” Neil thought, frowning. He’d passed groups of laborers like this almost every day on his way to and from the hotel. They must have been keeping an eye on him, maybe even dropping off the notes. One of the men in the group looked in Neil’s direction. He hoped his beard was still fitting okay. He felt his face and was startled to feel the smoothness of his own skin. He’d forgotten that he’d yanked the beard off!
He turned around quickly to replace it and found himself face-to-back with a circle of energetic Aztec dancers. Neil had no idea if they were the same ones Tlaloc had been performing with in the park, and he didn’t want to find out. Neil turned around and spied the man a short distance away, heading for the cathedral. Neil followed, doing his best to hide his partially bearded face from the laborers who were milling around the entrance to the nearby subway station. He hurried through the iron front gates and into the enormous stone edifice.
Neil was no stranger to church—he had once been kicked out of his first communion class for suggesting a better recipe for the Eucharistic wafer—but this church was unlike any he’d ever seen before.
The columns that supported the ceiling rose seemingly forever, forming graceful arches way up in the sky. Gilded statues, paintings and leaded glass adorned every niche. Neil thought of Larry. He would love this place. He made a vow to himself: when this was all over, they would come back and explore. But right now, he had to find the man with the corn and coffee.
Mass was well underway. The priest chanted something in Spanish and the congregation sat down. Over their bowed heads, Neil saw the man. He was walking slowly down a side aisle, rubbing something small between his fingers. It looked like he was saying a rosary.
Neil hid behind a pillar to watch. The priest said something else and the congregation stood up, momentarily cutting off Neil’s view. By the time the worshipers sat back down, the man was gone.
Neil hustled as quickly as he could up the outside aisle, where he’d last seen the man walking. He glanced into each pew as he passed. Nothing. Where had he gone?
The lingering scent of corn and coffee hung in the air. Neil looked closely at the wall. Nearly hidden from view was a tiny chapel, built back from the aisle and sandwiched between two pillars. You had to look straight at it to see it. There was an altar, a few chairs and a mournful looking statue. The figure was sitting down, with a basket between his feet. Neil looked at the basket. It was filled with cocoa beans.
“I looked everywhere,” Neil said. He, Angel and Nakamura were sitting in a small restaurant on the roof of an old house with a view of the back of the cathedral. “I know the layout of that cathedral better than the guy who built it!”
The sun had set hours before, and Neil was feeling completely drained. “I looked for loose stones, secret levers, pulleys, anything. I even tried moving the cocoa beans in the basket before some lady in a black shawl started smacking me with her cane.”
Nakamura chuckled as the image of this encounter played out in his imagination. Neil looked at Angel, who was trying to suppress a smile of his own.
“They were real beans, by the way. I’m telling you, the guy walked into that church and vanished.”
“Maybe the lady with the cane was him in disguise,” Nakamura said, still chuckling.
“And what great leads did you two find?”
Nakamura stopped smiling. Angel let out a sigh. “We went to Mount Tlaloc. It was one of the main Aztec sites for sacrifices.”
Neil sat up in his seat. “And?”
“Nothing,” Nakamura said, shaking his head. “There are still the remains of an ancient temple there, impressive really, but there was no evidence that our modern Aztecs either are or were anywhere near. By the time we got there, looked around and came back, the day was pretty much shot. Sorry, Nose.”
“One day left,” Neil said as his chicken mole and beans arrived. The meal smelled wonderful, but he had lost his appetite.