“You’re funny, Mr. Finn,” Bachué said, as she squeezed onto the couch beside me and placed her hand on my leg.
“More like observant, and please call me Tag or Finn. No Mr. is necessary.”
I always hated being called Mr. and spent every introduction getting people to call me Tag or Finn. Perhaps I should just get a T-shirt with that slogan printed on the front.
“Tag it is.”
“So, your mother was just saying that none of the villagers know anything about the disappearance of the scientists.”
Bachué glanced at her mother, and the two shared some kind of unspoken communication.
“Yeah, apparently no one knows a thing,” she said, as she averted her gaze.
There was definitely something they weren’t telling us.
“Look, I understand if you have a natural mistrust of outsiders, but I’m not here as some embassy lackey following up a missing person’s report. A very close friend of mine was part of that team.”
“Which one?” Bachué asked.
“Estelle.”
“Professor Connor?”
“You know her?”
“I do.”
“My daughter is leaving our village to attend graduate school full time in the fall, so she likes to interact with outsiders as much as possible. It allows her to practice her language skills and learn about the cultural eccentricities of the city life she’s missed by growing up out here.”
“You don’t sound that excited,” I said, to Pili.
“I just worry about her. Life is very different out there.”
“Different can be good. Everyone deserves to get out and expand their horizons.”
“Believe me, I know. I met Bachué’s father in college, and you’re looking at the best part that came from expanding my horizons,” she said, gesturing at Bachué.
My earlier summation about Bachué having some anglican roots was apparently correct, and this lovely girl was perhaps the result of a drunken night of college partying. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t learned shit about my Chalupa Conundrum, but at least I was getting them to open up and talk.
“Well, Pili, you have a lovely, intelligent daughter, and I suspect she’ll do just fine out there.”
“Thank you, Tag. That’s what I keep telling her,” Bachué said, as she gave my thigh a playful squeeze.
The room suddenly grew quiet, and I felt eyes on me and turned to see Professor Hot Sauce staring at me with a rather unapproving look in her eyes. I therefore decided to get the conversation back on track.
“Without meaning to pry, I get the feeling that you two know more than you’re letting on,” I said.
Bachué gazed defiantly at her mother until Pili finally relented and let out a long sigh.
“Go ahead and tell them what you know,” Pili said.
Bachué’s demeanor changed, and she looked around nervously as she moved to the edge of her seat and actually lowered her voice as though she were afraid of the consequences of her words.
“I was at the camp the night they all disappeared,” she said.
Now I was moving to the edge of my seat, as I was curious as all hell for her to continue with her story.
“They invited me for dinner, because they were celebrating the fact that they had finally concluded their research.”
“And what was their conclusion?” Alessandra asked excitedly.
“I don’t know. Just before they were going to make the announcement, the camp went dark, and things got crazy.”
“Crazy how?” I asked.
“It feels more like a dream at this point. We were talking and having a good time, but then I excused myself to use the bathroom, and, on the way back, the camp went dark, and suddenly there was this presence—or things, or…”
“Animals?”
“No, I don’t even know how to describe them other than—things.”
“Estelle called me that night and also said that things had entered the camp and she needed me. Then she screamed, and the line went dead.”
“Well, all I can remember after that point is waking up here on my doorstep with no idea how I had gotten home.”
“So, by some twist of fate—you’re the only person who didn’t disappear that night. Interesting,” I said.
Pili looked troubled, and I could tell there was something she wanted to get off her chest, but, before I could pursue it, Bachué chimed in with a question.
“How do you know Professor Connor?” she asked.
“Well actually…”
“They used to date,” Alessandra blurted out.
Bachué raised an eyebrow.
“You’re a lucky man, she’s very beautiful,” she said.
I immediately looked at Alessandra and caught her smiling, so I delivered a mild glare before turning my attention back to Bachué.
“Funny, you’re the second person to say that to me in the last twenty-four hours,” I said.
“Because it’s true, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that she was also a very lucky woman.”
“Yeah, was a lucky woman until we broke up.”
“Why? What was the problem?”
Fuck, I was here to find out what happened at the camp and was suddenly in the middle of the Chalupan Inquisition.
“Geography. She moved away to finish her doctoral thesis,” I responded.
“So, I assume you know she was here with her fiancé?”
“I do, actually.”
“Yet you still came.”
“What can I say? Beautiful women have a tendency to make me—um...”
“Come?” she asked, with one eyebrow raised and a real naughtiness behind her eyes.
“Yeah, though I think in a good relationship that both people should try to come together if possible,” I said.
“True,” Bachué said, as she ran her hand through her hair and shifted her posture in a way that brought her chest into prominence yet again.
At that moment, my reverie was broken when Alessandro elbowed me in the ribs, though she tried to play it off as an accident. Of course, she never counted on the ever lovely Bachué coming over and kneeling between my legs as she tended to the injury.
“Oh, does that feel better?” she asked, as she rubbed the sore spot.
Now, she was extremely close to my ever excitable manhood, and, better still, her cleavage was resting just below my eyes, making it extremely hard not to stare.
“Yeah, you seem to have the magic touch,” I said.
“You would be surprised what I can do, and not just with my hands.”
Sweet Lord, she might have only been around twenty in actual years, but she was well-aged and smooth as fine French cognac when it came to her conversational flirtation skills. Her mother was worried about what the world might do to Bachué, but I was more worried about what she might do to the world. Needless to say, I was fully enjoying our little session of double entendre, but I feared if it went on any longer, I would sprout a massive boner, and Alessandra might potentially hit me hard enough to draw blood. Thankfully, Bachué stood up and returned to her seat, and I decided to get the conversation back on track.
“So, Pili, I know this is going to sound strange, but do you actually believe in the whole King Chalupa myth?” I asked.
A nervous tension filled the air, as Bachué and Pili looked at each other with a real fear in their eyes.
“Like everyone in the village, I grew up with the stories, though when I reached a certain age, I kind of stopped believing—kind of like your Santa Claus. But, in the last few years, the legend has become more than stories. There have been sightings, strange disappearances, and people here believe that—he—and his army have returned to take back his kingdom.”
I was starting to feel like I was Harry Potter mentioning Voldemort, and I should be saying he who shall not be named. It was odd—one moment, we were rational adults, and the next we were considering the presence of something as preposterous as Santa Claus, only in this case he was
a thousand year old grumpy ghost king, and his elves were half-man, half-beast demon creatures, and none of them were delivering presents to children.
“So, if it was King Chalupa’s minions who attacked the camp, why did they spare Bachué?” I asked.
“Perhaps because she is Chalupan,” Pili said.
“Have you personally ever seen anything that you couldn’t explain?” I asked her.
She immediately grew uncomfortable and took a moment to think about her answer, as I imagined she was likely experiencing some degree of cognitive dissonance. As an educated person who had lived outside of the superstitions of the village, she understood that ghost kings and mythological beings were not very plausible. At the same time, however, something out here was definitely scaring the shit out of everyone in this village.
“Well, my personal experience took place only a couple of months ago. On the day in question, I went outside to grab some vegetables from the garden, and it was just after sunset, so it was dark, and I could barely see past the light spilling out from the house. Just as I finished, I thought I heard a noise in the nearby jungle, and I called out but got no response and assumed it was one of the boys from the village coming to spy on Bachué. I walked over to the edge of our yard, and something moved forward into the light and…”
She paused, and her face suddenly lost color as she recalled the moment.
“I saw something that scared me more than anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“What was it?” I asked, ever intrigued to hear the answer.
“It was a monster from the stories of childhood. A horrible creature with red glowing eyes and the face of a demon.”
“You actually saw one of Chalupa’s minions?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do? I mean, other than shit your pants.”
She smiled at my attempt to break the tension, and Bachué actually laughed out loud, but an ominous quiet once again descended over the room.
“At first, nothing. I was frozen in fear, but then I started worrying about Bachué and slowly turned and started walking back to the house. Just as I turned to see if it was following me, it disappeared back into the darkness.”
I’d interrogated plenty of people in my line of work and had a pretty good feel for when someone was lying or embellishing, and, as I looked at Pili, there was one thing I knew for sure—whatever the truth may or may not be, she believed what she was saying. At that point, everyone sat and quietly pondered her words until she spoke again.
“If King Chalupa does indeed have your people, then prey to whatever god you believe in that they are still alive.”
Alessandra and I glanced at each other and exchanged a rather uncomfortable look.
“Do you think any of the other villagers will speak with us?” I asked.
“No, they are all too afraid.”
“So, what made you talk to us?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps there is a part of me that wishes none of this were actually happening—that there is a logical answer to what I saw.”
“Well, thank you for your time. I suppose we should be going,” I said, as I stood up.
Alessandra, Pili, and Bachué also stood so we could exchange a proper goodbye.
“Well, it was nice meeting you both,” I said.
Bachué smiled and stepped closer.
“You too, Tag,” she said, as she hugged me and pressed her large breasts against my chest.
“If I don’t see you before you leave for graduate school—let me just say—have fun, but also, be careful. You will surely be driving the menfolk crazy and breaking a lot of hearts.”
Alessandra said her goodbyes, then we headed outside, whereupon she gave me a disapproving nod.
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t believe how much sexual innuendo you just exchanged with Bachué.”
“That’s the cool part about using innuendo—it’s only sexual if you have a dirty mind.”
“Nice try, but you were totally flirting with that girl—and right in front of her mother, no less.”
“If there happened to be any kind of flirting going on, it was most definitely mutual.”
“Puta del hombre,” she responded.
It took me a second to translate what she had just said—and then it hit me. She’d called me a man-whore in Spanish. Here I was, three thousand miles from home and at least several thousand miles from most if not all of the females I’d gotten together with in recent memory, and somehow Professor Hot Sauce had happened upon that nickname. Oddly, Estelle was the first to call me that, so it was even more unusual that Alessandra would pull it out of her ass. Perhaps it was a sign that Estelle was still alive and well and possibly even nearby and using Alessandra as a psychic conduit with which to torment me. I shoved that thought into the back of mind and proceeded to follow Professor Hot Sauce around the village to find that it was more or less deserted, as the Chalupans were avoiding us just as Pili said they would. While passing behind one of the houses, I noticed a breakout box and a water pipe going in through a back wall.
“I thought you said their plumbing was still based on the aqueducts,” I said.
“It was. At least it used to be. I imagine Von Träger must have had all this installed since I was last here.”
“If I declare myself Chalupan, will Von Träger redo all the plumbing in my houseboat?”
“Sure, if you tow it all the way down here and drop it in the middle of the village.”
“That’s probably cheaper than hiring a contractor back home, as the land of opportunity can be very expensive.”
“So, where to now?” Alessandra asked.
“I don’t know, you’re the mostly Chalupan expert. What do you suggest?”
“I think we should hike up to the nearby Chalupa Waterfall.”
“Are there any Chalupans up there that we can talk to?”
“Maybe, but either way it’s a spectacular view and something definitely worth seeing while you’re here.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Wet Hot Costa Rican Summer
THE MAN AND woman left the village and headed deeper into the jungle on the path that wound along the river and led up to the waterfall. Several hundred feet above them on the hill, the creatures followed, though their footfalls were utterly silent, and their prey was unaware of their presence, so it was looking as though the hunt would soon be over.
The river valley was getting thinner, and the hillsides around us were growing ever steeper as we made our way along the trail. The soothing sound of rushing water was filling the air, and Alessandra was leading the way, and, as had been the case when she bent over at the pyramid, I couldn’t help but admire the tantalizing sight of her curvaceous backside. Of course it was also supplemented by the sight of her muscular legs. Sweet mother of God—she was one hot tamale. I tried to put those carnal thoughts out of my mind, but that would be easier if I could put Hot Sauce’s tantalizing goodies out of view. To that end, I picked up my pace and managed to come up along side her, whereupon she looked over to see how I was handling the exertion of our hike. It was hot and humid, and we were also several thousand feet above sea level, so people who didn’t exercise regularly might have had a harder time. Fortunately, I was a bit of fitness nut, so I was as happy as could be to be out here chugging along on the trail.
“So, what did you think about Pili and Rebecca’s story?” I asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think. This is all well outside my area of expertise.”
“You never took a course on ancient rulers and their evil minions?”
“No, strangely they didn’t offer one at ASU or Yale.”
After two more switchbacks, we were nearing the waterfall, though that was far too simplistic of a term to describe what lay before my eyes, and eighth wonder of the world might have been more accurate. It was, in actuality, a series of falls cascading down intricately carved channels, and in between each stream of water was a
statue or relief carved into the rock. The entire facade was, in reality, an ornate sculpture looking almost like a Chalupan version of the Treasury Building in the ancient city of Petra—except this one just happened to have several million gallons of water flowing down and around its many facets.
“Chalupa Waterfall? Seriously, that’s what they call this place?”
“Yeah.”
“A bit understated don’t you think.”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t name it.”
“This place is amazing and should be in every tourist guidebook ever written about Costa Rica.”
“It should, but that’s where we start to get into sticky territory, as Chalupans don’t want the world coming in here and destroying the tranquility of their daily lives.”
“I suppose you’re right, as everybody hates a tourist. It’s funny, we have these walking tours of the houseboats where I live back in Sausalito, and it seems like a cool thing until twenty strangers are standing outside your window taking pictures of you as you lounge around in your underwear and sip your morning coffee.”
“You could always put on some pants.”
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t make their pictures quite as memorable.”
She gave me a semi-smile, as it wasn’t funny enough to deserve any more than that, then we continued on until we were literally standing at the edge of the falls. There was a fine mist rising up into the air and coating our skin, though it was a welcome respite from the heat and humidity, and the negative ions emitted by the moving water felt particularly invigorating.
“This place just gets better and better,” I said.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, and romantic.”
“Funny you should say that, as this place just happens to be where all Chalupans bring their lovers in order to propose marriage.”
“Interesting—is there something you’d like to say to me?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Not yet, I’m afraid.”
“Interesting. That wasn’t a no.”
She smiled, and we had a quiet moment of reflection as we stared out at the moving water, and, annoyingly, I had an epiphany concerning Estelle.
The Chalupa Conundrum Page 18
