01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (3 page)

I had hoped, I think, to run into Dr. Castillo Rivas, who had an office there. Santiago Ortiz had told me that Don Hernan had not returned to his room the previous night, but as that was not an unusual occurrence, no one gave it much thought. Don Hernan was often hot on the trail of some treasure or other, and when he was, he tended to get a little distracted, more so as the years went by. I had always regarded this as a sign of his genius, the absentminded-professor type. His wife, if I remember correctly, had found it less endearing.

I sneaked past the
“Prohibido Entrar”
sign on the staff door on the top floor of the
museo
and checked at his little office. It was dark and locked up tight.

I decided to try to solve the puzzle he had given me—the one about writing rabbits. I thought it a little coy of him, but Don Hernan and I had spent many a wonderful day together searching for goods for my shop, and I was determined to get into the spirit of the thing.

Because it had been Dr. Castillo who had first introduced me to the Tzolkin, the Maya count of days, I thought of that first. It was he who had explained to me that there are twenty name days, and thirteen numbers associated with them. Each day is linked to a number, 1 Imix, 2 Ik, 3 Akbal, and so on. Because there are more names than numbers, the fourteenth name is given the number one again. With thirteen numbers and twenty names, it is 260 days before the original day and number, 1 Imix in my example, comes round again.

Several visits earlier, sitting over a cup of very strong Mexican coffee in the darkened dining room at the Casa de las Buganvillas late one evening, Don Hernan had begun to explain all of this to me.

“To understand the Maya, you must understand their concept of time,” he had told me.

“Like us, the Maya devised ways of recording the passage of time. Like us they gave names to days, but unlike us they attributed characteristics to those days.

“While most of us have forgotten these vestigial origins of our days—your Thursday was the Norse Thor’s Day, Wednesday, Woden’s Day, for example— many of the Maya have not.

“For the Maya, everything is influenced by the characteristics of the day, the number of the day, the character of the Haab or what we would call the month sign, and the character of the quadrant sign, four gods each characterized by a color, red for the east, black for the west, white for the north, and yellow for the south. Each of these gods, called Kawils, rules a quadrant of eight hundred and nineteen days.”

“I suppose this is not dissimilar to our applying human characteristics to astrological signs and judging events by the cycles of the planets. Even American presidents have been known to do this,” I said. “And the number-day-name correlation is not unlike our Friday the thirteenth.”

“Yes, but as you will learn, theirs is a much more complex system, moving back and forward over enormous periods of time. While we measure time in years, decades, centuries, and so on, the Maya measure time in
katuns,
or twenty-year cycles, and
baktuns,
twenty times twenty, or four-hundred-year cycles.

“And while our largest unit of time is a millennium really, the Maya have much longer ones. They have, for example, a
calabtun,
a one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand-year unit. And they measure time from the beginning of what they consider to be the current cosmos, the fourth one to exist.

“There are dates and numbers carved on Maya temples that would predate the big bang many times over, and they predict dates millennia into the future. I think what I am trying to say is that for the Maya, the past is still with us, still alive.”

Remembering that conversation as I walked through the
museo,
I tried to find a link with the riddle. The current day was Ik, the day of wind, breath, and life. Nothing to do with a rabbit. I mentally ran through the twenty day names. The day Lamat, six days hence, had some association with a rabbit and the moon or the planet Venus, but if there were a connection, I didn’t know what it might be.

Perhaps, I thought, it is a play on words, perhaps a translation to Spanish. But nothing came to mind.

Thinking that the answer might lie somewhere in the museum, I spent a good part of the afternoon wandering through the exhibits looking in vain for a Maya rabbit.

I was bent over an exhibit of artifacts taken from a sacred cenote when I heard the voice behind me.

“I say, didn’t my eyes meet yours across a crowded room?” the very British voice asked.

I turned. It was the fellow from the dining room the evening before, looking every bit as good, I might add. Behind him lurked his dark friend.

“Ms. McClintoch, I believe,” he said, extending his hand.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” I replied.

“Sorry. Jonathan Hamelin and my associate, Lucas May. I managed to convince Norberto that I thought I knew you from school or something, and was able to pry your name out of him.

“Since we obviously frequent the same places, might we presume to invite you for a drink? A coffee, a tequila? If you don’t mind a bit of a walk, I know a wonderful bar on the Paseo de Montejo.”

He had such an air of assurance that I soon found myself being escorted from the building and propelled along several blocks toward the
paseo,
a tree-lined avenue, very European in character, that Meridanos somewhat optimistically refer to as their Champs-Elysees. There was a time, at the turn of the century when fortunes were being made by the Spanish in the henequen trade, when Merida was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The
paseo
was its centerpiece, the place where the wealthy lived in houses, palaces really, of blue, pink, buff, and peach, with wrought-iron gates and elaborately carved moldings modeled more on the style of Paris than the Americas, more Belle Epoque than colonial.

The houses are still there, but by and large the families have moved on, the upkeep too much, perhaps, for diluted family fortunes. The houses stand, some lovingly restored and home to banks and other corporations that can afford them, others sinking, either gracefully or drearily, into decay.

We entered one of these old homes, painstakingly restored to its former glory, now the lobby and entrance-way of the Hotel Montserrat. Behind and adjoining it is a stucco-and-glass tower where guest rooms are located, designed to complement the original building. We headed for the bar, a large room at the front of the original house. Jonathan Hamelin was obviously well known there, and a table with a very nice view of the
paseo
materialized quickly.

Jonathan looked very comfortable in this setting. Even in more casual clothes, he was very nattily attired. His associate, however, was dressed very much the same as the night before, except that now he wore a black jacket. Once again, he looked rather out of place.

The bar was called Ek Balam, the Black Jaguar. Maya motifs featured prominently in the decor. At one end were two discreetly lit glass cases in which were displayed what appeared to be, at this distance at least, authentic pre-Columbian pieces.

But here any local references ended. Rather too large to be a conventionally cozy bar, the decor tended to cool peaches and aquas rather than the brilliant colors of the tropics. No mariachi or flamenco nouveau assaulted the delicate ears of the patrons. Instead, a string quartet at one end of the large room displayed what I think is called salon music: Ravel, Haydn, Copland, Strauss.

The air of the bar was filled with expensive perfume and cigar smoke. This was clearly where the beautiful people of Merida came to see and be seen. The person many apparently wanted to be seen with sat, or more accurately held court, at a table in a dim corner.

He was a man of about sixty, short, I would say, somewhat paunchy, not particularly attractive, but with some kind of personal magnetism, perhaps the sensual appeal of money, that commanded the attention of at least half the women in the room, and the envy of most of the men. Two of the people at his table looked to me like bodyguards, not the least because their eyes constantly scanned the room and their conversational skills appeared to be just about nil.

“Senor Diego Maria Gomez Arias,” Jonathan said, noting the direction of my gaze.

“The name is vaguely familiar.”

“Very wealthy. Owns the hotel. Avid collector.”

“Of what?”

“Beautiful things.” Jonathan smiled.

“Including women?” I asked, watching the glances several women in the room were casting in Senor Gomez Arias’s direction.

“Including women,” he agreed.

“Are the artifacts in the glass cases real?”

“Oh yes, I expect so.”

“Shouldn’t they be in a museum?”

“Quite possibly.” He shrugged.

“I think I do recall his name. He is a client of Hernan Castillo Rivas?”

“Was, I believe. They had a falling-out of some sort from what I’ve heard. But how do you know Don Hernan?” Jonathan asked.

I told him about McClintoch and Swain.

“Well, we’ve met McClintoch. Who is Swain?”

“My ex-husband.”

“Ah.”

“ ‘Ah’ about sums it up.”

I then told them about selling the business and the call that had brought me there the day before.

This seemed to attract the attention of both of them. Even Lucas, who had until this time barely uttered a word, leaned forward in expectation.

“Don’t keep us in suspense, Lara,” Jonathan said. “What’s the project?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him yet. He called to cancel dinner last night. He had to go out of town, hot on the trail of something or other.”

I started to tell them about the rabbit, but something stopped me. In a way, I was beginning to wonder if Don Hernan had not gotten just a bit dotty, a little non compos mentis, since I had seen him last. He was pushing eighty, after all. I didn’t want him—or me, for that matter—to look silly in the eyes of Jonathan Hamelin.

In any event, I stopped myself from saying more. Lucas was looking at me intently, as if he knew there must be more to this story, but the waiter arrived with our drinks—margaritas for Jonathan and me, a beer for Lucas—and the conversation veered off into the usual banalities you hear in bars.

Jonathan, I had learned as we walked over to the hotel, was an archaeologist from Cambridge University in England, Lucas the local archaeologist assigned by the Mexican authorities to work with him.

They, or at least Jonathan, since Lucas had settled back into his role of observer, told me about the work they were doing at a site a few miles from Chichen Itza the great postclassic Maya site near Merida. I’d been to Chichen Itzi many times before, but thought it was always worth a visit, and said as much.

Jonathan was explaining to me in his upper-crust British accent about the interesting limestone caves and underground rivers in that part of the Yucatan and entertaining me with tales of the sacrifice of cross-eyed virgins in the sacred cenotes, when the most extraordinary thing happened.

Two people dressed entirely in black, kerchiefs over their faces, bandito-style, walked into the bar. One of them carried a rifle, the other a crowbar. Before anyone could react, they moved quickly to one of the glass cases at the end of the bar, smashed the glass, and grabbed one of the artifacts. They left the room as quickly as they had come in.

There was actually a moment of stunned silence, then an absolute din. Some patrons of the bar laughed, thinking, no doubt, that it was a preview of Carnaval celebrations. Gomez Arias was hustled from the room by his two bodyguards.

I looked at my two companions. Jonathan seemed quite startled. Lucas was as impassive as ever. But there was a look in his eyes that if I had to identify, I would call admiration.

All thoughts of Carnaval pranks were dispelled when the federal police arrived shortly thereafter.

The policeman in charge of the investigation was not, in my opinion, someone in whom anyone would wish to confide. Tall and thin, with an impressive mustache, he had a certain lean and hungry look, to borrow a phrase, a kind of hardness about the eyes, whether from a streak of cruelty or merely bitter disappointment, I couldn’t tell.

I’m not sure what there was in his manner that made me dislike him so quickly. Perhaps it was his peremptory way of dealing with all of us, the patrons of the bar, or an undercurrent of brutality in the way he dealt with staff, the hotel’s and his own. Or the arrogance with which he announced to us all that the guilty party—and here he looked at each of us in a way that implied that each of us in our own way was guilty—would be quickly apprehended.

Jonathan and Lucas, who seemed to be well known to the police, were called upon to identify which object had been taken, then all patrons were interviewed briefly and asked to leave an address and phone number where they could be reached, and permitted to leave.

Afterward Jonathan walked me to a taxi. He had been asked by the police to stay behind to assist with the investigation. The media had already arrived, and crowds of reporters and spectators milled outside the hotel.

“I’ll repeat my question,” I said. “Should those pieces not be in a museum?”

“Touche!” He smiled.

“I’m serious. How does Gomez Arias get away with keeping pieces like that in a glass case in a bar?”

“Maybe he wants to share his collection with the public.”

“The public, by and large, does not get into his bar,” I said acidly. “More likely he wants everyone who comes here to know he can afford them. It will be interesting to see if he can afford to lose them.”

With that, we shook hands and I took the taxi back to the Casa de las Buganvillas. By the time I got back to the hotel, the news was already out, and the place was abuzz.

A rather sullen Alejandro was staffing the front desk with his father. He warmed slightly when he saw me. “Caught a glimpse of you on television,” he said.

Suddenly I was exhausted. Even dinner seemed too much of an effort. I told Alejandro of my adventures, and he suggested that a bowl of his mother’s
sopa de frijol,
black bean soup, be sent up. I gratefully accepted.