Curses! (21 page)
"Which you very willingly join him in,” Gideon pointed out.
"Did I say I wasn't crazy too'? Listen, where's Marmolejo? We got a lot to tell him."
"That's a relief,” Julie said. “I thought maybe you two were planning to catch him on your own."
"Us?” Abe's mobile eyebrows soared. “What an idea. What are we, detectives?"
Marmolejo looked at the copy of the threat for all of ten seconds, then laid the paper down next to the brandy he had accepted but not yet touched.
"Yes,” he said around his unlit cigar, “it's the same typewriter.” He sat back in his chair under a wooden relief based on a wall painting from Bonampak, absently fingering his glass. “The question is: Why?"
"The codex,” Julie said, looking puzzled. She had just gone through it with him. “It must still be—"
He waved her silent. “No, I mean the letter under the door. Why threaten your distinguished husband in this childish manner? Why not simply kill him?"
"To get the satisfaction of frightening him,” Julie suggested. “Considering that Gideon was the one who started that committee, Howard would probably get a lot of pleasure out of terrifying him. Not,” she added loyally, “that Gideon was terrified."
"You think so?” Marmolejo said. “I wonder. For me to get satisfaction from terrifying you, it would be important that you know it was
I
and not someone else who hunted you. But did Dr. Bennett sign the note? No; he gave no clue. For all we knew, it might have been anyone."
"But he couldn't afford to let anybody know he was here,” Julie said. “We've already established that."
"All right,” Marmolejo said agreeably, “but if he killed the reporter to keep his presence a secret, as you suggest, why call attention to himself this way?” He turned to look at Gideon. “If he wanted revenge, why not simply bash you over the head with the wrench—forgive me, Mrs. Oliver—and be done with it? Why risk identification with this letter?"
They were good questions. Gideon hadn't yet had a chance to think about them. “Well, of course he'd never expect Abe to compare the documents."
Marmolejo received this with a noncommittal shrug. “He might think that we would. Eventually."
"So what's your theory, Inspector?” Abe asked.
The inspector shook his head, rolling the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Dr. Oliver, have you ever received threats from him before?"
"No."
"But then he gets so many that it's hard for him to keep track,” Julie said.
Marmolejo took this in the spirit it was intended. “Then why,” he asked, “does he suddenly begin now? Why not years ago?"
More good questions. “Maybe he never risked coming back to the States?” Gideon ventured. “Maybe this is the first chance he's had at me."
Another shrug from Marmolejo, and a change of subject. “Dr. Goldstein, if the codex is still buried at Tlaloc, I think our common interest would be best served if we retrieved it as quickly as possible.” He produced a small matchbox, removed a tiny waxed match, and applied it to the end of his cigar. Marmolejo with a lit cigar was a rare sight. He was feeling expansive, and no wonder. The retrieval of the Tlaloc codex for his country would be a stunning accomplishment.
"I couldn't agree more,” Abe said cautiously. “But the faster you dig the more risks you take. You wouldn't want to take a chance on damaging the codex."
Of course not; that went without saying. But was it not possible to speed up the digging without such a risk? What if he provided some of his own reliable men to help?
Abe, perfectionist that he was, was reluctant, but Marmolejo was persuasive. However dedicated the police protection might be, there was no way to provide foolproof security for either people or objects. Wasn't the fate of Ard proof of that? As long as the codex was down there, there was some risk that Howard might find a way to get at it, or even destroy it, deranged as he obviously was. And what about the danger to the crew's safety? Who could tell who was next, and when? But remove the codex and you remove Howard's
raison d’ etre,
or at least his primary reason to do anyone harm.
Abe wavered, then gave in. Starting the next morning, two of Marmolejo's men would report for duty in the temple, under Abe's supervision of course. With Abe's permission, Marmolejo himself would be there as well.
Abe, who knew when he didn't really have a choice, gave his permission. “But you know,” he said, “there's something that's bothering me here. Garrison translated the curse last week on Monday night. The press conference was Tuesday, so it wasn't in the papers till Wednesday. And yet on Wednesday night Howard's already here, slipping notes under the door. How did he find out so fast? How did he get here so fast?"
The cigar was dead again. Marmolejo plucked it from his mouth between two fingers. “The question is: Get here from where? If he was already in Yucatan, there would be no problem."
"Already in Yucatan?” Abe repeated. “Why would he already be in Yucatan?"
Marmolejo did not always choose to answer the questions that were put to him. With business taken care of to his satisfaction, he lifted his brandy glass and grinned his monkeyish grin.
"To the recovery of the Tlaloc Codex,” he said.
Worthy Partridge lifted to his mouth one of the four dried prunes that the kitchen staff added to his lunch box every day. “I, personally,” he said, “will be only too happy to see the last of this wretched place.” He shuddered. Behind pursed lips the prune was fastidiously masticated. “Remind me never to accept a free vacation again."
"Not me,” Harvey said through a mouthful of white bread and sliced turkey. “This is great. How can you leave before they find out if the codex is there or not?"
"Easily,” Worthy said sourly. “I don't want to be the next person Howard bumps off."
The subject was Marmolejo's announcement that morning that members of the crew were now free to leave Yucatan at their pleasure. Worthy was the only one planning to take advantage of it. He had made his airline reservation for the following day.
Harvey lifted wistful eyes to the Temple of the Owls. “Gee, do you think they're really going to find it?"
"Marmolejo promised they'd let us know if they did,” Gideon said.
"Marmolejo,” grumbled Worthy. “I wouldn't trust that man if I were you."
"Why? What's the matter with Marmolejo?” Leo asked.
"He's too small,” Worthy said.
Leo laughed. “Huh?"
"I don't like little people. They move too quickly. Always darting."
The conversation had been going on in this desultory fashion for half an hour. The crew was taking its lunch break in the shade of the acacias near the West Group after a morning of continuing the slow excavation of the ball-court foundations. Abe had asked Gideon to supervise this operation while he himself was in the stairwell with Marmolejo. The work at the modest ball court had been routine and dull, not even enlivened by Emma's accounts of her latest chat with Huluc-Canab.
She had decided to remain at the hotel this morning, and Preston had stayed with her. Emma had not been her usual dynamic self lately. This was partly because the rest of the group had begun to tune her out as soon as she opened her mouth, and partly because she was grievously disappointed in Huluc-Canab, who had told her that no real harm would come to any member of the group during their stay. Then, when Ard had been killed, she had challenged Huluc-Canab during their morning
tete-a-tete,
and he had pointed out that Ard had not actually been a member of the group. A rather glib and mealymouthed reply, in Emma's opinion. Gideon's too.
As they were getting up to go back to the ball court, one of Marmolejo's officers approached.
Would they care to come to the temple? he murmured politely in Spanish. They had found something of interest.
"El codex?"
Gideon asked, and then, when the officer looked at him blankly:
"Un libro?"
Yes, the policeman said, they had found a book. Very old, very beautiful.
Gideon whooped and reached for Julie. “I will never doubt you again,” he shouted, laughing. “You're brilliant!"
When they got to the temple, his exhilaration was momentarily chilled. He hesitated just inside the entrance with the strange feeling that he had circled back in time, that it was all going to happen again, as the Mayan calendar said all things did. Everything was the same: the air thick and gritty with dust—already he could feel it congealing on his tongue, crusting in his nostrils; the sulfurous yellow light from the portable lamps below; the wavering shadows on the walls and ceiling; the stale smells of antiquity, mold, and sweat; the tension in the voices from the stairwell.
Julie touched his wrist. “Gideon, what's wrong?"
He squeezed her hand and smiled. “Just a few ghosts."
They were easily enough exorcised by the sound of Abe's thin, excited call from the stairwell.
"Gideon, is that you? Come look, quick! Julie, you're there too? Come! Everybody, look!"
Trotting down the stone steps Gideon was further reassured by a pungent whiff of celluloid-acetone solution, the most common and comforting aroma at any dig. (Stale coffee was a close second.) It was used for everything from varnishing pottery, to gluing bone, to sealing waterlogged wood, to strengthening rotting hide. At the moment it was being sprayed out of a glass atomizer by Abe, in a well-thinned solution, onto something he was leaning intently over. The debris had been cleared almost down to the level it had been at in 1982, and Abe was kneeling on the lowest visible step, his bony knees cushioned on a folded towel. One step higher was Marmolejo, no less intent, and on the landing above them two dusty, sweat-stained policemen sat leaning against a wall sipping cool tea. The Mayan workmen who had been hauling out the dirt had been sent away.
Abe's narrow back was toward the stairs, blocking the newcomers’ view, but when he heard the footsteps behind him he twisted to the side so they could see.
"So,” he said, his eyes glowing. “what do you think of this?” He was as excited as Gideon had ever seen him.
With good reason. It was the codex all right, wedged in the angle between wall and step. Battered by the cave-in, crumpled at one corner, cracked at another, but basically sound. It was still open to the same place.
Gideon's burst of laughter drew startled looks from the others. Marmolejo in particular looked at him peculiarly, but how could he explain how funny it was? All that grave, dedicated work by the Committee for Mayan Scholarship, all the paper they'd generated, all that brilliant strategy to prevent Howard from selling the codex—and here it had been all the time, bruised and buried, but eminently safe under tons of rubble.
He stared at it, drinking up the sight; the ancient codex, the shadowy stone passageway, the vibrant old man. “Congratulations, Abe. What a—"
He stopped, frowning. Something had caught his eye a few feet from the codex. A small, unnoteworthy knot of gnarled, sticklike objects the color of driftwood, barely visible, protruding half an inch from the rubble that still covered the bottom steps and the base of the stairwell. “Just a minute,” he said.
He put a hand on Abe's shoulder and worked his way around him, gingerly stepping over the codex. The height of the uncleared rubble made it impossible to stand up straight. He hunkered down and brushed some dirt away with his fingers.
"Leo,” he said, “would you twist that lamp so it's focused here?"
He ran his fingertips over the sticklike objects and pulled away some more debris. The others watched him, curious and silent. No one seemed to want to ask what they were.
"It's a right elbow joint,” he said without preamble, “still mostly buried.” He pointed to the visible ends of each of the bones. “Humerus, ulna, radius."
"Articulatio cubiti,"
Harvey said automatically.
"Do you mean a—a
human
elbow joint?” Worthy stammered.
Gideon nodded.
"There's a
skeleton
under there?” Worthy had paled. In the lurid illumination his face looked like wax.
"I'm afraid so,” Gideon said.
"Maybe it's—well, it's probably just an old one. You know, another Mayan burial."
"No,” Gideon said, “it's only a few years old. I can—” But Worthy was already disturbed enough, and Leo and Julie didn't look too happy either. There wasn't much reason to explain that he could still smell the candle-wax odor of the drying fat in the bone marrow. And that would surely have been gone after a few years. Besides, most of the joint cartilage was still there, and even a few shreds of ligament.
"It's recent,” he said simply.
But not that recent. There was no trace of rancidity left, nor any sign of the insects and vermin that had performed the cleanup. And the cartilage was brittle and brown. The conclusion was inescapable—and self- evident, given a moment's thought. When he looked up at the faces peering down at him with sharp, puzzled concentration, it was clear that no one had failed to grasp it. He said it anyway.
"Whoever this is was killed when the tunnel caved in. Not before, not after. There can't be any doubt about it."
No one said anything for several seconds. The whirring of mental gears in the thick air was almost audible, Gideon's among them.
Who
was killed? Why? How? Had someone stopped Howard from stealing the codex, only to die for his efforts? Had there been a struggle? Had the weakened walls collapsed as a result, burying the codex and its defender together, so that Howard had had to slink off empty-handed, to wait for his chance to return? It was no more bizarre than some of their other theories, and it would explain a lot.
Only whose skeleton was it? Everyone was accounted for. Of the 1982 crew members, three were here on the stairway right now, two were at the hotel, and the others, those who had chosen not to return, were safe in the United States. Abe had talked to all of them by telephone when the dig started up. Then who...
