Temple of the Jaguar (2 page)

I listened to the message again. The voice was strong but firm, breathy and sexy. She wanted to meet me today at four, in the outdoor cafe at the Copan Rio Hotel, of which I happened to live on the fifth floor.

After a moment’s contemplation, I dialed the number. It rang twice, and then went straight to voice mail. I heard the same sultry voice. I left a message: I would meet her at the hotel restaurant at four. I clicked off the phone.

“
Hot date?” asked Ishi. Actually, this was translated to mean: a formal assembly between two possible mates for the continuation of one’s paternal bloodline.

“
Yeah,” I said, “something like that.”

“
Does she know you’re a thief?”

“
She called me on my looting hotline,” I said. “So I’m thinking yes.”

Ishi smiled and said to himself, “Looting hotline. Shit.”

I leaned back in the front seat, closed my eyes and listened to the slapping of branches against the hood and fenders, the call of the distant howler monkeys, the chirping of hundreds of tropical birds.

Breathy and sexy? Oh boy.

Chapter Two

Juan Esteban examined the knife closely, making excitable little noises that didn’t seem all that appropriate for the circumstances.

He was using a jeweler’s glass, examining every inch of the artifact, and making notes on a small pad. Then he placed the knife carefully on a white cloth and moved over to his logs, pulling one from his shelf and flipping through the pages.

We were alone in his shop. The shop itself was in Coco, a little town north of the Copan ruins. For all intents and purposes, Juan’s shop looked like a run-down pawnshop. There were a half dozen glass cases cluttering the store, most of them with broken doors, filled with very cheap watches and fake jewelry and rusted pistols from Honduras’s colonial days. I moved around the shop and examined a rifle that actually appeared to be bent, completely useless.

This wasn’t exactly the famous “black market” people hear about, but Juan usually unloads any of the jewelry or specialty items I may find. The golden dagger would be considered a specialty item.

“
You sell junk,” I told him again.

“
Of course. It keeps the thieves and policia away, although sometimes they are one in the same.”

I pointed to the bent rifle. “Have you ever sold any of this crap?”

He chuckled. “Last week a tourist came by. She liked a plastic ring. I told her it was folk art.” He snapped shut his ledger, came back and sat behind his desk. “I’ve only seen one other dagger like this. Appears to be from the Mayan post-preclassic. Ceremonial. Never used for actual battle, of course. A jade hilt and an emerald capstone, and although the gold is low-grade, like most Mayan gold, it is a very rare find and very valuable indeed.”

“
I’m surprised, Juan. You’re not up to your old tricks. By now you’ve usually told me how worthless an artifact is.”

“
You’ve caught me on an off day, and I’ve never been able to take advantage of you, Nick, so I’ve given up trying.”

“
Very admirable of you to admit, Juan. But we both know that’s bullshit. What are you offering?”

“
Two thousand.”

“
American dollars?”

“
Of course.”

I laughed appropriately. “Fifty thousand dollars, and not a penny less.”

He sat back, shocked. “You would extort from a friend, my friend?”

“
You were never much of a friend.”

“
Now you insult me. Well, I spit on your mother’s grave, goddammit.”

I laughed at his showmanship and scooped up the knife. “My mother is alive and well, I think. Maybe I’m not ready to sell just yet. It is, after all, quite beautiful. Maybe it’s also good luck.”

“
Ten thousand, and that’s my final offer.”

“
I don’t think so. You’ll get ten times that from the New York collectors. Call me with a decent offer. Good day.”

“
Twenty thousand and consider it a gift.”

“
Adios, amigo.”

I left his shop and stepped out onto the empty dirt street. Ishi was sitting in the Jeep with the windows down and his Panama hat pulled over his eyes. He was out like a light. As soon as I opened the door he snapped awake.

“
Well?” he asked, pushing up his hat.

“
We’ll hear from him soon enough.”

“
What did he offer?”

“
Twenty Gs.”

Ishi whistled. “I would have taken it.”

“
We can get more. A lot more.”

“
Which is why you do the negotiating.”

“
Yes,” I said.

“
So what good am I?” he asked.

“
You’re here for entertainment purposes.”

“
Good to know.”

“
Drive on, Ishi. Let’s get out of here. I have a date.”

He shifted gears, and we left the small town in a cloud of dust.

Chapter Three

“
Nick Caine?”

I nodded and smiled. Ever the approachable stranger.

Marie Da Vinci was a pretty woman with an angular face and muscular arms. Probably spent five to six days a week with a personal trainer. There were wet splotches under her breasts; a film of sweat coated her forehead and forearms. Sub-tropical humidity has that effect. She unconsciously pulled her sticky shirt away from her skin and grimaced, as if sweating through her clothes was distasteful.

She looked good, distasteful and all.

Having sworn off all women years ago, I was concerned by my immediate attraction to her. I thought:
watch yourself, Nick Caine, Looter Extraordinaire
.

I was sitting in an outdoor cafe along the dirt streets of Ruinas, Honduras, just outside the Hotel Rio Copan. Drinking beer from the bottle. Or, as the song says, just wasting away.

“
Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” she said.

“
Luckily, you caught me before my power nap,” I said.

She smiled. “May I sit?”

“
Suit yourself.” Ever the courteous gentleman, I kicked out one of the whicker chairs opposite me. It skidded to a stop next to her feet. She brushed the chair with a paper napkin, and then sat on said napkin. The chair promptly creaked whicker-like. The alert Honduran waiter swooped in and asked in broken English if she would like a drink. He assumed correctly that she was both thirsty and a tourist. The copious amounts of sunscreen on her narrow nose and the bright pink blouse were the dead giveaways. In this humidity, the thirst was a given, of course.

“
A glass of water please,” she said.

The waiter blinked, then looked at me. I shrugged at the waiter. The waiter waited. Marie looked at the waiter, then me and said, “What’s wrong?”

“
Ordering a glass of water is a bad idea,” I said.

She nodded, blushed. “Of course. A
bottle
of water, please.”

“
Of course, senorita.”

An old Miskito woman stood under an umbrella at the nearby street corner, encouraging all within earshot to try her amazing lemonade. I had tried it earlier. It was amazing.

I said to Marie, “There’s a man out here named Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci. And from what I understand he’s a shitty artist, which, I suppose, is kind of ironic.”

At the mention of Leonardo Da Vinci she looked away. Her lower lip might have trembled, too. I continued, “He is, however, a murderous looting kingpin who would just as soon cut your throat open than lend you a dime. Rumor has it that he’s making a big move into the drug business.” I paused, studying her reaction. “No offense, but you wouldn’t happen to be related?”

There was no hesitation. “He’s my uncle.”

“
Ah.”

The old lady on the corner raised her voice even louder, shouting in English, Spanish, Miskito and a mixture of all three. Hell, I even detected some French. Finally, she stepped out from under her yellow umbrella and out into the heat of the sun. Like a lioness picking off the weak and sick from the herd, she picked out a young man from a milling crowd and guided him toward her lemonade stand. The young man looked confused and a little scared. I didn’t blame him. She thrust a waxy cup full of the good stuff and practically reached down into his trousers for his money. He thanked her but looked thoroughly shaken when he retreated to his pack.

Marie continued, “He killed my father. His own goddamned flesh and blood.”

She pulled out a tissue and dabbed her eyes carefully. Her eyes were round, like Japanese anime, and I noticed for the first time the faintish, darkish, puffy circles under them, like twin-blackened moons in their quarter phase. When done dabbing, she crumpled the tissue and held it in her fist, should there be later tears. Recycling in action, folks.

“
I’m sorry,” I said.

“
You don’t seem surprised.”

“
Your uncle, Miss Da Vinci, is a cold-hearted killer. And not a very nice man,” I said. “However, killing his own brother seems to be a new low for Leo.”

“
You seem to know him.”

“
Let’s just say we’ve had reason to cross paths. Your uncle doesn’t like competition, and his competition has a habit of disappearing.”

“
But you’re still alive.”

“
No small feat. If it was up to your uncle, I’d be dead by now.”

She studied me carefully, and seemed to reappraise, looking me over like a used car. Maybe if I were lucky she’d kick my tires.

“
Your father owned a museum in California,” I said, prodding.

“
You know of my father?”

I grinned. “I’m just full of surprises.”

“
Well, the museum was burned to the ground,” she said. “Everything was lost. My father’s entire legacy, destroyed.”

“
I assume Uncle Leo had a hand in that as well.”

“
Yes.”

She seemed about to tell me more but her drink came. She opened the bottle with a deft twist and took a long pull and wiped the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. Her hand was shaking. She twisted the cap back on and set the bottle on the wooden table. Next, she removed a small notepad from her purse, flipped to a page and looked at me steadily. Her blue eyes were flecked with gold. My favorite color.

She looked down at the pad. “You, of course, are a looter.”

“
I prefer the term
creative archaeologist
,” I said and reached over and tilted down her notepad with my forefinger. There was much scribbling on the page, with my name written on top, underlined twice. Hmmmm. “Where did you get this?,” I asked. “I’m not exactly listed in the yellow pages under Looting.”