Curses!

Chapter 18

In five-and-a-half years Merida had changed very little. Animated, noisy, cheerful, the city was teeming with round little people not much over five feet tall, among whom outlanders loomed here and there like isolated peaks sticking up above the clouds.

At five feet, six inches, Julie didn't often get the chance to loom, and she was obviously enjoying it. “I feel like Dorothy in Munchkinland,” she said happily to Gideon over the heads of the chattering shoppers who had bustled their way between them.

They were fighting their way out of Merida's great public market, heading for an eleven o'clock meeting with Marmolejo. The inspector's request that Gideon-and Julie, if she liked-pay a visit to his office had come at a good time; they were ready for a change of scene. Ard's death had naturally cast a pall over things, but besides that, they had been in Yucatan eleven days and had yet to get more than a mile from the Mayaland. They had caught the morning bus originating from Cancun at its Chichen Itza stop (one of Marmolejo's men had seen them off), and a two-hour ride had put them at the main Merida bus station on Calle 69 an hour before their appointment, giving them time to walk through the famous mercado.

They hadn't intended to buy anything, but had succumbed at a stall selling the celebrated local string hammocks. Yucatecan hammocks were delicate, threadlike affairs and Julie had made Gideon ask the vendor if the large size-the matrimonial especial- could really hold the weight of two people.

The vendor had drawn himself up. “I myself have no beds in my house, senor,” he had told Gideon. “Only hammocks. And I have eight children."

Twice on their walk to Marmolejo's office in the center of town, Gideon had been sidled up to by teenaged boys who recognized him as an American (he loomed more than most) and slipped business cards into his hand. Almost anywhere else they would have been invitations to the Pussy Cat Club or the Eros Massage Studio, but there wasn't much big-city nightlife in Merida, and little in the way of earnest vice. “Welcome, gentlemens and ladies,” said one card. “We have finally made handcraf scultures for your examination.” The other said, “Restaraunt T'ho inwites you to a happy dining on Typical Yucatan Cookings."

Other young men-boys, really, some no more than nine or ten-hawked walkaway snacks from hand- pushed or bicycle-powered carts at the curbside: spiral-peeled oranges; mangoes on sticks; sliced papayas and pineapples; brown-kerneled corn doused with chili sauce and eaten out of the husk.

"That's what Marmolejo did when he first came to the big city,” Gideon said.

Julie watched a sweating. skinny kid of twelve in a ragged gray T-shirt deftly pare a coconut, then whack it into a dozen wedges, all with a few quick strokes of a coa, a miniature machete with a wicked hook on the end of it.

"Then he sure has come a long way,” she said.

He sure had.

His office was like something out of Viva Zapata, an airy, dusty, once-grand space with tiled floors, high windows, cracked walls, and not enough furniture to keep it from looking like a railroad-station waiting room. What furniture there was was eighty or ninety years old, massively made of dark, heavy wood: a sort of latino -Victorian. It was far from crude, but somehow one wouldn't have been surprised to see a couple of crossed cartridge belts hooked over a chair back, or a stained sombrero tossed on the corner of the enormous desk.

Marmolejo himself sat, erect and compact, in a richly carved chair that could have held two of him side by side. He apologized handsomely for his sharpness the day before and accepted Gideon's equally sincere apology. Amends made, they relaxed. Marmolejo asked an assistant to bring in soft drinks, then slid four photocopied typewritten pages across the desk.

"This is from Mr. Ard's room; a copy of the article he submitted to his newspaper several days ago."

Gideon looked at it and winced.

Marmolejo's eyebrows rose. “Is something the matter?"

"No, nothing."

Just that the title was “Grisly Curse of Death Stalks Jungle Excavation."

"Perhaps you would look the article over,” Marmolejo said. “I thought that as the only member of both the 1982 excavation and the current one"-he inclined his head courteously-"the only one above suspicion-you might be in a position to see if there is something in it that would throw some light on things."

Gideon had wondered where Marmolejo's cigar was, but now the inspector opened the upper right-hand drawer of the desk, revealing a white onyx ashtray. He took a two-inch stub from it, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, and settled down to wait for Gideon to read the article. The drawer was closed with the ashtray still inside.

Gideon quickly read the article. There were no secrets in it, no clues as to why Ard might have been killed. It was a predictably lurid account of the curse and its “terrifying realization.” It mentioned the mysterious appearance of a “strange, unidentified jungle animal that whispering native laborers secretly swore was a kinkajou.” (There was no mention of the placard around its neck.) It described the “night of fiery agony, when Tucumbalam's revenge was extracted…and which even the scientists have yet to satisfactorily explain.” And it gave three overwrought paragraphs to a segment that began:

On the night of January 5, Professor Oliver, who had more to fear than most (for who else was so intent on disturbing their sleeping bones?) was driven by an unnameable compulsion to climb the stony, deserted steps of Chichen Itza's ancient ceremonial ball court under a moonlit sky. It was a brave but foolhardy thing to do, for, as this is written, Dr. Oliver is still recovering from the effects of an attack by an unseen, unheard presence…

Gideon sighed and moved quickly on. The article's ending, given what had now happened, had a poignance it didn't have when Ard had written it.

And now what? Will the fourth covenant really come to pass, as the first three have? Will skulls be crushed and brains be spilt? Or will Huluc-Canab intervene with the mighty Xecotcavach, as Emma Byers says he promised?

Deep in the jungles of Yucatan, the diggers of Tlaloc eye each other nervously and wait. And wonder.

The previous dig was mentioned only in passing, and there was no reference to the codex. That, apparently, was what had been planned for the second installment, for a postscript promised, “Next: The Strange, Tangled Story of Howard Bennett and The Tlaloc Codex."

Julie had been reading the article too. She tapped the postscript with her finger. “Could it be that someone killed him to keep him from writing the next part?"

"I don't know,” Marmolejo said. “Could it?"

"I doubt it,” said Gideon. “The story's been printed a hundred times. There's nothing new to tell."

"What about the rest of the article?” Marmolejo asked. “Is there anything at all that might provide a clue? Perhaps someone meant to keep him from revealing something, not knowing it had already been submitted."

Gideon shook his head and passed the article back to him. “Sorry, Inspector, I don't think so. I can't see anyone committing murder to keep something out of Flak. It's not the kind of newspaper anybody rational pays attention to. And even if someone did pay attention, what is there to get Ard killed? There's nothing here that half the people in the hotel don't already know, thanks to Emma."

The drinks were brought in. Julie and Gideon had the locally bottled Cristal grapefruit soda; Marmolejo had Coca-Cola. The cigar went back in the drawer, none the worse for use. Not only did he fail to smoke the things, he somehow managed to keep the tips dry.

"I have something else to show you,” he said. “Do you recognize this?” He took a small yellow Pen-Tab notebook from a brown paper envelope and held it up.

Julie shook her head.

"It's Ard's,” Gideon said. “He was taking notes in it when he interviewed me."

"Ah, good,” Marmolejo said with satisfaction. “I thought as much, but I'm glad to have you confirm it; it was found under his body.” The notebook too was slid across the desk. Marmolejo was so small and the desk so broad he had to get halfway out of his chair to do it.

There were only about a dozen pages left in the spiral-bound pad, and just one entry, at the top of the first page; “Return to the scene of the crime,” it said, written in ballpoint in Ard's round, uncomplicated hand. The final e disintegrated into a distorted hook that the point of the pen had jabbed through the paper, then became a scrawl that ran crookedly off the page. At the top right-hand corner of the page there was a smear of what appeared to be dried blood.

"I don't suppose you have any idea what it means?” Marmolejo said. “'Return to the scene of the crime?’”

"No,” said Gideon. “A note to himself? Something about the next installment?"

"This-this scrawl,” Julie said, frowning uneasily down at it. “This stain. He must have been-was he writing it when he was killed?” Her hands were in her lap. She wasn't about to have them anywhere near the notebook.

"Yes, it appears so,” Marmolejo said. “The notebook was open to this page, and his pen was under him, with the point in the unretracted position."

"Well…is it possible it was meant as some sort of clue to his killer? You know-I know this sounds silly-a way of telling us who the murderer was?"

"I don't think so, Julie,” Gideon said. “The writing is slow and careful, just the way he usually wrote. No haste, no sign of agitation. That has to mean he didn't know he was about to be killed. It also means there's not much doubt about his killer being somebody he knew, somebody he wasn't afraid of."

The inspector nodded his agreement.

"Whoops,” Julie said. “What did I miss? How does that follow?"

"The wound was a contact wound, as you know,” Marmolejo began.

"No, I didn't know."

Marmolejo looked surprised. “Forgive me. I assumed that Dr. Oliver confided in you-"

"I do confide in her,” Gideon said. “I just spare her some of the messier details."

"Which I appreciate, believe me,” Julie said. “But now I'm interested."

"A contact wound indicates the gun was held against his head,” Gideon said. “So obviously his killer was standing next to him, right in his space. But Ard wasn't bothered enough to stop writing. And he couldn't have had any idea he was about to be shot or he wouldn't have been making those nice, round letters. At least I wouldn't have."

"I see,” Julie said. “But that's a little strange, isn't it? Even if you know somebody, how do you press a gun to his forehead and kill him without his being aware of it until you pull the trigger?"

"Oh, not so difficult, I think,” Marmolejo said. “Here is our Mr. Ard. He is sitting in the chair at the side of the path, writing. He hears someone coming down the path. He looks up, recognizes the person, nods, perhaps says good morning, and returns to his writing. The person casually draws level with the chair, his hand already on the gun in his pocket. At the very moment he comes abreast he quickly pulls it out, presses it to his head, and-well, as you know."

"But why assume it couldn't have been a stranger?” Julie asked. “Why does it have to be someone he knew?"

It was Gideon who replied. “Because he was still writing when he was shot, Julie. Surely if someone he didn't know was getting that close to him-a foot, foot-and-a-half away-it would have made him uneasy; he would have looked up, stopped writing. But an acquaintance strolling by? Nothing to worry about there."

"Yes,” Marmolejo said approvingly. “Exactly as I see it.

"I don't know,” Julie said doubtfully. “Maybe he did look up. Maybe he stopped writing. That doesn't mean he had to lift the pen."

"You're suggesting he was killed by a stranger?” Marmolejo asked.

Julie backed off. “Well, no, not suggesting. Just-” She grinned. “I'm not sure what I'm suggesting. I think I better leave it to the experts."

Marmolejo nodded briskly. That was fine with him. “The bullet's path,” he told them, “is consistent with our little scenario. It passed through his head in a downward direction, entering just below the hairline and emerging from the base of the skull-"

"Which fits in with his sitting in a chair, head tipped forward, while the killer stood,” Gideon agreed. “Did you ever find the slug?"

"Yes, and the cartridge as well; a. 32-caliber rimfire. Probably from a Smith amp; Wesson revolver, an old model, although I don't have a final report yet” He sipped from his glass of Coke. “You wouldn't know if any of the crew members possess such a weapon?"

"No idea,” Gideon said.

"Couldn't you search their rooms?” asked Julie.

"Not without warrants,” Marmolejo said, and smiled. “Requisite as it was, police reform has had its cumbersome aspects.” He set down his glass and looked at his watch. “One-ten. Perhaps you'll join me for lunch, and then I'll be happy to drive you back to the Mayaland."

"Lunch sounds good,” Gideon said, “but we don't mind taking the bus back."

"But I'm going there anyway. There are several people I want to talk to."

He stood up. The cigar was retrieved from the drawer and reinserted in his mouth. “If you like, there'll be time for you to buy a hammock before we leave."

Gideon's hand went to the plastic bag beside his chair. “Now what makes you think we'd want to buy a hammock?"

"Don't all Americans buy hammocks when they come to Merida? I thought it was a folkway of some kind."

"We've already bought ours,” Julie said, laughing. “Not in the mercado, I hope?"

"Well, yes, in the mercado," Gideon said defensively. “Why not?"

"What did you pay?"

"Thirty thousand pesos.” Gideon darted a glance at Julie. There was no point in telling Marmolejo they had paid twice that. “But it's a good one; well-woven."

"Too bad,” Marmolejo said. “I could have gotten you a fine one for half that. Come on, we'll have lunch at the Cafe Expres; I think you'll like it."

Their meal and the ensuing drive consisted of three frustrating hours of trying to comprehend the events of the last eleven days. How were they to apply Abe's Theorem of Interconnected Monkey Business, to which they all subscribed? How to make sense of Ard's murder, of the attack on Gideon, of the threat, the secret digging, and the rest of it-let alone relate them? Halfhearted, half-baked ideas were discarded as quickly as they were produced.

The only thread holding them together seemed to be the serial fulfillment of the curse, and when that subject was raised, Emma came naturally to mind. She had the most at stake, personally and financially, in the curse's sensational fulfillment, and a gory murder was certainly not going to hurt the eventual sales of Beyond Dreaming. But would she really take the terrible step-and the terrible risk-of killing Ard, all for the sake of marketing strategy? Was she that cold-blooded?

In the end, even Julie drew back from the notion. It was simply too fanciful, too preposterous.

Marmolejo approached it from another angle. “What if she's doing it not to sell her book but because Huluc-Canab is instructing her to do it?"

The three of them looked at each other. “That,” Gideon said, “is a horse of another color."

They had gotten back to the hotel after four, too late to do any useful work at the site. While Marmolejo left to talk to some of the hotel staff, Julie and Gideon stayed in their room, Gideon working listlessly away at his monograph, Julie at her quarterly report. The ringing of the telephone at five-twenty was a welcome interruption.

"That'd be Abe,” Julie predicted, “just back from the site, wanting to know how things went with Marmolejo."

It was. The talk had gone fine, Gideon told him, but not much new had come out of it.

"Well, I got something new for you,” Abe said when Gideon had finished. “Let me wash up, then meet me in the bar in fifteen minutes. You'll order me a Montejo?"

"What have you got, Abe?"

"Ha, wait and see."

Gideon could practically see the sparkle in his eye.

The Lol-Ha Bar, like most of the Mayaland's public rooms, had open-grillwork gates and shutters instead of doors and glassed-in windows, so the occasional whispers of early evening breeze carried in sounds and fragrances from outside. Julie and Gideon sipped their beers and listened to the guitarist on the veranda warm up for his evening's work with a cool, simple version of “Sheep May Safely Graze” that was unexpectedly compatible with the lush tropical plants and purling fountains.

As the last strains of Bach faded away, Abe came striding purposefully out of the foliage along one of the paths. His slender, upright head was well in advance of the rest of him, with his feet churning to catch up. He was clamping a heavy loose-leaf binder to his chest with both arms.

"Something tells me,” Gideon said to Julie, “that we're on the verge of a major breakthrough here."

Abe sat down, slid the beer to the side to make room, and put the binder on the table, turned so that Gideon and Julie could read the page it was opened to. Next to it he laid a photocopy of the threat that had been slipped under their door the previous week.

"So what do you think? Is there any doubt about it?” He leaned back in his armchair looking keenly satisfied.

The binder contained the daily field catalogue from the first dig. It was open to a page dated June 18, 1982, and signed by Howard.

Julie looked blankly from the page to the brief note. Gideon did the same, wondering what there wasn't supposed to be any doubt about.

Gideon Oliver, leave Yucatan or you will die. This is no joke. The Gods of Tlaloc.

Again, the faint tug of familiarity, the sense of having seen this before, but nothing more. He shook his head. “I don't think…"

"The as," Abe prompted, and swigged impatiently at his beer.

"The as…" Gideon's head swung from the catalogue entry to the threat and back again. And it finally hit him. “The tilted a! These two were done on the same typewriter!” He leaned excitedly forward. “The missing arm on that w, the nick in the es, they're the same on both sheets!” A glance at a few other pages in the catalogue showed that the same machine had typed them all. “Abe, this is fantastic!"

Abe laughed. “It kept bothering me why it was familiar, and then finally it dawned on me what it was."

"I'm sure this is all very wonderful,” Julie said, “but I wish somebody would take the trouble to let me know just why we're all congratulating ourselves."

"Because,” Abe said, “we just figured out-you notice I use the self-deprecating ‘we'-that this friendly little letter to your husband was written by none other than Howard Bennett.” He paused dramatically. “Howard Bennett is here in Yucatan."

"Wait,” Julie said, “could we just hold on a minute? I'm all for having Howard the bad guy in the piece too, but how does the fact that these were typed on the same typewriter prove Howard typed them both?"

"It's his typewriter,” Abe explained. “A Brother EP-20, a little portable; the kind you can fit in an attache case. Believe me, I know the police report by heart. When he ran off, the typewriter went with him, isn't that right, Gideon?"

"That's right. He doubled back to his room and got it, along with a few other things."

"But how can you be sure he took it?” Julie persisted. “For all you know somebody else-"

"No,” Gideon said. “That letter he sent us-you know, regretting the unfortunate little affair of stealing the codex-was typed on it. The police established it at the time.” He tapped the note on the table. “And now here are those crooked as again. He's here all right."

Julie took this in, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She turned slowly to Gideon, one eyebrow raised dangerously. “Am I imagining it, or haven't I been saying since last week that he was here? And didn't you give me a hundred reasons why he wasn't here, why he couldn't be here, why-"

"A good scientist,” Gideon explained, “modifies his operational hypotheses to accord with fresh data. When additional-"

"Why don't you just say you were wrong?” Abe said.

"I,” Gideon said humbly, “was dead wrong. All wet. In the right church but the wrong pew."

"Yes, you were,” Julie said, “and pretty snide about it, too, as I recall."

"Well, I apologize. Sincerely. We should have listened to you."

"We?" Abe said. “When did I get involved in this?” He laughed brightly, then wondered aloud: “But what's he doing here? What does he want?"

"The codex,” Julie said.

Abe stared at her. “What?"

"That's another one of Julie's hypotheses,” Gideon said. “She thinks the codex might still be down there under the rubble, and now Howard's come back for it."

"But that's impossible. We know he took it-he said so. And we heard reports from all over. And-"

"That's just what Gideon said,” Julie replied smugly.

"Anyway, even if it was there, why would he come back for it now, of all times? Why wouldn't-"

"Gideon said that too. It was part of the same lecture in which he patiently explained to me how there couldn't be the slightest possibility that Howard was within a thousand miles of here."

"Yes, but…” Abe paused, then nodded, his lips pursed together, a man seeing the light. “Well, it would sure explain the digging, wouldn't it? Maybe even this foolishness with the curse."

Abe's theory about the curse was simple and cogent. Assuming that the codex was really still there, Howard would have been shaken by the Institute's decision to resume the stairwell excavation, and become increasingly desperate as the dig progressed. What better way to protect his unclaimed treasure than for the Institute to lock up the temple again? And what better way to get the Institute to do that than to engineer the phase-by-phase fulfillment of an ancient curse? An article in Flak might not raise their hackles much, but how long would it have been before the story was picked up by the more responsible press as well?

And if implementing one of those phases also happened to result in the violent death of his old enemy Gideon Oliver on the ramparts of the Chichen Itza ball court, so much the better. If not, well, the point was still made, and another opportunity might always arise.

"You know,” Gideon said slowly, “this goes a long way toward explaining Ard's murder too."

"You think Ard found out he was here, maybe even that he was behind the curse?” Abe asked.

"'Return to the scene of the crime'-that was in his notebook. Who else could it refer to but Howard?"

Julie made one of her inexact attempts at finger snapping. “And what about that little blurb about the next installment? ‘The Strange Case of Howard Bennett and the Tlaloc Codex,’ or something like that. Stan must have found out Howard was here-maybe even that the codex was here too-and Howard killed him to keep him from talking about it."

"You know, it could be so,” Abe said. “So far, nobody's come up with anything better."

Another small piece dropped suddenly into place for Gideon, one that he should have fitted in hours before. He snapped his fingers.

"Show-off,” Julie said.

"The gun!” Gideon said. “The one Ard was shot with-Marmolejo said it was a. 32-"

"-which is what Howard had,” Abe said. “He had it with him when he went up to the temple that night. Nobody ever saw it again. An old Smith amp; Wesson, according to the report."

"That's right. That's right!" For the first time Gideon began to let himself believe it deep down. “Damn, it is Howard. He's right here in Yucatan. Do you realize this is the first time since the theft of the codex-"

"The attempted theft,” Julie said. “The alleged theft."

"-that we've known for sure where he is? And he doesn't know we know. It's our first decent chance of getting hold of the bastard. And of getting the codex back.” He nodded respectfully to Julie. “Unless the codex has been down there waiting for us all along, of course."

"Wouldn't that be something?” Abe said softly.

Gideon waved over a waiter hovering unobtrusively at the side of a pillared arch. "Tres copas de brandy, por favor. Tiene Cardenal Mendoza?"

When the drinks came, the three of them clinked glasses and Abe burst into a happy laugh. “Now I know I'm surrounded by crazies,” he said, his pale blue eyes alight. “A man gets a death threat, and he finally figures out it's from a murderer who's going around shooting people. What would a normal person do? Hide in his room, put on a fake beard, get the next plane. What does this guy do? He orders a round of cognac. Cardenal Mendoza, yet."

"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?"