Curses!

Chapter 2

They were five hours into the flight, high in a clean blue sky above a cloud layer of undulating white.

"It's like looking down on a giant bowl of Cream of Wheat,” Julie observed in one of her weaker conversational attempts.

"Mm,” Gideon said. He had worked intermittently and unproductively on “A Reassessment of Middle Pleistocene Hominids” while Julie dawdled with equal lack of result over her quarterly report. Now they both stretched and yawned at the same time.

Julie closed her manila folder and made another stab.

"Does Tlaloc mean something, or is it just a name?"

Gideon willingly gave up on the monograph and shoved it into the pocket on the back of the seat in front. “It's the Nahuatl term for the god of rain; the one the Maya called Chac."

"Nahuatl?"

"An Uto-Aztecan language, closely related to Pipil."

"Oh, Pipil,” Julie said. “Thanks for clearing that up. Tell me, if it's a Mayan site, why doesn't it have a Mayan name?"

"Because, as anybody who's studied anthropology should know-"

"I was merely an anthro minor. I'm afraid I never got around to Pipil and Nahuatl."

"Well, in the tenth century, the Toltecs, who were Uto-Aztecan, came down to Yucatan from central Mexico and conquered the Maya-or were assimilated by them, depending on whether you take a short or a long view. In any case, most of the famous Mayan ruins in Yucatan are more Toltec than they are Mayan. Chichen Itza, for example."

"Are you saying that Tlaloc isn't really a Mayan site, then?"

"No, it's Mayan all right, but with a Toltec overlay. Oh, the way you might say Strasbourg is really a German city, but with a French overlay."

"I'm not sure how much the French would appreciate that."

"I'm not sure how much the Maya appreciated it."

The lunch cart, which had been making its halting way up the aisle, had finally reached Row 24. Neat little plastic trays with hinged plastic lids were set down before them: a salad of salami, cheese, red peppers, and string beans; a roll; a two-inch cube of chocolate cake; a dozen red grapes in a pleated paper cup.

The thick-bodied man in the aisle seat next to them stared through the transparent lid of his portion with a cold and bitter eye. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered at it accusingly, “can you believe this?"

But to Gideon it looked fine; just right for two o'clock in the afternoon, thirty-five thousand feet above the Gulf of Mexico. Julie thought so too, and they polished it off enthusiastically (their seatmate ate the cake and left the rest) and hailed coffee from an attendant.

"Now,” Julie said firmly, “how about filling me in on all the sordid details of the famous scandal that closed Tlaloc down in 1982?"

Gideon twisted uncomfortably in the narrow seat. “How much do you know about it?” he asked reluctantly.

"Well, I remember reading about it in Time. Somebody stole a Mayan codex, right?"

"That's about it.” He tore open the paper seal on a container of half-and-half and poured it into his coffee. “The director, as a matter of fact. Howard Bennett."

After ten seconds of nothing but the drone of the engines, Julie raised an exasperated eyebrow. “And that's all you're going to tell me?"

"That's all there is."

"But you were there. I want the important details. What was Howard Bennett like? Was he actually a friend of yours? Was there a woman involved? Did you ever suspect…” She stopped and frowned at him. “In fact, why haven't you told me all this long ago?"

He shrugged. “It didn't seem pertinent. It happened before we met."

"You,” she said, “are the most closemouthed person I know. You never gossip. It's disgusting. I'm going to be working on this dig now, so it's pertinent.” She settled back expectantly, both hands around her cup, and shifted sideways to look at him. “Now tell me all about it. Start from the beginning."

Gideon settled back, too, looking down at the cloud sheet, and let his mind run back. The events at Tlaloc were painful to think about professionally as well as personally. He was, though he would hardly say such a thing aloud, a dedicated anthropologist, devoted to the field and intensely protective of its standards and reputation, both of which were gratifyingly high, generally speaking.

But Howard Bennett had violated those standards in an almost unimaginable way, and since then Gideon had rarely spoken of it. Most people he knew would have been surprised to learn he had been on the scene. Still, Julie had a point. She had a right to know more about it. Anyway, judging from the determined glint in her eyes, he wasn't going to get away with keeping it to himself any longer.

He started from the beginning. “You know what I remember most when I think about it? How hot it was."