The Purple Pterodactyls

The Figurine

The off-black statuette from Guatemala was five inches high and two inches thick at its widest. It also seemed to interfere with our television reception.

This figurine represented a squatty, sexless little person, with a large, wide head on which knobs stood for ears. It had a snub nose, slitty, slanting eyes, and thick lips set in a look of cosmic disgust. It reminded me of the Billikens that decorated the homes of my parents' generation, albeit its expression was far less amiable.

The statuette had been made of a lump of either brick or red sandstone, shaped with a jackknife and a couple of files and painted black. After poking at the base with a tool, I guessed sandstone.

I got the object when, for almost the only time in our married lives, Denise and I took separate vacations. The Museum of Natural Science, in which I have a family membership, offered archaeological safaris to Central America in March and April. The Newburys wanted to look at Mayan ruins; but, with two children in college and another in high school, we did not feel we could both leave at once. While our children have been pretty good, the great youth revolt of the sixties was boiling. We had heard too many horror tales of bourgeois parents who left adolescents in charge of their houses and returned to find the houses savaged by their children's scruffy friends.

I took the first of these field trips, and Denise took the second. I won't give a travelogue, save to say that I got through without a case of the trots and was devoured by mosquitoes at Tikal while sitting in the jungle watching for wild life. There had been a yellow-fever epidemic among the monkeys, so I saw none. I did, however, smell a big cat—a puma or a jaguar—in one of the so-called temples, where this feline had made its lair. But it had cleared out in advance of our coming.

Our bus stopped at Solola, by Lake Atitlan, on market day, to view the colorful crowd of Guatemalan Indians. They still wore the distinctive costumes of their villages. Some of the little brown men were in pants and some in kilts. Each, no matter how poor he looked, wore a spotless new straw sombrero. Someone must have once sold a lot of surplus nineteenth-century hussar jackets hereabouts. Many wore monkey jackets obviously copied from that pattern. They were made of coarse brown cloth, embroidered in black with frogs, like those worn in the charge of the Light Brigade.

As we were getting off the bus, an urchin piped up: "Buy esstatues! Ancient pagan gods of Indians! Bery reasonable!"

The boy had set out a row of little uglies on the sidewalk. They sell many of these at Chichicastenango. Evidently this boy, learning that we should stop first at Solola, meant to steal a march on his competitors. I must have looked like a good prospect, for he glued himself to me and uttered a flow of sales talk.

Much as I admired his enterprise, I remembered that Denise does not like filling the house with strange-looking souvenirs. So I fobbed the boy off with "No ahora, gracias; mas tarde, acasa"; and other ambiguities. Perhaps, I thought, he would have gone away when we returned to the bus.

He and most of his idols, however, were still in place. When I still declined to buy, he set up a cry: "But you promised, Meester! All Norteamericanos keep their promises!"

"Oh, all right," I said, secretly glad of an excuse to buy a souvenir of my trip. I paid a dollar for the figurine. "What's he called?"

"No name. Just ancient god."

"Well, what's your name?"

"Armando."

"Fine; this ugly little fellow shall be called Armando."

When I got home, I put Armando on the desk in my home office. Then the children began complaining of television reception. The tube was full of snow, failed to hold the vertical, and displayed other malfunctions. The service man could find nothing wrong. When the set was taken back to the shop, it worked perfectly, but nothing seemed to fix it at home. The repair man guessed that some neighbor might be operating a citizen's-band transmitter.

Priscille said: "It's that hideous little idol Daddy brought back from Guatemala."

"It might have a radioactive core," said Stephen.

"No," said Héloise, "because then we'd all be dying of radiation disease."

"I don't mean that," said Priscille, who seems to have an instinct for these things. "The god is sore at not getting his daily sacrifice."

"Whom would you suggest that I eviscerate with a flint knife?" I asked.

"Well, there's my geometry teacher—but I guess that isn't practical. Maybe you'd better buy a rabbit or chicken or something. If you'll hold it, I'll cut its throat in front of the idol, if you're too squeamish."

"Not over my nice oriental rugs!" cried Denise.

"You bloodthirsty little monster!" I said. "Maybe Armando will be satisfied with an offering of flowers."

"The flowers will not be out till next month, my crazy dears," said Denise.

"You could buy them from a florist," said Héloise.

"With whose money?" I said. "Look, why not use one of those wax flowers that fellow sold your mother last year? Okay, darling?"

Denise shrugged. "It is all to me equal. Amusez-vous done."

So a couple of waxen flowers were placed at the feet of Armando. At once the snow disappeared from our tube.

Denise departed on her tour. A few days later, Carl telephoned to say that Ed and Mitch were both in town, and couldn't we arrange an old-time get-together?

These three and I had been cronies back in the thirties, when we were young bachelors. We used to gather for a weekly poker game—penny ante with a quarter limit, and a case of beer. It made each of us feel like a hell of a fellow.

Then came the war. Afterwards, Ed and Mitch moved to other parts. Besides, I had discovered that I did not really get so much pleasure from the game itself. It was, rather, the talk and the camaraderie that I enjoyed. One could have those without the distraction of cards.

Carl, however, urged the real old thing. Since his house was being painted, I invited the others.

On the Saturday of my party, our television set acted up again. Since I had counted upon the machine to keep my offspring out of my hair while I entertained my old pals, I was concerned. Priscille said:

"Armando's sore again, because you've left those same old wax flowers in front of him for a week without changing them."

"He's an ungrateful little spook," I said. "The wax flowers keep indefinitely, which real ones don't."

"Well, there's your evidence. You'd better take away those and give him some others."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "You know it was just a coincidence."

Nevertheless, when none of the children was looking, I removed the first pair of waxen blossoms and put another in their place. The television set cleared up at once.

Carl, Ed, and Mitch arrived with a quarter-century quota of bald heads and potbellies. Since I, by dint of diet and exercise, had kept my shape the best, they kidded me about my gray hair.

"My hair turned gray fifteen years ago," I said, "when I found I'd authorized a bad loan by the bank; but at least I still have it. Draw for deal."

"King deals," said Ed.

We did not argue over the form of the game, for we always played simple draw—not even five-card stud, let alone spit-in-the ocean or other female aberrations with wild cards. We were purists who allowed nothing fancier than jack pots. The draw-poker party is one of the last stands of the heterosexual all-male social group.

On the first hand, my kings beat Mitch's jacks.

On the second, my aces and treys beat Ed's queens and fives.

On the third, Carl drew to a pair and made three tens. Since I seemed to be having an exceptional run, I drew to an inside straight. I would never do that ordinarily, having better sense; but I, too, made it.

On the fourth, I had nines up and Ed, queens over deuces. He discarded his low pair with the odd card, which is usually sound tactics, and made three queens. I dropped my odd card only and made a full house.

After a few rounds, the others had to buy more chips, even at our minuscule stakes. They looked uncomfortably at each other.

"Where have you been the last twenty-seven years, Willy?" said Ed. "Las Vegas?"

"No," said Carl. "A banker is used to carrying figures in his head. He's got all those probabilities memorized."

"No," said Mitch, "he got the dope from those statistics courses at M.I.T. He was always a pretty sharp player, and he's just refined his skills."

"Then why sit behind a desk in a bank, Willy?" asked Carl. "Wouldn't it be more fun and money to gamble for a living? You could have all the booze and broads you wanted—"

"Me?" I said. "Look, you guys, don't you know a banker has ice water in his veins instead of blood? I can take my booze or leave it. As for broads, I find one about all I can manage—"

"He had enough blood in his veins to get three kids," said Mitch.

"Assuming he didn't have to call in outside help," said Ed.

We went on with the game, with the same results as before. No matter who dealt, at least one of my guests had a bettable hand, while I always topped him. After a while, not wanting to be suspected of sleight-of-hand, I began losing deliberately, failing to draw when I had an improvable hand, dropping out when I had a pat hand, and folding when I would normally have called or raised.

We had our coats off. When I went out to the kitchen for more beer, I quietly rolled up my shirt sleeves. At least, they could see that I had nothing in those sleeves.

About eleven, the game died by unspoken mutual consent. I suppose they realized, as I had from the start, the futility of trying to recapture one's lost youth. Even when one goes through the same motions, the feeling is never the same.

Instead, we drank more beer and told of our careers. Having moved to California, Mitch was full of the virtues and faults of his adopted state.

"I have to go out there next month," I said. "One of our trust accounts just died, in a place called San Romano."

"I live thirty miles from there," said Mitch. "You must come and see us."

Carl put in: "Isn't that where all the college kids have been raising hell lately?"

"One of the places," said Mitch. "No worse than you've got back here. Look at Columbia—"

"Ought to machine-gun the lot," growled Ed. "Damned long-haired, loafing, dope-shooting bums—"

"I'll tell you about it when I get back," I said. "I'm staying with my brother-in-law, who's a professor there."

"Damned yellow, cowardly professors," said Ed. "Haven't the guts to can these young thugs when they act up, when they're not red revolutionists themselves. Now, when I went to college, if you presented the prexy with a list of non-negotiable demands, he'd have thrown you out the window without first opening the window."

The party ended soon after midnight. Middle-aged men are less charmed by the small hours than once they were. There were good-nights and badinage. As the other two started out the path to Carl's car, Carl turned back and quietly asked:

"Willy, tell me something. Why the hell did you drop when you had four queens? I looked at your discards."

"Must have been plain stupidity," I said. "I probably mistook them for queens and jacks."

"Don't give me that! Anyone can see you're just as sharp as ever."

"I'll try to explain some other time," I said. "It has to do with the way my television set has been acting, but it's too complicated to tell you now."

"You mean radiations from it?"

"Something like that. Good-night, Carl."

When Denise returned from her safari and I was packing for California, on an impulse I put Armando in with my socks. In the late thirties, I should have scorned such superstition. There was no harder-boiled materialist than I; I rejected Marxism as too mystical and not materialistic enough. But with all the funny things that have happened to me ...

My brother-in-law is Avery Hopkins, Ph.D., professor of Middle English. He and my sister had one child, a boy of the same age as my Héloise and a student at the local college. I had not long been in the Hopkins house when I caught the tension.

"We're so worried," said Stella. She was a willowy blonde, an inch taller than Hopkins—a little round, bald man, sweet-tempered and gentle. He and Stella seemed to get along well enough. My sister continued:

"With all these demonstrations and things, you never know when the police will cut loose with their guns. Robert might be killed."

"It's the fault of the municipal government," said Hopkins. "The police shouldn't have guns. The students are only exercising their constitutional right of assembly."

"Okay," I said, "but I think the Constitution says: peaceably to assemble. When somebody heaves a rock, as usually happens, you assembly isn't peaceable any more."

"But, don't you see? If the system hadn't produced so many injustices and oppressions, there wouldn't be all this resentment to incite people to throw missiles—"

"Ever hear of a human system that didn't have injustices and oppressions? Besides, the world is full of people who, if they got to Heaven, would complain about the tune of the harps and the dampness of the clouds. And some like to throw rocks for the hell of it. Why don't you just lower the boom on young Robert? Tell him he may not, repeat not, take part in these marches and riots?"

"Oh, my!" said Hopkins. "We should never think of dealing with him by such authoritarian tactics. We don't believe in them. Besides, he's threatened to run away and become a real bum, a drifter, begging and stealing for his living."

Stella said: "You know, Willy, we always thought you were kind of a Fascist, the dictatorial way you brought up yours. Now I'm not sure."

I shrugged. "At least, they seem to be turning into hardworking squares, so we must have done something right. But now I've got to run over to the First National to see Evans."

I took the car I had rented at the airport and went to the bank, the entrance to which was flanked by a pair of big date palms. Evans, the treasurer, and the bank's lawyer met me. We three spent the afternoon going through the contents of the late Mary Trumbull Hammerstein's safe-deposit box and bank-account statements. I had to be there in person because the estate was in litigation, with a contested will and lots of money involved. A local judge had ordered the bank to turn Mrs. Hammerstein's papers over only to an official of my bank, which was the executor of the decedent's estate.

When five o'clock came, the lawyer was finished, but Evans and I still had work to do. Evans suggested that he and I come back at eight, so that we could complete the job and I could take my 'plane the next day.

Back at the Hopkinses', I met Robert Hopkins, whom I had not seen for several years. He was a small, pale, weedy, hollow-chested youth, with enough hair to qualify as the Dog-Faced Man in a circus. He wore clothes of such ragged denim that he might have been a castaway recently rescued from an uninhabited island.

He gave me a limp hand, saying: "Oh, yeah, you're my Uncle Willy. Do I understand you're—like—a banker?" He made it sound as if he were accusing me of mass murder.

"Yes," I said. "That's how I earn my living, such as it is."

He looked at me as if I had crawled out from under a flat stone and turned to his parents. "Say, when do we eat? I gotta get back to the campus. Big rally tonight."

"Please, Bob dear," said Stella. "Your father hasn't had time to serve the cocktails yet."

Robert snorted. "Okay, if you want to fool around with that middle-class crap. But I got business. Gotta eat by six-thirty at the latest."

"We'll try to hurry, Robert," said Avery Hopkins, nervously pouring. "Here's yours, Willy. Waes hail!"

"Drink hail!" I responded, pleased with myself for being able to return his verbal serve. Robert was silent during our hasty cocktail hour. When Stella had served dinner, I asked him:

"What's this rally you're attending?"

"Why, the usual thing. To protest, like, this obscene, immoral war, and pollution of the ecology—"

"Excuse me, Robert," said Avery Hopkins, "but I think you mean 'pollution of the environment.' 'Ecology' is the science of the environment, not the environment itself."

"Oh, who cares, Dad? Anyway, we're gonna protest pollution and racism and Fascism and sexism and capitalism and imperialism and grading and intelligence tests and—"

When Robert paused for breath, I said: "That's a pretty broad spectrum of complaints. Don't you think you'd get further if you concentrated on one thing at a time?"

"Oh, you wouldn't understand, Uncle Willy. You're on the other side of the barricades from us."

"Some of my banking friends consider me a bright pinko liberal," I said mildly.

"Oh, that's worse than a real conservative! You guys are always trying to damp down the class conflict, but we gotta have class struggle if we're ever gonna smash the System. We need it to raise the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. I mean, like, you may be a decent sort of guy in your private life, but you belong to the oppressing class. Also, you're an old man past forty, so you just couldn't understand us young progressive types. Might as well be talking Greek."

"Well," I said, "I have at least read Marx's Capital. Have you?"

"Marx? Naw. He's not relevant any more. The Communists have become, like, just another bunch of bureaucratic squares. All they want is to take over the system and run it for their own benefit. But we gotta overthrow the system, smash it to pieces, and start over. Now if you'd read Marcuse—"

"I have; that is, one of his books."

"What ja think?"

"I thought it the worst lot of rhetorical balderdash since Mein Kampf. All about how Man wants this and needs that and ought to do the other thing. He throws around a lot of abstractions having no connection with the real world— with what any real man or group of men wants—"

As I spoke, Robert became more and more excited. Now he jumped up from his half-eaten dinner, shouting:

"All right, we'll show you old mother-fuckers! We'll get you, like we got that reactionary sociologist! You're all parts of the system that's grinding down the people. You talk about our violence, but you use violence against us all the time, like sending your Fascist pig cops to beat us up! You're too yellow to do your own dirty work, so you hire the pigs to do it! Well, fuck the system, and fuck you, too!"

He slammed out, leaving Avery, Stella, and me staring. It was one of the more uncomfortable moments of my life. Avery Hopkins muttered:

"Willy, I can't tell you how sorry I am that you should be subjected to such barbarous discourtesy—"

"My fault, I'm afraid," I said. "I should have shut up instead of needling him."

After groveling apologies all around, I asked: "Who was the reactionary sociologist?"

"Oh," said Hopkins, "he meant Vincent Rosso, the one who had his office blown up. Lost his right foot and all his scientific data."

"I read something about that in the Eastern papers. What was his offense?"

"He believed in heredity, so that made him a racist, an imperialist, and other dreadful things."

After I had helped with the dishes, I collected the things I needed for the evening session at the bank. Looking at Armando, lying amid my socks, I thought: if you ever need supernatural help, Wilson Newbury my lad, now is the time, with a horde of young idealists on the rampage. I put the statuette in my brief case.

Evans awaited me in front of the First National. The watchman, a white-haired ex-cop named Joshua, let us in.

After another hour, we were just wrapping up the transfer of the Hammerstein papers to my custody. We worked in an inner office, so as not to be seen through the picture windows. It has always seemed foolish to me to build large expanses of glass into the walls of a bank, which ought if anything to resemble a medieval fortress. But the First National of San Romano was some architect's dream, with vast panes of plate glass outside and fancy wooden paneling within.

Joshua knocked on the door. When told to enter, he came in with Robert Hopkins, the latter breathing hard. The watchman said:

"Mr. Newbury, is this your nephew? Says he's Professor Hopkins's son."

"Yes, Josh, he is. What's up?"

"There's a big crowd outside, making a holler. So this young man came to the door and asked me to let him in. He wants to warn you."

"Yes, Bob?"

"Uncle Willy! You and Mr. Evans better split. The comrades are gonna destroy this symbol of repression, and if you're inside—well, I'm sorry I blew my top. Like, I didn't mean I really wanted to see you fried alive."

"Good God!" said Evans. "I'll call the cops."

"Won't do any good," said Robert. "The fuzz are already out there, but they're not doing anything. You guys better get the hell out while you can."

"That damned city council!" said Evans. "They told the police to handle the students with the utmost restraint, because they didn't want any more of the bad publicity the town got from last February's bust. Let's go."

I quickly stuffed the remaining papers into my brief case. We had hardly left the inside office when a terrific crash came from the front. At once the crowd noises, which had been barely audible in the office, became loud.

Joshua opened the door to the foyer and stepped through. There was a dull impact, and he staggered back. He had lost his uniform cap, and blood ran down his scalp. A brick had hit him. Bottles, bricks, stones, and pieces of concrete were raining into the foyer through the picture windows, most of whose glass lay in fragments on the tiled floor. One of the date palms by the entrance was burning briskly. "Keep back!" said Evans. "It's suicide to step out there."

"Has this place a back door?" I asked. "Yes. Let's try it."

When we came to the back door, however, it transpired that it had to be opened by two keys, and Joshua had only one of them. None of the others on his ring fitted. After Joshua had fumbled in a dazed sort of way, Evans took the keys from him and tried them with no more success. The door was a solid affair, with a steel frame and small panes of laminated glass, so we could not hope to batter our way out. I said:

"If we went back to the front and put out the inside lights, so they couldn't see us to aim, we might make a break."

Robert Hopkins, looking as if he were about to faint, staggered after us. When we got to the foyer again and put out the lights, the rain of missiles continued. The floor was ankle deep in stones, bricks, and broken glass. I do not know where the rioters got such an inexhaustible supply.

With the lights out, we could see our assailants. About a third or a quarter were girls, and all were in the ragged barb that symbolized rejection of bourgeois values. They formed a loose semicircle in front of the bank. Off to the left I saw the gleam of brass buttons, but the police stood idly by.

To escape, we should have to bull our way through the line. While throwing things, the rioters chanted some slogan, which, after a while, I made out to be: "Fuck the system! Fuck the system!"

"Oh, boy," snarled Evans, "if I only had a machine gun and plenty of ammo!"

Little flames appeared in the ragged line. One of the flames soared up in a parabola and struck the outside of the building. There was a burst of yellow flame.

"Fire bombs," I said.

Another gasoline-filled bottle, with a lighted wick, sailed sparkling through the air. This one came in through one of the gaping picture windows and spread its flame around the foyer. Papers and curtains began to burn.

"Now we'll be roasted for sure," said Evans. "I said there was too much goddam wood in this building. What'll we do?"

Another Molotov cocktail whizzed into the building. The heat became oppressive, and the smoke made us cough. Beyond the flames, I saw firemen wheel up a truck and run a hose out to a hydrant. No sooner had they attached it, however, than several students attacked it with axes and machetes and soon had it in shreds. The firemen retreated from the shower of missiles.

"Goddam cops!" breathed Evans. "Look at 'em, standing back and just watching? They're afraid to do anything, because then every pinko journalist in the country will tell how the brutal Fascist pigs killed some innocent children who were just having fun."

"We'll have to take our chance and run through the fire and rocks and everything," said Robert Hopkins, shivering. "Maybe, if I yell I'm one of them, they'll let us through."

Crash! went the missiles, while the flames flashed and crackled.

"Just a second," I said. I stepped aside, turned my back, and fished Armando out of my case.

"Armando," I muttered, "if you get us out of this with whole skins, I'll sacrifice a rabbit to you."

Hardly had I spoken when there was a brighter flash and a deafening crash of thunder. It seemed to come from right overhead. In my part of the country, when that happens, you look out to see if a nearby tree has been struck by lightning. Then came a terrific down pour, with more lightning and thunder.

The idealists scattered in all directions. The firemen attached another hose. A couple ran up and sprayed the gasoline fires with chemicals, while others hosed down the outside of the building and then the foyer. Coming out, we got hosed, too, and emerged dripping, coughing, and sputtering. I did not mind, even though it meant leaving San Romano a day late.

As a Northeasterner, I was used to thunderstorms. I did not then realize that, in most of California, they are so rare that when one occurs, people telephone radio stations to ask if there has been an earthquake. Therefore it was not surprising that the mob dissolved quickly in the face of the strange meteorological assault.

Young Robert was subdued as I drove him home; fortunately nobody had thought to burn my car. Perhaps he learned something from the experience.

That, however, was not the end of the tale of Armando. When I got home, I put the statue back on my desk. At once our television set acted up again. Placing waxen flowers in front of the statue did no good.

When the real flowers burst into bloom, I tried a sprig of forsythia on Armando, and then some lilacs and azaleas. The television set still balked, nor could the service man fix it. Priscille said:

"Daddy, he's mad about something. What did you do to stir him up?"

I thought. "Come to think of it, when we were trapped in that burning bank building, I promised to sacrifice a rabbit to him if he's save us. He did, but I haven't made the sacrifice."

"Then we've got to give it to him or do without the TV. Go buy us a rabbit. I'll help you kill it."

"Damned if I will! No five-inch piece of rock is going to tell me what to do."

The television remained out of action. In addition, we had a run of accidents and petty disasters. I sprained my ankle at my regular Sunday morning game of tennis and limped for a fortnight. Our lawn tractor broke down. So did our clothes washer, our electric stove, our dishwasher, our vacuum cleaner, and our furnace. The Buick developed a flat. It was a revolt of the robots.

I decided to take the statue to the archaeology department of the Museum of Natural Science. I told an archaeologist there, Jack O'Neill, how I had come by the figurine, adding:

"I was sure it was a modern fake, or I wouldn't have bought it. I don't want to encourage clandestine digging. But I do want to know what I've got."

"Leave it here a few days," said O'Neill. When I went back the following week, he said: "This is a funny one, Mr. Newbury. On your time scale, it's a real antique; but on mine, it's a modern fake."

"How do you mean?"

"All our tests—chemical, fluorescent, and so on—indicate that this thing was made about the mid-nineteenth century. It's a common pattern. I can show you dozens, almost identical, in our storage vaults.

"The catch is that the originals were made in pre-Columbian times. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish forcibly converted the Quiche' peoples to Catholic Christianity, so the making of these idols stopped. It was revived in the present century as a means of making a fast quetzal off the tourists. Some peasants dig up the original molds used in casting the ancient figurines and cast new statues in them."

"That would make the new casts only fifty per cent fake," I said.

O'Neill smiled. "It's better than having them dig up the real old ones and ruin them as evidence. But in the nineteenth century, Guatemala had been Christian for four centuries, while on the other hand there weren't enough tourists to furnish a market."

"Do you suppose some pre-Conquest cult had survived in the hills and continued to make these things?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. Or perhaps some enterprising Quiche farmer made it to sell to John Lloyd Stephens or Zelia Nuttall or one of their successors, when archaeologists began poking around the Mayan ruins in the last century." O'Neill looked thoughtful. "Would you sell this?"

"I don't know. For how much?"

"A thousand dollars."

But for my banking experience, I might have started and shouted "What?" A thousand is a nice, round sum, even in these inflated days, especially when the statue had cost me one dollar. But experience has made me cautious.

"Really?" I said. "Is it worth that to the Museum?"

O'Neill seemed to go through an internal struggle. "It's not the Museum," he said at last. "It's a private party, who came to us a few days ago for help in tracing his statue. He says it was stolen from him. He traced it to Solola and learned that one of your group had bought it last March. He didn't know which, but he posted this reward and promised the Museum a donation if we'd help him locate his idol."

"Who is this man?"

"Agustín Flores Valera, a Guatemalan."

"Where is he now?"

"Back in Guatemala, but he left word for us to cable him."

"Why does he want it so badly?"

"He's a professional gambler; says it's his good-luck charm. Silly of him, but I don't see why we shouldn't help him out at that price."

"I'll think about it," I said, putting the statue back in my brief case.

I took Armando home and thought. I had nothing against Senor Flores, although his occupation was not one that our bank would consider a good credit risk. He had doubtless figured out how to butter up Armando so as to make the cards shuffle, the dice roll, and the roulette ball drop just right. It was hardly fair to his opponents, but I have never had much sympathy for the victims of gambling sharks. If they were not trying to get something for nothing, they would not expose themselves to being taken.

If I kept Armando, I should have to give him his promised sacrifice. Otherwise he would keep on sending us bad luck. If I yielded to him, he might throw some good luck my way; but he would also want more of the same. I could imagine what it would do to the Harrison Trust Company if the story got out that the vice-president was performing pagan blood sacrifices in the dark of the moon. Before the war, when I was a young engineering graduate, desperately job-hunting, I would have taken Armando to my bosom, sacrifices and all. Now, however, things were different.

I was still pondering the problem a week later when, one rainy Sunday afternoon, my doorbell rang. Stephen called: "Man to see you, Dad."

The man, small and dark, introduced himself as Agustín Flores Valera. I showed him into my home office and seated him.

"It is a great pleasure, a great honor, to meet you, sir," he said, bouncing in his chair. "You have a beautiful place, a beautiful wife, beautiful children. I am overwhelmed. I am enchanted."

"Very kind of you," I said. "I suppose you've come about that statue?"

"Ah, yes indeed. I see him there on your desk. The good Doctor O'Neill tells me that he has explained the circumstances to you? A great scientist, a great man, Doctor O'Neill."

"Well, Señor Flores?"

"You know my offer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you prepared to accept?"

"Not yet. I want more time to think it over."

"Oh, please, Mister, I need my esstatue now. In my-business, one needs all the luck one can get. I am on my way to the casinos at Puerto Rico ... Look. I tell you. I have here another esstatue of the same kind. Genuine antique, not a modern fake."

Flores whisked out an idol much like mine. When he set it beside Armando, it took a second look to tell them apart.

"There you are, Mister," he said. He was standing at my desk and leaning over me. He had the Latin American habit of getting within inches of the person one is talking to, and he had a breath that would knock over a buffalo.

"You will never miss the one you have now," he went on. "Besides, I have here one thousand in cash." From another pocket, he produced a wad of hundreds and flapped them in my face. "Come! It is a deal, no?"

Although he had not done anything really offensive, I disliked Serior Flores more and more. Before he arrived, I had almost decided to let him have Armando; but the hard sell always gets my back up. I run into that sort of thing all the time from promoters and developers who want to try out some grand scheme on our depositors' money. I said:

"No, sorry. I want more time to think this over."

"How about fifteen hundred? I can go that high."

"No, Serior, I meant what I said. I am not yet prepared to sell. Mas tarde, puede ser."

"Oh, you esspeak the Esspanish! Excellent! One can see that you are a man of great culture. But now really, Mr. Newbury, I must have that esstatue, now. Do not make it difficult for us. I will even offer two thousand."

I sighed. "Señor Flores, I have said my say, and that's that. When I've had time to think it over, if you will write me, I'll give you an answer."

He stood for a minute with tight lips. I could see a vein in his temple throb and thought he was about to burst into a tirade. He controlled himself, however, put away the money and the substitute statue, and said:

"Bery well, Mr. Newbury, I will not take more of your time. Perhaps we will be in touch again soon. Pray convey my compliments to the beautiful Mrs. Newbury and the beautiful Newbury children. A pleasant good day to you, Mister."

He bowed formally and went. As he disappeared into the waiting taxi, Priscille called from inside:

"Hey, Daddy, the TV's working again!"

So it was. Struck by a thought, I went back to my office and picked up Armando. Only it was not Armando. It was the near-duplicate that Flores had placed beside my statue.

This one, as I soon ascertained by digging through the black paint, was made of gray clay, not red sandstone. Moreover, it had been cast in a mold—one could see the parting lines—and finished by filing, instead of being sculptured from solid stone. Flores had shuffled the two on my desk and coolly picked up mine. I should have known better than to let a professional gambler work his sleight-of-hand on me.

What hurt the most was the two thousand, which, had I not let a petty personal dislike sway my actions, I could have had for the asking.

I never heard of Flores Valera again, nor did the Museum receive his promised donation. I have often wondered: was Armando so eager to get someone to make a blood sacrifice to him that he engineered his own abduction? Did his new possessor submit to his demands? If the gambler balked, Armando was in a position to ruin him by a few bum steers.

I sometimes miss the ugly face of my little Quiche godlet, but perhaps it is just as well he is gone. In financial transactions and human relationships, I find it hard enough to estimate the most favorable probabilities, without having also to take into account the whims of a bloodthirsty and temperamental deity!