The Xibalba Murders

CIB

In 1846, Yucatan seceded from Mexico, and wealthy hacienda owners, fearful of attack from Mexico or from the United States, armed their Maya laborers, virtual slaves on their henequen and sugar estates, thinking the laborers would protect them.

In 1847, however, the Maya used their masters’ arms to sack Valladolid, killing every European they could find, thereby avenging the destruction of their sacred city of Zaci, and the subjugation of its inhabitants by Francisco de Montejo almost exactly three centuries before.

It was the first strike in what came to be known as the War of the Castes.

Valladolid, pronounced Bay-ah-doh-leed, should you ever get there, is now a sleepy little agricultural market town, built around a central square, like Merida its bloody past well hidden by its colonial ambience.

I was forced from a heavy sleep by a slamming door and voices out in the hallway. I opened one eye just in time to see a very large cockroach scuttle for cover in the darkness under the bed.

The room was hot, and I felt as if I had been drugged. My watch showed it to be after noon, which I found hard to believe, even considering the late hour I had arrived in this horrible place.

I had not intended to sleep this long. I assumed Major Martinez would show up at the hotel in Merida at some point during the day, later rather than earlier, I hoped, and the search would be on. I had much to do before that.

I had a sponge bath of sorts from the sink in the room, casting a wary eye out for the cockroach and any other insects that happened to be about, then pulled on jeans and a shirt and went out into the heat and sunshine of the early afternoon.

I reasoned that if Martinez was already looking for me, he’d be looking in Merida. Or perhaps thinking I would be trying somehow to get out of the country, which I might be if I had my passport, he’d be watching the airport. I didn’t want to take any chances, though.

The central square where I headed is not far from the area around the bus station, and feeling like a fugitive, which I guess I was, I kept my head down and walked in the shadows wherever I could.

In the central square, I looked longingly at the pleasant hotels and then found my way to the Bazar Municipal, an arcade on the main square where food vendors put out tables and chairs at mealtimes. It was now about two p.m., time for comida, the main meal of the Mexican day, which can be taken anywhere between two and 5 p.m. The little tables were filled with businesspeople and workers on their afternoon break.

There were few menus to be had, none in English. One simply looked at the food as it was being prepared and pointed at something that looked appealing. I tried to blend into the crowd, and sitting under an awning, facing the square so no one could come up behind me, I ordered a sopa de elote con pimientos, a corn soup with sweet red peppers, and a rice dish with the hot sausages for which Valladolid is famous.

Normally one is expected to order a meat or fish dish after this, and then have dessert, but I wasn’t that hungry, nor was I keen on staying in one place too long. Besides, I had work to do.

I made my way back to the bus terminal by another route, trying to ensure that I had a good idea of the lay of the land in case I needed to make a run for it again.

I had brought the picture of Don Hernan with me. He had been a distinctive-looking man, and I was hopeful that someone would have seen him. I asked anyone who looked to be a permanent fixture about the place—the boy in the newsstand, the man who shined shoes on the corner, bus-line personnel. No luck.

A woman selling flowers about a block from the station thought she remembered selling him a carnation for his lapel. That sounded like the dapper Don Hernan to me, but she had no idea what direction he had come from, nor which direction he had headed to. All she did was give me the slight hope that I was on the right track.

I went into a couple of hotels not far from the bus station. No luck there, either. I hadn’t thought to inquire at mine, but it was unlikely Don Hernan would have stooped so low even on his worst day.

I knew Don Hernan did not drive. He could not have rented a car. If he went anywhere, he would surely have taken a taxi. Near the bus station was a taxi stand where drivers sat together, drank coffee, and gossiped while they waited for fares. From time to time I went there to show the photograph to the various taxi drivers who came and went.

Finally, when I was about to despair, a young taxi driver said he recognized the photograph. I was elated.

“Can you remember where you took him?” I asked.

The young man scratched his chin, a rather grizzled affair, and looked thoughtful. Suddenly I caught on. I handed him fifty pesos.

“American dollars?” he queried.

I obliged, exchanging the pesos for a ten-dollar bill. It appeared to be enough.

“I think I can remember,” he said obligingly. “I could take you there. But it is very far, very expensive.” He named a figure that was close to two hundred dollars.

I was running out of cash, and was not sure I could manage this, but he was obstinate. In his mind, he knew something I didn’t, and I was going to pay for it.

The other cabdrivers were watching this with interest. One of them broke away from the crowd, came over, and literally boxed the ears of the younger man. The young man slunk away.

“My younger brother,” he said. “I apologize on his behalf. I know where he took your friend, and I will take you there, for one hundred dollars. But I cannot take you now, because tonight is the last night of Carnaval, and I must accompany my family to the festivities.

“Be here tomorrow at noon, and I will take you.”

I surmised that as frustrating as this might be, it was the best that could be done at this point, so we shook hands to seal the arrangement. As I left I could hear the two brothers, if indeed that was what they were, arguing. They were speaking very quickly and from a distance I couldn’t follow the conversation, but I thought I heard something that sounded like “Huaca de Chac.”

It was late afternoon by this time. I went back to my hotel to wait until dark when I could put on my Carnaval attire and blend into the crowds.

Curtains drawn tight, I sat cross-legged on the bed, afraid to put my bare feet on the floor lest the huge cockroach return with friends and relatives.

It occurred to me, in my tired, and in retrospect, morose state, that I should perhaps feel a sense of kinship with the creature sharing this room with me, always hiding, and with so strong an affinity for the dark. I wondered what on earth I was doing, and what I had ever thought I could accomplish by coming here.

About nine, I put on Dona Josefina’s clothes and headed out again. I watched in the crowds as the Carnaval parade began. It consisted essentially of two floats, one of them a six-foot conch shell constructed of wire and canvas, painted a bilious pink, mounted on the back of a blue pickup truck.

The other float was a farm wagon pulled by another pickup. On it, several people dressed up as Maya Indians were pantomiming a ritual sacrifice of some sort. In an anachronism of immense proportions, a speaker on the top of the truck was blasting disco music.

Many of the spectators were in costume themselves.

Little girls were dressed up in shimmery dresses with aluminum-foil crowns on their heads, their faces all made up with lots of their mothers’ rouge and lipstick. They were having a wonderful time.

There were clowns on bicycles, their young children in the carrier baskets, balloons, people in fantastic headgear of all kinds. People were literally dancing in the streets. I looked on enviously, wishing this were another time or place where I could feel free to join in.

Suddenly there was a hush, then some nervous laughter. Out of a side street came someone dressed up as a priest, followed by a number of men dressed in army camouflage, carrying play rifles cut from plywood, their faces shrouded in black masks.

“Children of the Talking Cross,” people whispered, and soon there was a smattering of applause from the crowds. The men raised their rifles in a salute and joined the end of the parade.

Shortly thereafter, the federal police arrived, and I hastily pulled back into one of the dark side streets to stay well out of their view. As I did so I saw them hurrying to catch up with the revelers dressed as rebels. A few people, presumably the same ones that applauded the “Children,” hissed as the police went by. I didn’t hang around to see what happened, but I felt sorry for anyone audacious enough even to pretend they were rebels right now. The federal police did not appear to have a sense of humor.

Trying to put some distance between me and the police, I went down one of the back streets in the less salubrious part of town. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, but I rounded a corner and found myself in a little square with a lovely tree and wooden bench in the center.

At one end of the square was a cafe“ with large barbecues set up out front. Smoke from the cooking filled the square and it smelled delicious. I realized I was hungry, and headed in that direction.

The cafe, open to the square with a palapa-style roof of interwoven palm fronds, was called Pajaros—Birds— for no apparent reason that I could see. The patrons of the place were predominantly white, Europeans and Americans, the Americans immediately recognizable by their baseball caps and cowboy boots. The women tended to fringed vests, short skirts, and cowboy boots of their own. There was an old-fashioned juke box at the back: Waylon Jennings wailed from the loudspeakers.

I sat at a small table in the corner and listened to a group of men at the next table talk about their adventures in ‘Nam. I had obviously found the place the ex-patriots in the area liked to hang out in the evening. At least being white here was not going to call attention to my presence.

The waitress brought me a beer, almost without my asking for it, and then told me to go and help myself to food. I went up to the barbecue grills, where a tall American, probably the owner, also dressed in cowboy gear which seemed to be de rigueur here, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses despite the dark, served me something wrapped in a banana leaf, a warm tortilla, and some refried beans.

Inside the green wrapper was chicken in a spicy red sauce, chicken pibil. I devoured it, using my fingers to finish the last of it off. The waitress smiled as she saw me. “It’s all you can eat,” she said. “Get some more.”

I thanked her, but I had an appointment, arranged in the note left for Isa, so I told her I’d just sit and finish my beer, and asked directions to a public telephone. She gestured to a dark corner. “The light’s out,” she said. “You’ll have to kind of feel your way. But the phone works.”

Since finding a phone that worked could be a challenge, I headed for the dark corner and fumbled around for some change, getting through to the Casa de las Buganvillas with some difficulty.

Santiago answered the phone.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Theresa!” he said. “How nice of you to call. Isa is right here.”

Theresa?

Isa came on the line immediately, “Hi, Theresa,” she said. “Glad to hear from you.”

“Is someone there—Martinez maybe?”

“Yes. We’re all terribly concerned about your recent illness. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “How’s Alejandro?”

“Mother has been to see him, and he’s having a rough time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Anyway, you’ll be wanting to know about those investments you were thinking of making. Jean Pierre is right here.”

Jean Pierre came on the line.

“Hello, Theresa. I checked on those companies you were thinking of investing in, and you were right to be concerned. I would advise you against investing in them because their value has plummeted in the last year or two. The company has been resting on its laurels, as it were. The major shareholder and his family will have taken quite a substantial loss, I’m sure, and I wouldn’t want you to risk your money with them.”

“The major shareholder is Gomez Arias, I take it,” I said.

“That is correct.”

“Are you telling me someone has come up with a better windmill?”

“Not only better, but cheaper, if the rumors are to be believed. And frankly there is only so much call for the product these days. The market, quite frankly, is a diminishing one. On top of that, some of the other investments are being adversely affected, to say the least, by the volatile peso. The companies are rumored to be in serious trouble. And whether the rumors are true or not, the stock market believes them!”

“I see. Did you happen to have a look at the boards of directors of the three companies?”

“Yes, I did. Other than the major shareholder and his daughter, there are only a couple of names in common. No one whose name means anything to me, though.”

“Company executives?”

“Same again.”

“You’re terrific, Jean Pierre. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Isa would like to talk to you again.”

Isa came on the line. I could hear Santiago in the background talking to someone, probably Martinez. The conversation was an unpleasant one. I guess Martinez had discovered I wasn’t there, and Santiago was bearing the brunt of his anger.

“Take care of yourself, Theresa,” she said. “Call me again as soon as you can.”

“I will. And thank you, Isa, and your whole family. I hope I’m not causing you real grief with that horrible man.”

“Nothing we can’t manage,” she said, and we hung up.

I made my way back to my table and sat there finishing my beer, listening as the country-and-western music blasted from the speakers. The waitress came around with a pot of coffee, and I had some of that, too.

As I sat there another baseball-cap type arrived and pulled up a chair at the table next to me. He began to excitedly tell his companions about the parade and the arrival of the federal police.

“You shoulda seen it. Guys in the parade all dressed like Indie rebels. Cops arrive. Obviously they think these guys are for real.

“Maybe they are, too. Just when I think the feds are gonna smoke ‘em, they disappear, vanish more like, into the backstreets, like the VC in the rice paddies. It was somethin’ else!”

The others at the table were impressed. One of them said, “You know, I’ve been hearing that there really are guerrilla groups out in the woods here, training for a big revolution. Called Children of the Talking Cross. Tied in with the Zapatistas, you know.”

All nodded wisely. I thought of Alejandro training in the jungle. Too much of a stretch for me. But I was glad the rebel revelers got away.

One of my neighbors headed for the jukebox, and some more hurtin‘ music came on.

I’m not a particular fan of country music. Normally I can take it or leave it. But tonight it made me homesick for my little house, my family, Alex, my friends, my cat.

I ordered a Xtabentun, the local liqueur, then another. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be one unhappy drunk tonight. Nobody talked to me. This seemed to be the kind of place inhabited by regulars. Strangers like me were viewed with curiosity, but left alone.

I thought about the Ortiz family. They were risking much talking to me with Martinez standing right there, but they had obviously planned what they would say, and carried it off with great panache. They were wonderful friends to have.

I thought of the Gomez family, enjoying the good life, but for how long? Perhaps they were living off the Stratton family fortune. If that were the case, Montserrat might try being a little nicer to her stepmother.

Perhaps the thefts of the Maya pieces from the family collection were an insurance fraud. But why? It would be tough on Gomez Arias to give up any of his art collection, no doubt about that, but if times were tough, why not just sell a Matisse or two? That would provide enough to keep most of us going for quite a while!

But none of this was getting me any closer to finding what the rabbit wrote, only maybe a little closer to a motive for Don Hernan’s death.

Finally, about three a.m., I headed back to my horrible hotel, awash in self-pity. It had not been one of my better days. It had been Cib, a bad day in the Maya calendar, day of the owl, birds associated with the Lords of Darkness. The Lords obviously had had the upper hand today.