01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (17 page)

There was something in his voice that told me this was not a subject to pursue, so I left it at that.

We sat in a rather more companionable silence for a while, then I tried another tack.

“I believe I have met a friend of yours,” I said.

He looked surprised. “Who might that be?”

“Eulalia Gonzalez. I met her at the morgue. She seems very nice, so we had a coffee together yesterday.”

“My cousin,” he said. Kissing cousin, I thought maliciously.

“Did she mention me to you?” he asked.

“No. I saw you, actually, as I came to the restaurant.” That gave him pause.

“Yes, she is very nice,” was all he said on that subject, too.

I tried another approach.

“Jonathan mentioned there was a problem at the site,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. Another silence.

“Oh, come on, Lucas. Talk to me!” I said, my exasperation evident, I’m sure. “I’ve seen you engaged in what appears to be animated conversation with other people. Why won’t you talk to me?”

We sat in stony silence now, watching the pavement ahead.

“There’s a work stoppage at the site,” he said at last. “The workers all walked out.”

“A mutiny!” I said. “Whatever for? Not that it can be fun working away down there. Both painstaking and backbreaking work, I’d say.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s not the reason they’ve… mutinied.” He smiled for a moment at the term.

“They say the Lords of Darkness are angry that we’re working there. That horrible things will happen—are happening—because of our work.”

“What kind of bad things?”

“Just little things. One of the workmen cut himself quite badly on one of the flint blades you saw. Another found marks in the sand in the cave that he says are the work of the Lords of Death. That sort of thing.

“These are not well-educated people, you understand,” he said in an apologetic tone.

“Well, that might explain it, I suppose. Either that or there really are bad things happening. My experience here to date would say that it was so.”

“Yes, you’ve had a bad time,” he agreed. “Anyway, when I get back, I’ll be negotiating the conditions of their return to work.” He smiled.

We’d arrived at the hotel. I thanked him for the ride and went inside.

Isa and Santiago were at the desk. He looked at me sternly, no doubt feeling that he was my parents’ representative while I was here, no matter how old I was. Isa, however, smiled when she saw me. “I guess my dress was a big success,” she said. I made a face.

There were two messages, one from Margaret Semple, my contact at the Canadian embassy in Mexico City, the other from Alex, informing me that there was a small leak in my basement, nothing to worry about, but would I please call him.

I called Margaret Semple first, from the hotel. After expressing her sympathy at the passing of Dr. Castillo, she got down to business.

“This is one nasty policeman you’ve got yourself tied up with,” she began.

“Couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But what specifically are you referring to?”

“While I couldn’t pin down anything—which doesn’t surprise me, I assure you, the military and the police here are not subject to the same controls we’ve come to expect at home—I get the impression your Major Martinez is not above a little illegal activity himself. I’d try to stay on his good side, if I were you.”

Too late for that, I thought, but thanked her for the warning.

“We’re still working on the passport, although I gather you are cleared to leave the hotel. I wouldn’t go out of town without checking in with the major, though. Don’t give him any excuse to go after you.”

I thanked her and went to hang up when she said, “Call me every couple of days, will you, so that I know you are okay?”

I guess she really was concerned. I wondered what it took to worry someone like Margaret Semple. More than it took to worry me, no doubt. And she was the second person after Eulalia Gonzalez to comment on Martinez’s dishonesty.

I then slipped out of the hotel and headed for my favorite public phone in the dark hallway of the Cafe Escobar.

Alex answered right away.

“I’m glad it’s you. I was beginning to get a little worried,” he said. I decided not to mention where I’d spent the last fifteen hours.

“What have you got for me, Alex?” I asked.

“Lots of stuff. Fascinating stuff, I must say. Where would you like me to start?”

“The books.”

“Okay. You may know this already, but it won’t take that long, because quite frankly, books of the Maya are fundamentally very rare. The most important, in terms of our knowledge of it, is the Popol Vuh. This is the book of Maya mythology, kind of the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
of Mesoamerica. It contains what are essentially fragments of myth—the story of creation, exploits of very witty gods called Hero Twins, and an account of the origins and history of the Quiche Maya, who, I gather, were one of the more important groups of Maya at the time of the Conquest.

“We have the benefit of this book only because in the middle of the sixteenth century, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet by a young Quiche nobleman, and a copy has survived.

“The other post-Conquest books we know about are those of the Chilam Balam, which are, I gather, books of the jaguar prophet. I didn’t do much research on these, since you told me to skip them, so I’ll mention only that these are also probably fragments of earlier pre-Conquest stories, they, too, are in European script, and they are named after the places they are kept.”

“What about even earlier books than these, Alex?”

“Now this is where it gets really interesting. There are only four Maya books in the world today in the original hieroglyphics.

“I was surprised how few there were—imagine judging our civilization on just four books!—until I read about the infamous friar Diego de Landa, who, with some of his colleagues in Christ, took it upon themselves to systematically wipe out all the Maya hieroglyphic books. He wrote to the King of Spain at the time saying something to the effect that since the books contained superstitions and falsehoods of the devil, they had burned them all. Any Maya caught with one of these texts risked torture and death.

“The four hieroglyphic books, called codices, are named for the places they were first exhibited. Three are in Europe: the Dresden Codex, the Paris Codex, which you can see under glass in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Madrid Codex. They all contain information on gods and rituals and all are in a very fragile state.”

“And the fourth?”

“The Grolier Codex. In some ways it is the most fascinating. It turned up recently, very recently, in codex terms—1971, actually. There is a story that it was found in a wooden box in a cave in Chiapas by looters, and was held by a private collector in Mexico for at least three decades before it surfaced at the Grolier Club.

“These codices are made of paper of some sort. How long do you figure something made of paper would last in the humidity of that climate? And yet the Grolier Codex has been dated to the early thirteenth century, thereby making it the oldest of the four! Many thought it would not be possible for it to have survived so many centuries outside the controlled environment of a museum, but the texts I’ve researched give the impression that its age has been established through carbon dating, and that it is authentic. It is in very bad shape, though.” “So what would these books look like?” “They were written on long strips of paper folded like screens, kind of accordion-pleated, with a cover of wood or fur. You read through the stack from top to bottom, I think.”

I thought of the rabbit scribe on the piece of pottery at the museum. He had appeared to be writing on a stack of folded paper, and there was a spotted material that covered it top and bottom.

“So one of these books would be exceptionally rare.”

“Absolutely! Imagine a literate civilization reduced to only four books! What would ours be? A volume of Shakespeare, a book on physics by Stephen Hawking, the Bible, a book of poetry or philosophy?

“Anyway, that discussion is for another day. Let me tell you what I’ve found out about the people you asked me about. Gomez Arias. Pretty much what you told me yourself. Born in Merida, lived much of his childhood in Panama. After his father died when he was in his early teens, he ran away from home, or his mother kicked him out, depending on which account of his life you believe.

Worked at various menial jobs, until he made a lot of money, a fortune I’d say, in water systems.

“Owns a number of companies. He seems to like naming them after himself and his daughter. There’s the Hotel Monserrat, Monserrat Shipping Lines, and something called DMGA Investments, which I gather invests the profits from his other enterprises.

“Three marriages, one to Innocentia, one child, the aforementioned Monserrat; the second to an Englishwoman, Sharon, ended in divorce after a year and a half. No children. Currently married to Sheila Stratton, wealthy American socialite. They’ve been married five years, also no children. He likes art and blondes, I’m not sure in which order.

“Jonathan Hamelin. Cambridge-educated archaeologist. Has published some papers in various scholarly journals. Worked in the Yucatan for the last six years. Credited with some interesting archaeological discoveries, the most recent in a site near Tulum. Seems to have had some bad luck with some of his finds, though. Grave robbers always seem to be a few steps ahead of him. One of the objects he was looking for, a jade mask, turned up in a private collection in Europe not long ago.

“Good family, apparently. Seat in the House of Lords. Although they don’t appear to be wealthy. Family home has been given to the National Trust. His parents have the use of it until they die, then it becomes the exclusive property of the trust. More family status than cash, I would say. Probably broke, but in an aristocratic British sort of way.

“Lucas May. Now this one is a cipher. Studied archaeology both in Mexico and at the University of Texas. Interned at the Museo National de Antropologia in Mexico City ten years ago. After that, absolutely nothing. No papers, no attendance at conferences, no archaeological discoveries.

“Major Martinez. Strange. Up until about five years ago he appeared to have a distinguished career with the federal police. Much-decorated hero, in fact. He was a member of an unofficial antiterrorism squad that captured one of the leaders of a group of Indian rebels.

“Then he got involved in a nasty little affair at one of the archaeological sites. Seems there was this lovely little local market in the shadow of the ruins. The government went and built another marketplace about half a mile away. The local people didn’t like it—it sounds like a concrete bunker to me, so I can sympathize.

“Anyway, the locals refused to move. I gather nothing happened for a while. But then one day the bulldozers arrived, accompanied by the federal police, Major Martinez in command; machine guns at the ready. The locals were given forty minutes to vacate the marketplace… one can only imagine the hysteria.

“Martinez took his assignment very seriously. One could say way too seriously. By the end of the day, the old marketplace was gone, absolutely flattened. I’m sure the authorities regarded it as a job well done, but a couple of people got hurt, badly hurt—a really brutal affair— and there was a public outcry. The government went looking for someone to blame, and Martinez ended up the villain.

“He kept his job, but seems to have been assigned to lesser cases from that moment on, like the theft of a statue from a bar, cases you would think would have been beneath him. He’s a bitter man, no doubt.

“That’s about it!”

“Thanks, Alex. You are a wonder. This is really helpful.”

“If you need any more, call me. My computer stands at the ready!”

Later Jonathan called to say he’d have to be in Merida in the late afternoon, and could we meet for dinner. He treated me to the dining room of the Hotel Montserrat, a rather extravagant affair that must have set him back a bit and something of a surprise considering how annoyed the young woman after whom the hotel was named had been when he had refused a nightcap the previous evening.

At some point during the meal, our conversation turned to his work at the site.

“Someone was telling me that you’ve had some problems with grave robbers on your digs,” I said, recalling what Alex had told me earlier in the day.

“Rather!” he said. Then, losing his air of British detachment: “Bloody pigs! Sorry for the language.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You don’t want to know. Do you, really?”

“Sure. I’m fascinated by this stuff.”

“Well, I spend the rainy season, when fieldwork is impossible, doing research and writing papers on the various rulers of this region.

“A couple of years ago I was reasonably sure I could find the tomb of a prominent Maya
ahau
—a nobleman— dating from the late classical period. I’d found a fragment of stone that indicated he’d been buried with a jade mask.

“Anyway, I could hardly wait until the rain stopped so I could go back looking for it. I found the tomb, all right, underneath a pyramid in the forests of the southern Yucatan, but there was no mask.

“What there was, however, was evidence of very recent entry into the tomb. The footprints were very new.

“About a year and a half later, six months ago, a jade mask appeared at auction in Europe. I couldn’t afford it, of course. Tens of thousands of pounds sterling. Now that there are export controls on pre-Columbian artifacts, they’re very scarce in Europe, and very pricey. Quite beyond my means.

“I can’t prove it, but I’m sure it is the mask I was looking for.

“What really burns my butt about this, if you will excuse the expression,” he said heatedly, “is that this is the second time this has happened to me here.

“The first season I was here, I was lucky enough to find another tomb, and this one, too, had recently been plundered. I have no way of knowing what treasures were taken from that one.

“It’s almost as if someone’s looking over my shoulder as I do my research, then he gets there first and profits from it. Irritating as hell, I must say,” he concluded.