01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (5 page)

There was not much light in the room, in part because of the gloominess of the day, but I was afraid to turn on the reading lamp. It would have been quite obvious, I thought, if anyone came into that dark hallway.

I could feel my face flush in mortification at the mere thought of being caught searching the office. Whatever would I say? I wondered. That Dr. Castillo had sent me to get something for him? And what would that something be? Indeed, when it came right down to it, what on earth was I doing here and what exactly had I hoped to accomplish? To find a road map pointing to his precise location? I felt a rush of annoyance at myself. Don Hernan had said he was going out of town and would call on his return. He did this all the time; at least he used to. He was probably just fine, and I was being silly.

But there I was, burdened by this niggling anxiety about the old man. I’d already committed a felony, minor though it might be, letting myself into this office without permission, so perhaps I’d just carry on, I reasoned.

I looked around. The room was much as I remembered it: stacks of books and papers everywhere, the odd pottery shard scattered on the desk. It was going to be difficult to find anything in this clutter, but I was able to locate his desk diary, a logical starting point, very quickly.

There was a comfortable ledge by the window, which led, as is typical in many old buildings, to a fire-escape landing. After momentarily pondering the idiocy of having a fire escape off a locked room, I began to look at the entries in the diary made in Don Hernan’s spidery scrawl.

I was just settling in nicely when I heard footsteps in the hall.

I stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe. The footsteps stopped right outside the door. I heard the rattle of keys as first one, then a second was tried in the door. I had no doubt that one would fit, and I looked frantically around the room for a place to hide.

At that moment there was a loud rumble as the rather antiquated freight elevator just down the hall groaned into use. Whoever was outside the door stopped fiddling with the lock and stood still. This person, or persons, apparently wished to be caught in this office as little as I did.

As the freight elevator clanged and rumbled I carefully slid the window open and crawled onto the fire escape, sliding the window down behind me. As I did so I heard the lock click and sensed rather than saw the door begin to open cautiously. I pressed my back to the wall to one side of the window.

It was a few minutes before I was able to regain a shred of composure and, standing as still as possible, to take stock of my surroundings. This was no easy task because I am not good with heights, and standing on an open fire escape, even on a building as low as four stories, makes me very uncomfortable at the best of times, which clearly these weren’t.

Looking to the right and down, I could see that this was the kind of fire escape where, presumably to discourage burglars, the stairs do not go right down to the ground, but lead instead to another window two floors below.

I did not relish the thought of climbing into someone’s office. It was an academic point anyway, because to get to the stairs I would have to cross in front of the window. Since the window was open slightly, I knew that the unwanted visitor was still there, systematically searching the office. It did cross my mind that it could be Dr. Castillo, but I decided that he would not have had to try so many keys to get in, neither would he be searching his own office quite this methodically.

Looking straight down, I could see that I was on the back side of the museum, in an alleyway of sorts, which opened onto a larger street. Across the alley was another building, windowless on this side. My imagination, overactive at the best of times, began to see accomplices in the shadows of the alleyway.

The longer I stood there, the worse it got. The spurt of adrenaline that had got me out the window so quickly was now contributing to what I can only describe as a full-fledged panic attack. My heart was pounding so loudly I was sure it could be heard in the office, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air no matter how often or how deeply I breathed. I tried concentrating on remaining motionless and breathing normally, but I felt overwhelmed by the need to get away from my precarious and exposed position on the fire escape, no matter what the risk.

A small rational part of my brain was still functional and assessing my situation, I guess, because I became aware that I was leaning against something uncomfortable, which I eventually realized was an iron ladder. By craning my neck, I could see it led to what appeared to be a flat roof. As slowly and quietly as I could, I turned, put one foot on the first rung, then moved in slow motion to the second.

I was very close to the top of the ladder when I hit a loose step, which clanged, metal against metal, in what seemed to me to be the loudest noise in the world.

I heard someone start to raise the window, and with my last ounce of strength I hauled myself up and over the top to lie facedown on the gravel surface of the flat roof. I remained there, absolutely still, imagining someone coming out on the fire escape and up the ladder. But no one did, and after what seemed an eternity, I heard the window close, and a loud click as it was locked shut.

After several more minutes of motionless existence, I rolled onto my back and sat up. Over my shoulders I could see a large metal tank next to a brick wall, which I took to be the top of the elevator shaft.

I began to edge my way back toward the tank, thinking it might afford me some protection. I felt even more exposed on the roof than I had on the fire escape, and I wanted to huddle in a corner until the danger had passed. I thought if I could get to that tank, I could rest in its shadow, and figure out where to go next.

My hands were bleeding from pushing myself along on the stones, but eventually I felt my back touch the tank. I tried to wedge myself in tight against it. But as I reached out, my hand touched another, cold as death.

KAN

I carry a picture in my mind now, of Hernan Castillo Rivas, on this particular day. It is Kan, day of the lizard, symbol of the Maize Lord, bringer of abundance.

As I have reconstructed events, Don Hernan is sitting in a cafe in a dusty little village on a dirt road leading to nowhere.

The village consists of the tiny cafe“ in which he sits, a one-pump gas station, and a couple of stores. One of these is a souvenir shop, a triumph of hope over reason, since few tourists come this way.

There is also a small doctor’s office—the doctor is in on Tuesdays only—and five or six little houses with whitewashed walls and thatched roofs, with chickens and small children scratching in the front yards.

Despite, or perhaps in defiance of the impoverished conditions, bright red flowers grow up trellises in the front yard of each house. Behind the little houses stretch the
milpas
of the occupants, gardens and fields of corn separated from their neighbors by fences of stone. Despite the dust, I can smell orange trees.

Because it is so hot, Don Hernan sits at the shadier of two tables on the veranda of the cafe. Because it is the day of the lizard, I picture one here, skittering from time to time across the tiles of the veranda and up the trellis at one end.

Guadelupe, the wife of the proprietor and mother of three-year-old Arturo, brings her visitor
panuchos
—tiny tortillas piled high with chicken, avocado, refried beans, and hardboiled eggs—and cold beer with lime.

Don Hernan is a big man. One is struck immediately by his size, but also by his expressive eyebrows, two circumflex accents over dark eyes. He has a mustache and goatee, still dashing, but a mop of gray and yellowing hair that would become unruly if not for constant attention.

Despite his girth and age, he has always been a dapper man. Since his wife’s death, and now without benefit of her ministrations, he has become somewhat rumpled, but in a genteel sort of way, dressed always in the cream colors of the tropics, right down to his shoes and his cane.

Childless himself, he dotes on others’ children. I can imagine little Arturo venturing to the veranda, curious about this stranger, being charmed by him and sent on his way with a peso or two.

Several days, or possibly weeks, earlier, poring through the myriad artifact drawers in the archives of the
museo,
peering at each piece through the magnifying glass he keeps on a chain around his neck, he finds and deciphers the message that brings him to this little cafifi in this tiny village.

Knowing that he will need younger, stronger eyes, arms, and legs to help him, he tries to think of someone who will be impervious to the politics and avarice that will inevitably surround this discovery, and places the call that brings me to Mexico.

At some point, perhaps even as my flight crosses the Caribbean, he suspects that someone else has found it, too, and begins a hasty and ill-conceived journey.

Suspecting that he may be followed, he does not return to his room at the inn, but embarks on a circuitous route from his little office in the
museo:
by taxi through the back streets, then on foot for several blocks, puffing from exertion, by public bus to Valladolid, where he stays a day or two making his arrangements, and then on to this village by hired car.

At the general store he purchases a flashlight, compass, and a length of rope.

At some point during this process, mindful of his social obligations, he calls me at the Casa de las Buganvillas to cancel dinner, but tells me nothing of what he has found.

And so now he sits, folding and refolding the crumpled piece of paper that brought him here, waiting. For what? For help? For salvation? For his killer?

He does not call me again, or another friend or colleague. Perhaps he notices the battered blue pickup truck that passes his post rather too often on a road going nowhere. Perhaps he senses the gathering forces closing in on him, some good, some evil, and wants to protect us.

There is one person who might save him, who even now is desperately searching for clues to his location.

But how could Don Hernan know? How could he choose between those who can help him and those who wish him dead? The answer is far from obvious.

the corpse behind the water tank, I learned the day after I found it, belonged to a young man by the name of Luis Vallespino.

To this day, my recollection of what happened right after I touched his dead hand is very hazy. What I do know is that I will never be able to forget his face. It was still smooth, with long, long eyelashes and just a hint of down above the mouth, the first attempt at a mustache perhaps, a youth on the threshold of adulthood. He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen.

The mark of the blow on the side of the head that had killed him, and the rather Raggedy Andy appearance of the body stuffed so incongruously behind the water tank, added to the sense of youth and vulnerability.

Whatever attributes Luis Vallespino had possessed in life, in death there was a sort of sweetness about him. His face had, I thought, a sadness in its expression, as if in recognition of life’s opportunities lost. But perhaps I am projecting my own sorrow to that still young face.

Time stood still for me for a few moments as I gazed at him. Then the horror of what I was looking at came over me. As in a nightmare, I remember trying to scream, but no sound would come out. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move.

Then I was up and clawing at a trapdoor. It was unlocked, and soon I was half falling down a wooden staircase that led to the floor below, then to a stairwell that exited at the back of the
museo.

I have a vague recollection of flagging down a cab near the plaza in front of the building, and directing the driver to the Casa de las Buganvillas. I’m not sure how coherent I was, but Santiago understood enough to call the police. A doctor was also called. He gave me a shot, and I was out until morning.

When I got up I discovered there was a police officer stationed outside my room. This didn’t do much for the ambience, in my opinion. It didn’t do much for my mood either.

I guess that when I poked my head out the door, the police officer on duty had called in that I was awake, because by the time I’d showered and dressed, my favorite policeman, Ignacio Martinez, was waiting downstairs.

Now, this might prove to be a little tricky! No doubt his first question would be something along the lines of “What exactly were you doing on the roof of the
museo,
senora?”

In the shower, I’d rehearsed several answers. The trouble with lies, as we all know, is that once you get into them, it is difficult to extricate yourself. I had been guilty of a lie of omission in not telling Martinez what I knew about the robbery in the bar and anything about why I had come down to see Don Hernan, as unclear as that might be. I like to think that this would not be my normal way of dealing with situations—lying, that is—but Martinez was not the kind of man I was prepared to turn my friends over to—or myself, for that matter. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to my trying to search the office, so now I was having to lie my way out of that one, too. The question was which answer would I use?

The “I’d gone up the stairs hoping to find Don Hernan, accidentally got lost in stairwell, found myself on roof answer.

Or perhaps the one that was something a little closer to reality, the “I went to see Don Hernan, had key, climbed out on fire escape (why, God only knows!), window locked behind me, took ladder to roof to find way out” answer?

But Martinez, in his usual take-control manner, surprised me.

“I believe your life may be in danger, senora,” was his opening gambit.

I was momentarily nonplussed.

“You really must tell me where Dr. Castillo Rivas is.”

“Are you implying your first and second statements are related in some way?” I managed.

He looked at me as if I were mentally deficient or terminally naive.

“Let me lead you through this, senora,” he said in his most patronizing tone. This man raised condescension to an art form. “Dr. Castillo and Senor Gomez Arias have a disagreement over, according to Senor Gomez Arias himself, a statue. This same statue is stolen shortly thereafter by a group calling itself Children”—he emphasized the word
children
—“of the Talking Cross.