Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (7 page)

 
          
“Ah,
here’s the Deputy Director now,” Vernon said, smiling, gesturing for Valerie to
turn about and look.

 
          
The
man she saw was an inch or two shorter than herself, barrelbodied, older than
50, with tightly curled black hair, skin the color of milk chocolate, eyes and
teeth that flashed with pleasure at the sight of her, and a strong aura of
self-confidence, mastery. Without being offensive about it, he would dominate
any room he entered.

 
          
As
he dominated this one, approaching Valerie, thick-fingered hand out to be
shaken as Vernon performed the introductions: “Deputy Director St. Michael,
this is Miss Valerie Greene, an archaeologist from the United States.”

 
          
“Delighted,”
St. Michael said, closing her hand briefly in both of his. (His hands were
warm, not unpleasantly so.)

 
          
“You
recall, Deputy Director,” Vernon was saying, “the correspondence concerning
undiscovered Mayan ruins, possibly to be traced by computers at the University
of California at Los Angeles.”

 
          
“Yes,
of course.” St. Michael beamed at her, as though he’d just this minute invented
her. “Miss Greene, of course. And how is Los Angeles?”

 
          
“Actually,”
Valerie said, “I came here from New York.”

 
          
“Ah,
New York! I love that town.” St. Michael’s beam turned reminiscent, then
waggish. “Cold up there right now,” he said, “but give me a New York restaurant
any day. Even in January. Has Vernon been helpful?” (Which didn’t help much in
the first-name-last-name question.)

           
“Very,” she said. “Though he has
been trying to discourage me.”

 
          
“Oh,
I hope not.” St. Michael waggled a finger at Vernon, saying, “Never discourage
our friends from the north.”

 
          
“I
don’t think Miss Greene can
be
discouraged,” Vernon said. “She showed me the area where she expects to find
the temple, and I had to tell her the problems.”

 
          
“Problems?”
Even this St. Michael reacted to with an undercurrent of waggish humor. Valerie
was surprised to realize the man was— despite all the obvious
differences—reminding her of Orson Welles in “The Third Man.” She halTexpected
him to call her Holly.

 
          
“Well,
here, sir,” Vernon was saying, pointing to the topographical map again, “you
know
this piece of land, you’ll see the
difficulty right away. ”

 
          
“I
do?” St. Michael strode over to the map, he and Vernon consulted for a few
seconds, and then St. Michael thumped his finger against the map, saying,
“Here, you mean?”

 
          
“Right
there, yes, sir.”

 
          
“I
see.” St. Michael brooded at the map, suddenly very thoughtful. Valerie took a
step closer.

 
          
Vernon
said, “I did explain about the drainage problem, the underground fault—”

 
          
“Yes,
yes, Vernon, of course,” St. Michael said, still thoughtful, still brooding at
the map. But then, his good humor regained, he smiled roguishly at Vernon,
saying, “But the Mayans had minds of their own, didn’t they? No telling
what
the buggers might do.”

 
          
“But,
sir,” Vernon protested, pointing at the map, “no one could possibly—”

 
          
“Abandoned
their own cities,” St. Michael said, overriding his assistant, plowing blandly
on, “going off into the jungles for no rhyme or reason.” Turning to Valerie, he
said, “Isn’t that right, Miss Greene?”

 
          
“That’s
the great unsolved mystery of the Mayan civilization,” Valerie agreed.

 
          
“Exactly,”
St. Michael said. To Vernon he said, “Disease didn’t get them. Not war, not
famine. They were healthy, civilized, doing very well for themselves, then one
day, up they got and marched off into the jungle, and a thousand years later
most of them still haven’t come back. Just walked right out of their cities.”

           
“Not all at once, though,” Valerie
pointed out. “It happened in different places at different times, over hundreds
of years.”

 
          
“But
sooner or later,” St. Michael prompted.

 
          
“Oh,
yes,” she agreed. “Eventually, they turned their backs on their entire
civilization.”

 
          
“You
see?” St. Michael opened his arms in triumph, smiling at his assistant. “If those
people would
leave
a city for no good
reason, who’s to say where they wouldn’t build one?”

 
          
Vernon
was clearly not entirely convinced by this logic, but an assistant knows when
to retire and leave the field to his number one. “You might be right, sir,” he
said, with only the slightest visible reluctance.

 
          
“Or
I could be wrong,” St. Michael cheerfully replied. “I expect Miss Greene will
soon be able to tell us.” He smiled again at the map, thinking about something
or other, then turned to Valerie, saying, “I do know that piece of land, though
not well. I know its owner.”

           
“Oh, yes?”

 
          
“He’s
a compatriot of yours, named Kirby Galway.”

 
          
The
name meant nothing to Valerie. She said, “Would he object to my going out
there?”

 
          
“Now,
why would he? As a matter of fact, Miss Greene,” he said, moving away from the
map at last, coming over to stand just a bit too close to Valerie, looking for
a quick instant at her breasts before gazing her frankly and openly in the eye,
“as a matter of fact, it’s possible we could be of help to one another.”

 
          
Valerie
thought, Why does he make me nervous? She said, “Of course, if I can.”

 
          
“I’ve
been interested for some time,” St. Michael said, “in what Kirby Galway plans
to do with that land. In my position here, you can see I would be.”

 
          
“Ye^ess.”

 
          
“But
also because of my position,” St. Michael said, shrugging slightly, smiling at
himself, “I can’t really ask him the Question Direct. He might be afraid of
government interference, red tape, that sort of thing. I don’t want to pester
people, I
want
development of our
Belizean land. My department wants it. This is just a . . . personal curiosity.
Do you see what I mean?”

 
          
“I
think so,” Valerie said.

           
“You could go in there,” St. Michael
said, “no official connection, no interest in anything but Mayan ruins, and
when you came back, you could tell me what else you. saw. ”

 
          
“Do
you mean,” Valerie (who read the newspapers) said, “marijuana?”

 
          
St.
Michael seemed honestly startled, then amused. “Oh, Miss Greene, not at all!
Oh, no, the conditions there would be completely wrong.”

 
          
“As
I said,” Vernon put in quietly.

 
          
“No,
I’ll tell you what I have in mind.” St. Michael reached out to lightly touch
her forearm. “Nothing criminal, nothing like that at all. Miss Greene—Valerie,
is it?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
“May
I call you Valerie? And you must call me Innocent.”

 
          
What
an idea. Valerie stared at him, speechless.

 
          
“We
have here in Belmopan,” Innocent St. Michael said, squeezing her arm gently,
“just one excellent restaurant, called the Bullfrog. Not up to New York
standards, but very nice. Please permit me to treat you to lunch at the
Bullfrog, where I will tell you exactly how I hope you will be able to help
me.”

 
          
In
the background, Vernon looked knowing. In the foreground, Valerie felt
confused. “Thank you very much,” she heard herself saying. “That sounds nice.”

 
          
From
the air, Kirby could see the wheel marks of yesterday’s landing; scuffed paler
streaks through the grass and clover of the field. And here he was, about to
make a second set of the same stripes. Another irritation; somehow, all those
lines would have to be obliterated by tomorrow.

 
          
He
flew on, up and over the hill—from the air, his temple wasn’t visible at
all—and buzzed the Indian village in the cleft beyond, to let the boys know he
wanted to see them. Bare^assed kids between the low brown huts waved at him as
he circled overhead. He waggled his wings in reply, then flew back to the field
and landed.

 
          
He
had already walked partway up the cleared temple side—about at the spot where
Witcher and Feldspan had yesterday discovered the jaguar carving—when the group
appeared above him, rising up onto the flattened temple top. They were half a
dozen short, chunky men in rope^soled shoes or barefoot, wearing old work pants
and home' dyed shirts. Four carried machetes loosely at their sides. They had
the flat, blunt, enigmatic faces of Maya Indians, and they waited in silence
for Kirby to climb the rest of the way to the top.

 
          
“Well,
Tommy,” Kirby said, when he reached the top. “Hiya, guys. Let me catch my
breath.”

 
          
Tommy,
whose shirt was several shades of green, said, “Something wrong, Kimosabe?” His
joke.

 
          
“Nothing
we can’t handle,” Kirby told him. “Not us guys.”

 
          
Luz—red
shirt, badly tom—said to Tommy, “He means
us
guys.”

 
          
Kirby
grinned and looked out over his mousetrap. It
was
better, and the world
was
beating a path to his door. His temple door.

 
          
This
is where he’d been standing, just under two years ago, when he’d first met
Tommy and the others, and when their unusual alliance had begun. Of course, the
top hadn’t been cleared then; there was no temple.

           
Kirby stood panting atop the low
scrubby hill in hot sunshine and gazed out in disgust over his land.
His
land. “Innocent St. Michael,” he
muttered, looking out over the blasted heath and his blasted hopes. He had
never felt so low.

 
          
In
the six weeks he had owned it, this land had undergone a ghastly
transformation, like a vampire left out in the sun. The grassy field down there
on which he had first landed was now a cracked dry moonscape, pale tan, as
lined and creased as W. H. Auden’s face. Even the corpses of the grass so
recently growing there had dried to ash and blown away.

 
          
The
upper slopes of his land were, in their way, even more terrible, having become
a landscape from Hieronymus Bosch. Gnarled and twisted trunks produced leathery
sharp-edged leaves. Yellowish grass in long razor-sharp clumps stubbled the
rise. Nasty fork^tongued creatures that only a luggage maker could love moved
in and out across a landscape of rocks and boulders and scaly dry dirt. Birds
cawed in derision as they flew westward, toward the verdant hills, the blue
shapes of the
Maya
Mountains
, lush with rich dark soil, fecund with
greenery. “Fuck you,” Kirby told the birds.

 
          
They
went on, their laughter fading, and in the silence he could almost hear the
land as it dried, as new seams and cracks opened in the dead skin of his ranch.
Cynthia, baking in the sunglare down below, looked ready to fall into one of those
lesions and disappear into the baked dry bowels of the Earth. Kirby was of half
a mind to join her.

 
          
Movement
attracted his attention down the opposite slope, where he saw half a dozen
wiry-haired Indians making their slow way up toward him, little dust-puffs
rising from each step. Good, he thought, now I’m gonna get killed for my watch.

 
          
He
put his watch in his pocket. Too bad he couldn’t put his boots in his pocket.
Put his whole self in his pocket. Maybe he could trade them; they’d let him go,
and he’d give them Innocent St. Michael. They could rend him down for a
lifetime supply of lard.

 
          
The
Indians, squat tough-looking men with hooded eyes and gleaming machetes,
reached the hilltop and stood gazing at him. One said, “Hello.”

 
          
“Hello,”
said Kirby.

 
          
“Nice
day.”

 
          
“If
you say so,” said Kirby.

 
          
“Cigarette?”

 
          
“No,
thanks,” said Kirby.

 
          
“I
meant for me,” the Indian said.

 
          
“Oh.
Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

 
          
The
Indian looked disgusted. Turning, he spoke to his friends in some other
language, and then they all looked disgusted. Shaking his head at Kirby, the
spokesman said, “It used to be, the one thing you could count on from Americans
was a couple of cigarettes. Now you all quit smoking.”

 
          
“They
want to live forever,” suggested one of the other Indians.

 
          
Was
that a veiled threat? Kirby said, “I’ve got some gage in the plane, if you’re
interested.”

 
          
“Now,
you’re talking,” said the spokesman. The one who’d made the possible threat
translated for the others, who all managed to perk up while remaining essentially
stoic; it was like seeing trees smile. Meanwhile, the spokesman told Kirby,
“We’ve got some home-brew back in the village. Make a dynamite combo.”

 
          
“Where
is this village?” Kirby asked. He was thinking, maybe they’re on my land, maybe
I could charge rent.

 
          
“Back
that way,” the spokesman said, negligently waving his machete, not quite
decapitating any of his friends.

           
“How much shit you got?” asked the
perhaps threatened

 
          
Kirby
said, “How big’s your village?”

 
          
“Eleven
households,” the man said seriously, as though Kirby were a census taker.

 
          
“Then
I’ve got enough,” Kirby said.

 
          
The
spokesman smiled, showing a lot of square white teeth. “I’m Tommy Watson,” he
said, extending the hand without the machete.

 
          
“Kirby
Galway,” Kirby said, taking the hand.

 
          
Nodding
at the alleged threatener, Tommy Watson said, “And this is my cousin, Luz
Coco.”

 
          
“How
you doing?”

 
          
“Sure,”
said Luz Coco. “Let’s go get your stash.”

 
          
They
all walked down the hill together, and Kirby got the two Glad Bags out of the
pocket in his door. “I don’t have enough papers for everybody. ”

 
          
“That’s
okay,” Tommy said. “We’ll get some toilet paper from the mission.” He spoke to
his friends again, and a disagreement took place. Hefting the Glad Bags in his
palms, Kirby leaned against his plane and waited it out. What the hell, there
was no hope anyway.

 
          
Kekchi
is a language containing a lot of clicks and gutturals and harshnesses even
when people are being friendly with one another; when they’re arguing about who
has to go over to the mission for toilet paper and therefore miss the beginning
of the party it can sound pretty hairy. But eventually two of the group
acknowledged defeat and went sloping away, glancing mulishly back from time to
time as they went, and Kirby joined the rest of them in a walk over his sun-bleached
hill and halfway up the next slope and around into a green and cheerful
declivity in which the 11 wood and Trond huts were placed higglety-pigglety on
both sides of a swift-moving, clear, cold, bubbling stream. “You bastards even
have water,” Kirby said. They were by now well away from his land.

 
          
Tommy
looked at him in wonder. “Jesus God,” he said. “So that’s what you’re hanging
around for. You
bought
that swamp.”

 
          
“Desert,
you mean,” Kirby said.

 
          
“You
haven’t seen it in the rainy season.”

 
          
“Hell
and damn,” Kirby said.

 
          
But
there was little time for selTpity. Kirby had to be introduced to all the
villagers—fewer than a hundred people, none of whom had more than a smattering
of English—and the party had to be gotten under way. The home-brew, which came
out in a variety of recycled bottles and jars, was a kind of cross between beer
and cleaning fluid, which in fact went very well with pot.

 
          
Tommy
said the village was called South Abilene, and maybe it was. Most of its
residents were actually very shy, prepared to accept Kirby’s presence—and his
donation—but otherwise staying well within their stoic dignity, though they did
express amusement when their two friends came back from the mission all out of
breath, carrying rolls of toilet paper and pamphlets explaining the Trinity.

 
          
These
were the descendants of the people who had built the temples. Their
relationship with the world had narrowed since those glory days; now, they were
farmers, jungle dwellers with only a tangential connection to the modem age.
Small villages like this were scattered through the Central American plains and
jungles, their Indian residents clinging to a simple self sufficiency, almost
totally separate from the technological civilization swirling around them. They
had given up both temple building and war; they neither fought nor praised, nor
even very much hoped; they subsisted, and survived.

 
          
Tommy
Watson and Luz Coco were the only South Abilenians fluent in English and, so
far as Kirby could tell, the only sophisticates in the crowd, whose
conversation and manner betrayed a wider knowledge of civilization. With their
halTmocking existential hip form of the traditional Indian fatalism, they were
like a couple of Marx brothers wandering through a Robert Flaherty documentary.
They were so total a contrast, in fact, that Kirby would have loved to know
their story, but they insisted he tell them first how it happened that he had
bought the farm.

 
          
“It
looked great when I saw it,” Kirby said. “St. Michael was just representing the
real owner, some big aristocrat up in Mexico. The aristocrat couldn’t take back
a mortgage on account of taxes, so the price was right because I could pay all
cash.”

 
          
“Fat
man?” Tommy asked. “Happy with himself?”

 
          
“That’s
Innocent St. Michael,” Kirby agreed.

 
          
“It
was his land,” Tommy said. “He’s been looking for a first'dass fish for years.”

 
          
“I
appreciate that information, Tommy,” Kirby said.

 
          
“So
you’re a rich man, right?” said Luz. “You can afford a mistake.”

 
          
“Rich
men,” Kirby told him, “don’t risk their ass and twenty years in jail flying pot
to the States. That’s how I got the money. Oh, Jesus,” he said, remembering.

 
          
Tommy
swigged home-brew and puffed pot and said, “Something else, huh?”

 
          
Kirby
swigged and puffed and swigged and puffed and said, “I just gave the rest of my
money to a guy in Texas for some cows.”

 
          
Luz
laughed. Tommy tried to look sympathetic, but he was grinning. Kirby swigged
and puffed, and then he too laughed. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m not as smart
as I think I am.”