Aaron Elkins - Curses!

Emma, Gideon was ready to admit, did not lack for inventiveness either. “Well, I don't know,” he said, choosing, as Abe had, to try humor. “If that was my soul they meant to pummel, they sure left some bruises on the surface."

"Oh, come on, Dr. Oliver,” she said sharply, “you know I'm right. ‘Darkness turning to-’”

"Emma, there's a sound-and-light show every night of the year."

"Yes, but this was the first one you were at."

"Look, Emma,” he said reasonably, “why should it matter that it was my first light show? Why should the gods have it in for me in particular? Why put out my cigar and no one else's?"

"Because,” she said, and gestured at him, almost jabbing him in the chest, “you're the one who's disturbing their privacy."

"Me? Emma, what do you think we're all doing? What do you think archaeology is about? How can we learn anything about the Maya if we don't disturb their privacy?"

"Yes, yes, but you're the only one who's disturbing their bones and the dust of their bodies, and the curse specifically mentions-"

"I remember the curse,” Gideon said with a sigh. The conversation was showing no signs of improving. “But whoever jumped me last night was a human being with a snootful of wine. And he grunted like anyone else when he got hit, and then scuttled off in a highly corporeal way."

Her splotchy face had set while he spoke. She was, he saw, giving up on him. And not a moment too soon, as far as he was concerned.

She nodded sadly at him before turning away. “All right, Dr. Oliver, but don't say I didn't try to tell you. The second phase of the curse has come to pass. You know what's in store next. The-"

"Wait,” he said, holding up his hand like a traffic policeman. “I don't think I want to know."

When she left he found that his headache was back. He swallowed a second dose of aspirin and walked out on the balcony to take advantage of the nonexistent breeze. He stood quietly at the railing, looking absently down at the foliage. Surely there couldn't be anything in what Emma had said? Not in the way she meant, of course-but was it conceivable that there was a connection between the attack and the curse? That someone might actually be trying to make it look as if-

Behind him he heard the front door of the room open.

"Hello?” Julie's voice. He perked up at once. “Is my husband in there somewhere under all that paper?"

He smiled and went back in. “Hi, coming to check up on me?"

"Yes, are you glad to see me?"

He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Mm, you bet I am."

"Besides,” she said, “I couldn't face another turkey sandwich for lunch. I thought maybe you'd buy me a square meal in the dining room."

"You're on. How'd the dig go this morning?"

She had gone into the bathroom to wash her hands. “Fine,” she called over the running water. “Oh, your friend Stan Ard came prowling around looking for you, slavering to get a scoop on what happened last night. I told him I had no idea where you were.” She came out toweling her hands. “And the state police are already on the scene, you'll be happy to know."

"You mean they're here about last night?"

"Yes, and that note under the door. I spent half an hour-” There was a crisp doubletap at the door. “That must be the inspector, right on cue."

"The inspector?"

"Inspector Marmolejo. He said you know him."

"I do,” Gideon said, heading for the door. He was surprised; he hadn't expected the Chichen ltza guard to forward a report so promptly. Or a full-fledged inspector to hustle right out.

"Why don't we ask him to join us for lunch?” Julie said. “He seems like an interesting man."

"Oh, he is,” Gideon said. “He is."

When Gideon had last seen Inspector Javier Alfonso Marmolejo of the Yucatecan State Judicial Police, he had been Subteniente Marmolejo, a puckish, elfin subordinate officer involved in the investigation into the stolen codex. He had been used by his pompous superior for little besides translation; his English was excellent. ("It's because so many of our crimes involve Americans,” he had explained to Gideon with sly ambiguity.)

In those days, pseudo-military dress and titles had still been in vogue for Mexican police officials, but Marmolejo, alone among his bemedaled, mirror-booted colleagues, had dressed as neatly and inconspicuously as a salesclerk. Now, having risen in the world, he had not changed his style; he wore the openthroated, outside-the-belt white shirt called the guayabera, neatly pressed pale-blue trousers, and well-cared-for oxfords on small feet that barely reached the floor when he was seated.

Although he was not yet fifty, the passage of almost six years had wizened the mahogany-skinned Marmolejo, leaving him with a radiating network of foxy wrinkles around his eyes, so that he was looking a little less like an elf these days and a lot more like a wise old monkey. He had changed in his manner too; increased rank had brought with it a mantle of assured, easygoing authority.

Not that he had lacked an aura of authority in 1982, despite his junior level. There had been times when the police operation had teetered on the edge of burlesque under the fat and incompetent colonel who was in charge; but always, one way or another, the level-headed Marmolejo had been able to bring things back from the brink before they collapsed into opera bouffe.

"A very nice dining room,” he said as they sat down at their table. “I always like to come here."

The Mayaland's restaurant was the coolest place in the hotel, an airy, tiled room a full two stories high, with thick white walls and great, dark, burnished ceiling beams of ceiba wood. Outside the screened windows was a long gallery with a vine-covered trellis that threw leafy, green-tinted shadows onto the walls. Beyond that was the bright blue swimming pool, hugged by a mounded, lavish landscape of tropical plants.

The only thing wrong with the room, from Gideon's point of view, was the enormous mural that covered one end wall; a vivid rendition of the Mayan corn-god legend, painted in garish purples and bloody reds, and full of naked, huge-breasted women, along with human heads hanging from trees by their hair and other unpleasantnesses that were part of the Mayan creation myth. Accurate enough, but hardly a stimulant to the appetite. Gideon and Julie always made sure to face away from it, as they had today, but Marmolejo had seated himself so that he was looking directly at it, and he gazed upon it now with contentment and affection. But of course Marmolejo himself was half Mayan, which no doubt made a difference.

"Well, Inspector,” Gideon said as the waitress set down a platter of lobster pate and crackers, “I'm glad to see you again, even if I had to take a few lumps to do it."

Marmolejo murmured his agreement and nodded affably, removing the unlit, half-smoked cigar from his mouth and laying it carefully in an ashtray. Gideon smiled to himself. Marmolejo's ever-present cigar was rarely alight, and then only briefly. There had been a running joke in the old days as to whether he owned more than one of them, or simply struck the same one in his mouth every morning and put it on the bedside table when he went to sleep at night.

"You're feeling all right now?” the inspector said.

"Fine. A few bruises."

"Good.” He spread a cracker with pate, then bit into it with relish. “I understand you couldn't see your attacker. You couldn't identify him if you were to meet him again?"

"No, I couldn't see anything at all."

"You can give us no clues? You noticed nothing?"

Gideon hesitated. “Well-"

"Why don't you ask the inspector whether Mexicans say ‘ow'?” Julie asked brightly.

Marmolejo had shrewd, narrow eyes set so far apart above his flat nose they seemed to look around you on both sides. He raised his eyebrows, drooped his eyelids and looked around either side of Gideon. “That sounds interesting,” he said pleasantly.