Aaron Elkins - Curses!

They were good questions. Gideon hadn't yet had a chance to think about them. “Well, of course he'd never expect Abe to compare the documents."

Marmolejo received this with a noncommittal shrug. “He might think that we would. Eventually."

"So what's your theory, Inspector?” Abe asked.

The inspector shook his head, rolling the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Dr. Oliver, have you ever received threats from him before?"

"No."

"But then he gets so many that it's hard for him to keep track,” Julie said.

Marmolejo took this in the spirit it was intended. “Then why,” he asked, “does he suddenly begin now? Why not years ago?"

More good questions. “Maybe he never risked coming back to the States?” Gideon ventured. “Maybe this is the first chance he's had at me."

Another shrug from Marmolejo, and a change of subject. “Dr. Goldstein, if the codex is still buried at Tlaloc, I think our common interest would be best served if we retrieved it as quickly as possible.” He produced a small matchbox, removed a tiny waxed match, and applied it to the end of his cigar. Marmolejo with a lit cigar was a rare sight. He was feeling expansive, and no wonder. The retrieval of the Tlaloc codex for his country would be a stunning accomplishment.

"I couldn't agree more,” Abe said cautiously. “But the faster you dig the more risks you take. You wouldn't want to take a chance on damaging the codex."

Of course not; that went without saying. But was it not possible to speed up the digging without such a risk? What if he provided some of his own reliable men to help?

Abe, perfectionist that he was, was reluctant, but Marmolejo was persuasive. However dedicated the police protection might be, there was no way to provide foolproof security for either people or objects. Wasn't the fate of Ard proof of that? As long as the codex was down there, there was some risk that Howard might find a way to get at it, or even destroy it, deranged as he obviously was. And what about the danger to the crew's safety? Who could tell who was next, and when? But remove the codex and you remove Howard's raison d’ etre, or at least his primary reason to do anyone harm.

Abe wavered, then gave in. Starting the next morning, two of Marmolejo's men would report for duty in the temple, under Abe's supervision of course. With Abe's permission, Marmolejo himself would be there as well.

Abe, who knew when he didn't really have a choice, gave his permission. “But you know,” he said, “there's something that's bothering me here. Garrison translated the curse last week on Monday night. The press conference was Tuesday, so it wasn't in the papers till Wednesday. And yet on Wednesday night Howard's already here, slipping notes under the door. How did he find out so fast? How did he get here so fast?"

The cigar was dead again. Marmolejo plucked it from his mouth between two fingers. “The question is: Get here from where? If he was already in Yucatan, there would be no problem."

"Already in Yucatan?” Abe repeated. “Why would he already be in Yucatan?"

Marmolejo did not always choose to answer the questions that were put to him. With business taken care of to his satisfaction, he lifted his brandy glass and grinned his monkeyish grin.

"To the recovery of the Tlaloc Codex,” he said.

Worthy Partridge lifted to his mouth one of the four dried prunes that the kitchen staff added to his lunch box every day. “I, personally,” he said, “will be only too happy to see the last of this wretched place.” He shuddered. Behind pursed lips the prune was fastidiously masticated. “Remind me never to accept a free vacation again."

"Not me,” Harvey said through a mouthful of white bread and sliced turkey. “This is great. How can you leave before they find out if the codex is there or not?"

"Easily,” Worthy said sourly. “I don't want to be the next person Howard bumps off."

The subject was Marmolejo's announcement that morning that members of the crew were now free to leave Yucatan at their pleasure. Worthy was the only one planning to take advantage of it. He had made his airline reservation for the following day.

Harvey lifted wistful eyes to the Temple of the Owls. “Gee, do you think they're really going to find it?"

"Marmolejo promised they'd let us know if they did,” Gideon said.

"Marmolejo,” grumbled Worthy. “I wouldn't trust that man if I were you."

"Why? What's the matter with Marmolejo?” Leo asked.

"He's too small,” Worthy said.

Leo laughed. “Huh?"

"I don't like little people. They move too quickly. Always darting."

The conversation had been going on in this desultory fashion for half an hour. The crew was taking its lunch break in the shade of the acacias near the West Group after a morning of continuing the slow excavation of the ball-court foundations. Abe had asked Gideon to supervise this operation while he himself was in the stairwell with Marmolejo. The work at the modest ball court had been routine and dull, not even enlivened by Emma's accounts of her latest chat with Huluc-Canab.

She had decided to remain at the hotel this morning, and Preston had stayed with her. Emma had not been her usual dynamic self lately. This was partly because the rest of the group had begun to tune her out as soon as she opened her mouth, and partly because she was grievously disappointed in Huluc-Canab, who had told her that no real harm would come to any member of the group during their stay. Then, when Ard had been killed, she had challenged Huluc-Canab during their morning tete-a-tete, and he had pointed out that Ard had not actually been a member of the group. A rather glib and mealymouthed reply, in Emma's opinion. Gideon's too.

As they were getting up to go back to the ball court, one of Marmolejo's officers approached.

Would they care to come to the temple? he murmured politely in Spanish. They had found something of interest.

"El codex?" Gideon asked, and then, when the officer looked at him blankly: "Un libro?"

Yes, the policeman said, they had found a book. Very old, very beautiful.

Gideon whooped and reached for Julie. “I will never doubt you again,” he shouted, laughing. “You're brilliant!"

When they got to the temple, his exhilaration was momentarily chilled. He hesitated just inside the entrance with the strange feeling that he had circled back in time, that it was all going to happen again, as the Mayan calendar said all things did. Everything was the same: the air thick and gritty with dust-already he could feel it congealing on his tongue, crusting in his nostrils; the sulfurous yellow light from the portable lamps below; the wavering shadows on the walls and ceiling; the stale smells of antiquity, mold, and sweat; the tension in the voices from the stairwell.

Julie touched his wrist. “Gideon, what's wrong?"

He squeezed her hand and smiled. “Just a few ghosts."

They were easily enough exorcised by the sound of Abe's thin, excited call from the stairwell.

"Gideon, is that you? Come look, quick! Julie, you're there too? Come! Everybody, look!"

Trotting down the stone steps Gideon was further reassured by a pungent whiff of celluloid-acetone solution, the most common and comforting aroma at any dig. (Stale coffee was a close second.) It was used for everything from varnishing pottery, to gluing bone, to sealing waterlogged wood, to strengthening rotting hide. At the moment it was being sprayed out of a glass atomizer by Abe, in a well-thinned solution, onto something he was leaning intently over. The debris had been cleared almost down to the level it had been at in 1982, and Abe was kneeling on the lowest visible step, his bony knees cushioned on a folded towel. One step higher was Marmolejo, no less intent, and on the landing above them two dusty, sweat-stained policemen sat leaning against a wall sipping cool tea. The Mayan workmen who had been hauling out the dirt had been sent away.