Steve Martini - The Arraignment

Herman zips it up, almost jerking me off my feet, pats the collar down, paws like a bear. “You don’t wanna give ’em nothing makes a target on your chest.”

“Right.”

“There’s a little something for ya in the pocket,” he says.

I reach in.

“Other side.”

I dig it out. It’s a small gun-metal blue semiautomatic pistol.

“My backup piece. Figure you’re gonna need it more than me. Walther PPK. 380. Six shots, so don’t get carried away. And don’t go shootin’ at nothin’ beyond ten, twelve feet. Waste of time, besides you just draw attention to yourself. Little switch on the side. You hit it, it turns red side out. Then it’s hot.”

He takes it, checks the clip, slaps the back against his hand, making sure the bullets are properly seated.

“What if they frisk me?”

“They won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“They won’t let you get that close. What they want, you gonna be carryin’. That book. My guess is, they just gonna shoot you and take it.”

“Why?”

“Trust me. Your friend, he’s probably already dead.”

“We don’t know that.”

“No. But I got a feelin’ something ain’t right. You take this.” He hands the gun back to me. “Use it if you have to.”

I slip it back inside the jacket pocket. I hear Ibarra calling to me. “They’re waiting. Gotta go.” I hold out my hand to shake his.

“Shit I don’t want that.” Instead he reaches out, grabs me by the shoulders, and gives me a hug, an embrace like a grizzly.

“You take care,” he says. “You still be in one piece when this is over. You understand?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Shit, you gonna have to do better than that,” he says.

We both laugh.

“See ya.”

“Take care,” I answer.

I turn and head for the car.

When I get there, Ibarra has the mock Rosetta under his arm. He places it across the front seat on the passenger side.

The keys are in the car.

“There is one last thing,” he says. “Do you have a scrap of paper, anything small, something to write on?” He has a pen in his hand.

I fish through my pants pockets and come up with two wrinkled and tattered scraps of pink paper. I give one of them to Ibarra.

He flattens it out on the hood of the car, turns it over to the blank side, and starts drawing, small fine lines. “When you drive in, you pass the restaurant. A white building with a flat roof. You turn left into the parking area. The visitor’s entrance is here.” He puts an X on the map. “There are some large trees. There will probably be a rope across there. You just go under it.

“Once you are inside, you will have to be careful or you will get lost. It is like a maze. There are many paths, some of them going off into the jungle.”

He draws my attention back to the diagram. “You will walk maybe a hundred meters from the entrance and the path goes to the right. You stay on it,” he says. “A little ways beyond that, you will see some ruins called La Iglesia, it means church.” He marks it on the map. “There will be stone platforms at different levels in front of it and stairs going up. You pass through the plaza. You will see buried ruins all around you. Here you go left, go maybe fifteen, twenty meters, and on your right you will see the opening to the ball court. It is a flat, open area, long and narrow with slanting walls of stone on each side. There is a stone hoop sticking up out of the walls. You pass through the ball court, and you will come to an area where there are bicycles parked.” He circles it on the little map. “Tourists rent them to ride the paths. Don’t take one. Just walk, otherwise you will get there too quickly. We won’t be in place. When you get to the bicycles, there will be paths going in different directions. Three, maybe four.” He draws these with the pen. “You must take the path that goes to your right.” He points with the tip of the pen to the junction. “That will take you to Las Pinturas. It is maybe three or four hundred meters. You will see the ruins, a small pyramid with a square stone structure on top. There are palm leaves over the roof of the structure. You can’t miss it. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“Here, you take this.” He hands me the slip of paper, then I climb into the car behind the wheel and roll the window down.

“What time have you got?” he says.

We check our watches.

“You have plenty of time. Remember,” he says, “you give us at least ten minutes head start before you leave from here.”

“Got it.”

He closes the door. “We will be there,” he says. “Good luck.” Then he turns and runs back to the other cars.

Car doors slam one after the other. Then the tires of the two sedans and the limo grind gravel, racing by me on the road heading west.

Within seconds, their taillights disappear around a curve.

I sit with the window down, listening to the sounds of dawn in the jungle, the chirping and screeching of some distant animal, the humming wings and clicking of insects.

I take another look at the little map on the pink paper, fold it in half, and slip it into the pocket of my jacket. I give them twelve minutes just to be safe.

Three miles up the road, I see the sign with an arrow pointing to a turnoff, white letters on a blue background: Villas Arqueologicas Coba.

I take the turn to the right. After a few miles, the road turns to dirt, and moments later I see the restaurant, a two-story building with a flat roof and a second-story veranda. Jutting out from under the railing on the veranda is a slanting palm-covered roof sheltering outdoor tables and chairs.

Straight ahead is a large body of water, a lake, with high grass along the edges. Ibarra has warned me, if I have to move quickly into the jungle, to try and stay clear of any wetlands. Mexican crocodiles may be an endangered species, but they have been known to eat dogs and small children and, on a rare occasion, tourists.

The road curves left in front of the hotel, and a few hundred feet up I pull into the parking area. It is flanked by a few small structures, mostly stucco, small curio shops, and next to it a small square building with a palm-thatched roof, the ticket booth at the entrance.

Beyond this, a path leads in to the archeological area. It passes between two large trees, curling bark hanging from gnarled trunks that look as if they might have been standing when the last Mayan ruler walked between them and turned out the lights. There is a rope suspended between them.

I pull up and park in front, turn off the engine, and check my watch. I have twenty minutes to get to the area around the Las Pinturas. By now Ibarra and his people should be getting close, checking for Arturo’s men hiding in the bush and taking up positions on them.

I pick up the wrapped package from the seat, get out and head toward the entrance, quickly slip under the rope, and head up the path.

The walkway is uneven. Ruts in the sandy soil, crossed by ridges from shallow-rooted trees, force me to watch my step. What little light there is at this hour is filtered through the foliage overhead.

I pass a display under a thatched roof to my right and climb a small rise. Then the path heads down, a gradual slope, and goes to the right. On either side of the path are symmetrical mounds, gentle rises with small stunted trees and saplings growing out of them, sending up shoots like hair on a beast. These are busy laying down more shallow roots, some of them winding like snakes into the crevices of rock outcroppings.

Under the trees and on the sides of the mounds, the ground is littered with stones, their edges rounded by erosion, their shapes too balanced to be formed by nature. Everywhere I look, I can see small hills, bumps in the jungle, Mayan ruins still buried.