Steve Martini - The Arraignment

Thirty feet on, I come to an opening, the plaza, what Ibarra called La Iglesia. It is a large pyramid with several terraced levels in front and steep crumbling steps leading to the top. As a tourist attraction in the U.S., it would be a lawyer’s dream.

I pass through the plaza and go left. Suddenly I’m lost.

I stop and find the pink paper diagram in my pocket and peer at it in the dim light. Ibarra has written the words “ball court” in tiny letters.

I turn slowly, a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree pirouette. Then in front of me, against the sharp edges of stone, I see the silhouette of a curving shape in the distance. It is a stone hoop on the diagonal wall of the ball court.

I check my watch, pick up the pace, and jog through the court, an amphitheater of smooth stone on each side.

Sixty yards on, through the dim light the path levels out and opens into a wide area under a grove of larger trees. I see twenty or more bicycles parked here, some of them leaning against the trees and others lying on their side, a few of them upright with kickstands down.

So far everything on Ibarra’s little diagram is accurate. I keep walking and shift the package under my arm to the other side. As I do this, I rub the fabric over my jacket pocket and feel the hard edges of the pistol inside.

I am hoping that I won’t need it. Still the heft from the metal tugging at my pocket offers the possibility that I can defend myself if I have to.

“Senor.”

The voice coming from behind stops me dead in my tracks. My heart pounding; if he doesn’t shoot me first, I will still lose half a year of life.

In the dim light I turn, no time to reach for the pistol in my pocket. Half lost in the shadows behind a tree, I can see the slight figure of a man sitting on what appears to be a large tricycle. It has two wheels in front with a small seat over them and a single wheel in back.

He pedals out of the shadows. His eyes seem to be riveted not on me as much as the cloth-covered package I am carrying under my arm. He gestures with a hand toward the seat in front of him, an invitation for me to get on.

I shake my head. “No thanks.” I start to turn.

“Senor.” This time he is more insistent. The message is clear. There is a reason he is here at this early hour. He has been sent to collect me.

He is wearing a thin cotton shirt and jeans, worn running shoes, sockless where I can see his brown ankle above the foot resting on one of the pedals.

If he is armed, he has hasn’t shown it, and there are no bulges in his clothing. Ibarra warned me not to take a bike to the site. But by now he and his men should have had plenty of time to get in position.

I could simply turn and walk away, take my chances. But from the look in his eye, I suspect he would follow me, clattering along behind on the bike like a cowbell telling everyone in the bush where I was. No doubt they have paid him for the ride, probably more than he makes in a week pedaling tourists through the jungle. Now he feels compelled to perform the service.

“Why not?” I step toward the contraption.

He nods and smiles, gesturing toward the seat as I climb up and sit down.

I hold the package in my lap as he pedals through the clearing, picking up speed on the slight downgrade, then takes one of the paths to the right, stands up, and his legs begin pumping in earnest.

We bounce along the trail, level as a tabletop, not quite as smooth, listening to the balloon tires as they crunch over the decomposed limestone. The tricycle splashes through a puddle of standing water, and one of the tires sprays muddy water up onto the seat. I try to shield it with an arm but too late.

He laughs and says something in Spanish, but I don’t understand him.

“Just a second. Hold on a second.”

He continues pedaling.

“Stop.” What’s the word? “Pare.”

“Que?”

“Pare.”

“Si.”

Slowly he brings the bike to a halt as I feel through my jacket pocket for the slip of paper with Ibarra’s diagram. I unfold it and try to make out the squiggles and lines in the dim light. Then I see the words “far right.”

“We went the wrong way.”

“ Que?”

“We took a wrong turn. Back there.” I wave with my arm back over his shoulder. “We were supposed to go to the right. The far right.” My voice projects volume to compensate for the lack of language skills. I turn all the way around on the seat and point back over his shoulder. “The other way,” I tell him.

“Donde?”

“There.”

“No,” he says. “Por aqui,” and he points down the path in front of us.

“The Door to the Temple of the Inscriptions is that way,” I tell him.

“No.” He shakes his head, stands up, and starts pedaling again. “Por aqui.”

“Stop.”

He ignores me.

I try to step off, but he picks up speed so that one foot drags on the ground.

“Senor.” His voice is harsh now, angry.

I look back over my shoulder and he shakes his head at me. “Por aqui.” He nods in the direction we are going.

I get the message. He’s saying it’s this way. Whoever has sent him has given him precise instructions. I could drag both feet, stop the bike, and get off. Use the pistol to get rid of him if I have to. But then I would never find Adam. They would kill him, if they haven’t already. Of course they will kill both of us the minute they open the package and see what’s in it. Ibarra’s plan was never to allow them to get that close. I was to see Adam. Have them bring him into the open. One of their marksmen would take out whoever was holding him, and at that same instant I was to throw the package into the underbrush and follow it.

In the confusion, Ibarra’s men wearing flak vests were to grab Adam and pull him behind cover.

Now I grind my teeth as we ride. The only certain security is the tiny Walther in my pocket. Each turn of the wheels puts more distance between Pablo Ibarra’s men and me. Herman was right. Whoever planned this planned it well.

I look down at the pink scrap of paper folded over in my hand. It’s one of the telephone slips Harry brought down from the office. On the form-printed side is the message. I recognize Marta’s handwriting.

It’s strange how in moments of crisis, familiar things offer the illusion of comfort.

I’m rumbling through the jungle on a three-wheeled bike, sitting in front of a crazy Mexican who is probably delivering me to my death, and all I can think about is Joyce Swartz, the name on the line. I can hear Joyce’s raspy voice over the phone, the muddle of her words, the cigarette dangling from her lips as she talks.

I stare at the slip in a daze, reading words, unable to decipher the message as the vibration of the bike shivers my vision and rattles my teeth.

Suddenly the rhythm of the wheels begins to slow as he stops pedaling and coasts. I look up and we roll to a stop in the middle of nowhere. The white limestone stand of the path narrows into the distance ahead, then disappears around a curve. He has covered at least a mile, maybe more, from where the bikes were parked. Now he motions for me to get off.

“Where? Donde?”

“Aqui.”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“Aqui.”

“Here. You want me to stay here?”

“Aqui.” Then he motions down the path with one arm, as if he’s waving me away.

I pick up the package and step off the bike.

He swings it around in a wide arc, turns, and heads back.

I stand in the middle of the path, watching him until I can no longer hear the rattle of metal. I lose him as the bike recedes into the distance, swallowed by the edges of jungle as the path disappears.

I turn and look the other way. There is nothing but a narrow strip of white in both directions, like a single thread running through a cloth of green. The man on the bike pointed in that direction, so I begin to walk, staying along one edge of the path near the underbrush to make myself no more of a target than necessary.