A young fella said they’d take four tires out there and mount them, then deliver the car to us that evening. I put two on my Visa card, and Darla put the other two on her MasterCard. There were a bunch of zeros on the pesos, but I tried to think of it as Monopoly money. We’d sort out the fine print on the insurance coverage later.
The same taxi was cruising the street, so we had Smiley run us to the resort, where we unwound with drinks. Timing was of the essence, so I waited until Darla’s third margarita before saying, “Speaking of sacrificial knives whittled out of obsidian...”
“No, we weren’t.”
“What did they use them for besides open heart surgery?”
“Not all sacrifice was fatal. The kings drew blood from other parts of the body, including the penis. The blood dripped on paper made of bark, which they burned to appease the gods.”
I cringed and said, “How would somebody get hold of a knife?”
“I suppose replicas are sold as souvenirs.”
“How’s about an original?”
“An archaeological find or theft from a museum. I’ve been thinking about what happened, Brick. Somebody you offended slashed our tires with a replica and broke it off to make a statement.”
“Offended,” I said, dumbfounded. “Me?”
That set off a case of the giggles that I contracted from her like a common cold. People were looking at us, so we retired to the cabin and continued to make fools of ourselves in several different ways I won’t elaborate on. At sundown I went out front to look for our rental car, which had just been delivered.
Darla was sitting on our porch in her bathrobe, arms wrapped around herself, shivering. “Brick, when you were out here and said you saw nothing, were you fibbing?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think I’d gone wacko.”
“Oh, I already do. Describe what you saw.” I did as I scanned the jungle shadows. “Don’t bother,” Darla said. “I didn’t see him at all, but I knew he was there and I know he’s gone.”
I had a hunch, and it didn’t take much doing to get Darla to play along. She went through her books until she came to a profile of Chan Bahlum.
“That’s him,” I said, tapping the picture. “Same as the head in the museum, same as our cabbie.”
“Brick, be reasonable. Chan Bahlum died thirteen hundred years ago.”
I could tell by the tone in her voice that Ms. Smarty-pants wasn’t so sure of herself any more. “Yeah, well, let’s find out.”
“How?”
“Ask him. We’ll go into town to eat — anyway, I’m hungry enough to eat a burro.”
The game plan was to have the desk clerk phone for a cab. If our Chan Bahlum lookalike wasn’t dispatched, we’d hang loose in Santo Domingo until we crossed paths. But there he was, parked next to our rental, leaning against a fender, smoking a cigarette. I hadn’t realized how short he was. Like other pureblooded Maya we’d seen, he couldn’t have been much over five feet tall, though he looked solid, like a cinder block stood on end.
“What’s next?” I asked him. “Sugar in the gas tank?”
He flicked his smoke onto the road and shrugged. “No hablo inglés.”
“Yeah, right. And my Aunt Hazel wears army boots.”
Darla told him in Spanish that we didn’t feel like driving and asked for a recommendation of a nice restaurant. He didn’t say a peep but took us to a decent-looking open-air cafe. Darla invited him to eat with us, to discuss a matter of great importance.
He shrugged again. “Hablo un poquito español.”
“That may be the truth, Brick. Spanish is still a second language to many Maya, who primarily speak their own tongue.”
“Maybe,” I said as we got out.
After I paid him, I held the obsidian knife tip in front of his face. “Lose something, Chan?”
He looked at it, then me, and said in English as stellar as mine, “Are you buying the dinner?”
“Off the top of the menu if you want. Anything your heart desires.”
He left his taxi where it was, parking regulations being kind of casual in Santo Domingo. We took a table, and he lit up. An unfiltered Camel, as a matter of fact. Darla saw me gaze fondly at his pack and moisten my lips, and said, “Brick, no.”
As soon as we ordered drinks, I said, “Okay, pal, who are you?”
He cocked his head toward Darla, cigarette hanging in a corner of his mug, a look I myself had copied from an old Cassavetes flick. “She understands the Maya concept of time.”
Darla told me, “The Maya believe that time is cyclical, an endless series of repeated patterns. The past always returns in a certain order. The past is the present and the future.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China, and what’s your beef with us?”
He chugged his Corona in one gulp and shook his head. “I dislike it when a tourist pokes his nose where it does not belong. This is twice. The other time was when a crackpot was preaching the space alien theory to his lamebrain followers. I could not tolerate this. I had to deal with him. I kicked him from the Temple of the Inscriptions to the Palace to the Temple of the Cross. You two are not in that crowd, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” Darla said.
“I get the program,” I said, nodding knowingly. “You have a bone to pick with tourists, and we’re your Ugly Americans du jour. You vandalize our car and lurk out in the woods in a tutu, trying to scare hell out of us.”
He blew a smoke ring. “A word of advice. Mind your own business.”
“Hey, murder is my business,” I snarled. “I don’t know the law in old Maya stomping grounds, but in this day and age there’s no statute of limitations. You throttle your old man, bub, sooner or later you gotta pay the fiddler, even if just in the history books.”
He held his fork like he was gonna use it on me. “Chan did not kill his father.” Before I could ask him how he knew, our food arrived. He dug into the biggest plate of enchiladas I’d ever seen, talking as he gobbled. “Before the flying saucer cultist lost consciousness, he said Lord Pacal was mentored by the king of Venus.”
“Okay, I don’t blame you for getting in the clown’s face, but why’d you act like a punk and slash our tires?”
He looked up from his food, which was already half scarfed down. “To let you know that our history is not to be trifled with.”
“I got Mr. Bahlum dead to rights. The proofs in the museum. Kan Xul, his kid brother with his ma and pa. Ring a bell?”
He laughed. “That?”
“What’s so damned funny?”
“I have nothing more to say to you.”
“That Miranda crap doesn’t wash with me.”
“Brick, please keep your voice down.”
He smiled. “You are angry. Are you going to hit me?”
“Don’t tempt me,” I said.
“Shall we step outside and get it over with?”
“We are outside. Kind of,” I said. “And I’d advise you to watch your mouth. I’m twice your size, you know.”
He shrugged, downed his last enchilada in one gulp, and said, “Of course if you do not have the guts.”
I came out of my chair like a Saturn booster. Darla rolled her eyes. “God, I don’t believe this.”
Before I could assure her I’d go easy on the little guy, he was leading us around the side, down stairs, and into what they had in mind when they coined the phrase “dark alley.”
“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you.”
He had his dukes up.
“If you children expect me to play the hysterical female, you’re sadly mistaken,” Darla said, arms folded. “I’m not cleaning anybody up afterward either.”