I told the doctors too. They didnt beleive me neither. I also told them all about histry. Even tho I didnt like school much, I always liked histry. I watch all those programs on TV about ancient mysterys and stuff. I always wondered why I liked it so much but now of course I no. It is on account of my former lives as a prophit.
By now, of course, I knew who had written it. But was there a point to this? I wondered. And if there was, would I ever be able to figure it out?
When I got out of there the police were still pretty interested in me, the writer went on. So I desided to come to Peru to see if I coud get closer to this Wayna the freind of Atahualpa which as I have explaned to you is me. I borrowed some $$$ from my brother, I didnt tell him tho so I guess hes mad at me too like every body else.
Its worked out good tho. I have the lady freind her real name is Megan. She was Joan of Ark in another life so she nos what its like.
The thing is the realy important part is that since I can remember all these times in histry I no where the treasure is. I have seen cities of gold that you get to thru cracks in the rock. And most especialy I no where Atahualpa hid the most fabulus treasure ever so as the Spanish coudnt find it. You no how I no? Because I helped him do it. And I have seen it with my own eyes I mean in this life time. And it is near here. I found it once but I was on a bit of a bad trip so I have to find il again. I could pay my brother back so he woudnt be mad any more but also I coud pay off the deficet for every country in the world. I coud build houses for those refujees and feed all those kids you see on TV with those big bellys and sad eyes.
The trouble is Megan is mad because I used the $$$ I earnt to buy marigana. She doesnt realy understand I need it to fuse with my former life as Wayna so I can find the treasure. Shell get over it but right now she is gone and I am alone.
To make things even worse I think the Spanish are after me. Like if I can go back to my former lives then may be they can come forward to now if you no what I’m getting at. I think they mean to kill me good this time. Please help me.
Your freind Wayne, who you no as Puma, the letter ended.
What was one to think about a letter like this? I didn’t know whether to just forget it—and perhaps congratulate Pachamama, or Megan, should our paths ever cross again, for having the foresight to leave her somewhat deranged boyfriend when she had a chance—or, on the other hand, to try to find a thread of reality in all the madness.
Ever since Puma had disappeared, I’d wondered if he was connected in some way to Moche artifacts. I know where the treasure is. I have seen cities of gold that you get to thru cracks in the rocks… the most fabulous treasure ever… and it is near here. It sounded like the words of a madman, but was it possible Puma had indeed seen something, in this lifetime, drunk or drugged though he might have been at the time? To make things even worse I think the Spanish are after me. If he had, then he might well be right about the Spanish being after him, not, as he maintained, from a different time, but right here and right now. Pachamama—Megan, that is—had left because she didn’t believe him. I didn’t know what to think, but with all the strange things that were happening, I was beginning to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I was sure about one thing, however, and that was that I was more than a little annoyed with Lucho. I was waiting as he came shuffling back through the main door heading for his room, having chosen tonight of all nights to stay here. I was so irritated, in fact, that I didn’t care if he knew I’d been searching through his belongings.
“What were you doing with this letter?” I demanded. “It is very clearly addressed to me!”
Lucho looked wary but said nothing.
“When did it arrive? Did someone deliver it? Well?” I demanded, one foot tapping the floor impatiently. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know,” Lucho whined.
“It was in your room,” I said. I could hear a dangerous tone in my voice.
“I forgot,” Lucho said. He was practically sniveling.
“When did it arrive?” I asked again.
“Yesterday,” Lucho said hesitantly.
“Are you sure?” Manco Capac had said yesterday that the kids had left one or two days before.
“Maybe the day before,” he conceded. This was the second person—Manco Capac being the first— who’d had a serious lapse of memory where Puma’s whereabouts were concerned.
“Who brought it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. I glared at him. “I don’t!” he repeated stubbornly. “It was on the floor inside the front door when I came in. I didn’t see anybody.”
“But you opened it,” I said very quietly.
“No way,” he said, and that was the last I could get out of him. I stomped upstairs and told myself to sleep. But I couldn’t, unbidden images of Lizard and Edmund Edwards, and most of all the Spider, haunting me. Very late, I decided that I should go to plan B, back to the Paradise Crafts Factory and look around one more time, to see if I’d missed anything. Lucho’s door was closed and there was no sign of a light on, as I eased my way out the front door.
I hoped, as I started the truck, that Hilda had been well into the scotch and thus sleeping soundly. I pulled the truck off the highway several hundred yards from the factory, concealing it behind an old abandoned hut, and went the rest of the way on foot, thankful, for once, for the covering blanket of the garua.
Montero’s little industrial complex was in darkness except for one light over the front door of each of the buildings. I headed around to the rear of the factory building, hoping that one or other of the doors had been left ajar to help cool down the work area after the tremendous heat from the kiln.
All were closed and locked, but I had a fallback. I’d noticed during my tour of the place that the back door was old, with a very poor lock of the bathroom door variety, where you simply push a button on the inside doorknob. Montero was not overly worried, it seemed, about intruders. If he’d really been up to no good I’d have expected better locks, for some reason. Having had some experience getting locks of this sort open, I figured I’d be able to get in reasonably easily-In the absence of a credit card, I’d brought a couple of tools from the lab that I thought would do the trick. They did, and with very little effort I let myself in. I locked the door from the inside.
The room was stifling, and I stood for a moment or two, waiting until my eyes adjusted to the dark, as sweat began trickling down my back from the heat and my fear.
I made my way to the end of the room where Antonio’s drafting table was located, and, turning the shade down as far as I could, switched on the light. In another minute, I’d unlocked the filing cabinet next to the table.
The top drawer was filled with drawings, the second with photographs. It took me a moment or two to see how the files were organized: in large sections by year, and then within that, by type of artifact.
My purchases from the auction house had been abandoned in customs, and A. J. Smythson, to whom they’d been sent, had died between two and three years earlier. I went back three years in the file and started to search.
There were several bulging files for that year, quite a few for stirrup vessels done by subject, one file for portraits, another for animals, still another for birds. What I was looking for wasn’t there. After checking every file for that year, I went back four years, and started working through those files as well. At the very back of the drawer I found a file marked miscellaneous and opened that.