"Oh, yeah . . . Anyway, she kept coming up with the eastern shore, where we are now. But so had a lot t>f treasure hunters, and this was the only section of the lake that had really been thoroughly searched, even with all the sharks. That's when it came to me, sitting outside the cabana with Pilar one night. The earthquakes that came after Alavardo's conquest either drastically reduced the level of the lake or altered its position. Where we are now was once underwater, that's why all the sharks' teeth. If the Tlaxclen priests had really pushed the calendar into the lake, it would not be sitting beneath the jungle a half mile or more from the shore. "
"Not bad, man. I bet Pilar loved that idea."
Ford had both hands on the stake and slowly worked it out of the ground. "Pilar like the idea. She loved me."
"So why did she leave you?"
Ford slid the stake back into the ground and patted earth around it. "That's a mystery I never solved."
EIGHTEEN
Late the next morning there were voices outside the stockade. The door was pushed open and an unfamiliar figure stood staring in, lean in the bright column of light which jarred through.
It was Julio Zacul.
He peered into the darkness for a few moments, trying to see, then turned away as if the effort was undignified. To the guard he said, "Bring the Yankees," and disappeared from the wedge of light.
Ford patted Jake Hollins's leg, telling him to stay put, to hang on. The boy seemed to understand as quickly as he had discovered upon waking that the stake which held his chain was loose.
Now, as then, he said nothing; just blinked brown eyes at Ford.
Zacul was waiting for them, standing with Colonel Suarez in the shade of a wide guanacaste tree. Both wore fatigues and Suarez had something in his hand, something Ford couldn't see, which he held to his nose before handing it back to Zacul. Now they were both lighting cigarettes: Zacul, tall and lean with stars on the epaulets of his shirt, leaning toward Suarez's lighter, his hand cupped around the flame. It was the face from the photograph, older, heavier, but still with that pointed expression: skeptical, judgmental. But there was something different in the eyes now—a glassy look without emotion, like illness. Ford guessed him to be twenty-eight or twenty-nine, six three, two hundred pounds, but with the softness of someone who had grown up inactive and indoors. All the little nervous mannerisms added to the impression of hyperactivity: the way he tapped his fingers incessantly, bloomed his cheeks out as he tasted the cigarette smoke, shifted from one foot to another, talked in sudden bursts. The black hair was combed straight back, shiny with combing, and the face was gaunt, handsome and cruel with the sickle-shaped scar pale on the pale skin of his left cheek. He had a long chin and a strong, straight nose, like a beak. An automatic pistol rode low on his hips in a gunbelt studded with ammunition clips, and Ford had the impression he wore it that way for style, the way another man might wear an ascot.
"Your sleep was good, I hope." Suarez was grinning at them, still enjoying his bad jokes in English.
With Tomlinson a step behind him, Ford stopped just inside the circle of shade. "Maybe you think it's funny, Suarez, but I'm not accustomed to sleeping on the ground with a launch of criminals. Listening to them crap their pants all night, Christ. That's not the way I treat people I want to do business with." Wanting to show displeasure, but not too much, hoping to get a quick reading on what Zacul had planned for them.
Zacul spoke, talking quickly; a man on power overload needing a vent. He said, "The colonel wanted to show you how we treat people who endanger our cause. Bad people. People who lie to us or try to trick us—as a warning. But perhaps he could have chosen a better way. Yes, I'm sure he could have chosen a better way." No introductions, speaking formal classroom English, Zacul gave Suarez a brief look of reproach that Suarez accepted for the fiction it was. They wouldn't have been put in the stockade if Zacul hadn't wanted them there. "He has told me," he continued, "of your business proposition. I am interested. My army and my political organization will soon rule all of Masagua but, for now, we must also be capitalists. We must make money where we can to finance our great cause." Saying this mechanically as his dark eyes searched Ford's face. "This man Hollins, he was a friend of yours, correct?"
"I did business with him a couple of times."
"As did we. I found him a good man, a trustworthy man." The eyes were still boring in on Ford.
"Maybe we're talking about two different men. The Hollins I knew was a thief and a cheat. He got exactly what was coming to him."
"You did business with a man you didn't trust?"
"I make it a habit not to trust anyone I do business with. I don't expect them to trust me so why should I trust them? I like things right up front, goods and money on the table. Don't confuse me with Hollins."
"I confuse you with no one. But Hollins is still in my debt in certain ways, just as it is true we owe him certain things. I wanted to know if you were aware—"
"Any debts between you and Hollins have nothing to do with me. I'd rather not even hear about it. I'm offering you a new deal entirely—and probably a better deal, too. "
"That will be for us to judge, not you."
"So judge. We will pay you forty percent fair market value for quality stuff, and pay you cash in American dollars. Half up front, half after sales. Because we plan to distribute through auction houses in L.A. and Miami as well as New York, we'll have wider distribution, and that means we'll buy a lot more product and still keep the prices up. We'll assume all risks, absorb any losses. All you have to do is provide the product, a landing strip, and the men to load it onto our plane."
"You are talking only about artifacts."
"Why? You have something else to sell?"
From the expression on Suarez's face, they obviously had something else to sell.
Ford said, "If it's what I think it is, we'd be willing to handle it, but in a small way. We'd job it out, not do the actual transporting ourselves. That's too dangerous. The Coast Guard looks for drugs. Pre-Columbian art is a whole lot safer. "
"You seem very sure of yourself for one so new to this business. Perhaps it is because one of your associates works in
Washington, D.C., that you expect few losses? He is an important man, this man?"
"Let's just say we won't have any trouble from U.S. Customs."
Zacul's expression was noncommittal, but his gaze shifted as he inhaled deeply on his cigarette. To Tomlinson he said, "And you, you are an expert on Mayan culture?"
Tomlinson jumped slightly, nervous, but that was okay. It fit the part he was playing. "I'm an expert on Egyptian culture, an Egyptologist. I'm a new student of Mayan culture. There are similarities that, you know, are real interesting—"
"I brought him to help me identify and appraise pieces," Ford cut in. "He's here on a contract basis now, but maybe on a percentage deal later."
"Because you do not trust me?" Zacul said,,smiling slightly.
Ford allowed himself to smile, too. "And I don't expect you to trust me."
"You told Colonel Suarez certain things. Should I trust that those things are true?"
"Like what?"
"He told me of this book you say you have. It is possibly a thing I would like to have for my personal collection. " Said in an offhand way, Zacul acted as if he didn't much care one way or the other.
Ford said, "Colonel Suarez gave me the impression it's very valuable. I thought it was worthless until we talked to him," watching Suarez flinch—and enjoying it.
Zacul said, "Colonel Suarez knows so little about so few things." Suarez actually seemed to shrink, slowing as they walked until he was two steps behind.