Remembering that conversation as I walked through the museo, I tried to find a link with the riddle. The current day was Ik, the day of wind, breath, and life. Nothing to do with a rabbit. I mentally ran through the twenty day names. The day Lamat, six days hence, had some association with a rabbit and the moon or the planet Venus, but if there were a connection, I didn’t know what it might be.
Perhaps, I thought, it is a play on words, perhaps a translation to Spanish. But nothing came to mind.
Thinking that the answer might lie somewhere in the museum, I spent a good part of the afternoon wandering through the exhibits looking in vain for a Maya rabbit.
I was bent over an exhibit of artifacts taken from a sacred cenote when I heard the voice behind me.
“I say, didn’t my eyes meet yours across a crowded room?” the very British voice asked.
I turned. It was the fellow from the dining room the evening before, looking every bit as good, I might add. Behind him lurked his dark friend.
“Ms. McClintoch, I believe,” he said, extending his hand.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I replied.
“Sorry. Jonathan Hamelin and my associate, Lucas May. I managed to convince Norberto that I thought I knew you from school or something, and was able to pry your name out of him.
“Since we obviously frequent the same places, might we presume to invite you for a drink? A coffee, a tequila? If you don’t mind a bit of a walk, I know a wonderful bar on the Paseo de Montejo.”
He had such an air of assurance that I soon found myself being escorted from the building and propelled along several blocks toward the paseo, a tree-lined avenue, very European in character, that Meridanos somewhat optimistically refer to as their Champs-Elysees. There was a time, at the turn of the century when fortunes were being made by the Spanish in the henequen trade, when Merida was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The paseo was its centerpiece, the place where the wealthy lived in houses, palaces really, of blue, pink, buff, and peach, with wrought-iron gates and elaborately carved moldings modeled more on the style of Paris than the Americas, more Belle Epoque than colonial.
The houses are still there, but by and large the families have moved on, the upkeep too much, perhaps, for diluted family fortunes. The houses stand, some lovingly restored and home to banks and other corporations that can afford them, others sinking, either gracefully or drearily, into decay.
We entered one of these old homes, painstakingly restored to its former glory, now the lobby and entrance-way of the Hotel Montserrat. Behind and adjoining it is a stucco-and-glass tower where guest rooms are located, designed to complement the original building. We headed for the bar, a large room at the front of the original house. Jonathan Hamelin was obviously well known there, and a table with a very nice view of the paseo materialized quickly.
Jonathan looked very comfortable in this setting. Even in more casual clothes, he was very nattily attired. His associate, however, was dressed very much the same as the night before, except that now he wore a black jacket. Once again, he looked rather out of place.
The bar was called Ek Balam, the Black Jaguar. Maya motifs featured prominently in the decor. At one end were two discreetly lit glass cases in which were displayed what appeared to be, at this distance at least, authentic pre-Columbian pieces.
But here any local references ended. Rather too large to be a conventionally cozy bar, the decor tended to cool peaches and aquas rather than the brilliant colors of the tropics. No mariachi or flamenco nouveau assaulted the delicate ears of the patrons. Instead, a string quartet at one end of the large room displayed what I think is called salon music: Ravel, Haydn, Copland, Strauss.
The air of the bar was filled with expensive perfume and cigar smoke. This was clearly where the beautiful people of Merida came to see and be seen. The person many apparently wanted to be seen with sat, or more accurately held court, at a table in a dim corner.
He was a man of about sixty, short, I would say, somewhat paunchy, not particularly attractive, but with some kind of personal magnetism, perhaps the sensual appeal of money, that commanded the attention of at least half the women in the room, and the envy of most of the men. Two of the people at his table looked to me like bodyguards, not the least because their eyes constantly scanned the room and their conversational skills appeared to be just about nil.
“Senor Diego Maria Gomez Arias,” Jonathan said, noting the direction of my gaze.
“The name is vaguely familiar.”
“Very wealthy. Owns the hotel. Avid collector.”
“Of what?”
“Beautiful things.” Jonathan smiled.
“Including women?” I asked, watching the glances several women in the room were casting in Senor Gomez Arias’s direction.
“Including women,” he agreed.
“Are the artifacts in the glass cases real?”
“Oh yes, I expect so.”
“Shouldn’t they be in a museum?”
“Quite possibly.” He shrugged.
“I think I do recall his name. He is a client of Hernan Castillo Rivas?”
“Was, I believe. They had a falling-out of some sort from what I’ve heard. But how do you know Don Hernan?” Jonathan asked.
I told him about McClintoch and Swain.
“Well, we’ve met McClintoch. Who is Swain?”
“My ex-husband.”
“Ah.”
“ ‘Ah’ about sums it up.”
I then told them about selling the business and the call that had brought me there the day before.
This seemed to attract the attention of both of them. Even Lucas, who had until this time barely uttered a word, leaned forward in expectation.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, Lara,” Jonathan said. “What’s the project?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him yet. He called to cancel dinner last night. He had to go out of town, hot on the trail of something or other.”
I started to tell them about the rabbit, but something stopped me. In a way, I was beginning to wonder if Don Hernan had not gotten just a bit dotty, a little non compos mentis, since I had seen him last. He was pushing eighty, after all. I didn’t want him—or me, for that matter—to look silly in the eyes of Jonathan Hamelin.
In any event, I stopped myself from saying more. Lucas was looking at me intently, as if he knew there must be more to this story, but the waiter arrived with our drinks—margaritas for Jonathan and me, a beer for Lucas—and the conversation veered off into the usual banalities you hear in bars.
Jonathan, I had learned as we walked over to the hotel, was an archaeologist from Cambridge University in England, Lucas the local archaeologist assigned by the Mexican authorities to work with him.
They, or at least Jonathan, since Lucas had settled back into his role of observer, told me about the work they were doing at a site a few miles from Chichen Itza the great postclassic Maya site near Merida. I’d been to Chichen Itzi many times before, but thought it was always worth a visit, and said as much.
Jonathan was explaining to me in his upper-crust British accent about the interesting limestone caves and underground rivers in that part of the Yucatan and entertaining me with tales of the sacrifice of cross-eyed virgins in the sacred cenotes, when the most extraordinary thing happened.
Two people dressed entirely in black, kerchiefs over their faces, bandito-style, walked into the bar. One of them carried a rifle, the other a crowbar. Before anyone could react, they moved quickly to one of the glass cases at the end of the bar, smashed the glass, and grabbed one of the artifacts. They left the room as quickly as they had come in.
There was actually a moment of stunned silence, then an absolute din. Some patrons of the bar laughed, thinking, no doubt, that it was a preview of Carnaval celebrations. Gomez Arias was hustled from the room by his two bodyguards.