by Lyn Hamilton
Back at the hacienda, I opened the front door and started across the courtyard in the dark. “Hands up,” a voice said. “Turn around very slowly.”
This time, it wasn’t Lucho playing freedom fighter. I turned around to face the voice.
15
Hilda stood in shadow, her tall, slight figure barely discernible to my eyes, framed only by the dim light from outside. I on the other hand was the perfect target, caught in the beam of her flashlight. She gestured at me to move into the dining room, then shut the door behind her. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she rasped. “And don’t tell me you’re Rebecca MacCrimmon just trying to catch up on some work in the lab. I’ve had your passport checked. The name and the number don’t match.”
What to do? Sometimes in life you have to take a chance, make a choice. Feeling as if I stood on the edge of a precipice, I made my decision, and, taking a deep breath, stepped off.
“My name is Lara McClintoch,” I said. “I’m co-owner of an antiques shop called Greenhalgh and McClintoch in Toronto. I’m here because several weeks ago I went to an auction and picked up what I thought was a box of junk, except that there were objects in it, supposedly replicas of pre-Columbian artifacts, that I later decided were real. One of them came from here, Campina Vieja, at least that’s what it said. Two of the objects disappeared; someone was killed, murdered in my shop; our one employee, a dear friend of mine, was attacked; and then the shop was set on fire. The police think my employee has something to do with it all, and if they think that, they’ll end up charging him with manslaughter at the very least. And if they clear him, then they’ll be after me for arson probably, insurance fraud that went wrong. So I went to New York to find the source of these objects, and someone else got murdered.”
I paused to catch my breath and then continued. “After that, I headed for the source, or what I thought was the source, and here I am. That’s the short version, but you get the general idea,” I said, trying not to sound terrified.
“That’s quite a story,” she said. Wait till you hear the rest of it, I thought. “Perhaps the missing details would make it more plausible,” she went on, more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “What did these objects look like?”
“There was a silver peanut, about life-size; an ear spool of gold, turquoise, and some other materials; and a flared vase with serpents drawn around the rim, sort of like this,” I said, dropping my hands slightly to indicate the shape.
“It’s called a florero,” she said, and then I knew I was safe. You don’t correct people’s description of things, I decided, if you’re planning to shoot them.
“A florero,” I agreed. “It had hecho en Peru stamped on the bottom, and there was a card that said it was a pre-Columbian replica from Campina Vieja.”
Hilda said nothing, so I pressed on. “So now,” I said into the shadows, “perhaps you could return the favor and tell me who you are and why you’re here.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“I don’t think the average person would know how to check out a passport,” I replied.
“Even fewer average people know how to get a fake one,” she snapped.
“Touché,” I replied.
“Furthermore,” she went on, her voice heavy with rebuke, “my name really is Hilda Schwengen, and I really am an archaeologist.”
I said nothing, just waited.
“I am also,” she said reluctantly, “from time to time, a consultant to U.S. Customs.”
“Consultant? What’s a consultant? Are you an agent? And,” I added, pushing my luck a little, “could we discuss this in a little more civilized manner? Would you mind putting down the gun—is it the one we’re looking for, by the way?”
Another pause. Finally she stepped forward, to the other side of the table, and set the gun in front of her. “Sit down,” she ordered. She pulled up a chair and sat facing me: We were like two opponents in a chess match, sizing each other up. Her hair, usually tied back, was down around her shoulders, and she was wearing a bulky cotton terry robe, which emphasized her thinness somehow, and no shoes. I was also in my bare feet, having taken off my shoes to creep in. This encounter was beginning to have the rather endearing air of a pajama party, except for the gun. I could see it was a small pistol of a size that would fit in a handbag, not the one I’d been looking for.
“You’re an agent?” I prompted after a moment or two of silence.
“No,” she said. “I just give them information from time to time.”
“An informant?”
“If I’m an informant, I’m not a paid one,” she sighed. “I keep my eyes and ears open, that’s all.”
“Drugs? Artifacts?”
“Artifacts, mostly. You weren’t the first person to notice that Campina Vieja seems to be a little hive of activity where artifact smuggling is concerned,” she said, irony in her voice. I took this sentence to be very encouraging, though, in that it appeared to signal that she was prepared to believe at least some of my story. We stared at each other across the table. Finally she put the gun down on the floor beside her chair. It was a generous gesture.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how you got a false passport and got down here,” she said.
“Nope.” We looked at each other, each waiting for the other one to say something. I decided to leap in.
“You say you pass information along from time to time. I don’t suppose you know anything that would help me get out of this little pickle I find myself in?”
“Sorry, no,” she replied. “Nothing concrete at all.”
“Do you think something awful has happened to Steve?” I asked hesitantly.
“I don’t want to think about it, but yes, I’m afraid that is a very real possibility.” She looked away, perhaps to hide the tears forming at the corners of her eyes but not yet spilling over. She’s in love with Steve, I thought, and that’s why she doesn't like Tracey. My face, as usual, betrayed my thoughts.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, pulling a cigarette pack out of the pocket of her robe and lighting up. “And you’re wrong. I’m not in love with him. I’m extremely fond of him, though. He’s been having an affair with Tracey, but I expect you must know that. You can’t have missed all that creeping around in the night.
“Steve’s separated from his wife, and even if he wasn’t, it’s none of my business, but I really disapprove of professors having affairs with their students,” she continued. “I’m not naïve, I know it goes on all the time. But I’ve insisted she work in the lab and not with Steve at the site, because the others have, or will, figure it out, and I don’t think it’s good for morale.”
I said nothing. I still didn’t think I was wrong about her being in love with Steve.
“Are you married?” she asked suddenly.
“No, divorced. You?”
“Single. Married to my work, as they say. Boyfriend?”
“For a while, but he dumped me about a year ago.”
“For another woman?”
“Worse than that,” I replied. “He left me for politics.”
“My gawd!” she exclaimed, and suddenly we both got the giggles. It was part hysteria, but also part relief for both of us, I think, to be able to talk to someone about our hidden selves. It was as if a dam had burst, and suddenly we were sharing confidences one would normally share only with the closest of friends.
She told me about her back injury, the pain, and how she’d found out about Steve and Tracey’s affair.
“I blame Tracey,” she said. “I think she’s a scheming little bitch who is trying to take over from me, and using Steve to do it.” She made a face. “You don’t have to say it. I know I’m the one who’s the bitch. I’m being completely unfair, I realize that. I don’t even know her, really. I just met her at the start of this season, and I confess I’ve made no effort whatsoever to get to know her. In fact, I’ve acted in such a way to keep her at a distance. Perhaps I a
m jealous. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? I hate the way she sits with him at dinner and chatters away. Puts me off my food, although I know that leaving the table with a bottle of scotch halfway through the meal is not exactly a mature way of dealing with it.
“In a way, even though Steve and I have never had that kind of relationship, I feel like the tired old first wife who’s being thrown over for a younger woman. Steve and I have been a great team, but this is my last season in the field. My back won’t take another.” I nodded sympathetically. “So next year it’ll be Steve and Tracey instead of Hilda and Steve, and I feel just wretched about it. But let’s drop this dreadful topic and talk about why you’re here in the first place. Details, please.”
I told her about Clive moving in across the street, and how upset and irrational I’d been at the time. I told her about the auction, about Lizard and Alex, and how everything I’d done since the day of the fire had been an attempt to make amends. “But the harder I try to fix things, the worse they get.” I sighed. “Unless I can figure out what’s going on around here, Alex is in big trouble, I’ve lost the store, and I won’t be winning any popularity contests with the police back home.”
I told her about the train of events that had taken me from Toronto to New York and then on to Lima, omitting, for Lucas’s sake, the side trip to Mexico. I related how I’d first looked up Lizard’s wife, and followed her around Lima.
“That got me nowhere,” I conceded, “so I decided to come here, the point of origin of the florero, thinking there must be some connection to Montero and the Fabrica Paraiso,” I concluded. This was a test. I wanted to know what she’d say about Montero.
“I agree,” she said, “that Montero and Paraiso would be the main suspect in all this, but I’ve looked around there and I can’t see anything unusual there.”
“Me neither. I looked everywhere except the washroom.”
“I’ve done the washroom,” she replied. “Invented tummy trouble so I could stay in there long enough to pull a board out and check behind the pipes even. Nothing. I’ve also had occasion to check out the body shop.”
She sighed. “But maybe I’m grasping at straws here, in desperation. Maybe I want it to be Montero because he’s so revolting. I find myself looking for evil in everything he does.”
“The florero had the words hecho en Peru on the bottom. I suppose after all this it really could have been a replica,” I said.
Hilda looked at me as if I was quite naïve. “It’s easy enough to put a light slip over the bottom of the vase and put a stamp on it,” she said. “It’s done all the time, in fact. When it gets to its destination, you just soak the slip off, and there it is, genuine Moche.”
Of course, I thought. “Stay here, I’ll be right back,” I exclaimed. I went back to the courtyard where I’d dropped my bag when Hilda had startled me. I returned and handed her the photograph I’d taken from the files of the Fabrica Paraiso.
“Nice,” she said. “A florero.”
“Not a florero. The florero,” I replied. “The one from the auction. See, the snakes around the rim? I’m sure it’s the same one. I thought when I found it at Paraiso that I’d merely confirmed that my florero had come from Paraiso, just as the card that came with it indicated. But as soon as you mentioned the use of the slip and stamp as a way of concealing artifacts, it hit me: This is the way they get the stuff out. Someone photographs a looted object, and sends it over to Paraiso. Antonio does a drawing, then, in the case of ceramics, designs and makes the mold, and several copies are churned out right along with all the regular reproductions. They all get stamped with the made in Peru symbol, including the original in the way you described it to me, with the slip on the bottom. They get packed up together, probably in shipping crates from the Fabrica des Artesanias Paraiso, which would clinch it. Anyone looking at them would assume that they are all reproductions. It would certainly look that way, with rows of identical objects coming from a crafts factory.”
“I like it,” she said.
“There is, however, one problem with my theory,” I said. Hilda looked at me. I took the plunge. “Carlos Montero is dead.”
“Dead!” she exclaimed. She seemed genuinely shocked. “When? How?”
I told her what I’d found. She looked aghast. “Who would do this” She paused. “What does this mean? You must be right about the photograph, but with Montero dead, does this mean…?”
“There are several questions, actually,” I said. “Another is, do you think there could be anything to this?” I pulled Puma’s letter out of my T-shirt pocket and handed it across to her. “I know he sounds nuttier than a fruitcake, and there’s no question he’s a tad, shall we say, delusional,” I said, watching the skeptical expression on her face as she read. “But I know him,” I went on. “He’s not particularly bright, although he’s actually quite a talented magician, and he’s kind of sweet. I mean, look where he says he wants to find the treasure to feed all the world’s hungry children,” I said, pointing to the place in the letter. “And when you talk to him, you don’t get the impression that he’s dangerous or anything, or even that he is totally out of it, by any means.”
“So what are you saying?” Hilda asked.
“I’m saying, what if there is a treasure trove around here? And if there is, who knows about it?”
“A better question might be, does this treasure, assuming it exists, have anything to do with Montero and Paraiso?” Hilda said. “I have no idea what the answers to these questions might be.”
“I don’t either, but I do still think I’m right about the way the artifacts are being taken out of here,” I said. “Obviously I’m wrong about the leader. But if not Montero, then who? With Montero dead, we have nothing.”
“We’re not going to solve this tonight,” Hilda said, standing up carefully and stretching. “It’s time we got some sleep. But you say we have nothing. That’s not entirely true. We have Etienne Laforet, an art dealer and known buyer of illegal artifacts, and he’s right here in Campina Vieja, blatant as they come. There has to be a good reason for him to stay a few days. With him we have two problems. We’ve never been able to catch him with any Moche pieces on his person—and believe me, the Peruvian authorities have searched him more than once when he left the country—nor in his gallery. Plainclothes officers have been in. This means he’s probably not in this alone.
“Ideally what I’d like to do is take an artifact to him, get him to buy it, and then watch what he does—a sting, if you get what I mean. Which brings me to the second problem: We don’t have a suitable artifact to use. I can’t risk a piece from a museum collection, and while I might be able to sneak something out of this lab, we haven’t found anything he’d buy, I don’t think. He only takes high-end stuff. We don’t have anything to deal with,” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, but we do,” I replied.
16
Over the Pacific off Peru’s shores, a huge, warm, moist body of air begins to move slowly toward land. As it hits the shore it becomes the garua, the mist from the sea, swirling over the sand of the desert. But it does not stop there. It moves across the land to the wall of rock called the Andes, and somewhere, high in the mountains, the garua turns to rain. Torrents of rain. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the rocky gorges fill with water, hurtling downward. Waterways, both ancient and modern, built to tame it, now strain to contain it, and fail.
Just as dark was falling the next evening, Hilda and I were standing in the shadow of the awning of the hardware store, watching Laforet’s house. To help conceal ourselves, we’d dressed in dark colors, she in a navy turtleneck and trousers, I in jeans and a large black sweater I’d borrowed from Tracey. There were lights on in the house, but none at the front door, to provide the anonymity Laforet’s visitors required, no doubt. We’d told the others we were going into town to call Steve’s ex-wife and children, and not to wait up for us.
It had been a rather strange day. Not one word was heard abo
ut Carlos Montero. Lucho shuffled around the hacienda as usual. There were no visitations from the police. Around two, Hilda went over to Paraiso. I told her exactly where to look. “Nothing,” she said on return. “No cord. No Carlos.” She paused. “Are you sure…?”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“I went in and asked Montero’s wife, that timid little thing, Consuelo, where he was,” Hilda went on. “She said Trujillo. He’d left her a note: typewritten. Anyone could have typed it, of course. Machine sitting right out there.”
I thought soon enough alarms would go off, about Montero but also the others. Someone was bound to notice eventually that Campina Vieja was becoming the terrestrial equivalent of a black hole, sucking people into oblivion. Not that day, though, it seemed.
We’d decided I’d be the one to go into Laforet’s, Hilda being better known in these parts than I, and with a reputation to protect where archaeological objects were concerned.
After about forty-five minutes of watching, and seeing absolutely nothing, and with Hilda getting uncomfortable standing so still, I whispered to her, “Time to beard the lion in its den.” I slipped across the street and up to the door, the Moche ear spool, which Hilda had declared to be the perfect bait, wrapped in a soft handkerchief of Steve’s, tucked into a canvas tote bag.
After I’d knocked, the curtains in a dark upstairs room stirred slightly before I heard footsteps inside coming toward the door. It opened a crack, someone looked at me, as I held up my bag and tried to look furtive, which wasn’t difficult, and a man’s voice farther back in the house said, first in French, “Entrez. Come in.”
As the door opened and I saw who was standing there, sheer apprehension almost made me change my mind and run away. A young woman greeted me, dressed in one of those outfits that young women occasionally wear these days, where—and I know this will position me solidly in the camp of old fuddy-duddies—it’s difficult to tell whether it’s a dress or a slip, a very short pink satin number with shoestring straps, over irridescent silk stockings. Her long nails were painted black, her dark hair was piled up on her head, and she swayed provocatively on very high-heeled, black, patent-leather sandals as she led me toward the back of the house. Carla Cervantes, Lizard’s widow, gave no indication she recognized me. Although it was unnerving to see her here, it made me think that while I did not yet understand how or why, the pieces in this puzzle were snapping into place.