Cry in the Night

by Hart, Carolyn G.

  I couldn’t be farther than a stone’s throw from the Avenue of the Dead but I might have been a hundred miles distant. I was alone on dusty, rock-strewn ground in the midst of a thick clump of bushes in a small hollow. I couldn’t even see the huge hump of the Pyramid of the Sun, which I knew was to my right across the Avenue of the Dead. There was not a voice, not a footstep, nothing but the ragged dry sound of my breathing as I tried to draw air into starving lungs.

  The gunman was on the other side of the street. Since no other shots had come, I had either moved out of his sight or he had lost me when I jumped into the depression.

  Was he hunting for me now?

  With hands that trembled, I opened my guidebook to the centerfold and studied the map of the pyramids. I should be just there. My finger stopped on pale green paper. I looked around me and all I saw was a small, rough bowl of ground ringed by dusty, dry, gray-green bushes. I didn’t dare go back to the Avenue of the Dead. But how could I find my way back to the road that circled Teotihuacán?

  I lost my way almost at once stumbling up one hill and down another, watching for snakes and lizards, stopping often to listen. The luck of lost children must have been with me for I found the parking lot near the museum and that was where Manuel had parked.

  I hesitated at the edge of the lot. Only a few cars and buses were parked on the far side of the log near the museum entrance. I saw the soft cream of the Mercedes. I hoped Manuel was waiting in the front seat.

  I would be vulnerable when I crossed that almost empty parking log. How far to the Mercedes? One hundred and fifty yards? At least that.

  I stood at the edge of the lot in the sparse cover of the brush, afraid again.

  I hesitated and so I lived.

  Rocks slithered underfoot off to my right. Brush crackled.

  I drew back deeper into my little patch of shadow, felt the pinprick sharpness of the gray-green leaves, smelled the musky dryness of the bush. I listened and looked, looked hard, but still I almost missed him.

  He, too, waited in shadow, watching the almost empty lot. His faded blue denim shirt was barely discernible in the brush, his gray trousers merged with the shadow. He looked toward the Mercedes.

  I saw his face, sharply, clearly, and prayed that he would not sense my nearness.

  His face was memorable, black eyebrows that slashed sharply upward, a thin, tough mouth, taut coppery skin, straight black hair and flaring sideburns, powerful shoulders. I recognized him. He had watched me at the airport. I stared at his dark and dangerous face and saw a pattern.

  The letter pushed into my hand at the airport.

  The dismembered doll.

  Shots on the Avenue of the Dead.

  Jerry Elliot’s angry insistence that I leave Mexico. At once.

  I don’t know how long we stood, each of us taut and still. Then he shrugged off a backpack. I saw a gun in the hand. He put the gun in the pack, slipped the pack back on his shoulder, then moved, stepping as softly as a pad-footed animal. He was moving away from me, his back to me now, crossing the parking lot. He walked to a motorcycle near the far edge of the lot. He handed a coin to the boy who had watched it. He swung the cycle in a slow half circle and passed the Mercedes. If I had doubted before, I had no doubt now. He hung for a moment beside the beautiful cream-colored car, then, abruptly, dust and gravel spitting beneath his wheels, he gunned the cycle and was gone.

  I was sure now. He had shot at me. I no longer wondered who had directed the ragged shoeshine boy to thrust a letter in my hand at the airport. Somehow, who knew how, it must have been he who tore a doll into pieces.

  Everything was done with one objective, to drive me out of Mexico. To kill me if necessary. Why? At whose direction?

  I shivered, though it was warm in the soft heat of the midday sun. I was afraid that I knew the answer. I had run to Mexico to see Jerry Elliot. I had built on one summer afternoon and, obviously, built upon sand.

  Who had sworn at me? Who had bruised my arm? Ordered me out of Mexico?

  Jerry Elliot.

  I saw his thin, intense face in my mind, remembered the ugly twist of his mouth as he shouted at me, the hard pressure of his hand on my arm.

  Hot tears slid down my face as the last tiny, hopeful twist of a dream crumbled to nothing. I swiped my hand against my face. I was abruptly consumed by fury. I was a living, breathing, seething mass of anger, disappointment, and outraged pride. So Jerry Elliot would send a gunman after me, make me run and stumble, fall, scrape my knees, ruin my dress, frighten me out of my wits. I began to run again, this time toward the Mercedes. I’d show him.

  Manuel was stretched out comfortably on the front seat of the car, drinking a beer. He obviously thought the señorita a little unhinged. I didn’t blame him. My dress was a mess, my legs and elbows scratched, my face flushed with exertion and anger.

  “Señorita, what is wrong?”

  I hesitated. I almost told him. But he wouldn’t believe me. I knew with a bitter certainty that no one would believe a gunman had stalked me on the Avenue of the Dead, that bullets had popped into the dust beside me. If I tried to tell the guards about it, they would think I was making it up. No one had seen me run and no one apparently heard the shots or an alarm would have been sounded.

  I spread my hands wide and shrugged. “I fell down. The ground is rough.” I made some attempt to brush the dust from my dress. I knew the brown stains would never come out.

  Manuel opened the back door for me.

  Before we started, I told him where I wanted to go.

  “Sí, señorita. The Museum of Anthropology. Sí.”

  I leaned forward, willing the car to hurry, though, in truth, Manuel certainly drove fast enough. Still I wished he went faster. All the way back to the district, I never wavered in my conviction that Jerry was responsible for every ugly thing that had happened to me since I arrived in Mexico. My first furious anger had hardened into implacable resolution.

  At the museum, I opened the door for myself, forestalling Manuel. I told him he need not wait. I would find my own way back to the Ortega house.

  I had no eyes for the beauty of the museum today, for the graceful sweep of the shining white steps. No eyes for the grace of the children, dark eyed and eager, as they played near the outside fountain.

  I pushed through the door, determined to face him. He couldn’t shoot me down in his office. I would effectively block any further attempts by his agent once I confronted Jerry.

  He was in his office and he obviously didn’t expect me. He looked up as I stepped inside. The immediate flicker of distaste on his face infuriated me.

  I closed the door behind me with a sharp, hard slam. “You certainly didn’t expect me, did you?”

  Before he could say anything, I rushed ahead.

  “You obviously think any means are justified to achieve what you think is important. But there are limits and you are damn well going to find out what they are. You picked the wrong person to lean on, buster.”

  He pushed back his chair and started to get up.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” I said angrily, “you needn’t stand for me. After all, your henchman just finished shooting at me. I think the time for any courtesies had passed.”

  He took off his glasses and watched me unblinkingly with his sharp blue eyes.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I agreed smoothly. “You don’t know a thing about somebody shooting at me on the Avenue of the Dead. Or the doll. Or the letter. Nothing at all.” I was so angry I could scarcely talk. “How stupid do you think I am? You are disgustingly self-righteous. I’d like to know what’s so fine about scaring someone with a gun; that’s what I’d like to know. If you do one more thing, just one, I’m going to the American embassy.”

  With that I turned and banged out of his office, slamming the door so hard it rocked in its frame, and ran down the hall. I was outside in the clear bright air, running past balloon vendors,
when I heard my name shouted.

  “Sheila, stop! Stop!

  I didn’t stop.

  I hurtled down the wide, shallow steps and plunged toward Reforma, three lanes each way and the cars moving so fast only a fool would cross without a light.

  I reached the center median. Horns squalled. Tires screeched. Then he was beside me, grabbing my arm. “Wait a minute. You’re going to get run over.”

  I yanked my arm away and ran on. There was a lull. Just time enough to cross.

  He had my arm again when we reached the other side. I pulled away and said through clenched teeth, “If you touch me once more, just once, I’ll scream.”

  He didn’t touch me again but he stayed right beside me, following me down an asphalt path into Chapultepec Park. I walked quickly past a kiosk with a green plaster top and bright orange-backed chairs. I hurried a little faster and turned onto the walk that skirted the soft green waters of the lake.

  I stopped and faced him where a huge boulder jutted out into the lake, narrowing the walk. “I’ll scream if you try anything.”

  He shoved a hand through his thick hair. “Dammit, will you relax.”

  I started to turn away, but he reached past me to touch the boulder and his arm barred the way. “Who shot at you?” he demanded.

  I glared at him. “Your man.”

  “Don’t be a fool. I’m an archeologist. Not the local Mafia chieftain.”

  “You threatened me yesterday. Warned me to get out of Mexico. The note at the airport didn’t work. Or the doll. Today you sent someone after me with a gun.”

  I ducked down, slipped under his arm. I was around the boulder, almost back to where the walk widened, when my sandal slipped on a wet rock. I stopped and stood on one foot to massage my ankle.

  He was right behind me and reaching out to help. I shook him off impatiently. “Thanks, I’ll do it myself.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  I faced him again.

  “It’s a little late for talk. But, if you’ll leave me alone, promise not to set me up for target practice, we’ll call it quits. I won’t complain to the embassy and you can pursue whoever is after your precious artifacts because, in case you still have any doubts, it isn’t me.”

  “It isn’t that easy.”

  I glared at him. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t send anybody after you with a gun.”

  “Oh, no, of course you didn’t.” I tried again to slip past him but this time he half pushed half pulled me off the path and plumped me down on a low stone wall and did a little glaring of his own.

  “Listen, Sheila, I lost my temper when I found you in my museum yesterday. We are pretty sure someone from a U.S. museum was in Mexico this week to pick up one of the most fabulous archeological treasures in the world. When Mexico customs told me you were at the Ortegas’, well, it had to be you.” His vivid blue eyes held mine, questioning, seeking. Slowly his face changed. “By damn, I don’t believe it’s you after all.”

  “No. It’s not me. So you can call off your dogs.”

  “If you aren’t the one . . .”—he spoke slowly, almost to himself—“why would anyone shoot at you? Unless, of course”—and his voice quickened with excitement—“they made the same mistake. That means . . .” His words fell away. He was figuring, thinking hard, and I didn’t understand any of it.

  “What are you talking about?” My voice was sharp and thin.

  Those blue eyes looked back at me, focused on me. He shook his head a little. “The Ortega Treasure, of course. Don’t you see, someone else thinks you are in Mexico to buy it. And they are willing to kill to stop you.”

  Chapter 10

  The Ortega Treasure.

  I suppose ever since that frightful scene yesterday in Jerry’s museum that I had expected something like this. Still, my heart twisted at his words. The Ortega Treasure.

  Jerry had me by the arm now and he was hustling me along the sidewalk. “You’d better get out of Mexico today. I’ll get you to the airport. You can tell me everything you know on the way.”

  I stopped, braced myself, and refused to move. “I’m not running away. Not for you or anyone.”

  His hand tightened on my arm. “By how far did the bullet miss you?”

  “Bullets,” I corrected. I remembered the ominous, chilling popping sounds and dust spurting near me. So near. I remembered the sound of the bullets and the savaged pieces of the doll on my bedroom floor. Fear squeezed air from my lungs. If it wasn’t Jerry Elliot’s man who had shot at me, who was it? Why?

  “Come on,” he commanded. “We’ve got to talk.”

  This time I didn’t pull away or hang back. He rented a rowboat, all the while watching sharply around us. Before we stepped in, he took off his coat and, without a word, handed it to me to hold. When we were settled in the boat, he rowed rhythmically and swiftly. The hair on his arms glistened like gold in the sunlight. He rowed easily and somehow that surprised me. But, of course, there were many things I didn’t know about Jerry Elliot.

  A dozen pulls on the oars and we were in the center of the shallow lake. There could not have been a more peaceful or private spot in all of Mexico City. The green water was as smooth as a pottery glaze.

  “All right, Sheila. Tell me everything.”

  I described my shock at that first light pop, my frantic scramble down into and up out of the depression, my breathless dash for the safety of the hills, and my relief at finding the parking lot. And then the man who half circled the Mercedes before riding off on his motorcycle.

  “He must be the one who shot at me.” I told of the gun in his hand and that he was the same man who had watched me from the shadows at the airport.

  Jerry shook his head slowly. “You certainly stirred up somebody. That’s very interesting.”

  “Interesting is one way to describe it,” I said dryly.

  Jerry, with characteristic single-mindedness, nodded in agreement. “Right. It puts everything in a different perspective. Of course,” he mused, “it’s probably all to the good that it happened. Otherwise, we might never have known there was a third party after the treasure until it was too late.”

  I looked at his attractively ugly face and knew that here was a man who had his priorities clearly in order and I surely had not made the ranking.

  “But you’ve made me waste a lot of time,” he said abruptly.

  I stared at him in disbelief. Then I sputtered, “There’s just no pleasing you, is there? Look, this boat ride isn’t my idea. I’ll be glad to be on my way.”

  He looked puzzled. “You take everything too personally.”

  “I don’t know how else I should respond.”

  “I meant that we’ve wasted a lot of time on you, checking up on you, thinking you were in Mexico to buy the treasure.”

  “I’m sure sorry.”

  “Yeah, so am I,” he agreed.

  I could cheerfully have strangled him.

  “We’ll have to adjust all our thinking,” he continued. “Let’s take it from the first so I can get everything clearly in mind. To begin, why are you in Mexico?”

  “I’ll be damned if I know,” I said bitterly.

  He didn’t understand that, of course.

  I spread my hands helplessly. “I almost mean what I said, Jerry. One day, about a month ago, there was a notice on our main office bulletin board. It announced a free trip to Mexico in exchange for delivery of a package for the museum.”

  He was watching me closely now. “Didn’t that seem odd to you?”

  I shook my head quickly. “Not at all. The Ortegas requested return of a manuscript they had loaned to the museum. The only reason I got to make the trip was because the request made Dr. Freidheim mad and he didn’t want anyone from the Mesoamerican section serving as the courier.”

  He wanted to know everything I could tell him about Karl Freidheim. It wasn’t much. Freidheim was second in the department. He was an autocrat.

  “Ambitious?” Jerry ask
ed.

  I shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t know much about him.”

  Jerry frowned. “That all sounds on the level. Why did the Ortegas want the manuscript back now?”

  “I don’t see how the manuscript has anything to do with a man shooting at me or some lost treasure,” I said irritably.

  “It must,” Jerry insisted. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Don’t you see? It’s all too pat. At the very time that we think an American museum is hooked up with the Ortegas to smuggle out a treasure, you show up with a manuscript as an excuse for a visit.”

  “But I’m not here to smuggle anything. It has to be a coincidence. Now it’s time for you to tell me what I’ve stumbled into. What treasure? How does a treasure link up with the Ortegas? And with my museum?”

  “Treasure,” he repeated softly. “It’s quite a word, isn’t it? You see pirate chests filled with shiny doubloons and a Jolly Roger flapping in the wind. It’s still an accurate picture. Every treasure brings out the pirates. The only difference today is that a rogue wears a well-cut suit and has soft hands and probably has a suite of offices with a Vermeer in the waiting room.”

  “What kind of treasure?” I looked at him skeptically.

  “The Treasure of Axayacatl.”

  It didn’t mean a thing to me.

  He smiled a little. “Mexican history isn’t your thing.”

  “No. I did a little reading before I came. Cortés arrived in 1519 and marched across the country, hunting for gold. Cortés moved into Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. Moctezuma deferred to him because he thought the bearded white man might be the god Quetzalcoatl returning. The Aztec people finally had enough of it and, after Moctezuma was killed, they drove the Spaniards out of their city. Cortés eventually came back and fought. Before it was over, most of the Aztecs were dead and the city was a heap of rubble.”