The Arraignment pm-7

by Steve Martini

“There is one last thing,” he says. “Do you have a scrap of paper, anything small, something to write on?” He has a pen in his hand.

  I fish through my pants pockets and come up with two wrinkled and tattered scraps of pink paper. I give one of them to Ibarra.

  He flattens it out on the hood of the car, turns it over to the blank side, and starts drawing, small fine lines. “When you drive in, you pass the restaurant. A white building with a flat roof. You turn left into the parking area. The visitor’s entrance is here.” He puts an X on the map. “There are some large trees. There will probably be a rope across there. You just go under it.

  “Once you are inside, you will have to be careful or you will get lost. It is like a maze. There are many paths, some of them going off into the jungle.”

  He draws my attention back to the diagram. “You will walk maybe a hundred meters from the entrance and the path goes to the right. You stay on it,” he says. “A little ways beyond that, you will see some ruins called La Iglesia, it means church.” He marks it on the map. “There will be stone platforms at different levels in front of it and stairs going up. You pass through the plaza. You will see buried ruins all around you. Here you go left, go maybe fifteen, twenty meters, and on your right you will see the opening to the ball court. It is a flat, open area, long and narrow with slanting walls of stone on each side. There is a stone hoop sticking up out of the walls. You pass through the ball court, and you will come to an area where there are bicycles parked.” He circles it on the little map. “Tourists rent them to ride the paths. Don’t take one. Just walk, otherwise you will get there too quickly. We won’t be in place. When you get to the bicycles, there will be paths going in different directions. Three, maybe four.” He draws these with the pen. “You must take the path that goes to your right.” He points with the tip of the pen to the junction. “That will take you to Las Pinturas. It is maybe three or four hundred meters. You will see the ruins, a small pyramid with a square stone structure on top. There are palm leaves over the roof of the structure. You can’t miss it. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Here, you take this.” He hands me the slip of paper, then I climb into the car behind the wheel and roll the window down.

  “What time have you got?” he says.

  We check our watches.

  “You have plenty of time. Remember,” he says, “you give us at least ten minutes head start before you leave from here.”

  “Got it.”

  He closes the door. “We will be there,” he says. “Good luck.” Then he turns and runs back to the other cars.

  Car doors slam one after the other. Then the tires of the two sedans and the limo grind gravel, racing by me on the road heading west.

  Within seconds, their taillights disappear around a curve.

  I sit with the window down, listening to the sounds of dawn in the jungle, the chirping and screeching of some distant animal, the humming wings and clicking of insects.

  I take another look at the little map on the pink paper, fold it in half, and slip it into the pocket of my jacket. I give them twelve minutes just to be safe.

  Three miles up the road, I see the sign with an arrow pointing to a turnoff, white letters on a blue background: Villas Arqueologicas Coba.

  I take the turn to the right. After a few miles, the road turns to dirt, and moments later I see the restaurant, a two-story building with a flat roof and a second-story veranda. Jutting out from under the railing on the veranda is a slanting palm-covered roof sheltering outdoor tables and chairs.

  Straight ahead is a large body of water, a lake, with high grass along the edges. Ibarra has warned me, if I have to move quickly into the jungle, to try and stay clear of any wetlands. Mexican crocodiles may be an endangered species, but they have been known to eat dogs and small children and, on a rare occasion, tourists.

  The road curves left in front of the hotel, and a few hundred feet up I pull into the parking area. It is flanked by a few small structures, mostly stucco, small curio shops, and next to it a small square building with a palm-thatched roof, the ticket booth at the entrance.

  Beyond this, a path leads in to the archeological area. It passes between two large trees, curling bark hanging from gnarled trunks that look as if they might have been standing when the last Mayan ruler walked between them and turned out the lights. There is a rope suspended between them.

  I pull up and park in front, turn off the engine, and check my watch. I have twenty minutes to get to the area around the Las Pinturas. By now Ibarra and his people should be getting close, checking for Arturo’s men hiding in the bush and taking up positions on them.

  I pick up the wrapped package from the seat, get out and head toward the entrance, quickly slip under the rope, and head up the path.

  The walkway is uneven. Ruts in the sandy soil, crossed by ridges from shallow-rooted trees, force me to watch my step. What little light there is at this hour is filtered through the foliage overhead.

  I pass a display under a thatched roof to my right and climb a small rise. Then the path heads down, a gradual slope, and goes to the right. On either side of the path are symmetrical mounds, gentle rises with small stunted trees and saplings growing out of them, sending up shoots like hair on a beast. These are busy laying down more shallow roots, some of them winding like snakes into the crevices of rock outcroppings.

  Under the trees and on the sides of the mounds, the ground is littered with stones, their edges rounded by erosion, their shapes too balanced to be formed by nature. Everywhere I look, I can see small hills, bumps in the jungle, Mayan ruins still buried.

  Thirty feet on, I come to an opening, the plaza, what Ibarra called La Iglesia. It is a large pyramid with several terraced levels in front and steep crumbling steps leading to the top. As a tourist attraction in the U.S., it would be a lawyer’s dream.

  I pass through the plaza and go left. Suddenly I’m lost.

  I stop and find the pink paper diagram in my pocket and peer at it in the dim light. Ibarra has written the words “ball court” in tiny letters.

  I turn slowly, a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree pirouette. Then in front of me, against the sharp edges of stone, I see the silhouette of a curving shape in the distance. It is a stone hoop on the diagonal wall of the ball court.

  I check my watch, pick up the pace, and jog through the court, an amphitheater of smooth stone on each side.

  Sixty yards on, through the dim light the path levels out and opens into a wide area under a grove of larger trees. I see twenty or more bicycles parked here, some of them leaning against the trees and others lying on their side, a few of them upright with kickstands down.

  So far everything on Ibarra’s little diagram is accurate. I keep walking and shift the package under my arm to the other side. As I do this, I rub the fabric over my jacket pocket and feel the hard edges of the pistol inside.

  I am hoping that I won’t need it. Still the heft from the metal tugging at my pocket offers the possibility that I can defend myself if I have to.

  “Senor.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The voice coming from behind stops me dead in my tracks. My heart pounding; if he doesn’t shoot me first, I will still lose half a year of life.

  In the dim light I turn, no time to reach for the pistol in my pocket. Half lost in the shadows behind a tree, I can see the slight figure of a man sitting on what appears to be a large tricycle. It has two wheels in front with a small seat over them and a single wheel in back.

  He pedals out of the shadows. His eyes seem to be riveted not on me as much as the cloth-covered package I am carrying under my arm. He gestures with a hand toward the seat in front of him, an invitation for me to get on.

  I shake my head. “No thanks.” I start to turn.

  “Senor.” This time he is more insistent. The message is clear. There is a reason he is here at this early hour. He has been sent to collect me.

  He is wearing a thin
cotton shirt and jeans, worn running shoes, sockless where I can see his brown ankle above the foot resting on one of the pedals.

  If he is armed, he has hasn’t shown it, and there are no bulges in his clothing. Ibarra warned me not to take a bike to the site. But by now he and his men should have had plenty of time to get in position.

  I could simply turn and walk away, take my chances. But from the look in his eye, I suspect he would follow me, clattering along behind on the bike like a cowbell telling everyone in the bush where I was. No doubt they have paid him for the ride, probably more than he makes in a week pedaling tourists through the jungle. Now he feels compelled to perform the service.

  “Why not?” I step toward the contraption.

  He nods and smiles, gesturing toward the seat as I climb up and sit down.

  I hold the package in my lap as he pedals through the clearing, picking up speed on the slight downgrade, then takes one of the paths to the right, stands up, and his legs begin pumping in earnest.

  We bounce along the trail, level as a tabletop, not quite as smooth, listening to the balloon tires as they crunch over the decomposed limestone. The tricycle splashes through a puddle of standing water, and one of the tires sprays muddy water up onto the seat. I try to shield it with an arm but too late.

  He laughs and says something in Spanish, but I don’t understand him.

  “Just a second. Hold on a second.”

  He continues pedaling.

  “Stop.” What’s the word? “Pare.”

  “Que?”

  “Pare.”

  “Si.”

  Slowly he brings the bike to a halt as I feel through my jacket pocket for the slip of paper with Ibarra’s diagram. I unfold it and try to make out the squiggles and lines in the dim light. Then I see the words “far right.”

  “We went the wrong way.”

  “ Que?”

  “We took a wrong turn. Back there.” I wave with my arm back over his shoulder. “We were supposed to go to the right. The far right.” My voice projects volume to compensate for the lack of language skills. I turn all the way around on the seat and point back over his shoulder. “The other way,” I tell him.

  “Donde?”

  “There.”

  “No,” he says. “Por aqui,” and he points down the path in front of us.

  “The Door to the Temple of the Inscriptions is that way,” I tell him.

  “No.” He shakes his head, stands up, and starts pedaling again. “Por aqui.”

  “Stop.”

  He ignores me.

  I try to step off, but he picks up speed so that one foot drags on the ground.

  “Senor.” His voice is harsh now, angry.

  I look back over my shoulder and he shakes his head at me. “Por aqui.” He nods in the direction we are going.

  I get the message. He’s saying it’s this way. Whoever has sent him has given him precise instructions. I could drag both feet, stop the bike, and get off. Use the pistol to get rid of him if I have to. But then I would never find Adam. They would kill him, if they haven’t already. Of course they will kill both of us the minute they open the package and see what’s in it. Ibarra’s plan was never to allow them to get that close. I was to see Adam. Have them bring him into the open. One of their marksmen would take out whoever was holding him, and at that same instant I was to throw the package into the underbrush and follow it.

  In the confusion, Ibarra’s men wearing flak vests were to grab Adam and pull him behind cover.

  Now I grind my teeth as we ride. The only certain security is the tiny Walther in my pocket. Each turn of the wheels puts more distance between Pablo Ibarra’s men and me. Herman was right. Whoever planned this planned it well.

  I look down at the pink scrap of paper folded over in my hand. It’s one of the telephone slips Harry brought down from the office. On the form-printed side is the message. I recognize Marta’s handwriting.

  It’s strange how in moments of crisis, familiar things offer the illusion of comfort.

  I’m rumbling through the jungle on a three-wheeled bike, sitting in front of a crazy Mexican who is probably delivering me to my death, and all I can think about is Joyce Swartz, the name on the line. I can hear Joyce’s raspy voice over the phone, the muddle of her words, the cigarette dangling from her lips as she talks.

  I stare at the slip in a daze, reading words, unable to decipher the message as the vibration of the bike shivers my vision and rattles my teeth.

  Suddenly the rhythm of the wheels begins to slow as he stops pedaling and coasts. I look up and we roll to a stop in the middle of nowhere. The white limestone stand of the path narrows into the distance ahead, then disappears around a curve. He has covered at least a mile, maybe more, from where the bikes were parked. Now he motions for me to get off.

  “Where? Donde?”

  “Aqui.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Aqui.”

  “Here. You want me to stay here?”

  “Aqui.” Then he motions down the path with one arm, as if he’s waving me away.

  I pick up the package and step off the bike.

  He swings it around in a wide arc, turns, and heads back.

  I stand in the middle of the path, watching him until I can no longer hear the rattle of metal. I lose him as the bike recedes into the distance, swallowed by the edges of jungle as the path disappears.

  I turn and look the other way. There is nothing but a narrow strip of white in both directions, like a single thread running through a cloth of green. The man on the bike pointed in that direction, so I begin to walk, staying along one edge of the path near the underbrush to make myself no more of a target than necessary.

  Tucked under one arm is the package. Suddenly I stop and look around. Every bush and tree along the path looks like every other one. Still it’s better than delivering a package of empty hopes to men with guns.

  I break a branch from one of the bushes to mark the spot, and then I set the package behind an outcropping of stones a few feet off the road. Its absence and my knowledge of its location give me something to bargain with, if only to kill time in hopes of finding an opening. If they don’t see it on me and they’re smart, they won’t shoot me at least until we talk.

  I step back out to the path, still carrying the little slip of paper in one hand. There’s no way to tell the distance to the spot where Pablo Ibarra’s men are waiting since the diagram conforms to no scale. Besides, having ridden through curves and around bends on the front of the bike, I have no sense of direction.

  I’m about to ball up the note and toss it into the brush when my eye catches a word on the other side. The word “Capri.” Without the jarring motion of the bike I read the cryptic message written by Marta and handed to Harry, along with other messages, in an envelope.

  “Joyce says Jamaile owned one piece of property. The land under the old Capri Hotel.”

  I stand there for a moment, my eyes on the slip of paper, weary, unable to focus. I start to walk slowly down the path, thinking Nick owned Jamaile and Jamaile owned the Capri, the greasy spoon downtown where we had coffee that morning.

  I look up and step a little closer to the bushes on one side as I walk. What does it mean? None of it makes any sense. If Nick owned a chunk of land downtown, why didn’t Dana know about it, or Margaret in the divorce? Nick was broke. What was he doing looking at empty offices in San Francisco and New York, dealing with Metz and the Ibarra brothers to broker a piece of history worth millions? Certainly he would get a fee, but…

  Suddenly I stop. My heart skips. I turn and start to walk quickly in the other direction. A few steps and I start to run, looking back over my shoulder, headlong down the path.

  The broken branch pointing the way to the package is just ahead, when he steps out from the green foliage on the other side of the path ten feet in front of me. Adam is holding a pistol pointed at me.

  “Where are you going in such a rush?”


  I stop, look at him breathing heavily, then bend and put my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

  “And here I thought you were coming to save me,” he says.

  “You killed them. Nick, Metz, Espinoza, Julio.”

  “No. No. There you go, jumping to conclusions. Actually I didn’t have anything to do with Espinoza. I didn’t even know about him until you told me. In fact the sheer volume of things I didn’t know overwhelms me.

  “And as for Nick and Metz, I didn’t pull the trigger if it makes you feel any better. Though you could say I did set matters in motion. Some people out of Tijuana actually. The world has become an awful place. For enough money they don’t even want to know who you are. I have to say they did a better job than the two idiots in the airplane. I didn’t like that whole idea, but they insisted. By the way, if you don’t mind my asking, how’s Harry?”

  “He’s going to be fine.”

  “I see. That could be a problem. You see, I couldn’t be sure how much he knew, so I thought it would be best if he were invited to join us.

  “You actually came here thinking you were going to meet the two brothers. I must say I did a bang-up job in a short period of time. You like the outfit?” His clothes are covered in dirt, one knee is torn out of his pants, and there’s a bruise on the side of his face.

  “All part of the preparations,” he says. “You can imagine my panic when Harry dropped that bit about Nick’s handheld computer over dinner. We probably would all be getting on the plane about now, flying back to San Diego if I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Why?”

  “Why don’t you turn around get down on your knees? Now,” he says.

  I do it.

  “That’s it. Now put your hands out in front of you on the ground and lie down. Spread your arms and your legs and don’t move. That’s good.”

  Adam steps forward, presses the muzzle of the pistol into the small of my back, and starts patting me down.

  “Hell, I couldn’t be sure what was in Nick’s little computer. And you kept keeping secrets from me.”

  He feels along my side, the small of my back, then the other side. “God knows what other little morsels you know that I don’t. It wouldn’t do to get us all home and have the police suddenly find some piece left behind by Nick that sends their magnetic dial pointing in my direction.”