Curses!

by Aaron Elkins

  With a satisfied smile, Marmolejo carefully laid it on the table again and pointed at the head with his ballpoint pen, to a barely noticeable smear of white powder. “You can see where it hit the limestone when it missed your head."

  "Where did you find it?” Julie asked a little shakily. “Below the rampart of the ball court, at the far end, toward the Temple of the Bearded Man."

  Gideon nodded. “That's the direction he ran, all right. He must have tossed it off the wall. Have you gotten any fingerprints from it?"

  "Not yet, and I am not hopeful of finding any. Even if we did, what then? Many people must have handled it during the excavation."

  Julie stared at the big wrench, fascinated and pale. “It's heavy," she said. “My God, if that had hit you in the head, it would have—it would have..."

  "Like an eggshell,” Gideon said. “Well, that just about makes it a fact; it has to be one of the crew. The tools are all kept in the work shed."

  "So it would seem,” Marmolejo said. “Ah, here comes our dessert. How I love flan."

  * * * *

  For the next few days the dig continued almost as if nothing unusual had happened. Despite Gideon's and Julie's heightened perception, the crew seemed no more menacing than ever. They saw no secretive glances, no suspicious behavior. Nobody was slinking guiltily around. Worthy was Worthy, Leo was Leo, Emma was Emma. A little odd, some of them, maybe a little more than odd, but not a discernible would-be murderer among them.

  Marmolejo's protection turned out to be a soft-spoken, uniformed officer who accompanied the crew to and from Tlaloc and hung inconspicuously about the site during the workday. Others, in civilian clothes, were at the hotel in the evening. They were not only assigned to guard Gideon, but also to keep an eye on things in general, which they did quite unobtrusively. Abe had tried to put the uniformed one to work—as long as you're standing around with nothing to do"—but was politely turned down.

  As quietly efficient as they seemed to be, they failed to prevent the next phase of the Curse of Tlaloc from coming to pass. This time Gideon did not bear the brunt of it alone.

  At any time from 10:00 p.m. the following Monday night to 4:00 a.m. in the morning, according to their stories on Tuesday, every member of the staff was seized with acute attacks of diarrhea, some of which continued well into the morning. Several, including Julie and Abe, suffered intermittent cramps, and all were weakened and made uncomfortable, so much so that Abe called off the day's work.

  It was noon before the crew began to straggle out to join their pale and weakened fellows in sipping tentatively at cups of soup or tea on the veranda, and in talking about this latest evidence of the gods’ displeasure.

  For, of course, that was what Emma claimed it was, and if she didn't have her audience convinced, at least she had them passive and very nearly inert. Gideon, whose sturdy constitution had kept him from suffering too much, had gone downstairs to get a pot of manzanilla tea to bring up to Julie, who hadn't been so lucky, and while he was waiting at the bar for it he was able to overhear Emma holding forth.

  They were seated at the large table the group had more or less permanently appropriated as their own, and Emma seemed to be at the summing-up of her discourse. Nearby a jowly Mexican whom Gideon knew for one of Marmolejo's men sleepily cleaned his teeth with a toothpick and stared placidly at nothing.

  "Obviously,” Emma was telling the crew earnestly, “the curse is unfolding phase by phase, exactly as predicted."

  It was a measure of their suffering that no one took issue with her. Even Worthy, who would surely have risen to the challenge a day earlier, sat in opaque silence, looking as if he'd been pickled in brine for a week. Harvey, as wan and lusterless as a ghost, stared distrustfully into his soup. And Leo, with all the muscle tonus of a banana slug, slumped in his chair, focusing all his concentration on getting his cup to his lips. Preston, who would hardly have taken issue in any case, sprawled with his eyes pressed closed and misery grooved on his handsome, pallid forehead.

  Emma, who didn't look any better than the rest of them, continued: “First, the bloodsucking kinkajou was going to come, and it did. Second—"

  But, ill as he was, this was too much for Worthy after all. “Oh, for God's sake,” he said sourly, “everybody knows that was nothing but a joke. Are you suggesting the gods hung that placard around the poor creature's neck?"

  Harvey took heart from him. “And anyway,” he croaked, to set things straight, “it wasn't a kinkajou, it was a coatimundi. Julie said so."

  "That's right,” said Worthy. “Or don't your all-knowing gods know the difference?"

  "What matters is the projection of idea-constructions into our collective consciousness,” Emma replied with calm inscrutability. “The fabric of the physical reality is nothing. You have to take it as it comes, Harvey.” Apparently she had decided that Worthy was beyond help. “If you analyze everything, you just run into the Heisenberg principle."

  Naturally enough, this silenced her critics, and she was allowed to go on.” Second—well, you all know what happened to Dr. Oliver. Third, Tucumbalam was going to turn our entrails to fire—"

  "Urk,” Harvey said softly, and lay his forehead on the table.

  "—turn our entrails to fire and bloody flux—"

  At this Worthy shuddered, grew even grayer, and stood up. “Excuse me,” he said, and turned to leave, his arms clamped to his sides. Sweat glistened on his scant beard.

  Leo pushed open his eyes and tried to grin. “Hey, Worthy, how's it feel to have turista like everyone else for a change?"

  Worthy stopped to turn and stare at Leo. “All things considered,” he said soberly, “constipation is much to be preferred.” He broke into a constrained little jog toward his cottage.

  Emma went resolutely on. “And now we're up to the fourth phase. ‘Fourth, the one called Xecotcavach—’”

  Leo interrupted, shoving himself almost upright in his chair and looking thoroughly out of humor for once. “Emma, what is all this bullshit? Why don't you just burn some tofu or something to satisfy the gods, if you know so much about it? What do you want us to do, get out of here and go home, or what?"

  Emma glowered at him. “No, I don't think we have to do that yet. They don't really want to harm us, they want to teach us.” Her tongue darted over her lips. A dull flush stained her face, spreading upward from her throat into her cheeks. “You'll be interested to know that I think I've established a high-level flow of bio-psychic energy with a personage who calls himself Huluc-Canab. But,” she added modestly, “I can't be sure yet. Maybe it's only a past-life regression."

  "Hey, Emma, what are you, you a channeler or something?"

  The speaker was Stan Ard, who had been sitting unnoticed by Gideon at an adjoining table, a beer at his elbow and his notebook balanced on a heavy thigh.

  "I don't care for the word channeling," Emma said, preening at the sight of Ard's slowly moving ballpoint pen, “but, yes, I admit I've had some success at receiving mind-construct energy from personality entities on the other side of the physical-reality void."

  "Whoa,” said Ard, laughing and looking up from the notebook. “Personality which?"

  "Personality entities that don't meet our definition of material actuality,” Emma explained helpfully. “I visualize them as—"

  "Su te, senor," said the female bartender to Gideon.

  "Gracias," he said and signed the chit.

  She smiled. “Manzanilla tea is very good for what ails you,” she said in English.

  "Let's hope so,” Gideon said. “Would you happen to know if there's been a general outbreak of turista among the guests?"

  "No, senor, I don't think so. Only your party."

  "No problems with the hotel water supply?"

  "Senor," she said reproachfully, “this is the Mayaland. No doubt you ate somewhere else."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 14

  * * * *

  "No,” Abe said slowly
with a shake of his head, “everything I ate all week came from the hotel. You too, right? And Julie?"

  "That's right,” Gideon said. “So if it was something in the food, it had to come out of the hotel kitchen."

  Abe nodded. He was propped up in bed, fragile and sallow-cheeked, and looking disreputable, as old men in pajamas do when they haven't shaved. But he was hopping with restlessness, crossing and recrossing his thin legs, and poking irritably at the pillows stacked behind him.

  When Gideon had brought the tea to Julie, she had taken three swallows, sighed, given him a sweet smile, and slipped into a peaceful doze with her hand on his. Gideon had sat without moving until she had fallen into a deeper sleep, then carefully extricated his hand and gone to see how Abe was doing, stopping first at the bar to pick up a bowl of soup and some bread for him. When he'd seen him at about 10:00 a.m., Abe had been in no condition for food.

  "So what kind of soup?” Abe said with a listless gesture at the covered bowl.

  "So what kind should it be?"

  But Abe wasn't in the mood for this. “From an anthropologist I don't expect ethnic humor,” he snapped.

  "All right, it's chicken soup."

  Abe made a growling noise. “Also I don't expect rote adherence to outmoded stereotypes."

  "Wow, you're sure in a good mood. I'm really glad I came and cheered you up. Look, let's call it caldo de pollo, if that makes you feel better. And it's damn good therapy. It's bland, nutritious, easy to swallow; it can be tolerated even with digestive problems; it replaces fluids lost through dehydration; it—"

  Abe covered his ears and made a face. “All right, I'll eat the damn soup, all right?"

  Gideon took the cover off the bowl and set the tray on Abe's lap. “You're very welcome,” he said. “No need to thank me."

  Abe finally smiled tiredly and relaxed against the pillows. “Thank you very much, Gideon. I appreciate it. It was nice of you to think of it.” He brought a spoonful to his mouth and swallowed. “It's good,” he said. “I didn't realize I was hungry.” For a few seconds he ate in silence, visibly reviving.

  "You're right,” he said, “I'm not in my usual good-natured frame of mind this morning."

  "Really? I haven't noticed anything unusual."

  Abe smiled again. “No, I've been kvetching, all right, and it's not just because I'm sick.” He moved the spoon back and forth in the bowl, scowling down at it. “It's because we're all sick. Gideon, someone is trying to make it look as if the curse is real.” He waved a listless arm. “Sit down, will you?"

  Gideon brought one of the dark wooden chairs from the desk to the side of the bed, swung it around backward, and sat down, his forearms resting on the back. “Yes, Emma's just been explaining that to anyone who couldn't figure it out."

  "Unless, of course, the whole hotel got sick, which would throw a different light on things."

  "I already checked."

  "And it's just us?"

  "Just us."

  "That's what I figured.” He tore a tiny piece from a soft slice of white bread and chewed it, slowly and thoroughly. “You got any ideas how it was done?"

  "Well, it's obviously something we ate and nobody else did."

  "I agree. Isn't it wonderful to be scientists and come up with such terrific deductions?"

  "But I don't think it was Escherichia coli, or salmonella, or any of the other turista bugs. We're not sick enough."

  "Speak for yourself."

  "You know what I mean. Everybody seems to be on the mend already—including you—and as far as I know there hasn't been any vomiting or fever. Just some acute diarrhea and a little weakness and cramping; nothing serious."

  "Easy for you to say,” Abe grumbled. “But you're right; I'll live. So what do you think, somebody just slipped a laxative in our food?"

  "Looks like it."

  "To me too.” He handed Gideon the tray to place on a bureau. He had eaten most of the soup and half a slice of bread, and his cheeks had taken on some color. “So the question is, what did we eat yesterday that no one else in the hotel ate? Not breakfast, because we order that individually from the regular menu, and dinner is the same. So that leaves—"

  "Lunch, which is prepared at the hotel, boxed, and left in the bar—unattended—for us all to pick up in the morning. Anybody could easily have doctored it."

  Abe was shaking his head. “No, Preston and Emma make their own lunches from bee pollen or sunflower sprouts or whatever, and they were sick too.” He glanced sharply up. “So they said."

  "If they weren't, they were putting on a pretty good show, right down to the green complexions."

  They both did some more thinking, their chins on their chests. They looked up at the same time. “The juice!"

  Each morning at nine-thirty a busboy from the Mayaland bicycled to the site with an insulated three-gallon container of cold fruit juice, which was heavily used by the crew and remained all day on a table in the work shed. Unattended.

  "So how hard would it have been to slip a few spoons of cathartic into it?” Abe asked rhetorically. “Cascara sagrada, say. You could get it in an over-the-counter laxative and break up the tablets into powder."

  "We had unfiltered apple juice yesterday, didn't we?” Gideon asked. “Who'd notice if the cascara made it a little darker?"

  Abe blew out his cheeks in a sigh. “Somebody around here certainly has a wonderful sense of humor."

  "I can't help wondering if Emma's behind this,” Gideon said. “She's sure getting a lot of mileage out of it. Maybe she's giving her friend Huluc-Canab a little help from the other side of the physical-reality void."

  "But you don't think she was the one that attacked you."

  "No.” He paused, then added: “Not that I'd swear to it."

  "What about the coatimundi?"

  "No, that wasn't Emma. That was something different, a joke."

  "Maybe it was different, maybe it wasn't. When a lot of funny things are going on together, they got a way of turning out to be related. Goldstein's Theorum of Interconnected Monkey Business."

  Gideon smiled. “Could be."

  "Of course. Anyway, you're right about one thing.” For the first time a tiny sparkle glimmered in Abe's eyes. “It wasn't Emma who provided the coati. It was someone else."

  Gideon leaned over the back of the chair, his chin on his crossed forearms. “Okay, Abe, you know something I don't. Let's hear it."

  "Well...” Abe leaned comfortably back against the pillows, his hands behind his neck. “Since I had some time on my hands this morning I did some thinking, and I got to wondering about this coatimundi. What I wondered was, where do you find such a thing?"

  "They're native to this area. Julie says they're probably all over the jungle."

  "Sure, but how often do you see one? Ever? You think you could walk out in the jungle and catch one if you decided to play a little joke on the rest of us?"

  "Well, no. They're wild animals; they—okay, where do you get a coatimundi when you need one?"

  "Me, I'd call a pet shop,” Abe said, “which is what I did. It turns out there are two pet stores in Merida, and the first one I called, on Avenida Colon, said it was very funny but he had one for almost two months and nobody wanted it, and now I was the second norteamericano this week who wanted one."

  Gideon straightened up. “And you found out who the other one was?"

  But Abe liked to take his time coming to the punch line. The coati, he told Gideon, was ordered by telephone and delivered to Piste, which as it happened was the nearest village to the Mayaland, about a mile and a half away; a humble, somewhat tacky little crossroads that had become a center for tourists who couldn't afford or didn't want the Mayaland's luxury. The buyer had taken possession of the boxed animal at the bus stop, in front of the Mayan Cave Bar Disco ("English Spooken Here"), from which he left by taxi in the direction of the Mayaland. This was, Gideon should take note, late Tuesday afternoon, the day before the coati was discovered in the work s
hed.

  "And the name,” Gideon murmured, “of this mysterious gringo was..."

  "No, Senor Merino didn't get his name, but he could describe him: 'Un hombre con una barba de chivo.’”

  Gideon wasn't up to the Spanish. “A man with a what?"

  Abe's fingers tapped his chin. “A billy goat's beard."

  "Worthy?"

  Abe nodded. “You were right in the first place."

  The narration had wearied him. He lowered his frail arms and slid down on the pillows, closing his eyes for a few seconds. “Right now I'm a little tired, but in an hour I'll feel better. I'll get dressed and go and have a talk with him and see what's what. And tell him what's what,” he added.

  "Like hell you will,” Gideon said firmly. “You're staying in bed today. I'll talk to Worthy."

  "No,” Abe said, shaking his head, “I'll take care of it. It's my responsibility, not yours."

  "Then how about delegating it? I'll go see him right now. I want you to take it easy and get your strength back. Come on, Abe, be sensible."

  "Maybe you're right,” Abe said meekly, and Gideon looked at him with a stab of concern. Docility wasn't exactly his style.

  "Abe, I don't think it would be a bad idea to have the hotel doctor take a look at you."

  Abe dismissed this with a flap of his hand. “No, no. I'll drink liquids; I'll rest.” He closed his eyes again and settled himself down to sleep. “You'll see. I'll be fine."

  "All right,” Gideon said uneasily and stood up. “I'll drop by later and tell you how it goes with Worthy."

  "Check up on me, you mean,” Abe said wearily. “All right, thank you."

  Gideon had reached the door when Abe called. “Gideon?"

  "Yes?"

  Abe's hands were clasped tranquilly on his chest. His eyes were still closed. “If you brought another bowl of chicken soup I wouldn't say no."

  * * * *

  "Oh, all right,” Worthy said peevishly, “I'm the criminal; I admit it. I put the miserable beast in the work shed. It was just a joke."

  He dabbed his gleaming forehead with a handkerchief. “Couldn't we continue this later? I'm really not feeling my usual self."