Curses!

by Aaron Elkins

  It was always a hodgepodge, but when had he let it get into this condition? Julie was right; he was getting sloppy. The front of the bin was literally plugged with the rolled-up jacket, the poncho, and the Morris. When he finished today, he would take twenty minutes to clean the whole thing out and straighten it, then keep it that way, the way a professional should. This was ridiculous.

  It was also a little familiar. Wasn't it something he told himself most mornings? Well, maybe, but this time he meant it.

  As he tugged at the stuff blocking the front of the bin, the train of thought that had eluded him earlier came suddenly back to him. He remembered what he'd been thinking—or dreaming—about. It had been that scene at the bottom of the pyramid in 1982, after they'd come out of the temple, when Howard had assigned shifts for guarding the codex.

  "I'll take the first shift,” he'd told them, and Worthy would take it with him. “Be back at nine,” he had said to Gideon, and then with a smile: “Does that meet with your approval?"

  Now what was it that was bothering him about that? There was something there, something he was overlooking, something that kept tickling away at him. He paused with his hand on the wadded-up plastic poncho. “Be back at nine..."

  He shrugged and pulled. The poncho and jacket came loose abruptly; the heavy old volume of Morris thunked on the limestone floor, fortunately landing flat on its side. He reached into the bin only to find the interior stuffed with boxes, notebooks, loose tools, more clothing. What was all this junk anyway? Was that his hat? Had someone else run out of room and started using his bin? It was possible, he thought grouchily, but you'd think they'd notice it was already in use. There were other empty ones. He tossed the stuff out onto a work table and bent to peer inside, but the bins were awkwardly long and narrow—about eighteen inches high and wide, and almost three feet deep—and little light reached the back. Was that his instrument case wedged diagonally into the left-rear corner? Damn, he'd never have left it there like that; those things were delicate. And expensive. Somebody had been in here, fooling around with his things.

  Puzzled and annoyed, he reached in with his left hand. His fingers brushed the pebbled leather of the case but couldn't quite grasp it. Who had designed these bins? With an irritated sigh he set his body, jammed his shoulder against the bin's opening and inserted his arm as far as he could, stretching, wriggling his fingers, trying to get hold of the case. And then froze.

  Gideon was by no means slow-moving. He was athletic, his reflexes were sharp, and his mind was quick to react. Yet there were times when his analytical, left-brain-oriented intelligence outwitted him, using up precious milliseconds for thought or inquiry when he would have been better off letting his animal reactions take over.

  It was one of those times. When he felt the first twinge of pain, stinging but superficial, as if someone had pricked the side of his hand with a pin, his response was to stop and consider. A loose tool? The pruning shears? No, something smaller. A probe? Maybe, but—

  The second jab was sharper, not a stab as much as a pinch, and with it, astonishingly, there was an unmistakable tug. He jerked his arm out of the bin and something came out with it, hanging from just below the base of his little finger, squirming and wriggling. He flicked his hand, but the thing hung on, snapping violently from side to side like a loose spring. Shuddering, he whipped it against the framework of the bins, but still the snake held on, straight out of a nightmare, sinuous and muscular, its small, toothy mouth clamped tightly to his hand, chewing away. He whipped it against the wood again and then again, and at last it came loose, dropping to the floor with a fleshy smack. He thought it was dead, but it only lay stunned for a moment, a coiled, gleaming cylinder of red, yellow, and black, then came awake with a start, slithered rapidly out the doorway, and was gone.

  Gideon looked anxiously at his hand. All he could see were four or five inconsequential-looking pockmarks, as if a playful puppy had tried its sharp new teeth out on him. There were only a couple of welling droplets of blood and not much pain—no more than an insect sting, and already fading.

  Gideon scowled down at the hand. He knew next to nothing about snakes—wild animals were Julie's province, not his—but he knew enough, or thought he did, to know that a poisonous snake didn't chew on you; it struck with its sharp, hollow fangs and left two deep, distinct puncture marks, not a collection of frazzled little nicks like this one. The bite marks were one of the ways you told the difference between a snake that was venomous and one that wasn't. That much he remembered from his Boy Scout Handbook. And years before he'd had to incise and suck out the wounds of someone bitten by a rattlesnake, and the marks had been nothing like this.

  Still, it wasn't something to be ignored. Infections developed easily in this climate. He would have Plumm take a look at it when he'd finished here, but for the moment a little antibiotic cream and a Band-Aid were called for. The first-aid supplies were in a freestanding metal cabinet in the other room. He went there, surprised to find himself a little trembly and short of breath. Odd that the incident had shaken him up like this. Jarring, yes, but not as painful as all that, and it had only been a little thing, maybe fifteen inches long. Pretty too. It had probably been more frightened than he had.

  As he reached for the first-aid box on the highest shelf he stopped with a stifled intake of breath, convulsively hugging his arm to his chest. There was something terribly wrong. Without warning, his left arm, from elbow to shoulder, had burst into searing pain, as if someone had turned a blowtorch on it. He gasped from the astonishing, lacerating intensity of it and stared bewildered at his fingers. There was something the matter with them too; they were stuck together in a spastic muddle, crooked and misaligned, the thumb folding grotesquely down and in as he looked at it. All of it had happened with stunning suddenness.

  He realized abruptly that his lips had been tingling unnoticed for some seconds, and that his eyelids felt peculiarly weighted. Good God...,! He might not know much about snakes, but he knew the classic symptoms of neurotoxic paralysis, and he had them all and then some.

  Fifth, the beast that turns men to stone will come among them from the Underworld.

  Fangs or teeth or whatever the hell it had in its mouth, the damn thing was poisonous—and he was turning to stone.

  A new, colder layer of sweat oozed out on his forehead. He ought to stay quiet; movement would circulate the venom faster. But he had to get help fast. The toxin was working with incredible speed. Already the pain was less, which was a bad sign, not a good one. No, not less, but somehow distant, as if his arm were a separate entity enduring its own agony of fire, which was unfortunate but no concern of his. Poor old arm.

  He jerked his head, frightened. He was getting dopey. Drowsy too. He had to act quickly. Find Marmolejo? Call the guard? Where the hell was Julie? She knew all about snakebites. But she was with Abe, damn it, at that...at...wherever she was.

  With his right hand he brushed at the annoying sweat running into his eyes. Wasn't there something he was supposed to be thinking about?

  "I'll take the first shift...Be back at nine...Does that meet with your approval...?"

  No, there was more to it than that. The question was...the question was...

  He yawned. The question was what? He leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the cabinet. This was stupid. All right, let's see now, the question was...the question...

  He straightened with an alarmed, about-to-fall jerk. Had he nearly gone to sleep standing there? Small wonder. It was stuffy in the shed, and hot. Cramped. Idly he glanced at his watch. Eight-forty. A little early for a break, but he could use

  Eight-forty? But hadn't he looked at his watch only a few minutes ago? Hadn't it said seven-fifty-five? Puzzled, he looked again. Eight-forty. Where had three-quarters of an hour gone? Had he actually fallen asleep leaning against the cabinet? He felt stiff enough, that was certain; his legs, his back, his arms, his hands, even his jaw. Stiff and achy too. Interesting. The question was.
..and off he floated again.

  When he came out of it this time he was lying on the stone floor on his side, with his knees drawn up. The back of his throat was numb and clogged, and his chest felt as if it had a steel band around it. Breathing took effort, planning. Other than that, he felt comfortable enough. Quite relaxed, in fact; just a little chilly. That was certainly a welcome change. There was no pain. There wasn't much feeling of any sort to speak of.

  He yawned and felt a gob of saliva run out of his mouth and dribble down his cheek. Embarrassing. Why all this saliva? He tried to swallow it down, but his pharynx didn't seem to be working any better than the rest of him. And now he couldn't close his mouth again, or at least he thought it was still open, and he could feel the spittle sliding over his cheek. This was getting downright disgusting. What if Julie walked in and saw him slobbering like a hungry St. Bernard, for Christ's sake?

  But his mind was on another plane now, slipping free of his petrifying body and floating above him like a soap bubble, shimmering, clear, and wonderfully focused. He knew, in a vague way, that he almost had what he was looking for, that it was merely a matter of perspective, of filling in a piece or two.

  "Be back at nine..." Or was that quite what Howard had said? Hadn't he—

  A hand touched his shoulder. Marmolejo's face, shocked and rigid, was before him. How had he appeared so suddenly? Why did he look so awful?

  "What's the matter?” Gideon said anxiously. “Are you all right?"

  "What's wrong?” was Marmolejo's odd response. “What happened to you?"

  This was nonsense, meaningless, some silly game. Gideon didn't have the patience for it. He closed his eyes, trying not to lose the thought he'd worked so hard to capture. It was important for Marmolejo to know. “Inspector,” he said, “when Howard—when he told us to come back at nine—he—he—if you—"

  But his lips were impossibly stiff, his throat like clay. And he couldn't hear his own voice. Was he really speaking? Was Marmolejo really there? He tried to see. His eyes seemed to be stuck shut.

  "Inspector, listen—” He tried to speak, to shout, to explain. But he heard nothing except a dull, growing roar, felt no vibration of sound in his throat, sensed no listening presence.

  After a while he stopped. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the darkness blossoming and unfolding, like a flower in a slow-motion film. There was a terrific sinking sensation, not merely as if something inside him were falling, but as if the stone floor on which he lay, the entire work shed, had tipped, then plummeted over the edge of some immense pit. The crushing speed of the drop squeezed his chest until he knew his ribs were going to crack. Behind his closed and paralyzed lids the blackness expanded around him, as if he were a tiny, shrinking speck inside the starless, lightless universe of his own skull.

  Is my central nervous system shutting down? he wondered with detached interest. Is this death?

  Down he plunged, and down, and down, and down, and down.

  * * * *

  Grimly, Marmolejo waited at the back of the hotel reading room for the speeches to end. The eyes of speechmakers and crew darted frequently at him. They had been uneasy since he had come to fetch Julie, and they had no doubt seen, as he had seen, how her face had whitened when he'd told her what had happened, and how she'd swayed momentarily before collecting herself and going off with the officer. And he supposed his own face was making them nervous, too, if it showed what he was feeling.

  He was angry. Angry in a white-hot way that no policeman should be. Angry at himself for not understanding sooner; angry that he couldn't have headed it off before it came to this, to a good man's life hanging by a thread; angry at the cunning, clever, stupid killer behind it all; and angry, if the truth be told, that it took a semiconscious Gideon Oliver to figure it out and explain it to him.

  The speaker from Mexico City sat down. Another one stood up. Who knew how long this was going to go on? The hell with it; he wasn't going to wait any longer.

  He strode into the room, up to the table. The speaker's voice faded away. Everyone looked warily, expectantly up at him. Everyone except one person, with his back to Marmolejo, who kept his eyes blamelessly on the speaker. But a muscle in front of his ear worked rhythmically. Marmolejo put his hand on the thick shoulder. The man twitched.

  "Senor,” Marmolejo said formally, “will you come with me, please?"

  Leo Rose tried to look surprised. He forced his mouth into what Marmolejo believed was referred to as a shit-faced grin.

  "Sure,” he said with empty brightness. "Bueno-bueno."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 23

  * * * *

  He wasn't falling anymore. He had bottomed out and was beginning to rise. No, he had been rising for a long time now, floating gently and serenely up out of the blackness. The awful pressure was gone from his chest. He could breathe again.

  He was on his back, lying on something soft, his head and shoulders raised. A bed? He made an effort to open his eyes. Nothing happened. They felt as if they were stapled shut. Was he paralyzed? He tried flexing his hand. and felt fingernails touch palm. That was nice. Something worked anyway.

  Slowly—he was very tired—he raised his left hand to his face. It flopped against his nose as if it were asleep. He slid it over his cheek, managed with a few wrong turns to find his left eye, and with a finger pushed up the eyelid and held it there. The light made him wince, but how strangely, charmingly familiar everything looked: sturdy wooden chairs, pottery water jug on the table, solid walls, clean-cut planes, straightforward right angles. Everything was so wonderfully real and three- dimensional. He was in their hotel room and, yes, he was in bed. He could look down the length of his body. The pale-blue sheet covering him was pristine and unwrinkled, with crisp, straight creases where it had been folded. However long he'd been there, he'd been lying like a statue. He flexed his toes and was gratified to see the corresponding lumps under the sheet move accordingly.

  He tried to look to the side but his eyeballs didn't work as well as his toes. He could turn his head, however, and when he did he saw Julie in one of the wooden armchairs, staring dully at the floor, her black hair unkempt. Behind her, the rose-colored light slipping in layered streaks through the louvered door was early-morning light, no later than six-thirty. A whole day gone by? Had she been up all night with him?

  His arm felt like jelly. Keeping it up was too difficult. He lowered it. The eyelid plopped shut.

  "Hi,” he said. What came out was a croak.

  He heard her start. “It speaks,” she said cheerfully. “It moves.” But he had seen the strain in her eyes, the pallor and fatigue in her face. He tried to tell her he was all right, but this time his tongue wouldn't work at all.

  "Don't try to talk,” she said. Her cool hand was on his wrist. “Dr. Plumm says you'll be fine."

  Dr. Plumm? Was he sick, then? Was that why his eyes didn't work? What was the matter with him, anyway? Like an automobile engine that had lain unused in a garage for a long time, his mind turned over, ticked, and coughed sluggishly to life.

  He had gone to the site. He had stopped off at the work shed...

  "Leo!” he cried. Another croak. “Julie, tell Marm—"

  "Sh. Don't worry. They have him."

  Have him? Who has him?

  He must have said enough of it aloud to be understood. “Inspector Marmolejo arrested him,” she said. “He's in jail in Merida. The inspector says you're brilliant."

  "You mean I really told Marmolejo about it? I thought I was dreaming.” That was what he tried to say, but it was too complicated to get out, and he gave it up halfway through.

  "Sh,” she said again. “Rest now. We can talk about it later."

  He managed to pat the back of her hand—reassuringly, he hoped—and relaxed against the pillows. How about that? All the time he'd thought he was shouting soundlessly into that roiling black vacuum, Marmolejo had really been there, listening to him. And not only that, Gi
deon must have been right.

  "Be back at nine,” Howard had told them at the base of the pyramid. Only not quite. He'd begun to say it, all right, but he'd interrupted himself. “What time is it now?” he'd asked, and that was the missing piece Gideon had been searching for ‘without knowing it; the piece that didn't fit.

  Because if Howard had asked the time, it meant that he hadn't been wearing a watch, and if he hadn't been wearing a watch, then the broken one lying under the skeleton-wrist on the stairwell couldn't very well have been his. And if it wasn't Howard's, then whose was it?

  Earlier Gideon had spent a lot of time wondering what it was that he and Stan Ard had had in common. There had, after all, been attempts on only two lives: Ard's (successful) and his (close enough). Why? Why Ard and Gideon in particular, and no one else?

  Once he'd realized that the watch in the stairwell wasn't Howard's, the answer had been obvious. His mind had gone back to the interview with the reporter on the veranda. Ard had asked Gideon how he'd happened to know that the stairwell ceiling had begun to give way at exactly 4:12 p.m. Gideon hadn't been able to remember at first, but then he'd recalled. He knew, he'd told Ard, because he'd noticed later that Leo Rose's watch, broken in that first shower of rocks, had stopped at 4:12 p.m.

  And then, having told him, he'd called Leo over and blithely repeated it in front of him. Leo had laughed pleasantly and gone into his waterfront-flexivilla spiel, but he'd been aware from that moment that Gideon and Ard knew something he couldn't permit anybody to know—not when Howard's body was going to be turned up any day. And when it was, there was going to be a broken watch near it. And that watch was going to say 4:12 p.m.

  There hadn't been any way Gideon could be certain of all this, of course, but it had been a reasonable guess: if you find a watch with a snapped band next to the body of a murdered man, and it isn't his own watch, then—as any observant cop would point out in a flash—it could very well be the murderer's, broken and pulled off in a struggle. Ordinarily, murderers took pains not to leave such things lying around. But if the victim had been knocked to the foot of a stairwell by a sledgehammer, and if that flailing hammer had then accidentally slammed into a weakened prop and dumped five or ten tons of rubble down on the body, then retrieving a watch would be a bit of a problem. As would be anything else under the debris—such as a priceless Mayan codex.