The Girl in the Glyphs
Page 16
No layers of fog either, or stench of decaying things.
We paddled slowly into the reeds, speaking in hushed tones. Tan drew back at the sight of a water snake. Niro slapped at mosquitoes. Monkeys howled, and a gull swooped low over the inlet. The boat scraped bottom, and once more I hopped out, my heart in my throat, my stomach queasy, half expecting to be set upon by buzzards. Or Fuentes’ ghost.
Only a breeze off the lake, the rumble of thunder, and the cawing of birds.
“Creepy,” Niro said. “You sure nobody lives out here?”
“Nobody. It’s uninhabited.”
“What about wild animals, tigers and lions?”
“This ain’t Africa,” Tan said. “All they got is jaguars, boa constrictors and man-eating crocs.”
“You fucking kidding me?”
“Oh, stop it,” I said, “the only thing out here that’s dangerous is chichicaste.”
Niro brandished his machete like a sword fighter, said “en garde” and slapped it against Tan’s rear. Tan went after him with his machete and the two of them circled each other like kids, clashing their machetes, ducking, laughing and weaving.
“Enough,” I said. “You’re wasting energy.”
“You need to loosen up,” Tan shot back. “Have a little fun.”
Rainy season had turned the area between the lagoon and the cave into a larger swamp than before, forcing us to take a circuitous route. Tan trudged along like a man on a mission, but Niro kept tripping and cursing, stopping now and then to light a cigarette.
“How much farther?” he asked, wheezing.
“Almost there.”
At last, sweating and exhausted, we stood before the wall of vines. The entrance I’d chopped earlier was covered with fresh growth. Again I looked all around. At the place where the body had lain. At the boulder where I’d propped the AK-47. At the trees where buzzards had alighted. No blood, no drag marks, no buzzards.
Tan reopened the entrance, disturbing as little vegetation as possible. I drew in a deep breath, said “God, give me courage,” and stepped back into the cave of my nightmares.
The musty, barnyard stench was exactly as I remembered. So were the sights—the grotesque stone sentinels on both sides, the human skull, the bat droppings, none of which helped my stomach. There was even a candle I’d overlooked in my haste to leave, but no signs of a struggle, not even an echo of my cries. It was as if it had happened a long time ago to someone else.
Tan mumbled something about the statues and stepped forward with his flashlight, but stopped at the sight of the skull. “The hell, Jennifer? That somebody you killed?”
“No, Tan…and stop calling me Jennifer.”
I stepped to the rear and pulled back creepers where I’d worked before, illuminating the glyphs with my light. There she was—Glyph Girl.
Niro crowded in behind me, reeking of cigarettes. “What is it?” he asked in a whisper.
“Ceramic plate. They painted and fired it somewhere else. I’m guessing this was a temple. See all these abstract symbols, the celestial bodies and signs. It’s a text, pre-Mayan writing. We’re going to photograph the entire wall. But first we’ve got to clean off the growth.”
“How high up does it go?”
“Don’t know. We’ll need to build a scaffold.”
“You got peons coming in to do that?”
“No, Niro, we’ll do it ourselves. Go cut us some bamboo.”
“In this heat? I’m a photographer, not a laborer.”
I glared at him. “Fine, go sit on a boulder and smoke a cigarette. I came here to work.”
Tan punched him on the shoulder. “Come on, boy, I ain’t cutting bamboo by myself.”
It rained most of the day. Niro grumbled at each load of bamboo, saying Jesus didn’t suffer as much. Tan told him to shut up. They bantered and argued until I thought they’d come to blows, but by late afternoon, we had a serviceable scaffold, a floor made from bamboo stalks, and lanterns that hung from bamboo stakes.
Niro picked up the skull and wiped it off. “We should take that back to the cabin,” he said. “Use it for a candle-holder.”
“No, Niro, nothing gets removed, not without permission of the Nicaraguans.”
“You think that lady’s gonna come here?”
“I’m hoping she’ll show up at the cabin.”
Water dripped. The lanterns cast spooky shadows on the walls. I poked around in the muck with a stick, searching for Father Antonio’s treasure. Ridiculous, I thought. Why would he hide gold in this smelly place? Why not in his back yard?
“The hell you looking for?” Tan asked.
“Nothing in particular. Just wondering about the original floor.”
Niro ground out a cigarette with his foot and lit another. “I’m gonna write a book about this place,” he said, smoke escaping his mouth and nostrils.
“What kinda book?” Tan asked.
“A thriller. I’ll entitle it…oh, Princess of the Glyphs. Whataya think?”
“It’s title, asshole. Entitle means you’re entitled to something, like Social Security.”
“Oh, so now you’re gonna teach me Louisiana English?”
“No, just saying you gotta be literate to write a book. Also gotta have a plot.”
“Plot’s easy. See, here’s the way I figger it. A Smithsonian archaeologist discovers the cave. Gotta be a woman. Somebody like…oh, Jennifer.”
“Maria,” I said.
“Whatever. Anyhow, she expects to find a text. Instead she sees that old statue over there, half human, half alligator. She goes over, pulls on its dick, and the statue swings sideways, revealing a secret room. It’s filled with gold and emeralds—Inca treasure.”
“Maya,” Tan said. “Incas were in Peru.”
“You’re missing the point, Tan. Anyhow, for the book to be good, you gotta have hostile natives. You know, beating drums, flaming arrows, dancing girls. Someone like…Leocadia.”
“What about Nacho?” Tan said.
“Christ, Tan, you got all the romance of a junkyard whore. This is serious—”
“Rain stopped,” I said. “Let’s go. You can write your book later.”
They wanted to hop in the boat and leave. No, I told them, we weren’t going anywhere until we camouflaged the trail behind us. Which led to another dispute, them saying no one would come to such a dismal place, me arguing we couldn’t take that chance. I won, and as an final measure, we barricaded the entrance with broken tree limbs.
Rosario was not at the cabin as I had hoped. Tan and Niro stripped to their drawers, plunged into the lake, and began tossing a coconut back and forth. It wasn’t a pretty sight, so I took a shower, changed into shorts, and strolled outside with my binoculars.
In spite of myself, I took a long look at Ana Maria Island with its cabin, sandy white beach, and swaying palm trees, leaning this way and that.
Come on over, they seemed to say.
Why not? If I could see the place up close, walk where I’d walked with Alan, then maybe, just maybe, I could put him behind me.
I strapped on the Beretta and headed for the boat house.
Chapter 50
Ana Maria Island
The crossing took only minutes. The sun—what little I could see of it—was almost on the horizon, casting fuzzy shadows beneath the trees. I looped around the island, drifted into the landing, and found myself back at the place of dreams gone bad.
Everything looked painfully the same: the bougainvillea, the mango and coconut trees. Even the same smells. Our love hammock was still stretched between two palms. How many times had we lain there together, listening to salsa, making love?
I sat on the hammock and imagined Alan beside me, running his hand over my stomach, pouring wine on my breasts. Licking it off. Tears welled up. Above me, the breeze whistled through the fronds, his voice on the wind.
If I died now, at this moment, I’d die as the happiest man in the world.
I wiped my eyes and strol
led toward the cabin, passing the campfire site. Portions of the videos I’d burned were still visible, all curled and shriveled. But the ashes looked fresh.
Fresh?
Had Alan been here recently? I kicked over the trashcan.
Out came empty wine bottles, sanitary napkins, paper plates, and used condoms.
A stab of pain shot up my middle. How could he? I crunched through the sand to the mango tree, dug out the key, and headed for the front door. I was Colombo. I was Chief Medical Examiner Scarpetta and, by God, I was going to find out who he was fucking!
The drone of an approaching boat snapped me out of it.
What was wrong with me? I was like an alcoholic—one drink and fall off the wagon.
I returned the key, retreated to the outboard, and raced back to the Isle of Thieves, hoping to see Rosario. Instead it was Leocadia and Nacho, puttering in for their evening visit.
Leocadia held up a plastic bowl. “Look. Gallo pinto—chicken and rice.”
She was dressed in cut-off jeans and a skimpy tank top with the word LOVE across the front. She had also fixed herself up with lipstick, mascara, and enough perfume to take out a swarm of mosquitoes. No bra either. Lose a few pounds, I thought, fix that hair, get into a nice gown and she’d be as pretty as those women at the Spanish Embassy party.
Which brought back another painful memory.
Nacho headed to the boat house. Leocadia followed me up the path and into the kitchen with her bowl, breasts bouncing. “Find any interesting plants?” she asked.
A test, I thought. Someone had told her to put us to the test.
I dumped her chicken and rice into a pot, got the burners going, and headed for the front room where I’d stashed our fake samples, a worthless collection of leaves and bark in plastic baggies.
“Here they are,” I said. “See these numbers. They’re codes.”
She took a baggie and examined it closely. “This is plain old bamboo.”
“No, mija, this is Podocarpus macrophyllus nicaraguense. We’re going to test it in a laboratory. It could be the latest cure for cancer.”
She sniffed the baggie, mumbled something I didn’t get, and headed back to the kitchen.
Satisfied, I put away the baggies and was back in the kitchen when Niro burst in—diamond stud on one ear, Hawaiian shirt open to the waist, a furry chest of white hair, a dangling gold chain and slicked-down hair. He also smelled like he’d bathed in cologne.
Worse, he reached out and touched Leocadia’s cheek. “Qué señorita más bella. Qué señorita más linda. Come with me. Ven, ven. Let me show you something.”
Leocadia smiled and batted her lashes. Surely she wasn’t that naive. Surely she wouldn’t fall for that line. But she giggled, abandoned the stove, and followed him out of the kitchen and through the front door, setting off the dinging bell. A few seconds later, their voices came through the kitchen window, Niro speaking a mixture of Italian and Spanish:
“You are like a woman in a painting, a beautiful flower, a…”
“You have cigarette?” she said in her little girl’s voice.
I pushed back the curtain and peeked out. They were sitting on a bench beneath an arbor, barely visible in the remaining light. Niro had his arm around her, lighting her cigarette. Was he crazy? He was going to get himself shot by Nacho.
Unless Nacho was part of the scheme.
I picked up a pot and clanged it on the sink like an irate mother. When I looked out again, they were running into the darkness, laughing, ducking beneath the mango tree, a man in his fifties and a teenager. Damn that Niro. I should never have asked him to come.
Tan lumbered into the kitchen. “That the Mayan version of a dinner bell?”
“That girl is still a teenager,” I railed. “What could she possibly see in Niro?”
“How about escape? She wants to get the hell out of here. Wouldn’t you?”
Yes, I thought, but I’d sooner be eaten by sharks than hook up with Niro.
Chapter 51
At dawn, we put the island and my morning sickness behind and were soon back in the cave, stripping the wall with our knives and fingers, taking turns standing guard.
As the lichen came away, I gazed upon a work that was far more sophisticated than I imagined. Ancient stone masons had smoothed the volcanic surface until it was vertical. Then they’d carved nine square niches into the wall, three up and three down, each about forty inches from side to side and top to bottom. Into each of these niches, they’d placed square ceramic plates on which were painted at least a hundred ideographic and pictographic images, all on a light blue background.
Did each plate tell its own story, like books of the Bible? Or was each a chapter of a longer story? The pictographs were obvious—animals and people, floods and burning volcanoes, but the story they told was so blended with abstract symbols and celestial bodies that it was impossible to know what was going on.
“Damn,” Tan said, “Moses had only one tablet. We got nine.”
Leocadia was waiting at the breakwater when we returned, standing against the glowing clouds like a cover model for a romance novel, dressed in cut-offs and tank top, hair catching the breeze. Niro slicked back his hair. “Is she hot or what?”
I climbed out of the boat and glared at her. “Where is Nacho?”
“Not feeling well. I came alone, but I brought food.”
The cabin reeked of her perfume and cigarettes. Ashtrays were filled with lipstick-stained stubs. Obviously, she’d been there for hours. I checked my suitcase. Nothing missing that I could tell, but it wasn’t in the order I’d left it.
We washed up, changed, and then gathered around the table in the kitchen, Leocadia at the stove with a little apron about her waist, hair pulled back in a ponytail. The fish she served was as delicious as the chicken and rice, and for that I could almost forgive her. Maybe Tan was right, that all she wanted was to escape. Maybe I was too hard on her.
After dinner, she and Niro again slipped into the darkness. Tan sat beneath a lamp reading Mike Ditka’s First a Bear: Now a Saint. “Stop worrying,” he said, glaring at me over his glasses. “Niro ain’t stupid. He ain’t gonna tell her nothing.”
The generator went out, leaving us in the dark.
“The hell? Tan said. “Niro musta done it.”
In the silence that followed, I heard the beat of salsa, rising and falling on the wind. Tan muttered another oath and began lighting candles. I took my pistol and binoculars and strolled outside, into a night lit by a three-quarter moon.
A cool breeze blew off the water. Over on Ana Maria, a campfire was blazing, a man and woman dancing around it to the tune of a salsa. My breath caught. Alan and Luz Maria?
The sound of Leocadia’s laughter interrupted my thoughts. I crept around the branches of the mango tree in time to see her swimming in the lake with Niro, laughing, splashing water, having fun. Idiots! Hadn’t they heard about sharks?
Out they came—naked—Leocadia pushing back her hair; Niro as withered as a prune. My dad would’ve had a stroke and died right there.
I sank deeper into the branches.
They sank onto a blanket.
Niro mounted her.
You’ve got to be kidding, I told myself. Surely this wasn’t happening. The whiteness of his body floated in the moonlight like a sheet flapping on a line. Waves crashed against the breakwater. The salsa from Ana Maria floated over the water. Leocadia cried out at each thrust.
Slut! I wanted to yell. How much did he pay you?
Too bad I didn’t have a firecracker.
Well, I had a pistol. Maybe I should fire a few rounds into the air.
Lob a few bullets over toward Ana Maria as well.
Instead, I retreated to the cabin, crawled into bed, and fell asleep from exhaustion and disgust.
The old Indian couple woke me. “Come,” said the woman.
“Where?”
“Across the water, into the fog, and we will show you a secret.”
Then, in the kind of logic that made sense only in dreams, we were inside the cave. Workers labored over their tasks, putting down tiles, sculpting stone sentinels, chipping away at the walls.
The old man, now much younger, climbed the bamboo scaffold and gazed down at me.
“I need water,” he said in the tongue of my ancestors, pointing to a clay jug.
As I reached for the jug, my archaeological mind classified it as early polychrome—earth-tone colors, spirals, and the image of a coiled serpent around the neck. The jug felt warm to my touch. It grew warmer still, and then hot. So hot I dropped it and watched helplessly as it shattered near my feet, the water spreading over the floor.
“My gift to you,” said the old man who wasn’t old.
Chapter 52
I had planned to dig there anyway, but the dream moved the matter up a few notches.
“The hell you looking for,” Tan called down from the scaffold, “Jimmy Hoffa?”
I ignored him and kept digging. At about a foot I found a coin. I poured water on it, wiped it clean, and stared in disbelief. An eight-escudo gold coin from the colonial period. In perfect condition. One ounce of gold.
My heartbeat picked up. Was this Father Antonio’s gold—part of his haul of five thousand ounces? Was his treasure chest here, too, buried in muck?
I dug some more. Here was another coin, and yet another.
My mind buzzed like an electric calculator. One ounce of gold was worth at least a thousand dollars. Five thousand ounces would be five million dollars, but the numismatic value of old Spanish coins would be four or five times as much.