Heart of the World

by Linda Barnes

  The circular room was lined with it, filled with it, a panorama of gold in floor-to-ceiling glass cases, heaps and mounds of glittering gold. With a murmur of voices, viewers surged forward, pushing closer to the glass. Coins, hoops, medallions, bracelets, earrings, crowns, bells, rattles, nosepieces, pendants, chains, beads—many objects, according to the signs, had religious significance and power. Given the setting, magical properties were easy to accept. There were elongated human figures, birds, animals, and strange, hypnotic masks in gold and reddish-gold tumbaga.

  The reddish gold was the same metal as Paolina’s birdman. I renewed my search for the original. I saw frogs, caimans, strange birds of prey, fish, snails, and small feline creatures. A gourd-like shape caught my eye and I stopped to read about the golden gourds, called poporos, puzzling over unfamiliar words, figuring them out from their context. Poporos were receptacles, used for the storage of lime, vital to the mam-beo, the chewing of coca leaves, a custom and ceremony through which the individual might attain higher levels of consciousness. These treasures, the sign said, had been extracted from the ground by archeologists but even more often by guaqueros, grave robbers, which made authenticating them difficult if not impossible.

  I tagged along with a school group and listened to the teacher talk while her charges pressed their noses to the glass, speculating about how much money each object would bring on the market, which item would bring the most. The same questions I found occupying more and more of my mind.

  I knew, vaguely, the cost of gold; over four hundred dollars an ounce since the last terrorist attack. When political instability increased, the price of gold inevitably rose. But the gold here, this ancient intricate gold, was valuable not so much for its metal as for its history, for its rarity, for the chance to grasp and hold a time before time. My hand wandered to my backpack and patted the compartment where the birdman nested in his pouch.

  Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has a network of underground storage rooms. At no time is all artwork owned by the MFA on display, and there was no reason to believe that every piece of gold owned by the Museo del Oro was here in these cases in this room, but still I hunted for the birdman’s twin. I left the school group behind and passed a man explaining an exhibit, a badge on his chest. I waited till he’d finished, then approached and asked whether I might speak to a curator.

  “That would be me.”

  “In private, please.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I can’t leave the exhibit.”

  “Perhaps another curator, then.” I kept talking, trying to imply that the matter would interest someone who knew a great deal about artifacts such as those exhibited in the case he’d been praising to the crowd.

  He said, “Maybe I can convince someone to hold my post for a while,” and disappeared briefly only to reappear with a young woman in a crisp white shirt and slim black pants. She also wore a badge, and she quickly assumed his position in front of the sparkling glass.

  The man was thin, except for a paunch, and middle-aged. His badge identified him as Gustavo Pinzon. He led me to an elevator that climbed a single floor. We didn’t speak as it ascended. When he ushered me into a small white-walled office decorated with posters of treasures from the Gold Museum, he left the door slightly ajar. I shut it. He didn’t offer me a chair although two were nearby.

  “How does the museum acquire objects?” I asked.

  “How did we acquire? That is what you are asking, no? Because, you see, we no longer acquire.”

  “Why is that?”

  His mouth widened into a smile, displaying dazzling teeth. “Well, I can’t say it’s because there’s nothing out there. There is, but there is also the law. No buying of pre-Columbian antiquities is allowed. They can no longer be exported either. You are not Colombian, no?”

  “But copies are made and sold?”

  “Certainly. We have our own museum store.”

  “And there’s the Galleria Cano.” The store the Florida jeweler had mentioned, the one with a branch in New York.

  Pinzon nodded. “They do very nice work.”

  “How do you tell a copy from an original?”

  “Ours are marked on the back. Why?”

  I said, “Are you qualified to take a look at a piece I have in my possession, to tell me where it came from?”

  “I’m not allowed to buy, by law. I’m not even allowed to give an evaluation.”

  “I’m simply asking if you’re qualified to give an opinion.” “It would depend on what sort of piece.”

  “From looking at your exhibits, I’d say that what I have is more like Tayrona work than anything else.”

  “I know Tayrona.” I had his attention now, the third floor and the woman with the badge who’d taken his place forgotten.

  I took the felt bag from my backpack, removed the little birdman, and set it on a small desk by a window. Pinzon glanced at it, then bent over and scrutinized it from a distance of not more than three inches, so close he seemed to inhale its fragrance. He held up his right hand, glanced at me as if to ask whether he could touch the figure.

  I nodded and he flipped it over carefully, handling it with the tips of two fingers. His eyes raked the piece from side to side, head to foot. He opened the top drawer of the desk, extracted a magnifying lens, and peering through it, repeated the examination.

  “What can you tell me about it?”

  “You have visited the national park? Las Ciudades de Piedra?” he said. “Las Ciudades Perdidas? When did you go there?”

  The Cities of Stone. The Lost Cities. “Where are they?”

  “Are you working for someone?” His voice was sharp. “Do you have more like this?”

  “I only have this piece. I just want to know what it is.”

  His brow furrowed. “Perhaps I can refer you to— You know, there’s another curator here; it’s possible he’s available. He could give a much better idea of what you have.” I didn’t like the phony smile he fixed on his face. “Would you mind waiting?”

  “How long?”

  “Not long. I’ll just show it to him.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to take it with you.”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t.” As he spoke, he crossed the floor. “I’ll bring him here. Really, it won’t take long.” He opened the door, eased himself out, and shut it firmly behind him.

  I didn’t like it. Why not telephone the other curator? There was a phone on the desk. Possibly the other curator was wandering the exhibits. Pinzon hadn’t phoned the woman who’d replaced him; he’d gone to fetch her. Just like this.

  Still, I felt uneasy.

  I scooped the birdman into his pouch. Why wait at all? Cities of Stone. Lost Cities. Someone else could tell me where they were. Luisa Cabrera could tell me. Why cool my heels in this office when there might be a message from Cabrera waiting at the hotel?

  I tried the door. It swung open easily, mocking my unacknowledged fear that I’d find it locked from the outside. It swung open freely, but I didn’t get to breathe a sigh of relief. In the hallway stood one of the machine gun—toting guards.

  “Senorita, you are to remain here, please,” he said.

  Avoid the police, Mooney had urged. What if the item in my bag had been stolen, snatched during a robbery at the Gold Museum? I hadn’t heard of any such robbery, but would I? Had the Colombian press covered the robbery at the Gardner? Cabrera was right; almost every article I read about Colombia concerned drugs.

  I sucked in a breath. Okay, the guard had a machine gun, but would he blast an unarmed woman in a tourist-crammed building? I smiled sweetly, and asked the way to the restroom. The guard seemed flustered, and I realized he was barely out of his teens.

  “You should stay here,” he said. “I have my orders.”

  “But I need to go to the bathroom. You come too, if you have to.”

  His cheeks flushed.

  “You can stay outside the door and guard it, just like you’re guarding this door. But maybe you don’t kn
ow where the ladies’ room is?”

  His eyes moved to the right so I started moving that way, too, ignoring his objections.

  “This way? Okay. I don’t know what that guy told you about me. No way I’m going out with him, even if he sets dogs on me. I mean, I’ve got a boyfriend, you know?” I kept chattering all the way down the stairs, working to get across the impression that the curator was pressuring me for sex. I got as far as a bathroom located to the right of the main staircase.

  The bathroom was packed, with lines for the three stalls and two sinks. I quickly checked the window. It led to a small metal balcony. I’d have to put my faith in the crowd, in the probability that the guard wouldn’t risk machine-gun fire. I was counting on his inexperience, too; he wouldn’t want to admit to the other guards that he was in trouble. And since I’d hinted that the dispute had sexual overtones, he wouldn’t want to get the curator in trouble by being indiscreet. I bit my lip. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t see a lot of other options. I absolutely didn’t want to meet the Bogota police as an accused thief.

  I unfastened my scarf, wrapped it around my hair, and waited till a group of schoolgirls shepherded by two older women started to leave the bathroom, chattering happily about prospects for lunch. Insinuating myself into the center of the pack, I bent my knees and ducked my head. The minute we cleared the door and passed the guard, I charged downstairs. He didn’t notice me till I was three-quarters of the way down, well past the rest of the guards.

  I heard an inarticulate shout, then hurrying booted feet. Pushing my way through the mob, I plunged down another flight, and flew across the tiled floor. If he’d had the presence of mind to shout “Thief!” someone might have tried to stop me, but he didn’t yell “Thief;” he yelled “Stop.” I didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate; the exit was clearly marked. There might be security at the entrance, but no one was manning the exit except a single plump woman in uniform. I was outside before she could react, outdoors and across the plaza, turning the corner, and running hard.

  CHAPTER 19

  Running full tilt down unfamiliar streets would only cause more trouble, invite intervention by some nosy passerby or observant cop. I managed to control my feet, but my heart kept racing. I turned down one street, then another, ignoring vendors who urged me to inspect their leather goods, buy their cowhide rugs, till I’d twisted my way far from the museum and the guards, so far and in such a zigzag path that I was no longer sure of my location. When a man stepped abruptly from a narrow alleyway, startling me, mumbling a single muffled word under his breath, I sidestepped his hulking figure and increased my pace.

  If a similar interaction had taken place in Dorchester or Roxbury, the single word would have been “dope,” “baggie,” or “lid.” I’m pretty sure he muttered “esmeraldas.” Emeralds. Visions of contraband gems sparkled behind my eyes. I turned another corner and stopped to catch my breath.

  Cabrera had urged me to visit the museum to ask about the golden statue. Had she intended to get me in trouble? Had I truly been in trouble? Or was my impulse to run just another manifestation of the paranoia that had weighted my steps since Miami?

  I jaywalked and traveled another block, using the occasional shop window as a mirror. No vehicle tagged behind; none of the pedestrians took an interest in my erratic stops and starts. I sat on a wooden bench in a small green park, disrupting a flock of pigeons. Good old familiar pigeons, city birds, popcorn scavengers, exact replicas of the birds on the Cambridge Common. I felt a swell of longing for familiar places so intense it left me momentarily weak. I told myself to get a grip; told myself it must be the altitude.

  Boston is a gray and yellow city; Cambridge is red brick. Bogota, at least this part of it, was painted dark green, yellow, and orange. Colonial buildings with thick stucco walls lined the streets. Pots of blood-red begonias spilled from second-story balconies.

  Get a grip. The prickle-neck feeling had begun with the blue Saturn in Miami, so I started there, working through the mental chain like I was telling beads on a rosary. If the blue Saturn had tailed me, it had come from one of three possible sources. Vandenburg, the lawyer, could have arranged the surveillance, but why would he? Drew Naylor, the suspected drug dealer, likewise. Mooney knew where I was staying; he could have briefed the FBI. They might have posted a watcher, hoping I’d lead them to Sam.

  Where was Sam? He’d left Las Vegas, according to Mooney, but when he’d called I hadn’t asked. I’d waited for him to mention it, to say something about the private plane, the pilot’s license, to tell me he’d flown to Reno or L.A. Maybe, considering the FBI surveillance, it was better if I didn’t know his location.

  Had the FBI arranged the strange search party at Miami—Dade? Was the man on the plane, the one I’d recognized from Naylor’s party, a fed? Was there a link between the feds and Naylor?

  Suppose DEA had been watching Naylor’s place. Not so far-fetched a notion if the man was a known associate of Roldan’s. Possibly they had a man on the inside, which would make the silver fox on the plane DEA.

  A pigeon cocked his head at me inquiringly.

  But had Luisa Cabrera wanted me detained at the Gold Museum, possibly jailed? As far as paranoia went, I hadn’t imagined the armed guard outside the curator’s door. And why would a guard be posted unless the little birdman was no copy, but a genuine artifact?

  The man in the Miami jewelry store had called it a copy, but maybe he’d just wanted to buy it on the cheap. The curator, Pinzon, had spoken of a mark on the back, but authenticating pre-Columbian gold might be as complex a process as determining the provenance of a reputed Old Master.

  The Cities of Stone. The Lost Cities. Where were they? What were they? The sites of archeological digs? Maybe Pinzon had jumped to the conclusion that I was some kind of guaquero, a grave robber who’d stolen artifacts. Which could mean that my little birdman came from the Cities of Stone. Could Roldan be there as well, holed up, hiding?

  The Cities of Stone, Luisa Cabrera, the Zona Rosa, Base Eighteen. Plenty of leads to follow, but no answers to the basic questions: Why does Roldan want Paolina here? Why bring her here? Why now?

  Fruitless to ask, I told myself. She was here. She’d boarded an Avianca flight. I knew that much. I had Mooney’s pal, Hanson, to thank for that.

  I swallowed and stared at my feet. How foolish I’d been to imagine that she’d stand out like a banner in the crowd. I understood the bafflement of my suburban clients, their disbelief that their child could stay hidden in Boston, as I’d never understood it before.

  A teen lost in a big city is like a book lost in a library. I knew that, but I’d forgotten it, ignored it, because to me Paolina was an illuminated manuscript, totally and completely unique, unlike any other manuscript in the world. How amazing that no one else could see the bold colors, the jeweled gold binding. I felt tears start to squeeze beneath my eyelids and I thought: It must be the damned altitude.

  I abandoned the bench and the pigeons and walked. As my heartbeat slowed, the blocks of buildings turned into individual shops, the individual shops became places with specific names, and I realized I was looking for a hotel, a cabstand in front of a hotel. A cab, that most familiar and comforting vehicle, smelling of unwashed upholstery and stale cigarette ash. I knew where I was in a cab.

  I started piloting a hack part-time in college. Anything to avoid waiting tables, I told myself, but it was the independence, the solitude, the nighttime lure of the city that drew me. And Gloria and Sam, co-owners of the company for which I drove.

  The cabs pulled up across the street from El Dorado Hotel alternated between the green-and-cream tourist cabs and the regular yellow cabs. A yellow was first in line, so I grabbed it. No required-by-Boston-law bulletproof-plastic shield divided the rear seat from the front, but the smoky interior welcomed me like an old friend.

  “^Adonde vamos?”

  Good question, I thought as I gave the driver the name of my hotel. Good question. Follow the leads, I thought.
There’s no one to help you here, no fellow cops, no team. Follow the leads, one at a time. Don’t panic.

  I watched his hands on the steering wheel because I like seeing a job well done; he steered skillfully through packed streets, whistling silently between his teeth.

  “Is the traffic always like this?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Crowded? ¿Loco?”

  His flowered shirt, worn open over a ribbed white tee, was turquoise and black, and a silver cross dangled from a chain around his neck. He was young, maybe early twenties. Dark curly hair made a halo around his thin face and accented his brooding eyes.

  He rested his right arm on the back of the seat. When he smiled any resemblance to saint or poet ended. He had a gap-toothed grin that looked more than a little loco to me.

  “This is nothing,” he said. “Before the restrictions, then there was traffic.”

  “Restrictions?”

  “Rules about when private cars can be on the road. Like if your license plate ends in a five, you can’t take your car out Mondays and Wednesdays.”

  A law like that would go over big in Boston or New York, I thought. The politician who dared to sponsor it would be tossed out of office so fast you’d hear the wind at his back. We passed a bright red articulated giant of a bus, the word TRANSMILENIO written on its side, a cow tethered to a tree on the median strip, and a ‘59 Chevy, repainted and buffed, with shining chrome. At an intersection, a child of ten solemnly swallowed fire while two younger kids rode unicycles and tossed juggling pins.

  At a traffic light, a man rapped on my window, palm extended for alms. Before I could respond, the light changed and the driver pulled away.

  “You’re not from Bogota, then?” the driver said.

  “The States. Boston.”

  “Aha,” he said. “The Red Sox. Very good team. Red Sox.”

  His enthusiasm and backseat glances didn’t adversely affect his driving. He changed gears smoothly, without a lot of show. He kept up with traffic, didn’t press, slid through yellow lights as though he had them timed.