There is an unquestionable relationship between Mesoamerica and the Middle-East. Allow me to be your guide!
Alred tossed the magazine to the far edge of the table and slammed her eyelids shut. There is no connection whatsoever between ancient America and the Near East, she told herself.
Figure it out Alred!
Who’d written these words in blue ink by the paper’s title?
Where was Dr. Ulman? And what had he found?
Worth ruining his life for?
Hers?
She dropped her head until it thudded against wood.
CHAPTER NINE
April 15
6:48 p.m. PST
Dorado went insane.
That had to be the reason.
Running mad into the dark, brave Dorado, now deranged.
Alred tried not to think about it, but the feelings, the memories came like a tidal wave…forty-two feet above the shoreline and hovering….
He escaped when everyone thought him securest. Somehow he bypassed the massive birthday celebration. Everyone was present. Alred couldn’t believe Dorado went unnoticed. His black hair on end like Mr. Hyde. His mouth dripping with hot saliva.
He got away.
Someone stumbled upon the hole in his cell.
So as not to disturb the party, the word was spread in secret, and the necessary people stepped out.
They ran to their vehicles and scoured the area.
Alred knew where he went. The same place she would go, if she could run from this mad world into greater madness: the highest building…it had to be climbed. The edifice existed for that sole challenge.
Dorado fled to that holy point.
He bypassed the security guards.
He slid into an elevator…and flew.
To the roof.
With the stars shining down, he called to the night in a painful wail. Only the constellations knew Dorado’s lost madness. Like silent gods they stared down on the sacrifice.
Crying one last time to the moon that never gave comfort, Dorado jumped…into empty space. Gravity caught him with selfish hands, yanking him to the ground so far below.
They didn’t find him until the next day.
Alred’s father wasn’t even sure it was Dorado. But he had to tell his little girl something.
They’d get a new dog, he said.
Staring at the night sky, at the star formations, she knew somehow she’d cursed her best friend by naming him after the stars in the southern hemisphere. She’d trapped him in eternal darkness, which had become his destiny. The scourge had something to do with the night, but she couldn’t figure out the rest.
Weeping, Alred wondered if her father had lied.
Dorado…was flat as a bunny on a highway, her Dad said.
So…what if it really wasn’t Dorado? Wasn’t it unidentifiable? Black fur? It meant nothing.
Alred shivered as the wind scratched her arms in passing. Was Dorado still out there…?
Forever after she heard the cry of her dog…faraway.
The question was never answered.
The darkness took her father within a year.
Did she ever hear his voice?
Now…what about…Dr. Christopher Ulman?
The wheels of Alred’s car squealed in pain as they rubbed against the cement curb in front of the Ulman’s humble place.
Alred pulled on the emergency break, which sounded for a second like a chain saw trying to start without gasoline. “You must be mistaken with this.”
Porter laughed, but ran out of energy. “You’ve seen my translation!”
“But I still haven’t seen the codex itself, Porter, and I was told we were both working on the project. I have no way of validating your words, and frankly, you are really disappointing me!”
Porter pulled his head back. “You’re…afraid it’s true.”
“I am trying to make an accurate study of something I can’t even see.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“And I’m protecting you the best I can. You never asked to see the book,” he said with a weak smile.
“You’re stealing the work!”
“Possession of this codex is probably illegal, Alred. You don’t have it. You can’t be implicated.” Porter stared at her right ear.
“I was assigned to work with you on this project,” she said, shooting him a stinging glance. “Ulman’s codex belongs to the University, or at least to the department heads. If anyone is implicated, it’s Masterson and maybe Ulman.”
“Okay,” said Porter, “I’ll show you the book tomorrow.”
“That would be fine.” Her face was quiet marble and colder than Antarctic ice.
The doors of the brown Toyota Celica opened like bat wings.
Alred made it to the top of Mrs. Ulman’s steps first and stabbed the doorbell.
“I really don’t think she’ll have anything for us,” Porter said. He looked back at the street and the rest of the neighborhood in the late afternoon sun.
Alred didn’t bother with a reply. She had other motives.
The door swung open.
“Professor Arnott!” Alred shivered. “What are you doing here?”
Arnott stood in the doorway in a dark suit. He smiled, the muscles in his face at ease. He stood tall like he owned the place. “I’ve been concerned about Dr. Ulman,” he said. “Still no word.”
“I…see,” Alred said, nodding, feeling her cheeks flush and her lipstick drying in the Eastern breeze.
Mrs. Ulman’s worn face appeared in the door frame. “May I help you?” she squeaked.
Porter stared at Arnott, the nicely dressed man with the handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Arnott only glanced at him.
“You won’t find anything here,” Arnott said, looking down with ebony eyes into Alred’s jade circles.
She stood her ground, though inside she trembled with confusion.
The professor turned to Mrs. Ulman and said, “Thank you for your time. Please call me if you learn anything.” He took her hand with both of his and shook it lovingly. With a nod of his head, he walked quickly down the steps, entered a dark sedan across the street, and drove away.
With his hands in his pockets, Porter watched him go. “Nice car. You know that guy?”
“Mrs. Ulman,” Alred said in a kind voice with a smile, extending her hand to the lady in the doorway, “My name is Erma Alred. I’m one of your husband’s students. Could we have a word with you?”
The skin around Mrs. Ulman’s brown eyes sagged. The black hair running straight to the bottom of her neck seemed terribly to need a wash. “Why not,” she said without enthusiasm, turning into the house.
They entered and sat at two facing love seats offset by an coffee table of oak and glass, Porter and Alred together with Mrs. Ulman opposite them. An old molasses smell hung in the room, which made Alred wonder what was rotting or perhaps growing in the kitchen.
Porter nodded with a thin smile, trying his best to shine happiness from his otherwise wandering eyes. “John Porter.” He extended his hand. “Pleased.”
“We wanted to ask you a few questions about your husband,” Alred said. Her mind flirted back to Arnott’s appearance.
Mrs. Ulman sighed long and weak.
“Is that a problem?” Porter said with concern in his voice.
Mrs. Ulman looked up, but never met eyes with the students. She whined slowly, “I just don’t know any more!” Exhaustion killed any possibility of crying, though she looked like she needed to release a few thousand tears.
Porter and Alred glanced at each other with confused faces.
“Mrs. Ulman,” Alred began again, “We promise not to stay long.”
Ulman sniffed. “That’s what the FBI said before drilling me for an hour.”
Porter leaned forward with interest but no one spoke for a moment. Alred’s face remained impassive as she ran the words through her head again. Mrs. Ulman’s eyes traced the shape of the coffee table.
>
“They came two days ago, asking questions, just like you,” Ulman said, her voice sounding lost. “Look, I don’t know where my husband is. I have no idea what he was working on. There is nothing I can show you or give you. The FBI has it all.”
“Mrs. Ulman,” Alred tried to start a third time.
Porter quickly put two fingers on Alred’s arm and said, “The FBI took things from you?”
“It was illegal for him to mail artifacts out of a foreign country, they said. How do I argue against the government? I don’t know why Chris mailed things to me. What could I do?” Mrs. Ulman said with her eyes closed.
Porter spoke quickly. “FBI? Not Customs agents? What exactly did your husband send you?”
“A package, that’s all,” she said shaking her head. “A couple. He sent something else to our mail box downtown, though I didn’t know it. The FBI made me fetch it for them,” she said, her voice straining. Her face shifted with discomfort, her eyes darting every direction except at her guests. “I just wish everyone would leave me alone, is all,” she sighed again.
Alred raised her eyebrows. “The FBI knew Ulman mailed something to your post office box?”
“How would they know that?” said Porter.
“Well I definitely didn’t tell them!” she said, throwing up her hands, looking at the walls and the ceiling. She shivered and said, “Now, I’m sorry, but as I told Mr. Arnott, I don’t have anything to give you—”
“Arnott wanted something your husband sent home?!” Alred sat forward, a gleam of anger in her eye.
Mrs. Ulman stopped moving. She looked at Porter. She turned her head to Alred.
“Just like the FBI,” the older woman continued. “Just like you, I assume. Wanted anything Chris sent me. Artifacts most of all, but also letters, notes, or journals he may have sent home. Papers. That’s what they asked for. Everything.”
“I don’t want those things, Mrs. Ulman,” Alred said. “And I’m not here for your husband’s notes. I just want to know what happened to him.”
Mrs. Ulman pulled away, falling against the well-cushioned back of the orange couch. She closed her eyes and shook her head without speaking.
Porter gazed at his companion, bewildered.
Alred ignored the movement, but focused on their unspeaking host.
When Mrs. Ulman stopped shaking her head, she stood, sighed, and said without feeling, “Can I get you a drink?”
The two students waved the offer away politely, while Mrs. Ulman went to a short bar, pulled out a nearly empty bottle of vodka, and poured herself a glass. She swallowed and dropped her head.
“Mrs. Ulman,” Porter said, “truth is, we need to find out what’s…going on. The only way I can figure of doing that is by studying your husband’s work.”
Alred knew Porter was playing along with her own words, probably supposing them to be a ruse. He had only one thing in mind, obviously. If Mrs. Ulman had more to contribute to Porter’s dissertation, he needed it. Alred had told him about Ulman’s purported disappearance, and even mentioned the message written on the front page of Albright’s essay. Porter simply shrugged it away and continued his single-minded work on his peculiar translation of the codex. How could he translate it anyway?!
Mrs. Ulman’s reply was barely audible. “Third time I’ve heard that.”
“Mrs. Ulman, your husband was my favorite professor,” Alred said. She slowed her speech and reset her tone to a calmer note. “I studied under him before he went to Guatemala, and he’s written me since then. I hoped to continue his work. And now we’ve been given an assignment to do just that.”
Porter said, “In my case, this assignment is the last chance I’ll get to succeed at this university. If I fail, Stratford kicks me out. If there’s anything you could do for us, something you know about his work…it would be priceless. I really could use your help, Mrs. Ulman.”
Alred stared at him as if examining his weakness behind a magnifying glass. He wasn’t being very diplomatic, she thought.
Mrs. Ulman nodded, bracing herself up against the counter. As she turned, her arm hit the vodka bottle, and the liquor splashed over her clothes and poured into the carpet before she could catch it. She sighed, but it was almost a groan.
Alred chewed on her lower lip and looked at Porter, who met her eyes.
“I think,” Mrs. Ulman said with a pause, “I need to be alone.”
Porter and Alred nodded, stood, and thanked her for her time.
She led them to the door while Porter scribbled on a pad. Tearing out the paper as the door opened, he said, “This is my—”
“Right,” Mrs. Ulman said. “Dial you if I learn anything. I’ll just have to call everyone who came before you first. Hope you don’t mind.” She smiled a bitter smile which disappeared quickly.
Porter didn’t reply.
Once outside, the door closed behind Porter and Alred.
Opening the door to the bark-colored Toyota, Porter shot Alred a glance. “How did the FBI know Ulman mailed something to his P.O. Box?”
“Intimidation, probably,” said Alred. “Scared her to death. When they asked about mail, she probably mentioned the box. They would have seen the mail box hanging by her front door as they entered and assumed the rest. A logical guess. A housewife with a mailbox at home wouldn’t check a separate post office box regularly. And as a professor, Ulman would get mail at the university.”
“Why would he have an extra post box?” said Porter.
Alred looked at him across the top of her car. “Side projects, most likely. People get post office boxes for different reasons. Maybe it was a money-making scheme only the Ulman’s knew about.”
“A scheme?” Porter said, tilting his head at her as he climbed into the passenger seat.
“Doesn’t have to be illegal. Just some project where you’d get mail, but didn’t want people to know your home address. Something like that.” Alred looked up and down the street, then to the fuchsia sky.
In a shallow voice, Alred said as she fell behind the steering wheel, “I want to know what Arnott thinks he’s doing. Creep!”
“D’you just call me a creep?”
“No. The professor here before us.” Alred shook her head. “He’s trying to figure it all out before we can.” She lightly bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m going home.”
Scratching his five o’clock shadow, Porter looked back at the Ulman home.
The curtain in the window fell closed.
“She’s hiding something,” he said, not turning away. “She wouldn’t look us in the eye.”
“Yep,” Alred said, shifting her gaze back to the house. “But why?”
10:59 p.m. PST
Dear Stan,
Don’t die on me!
I know, you’re shocked I’m writing. The worst reputation I bear has to be my irregular letter-writing pattern. Truth is, I’ve written you a number of letters! Most of those even went into envelopes. But by the time I got close to putting a stamp on them, they were at least a month or two outdated.
Yes, when we served as missionaries together in Japan you taught me to purchase a number of spare stamps to have on hand. Well, we all have our weaknesses.
But this letter, you have to get!
I’ll jump to the point. You’ve been a field agent with the FBI for at least eight years now, haven’t you? Ten, maybe? Anyway, I’ve got a question that needs a quick answer: I’m working on something right now that would fascinate you. But I’ve just learned the FBI may get in my way.
I really need this!
I figure there must be a file or something. Most likely it’s all out of your reach. But if you can tell me anything about a Dr. Christopher Ulman and his work, I’d appreciate it. Word has it Ulman has recently disappeared.
Ulman found something in Guatemala that’s going to cause an uproar in the intellectual community. See the irony? He’s a professor with a gold mine—and he’s vanished! Yes, my imagination might play games with me from tim
e to time, but if I know archaeologists—which I do!—they wouldn’t throw away a discovery of this magnitude—the type of thing they hope for all their lives.
I know I haven’t really said anything about what he found, but I have to make sure this letter gets in the mail. I’ll tell you more later.
Kiss your wife and kids for me.
The Church is still true.
Your friend,
John D. Porter
(P.S.—The D stands for Dr. in Training of course)
(P.P.S—Write back quick! You guys at the FBI might want him for something illegal, which may soon tie to what I’m doing. Actually, I doubt you really want him at all—not your department, if I’m right. But what do I know. If the FBI confiscates my project, I’ll fail out of Stratford University in a big embarrassing way. I really have to hurry. Too much to do. Sayonara!)
CHAPTER TEN
April 16
5:23 p.m. PST
Porter’s heart beat like a race horse just in sight of the finish line, like a medieval bellows loaded with metal and coal growing hotter and a brighter red, like a baby taking its first breath of the new world.
He drew his fingers from right to left across the rough paper.
With his right hand, he scribbled English words into a spiral notebook of sheets that had been turned too quickly and smashed together.
“No,” he said like an exploding light bulb. His eraser hit the white page with faint blue lines, and he scribbled the correct word.
A constant whisper came from his lips as he translated. He repeated words and parts of words in both his native language and the foreign tongue before writing again. Eight facial tissues soaked with sweat and wadded into twisted balls lay around the ancient codex, his notes, and the other piles of lexicons, histories, and atlases on his desk. He wished he had a handkerchief, a towel, or something. He couldn’t afford to get the document wet with the salty water running nonstop from his face.
With a clamor, Alred entered the sweltering office. She dropped her bag and gasped. “You have the heater on in here?!?”
“The date’s all wrong,” Porter said, his eyes wide and ferocious, concentrating on the words scrawled on the codex. His unprimed voice left his mouth with a growl as if he’d been sleeping for the last twelve hours and not working. He needed rest.
The Kukulkan Manuscript Page 9