White Bird (A Mayan 2012 Thriller)

by Tom Rich

  “Even if you don’t care for the game,” said Franz, “you might appreciate something of the spectacle. Take out that wig.”

  Alvaro refastened his seatbelt. He held up the orange wig. “I do not understand. You want me to wear this?”

  “Not your color? Try the yellow. And take out the jerseys. Number eighty is yours. Thirteen is mine. The small case at the bottom of the bag has the face paint. Put the jersey on first and tuck your collar under to keep the paint off your clothing.”

  Alvaro withdrew the case. He eased it open. “Face paint, Mr. Franz?”

  “That shade of blue is the Colts’ team color. And no more ‘Mr. Franz,’ okay? Tonight we’re just a couple of guys going to the game: Al and Woody.”

  Alvaro held up the tube of paint. “Al,” he said. “And Woody.”

  “Here, I’ll show you how it goes on.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Forty minutes later Franz led Alvaro to their seats. The host pointed to the center of the field as they settled in. “The players meeting with the officials are the team captains. One official flips a coin to determine who begins the game on offense.”

  Alvaro nodded. He looked around the stands. “Our wigs and face paint are conservative compared to many other of the patrons.”

  “Hey, just be glad you’re not in Green Bay. Or Cleveland’s Dawg Pound.”

  A man in front of Franz turned and raised an open hand. Franz smacked it hard.

  Franz nudged Alvaro, pointed across the stadium. “That’s my private luxury suite,” he whispered. “I use it to entertain during games. But I thought you might get a better feel for the spectacle by sitting among the crowd.”

  Alvaro looked to where Franz pointed. The thin line of mirrored windows making up an entire stratum of the stadium looked cold and impersonal, like someone hiding lying eyes behind sunglasses.

  Franz said quietly, “Right now there are seventeen underprivileged kids in my suite. Kids who would never attend a game otherwise. They’re from a youth club I call Helping Handz. That’s Handz with a ‘z.’”

  Alvaro gazed as if he knew precisely where Franz meant. “Will I meet the youths tonight?” He kept his voice low, like Franz, assuming his host did not want to appear boasting to strangers nearby. “I would like to see firsthand some of the philanthropic work you perform.”

  “I’ll take you to the club after school tomorrow. The boys will be too rambunctious tonight. You know, the excitement of the game, sitting in the Man’s seat.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “How so?”

  “My flight leaves at eleven tomorrow morning. I have an evening lecture on Mayan calendar origins and it would be difficult to make up for missed time. I am to be with UCLA for one term only.”

  “That’s a shame, Al. And believe me, I do understand your concern about time running short.”

  “Oh? And perhaps that has something to do with—”

  Franz raised an open hand. His eyes focused beyond Alvaro. Alvaro turned to see a vendor approaching.

  “Two,” said Franz. “And not the light.”

  “Mister…Woody, I do not wish to seem unappreciative—”

  “Nonsense. Think of our drinking together as part of the ritual of the spectacle.”

  The vendor upended two beer bottles into cups. “Can’t make it to the Promised Land without tasting the sacrament,” he said as he handed over the cups.

  Franz grinned as he paid. “Keep the change.”

  The vendor’s eyes widened when he found he’d been given a hundred-dollar bill. He took a closer look at his benefactor.

  “You think you know me?” said Franz. “You think you know who I am?” He kept his voice low, so that Alvaro was the only other to hear. “Come on, who am I?”

  The vendor took half a step back. “Uhh…”

  “No, take a closer look.”

  “Look, buddy—”

  “No, not Buddy.”

  The vendor’s hands went into the pouch around his waist. “All right, I’ll give you your change.”

  “I said keep it.”

  The vendor’s hands went up. “Right. Thanks.”

  Alvaro watched over his cup as the vendor swung his load into the aisle.

  The scattered noise of the crowd drew together into a single roar.

  “Here we go,” said Franz. “The kick off.” His eyes followed the long arc of the ball. He then launched into an explanation of the basic rules and strategies of American football.

  Alvaro sipped his beer, wondering about this man who was charitable on a grand scale, yet harsh with individuals. And he wondered about being brought to the game in a broken down automobile by a man who could probably stop play to be delivered to the field, lowered daringly from the blimp circling lazily overhead, his name emblazoned in light for all to see.

  ~ ~ ~

  Play stopped midway through the fourth quarter for an injured player. Alvaro found the silence in the stadium to be as disturbing as the immobility of the man receiving aid on the field. “The crowd seems familiar with this sort of thing,” he said.

  “Injury in this sport is not uncommon,” said Franz. “The isolation of the neck and head is merely a precaution. We won’t hear if it’s paralysis until tomorrow.”

  “These men are expected to make quite a sacrifice for their game. I see many similarities to the ancient game once played in my country.”

  Franz smiled. “The Hero Twins playing their ballgame against the Lord of Death. I’m glad you see it that way, Al. That observation has quite a bit to do with why I brought you to Indianapolis.” He put an arm around Alvaro’s shoulders. “But our player does get to keep his head.”

  “Mister…excuse me, Woody, you imply your ball field sits atop, how should—”

  Franz took his arm off Alvaro. “The Crack of Creation. A direct access to the Hero Twins in their contest with the Lord of Death in the Underworld.”

  “That is correct. I see you are familiar—I see much ritual in this contest, in this spectacle. But I do not think these people in attendance have even the slightest belief in the Hero Twins. Or anything Mayan, for that matter.”

  “What these people believe in now doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh? And what they in believe will change at some future time?”

  “Al, you know the exact time that change will take place.”

  The stretcher with the secured player disappeared inside a waiting ambulance. Respectful applause spread through the stadium as the vehicle eased forward.

  Alvaro looked around the stands. The wigs and face paint of the people sitting in quiet anticipation mocked the value of their concern. Earlier in the game, Alvaro had felt being made up in similar fashion made him an accepted member of the spectacle. Now he needed to assert his outsider status. “I greatly appreciate your hospitality, sir. But I must ask why I have been brought to Indianapolis.”

  “Don’t you love that name. Indian-apolis. The nexus connecting the Old World and the New.”

  “I am afraid I do not understand.”

  “I’ll make it clear soon, Alvaro. Soon.”

  The flashers atop the ambulance flared, increasing the applause. It vanished beneath the sea of people. The game resumed.

  3: Ch’ak

  Traffic leaving Lucas Oil Stadium moved in a start-stop patchwork of stolen increments. Engine coolant and auto exhaust filled the air as automobiles diligently squeezed away one six inch space after another. Horns blared. People emerged through windows shouting and waving.

  “I understand the rampant honking and screaming to be a matter of maintaining the spirit of the game,” said Alvaro Xaman. “Yet the tie-up of thousands of autos endeavoring to move at once looks as if the fleeing of a disaster has itself become the disaster.”

  “Multiply this ten thousand times over across the country, every morning and every evening,” said Kurtwood Franz. “We call it rush hour.”

  “I see. Another American irony of reversal.”


  Two cars forward a beer bottle flew out a window and shattered on the pavement. A moment later three more bottles followed in quick succession. The blaring of horns increased as a brief rain of objects flew from dozens of cars.

  Directly above, the blimp flashed GOODBYE INDIANAPOLIS, turned away in graceful silence, then faded into the night like a dream run its course.

  “The face paint has grown uncomfortable,” said Alvaro. “I would like to remove it.”

  “We’ll be there shortly,” said Franz.

  They finally broke free of the tie-up. Franz accelerated the Ford down an entrance ramp and onto an eight-lane highway. Within minutes he exited onto a lightless thoroughfare. Alvaro recognized the infamous Franz World Headquarters as it loomed into view.

  “The home for Kurtwood Franz’s many ventures is the world’s greatest example of corporate excess,” stated one of the editorials Alvaro had scanned before meeting his host. “A monument to the arrogance and wastefulness of the rich and powerful.” Thirty million dollars into the project, Franz fired the contractor and took the wrecking ball to the building himself. He then formed his own company to restart the project and erected the building without a word to anyone why he’d started over.

  A long, arcing drive offered Alvaro a three-sided view of the building. The towering monolith stood alone in the night, strangely unlit, surrounded by acres of thick grass and asphalt parking lots. Hundreds of saplings stood scattered throughout the grounds; thin creases in the darkness suggesting history had barely begun for this place.

  Franz turned the Ford off the drive and onto a narrow lane that threw up a heavy guardrail. He withdrew a plastic card from his shirt pocket and inserted it into a box, then punched several keys on a pad. The guardrail lifted. He followed a spiral leading underground to the base of the building, then inserted the card into a second box. A heavy door rose.

  They entered a vast garage illuminated only by the Ford’s headlights. Dust floated in the horizontal beams. Vague shapes formed in the distance. Alvaro soon made out a long, white limousine and several expensive cars of European manufacture. They crawled past a dozen or so vintage cars from decades past, all in showroom condition. Alvaro looked for autos in the process of restoration. He saw none.

  A column appeared on the far side of the auto corral. Its left side was a blank face of concrete; an elevator door took up the right half. Franz parked in front of the door. He turned off the headlights. Now a dim bulb above the door provided the only light.

  Franz got out. Alvaro followed.

  Franz inserted his card and punched a quick combination of keys. The light inside the elevator sparked out just as the door slid open. Franz stepped in and tapped the bulb, his profile visible in the soft glow from outside. “I just had maintenance change this,” he said. He held out his hand for Alvaro to enter.

  Alvaro nodded, boarded.

  There were three options in the elevator: GARAGE, 13 and RESIDENCE. Franz pressed 13. The door closed. Complete darkness engulfed the two men. The elevator rose abruptly.

  Alvaro felt a disconcerting presence pulling at him in the darkness. His childhood fear of the dark returned? He once again mentioned the discomfort of the face paint.

  “We’ll take care of that soon enough,” said Franz.

  Such secrecy, thought Alvaro. He supposed the cars in the garage belonged to highly paid employees working late. Could those men have something to do with why Franz brought him to Indianapolis? He imagined a boardroom with a long, polished table surrounded by high-backed chairs, two dozen men with expensive haircuts nervously twisting gold rings and checking fine Swiss watches while tapping on high-speed communication devices alerted to world financial capitals. Franz would stroll in, having kept them waiting past midnight while he enjoyed his sporting event and entertained a man from a Third World nation. The board members would be on edge, not from being kept late, but because they were about to be ordered to do something they opposed. Alvaro allowed himself to believe that Franz was about to make a large contribution to the poor of Guatemala, and that he, Alvaro Xaman of Cocay, was to consult where the money would best be spent. Yes, Franz had amassed his wealth, but proved how little it meant to him by driving a broken down car and sitting among the common people during the football game. And by opening his luxury suite to poor children! Of course the board members would disapprove. They did not want their own luxury diminished. They had planned on watching tonight’s game from that suite. And one of them was now worried that he might no longer be brought to work in the exquisite limousine waiting downstairs.

  The elevator slowed abruptly, seemed to both raise and lower at once, then stopped. The door slid open. The scent of stale, dank air puzzled Alvaro.

  Franz struck a match and cupped the flame. He stepped out and touched the match to an object hanging on the wall. A small torch flared.

  Alvaro tensed as a thick mass of jagged spikes rained from the ceiling.

  Ropes of fire descending from the bitten sun!

  Alvaro squeezed the handrail, then eased his grip. He scolded himself for succumbing to such imagery. This was the third occasion on this night his logic had yielded to the intrusion of Don Delfino’s teachings. Perhaps the tiring flight, the disconcerting change of time zones and, just now, the jerking rise and thick slowing of the elevator had undermined his reason. Logic told him the room had been damaged by fire, and that some melting synthetic had formed the jagged shapes on the ceiling.

  Franz lifted the torch from the wall and held it aloft. The room expanded in the orange glow. The walls, rough in some spots, smooth in others, bulged and receded and formed a tunnel that looked to have been bored by something large and indecisive. Bits of stone broken from the ceiling spikes littered the floor. And now, in the light, those spikes were the pale green of limestone, like stalactites formed by eons of dripping water. The room was not damaged by fire; it was fashioned to look like a cave!

  Alvaro followed Franz through the chamber. He found the cave to be an entrance to something much larger. The walls in this second, low-ceilinged room were formed from blocks of hewn limestone. Damp mold covered what stone was visible in the torch’s orange glow. The mold grew thickest in the quarrying cuts.

  Franz pointed his torch to Alvaro’s right, summoning an alcove into existence. Small objects crowded a ledge following the contour of the recess. “You’ll be familiar with many of the pieces,” Franz said over his shoulder.

  “Mayan artifacts, Mr. Franz.”

  “Come, indulge yourself.”

  The light and heat from the torch intensified in the alcove’s constricted space. Alvaro took a black blade from the ledge. “This obsidian knife is flawless. So perfectly polished it absorbs the light rather than reflect it.” He ran his finger lightly across one edge. “It is so sharp I think it has not fulfilled its purpose in ritual sacrifice.” He replaced the knife and turned his attention to a group of small sculptures. “This is quite a cross-representation of figurines. Many of them depict common people.” He held a figurine to the light, a seated man with a round belly and a severe, scolding mouth. “But this is someone of the ruling class. Such sculptures were placed in the hands of the dead before… But I believe you know as much.”

  Franz moved the torch.

  “Marvelous,” said Alvaro. “A flint for decorating a ceremonial staff.” He lifted a flat, eighteen-inch long figure with a slender neck. “The intricate headdress indicates its wearer to be a king. The headdress tilts forward to suggest the neck of the king—Yax Pac, I believe—has been severed. See how one hand of the king depicts a noble, singing bird, while its opposite depicts a jaguar with mouth opened wide to one ear. The jaguar’s intention is to devour the bird’s song so that the king’s secrets are not revealed.” Alvaro wiped sweat from his brow. “The bird’s advantage is in its flight. But the jaguar possesses cunning and quickness, and can leap to wherever the bird may land.”

  Alvaro could not keep his eyes from wandering. He replaced the flin
t and took up a terra cotta pot decorated with turquoise. He held it toward Franz. “Are you able to interpret the glyphs?” He turned it slowly. “This vessel once held the precious chocolate drink for a lord of the city of Copan.”

  Franz held up a second flint depicting two men rising from one shared foot. Both wore donkey-head headdresses: one donkey laughing, the other sticking out its tongue.

  “The Hero Twins, Hunaphu and Xbalanque,” said Alvaro. He set down the drinking vessel and took the flint. “See how they are dressed in the protective clothing of the ballgame. They are about to enter the Underworld to challenge the Lord of Death.”

  Of all the items in the alcove, Alvaro told himself, Franz made sure he saw this particular piece. Was Franz commenting that he knew about Avendano? Such information would not be difficult to obtain. But Franz could not possibly know how he and Avendano had parted over the meaning of Don Delfino’s death. How Avendano, not actually having seen the brutal abduction by the Kabilies, allowed him to keep their teacher alive in the realm of ancient myth. Alvaro never convinced Avendano that the disappearance was a matter of modern politics. He returned the flint to the ledge.

  Franz carried the torch through the central chamber. The flickering light incited glyphs to leap from walls then jerk quickly back.

  Demon sentries reigned in by leashes barely shorter than the distance from nightmare into waking!

  Whenever Don Delfino had instructed him on how to read the glyphs, young Alvaro balked in fear at their human characteristics; feared their upwardly curving teeth and long, flat noses bending downward, their heavily lidded, mad eyes that followed his. As he grew older, Alvaro came to find rhythm in each glyph’s elegantly crafted curves, and where he once saw agonized writhing, he came to see vibrancy. Yet the glyphs remained sinister by virtue of their being observers as well as communicators—their grammar and syntax of such alien construction that they drew schooled linguists and accomplished code breakers into their sphere of conversation, then mocked the perplexed faces of those would be interpreters.