The Antiquities Hunter

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  I gave him my best evil eye. “You mean, you suspected she might be a dirty agent.”

  He tilted his head in agreement. “Let’s say I had to eliminate that possibility. Consider it eliminated.”

  I shook my head. “She was just beginning to put it together when . . . this.”

  “So I gather.” He set his elbows on the table and leaned toward me, lowering his head and his voice. “Now about those artifacts. That vase shard, any other antiquities Mr. Bridges may have had in his possession—they are, as they say, merely the tip of an iceberg. Have you heard of Bonampak?”

  “No. Is that a site?”

  He nodded. “In eastern Chiapas. It is the find of a lifetime. An acropolis, burial vaults, incredible murals still as vivid as the day they were painted. Like many other sites in that impoverished region, it’s now being looted of major treasures the Mexican government can’t afford to protect.”

  “Is that where you think Ted Bridge's antiquities came from? Bonampak?”

  “Possibly. A little over a year ago, I came across some relics in the vaults of a San Francisco museum that I suspected had come from Bonampak.” He grimaced and shook his head. “A chance discovery. I was on vacation.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “In a museum’s vaults.”

  “What can I say? It’s in the blood. I showed my credentials to the assistant curator; she let me wander the trove. I examined the artifacts and I questioned their provenance. When it became clear that some of the items had come from Bonampak—a site from which no antiquities should have been available on the open market—I raised the issue to higher levels.”

  “And nothing came of it?” I guessed.

  “The museum offered proof that they had received the lot of artifacts from a reputable auction house.”

  “Wait—let me guess—Sommers?”

  He nodded. “The museum’s papers were in order, Sommers’s papers were somewhat . . . cryptic. Both organizations have been less than helpful in the process of getting the items returned to Mexico. So, unable to connect the auction house to the black market from the demand side, I thought perhaps I could take a different approach.”

  “Find the black marketeers and follow the relics from their side.”

  “The link the Park Service sting forged between Ted Bridges and Felipe Revez is the best chance I’ve seen of beginning at the beginning.”

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately, the sting’s been shut down pretty definitively.”

  Veras’s dark eyes ratcheted up the intensity a few notches. “There is no other agent who can step into the sting in Ms. Delgado’s guise?”

  “Unfortunately, they’ve already established Marianna Esposito as the cover. Airline tickets, suite booked, the whole enchilada. Somehow I can’t imagine Rodney Hammermill or Greg Sheffield flouncing around in drag. And no one else knows the case as well as they do.”

  “You do.”

  “Me?”

  He smiled. “You’d look better in a dress than either of them.”

  “Thanks . . . I think.” I read his eyes. He was serious. “You’re not suggesting . . .”

  “Why not? You’ve been trained. You know the case. You were even in on the sting that established the link.”

  “Yeah, as backup! Besides, I’m no archaeologist.”

  “You know how to handle casework. And you’re pretty damned cool under fire.” One corner of his lip curled, annoyingly. “And you don’t need to be an archaeologist, Ms. Esposito. Your personal bodyguard will be an archaeologist.”

  “Greg Sheffield has his own assigned role, and Rodney Hammermill’s the new kid on the—”

  “Not Sheffield. Not Hammermill. Me.”

  I sat back and stared at him in silent disbelief. Good timing. The waitress had appeared with our food and was laying it out on the table. She glanced from the enigmatic-looking Veras to fish-faced me and smiled. I’m sure she thought she’d just interrupted some sort of romantic moment.

  The second she was gone, I leaned across my plate, endangering my new lime-green Henley and my useless hunk of Caddie wire. “Look, Indiana Jones, you seem to have immense regard for your own powers of persuasion, but there is not a snowball’s chance in Hell that you’re going to convince Greg Sheffield you should play a part in this operation.”

  He took a bite of his spinach salad. “I don’t have to convince Greg Sheffield of anything. I have to convince Ellen Robb.”

  “Oh . . . oh! And I suppose you think that because she’s a woman, you can just bat your excessive eyelashes at her and she’ll come around.”

  He laughed. “No. I think that because she’s a professional, she’ll see the logic of my proposal.”

  “Logic.”

  He speared another bite of spinach. “Gina, Greg was a visible part of the sting on Ted Bridges. There is a possibility that Bridges knew or at least suspected that Sheffield was an undercover agent. Which means that he might have communicated that suspicion to Felipe Revez or some other Mexican contact. He never saw you.”

  A chilling thought occurred to me. “If he did suspect Greg, he may have suspected Rose as well. Maybe the same people that killed Bridges—”

  Veras nodded. “The thought had occurred to me.”

  My fingernails were digging into the tabletop. “To keep the trail from leading back to Revez?”

  “Are you going to eat that?” he asked, flicking a glance at my chicken curry burrito.

  “What—now you want to cadge food?”

  “No, I want to make sure you eat.”

  “Yeah, yeah—keep up my strength,” I growled, but did take a bite of the burrito, which immediately whispered sweet somethings to my stomach to remind it how hungry it really was. I was halfway through the darned thing before I came up for air.

  “So,” Veras said, watching me finish my meal. “Are you in?”

  “The sting?” I hesitated. The idea was ludicrous, but there was a very large part of me that thrilled at the idea of doing something that important. And doing it for Rose. Regardless of the danger.

  He saw the hesitation, of course, and went after it with terrier-like glee. “I’ll make you a bet. I bet I can get Ellen Robb to go for the sting. If I do, you’re in.”

  “Okay. Yeah. If you can sell Ellen, I’m in.”

  “For work, you’re going to Cancún?” Mother asked. She had paused in the act of pounding out a chicken fillet, the meat mallet poised at the top of her stroke. “Who goes to Cancún for work?”

  “Apparently, private investigators do, Nadia,” Dad said mildly. He had tied on his black Iron Chef ninja apron and was hunkered over his marinade bowl like an alchemist over a crucible. Plum sauce and spices go in; liquid gold comes out.

  “Are you to go alone?”

  I perched on a stool at their kitchen island and studied the bottle of ginger beer in my hands. “No. I’ll have backup.”

  Mom’s eyebrows rose. Her mallet remained poised on high.

  “A bodyguard, actually.”

  Now Dad’s eyebrows ascended. A drop of plum sauce hung in the mouth of the bottle, ready to drop into the bowl.

  “Another agent. He’s experienced—he’s been a field operative for several years and he’s an archaeologist by training, so he knows the subject matter and the situation.”

  The plum sauce plummeted and Dad asked, “A Park Service agent?”

  “Yes, but not our Park Service. He’s from Mexico City. Working for the, uh, the INAH.”

  Mom lowered the mallet. “This is Dr. Veras, yes? You’re going to Cancún with Dr. Veras?”

  “Yes.” I kept my eyes on the mallet, praying it would go back to work on the hapless chicken breast.

  It did not. She set it aside, completely absorbed in my news. “Tell,” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts.

  Dad glanced from her to me. “Nadia . . .”

  “Nadia, vhat? Our daughter is going to Cancún with this Dr. Veras. What is he like, this doctor?”

  “He’s not
a doctor, Mom. He’s an archaeologist. And a journalist. And an undercover agent for the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History. I can’t really go into why we’re going or what we’re going to be doing. All I can say is that it may be related to what happened to Rosie.”

  At last, she uncrossed her arms, and the meat mallet resumed its steady attack on the chicken breast. I breathed a sigh of relief and caught Dad’s smile as he bent back to his crucible.

  “I will have to take Dave some galobki and red cabbage,” Mom decided. “And of course, let him know he is always welcome here while you are gone. How long?”

  “I’m not sure. A week. Maybe two. Probably two.”

  “And this archaeologist, he knows how to fire a gun?”

  “Yes, Mother. He has a nice, shiny Glock 28, .38 caliber with a magazine of twelve shots. I’ve never seen him use it, but I’m sure he knows how.”

  She looked at me. “How can you be sure? You should take him to the firing range. Make sure.” The chicken was wafer thin, but she kept after it. “This is dangerous, this Cancún trip?”

  “I . . .” I glanced over at Dad, who appeared to be absorbed in his marinade. I knew better. “Not likely. We’re . . . just doing some research, really. Checking out a possible lead.”

  The meat mallet went through the chicken into the cutting board underneath.

  “Mom,” I said. “I think that one’s done.”

  She moved the chicken doily to a waiting plate and tossed another victim onto the block. “What does he look like, this Dr. Veras?”

  “Actually, he looks sort of like Antonio Banderas. A little taller, maybe.”

  Like I could tell. To me, height is like cold. After a certain point, any differences are irrelevant.

  She considered this for a moment, then said, “Alvie looks like David Duchovny.”

  Dad choked.

  I slid off the stool. “Alvie looks like Harry Potter on growth hormones,” I said. “Need me to make a salad?”

  She pointed the mallet at the refrigerator. “Spinach.”

  I dug into the crisper and pulled out spinach, found the bacon bits, and rooted around for the dressing. It was next to the holy water, which had diminished significantly since the last time I’d seen it.

  “Mom, you been blessing things again?”

  “Maybe.”

  I closed the fridge. “Mom . . .”

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Mom, what have you blessed now?”

  “Only your gun,” she said conversationally.

  “Nadia!” Dad exclaimed. “You shouldn’t put water on a gun.”

  She shrugged. “A sprinkling only. It doesn’t take much. It was a very small prayer.”

  I relaxed a little. A very small prayer. That didn’t sound so bad. Still, I’d make a point of taking a trip to the firing range tomorrow. Maybe I’d invite Cruz Veras along so I could give a good report on his marksmanship.

  Chapter 11

  The Legend of Marianna Esposito

  She was spoiled—rotten. And bored. A rich man’s significant other looking for an impressive gift and a little adventure. Her just shoulder-length, artfully black-cherry hair was streaked with blond—eyebrows dyed to match. Her eyes were a liquid shade of brown calculated to mesmerize. She spoke volumes with them. She wore silk in bright colors only found in Tahiti (or any street in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday). Her makeup was just a shade extreme without being gaudy, and had been applied by an expert—I doubted she knew how to do it herself. (In fact, I was sure of it.) She worked at being mysterious. She laughed easily.

  And deep down in her Gucci purse, she carried a government-issued satellite cell phone, a magnum (loaded but with the safety on), a Saint Boris medallion, and a cottonwood katsinam carved by a Hopi medicine man for his granddaughter’s coming-of-age ceremony.

  Just now, she looked dubiously at the stiletto-heeled sandals on her undersized feet and took a series of awkward and wobbling steps away from the mirror.

  “I think you’d better stick to these.” Cruz Veras stood in the bedroom doorway of Marianna Esposito’s luxurious three-room suite at the Peacock Beach Resort in Cancún, dangling a pair of gold strappy sandals with thicker heels of a less suicidal two inches.

  I blew a strand of Marianna’s gaudy hair out of my eyes and glared at him. A small, ornery part of me wanted to tough it out and show Señor Cross Sacred True that I could so walk in these damn things, but common sense won out. I slipped out of the stilettos and gratefully accepted the other pair of sandals.

  “I don’t know how women walk in those things,” he said as I put them on.

  “I don’t know why they walk in those things,” I muttered, tossing the maniacal stilettos into the closet.

  “You don’t?”

  I glanced up at him sharply, suspecting sarcasm, but his face was deadpan.

  “Marianna Esposito does,” he told me. “You need to remember that.”

  I started to retort, then caught myself and nodded. “In other words, Gina Miyoko should be neither seen nor heard.” He was right, of course. I had, in point of fact, worked for the better part of a week at muzzling Gina and learning to channel Marianna. Part of that had been memorizing her (entirely fictitious) life story. Or at least the highlights reel.

  We’d spent another part of our week absorbing everything the investigative team had gleaned about Felipe Revez. While the NPS folks and Cruz looked further into his business dealings and connections in the art and antiquities world, I did some work on his social life. Felipe Revez was something of a celebrity, not just locally, but nationally. This meant that articles about him turned up in venues as varied as financial and business news, tourist and travel magazines, and Mexican celebrity gossip columns and tabloids.

  If you were wondering why Marianna Esposito’s hair was a deep cherry red, it was because yours truly had found photo after photo of the “mark,” i.e. Felipe (Don’t you just love that undercover lingo?), with a petite redhead or an Asian-looking woman hanging on his arm. To be sure, there were some statuesque blondes tucked in there as well, but short of me learning how to shape-shift or trading bodies with my friend July, statuesque was not gonna happen. Getting an outrageous dye job—that I was up for. Hey, I was Asian-looking and a redhead. A twofer.

  I’d also noted that the women Revez fancied were fellow jet-setters or celebrities in their own right. He did not collect waifs and do the whole Eliza Doolittle thing. No, my epic makeover had to happen prior to me meeting the man.

  Now, psychologically speaking, having women who are beholden to you for their status and its perks is something that men in Revez’s position tended to go for, so I suspected that his choice of arm ornaments had a deeper significance. Looking at the intel on his finances and business dealings that Rose’s support team had come up with, I’d suspected that this “deeper” significance related to how much money they or their families controlled, and how much of it they were willing to invest in the boyfriend’s business ventures.

  And this was why Gina Miyoko was debuting in spycraft as a tarted-up fishing lure.

  Cruz leaned against the doorjamb. “Where did you meet your fiancé, Ms. Esposito?”

  I turned Gina off, tuned in to Marianna, and laughed coyly. “I ran into him at an art auction. Literally. I was admiring a Rubens when someone called my name, I turned and decorated poor Geoffrey’s lovely white tuxedo with merlot. Thank God he forgave me.”

  “Poor Geoffrey,” Veras cooed.

  I took an experimental walk away from the mirror and back again. Two inches of heel I could handle. Maybe even three. I looked back at my “bodyguard.” “Can I ask you something?”

  He shrugged a one-shouldered “yes.”

  “Are all men attracted to stupidity?”

  “What?”

  Hah! I’d surprised him. “Well, it’s stupid to wear shoes that could pass for implements of torture and end your life with one false step.”

  “Ye-es. I suppose
it is.”

  “If you’re wearing them to attract male approval, it’s doubly stupid. It’s like wearing a big placard on your forehead that says, ‘I’m an idiot. And I’m flaunting my idiocy in the hope of attracting a man.’ What woman in her right mind wants to attract a guy who’s attracted to stupidity?”

  He looked at me as if I’d lost him on that last turn. Finally, he shook his head and smiled. “Nice shoes, Ms. Esposito. What was the question again?”

  Okay, I admit it—he scored points. I returned the smile and said, “How long have you been working for Ms. Esposito, Mr. Gutierrez?”

  He answered without missing a beat. “Actually, I work for Geoff Catalano. Have for about five years. I was a detective on the LAPD and worked a burglary case involving the theft from Mr. Catalano’s art collection. He was impressed with my work and my knowledge of art and antiquities, and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I keep an eye on the things my employer treasures most.”

  I took a deep breath. “You think we’re ready for this?”

  “I think we have to be.”

  Felipe Revez was a proud man. One of the things he was most proud of was his flagship restaurant, which, having no name of its own, was known simply as The Restaurant at Peacock Beach. So proud was he of his five-star restaurant and its Michelin three-star chef that he made the rounds of the swank dining room every evening to make sure his most affluent customers (those in the luxury suites) were suitably impressed with said chef’s creations.

  Our plan called for me to strike up a conversation with Revez during this schmoozing opportunity, using whatever material was on hand. As it happened, there was a lot to talk about. Revez publicly displayed pieces of his collection at various points throughout his resort—a Picasso in the foyer, pre-Columbian art in the entry to the restaurant, a trio of Egyptian canopic jars in a display near the spa. (Yeah, that’s what I want to be looking at while I’m getting a hot-oil rub.)