We dined at eight o’clock, dressed to the nines. My companion (Cruz Gutierrez, by name) looked too elegant to be a bodyguard. He wore a black suit with a black silk shirt and a changeable satin tie so dark it might as well have been black. I was in silk too, yards of it. Eggplant-colored—aubergine, among fashionistas. It wasn’t until we’d been seated that I realized my dress matched Cruz’s tie if you looked at it in just the right way.
“What are you staring at? Have I stained my lapel?” he whispered when the waiter had finished the litany of house specialties, handed us menus, and departed.
I smiled. “Your tie. I just noticed we’re color coordinated. Is your gun baby blue, by any chance?”
“It’s pewter. But I have a tie to match.”
I pouted. “I don’t wear pewter. Such a masculine color, don’t you think?”
We ordered, chatting about things that wouldn’t sound off if overheard. We also practiced speaking in “code.” That sounds silly until you realize that undercover operatives may have occasion to communicate undercover-y sorts of things while in public places. We couldn’t, for example, talk openly about Rose. I’d spoken to Dave just before we came down to dinner, but hadn’t told Veras anything about the call.
We were just getting started on the soup course when he asked, “You call home tonight?”
“I did. Talked to Deedee. Same old, same old. Sis is still not speaking to her hubby, Geoff is working hard and says to stay in touch.”
Now, what I’d just told him is that I’d talked to Dave Delgado, Rose’s condition hadn’t changed, and Greg was ready and waiting for us to direct his team’s activities.
“He have any plans to join you down here?”
“When he can. It’s always when he can.”
Veras looked up and over my head. “Ah. Our illustrious host.”
I turned to look. I’d seen pictures of Revez, of course, but he was more impressive in person. He was handsome in a patrician sort of way, about five-foot-eleven, I guessed, built like a catcher, and distinguished-looking in a dark blue silk suit. At forty-five he was either just beginning to go slightly gray at the temples or had a far more subtle dye job than mine.
We’d been through the drill—if he didn’t make us part of his dinnertime ego-boo rounds, I was supposed to approach him and ask about his collection of wonderful pre-Columbian knickknacks. Either way, the script was basically the same.
As it happened, Revez made our table his next-to-last stop. He was a hand-kisser. Marianna found this charming. I found it creepy. It made me feel as if little ants were marching up and down my arms. I couldn’t stop the shiver it brought on, but I did manage to cover it with a laugh and a wriggle and a coy look.
He raised his sleek eyebrows; I claimed to be ticklish. Then I introduced myself and gushed about his collection.
“Why thank you, Ms. Esposito.” He bowed slightly from the waist. “I am rather proud of my acquisitions. Hence, I like to show them off—if only a few at a time. You have an interest in antiquities?”
“I think some of them are lovely, but it’s my fiancé who’s mad for them, particularly Mayan ones. And whatever interests Geoffrey interests me.”
Again with the raised eyebrows—this time accompanied by a quick glance at Cruz. “Geoffrey?” His soft accent rendered the g as a soft j.
“Geoffrey Catalano. Who is hard at work in San Francisco even as we speak.” I pouted very slightly. “That man works way too hard for my taste. I prefer a more . . . relaxed lifestyle. More flexibility.” I shifted my shoulders in what I hoped was a suggestive manner, and glanced up at our host. He was looking back with sphinxlike inscrutability, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Breaking eye contact, I gestured to Cruz. “This is Mr. Gutierrez.”
“Ah, then Mr. Gutierrez is a . . . business associate?”
“Mr. Gutierrez is a man of many faces,” I said with a pointed look at the man himself. “In this context, he’s my bodyguard and my art and antiquities consultant.”
“Consultant?”
“My background is in archaeology,” Cruz said smoothly. “Geoff retains me to advise him in matters pertaining to his collection.”
“Really?” Revez pulled out a chair and canted his head toward it. “May I?”
“Of course,” I said, and Cruz nodded.
“Cruz helps Geoffrey choose most of his acquisitions,” I explained as Revez seated himself. “Which is why I’ve brought him along on this little junket. I’m on a mission of sorts, Mr. Revez. To find a wedding present for Geoffrey that will knock his socks off. Something exciting. Something he doesn’t have twenty of.”
“I’ve explained to Marianna,” Cruz said, “how difficult that may be. Her fiancé is selective and has quite an expansive and unique collection.”
Revez smiled. “I understand the problem. Finding something truly exciting and new is . . . rare.” He offered me a glance I thought suggestive, then turned to my escort, “I would be interested in your expert opinion of some pieces I’ve lately acquired for my private collection, Mr. Gutierrez. Would you be willing to look at them? Tomorrow evening, perhaps?”
“Tsk, tsk,” I murmured. “Sounds like a conflict of interest.”
Veras ignored me. “Please, call me ‘Cruz,’ and I would be most interested in seeing your private collection. I assume your best pieces are not for public display.”
“Naturally not.”
“I understand. My employer has also acquired a number of items that are . . . best kept out of the public eye.”
Revez gave my consultant a studied look, then smiled. “I take it you’re not one of those stuffy archaeologists that believes everything belongs in a museum.”
“What—like Indiana Jones?” Cruz asked, sending me a sly glance. “Jones was fiction, Mr. Revez. I’m a realist.”
“Please, call me Felipe,” said our host and reached out to shake Cruz’s hand.
“Well,” I said wryly, “maybe I should just excuse myself and go powder my nose.”
Both men looked at me as if I’d suddenly stood on my chair and started belting out show tunes. Then Revez smiled, leaned toward Cruz, and said something so softly I couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it inspired laughter in my “consultant.” The two men exchanged significant glances before Revez turned to take up my hand once again.
“Dear Ms. Esposito, I wouldn’t dream of driving you off to the powder room. Your nose, as you surely must know, is perfectly powdered as it is.” The waiter appeared with our salads at this point, and Revez excused himself to attend to another table. I asked my dinner companion a single question, then sat back and ate, half tuned in to a lecture on Mayan artifacts.
Safely back in the suite sometime later, I slipped out of the strappy sandals and curled up in a suede chair to watch Cruz Veras pull a couple of Perriers out of the fridge behind the wet bar.
“I’m wasting my time batting my lashes at that guy aren’t I?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” He handed me a bottle before loosening his tie and dropping onto the elegant sofa opposite.
“I mean I think maybe you ought to be making sheep’s eyes at him. I don’t think he’s my type. After all, it was you he invited up to see his artifacts.”
Cruz inhaled a swig of Perrier and went into a coughing fit. I watched in bemused silence until he recovered himself.
“What in God’s name,” he asked when he’d gotten his voice back, “makes you think that?”
“The murmured confidences, the way he went on point . . . in your direction, not mine.”
That almost got him going again. “Jealous, Ms. Esposito?”
“No. Just . . . thrown for a loop. If he turns out to be immune to Marianna’s charms, I may have to resort to casting spells.”
“Immune to Marianna’s charms?” he repeated. “What were you planning to do, lure him into bed? Get him to talk in his sleep?” He made a snoring noise then exhaled: “The map to the treasure is in the safe. (Sno
re.) The combination to the safe is—”
He stopped when I threw a sandal at him. I would have caught him in the shoulder if he hadn’t had the reflexes of a ninja . . . or a young J. T. Snow. He snatched it cleanly out of the air.
I smote my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Oh, don’t tell me—you’re an ex–baseball player.”
“I haven’t played since college. You have a good arm.” He put the shoe carefully on the floor. “Revez ‘went on point’ when he found out I was an archaeologist. And the whispered confidence . . . Let me see. How can I put this? He said in essence, ‘Lucky bastard. Her motor’s already running.’”
“In essence?”
“Well . . . there was more to it than that. I somehow doubt you’d appreciate the crude details. Although Marianna might.”
I could feel my face going red and prayed he couldn’t see it in the low light. “So he thinks we’re an item. I hope that’s not a drawback. Maybe we should stress the ‘business’ part of our business relationship.”
“Gina, you’re engaged to one man and sharing a suite in Cancún with another. And I think you made it pretty clear that you like a relaxed and flexible lifestyle.”
Now there was no way he could miss my rosy glow. I changed the subject.
“D’you think he’s checking out our backstory?”
“I hope so, or all that work on the part of the tech team will have been for nothing. I expect I may have to try to dazzle him further with my knowledge of antiquities while you bat your eyelashes and wax eloquent about dear Geoffrey’s billions.”
I didn’t doubt that Revez was interested in Geoffrey’s billions and my own considerable (if imaginary) wealth. I was less convinced he was interested in my—I mean, Marianna’s—hyperbolic charms.
I uncurled my legs and stood. “I guess I’ll turn in. I wouldn’t want to wake up with circles under my eyes.”
“Are you sure? You have a reputation to uphold, after all.”
“Vroom, vroom,” I said and retreated toward my room.
“Gina . . .”
I turned back, caught by the sober tone of his voice.
“Ted Bridges is dead and Rose Delgado is in a coma.”
“You think I need reminding?”
“I think you need reminding that Revez may have something to do with one or both of those things. He may seem urbane and civilized and even charming, but . . .”
Jeremy’s face flashed before my eyes—smiling, handsome, lovable. “Trust me, Dr. Veras, my experience with men who aren’t what they seem is both broad and deep.”
He looked down at his bottle of fizzy water, awkwardly contrite. “I’m sorry—”
“And was before I ever met you,” I added.
The look he gave me was far too searching for my taste. I beat a hasty retreat before I found out he was a licensed psychologist in addition to his other talents.
Chapter 12
The Road to Ek Balam
I called Dave Delgado’s cell phone as early as I dared. I didn’t wake him, Rose’s nurse had already done that. My best friend’s condition had neither improved nor worsened. Dave promised he’d let me know if there was a change either way.
“If I’m not here,” I told him, “leave a message.”
“In code, right?”
“I know it seems weird.”
“No, really. I get it.”
I knew he got it. I suspected if—no, when—Rosie recovered from her injuries, she and Dave were going to have a long talk about career options that didn’t require aliases, bodyguards, and super-secret code words.
Over breakfast—which we ate on the Peacock restaurant’s huge, fan-shaped seaward patio—Cruz suggested we take a day trip to Ek Balam, the archaeological site closest to Cancún. Well, not counting Chichen Itza, which apparently no serious archaeologists do any more, according to my expert.
“It’s like Disneyland,” he told me, lip curling professorially. “Tourists go to Chichen Itza; archaeologists, historians, and students thereof go to Ek Balam.”
“How ’bout we go to some local galleries first? Let me get an idea of what’s available on the ‘white market.’ I want to know how stunned and amazed to be if we see the private cache.”
Cruz gave me what can only be described as a “smoldering look.” “Oh, I’ll tell you how stunned and amazed to be. We’ll set up some signals.”
He reached over and took my left hand—the one that wasn’t holding something I could stab him with. Then he drew a tickle-inducing line down the back of it with his thumb.
I started to pull my hand away, then caught the minute shake of his head. His eyes flicked toward the patio doors. I lowered my head and followed his gaze, peering out from between disconcertingly red strands of hair. Felipe Revez was framed in the archway just inside the restaurant proper, apparently going over reservations with the maître d’.
“Watching?” I murmured.
“Yes.”
I straightened and looked over at Revez just as he looked up at us. I smiled, disengaged my hand from Cruz’s, and waved cheerily. Cruz sat back in his chair and impatiently adjusted his napkin, the very picture of a jealous boyfriend.
Revez hesitated only momentarily, then said a final word to his maître d’ and came over to our table, standing close enough to me that I could smell his expensive cologne. Something citrus-y. “Buenas dias, friends, and how are you enjoying your breakfast?”
“It’s glorious,” I enthused. “The weather, the birdsong, the ocean rhythm, the food. Everything conspires to laziness.”
“You’ll find the beach is also part of the conspiracy.”
Cruz reached across the table and took back my hand. “No beaches today, Mari. We are on a mission, remember?”
I smiled and kept my attention on our host. “We’re going gallery-hopping today.”
Revez looked dubious. “I doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for in a public gallery, Ms. Esposito.”
“Marianna,” I insisted.
“I’ve told her that myself,” Cruz said, looking at me pointedly. “But she refuses to believe me. I’ve suggested a day trip to Ek Balam.”
This pronouncement brought Revez’s sleek brows (which I’d decided reminded me of a pair of acrobatic weasels) to full attention. “Ek Balam is not currently open to tourist traffic.”
“I’m not a tourist. I’m an archaeologist. And I have the credentials to prove it.”
Revez aimed a smile in my direction, though his eyes were still on Cruz. “So I have found. You have an impressive résumé, Mr. Gutierrez. Marianna, I believe your adviser is correct. You’ll certainly see much that is unique at Ek Balam.”
Good boy. He’d done his homework on us . . . or at least on Cruz Gutierrez. “Sure,” I pouted, “but what good does that do me? Even if I see something unique, it’s not as if I can ask the archaeologists to just wrap it up and send it to my hotel.”
Revez’s smile deepened. “No? Well, perhaps not. But one never knows.” He traded enigmatic glances with Cruz, quite literally over my head, then said, “Cruz, I would very much like your opinion of some of the pieces I have lately acquired for my private collection. And to be honest, I am not above trying to impress a lady.” He gave a nod in my direction. “I would be honored if you both could join me for dinner tonight in my penthouse.”
Cruz looked to me as if asking permission. (“Please, Mom, can I go play with this nice man’s artifacts?”)
I smiled brightly. “We’d love to. Do you think your private collection might contain something that would make Geoffrey green with envy?”
He answered with an enigmatic smile, offered a slight bow, and wished us good hunting. “I look forward to this evening,” he said, then caught up my free hand and raised it to his lips.
I thought I was prepared, but the kiss still elicited a shiver. I prayed he didn’t take it in the spirit in which it was given.
“Creepy,” I murmured, watching him disappear into the shadow of the r
estaurant.
“Really? You don’t share Marianna’s taste in men? Well, don’t let on, please. Let him think you shiver with delight at his touch.”
“Well, duh.”
He tucked back into his breakfast. “How was your sister this morning?”
“Still incommunicado. But I’m expecting to hear from her any time. She never stays out of touch long.”
“And her husband?”
“He’s holding up well, I think. Just longing for the sound of her voice.”
“Understandable. And how are you holding up?” he murmured.
I glanced up at him. He was looking at me as if searching for cracks in my glossy exterior.
I laughed. “I’m fine, darling. And just dying to get on with our shopping expedition.”
We finished our breakfast in relative silence, then went into Cancún proper. Except for the Isla Mujeres, Cancún is one of those places where one looks for culture only to discover that there’s no there there. There is nothing uniquely Mexican about the place: hotels strewn along white beaches, an eternity of azure water, buses, cars, shopping malls—there was even a Walmart, for Pete’s sake. If it weren’t for the Spanish place names and the lesser humidity, I’d think I was in Honolulu.
For Marianna Esposito’s mission, the place was a total bust. We found only one or two upscale galleries and, while Cruz saw a few artifacts with suspicious provenance, none of them were of the caliber of Ted Bridges’s vase shard. Before noon we’d rented an SUV and were on our way into the Yucatán outback. The climate changed as we went—from the perfumed balm of ocean breezes to the dense, moist atmosphere of the rain forest. I had the sense of being swaddled in increasing layers of invisible gauze.
The name Ek Balam meant “Black Jaguar.” The signs posted about referred to it as a temple. This was misleading. Ek Balam was a fortress. At least that’s the way it was built. It had several rings of defensive walls made of huge stone blocks and set with tricky entryways. Cruz called them “baffled entries.” Apparently, they were intended to baffle the enemy so much that he’d hesitate long enough to make a good target.
The Antiquities Hunter Page 13
