The Antiquities Hunter

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  “You exploring a career in radio sound effects?” I asked. “I’d advise you to keep your day job, whatever that is.”

  “Tink,” he repeated. “That’s what Dave Delgado called you at the hospital. Pet name?”

  “Only for a pet you hated.”

  “Embarrassing?”

  “Annoying.”

  “But you let friends call you that.”

  “Certain friends. Friends who were around in the day. Rosie was there when I . . . acquired the damned thing. She’s entitled—and Dave by extension, I guess.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me how you acquired it?”

  I looked over at him where he lounged, half in and half out of a comfy leather chair, his feet on the hearth. The look in his eyes told me that if I didn’t tell him at this juncture, he’d keep after me until I did.

  “Okay, this is the story: When I was a sophomore in high school, I was part of a group of kids who were . . . misfits, I guess you’d say. My friend Lee and I were too short; Rosie was too chubby, and July was too tall and too buff.”

  “July?”

  “July Petersen. Yes, it’s a family pandemic. She has a brother named ‘March’ and a sister named ‘October.’”

  “I’m going to guess—the months in which they were born?”

  I nodded. “It started back a generation. Their mom’s name is ‘Jan’—short for ‘January’—and I think they have an uncle named ‘Avril.’”

  “I am sincerely afraid to ask about their father.”

  “Oh, their father is named, simply and sensibly, ‘John,’” I told him. “At any rate, we were misfits who lacked the foresight to realize that hanging out together compounded our ‘misfitism.’ So we made a natural and easy target for those packs of guys who just love to harass the black sheep of the fold. One of the guys that used to poke fun at us was a studious sort. When he found out my full name was Gina Suzu Miyoko, he—for reasons that escape me entirely—got out a Japanese dictionary and found out that it meant ‘Silver Bell Temple.’ Hence, ‘Tinkerbell.’ Hence, ‘Tink.’”

  “Ah . . . it all becomes clear. And this studious fellow . . .”

  “Perry. Perry Dixon.”

  “You honestly don’t know why he went to the trouble to look up your name?”

  I shook my head, then caught the expression on his face. “Oh, really. You think he had a crush on me.”

  He shrugged. “Seems obvious enough.”

  “That just . . .” That just made all sorts of sense in view of more recent overtures Perry had made the last time I visited Grass Valley, my erstwhile hometown. I laughed. “That’s just too weird. Trust me not to have seen it.”

  “So where is this Perry Dixon now?”

  “Serving a two-year sentence in Folsom for illegal sale of firearms.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.”

  I felt his gaze on the side of my face. It was not a comfortable sensation. “You were referring to him, then—with that comment about your experience with men who are not what they seem.”

  “Actually, no. Although, now that you mention it, I guess it applies. I was thinking of . . . someone else.”

  Oddly, he didn’t press me on that. It was as if he possessed a sixth sense about which areas of my personal territory were posted “Beware of Dog” and which ones said “Trespassers Will Be Eaten.”

  I decided I’d move on anyway, just in case he tried to circle back. “So tell me,” I said, “when Felipe took you aside tonight just before we left, was it to talk business? He’d said he wanted your opinion on something.”

  Cruz turned his face toward the fire, and I had the feeling he was hiding a smile. “He wanted to get my opinion on something, but it wasn’t business related. Actually, I have an appointment with him tomorrow morning quite early to look at some of his ‘investments.’”

  “So . . . what was the topic of discussion, Dr. Enigma?”

  “You.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Yes. Our host asked me about the exact nature of our relationship. That was precisely the way he put it: ‘Cruz, I hope you will not find me rude, but what is the exact nature of your relationship with Marianna?’”

  “And you said?”

  “I said, ‘I am her antiquities expert.’ To which he replied: ‘You are more than that or I am a blind man.’ ‘I am her bodyguard,’ I explained. ‘I am paid to be attentive to her body.’”

  “You didn’t.”

  He grinned. “No. I didn’t. Actually, I said, ‘I am paid to be attentive to her safety and security.’ ‘You are more than attentive,’ he said. ‘You are protective, and not merely on Mr. Catalano’s behalf, I think.’”

  “Ooh,” I said. “A sixth sense, that guy.”

  “Well, of course, I then admitted a certain . . . attraction to you—to Marianna. How could I not be attracted to such a woman?” He made a dramatic gesture and raised his eyes heavenward.

  “You could be gay.”

  “Yes, but Cruz Gutierrez cannot be gay.”

  “Granted. Go on.”

  “Then he asks me: ‘What is the extent of your involvement? You share a suite. What else do you share?’”

  “And you said?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I simply gave him a ‘look’ intended to tell him that he had trespassed far enough. However, he was not to be dissuaded. He asked bluntly if you were my lover.”

  “And you said?”

  “I told him you were not ‘my’ anything—you are your own woman. Oh, how did I put it? It was so poetic: ‘One thing I have learned, Felipe, since knowing her: a man does not have Marianna Esposito. She has him.’ Something like that.” He waved his hand as if to say it was of no importance.

  The humorous aspect of our intrigue suddenly hit me like a pie in the face and I laughed. I couldn’t stop laughing. It all seemed so absurdly funny. Gina Miyoko, private eye, was now Gina Miyoko, femme fatale? The whole idea was so out of synch with my self-image that I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  When I’d laughed myself out, I opened my eyes and was surprised to discover that Cruz had not been laughing with me. Or even at me.

  “What?” I asked, wiping tears from my face.

  “Yes, I thought it was funny at first too—all this cloak and dagger. But listen, Gina . . .” He leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees, and fixed me with a straight-up gaze. “Listen to the amounts of money we have been discussing. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, now millions. These are amounts of money for which some will commit murder.”

  “Not will,” I said, catching up with his sober mood. “Have.”

  “Yes. Have. And I think perhaps they have because they have a secret to keep.”

  I nodded. “The location of Bonampak B.”

  “Right now, Felipe Revez supposes you to be thinking about having your husband-to-be bankroll a most dangerous and lucrative excavation. And from my conversation with him this evening, I believe he is looking for ways to influence your decision.”

  “Ways to . . . You think he’ll try to seduce me.”

  “I think it is possible. Hell, he may be sincerely infatuated with you, for all we know.”

  He flung himself out of his chair and paced away to look into the velvet night beyond the balcony. The light pollution from Cancún threw him into fuzzy silhouette.

  “What—you think I can’t handle myself? That I’ll start giggling like a schoolgirl? I have a little experience with men.”

  He turned back to face me. “Men like Revez? Men who might kill to protect their secrets?”

  I met his gaze dead on. “Yes.”

  Surprise! Not the answer he’d expected.

  “I get that this is dangerous, Cruz,” I told him. “I understand that this is only partly a piece of fiction. But we’ve got to see this through.”

  “I’m not sure we do.”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  I rose and crossed the room
to get a better look at his face. It was inscrutable.

  “In the morning, after my meeting with Revez, I’m going to give Greg Sheffield a full report. We’ll see what he says. We may have enough evidence that a raid now would bag us Revez.”

  “But we won’t bag his associates or the location of the site. We’ve at least got to come out of this with that.”

  He shrugged. “We know it’s near Bonampak.”

  “Bozhe moy. Near Bonampak? That covers a hell of a lot of densely forested territory. You know what that area is like. Except where they’ve cleared it, it’s like a . . . a jungle.”

  His lips twitched. “It is a jungle.”

  I peered at him in the firelight. “What is this about? Why the sudden case of jitters? I thought you were an experienced undercover guy.”

  “I am. You’re not. Not like this.”

  “I’m often called on to pretend to be something I’m not. While I was checking you out, I presented myself as several different people. I—”

  “You told fibs about who Gina Miyoko is. This is different. As different as that is from stepping in front of a camera in an acting role.”

  He was right. I knew he was right, but I was not ready to admit it. “Is this about me being a woman? A small woman? A defenseless-looking, small woman? Because if that’s what this is about, so help me I’ll . . . I’ll go kung fu on your ass.”

  I almost got him to laugh. Almost. He shook his head, then looked past me at the fire.

  “Look you,” I said, poking his chest with my finger. “You’re the one who talked me into this. You’re the reason I’m here. You and Rose. Hell, you used Rose to get me here.”

  His face contorted in a split second of angst, which he shook away. “Gina, the deeper we get into this, the less sanguine I am about involving you. Greg asked me to think twice about that back at the beginning. I didn’t listen to him. I’m beginning to wish I had. You should be back in the States at Rose’s bedside. Not here.”

  “Oh, that is wrong on so many different levels. Look, we’re here to set up a sting—to get Revez to take us to the site and show us that this is worth good old Geoffrey’s money. How’s that going to happen without Marianna?”

  “I could set it up, acting on your behalf—”

  “I’m the Golden Goose, Cruz. Not you—me. Revez knows that. And I think we’ve pretty well established that Marianna doesn’t send proxies in to do her bidding.”

  His face said he knew I was right and hated it.

  I stepped back half a pace and said, “Look, when we report to Greg, you can share your concerns with him. If he wants to pull the plug, we’ll pull the plug and go home, okay?”

  He looked at the floor, then at me. “But you’re not going to kick back and shut up, are you?”

  “What do you think?”

  Chapter 15

  My Breakfast with Saint Boris

  I went to the spa while Cruz was with Revez the next morning. While in the hot tub, I spent some time on the phone with Dave, who told me that Rose had shown no further signs of emerging from her coma. The swelling in her brain was down, though, and the doctor had cut back on her dosage of the anti-inflammatory. One of those bad news/good news scenarios.

  Anyone watching or listening would have thought I was conversing with a friend about his clever new puppy dog, and I only had to pop my head underwater a couple of times to camouflage my tears.

  After that, I sat and contemplated last night’s head-butting match with Cruz. I was genuinely warmed by what seemed to me to be personal concern. Warmed and a little worried. I’d asked Rose half-jokingly if Greg Sheffield was sweet on her. Now I wondered if there was such a thing as an Undercover Agent Syndrome, like the old doctor-patient thing. In this case, two people thrown together into a dangerous situation, having to work closely in tandem, depending on each other, being responsible for each other’s lives. The last thing in the world I needed was to get caught up in another relationship that might result in one or both parties requiring therapy. I had learned the hard way how foundational trust is to every human relationship and how devastating it can be when that trust is broken.

  It’s not as if I didn’t know true love was a Thing. I had my mom and dad and Rose and Dave and other friends who’d been blessed with constant partners. And it’s not that I didn’t know that there were people I really could trust with my life, but I wasn’t yet sure that Cruz Veras was one of them. It was possible that before this gig was done, that would become an issue.

  And what about all that primate posturing I’d witnessed last night? I’d assumed it was all for show—for Felipe Revez’s benefit—but now I had to wonder.

  Oh, come off it, Gina, I told myself. He’s playacting, just like you are. You’re not a jet-set floozy and he’s not a testosterone-driven paramour. He’s just nervous about taking an espionage newbie into what might become a combat zone.

  It sounded so reasonable, I bought it. All I needed to do, I decided, to soothe Cruz Sacramento Veras was to remind him that I was police academy–trained with several years on the force, took target practice twice a week, and really did have a black belt in kung fu.

  In fact, that’s exactly what I told him when he walked into the suite later that morning. “I have a black belt in kung fu.”

  He stopped just inside the door and stared at me. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m just reminding you—I have an actual black belt in a real martial art. I’ve even won tournaments. And I’ve actually had to use kung fu to defend myself. I’m a crack shot with my little Magnum. I was a cop with the SFPD and mentored by one of the best detectives on the force. I take regular target practice. You don’t have to worry about me turning into Princess Buttercup on you in the middle of the Fire Swamp.”

  He regarded me a moment more with a variety of expressions playing havoc with his face. Then he shook his head, grimaced, and raised his hand to show me his cell phone. “I’m glad to hear it. I just got off the phone with Ellen Robb. She wants us to get the location. And as much incriminating evidence as we can.”

  “Ellen? I thought you were going to call Greg.”

  “Apparently Greg and Ellen are in sharp disagreement about how we should handle this. He wanted you out of the picture. He ran a scenario by Ellen yesterday in which Geoffrey Catalano shows up in person to view the site.”

  “She obviously turned him down.”

  “For the time being. That’s a contingency plan if Revez doesn’t agree to take us to the site. For now, Greg is still in charge of backup—if we need it—and reconnaissance once we know where the site is.”

  I moved over to the sofa and sat down on one arm. “Did you discuss this with Revez this morning during your ‘consultation?’”

  “Briefly. He asked me if you’d spoken to Geoffrey this morning. I said you were planning on it but hadn’t when I left. He asked if I would recommend to my boss that he invest in the Bonampak B venture and I hinted that Geoffrey Catalano is not a man to buy something—pardon the pun—sight unseen. He suggested we email your fiancé a photo of the Shield Jaguar mask. I said I would suggest it to you.”

  I nodded. “But of course that won’t be enough.”

  “Not nearly.”

  I stood. “Okay. I guess I’m up next. How’s my makeup this morning?”

  He moved in to give a closer inspection. “Not bad, actually, but I think we need to make your eyes pop a bit more.”

  “Make my eyes what?” I asked, following him into the bedroom.

  Cruz had told Revez that I planned to take a morning swim, so that’s exactly what I did. I had just hopped out of the deliciously warm water and deposited myself on the sun deck next to the spa when a shadow fell over me. I looked up, shading my eyes.

  “Tell me, Marianna Esposito, are you a sea goddess?” Revez was gazing at me with an intensity that even his dark glasses didn’t soften.

  I laughed. “Pardon?”

  “You step from the sea covered with jewels. Certainly
, only a goddess of the sea dresses in this fashion.”

  Hoo-boy.

  I glanced down the length of my body. Salt water dew sparkled all over me like a diamanté bodysuit.

  “My, it is a bit ostentatious, isn’t it?” I reached for my towel.

  He stopped me. “Please, don’t. You are stunning. I wish a moment more to drink you in.”

  I pulled my shades down my nose and looked at him over the rims. “Now you’re flattering me. Please, Felipe. Let’s not do that dance. It’s Geoff’s attention you want, not mine.”

  Sobering, he removed his sunglasses and lowered himself to the chaise next to mine. His eyes were arresting without the dark lenses to filter them. They held mine fast.

  “I will admit to you that I want very badly to mount a proper excavation of this new site. And I will admit that the idea of your fiancé underwriting it is appealing. But if you recall, Marianna, I sought your attention before Mr. Catalano’s possible interest in my humble affairs was even mentioned.”

  I shrugged. “I assumed you were simply being hospitable.”

  He smiled wryly. “Hospitable? To have sexual fantasies about a female guest in my home? A woman who is engaged to be married to a man I hope to do business with? . . . A woman who is traveling with her lover?”

  Now, he was fishing. “How Old World of you,” I said, neither confirming nor denying my relationship with Cruz.

  He reached out and appropriated my hand. The one with the giant, fake diamond on it. He fingered the cubic zirconium while I prayed he wasn’t a hobby gemologist.

  “Marianna, I will not hide behind convention and pretend that I am not attracted to you. I would find you attractive had you come here already married and with your husband. I envy your fiancé, Marianna—and not entirely because of his impressive financial portfolio. But I envy your bodyguard more, for he, unlike your fiancé, is with you day and night.”

  I took off my sunglasses just to give my free hand something to do and searched my mind for a snappy comeback. I had bubkes. What the hell would Marianna Esposito say to that line?