The Antiquities Hunter
Page 29
She crossed to a gunmetal gray shelf and returned with a container that was, indeed, large enough to transport a statue of Bird Jaguar’s approximate dimensions. I recognized the thing—Mom had one just like it that she used to transport watermelon halves, large batches of galobki, and garlic baguettes. It even came with a nifty, insulated jacket.
I lined the casserole keeper with bubble wrap and laid my statue in it. I suppose I’ll always think of Bird Jaguar as “my statue.” I already had an invitation to join him for his royal reception in Mexico City in two weeks. After all the literal blood, sweat, and tears Cruz and I had put in—not to mention the danger we’d faced—I found seeing these two particular pieces crated in this routine way a bit disturbing.
I remembered what both Cruz and Rose had told me about the disposition of many of the artifacts collected during busts. They didn’t end up in museums. They ended up sitting on dusty, fusty old shelves in the basements of museums.
“Please tell me this thing isn’t going to stay in this box for the next millennium,” I begged, caressing Bird Jaguar’s gleaming cheek.
“No, it isn’t. Thanks to Cruz the Jaguar boys and the other remnants of Revez’s hoard will be studied by experts before going to a permanent home in the Mexican National Museum.”
Cruz, of course, was the lead expert. And if things went the way he hoped, he would be taking an internationally sponsored team of archaeologists to the site to begin excavation by the end of the year.
And that, as they say, was the good news . . . and the bad news. I was happy for Cruz and for Itzamnaaj Balam, but less than thrilled on my own account. I had tried (I thought I had, anyway) to keep Cruz at a distance. I’d tried to ignore the fact that while I was with him in the dark, under tons of earth and stone, playing hide-and-seek with Greg, wounded, exhausted, and scared spitless, some part of my internal landscape had shifted.
In my heart of hearts I knew that the time during which I was uncertain who held me captive in the Treasure Room could have been counted in a thousandth of a heartbeat. I didn’t need the sound of a revolver being cocked to know who the betrayer was and who the friend. Not by then.
It made seeing Cruz off at the airport especially hard. It wasn’t as if we were saying “goodbye” forever, but I was just getting the hang of that whole suspension-of-disbelief thing, and I’d kind of hoped I’d have time to explore . . .
“A penny for them.”
I pulled my eyes from the two insulated casserole keepers on the institutional blue carpet near Cruz’s feet and met his gaze. We stood just outside the security checkpoint in the charter terminal at SFO, waiting to hear his flight’s boarding announcement.
“Actually,” I said, “I think they may be worth more than that. I was thinking about trust. Loyalty. Esoteric stuff like that.”
“Ah, the deeper questions of life. Which reminds me that I still have questions for you, Tinkerbell. I hope someday you’ll answer them.”
“I told you how I got my nickname.” Dodge.
“That was not one of the questions. I meant the man who was not what he seemed to be. The man who made you afraid.”
“I’m not . . .” I’d been going to say, “I’m not afraid,” but that would be a lie. I was afraid. Of Cruz. Of trust. Of betrayal. “I’m not sure—”
“Then, I’ll ask again, next time I see you.”
Next time I see you. “If you still care.”
“Of course, I will still care,” he said gently. “Why would I not?”
I took a deep breath, like a swimmer getting ready to dive into a pool. I dove. “His name was Jeremy. Jeremy Augustine. He was a cop—Dad’s partner, in fact. A rising star in the SFPD. Young. Savvy. Charismatic. He had been the perfect cadet. He’d matured into the perfect cop. He was the perfect fiancé. He’d be the perfect son-in-law.”
I closed my eyes and envisioned him: tall, with chestnut hair woven with copper, a smile that lit up the world. Jeremy had pale blue eyes that nothing escaped. He had a way of looking at me that made me feel as if I’d just done something clever to surprise and amuse him. I’d liked it, until I recognized it for what it was—a patronizing smirk, a pat on the head. Well done, little monkey. How amusing you are. He even called me that on occasion: little monkey.
“Jeremy Augustine,” I said, “could charm the stars out of the sky. He certainly charmed me. He inspired trust. So, I trusted him. Dad trusted him. Until he began to uncover evidence that Jeremy was involved in dealing illicit drugs—often right out of the evidence locker.”
I swallowed and opened my eyes, glancing up into Cruz’s face. It was solemn, watchful.
“I think Dad still wanted to trust him right up until the moment a drug bust went bad and he realized that Jeremy—his partner, his future son-in-law—had set him up to be killed, leaving him at the mercy of a pack of enraged and frightened crackheads.”
“Dios mio.” Cruz’s gaze shifted to something outside the tall plate-glass windows. His narrowed eyes glittered in the glare of the sun.
I went on, suddenly needing to cauterize the wound I’d opened up. “Dad wasn’t killed. But he did sustain the injury that ended his career. And Jeremy, instead of playing the bereft son-in-law-to-be, ended up serving fifteen to twenty on a litany of charges, including conspiracy to commit first degree murder. That was the man,” I added.
A moment of leaden silence settled between us, then Cruz cleared his throat and said, “Thank you, Gina, for telling me this. For trusting me enough to tell me this. I . . . can’t begin to imagine what that betrayal cost you. I would like you to understand one thing: I am not that man.”
I met his gaze head on. “In the Treasure Room, Cruz, there was no moment, no second, no heartbeat in which I thought you’d betrayed me.”
He took a half step toward me and took my hands in his. “Thank you, for that too.”
I didn’t know what else to say. “You said you had questions—plural.”
“Ah, yes.” He put his lips to my ear and murmured, “Someday I would like to hear the story behind that extraordinary tattoo.”
I smiled down at the floor, blushing like a schoolgirl. “Someday you will.”
They announced his flight then, and we shared a long awkward moment. Stupid, in view of all we’d been through together. Then he kissed me.
No, we kissed each other. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. I'd also be lying if I were to describe that kiss as being gentle or passionate or longing. It was any and all of the above. And while we kissed, I thought about that shift in my internal landscape—a shadow that had begun to fade. Jeremy’s ghost was still there, but his sheet was getting threadbare.
I looked up at Cruz as we pulled reluctantly apart, and wished I were someone else. Someone who had never known and trusted Jeremy Augustine, or who had trusted him, but gotten over it or past it or whatever one is supposed to do with life-changing crap like that.
Still, as I watched Cruz stride away down the concourse carrying the “Jaguar boys” in their Tupperware cases, I was hopeful for the first time in three years. Cruz Sacramento Veras had seen the Russian Orthodox Buddha—the one obereg-mingei I carried with me everywhere. He knew a secret thing about me.
Of course, I’d have to be superstitious to believe that meant anything.
Acknowledgments
Long ago, it seems, when I first conceived of my diminutive Japanese-Russo-American detective, I braved several law enforcement newsgroups seeking to understand how police departments worked. I am indebted to officers of the San Francisco and San Diego PDs for their invaluable (and cheerful) role in my education.
Many thanks to Sandy and Gerry Tyra, the dearest of friends, who turned me and my daughter Kristine loose on the shooting range and let us load and fire a case full o’ guns in our search for Tink’s perfect weapon . . . and then made us disassemble, clean, and reassemble every last one of them.
I’d also like to thank my husband, Jeff, and my offspring, Alex, Kristine and Amanda, for puttin
g up with my non compos mentis-ness as I wandered through fictional worlds, and who only occasionally laughed at me when they caught me talking to my characters.
Special thanks goes to my wonderful editor, Merritt Small, for her sharp eye, great instincts and questions that encouraged me to dig more deeply into my character’s inner landscapes.
A shout out to my Muses: Ray Bradbury for instilling in me a love of words, Edgar Allan Poe—father of modern detective fiction—for inspiring my first ink tracks across the blank page and Tim Powers for opening my eyes to the fine line between mundane reality and magic.
Last, but in no way least, I thank my amazing agenting team, Trodayne Northern and Leslie Varney, who have been so very supportive, positive and just plain awesome.
About the Author
Maya’s fascination with speculative fiction dates from the night her dad let her stay up late to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still. Mom was furious. Dad was unrepentant. Maya slept with a night-lite until she was fifteen and developed a passion for mysterious things that went bump in the night.
Maya started her eclectic writing career sketching science fiction comic books in the last row of her fifth grade classroom. Since then her short fiction has been published in Analog, Amazing Stories, Century, Realms of Fantasy, Paradox, Interzone, Jim Baen’s Universe, and a raft of anthologies. Her magical realism novelette “The White Dog” (Interzone #142) was a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award; her alternate history novelette “O, Pioneer” (Paradox) was a finalist for the Sideways Award. Her debut fantasy novel, The Meri, was a Locus Magazine Best First Novel nominee, and Star Wars Legends: The Last Jedi—her 2013 foray into the Galaxy Far, Far Away with co-author Michael Reaves—was a New York Times bestseller.
The Antiquities Hunter is Maya’s first novel of mystery/detective fiction.
Maya lives in San Jose where she writes, performs, and records original and parody (filk) music with her husband Chef Jeff Vader, All-Powerful God of Biscuits. The couple has three children who have been known to perform with them.
Maya’s very own website: mayabohnhoff.com
Jeff & Maya’s music site: jeffandmaya.com
Parody music videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mysticfig/videos).
THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER
Pegasus Books Ltd.
148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
First Pegasus Books cloth edition October 2018
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN: 978-1-68177-857-0
ISBN: 978-1-68177-922-5 (ebk.)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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