The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  Oh, God, he wants his answer now, I thought. But I was wrong.

  “Anybody seen April?” he asked. “She’s wandered off again.”

  “I went over to the van just now,” Pepper said. “I saw her walking down the path to the village. I thought she was just going to use the bushes.”

  “Jesus,” Blackburn muttered. “Probably gone to see that baby again. Well, I was headed over there anyway, to see my compadre’s family. Seems they need a few pesos.” He shook his head, wheeled, and stomped off.

  A few seconds later I heard the engine of the van start and I turned back to our unit.

  “So what do you make of it?” Pepper asked.

  I shook my head. “April’s making him earn his money.”

  As soon as we returned from the site that afternoon—a surly April included—Eric left for Chetumal, mumbling something about needing supplies, and he hadn’t returned when we went to bed. Which didn’t matter particularly because, with the excitement, nobody missed him.

  That evening, in Geraldo’s restaurant, the judicial police arrested the killer of the man on the beach.

  Pepper and I had gone for an early swim, joined by Minnie, who, with her flowered bathing cap and one-piece suit, looked like a figure from some fifties-era movie. Neither Pepper nor I had spoken more of Eric’s offer and I was still weighing the issues.

  It would mean being away from Pepper for another three to four months and people at the office would have to scramble. But it would also free up my salary. And I’d been working nonstop for over ten years now. Surely no one, not even a workaholic like David Goldman, would begrudge me a vacation.

  Vacation. Was that what I considered it? Better get that idea out of my head. Working six days a week in the tropical sun wasn’t a vacation. Unless, of course, it was what you loved to do …

  We toweled off as the sun turned the western sky purple and I idly looked up at a contrail high against the darkening field. Last night I’d dreamed of the low-flying airplane again. But no—it hadn’t been a dream, it had been real. Had the plane been coming in from the east or headed out to sea? There was no way to tell. He had to be using one of the landing strips in the interior, some swatch cleared from the jungle, for the landing of agricultural or medical supplies.

  And that’s why he was flying low, and late at night. Sure.

  “Paul ought to be in Mérida now,” Minnie said, stripping off the latex cap. “If he didn’t stop to take a detour into some little village.” She folded her towel and we started toward the line of cabañas. “I worry about him. He won’t stop, you know. It’s like he thinks he’s a young man, chasing after all these old books.”

  We halted in front of her hut and Kanmiz came up to rub against her. She reached down to stroke his whiskers and he closed his eyes.

  “I’ll see you two later,” Minnie said. “I think somebody wants supper now.”

  I nodded and as I did so my eyes went over her shoulder and I caught a glimpse of two people seated at one of the outdoor tables at the top of the cliff. April and José.

  “I think you were wrong about April and Eric,” I said.

  She squinted up at the pair, shading her eyes. “You think so? Well, maybe. I’m just a nosy old busybody anyway.”

  “No, you’re as astute as hell,” I said. “That’s what bothers me.”

  Pepper and I went into our cabaña to dress for supper.

  “So have you decided what you’re going to tell him?” she asked.

  “I want to do it,” I blurted. “I just don’t know if it would work.”

  “Because you’re indispensable at the office or because of me?”

  “Both. But mainly you.”

  “Then don’t sweat it. I’ve been thinking about how I acted earlier. You thought you were the only insecure one? Look, Alan, I guess for the last couple of years I’ve just been doing my thing and kind of enjoying having you around: I’ve been taking you for granted because you were always there when I needed you. It just never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be because you’re so steady. I mean, you’re my rock, okay? Then, suddenly, this business comes from nowhere and I see everything wavering. I all of a sudden realized, my God, what would happen if I lost you?”

  “You won’t,” I said, reaching for her.

  “But we’ll be three hundred miles apart,” she said, dropping her towel so that she was naked against me.

  “That’s the distant future,” I said. “Now’s now. I waited too long for you. You won’t lose me, no matter what”

  Our lips came together and I reached out to unhook the hammock from its stored position.

  “Tell me again, baby,” she whispered and I pressed down on top of her in the netting.

  So I did, remembering in another compartment of my mind that once, long ago, I’d said the same things to another woman, here.

  We went up to dinner hand in hand, as if something might reach out of the darkness and tear us away from each other. Minnie had gone on ahead and I saw her seated alone at the same table where José and April had been, except that now the pair was nowhere in sight.

  “You two look refreshed,” Minnie said smugly. Surely the sounds of our lovemaking hadn’t carried all the way to her hut?

  She leaned over the table. “I was talking to Geraldo. Poor man. He’s beside himself. That other man is back and it’s about to drive him crazy.”

  “What other man?” I asked and then I saw who she was talking about. Felipe Jordan, wearing a faded blue guayabera and jeans, sauntered out of the restaurant and onto the patio, beer bottle in hand.

  He spotted us immediately and walked over. “Buenas noches, compañeros.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll bet you’ve all been wondering where I’ve been.”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “No? Well, I guess the archaeology keeps you pretty busy. Look, is anybody going to Chetumal anytime soon? I could use a ride.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Isn’t there a bus?”

  “If I want to stand outside here for three hours in the dark.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving. He turned on his heel and vanished back into the restaurant.

  “I think he’s what they used to call a remittance man,” Minnie said. “You know, somebody his family sent overseas to get him out of the way, whom they send money every month to make sure he stays gone. He probably has to go into Chetumal to pick up his check.”

  “More likely Geraldo’s right and he’s dealing drugs,” Pepper said. “You know, small-time to tourists.”

  “Maybe so,” Minnie said and lifted her gaseosa. “I wonder where April and Jose absconded to?”

  “So I guess you’ve gotten rid of the demons,” Pepper said later, while we sat in the love seat overlooking the lake.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re still there. But I know that I’m not as scared of them anymore. I know that coming down here was the right thing to do. I know now I can handle it.”

  “I’m glad for you.”

  She sounded forlorn and I put my arm around her. “Hey, it’s gonna work out. You think I’d do anything to risk losing you?”

  For a long time there was no sound but the music from the restaurant above, drifting down on the breeze. Pepper turned her head away then and stared out at the dark waters of the lake.

  “What was she like?”

  It was the first time she’d ever asked about Felicia, as if she knew that to bring the matter up would be to open a wound.

  “That’s a hard question,” I said. “She was beautiful and intelligent and determined. A lot like you in some ways, but totally different in others.”

  “Like what?”

  I struggled for the right words. “There was something a little manic about her. Like if she stopped, her world would cave in. It made her intense. I guess that’s one of the things that attracted me. But after a while I realized it was because she was scared, being a woman
professional in a society where her profession was not only dominated by males, but where there was the element of machismo to deal with.”

  “Let me guess: She saw you as a steadying influence.”

  “She said that. She said she was relieved to be around a man who wasn’t always trying to prove something.” I looked up at the sky, where low-flying clouds were erasing the stars.

  “That makes sense,” Pepper said.

  “It does now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t know me then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had things to prove,” I said simply. “Maybe it wasn’t as obvious as it was with some of the Mexican men she knew. But it was there.”

  “You’re beating yourself up again.”

  “Maybe so.” I closed my eyes and the images swam in front of me, grotesque figures like the monster sculptures at Copán, where Felicia and I had gone on our honeymoon.

  “There was a procession making its way through the street,” I heard myself saying. “We were in the hotel. It was a gremio, a church guild, and they were singing the ‘Ave Maria,’ by candlelight, peasant men and women, mainly. We heard them singing and she wanted to go join them. We dressed and went outside. It was nighttime. I thought she wanted to see them because it was quaint and we were in a tiny village near a great Mayan site. But after a little while I realized it wasn’t that at all, when I saw the tears on her face.”

  “She was religious.”

  “She was a Marxist, she said. But after all the lip service to atheism there was the old religion right below the surface, and all the guilt that went along with it.”

  “Was that what went wrong, then? Cultural differences?”

  “I told myself that. I don’t know if I really believed it, though. Partly it was her. And partly it was because of the way I was.” I opened my eyes again and gave her a bitter little smile. “She was my trophy. There were all kinds of men after her, but I was the one who got her. I beat them all out. It was a game. And I convinced myself that she was a prize, and since she was a prize, she had to be the way I wanted her to be instead of the way she was.”

  “Things happen when you’re young,” Pepper said. “You can’t blame yourself for it.”

  I shut my eyes again, trying to recapture the almost unbearable sweetness of that warm summer night in Copán, with the procession singing down in the street, and turning to Felicia. And yet, suddenly, I couldn’t recall her face.

  “I think it was to get back at me that she did it,” I said. “Because I expected her to be a certain way and she felt like she couldn’t measure up. So she decided to hurt me for the guilt she was feeling.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Found another man,” I said. “And made sure I’d hear about it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “After she left me standing in Mérida, I came down here and found her. I asked her what was going on, and that was when she told me.”

  She reached over and squeezed my hand. “You deserved better.”

  “No. It was a call for help and I didn’t recognize it. All I could think about was my own male pride. How could she do this to me? I never realized what I’d done to her by not seeing the signs, the calls for help.” I removed my hand from hers as the tidal wave of memories bore down on me. “All she wanted was my attention, my understanding. Instead, I was busy flying around, giving papers, lecturing, playing the role of the big-shot Maya expert.”

  “So when you found out about her and this other man, you broke up?”

  “Not immediately. I was upset, hurt, I didn’t know what to do. We’d just started another field season. I was the project director, with a grant from a major foundation. She was on the project as the settlement pattern expert. I’d spent my last school year in the States putting together a team of students and professionals. Everything was in place. I meant to straighten things out between us, but I had to fly home to take care of a few last-minute details. I was gone two weeks. And when I got back, everything had changed.”

  “Did you know the man?”

  I didn’t want to think about it, but the words tumbled out anyway. “He was a German archaeologist working at an outlier group at Tancah, just up the road. Funny—I don’t even remember his name.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then why are you shivering?”

  “The wind,” I said. “Or maybe I’m getting a chill.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked,” she said. “It wasn’t my business.”

  “You have a right to know.”

  “It’s over with now.”

  But now I couldn’t turn it loose. “The project went to hell pretty quick. I didn’t stay on top of things, let work slide. We got way behind and I started missing deadlines. A couple of the students complained to the university about the way I wasn’t on site enough. That I drank too much. They were right.”

  “You really don’t have to explain.”

  “I guess for a while I was out of control. There’s a lot I don’t remember.”

  She reached up, rubbed my back with one hand.

  “There are some things I’m not even sure I didn’t dream.”

  “It’s all just a bad dream,” she soothed. “But it’s over now.”

  But it wasn’t over, because I was thinking of the Xtabai.

  A long time later, when the constellations were high overhead, we started down the steps toward the beach.

  My shivering had stopped and I was holding her hand as we descended and that’s why we almost fell headlong when the man came leaping past us. I slammed against the stone railing and reached for Pepper as she lost her balance. She grabbed my hand again. “Who?”

  But he was already on the beach, racing at full speed over the rocks, toward the end of the line of cabañas. I could hear yells from behind and above us. Split seconds later a pair of beefy men in guayaberas plunged past us, guns drawn, and after them came two others in uniform. We watched, stunned, as they loped off down the beach.

  Then the door of José’s hut opened and he stepped out, a barely visible figure in the little square of light from his doorway. The fleeing man collided with him, and the two went sprawling onto the rocks. An instant later there was a flash and an explosion from where the two men struggled on the ground and the first two pursuers each fired, their pistol barrels spouting flames in the darkness.

  There was a cry and the first of the two pursuers fired again. Then there was silence.

  Pepper and I stood rooted in shock, our eyes fixed on the forms in the blackness below.

  Someone moved behind us and I turned to see Geraldo, his face twisted with anxiety.

  “It’s just as I said,” he complained. “Drugs. They’re everywhere and now, in my own establishment. I knew it was only a matter of time before the judiciales came …”

  Two of the policemen were returning now, dragging a man between them, his hands cuffed behind him. As they emerged into the light at the base of the steps I glimpsed a disheveled form in a dirty blue guayabera, with blood streaming from a wound in one shoulder.

  They hoisted him up the steps and we stood back to let them pass. As they came level with us, Felipe Jordan’s eyes met my own and I saw naked fear.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Geraldo asked, wringing his hands.

  One of the detectives nodded back at the beach. “The man who came out of his cabaña. This cabrón shot him before we were able to stop him.”

  “Caráy, you mean one of the archaeologists?” Geraldo cried.

  ‘No se preocupe,” the detective said. “He’ll live. We’ll take him to the hospital in Chetumal. And this son-of-a-bitch is going to spend a long time making hammocks in the state prison.” He jerked his prisoner’s arm and the man gave a groan. I looked away.

  A few minutes later the two policemen in uniform appeared, helping Jose walk. Pepper and I ran down to take him from them.

  “N
o es nada” José said, pressing a hand to his right shoulder. “I’ll be okay.”

  Geraldo threw up his hands, placating. “Arqueólogo, this is the first time anything like this has happened to one of my guests. How can I ever apologize enough?” He stared angrily up at the disappearing detectives with their prisoner. “But I said from the first that man Jordan was no good, that he was selling drugs, and now they’ve come around asking if I knew if he had anything to do with the killing of that man on the beach. I told them nothing about him would surprise me. But I told them I hadn’t seen him for days. And I’d no sooner said it than the bastard showed up. Only a few hours after they first came, this afternoon, asking about him. Now I look like a liar, as if I’m in with him. And if that’s not enough, he shoots one of my guests.”

  “It’s not your fault,” José said. He looked to see if the two uniformed policemen were within hearing, but now that we’d taken their charge, they’d wandered on up the steps. “Besides, Jordan didn’t shoot me. He had a gun, but he shot at them, not me. It was one of their shots that hit me, the putos.”

  “Where’s April?” I asked, as Geraldo helped Jose walk.

  Pepper nodded toward the beach.

  April, wearing a plain white huipil, was standing in the doorway of José’s cabaña.

  SIXTEEN

  Sunday fled in a blur. I drove Jose to the hospital in Chetumal, taking Pepper and April with me. Minnie, it was agreed, would stay behind to inform Eric, when he returned. In the hospital, Jose was examined by an intense young intern doing his social service year and the wound was pronounced serious but not grave. Two hours later, after a tetanus shot and with his right shoulder immobilized by bandages, Jose went back with us and we helped him into his hammock, April insisting that she would sling her own hammock nearby and stay with him through the night. Eric, whom we must have passed on the road, could only shake his head.

  “Next time,” he told Jose, trying to joke, “let the cops do their own work.”

  “Then we’d all be dead,” Jose said.

  Eric walked out of the hut and we stood on the beach.

  “Our talk the other night … was that yesterday or the night before? I can’t even remember. But with this …” He turned toward me, his face haggard. “I need you more than ever, Alan.”