Tami promptly forgot about the man.
She carried the racket-shaped artifact in her bag and was off to Cusco in a taxi. The radio in the cab played a bastardized version of John Denver's Living On A Jet Plane.
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go…
The driver tapped the steering wheel. His flat brown cap sat low on his head. Traffic breezed past outside. Nostalgia found the strings in Tami's heart and clasped warm arms around it.
The words of the song caught her on guard through the raucous rendition. She missed Miami sometimes, even missed Gabriel, her husband. However, she stopped loving him sometime after he moved her out of the house and made her custodian of a cursed painting instead of his heart.
She smiled the thoughts off and focused on the road. Cusco soon came into view. The city carved out of the ground between two hills. The houses were more modern and as pricy as the ones in certain parts of Miami.
Her taxi stopped by the restaurant Pollitos en Fuga. Besides that, the BCP Money and Tourists Services were there, then the Catholic Cathedral further off. The street was busy with half-naked tourists; women in revealing shirts and shorts, men in flowered shorts and flip-flops.
There was a pawnshop beside the cathedral. Olivia walked towards it. She tried not to look over her shoulder even though her mind said her fears were only imagined. Service was on in the cathedral. Piano music bounded down the steps and latched onto the taut hot afternoon air.
It was cold in the pawnshop, thankfully. Two air conditioners, one in the far corner where a woman in red buckskin clothing sat in a black leather chair, her legs folded under her, knitted. Another was behind the counter, close to the top. A TV was beside that.
The man who stood watching Tami behind the counter was bald, his head so clean-shaven that the scalp shone. His face had appealing brown eyes that you saw on priests. His muscles bulged in his white shirt.
"What can I do for you?"
Tami smiled weakly. She said, "I've been walking in the sun, the heat, wow."
"Yeah, summer's approaching."
Tami removed the artifact from her bag. Once again, she reflected on the cumbersomeness of the artifact. It landed on the countertop with a thud!
The man picked it up. He turned it around in his hands. He rubbed his palm around the part where the skin had peeled off. He touched the yellowish-brown spot. Tami's heart was racing.
"It's gold," Tami said softly, almost bashfully, and she regretted it.
The man glanced at her; he snickered. He placed the thing back on the counter.
"No."
Tami felt her legs turn to water. "What do you mean?"
"This is an alloy. Not gold. It's a combination of several metals, mostly worthless ones."
"Can you check again? I mean, isn't there some instrument for checking if it's really gold?"
That soft snicker again, and the holy stare. "I can tell, just by touching it."
"Okay."
Tami reached for the thing. The man said quickly, "Or I could help you sell it."
"How much?"
A shrug, then, "Well, maybe a few hundred sols."
"What?"
"Yes, that's all I can do for you. It's not even worth that much."
The woman in the buckskin said, "Leave it, woman. The big man would buy it better, I'm sure."
Tami looked from the woman back to the man at the counter. "Who's the big man?"
"You don't worry about who he is, just leave the merchandise here, come back tomorrow, and your money will be ready—"
"No, I'm taking it with me."
Tami picked up the artifact and dropped it back in her bag. The weight of it pulled the bag against her shoulder. The extra weight was more comforting than the empty promises from these people. And who was the big man, by the way?
"Thank you," she said.
The man smiled nonchalantly as Tami stepped into the heat outside.
The sky had become overcast since she went into the pawnshop.
A storm is coming, she thought.
—
Miami, Florida.
Different time zone, but same exigencies. At about the moment that Tami was leaving the pawnshop half a world away in Cusco, Peru, Olivia Newton was redialing Frank Miller's number that day. Night had fallen by then, actually.
Earlier in the day when Olivia consulted the archeology department at the University of Florida, she was told that the professor was unavailable.
He was a professor? Mary Luca hadn't said anything about that.
Then Mary Luca had called right after that to inquire if Olivia had made up her mind about going to Peru.
She had.
But she told Mary Luca she needed more time, and could Mary wait until morning at which time Olivia would call her?
Mary said it was fine, with a little irritation.
"Patrick Coleman was a professor?" Olivia asked quickly.
"Yes, why?"
"I just found out."
Olivia waited. Mary took the hint, the woman on the other side wanted to know why she wasn't told.
"Patrick Coleman was under some kind of probation, I don't have the details, but his professorship was just restored not long ago."
"That figures."
"Yeah, will it be a problem?"
"Nope, just so we are clear on identification. Not that it matters one way or the other."
"Good."
Mary Luca was getting really impatient. Olivia thought Peru must be a big deal. She took a final thought on it, on the spot. "We will do it."
The relief in Mary's voice was audible. "So when do you begin?"
"I'll have to get back to you on that."
"Good."
Olivia rang Frank Miller again; a slightly drunk one answered. It was almost midnight. Olivia went to sleep. In the morning, she sent an email off to all the team members.
Miller called her immediately.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes, my resources are accurate."
"How much gold are we talking about?"
"Could be any amount, but we have to jump on it fast. There could be locals, you know."
"Like Shugborough?" Miller asked.
"Yes, like Shugborough."
Olivia hung up and fed her new cat.
—
That night while getting groceries from a nearby shop, someone followed Tami Capaldi. The man wore dark clothes so that he blended with the shadows. Tami's apartment was an old house two blocks away. Between it and the grocery shop, there was the church of Grace building, yellow paints, and minarets, steel bars for fences, and an empty dark parking lot, lots of lights in there, and a little more on the sidewalk. There was a small cinema, too. Tami counted at least three carts, smoking sweet, spicy anticuchos and rachi. Reggae music blared from the other side of the street.
The shadow stalking her wore a broad-rimmed hat to hide the man's face. The man stopped at the last cart before Tami's place. He joined the small group of people around the cart and pretended his interest in skewered meat.
The man detached himself from the group. Tami went in through the fence and up the short steps.
When Tami got in, the light in the living room illuminated two windows. Then another window, which was the room. From the street, one could hear Tami's grandma, in muffled times, grouch about not taking her meds tonight.
The man in the street talked to someone on the phone and walked away.
4
Peru
The spicy aroma of anticuchos and rachi diminished from the air, the humid current of air laden with the heat of the day gave way to a cooler one that is customary for the region. Most windows turned dark as their inhabitants turned in for the night.
Tami Capaldi had long made her g
randma take her losartan tablets. She ensured the old woman's wobbly frame was deposited carefully in her bed for the night. Then Tami had watched some TV until late.
A black truck missing its plate number canned down the silent street at about 1 am. Four men came out of it and went on up the stairs like Tami did earlier. When they got to Tami's door, two waited by the landing where a bulb burned weakly. Marinera nortena music played in one of the apartments down the hall.
A door opened and closed in another apartment. One of the men with a face like a schoolboy's caressed the pistol on his hip.
Two other guys in black clothing went to work on Tami's door. They made no sound; they had done this before.
Tami's door clicked open.
And in they went into the dark living room. Tami's bag was at rest on the couch, where she had left it in the afternoon. Inside it was the tennis racket-shaped artifact. One of the men walked soundlessly to Tami's bedroom.
Tami's face was turned to the open window where a cool breeze had been blowing and had sent her off to sleep.
The man's gun was pointed at the woman's back. He shrugged almost imperceptibly, and was turning away—no need to shoot a woman who was sleeping; she would never know.
“Quién eres tú, who are you?”
The man jerked around, gun pointed. There was another bed in the room, to his right, by the closet. Tami's grandma was propped on her elbow, wrinkled face contorted in grizzled objection.
The man took a quick glance at Tami's back. Her breathing was low and clear. A black river of hair fell from her shoulder on the white sheets. Grandma pulled her sheets closer to her chin as the dark figure came near her.
The man put a gloved finger across his lips. "Shush."
"Tam—" Grandma began to call, but that was how far she got; one and a half syllables of futile warning.
The man covered the old woman's mouth, then on second thought, he extended the palm over her nose and cut off her air supply. He put his gun away and held the old enfeebled hands of the old woman. The second guy took the bag and waited for his friend.
The old woman went limp just as Tami turned around. But she won't make sense of what had just happened until the two men slipped out of the apartment, unseen.
Tami's scream ruined the silence of the night.
She ran to the open doors. She saw the truck speed down the street, turn a corner, and was gone.
She called 117, rocked her grandma's limp body until an ambulance came, then a cop car too.
The medics declared Tami's grandma dead five minutes after.
—
José Hanna has been a detective for ten years, was a traffic warden for two years before that. He was taken off one of Lima's busiest intersections when he stopped a gang of armed robbers. They had just robbed a bank in Cusco and were on their way to the capital, from where they were sure to disappear into thin air, as is always the case in Peru.
José Hanna had eyes for the vile and crooked. He had only looked in the eyes of the driver. He knew he was scared, his hands tightening on the steering of the white Toyota Hilux, folk music playing, and the unmistakable but faint smell of weed.
José was fast with the gun as well. He was the fastest in the San Antonio police station in Surquillo. Months after his excellent work in the apprehension of one of the country's most-wanted bank robbers, José Hanna was booted into the detective academy. There, he spent the next year learning tactics he already knew, latently.
Soon, he'd gone through his first divorce and then his first shave with death from corrupt fellow cops.
He was sitting in his office, drinking stale coffee from the office's supply when two people changed the direction of his life do the next couple of days that followed.
First, it was a young boy with a big scar on his face in red jumpsuits blackened with grease. José watched him make his compliment at the desk to Amos, the round lazy cop at the charge post.
Amos took the lad’s statement, then he shooed him off. But the lad wouldn’t be shooed off just yet. He requested to know when he would get his "gold back."
That was when José got interested in the lad. The cop Amos was telling the boy that police work didn't “work” that way when José tapped him and took up the boy’s questioning.
"Tell me from the beginning again," José told him calmly.
The boy began from the beginning.
His name was Reno. Patrick Coleman, an American, had taken him and his friend Uzo up to the hills where the ruins were and down into the hole, they found gold. He came back with gold shaped like a cat's head.
Amos laughed softly and shook his head. José ignored him.
He asked the boy, "And where is this gold now?"
“Leno gave it to Pietro Oscar.”
"You asked Leno to?"
"No, man. He was supposed to sell it for me. But Pietro took it and won't pay for it. I want you people to get my gold back from Pietro."
Amos laughed again. José glared at him, and the man's laugh choked in his chest. José looked at the lad and shook his head.
"I'm going to be straight with you, okay?"
The boy nodded. His eyes were red around the corner of the balls. He has undoubtedly been crying.
"It's going to be easier to snatch a goat out of the mouth of a lion than get your gold off Pietro's hands. But there's a way we can get justice for you."
"How?"
"First, can you trust me?"
The boy looked from José to the tittering Amos, positively thinking there was a difference between the two cops.
"I guess," he said finally.
"Good. I want to keep this matter of your gold quiet, while I investigate it. How's that sound? You just might get more than your gold from Pietro Oscar, huh?"
The boy fidgeted, sniffed, and rubbed the scar on his face. He nodded his understanding.
"I know you. I see you on the TV once. You caught those bank robbers back in the day."
José smiled.
He went back to his office after the boy was gone. Amos went back to talking to some whore on the phone. Life went on quietly for another ten minutes.
A beautiful woman who looked like she had seen many better days —and quite recently too— walked into the station.
José frowned when he heard about her gold being stolen.
The detective thought curiously, two gold cases in an hour? Coincidence? Or could they be related cases?
He watched Amos shift in his stool too. The cop glanced at José across the office floor; the detective nodded. He took off his jacket and wore it on the back of his chair. His short-sleeved shirt was soaked in the armpits with sweat.
He walked over to the desk.
"And where did you find this gold of yours, please?" he asks the woman.
"It is mine," she said tightly. "That's what matters, and if you lot are any good, or half as useful as they say, then you should get it back. Do you understand? I was robbed last night! And they killed my grandma! They choked her to death!"
Her lips trembled. Her left eye leaked a single tear that trekked down the side of her high cheekbone.
José felt a sudden, addling urge to reassure the woman by touching her delicate shoulder. The detective had only seen those provocative shoulders and neck on very few women in his lifetime.
José went to his office to get his notebook. He took her name, her address, and the details of the robbery. He wrote down the address of the antique shop where she worked.
"You didn't see the plates on the truck?"
"No, it was a white Hilux. It was dark, and I didn't…" She broke off, and her shoulders sagged pitiably.
When she was gone, Amos asked José, "You think she tells the truth?"
"She didn't say it all."
"Two gold articles lost in a day," Amos said. "Strange, ain't it?"
"Not the same day. The boy lost his earlier, remember? His friend Leno first stole it from him. Then Pietro Oscar took it from that one."
&nbs
p; Back in his office, José was thinking about the two cases, quite convinced that the two were somehow linked. And the American, where was he now? Was he still out there with the other boy?
His telephone started ringing.
"Hello? Detective José Hanna here."
"José, police commissioner here. I need you down here in my office, right away."
That was two blocks away.
José took a taxi over.
—
Police commissioner Manuel Alvarez was a generation older than José, or so it seemed. He looked like a mummy behind his desk in his dark blue uniform. White hair rimmed the circumference of his head from ear to ear. A sparkling sea of scalp gleamed in the middle. He pushed his glasses up when José entered the hot office.
José looked up at the air conditioner on the wall and asked if it wasn't working.
"It broke down last week."
"Last week?"
"Yes, sit down, I didn't call you here to talk about the climate in my office. Sit down, boy."
Alvarez ought to have retired. But if he did, half the corruption going on in the force would be exposed. So it was better—and for the sake of a lot of bad men—that he remained in this seat for another century, if the old heart would tarry.
"I got a call from the American Embassy this morning. They lost one of their professors."
"Good, one less punctilious fool in the world."
"They lost him here, José," said the commissioner. "He went up the hill and has not come back since then."
The old man pushed a thin file across his desk. Besides that, there was nothing on the commissioner's table, not just literally, but also figuratively, José was sure. He picked up the file and skimmed the three pages.
José scratched his stubble after reading it. Facts had just come together. Facts always seemed to find him. Most times, he solved cases in days. Hell, he had solved some cases in hours in the past few years. He was reading some Agatha Christie the other day. He liked the man Poirot in it. Poirot often got in trouble sleuthing.
José had an early premonition that this case would hurt.
This was the boy with the marked face's American for sure. But was it the woman's American too?
"I'd get on it, boss."
The Inca Temple Page 6
