Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven (16 page)

Despite everything, fans were probably hoping that Aztlan would rise to the occasion. I understood that hope. I had been a fan once myself. But I had also played the game, so I knew how unlikely it was that Aztlan would persevere.

Especially since I was about to make matters worse.

The security people at the South Gate had seen me more than once lately, so they knew who I was. I was able to enter the Arena without even showing my bracelet. Once inside, I went up to the players’ locker room. Again, the guards let me pass.

Inside the room, I found Pactonal standing by his locker, pulling down on the front of his green and gold Eagles jersey. He must have heard my footfalls because he turned to look back over his shoulder.

“Colhua!” he said, grinning at me. “Come to cheer us on?”

His lip was cut, swollen. I wonder if that had come from a blow on the ball court or somewhere else.

“I wish I could,” I said. “Unfortunately, the odds against Aztlan just got a lot longer. You’re under arrest.”

Pactonal looked at me for a moment, then laughed. “Don’t joke like that. If you want to arrest someone, arrest one of those lightning bolts who play for Yautepec.”

“For the murder of Chicahua Coyotl,” I continued. “And the attempted murder of an Imperial Investigator.”

His grin faded a little. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Am I? You mean you
didn’t
kidnap Coyotl and then stab him to death?”

Pactonal looked around, his grin fading the rest of the way. A couple of his teammates were watching us, wondering what in the Lands of the Dead was going on.

“I’ve got a couple of colleagues going through your apartment,” I said. “I’m guessing they’re going to find the mask you wore when you attacked me. Was it the same mask you wore when you grabbed Coyotl?”

“Nothing illegal about owning a mask, Colhua.”

“Nothing illegal about owning a dagger, either. But when you put them together, it starts looking a little suspicious.”

He held his hands out, palms up. “That’s what you’ve got? That’s what you come here accusing me with?”

“That,” I said, “and a confession.”

“Not from
me
.”

“No—from your
girlfriend
. You know, the bar keeper? Tall girl, thin white scar? She liked you enough to mislead me, I guess, but not enough to go to prison for you.”

Pactonal’s nostrils flared but he didn’t say anything to dig himself in deeper. Too bad, I thought. But then, Malinche had done enough digging for both of them.

“You see,” I said, “I found out that Ichtaca wasn’t guilty of Coyotl’s murder after all. And I asked myself where I had gotten the information that made it seem like he
was
. Then I asked myself who had directed me to the person who gave me that information.

“I’m guessing Malinche’s former employer, the monitor parts guy, is a friend of yours. And that he told you I was looking for her. And that you saw it as an opportunity to make me think someone
else
kidnapped Coyotl.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pactonal said, looking like he wanted to mash my head against the wall.

“Of course you don’t,” I said. “You didn’t send me to The Thirsty Monkey, right? You didn’t ask Malinche to mention Ichtaca’s daughter, knowing I would ask about her and eventually put two and two together.

“But it wasn’t Ichtaca who seized Coyotl, was it? It was y
ou
. Malinche told me.”

“Whoever Malinche is,” said Pactonal.

“Right, whoever. Oh, and one other thing. In the course of that nasty business the other day, I must have scratched one of the guys who attacked me. Got some blood under my fingernails. Funny thing . . . when we tested it, it matched the data in your Sun League file.”

“Listen,” said Pactonal, “I don’t know what you’ve been drinking, but I’ve got a game to play.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, and pulled a set of cuffs from my pouch.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Actually, I’ve been pretty thorough. I even checked the Eagles’ schedule. Sure enough, you were home when Coyotl was abducted, and you were home again when I was attacked in District Two.” It was my turn to smile. “I don’t think the judge will have much trouble with this one.”

By then, Ichtaca must have heard that something was happening in the locker room because he arrived in a hurry. As soon as he saw me, his gaze turned to stone. “What are
you
doing here?”

“My job,” I said. “Don’t count on Pactonal for tonight’s match.”

He looked at me. “Why not?” Then, to Pactonal: “Are you hurt? What in the gods’ names did you do?”

“Or the next match, either,” I said, causing Pactonal to glare at me too. “Or, for that matter, the rest of the season.”

Ichtaca didn’t get it. He looked to Pactonal, then back to me. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but His Excellence—”

“This is the kind of trouble even Xochipilli can’t wave away,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure of that.

Then I put the cuffs on Pactonal and led him out of the Arena, confident that I had my man.

But there was still a lot I didn’t know about Coyotl’s murder. For instance, the identity of the guy who had helped Pactonal kidnap Coyotl, and then attack me in the shadow of the chocolate factory.

And one other thing:
why
.

M
y mother, a woman who often saw potential where others couldn’t, had an expression: Even a blind gecko finds a mealworm once in a while.

You’d have thought that Aztlan, bereft of the great Coyotl, had little chance to beat a powerhouse like Yautepec. With Pactonal out of the picture as well, you’d have pegged Aztlan’s odds at something approaching zero.

But contrary to what any reasonable person would have expected, the Eagles mauled Yautepec from the beginning of the match to the end. First Yolotli, the youngster who started in place of Pactonal, beat Yautepec’s best defender and gave his team a one-to-nothing lead. Then, a few minutes later, Itzpapa stole the ball and went all the way to score Aztlan’s second goal.

That was improbable enough. When Yolotli took a pass from Chipaua and logged the Eagles’ third goal, all of them unanswered, the situation went from improbable to impossible.

Yautepec went into their locker room angry and embarrassed. They came out in the second half and engineered two quick scores, leading everyone to think the match was finally turning in Yautepec’s favor, just as it should have all along. But that’s not the way it went.

Yolotli notched his third goal of the contest. Then Itzpapa wove his way through Yautepec’s defenders and made the score five to two. Worse, one of Yautepec’s best players—Tenoch—-got hurt on the play. The rest of the match, Aztlan aimed to take advantage of Tenoch’s replacement, and succeeded spectacularly.

In the end, the Eagles prevailed by a score of seven to three. Better yet, Aztlan seemed to have a new young star in Yolotli. I hoped so for the fans’ sakes. They had taken a beating, after all.

I was sitting at my monitor in the Interrogation Center, tracing the codes in Pactonal’s buzzer list, when we got a visit from a couple of guys I had never seen before. Almost invariably, visitors were announced so the Investigator they had come to see could go out to the lobby and bring them in.

But not these two. They were from Ethics. I could tell by the blood-red tunics they wore.

And I wasn’t the only one who noticed them. All over the office, Investigators’ heads turned in the visitors’ direction. No one in the office looked happy.

After all, none of us was perfect. We all made mistakes in the course of doing our jobs. And one never knew when a mistake would be interpreted as a serious Ethics violation.

But this time, Ethics wasn’t looking for a mere violation. They were there to make an arrest. Maybe more than one.

I glanced at Takun. He was scowling, but no more so than usual. Quetzalli mumbled something to herself and turned away from the Ethics guys. Was she one of the Knife Eyes? I hoped not. I hadn’t seen any females in the group that had attacked me, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved.

The red tunics didn’t make an announcement. They just went to the desks of a half dozen Investigators and, in subdued voices, told them their presence was required elsewhere.

One of them was Izel. Easy-going, self-deprecating Izel.

Go figure, I thought.

As he got up, he shot a look at me. There was no regret in it, no bitterness, no remorse. It told me he had done what he had to do, in his estimate, and that he would do it again if his allegiance to the Knife Eyes required it.

Well, I thought, I guess I wouldn’t hear him complain about his tea for a while.

Sometimes you can search buzzer list after buzzer list and come up with nothing. This time I came up with
something
. Very
definitely
something.

Most of the codes I looked at belonged to Pactonal’s relatives, friends, and business associates. But four of the codes had interesting owners. One was Tecocol, the center for Malinalco. Another was Zincicha, an attacker for Yautepec. And a third one was Cacamatzin, the floater for lowly Zempoala.

All players on teams
other
than Pactonal’s. Key players too, if not necessarily the biggest stars anymore.

If it had been
my
buzzer record, it wouldn’t have been any big deal. But then, I wasn’t a professional player anymore. If I decided to call a few of my old opponents, it would have been well within the unwritten rules of the Sun League.

But an
active
player? Talking to active players on other teams? It was unheard of—even if the players were brothers, which was sometimes the case.

Those who ran the ball courts had been sniffing out pacts between opposing players since ancient days. Even when the losers were sacrificed to the gods, the guys between the stone walls found reasons to fix the outcome of a game. Sometimes it was to take down a fellow player for something he had said or done to them. Sometimes it was to enrich their families, who had wagered a pile of beans on one team or the other. Sometimes it was simply out of eagerness to join the Deathless Ones.

Whatever the motivation, collusion was an insult—not only to the nobles who sponsored the games, but to the gods in whose honor they were played.

In modern times, when the beans wagered on a game ran into the millions and sometimes the billions, players had to avoid even the
appearance
of collusion—or take a chance on being barred from the league. Yet Pactonal had taken that chance. And so, apparently, had Tecocol, Zincicha, and Cacamatzin.

Why? Not for anything trivial—I was sure of that. These guys had made the ball court their lives, the same way I had. Losing it would be like having their hearts torn out. So whatever the prize they had dangling in front of them, it had to be worth that kind of risk.

But as I said, there were
four
codes that caught my eye. Unlike the other three, the last one didn’t belong to a player. It belonged to Calli Ollin.

I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing Calli’s name on that list and not knowing why. So I called her.

“Maxtla,” she said, her voice neutral. It was understandable considering how we had left things the last time I saw her. “How’s your Investigation going?”

“It’s taken an interesting turn.”

“But you can’t tell me about it.”

“I can tell you that I found some codes on a murder suspect’s phone. One of them was yours.”

“Who’s the suspect?”

“I shouldn’t have told her, but I did. “Pactonal.”

Calli didn’t say anything. And the longer the silence stretched out, the lower my heart sank in my chest.