Curses! (24 page)
He got up, yawning, ordered coffee and a couple of croissants from room service, and breakfasted while he shaved. His mind was still humming with the problems they had raised the night before. Once again it had been all questions, no answers.
Foremost, of course, was the question of who had killed Howard. The logical best guess, although it had been hard to take it seriously, was Worthy. He had been alone at the site with Howard that night. And it was only Worthy's word that Howard had taken the gun and crowbar and gone up to the temple. Maybe it had been Worthy who had taken the weapons and then tossed the crowbar on the ground near the path to make it look as if Howard had escaped that way. Worthy could easily enough have tried to steal the codex and wound up murdering Howard and accidentally triggering the cave-in when he was discovered.
But so could everyone else, and that was the problem. TlaIoc was less than a twenty-minute walk from the Mayaland. Any of them could have doubled back from the hotel after Howard had dismissed them. Certainly, Gideon was in no position to know; he had slept for an hour after dinner, getting ready for the night watch.
And what about the old question that had been nagging at them in one form or another since the first day, when they discovered the surreptitious digging in the stairwell: Why had the killer waited until now to come back for the codex, when it would have been so much easier and safer last year, or the year before, or the year before that? Why—
It was a relief to hear a tap on the door. That would be the officer who would walk with him to the site. Despite the removal of the codex, which was surely at the root of it all, Marmolejo had not relaxed security. Last night no one had camped out on the balcony, but two policemen had wandered the grounds and hallways. And this morning Gideon was under strict instructions to wait for his escort before going to the site.
"Un momento."
he called, toweling the last of the shaving cream from his throat and taking a final gulp of coffee. On the way to the door, one more question struck him; odd that it hadn't occurred to him until now. He stopped at the writing desk and pulled his copy of the curse out of the center drawer. He ran his finger down it until he found what he wanted.
Fifth, the beast that turns men to stone will come among them from the Underworld.
He smiled faintly, Making that one come true would take some doing. Even if there weren't cops crawling all over the place.
The hot weather had returned. That was one more thing wrong with the day. Gideon glanced at his watch as they arrived at the site; 7:55 and already the air was like glue. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose. Under a lead-gray sky Tlaloc had the festering, derelict look of an abandoned garbage dump. The combination lock on the gate had been changed, but a guard materialized from behind the West Group to let them in. Inspector Marmolejo was already in the temple, he told them.
"Will you tell the inspector I'll be along in a minute?” Gideon asked his escort in Spanish. “I need to get a few things from the shed."
Against one wall of the work shed's storage area was a framework of wooden storage bins, doored and latched, but without locks, in which crew members kept whatever personal effects they liked. Gideon's was in the middle row on the right, and in it he kept his tools, tables, field guides, and osteological atlases, his thick, tattered old copy of Morris's
Human Anatomy
that had been around since graduate school, a glossier, rarely used copy of
Gray's Anatomy,
a poncho, a jacket for cool weather which he had wishfully bought when he arrived but had yet to wear, and a few fruits and sweets for snacking.
It was always a hodgepodge, but when had he let it get into this condition? Julie was right; he was getting sloppy. The front of the bin was literally plugged with the rolled-up jacket, the poncho, and the Morris. When he finished today, he would take twenty minutes to clean the whole thing out and straighten it, then keep it that way, the way a professional should. This was ridiculous.
It was also a little familiar. Wasn't it something he told himself most mornings? Well, maybe, but this time he meant it.
As he tugged at the stuff blocking the front of the bin, the train of thought that had eluded him earlier came suddenly back to him. He remembered what he'd been thinking—or dreaming—about. It had been that scene at the bottom of the pyramid in 1982, after they'd come out of the temple, when Howard had assigned shifts for guarding the codex.
"I'll take the first shift,” he'd told them, and Worthy would take it with him. “Be back at nine,” he had said to Gideon, and then with a smile: “Does that meet with your approval?"
Now what was it that was bothering him about that? There was something there, something he was overlooking, something that kept tickling away at him. He paused with his hand on the wadded-up plastic poncho. “Be back at nine..."
He shrugged and pulled. The poncho and jacket came loose abruptly; the heavy old volume of Morris thunked on the limestone floor, fortunately landing flat on its side. He reached into the bin only to find the interior stuffed with boxes, notebooks, loose tools, more clothing. What was all this junk anyway? Was that his hat? Had someone else run out of room and started using his bin? It was possible, he thought grouchily, but you'd think they'd notice it was already in use. There were other empty ones. He tossed the stuff out onto a work table and bent to peer inside, but the bins were awkwardly long and narrow—about eighteen inches high and wide, and almost three feet deep—and little light reached the back. Was that his instrument case wedged diagonally into the left-rear corner? Damn, he'd never have left it there like that; those things were delicate. And expensive. Somebody had been in here, fooling around with his things.
Puzzled and annoyed, he reached in with his left hand. His fingers brushed the pebbled leather of the case but couldn't quite grasp it. Who had designed these bins? With an irritated sigh he set his body, jammed his shoulder against the bin's opening and inserted his arm as far as he could, stretching, wriggling his fingers, trying to get hold of the case. And then froze.
Gideon was by no means slow-moving. He was athletic, his reflexes were sharp, and his mind was quick to react. Yet there were times when his analytical, left-brain-oriented intelligence outwitted him, using up precious milliseconds for thought or inquiry when he would have been better off letting his animal reactions take over.
It was one of those times. When he felt the first twinge of pain, stinging but superficial, as if someone had pricked the side of his hand with a pin, his response was to stop and consider. A loose tool? The pruning shears? No, something smaller. A probe? Maybe, but—
The second jab was sharper, not a stab as much as a pinch, and with it, astonishingly, there was an unmistakable tug. He jerked his arm out of the bin and something came out with it, hanging from just below the base of his little finger, squirming and wriggling. He flicked his hand, but the thing hung on, snapping violently from side to side like a loose spring. Shuddering, he whipped it against the framework of the bins, but still the snake held on, straight out of a nightmare, sinuous and muscular, its small, toothy mouth clamped tightly to his hand, chewing away. He whipped it against the wood again and then again, and at last it came loose, dropping to the floor with a fleshy smack. He thought it was dead, but it only lay stunned for a moment, a coiled, gleaming cylinder of red, yellow, and black, then came awake with a start, slithered rapidly out the doorway, and was gone.
Gideon looked anxiously at his hand. All he could see were four or five inconsequential-looking pockmarks, as if a playful puppy had tried its sharp new teeth out on him. There were only a couple of welling droplets of blood and not much pain—no more than an insect sting, and already fading.
Gideon scowled down at the hand. He knew next to nothing about snakes—wild animals were Julie's province, not his—but he knew enough, or thought he did, to know that a poisonous snake didn't chew on you; it struck with its sharp, hollow fangs and left two deep, distinct puncture marks, not a collection of frazzled little nicks like this one. The bite marks were one of the ways you told the difference between a snake that was venomous and one that wasn't. That much he remembered from his
Boy Scout Handbook.
And years before he'd had to incise and suck out the wounds of someone bitten by a rattlesnake, and the marks had been nothing like this.
Still, it wasn't something to be ignored. Infections developed easily in this climate. He would have Plumm take a look at it when he'd finished here, but for the moment a little antibiotic cream and a Band-Aid were called for. The first-aid supplies were in a freestanding metal cabinet in the other room. He went there, surprised to find himself a little trembly and short of breath. Odd that the incident had shaken him up like this. Jarring, yes, but not as painful as all that, and it had only been a little thing, maybe fifteen inches long. Pretty too. It had probably been more frightened than he had.
As he reached for the first-aid box on the highest shelf he stopped with a stifled intake of breath, convulsively hugging his arm to his chest. There was something terribly wrong. Without warning, his left arm, from elbow to shoulder, had burst into searing pain, as if someone had turned a blowtorch on it. He gasped from the astonishing, lacerating intensity of it and stared bewildered at his fingers. There was something the matter with them too; they were stuck together in a spastic muddle, crooked and misaligned, the thumb folding grotesquely down and in as he looked at it. All of it had happened with stunning suddenness.
He realized abruptly that his lips had been tingling unnoticed for some seconds, and that his eyelids felt peculiarly weighted. Good God...,! He might not know much about snakes, but he knew the classic symptoms of neurotoxic paralysis, and he had them all and then some.
Fifth, the beast that turns men to stone will come among them from the Underworld.
Fangs or teeth or whatever the hell it had in its mouth, the damn thing was poisonous—and he was turning to stone.
A new, colder layer of sweat oozed out on his forehead. He ought to stay quiet; movement would circulate the venom faster. But he had to get help fast. The toxin was working with incredible speed. Already the pain was less, which was a bad sign, not a good one. No, not less, but somehow distant, as if his arm were a separate entity enduring its own agony of fire, which was unfortunate but no concern of his. Poor old arm.
He jerked his head, frightened. He was getting dopey. Drowsy too. He had to act quickly. Find Marmolejo? Call the guard? Where the hell was Julie? She knew all about snakebites. But she was with Abe, damn it, at that...at...wherever she was.
With his right hand he brushed at the annoying sweat running into his eyes. Wasn't there something he was supposed to be thinking about?
"I'll take the first shift...Be back at nine...Does that meet with your approval...?"
No, there was more to it than that. The question was...the question was...
He yawned. The question was what? He leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the cabinet. This was stupid. All right, let's see now, the question was...the question...
He straightened with an alarmed, about-to-fall jerk. Had he nearly gone to sleep standing there? Small wonder. It was stuffy in the shed, and hot. Cramped. Idly he glanced at his watch. Eight-forty. A little early for a break, but he could use
Eight-forty?
But hadn't he looked at his watch only a few minutes ago? Hadn't it said seven-fifty-five? Puzzled, he looked again. Eight-forty. Where had three-quarters of an hour gone? Had he actually fallen asleep leaning against the cabinet? He felt stiff enough, that was certain; his legs, his back, his arms, his hands, even his jaw. Stiff and achy too. Interesting. The question was...and off he floated again.
When he came out of it this time he was lying on the stone floor on his side, with his knees drawn up. The back of his throat was numb and clogged, and his chest felt as if it had a steel band around it. Breathing took effort, planning. Other than that, he felt comfortable enough. Quite relaxed, in fact; just a little chilly. That was certainly a welcome change. There was no pain. There wasn't much feeling of any sort to speak of.
He yawned and felt a gob of saliva run out of his mouth and dribble down his cheek. Embarrassing. Why all this saliva? He tried to swallow it down, but his pharynx didn't seem to be working any better than the rest of him. And now he couldn't close his mouth again, or at least he thought it was still open, and he could feel the spittle sliding over his cheek. This was getting downright disgusting. What if Julie walked in and saw him slobbering like a hungry St. Bernard, for Christ's sake?
But his mind was on another plane now, slipping free of his petrifying body and floating above him like a soap bubble, shimmering, clear, and wonderfully focused. He knew, in a vague way, that he almost had what he was looking for, that it was merely a matter of perspective, of filling in a piece or two.
"Be back at nine..."
Or was that quite what Howard had said? Hadn't he—
A hand touched his shoulder. Marmolejo's face, shocked and rigid, was before him. How had he appeared so suddenly? Why did he look so awful?
"What's the matter?” Gideon said anxiously. “Are you all right?"
"What's wrong?” was Marmolejo's odd response. “What happened to you?"
This was nonsense, meaningless, some silly game. Gideon didn't have the patience for it. He closed his eyes, trying not to lose the thought he'd worked so hard to capture. It was important for Marmolejo to know. “Inspector,” he said, “when Howard—when he told us to come back at nine—he—he—if you—"
But his lips were impossibly stiff, his throat like clay. And he couldn't hear his own voice. Was he really speaking? Was Marmolejo really there? He tried to see. His eyes seemed to be stuck shut.
