Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (12 page)

 
          
Kirby
awoke when the pickup left the road. “Jesus!” he cried, as trees plunged past
the windshield. Grabbing dashboard and windowsill for support, he straightened
in the passenger seat, glared at Manny, and said, “Give me a little warning,
will ya?”

 
          
“It’s
okay,” Manny told him, grinning, flashing his tooth-gaps. “All under control.”

 
          
All
under control. The Northern Road was behind them, already obscured by trees and
shrubbery. The dirt path corkscrewed ahead, twisting deeper and deeper into
wilderness, so that you could never see more than twenty feet before the next
sharp curve presented a wall of green. Already the trail was so narrow that
dusty leaves touched the fenders on both sides as they pushed through, and
Manny couldn’t steer around the larger stones and deeper ruts but had to plow
right over them. He grinned broadly as he drove, and every once in a while,
when they crashed against some particularly large obstruction, Kirby could hear
the
clack
as Manny’s remaining teeth
cracked together.

           
All under control. Back in Belize,
at the Fort George, were two customers at the same time, one individual and one
team, and Kirby could only hope they wouldn’t happen to get into conversation.
If only there were another first class hotel in Belize City, one with air
conditioning and reliable hot water, he would have managed somehow to switch
Lemuel over to it, lessening the danger; but there was not.

 
          
Well,
at least it was only for the one night. Tomorrow morning, he would put Witcher
and Feldspan on the Miami plane. Tomorrow afternoon, Lemuel would be shown the
temple. By sometime tomorrow, if Kirby’s luck held, everything actually
would
be all under control.

 
          
But
what would happen, what
could
happen,
if his customers chanced to get into conversation tonight? The odds were
against it, and even further against any of them talking about a contemplated
grand larceny with a stranger, but say it happened, say everything fell out
wrong. What was the worst-case scenario? The scheme would be destroyed, of
course, permanently killed. Could Kirby himself go to jail? Probably so,
probably in more than one country. Belize and the U.S. might very well vie with
one another for the pleasure of putting Kirby Galway away.

 
          
How
nice to be wanted.

 
          
At
a seemingly impassable spot in the surrounding wilderness, Manny swung the
wheel hard left and the pickup veered away from the diminishing dirt track,
made a tight turn around a thick, scarred tree trunk, and bumped and skidded down
a long brush-covered slope to a narrow muddy stream, where Manny pumped the
brakes—his short legs stretching and stretching, sandaled toes pointing down—
until they slued to a stop. Kirby climbed out, slid the two long planks out
from under a lot of bushes and vines, and dropped them into position across the
stream. Manny drove on over, the planks sagging down into the water, then
accelerated up the other side, the pickup throwing mud clots out behind it like
a bucking bronco. Kirby, to avoid the hurled mud, waited on the near side until
the truck was some distance away, then trotted across on one of the boards, hid
them both in their places on this side, and made his way up to where Manny was
waiting, the pickup’s engine gasping like an overworked beast of burden.

           
There was one other stream to cross,
somewhat larger, but here the locals had long ago made a porous causeway of
logs and stones, which the pickup could cross with a lot of side-slipping and
potential disaster. After that, it was merely the impossibility of the hilly
jungle-covered terrain that slowed them, until at last they came out in the
clearing behind the Cruz’s house, next to the kitchen garden. Home.

 
          
(There
was an easier route down from Orange Walk, which they took whenever carrying anything
large or delicate, but that meant driving all the way north to Orange Walk
first, then doubling back south, which could add almost an hour to the journey.
It was better to be knocked about a bit harder, but for a shorter period of
time.)

 
          
Estelle
would be cooking now, while the kids and the dogs watched television, so when
Kirby climbed awkwardly out of the pickup, feeling stiff and tired, he went
around to his own entrance. The combination lock on the door was meant
primarily to thwart the curiosity of children, since Manny and Estelle both
knew the sequence. Yawning, stretching, Kirby spun the dial, opened the door,
entered the living room, and switched on his air conditioner.

 
          
Kirby’s
apartment was two rooms and three closets. His living room was small and
square, with windows in two walls, reed mats over the concrete floor, a rough
home-made table in the center where he and Manny played games, several
mismatched small chairs, a few lamps, and one big, comfortable easy chair. On a
shelf mounted on the wall opposite the easy chair were a TV set and a Betamax;
the videotapes were in a rickety bookcase underneath.

 
          
The
other room, which was smaller, contained his bed and two large wooden trunks
and another rickety bookcase, this one half filled with books. A few air
charts—sections of Burma, Madagascar, the Aleutians—were on the walls for
decoration. The three closets were all off this room; the first was for
clothing, the second for a shower stall, the third for the composting toilet.

 
          
Kirby,
still yawning as he removed his shirt, entered the bedroom, kicked off the rest
of his clothing and stood in the shower awhile, until he no longer felt like a
horse that had just been sold for glue.

 
          
Twenty
minutes later, happy in crisp clean clothes and old moccasins, Kirby went back
around to the Cruz side of the house, where he and Manny played cribbage while
Estelle ran the Cuisinart and the kids and the dogs watched “
Rio Grande
” on TV, dubbed into Spanish. (“Rio Grande”
in Spanish is “Rio Grande”.) At one point, when John Wayne made a rather
spectacular leap from a running horse, Kirby nodded over at the set and said,
mildly, “That’s my father. ”

 
          
Manny
looked up, in mild surprise. “John Wayne?” He turned to look at the set.

 
          
“No,”
Kirby said. “My father did that jump off the horse.”

 
          
Estelle
had come over from the Cuisinart to frown at the TV, where a close-up of John
Wayne now showed. In Spanish, John Wayne had the deep gruff voice of an old man
missing some teeth. “He looks like John Wayne,” she said dubiously.

 
          
“Not
there,” Kirby said. “Only in the long shots, doing the stunts.”

 
          
“A
stunt man!” Manny said, pleased at knowing such esoteric English.

 
          
“That’s
right,” Kirby said.

 
          
“Very
brave, stunt men.”

 
          
“Kind
of foolhardy,” Kirby said, and shrugged.

 
          
“You
grew up around the movies, huh?” Manny was bright-eyed from more than Danish
Marys; Kirby didn’t often open up about his background.

 
          
“I
would have,” Kirby said, “only things went wrong.” He looked at his cards, not
liking them very much, then glanced up to see Manny and Estelle both watching
him, expectant. “Oh, well,” he said. “It was one of those things. My father was
a stunt man, my mother was an actress.”

 
          
“A
big star?” Manny asked, and Estelle told him, “Hush.”

 
          
“No,
just an actress,” Kirby said.

 
          
Estelle,
hesitant, nodded shyly toward the TV. “Is she in this ‘Rio Grande’ movie?”

 
          
“No.
They always wanted to work together, but they never did. Then they had a chance
to, on a circus movie, in Spain. What they called a runaway production. I was
only two, so I don’t really remember it.”

 
          
“You
went with them, in Spain?”

 
          
“Sure.”
Kirby sighed, and dropped the cards on the table. Might as well go ahead and
tell it. “They only had one scene together,” he said, “on a rollercoaster. It
was supposed to be safe, but it wasn’t.”

 
          
Hushed,
Estelle said, “They were killed?”

           
“Yeah. I got shipped home to my aunt
in upstate New York.” Manny said, “So you didn’t know them, like.”

 
          
“Not
really,” Kirby said, but in his mind’s eye he could see the pictures of his
father and mother all over his Aunt Cathy’s house. Old' maid Aunt Cathy, his
mother’s sister, had had a lifelong crush on Kirby’s father and had transferred
it to Kirby. From the time he could first remember, Aunt Cathy was saying
things like, “Oh, you’ll be a devil with the girls,” and, “You’ve got your
father’s wildness, I can see it in your eyes.” He’d been spoiled rotten, and he
knew it.

 
          
Manny
maybe had some inkling of Kirby’s thoughts. He said, “You think you’re like
him, your old man?”

 
          
“Some
ways, some ways.” Kirby shrugged. “I think I’ve got more interest in a real
home somewhere; they never much cared where they lived. The other thing is—”
Kirby picked up his cards again, studied them, seemed reconciled “—I stay away
from rollercoasters.”

 
          
“We
must drive the corrupt profiteers out of government,” Vernon said, as he
changed the sheets on his bed, “or
we’ll
never get the profit.” Above, a slowly turning fan made absolutely no
difference.

 
          
“Hush,”
said the skinny black man, holding up the cassette recorder. “Listen to this
part.”

 
          
“I
don’t think you get the picture,” Kirby’s voice told Vernon, as he tossed the
rumpled sheets into the hall and snapped the clean lower sheet into the air,
holding it by his fingertips; gently, the sheet settled onto the bed, guided by
Vernon’s hands. “What he’s going to do is,” Kirby said, “he’s going to knock
the temple
down.
You come back a year
from now, this’ll be just a jumble of rocks and dirt.”

 
          
“What
do you think of that?” the skinny black man asked.

 
          
“Greedy
bastards,” Vernon said. “Most of the tomb robbers just burrow a hole in, they
don’t knock the son of a bitch down.”

 
          
Vernon
finished making the bed while Kirby and his customers talked about the
destruction of the temple. Then he carried the dirty sheets to the back of the
house, the skinny black man following, holding up the recorder. After tossing
the sheets in the big laundry sink, Vernon went to the kitchen, got two bottles
of beer, and he and the skinny black man went to the living room to sit and
listen to the rest of the tape. At last Feldspan giggled his giggle, the skinny
black man pushed OFF and REWIND, and Vernon said, “Jail.”

 
          
“For
somebody,” the skinny black man agreed.

 
          
“St.
Michael,” Vernon said, with savage hope.

 
          
“I
don’t see it yet,” the skinny black man told him.

 
          
St.
Michael’s a crook,” Vernon said.

 
          
“The
sun rises in the east,” the skinny black man said.

 
          
“He’s
in my way. He stands between me and, and, and ...” “The pot of gold.”

 
          
“Do
you have to give him that?” Vernon asked, pointing at the cassette.

 
          
“You
know I do. I can
play
it for you, in
here, nobody knows about it, but now I gotta go
give
it to St. Michael.”

 
          
“Maybe
the tape got loused up some way,” Vernon suggested. The skinny black man shook
his head. “You don’t want me to lose my job,” he said. “Think about it.”

 
          
“I
need to hear it again,” Vernon said, making a fist, punching his own knee in
his frustration. “If I could have a copy.”

 
          
The
skinny black man looked around at the underfumished tiny living room. “You
don’t have anything to make it with,” he said. “Or play it on.”

 
          
Vernon
stared furiously around his room, blinking; with every blink, he was seeing
something else he didn’t own. “I want,” he said, through clenched teeth, “I want
...”

 
          
“Yeah,
man,” the skinny black man said. “So do I.” He got to his feet. “I got to go,
man, I’m taking too long as it is.”

 
          
“Wait
a minute,” Vernon said. “Tell me about these guys, the ones on the tape. Who
are they?”

 
          
“They’re
what they say,” the skinny black man said, shrugging. “Antique dealers from New
York City.”

 
          
“They
couldn’t be federal agents?”

 
          
“No.
Federal agents don’t travel with K-Y jelly.”

 
          
“Then
why
are they taping Galway?”

           
“I don’t know, man. Maybe they’re
just afraid they’ll get cheated, they want some kind of record.”

 
          
“To
go to court with?
That
?” Pointing at
the cassette.

 
          
“I
got no answer,” the skinny black man said. “Vernon, I got to go.” “Wait,”
Vernon said, jumping to his feet. “It’s St. Michael and Galway, isn’t it? We’re
agreed on that, right?”

 
          
“Seems
that way.”

 
          
“They’re
in on something together,” Vernon said, “only they don’t trust each other.”

 
          
The
skinny black man laughed. “Why should they?”

 
          
“So
St. Michael has you search those guys’ room, and you come up with the tape, and
St. Michael gives you the machine, says make a copy. ”

 
          
“And
now I got to go give it to him.”

 
          
“I
need to
hear
it again,” Vernon said.
“Maybe there’s a clue.” “To who the guys are? Why they made the tape?”

 
          
“Not
so much that.
Where
they were when
they made it.”

 
          
The
skinny black man was surprised. “Galway’s land, isn’t it?” “No, that’s the
goddam point. I’ve
been
there, with
St. Michael, back when he still owned it. There’s nothing there.”

 
          
“Maybe
it was all overgrown. You know the way those temples get.” “I’d have seen it,”
Vernon insisted. “St.
Michael
would
have seen it. Do you think that man—or me either—do you think we could have
walked around on a mountain of gold and jade and precious stones and not
know
it? Do you think St. Michael’s
going to sell that land without he already squeezed it with those big hands of
his, just to see what comes out?”

 
          
The
skinny black man frowned at the cassette player in his hand. “Then I don’t get
it,” he said.

 
          
“That’s
the
point
,” Vernon said, and then
more quietly, as though in a conscious effort to calm himself, “that’s the
whole point. Galway goes off like it’s to his own land, but it isn’t. Somewhere
up in those mountains, don’t ask me how, maybe he saw something from the air,
just lucked on it, who knows, but somewhere up in those goddam fucking
mountains Kirby Galway has found a Mayan
temple
!
A brand new undiscovered temple, nobody knows about it!”

 
          
“Jesus,”
breathed the skinny black man, and looked at the cassette player with new
respect. “So that’s the news I’m taking to St. Michael,” he said.

 
          
“God
damn
it, I don’t want that bloated
son of a bitch to know!” Vernon stomped around his tiny living room, driven mad
by frustration and poverty and greed and spite. Anybody he’d have bitten at
that moment would have
died
.

 
          
“An
unknown temple,” the skinny black man said. Belizean dollar signs danced in his
eyes. “Riches,” he said. “Beyond the dreams of whatchamacallit. ”

 
          
“Not
beyond
my
dreams,” Vernon assured
him. “This is what I hate about this,” he said. “I got to get the goods on St.
Michael, I got to expose his corruption and get him thrown out and put in jail
and me to replace him. But the closest thing I got to proof right now is that
goddam record you’re gonna—”

 
          
“Cassette.”

 
          
“
Record
, goddamit!” Vernon’s eyes were
big round circles. “But if I get rid of St. Michael by using this temple, then
I
lose the temple!”

 
          
“Ouch,”
agreed the skinny black man. “But if we could get there first—”

 
          
“That’s
just it,” Vernon said, pacing the room, punching his own thighs and shoulders.
“Where
is
the goddam thing?”