Curses!

'A very nice dining room,” he said as they sat down at their table. “I always like to come here.'

The Mayaland's restaurant was the coolest place in the hotel, an airy, tiled room a full two stories high, with thick white walls and great, dark, burnished ceiling beams of ceiba wood. Outside the screened windows was a long gallery with a vine-covered trellis that threw leafy, green-tinted shadows onto the walls. Beyond that was the bright blue swimming pool, hugged by a mounded, lavish landscape of tropical plants.

The only thing wrong with the room, from Gideon's point of view, was the enormous mural that covered one end wall; a vivid rendition of the Mayan corn-god legend, painted in garish purples and bloody reds, and full of naked, huge-breasted women, along with human heads hanging from trees by their hair and other unpleasantnesses that were part of the Mayan creation myth. Accurate enough, but hardly a stimulant to the appetite. Gideon and Julie always made sure to face away from it, as they had today, but Marmolejo had seated himself so that he was looking directly at it, and he gazed upon it now with contentment and affection. But of course Marmolejo himself was half Mayan, which no doubt made a difference.

'Well, Inspector,” Gideon said as the waitress set down a platter of lobster pate and crackers, “I'm glad to see you again, even if I had to take a few lumps to do it.'

Marmolejo murmured his agreement and nodded affably, removing the unlit, half-smoked cigar from his mouth and laying it carefully in an ashtray. Gideon smiled to himself. Marmolejo's ever-present cigar was rarely alight, and then only briefly. There had been a running joke in the old days as to whether he owned more than one of them, or simply struck the same one in his mouth every morning and put it on the bedside table when he went to sleep at night.

'You're feeling all right now?” the inspector said.

'Fine. A few bruises.'

'Good.” He spread a cracker with pate, then bit into it with relish. “I understand you couldn't see your attacker. You couldn't identify him if you were to meet him again?'

'No, I couldn't see anything at all.'

'You can give us no clues? You noticed nothing?'

Gideon hesitated. “Well—'

'Why don't you ask the inspector whether Mexicans say ‘ow'?” Julie asked brightly.

Marmolejo had shrewd, narrow eyes set so far apart above his flat nose they seemed to look around you on both sides. He raised his eyebrows, drooped his eyelids and looked around either side of Gideon. “That sounds interesting,” he said pleasantly.

'Julie,” Gideon said, suddenly unsure of himself—he hadn't, after all, had a chance to check this diphthong business in any of his reference sources—'I don't know that this is the time—'

'Come on, prof, put your theories to the test. Put your money where your mouth is.'

Thus challenged, Gideon did. What, he asked, would Marmolejo be likely to say if somebody hit him in the stomach?

The surprised policeman paused while a Mayan waitress in a huipil took their orders. They all asked for the comida corrida, the blue-plate special: soup, red snapper with fried banana and saffron rice, dessert. And bottles of Leon Negra, a dark, musky local beer.

Marmolejo continued to wait until the waitress was well away. Then he asked Julie: “Do you happen to speak Spanish, Mrs. Oliver?'

'No, I'm sorry.'

Marmolejo nodded and turned to Gideon. “What would I say if someone hit me in the stomach?” His long, narrow teeth gleamed in a sudden smile. “I would say 'Chinga to madre!' He made an emphatic gesture. 'Pinche madre!'

Julie looked at him inquiringly. “Do I want to know what that means?'

'They are old Mexican sayings,” Marmolejo said blandly. “Very difficult to translate.'

Gideon laughed and explained that he didn't mean, what would he say; he meant, what kind of sound would he make.

'Ah,” Marmolejo said, “in that case I think I would say ay!'” He considered a little more. “Or perhaps 'ay-ay-ay!' It would depend.'

'Nothing else?” Gideon asked.

'Well, with strong enough motivation, maybe 'hi-joie!' I feel certain that some time soon you will permit me to know where this is leading.'

'You wouldn't say ‘ow'?” Gideon persisted.

Marmolejo's eyebrows inched up a little further. “'Ow'? No, never ‘ow,’ he said, pronouncing it as a very satisfactory “ah-oo” to Gideon's ears if not to Julie's.

'Ha,” Gideon said. When the sopa de lima came—a tangy chicken broth tongue- curlingly flavored with lime—they ate hungrily while Gideon explained.

'So,” Marmolejo said, “what you are saying is that this person who attacked you with a chain—'

'I think it was a chain. It sounded like a chain.'

'—with what you think was a chain, was not a latino but a norteamericano.'

Gideon nodded.

'But are those the only two possibilities? Could he not have been, oh, a German, an Englishman, a Dane? People from all over the world come here.'