Curses!

the answers. He asked for a copy, which Gideon promised to get for him.

At last the inspector pushed aside his empty plate and picked up his unlit cigar, tapping it absently on the rim of the ashtray. 'Que cosa,' he said softly, looking at the corn-god mural from under lowered lids that made slits of his eyes.

'Do you know what the local name is for Tlaloc?” he asked. “I don't mean the meridanos, I mean the country people, the yucatecos. They call it la ciudad de maldiciones, the cursed city. That is what they called it before any outsiders knew of it. That is what their fathers and grandfathers called it.” Solemnly, he stuck the cigar in his mouth. 'La ciudad de maldiciones.'

Gideon eyed him uneasily. Now what the hell was all this about? Marmolejo was an intelligent, practical man. Surely he wouldn't give any credence to a four-hundred-year-old curse.

Or maybe not so surely. Once, over brandies, he'd told Gideon about his extraordinary past. He'd been born in his Mayan mother's village of Tzakol, which Gideon had seen—a derelict little collection of shacks near the Quintana Roo border, where curses were no doubt as common and unremarkable as the pigs that sunned themselves in the middle of the muddy streets. When he was seven, his father had taken the family to Merida. By eleven, he was one of the army of kids selling walkaway snacks of coconut slices and peeled oranges near the mercado.

Against enormous odds he had gone through school and eventually saved enough to buy his way into Yucatan's then graft-ridden police department. Now, after the cleanup, his integrity and abilities had made him a high-ranking civil servant. He had attended the University of Yucatan as an adult. He was one of the few provincial officials to have graduated from the new national police academy. He was an educated man.

But who knew how much of Tzakol he still carried with him beneath that rational, sensible surface?

He saw the way Gideon was looking at him and laughed. “Don't worry, my friend. I doubt very much if it was the gods who attacked you with a chain. If it was a chain.'

'I'm glad to hear it,” Gideon said.

There was a booming splash from outside. The rain had come at last, crashing onto the surface of the swimming pool like a performing whale falling back into a tank, then setting up a tremendous thrumming on the water, the broad-leafed foliage, and the roof of the restaurant. Julie, who took pride in having grown up in the wettest micro-climate in the United States, had never seen anything like it, and watched with her mouth open.

'On the other hand,” Marmolejo said easily, reaching for his cigar, “I wouldn't go out of my way to annoy them.'

With the downpour, the viscous humidity went out of the air, as if the rain had pounded it into the earth, and a luscious, blossom-scented breeze flowed into the dining room like balm onto a wound. They shifted in their chairs, bathing in it appreciatively. At Marmolejo's suggestion, they ordered coffee with their caramel custard. A few moments before, hot coffee would have been unthinkable.

'I want to show you both something,” he said. He set down his cup, and from the unoccupied seat at his right he took a paper bag and laid it on the table. Reaching inside with care he slid out an old Stanley pipe wrench, much used, its coating of red paint almost worn away.

'Do you recognize this?'

'I think so,” Julie said. “Isn't it one of the dig tools?” Gideon agreed that it was.

Marmolejo looked at Gideon. “It doesn't seem otherwise familiar?'

'Well, I think it's the same one we had in ‘82, if that's what you mean.'

Marmolejo shook his head. That wasn't what he meant. He took hold of the heavy wrench carefully, not on the handle but near the loose jaws, and lifted it. He gave it a single firm shake.

Chink.

It was familiar, all right. Gideon sat up with a jerk. “That's what he tried to brain me with! Not a chain, a wrench!'

With a satisfied smile, Marmolejo carefully laid it on the table again and pointed at the head with his ballpoint pen, to a barely noticeable smear of white powder. “You can see where it hit the limestone when it missed your head.'

'Where did you find it?” Julie asked a little shakily. “Below the rampart of the ball court, at the far end, toward the Temple of the Bearded Man.'

Gideon nodded. “That's the direction he ran, all right. He must have tossed it off the wall. Have you gotten any fingerprints from it?'

'Not yet, and I am not hopeful of finding any. Even if we did, what then? Many people must have handled it during the excavation.'

Julie stared at the big wrench, fascinated and pale. “It's heavy,' she said. “My God, if that had hit you in the head, it would have—it would have...'

'Like an eggshell,” Gideon said. “Well, that just about makes it a fact; it has to be one of the crew. The tools are all kept in the work shed.'

'So it would seem,” Marmolejo said. “Ah, here comes our dessert. How I love flan.'

* * * *

For the next few days the dig continued almost as if nothing unusual had happened. Despite Gideon's and Julie's heightened perception, the crew seemed no more menacing than ever. They saw no secretive glances, no suspicious behavior. Nobody was slinking guiltily around. Worthy was Worthy, Leo was Leo, Emma was Emma. A little odd, some of them, maybe a little more than odd, but not a discernible would-be murderer among them.

Marmolejo's protection turned out to be a soft-spoken, uniformed officer who accompanied the crew to and from Tlaloc and hung inconspicuously about the site during the workday. Others, in civilian clothes, were at the