‘What did they find, Oni? Calque and Sabir?’
‘What? But I was telling you about the armed men.’
‘Forget about the armed men, Oni. I already know about the armed men. You may find this impossible to believe, but you’re not the only fucking fish in the fucking sea. Now tell me what they found.’
‘Who’s telling this story, Abi? You or me? I was just building up to the punchline.’
Abi glared at his cell phone as if he intended to sink his teeth into the keyboard and chew it up. ‘Then you’d better get to the fucking punchline, Oni, or I’ll fucking flatten you just like that fucking dam you were fucking wittering on about.’
‘Yes, you and what man’s army? And you shouldn’t swear so much, Abi. Madame, our mother, says it’s a sign of a lack of imagination.’
Abi consciously reined himself in. It was either that, or swear out a contract on his brother. What was the point in working himself up over nothing? He knew what Oni was like. Had always known. He sometimes forgot that the idiot was only eighteen years old.
He had actually received reports of the coming of the armed men some little time before. For some reason the news had not surprised him. You don’t single-mindedly follow three people day after day without the expectation of some sort of violent payback. And here it was, beckoning to him like one of Homer’s sirens.
Abi had immediately ordered the others to stand by, and to follow when and where possible. Now all he needed was to get a little sense out of his humungous fool of a brother, and he would have the situation nicely back under control again. ‘I’m sorry, Oni. Continue in your very own time. I’m entirely at your disposal, as always.’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I know I get a little carried away sometimes. But this was special, Abi. Listen.’
‘I am listening.’
‘When the mask had finished bouncing, there was a sort of powwow, with everyone putting in their centime’s worth. Lots of hand-waving and rifle-shaking. Then a decision must have been made, because Calque turns around and leads everybody back up to the face of the temple. Then he stands there like a stage magician – like George Sanders as Svengali in that movie with…’
‘Oni…!’
‘…until he shoves his hand up inside the hole left by the mask and comes out with a…’ Oni stopped. He was grinning at his cell phone like a chimpanzee.
‘With a what? For pity’s sake, Oni, tell me what he came out with.’
‘A crystal skull, bro. A crystal fucking skull. Can you believe it?’ Oni shook his head at the cell phone, as though it might somehow jerk into life and be able to discern his thought processes. ‘It was more than a foot tall. With a jaw on hinges like a real skull. And something black for its eyes. Emeralds probably. Or maybe jade. I couldn’t make it out. Well the assholes with the guns take one look at this thing and drop to their knees like they’ve just seen the Pope. And what do Sabir and Calque do? Do they leg it? Do they leg it hell. Instead of sprinting back to their car, they stand there like they’re expecting to be given a gold medal at the Olympics for their trouble. Like they expect a pat on the back rather than the bullet in the head they’ll probably get when these bozos with the rifles come to their senses again.’
‘What happened then, Oni?’
‘Wait for it. It gets better. Much better. What happens then is that this guy I’ve been watching for the past three hours – the guy hiding behind the carob tree I told you about, Abi – this guy comes breezing out from his hiding place waving a book. “It’s all written down in here,” he shouts. “I can’t carry this thing about with me any longer. The volcano has spoken.” Or some shit like that. My Spanish isn’t too good.’ Oni was really getting into the swing of things now. ‘Well the gunmen nearly pissed themselves, I can tell you. They were lurching around, not sure who to cover, who to shoot, or whether they should throw themselves on their knees again and start worshipping Calque and Sabir as gods.’
‘How did it all end?’
‘Three of the gunmen got together and manhandled the busted mask back into its hole. Then they tidied up all the stone chips and made the whole place shipshape again, just like nobody had ever been there. Then the boss man gathers everybody up, they have another powwow – believe me, these guys are good at powwows – and then they head off to wherever they need to get to in three separate cars, including Sabir’s Grand Cherokee.’ Oni searched wildly for a suitable flourish with which to end his story. ‘Now there’s nobody left here but us chickens. And a few bloodthirsty fucking mosquitoes feeding on us. Can I come home now, Abi?’
64
‘I recognize you. You’re the guide, aren’t you? The one who told us about the 942 masks?’ Sabir was driving the Grand Cherokee. Acan was seated beside him, with Calque and Lamia taking up the back seats. ‘So you were out there watching us all the time? How come? Were you expecting us? But that’s impossible.’ Sabir turned his head sharply. ‘You’re not with the Corpus are you?’
Acan was still nervously watching the woman. Hoping she wouldn’t stare directly at him. Give him the evil eye. He was clutching his rifle between his legs, so he wasn’t able to make the appropriate countermovement to diffuse the curse. ‘The Corpus? What is that?’
‘Forget it. It’s not important.’ Sabir glanced at Lamia in the rear-view mirror. ‘Look. Do you have to keep staring at my girlfriend that way? You may not realize it, but it’s damned off-putting. What is it with you people? Isn’t kidnapping us enough?’
Acan blew out noisily between his lips. Now that the subject was out in the open, he felt better. ‘She has the evil eye.’
‘The what?’
Calque leaned forwards. ‘He thinks Lamia has the evil eye. On account of her face. That if she stares at him he will be cursed.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake…’
‘This is serious, Sabir. You need to explain it to him.’
Lamia reached forwards between them. ‘I will explain it to him. I speak his language. It is my face that is frightening him, not yours.’
Calque dropped back into his seat. Sabir turned his concentration back to the road. Both men were acutely embarrassed. The placation and the bringing to understanding of this young Maya man had become far more important than any half-baked ideas of getting themselves out of the spot they were in.
Lamia hunched towards Acan. She spoke softly to him in Spanish. He began a reluctant nodding of the head. At one point Lamia took Acan’s hand and held it to the side of her face. Acan snatched it away and crossed himself. Lamia watched him, sadness mingled with her desire to make him understand. Then, unexpectedly, Acan stretched out his hand one further time. This time Lamia did not attempt to influence what Acan could or couldn’t do.
Acan’s fingers were trembling. He had quite forgotten about his rifle.
Sabir instinctively sensed that he was in the perfect position to wrest the rifle away from Acan and take control of the situation again. True, he was top-and-tailed by two other vehicles, each with a number of armed men inside them, but he could see a side-turning looming half a mile further up the road. All he needed to do was to time his move to coincide with the arrival of the slip road.
Only then no crystal skull. No book. No answers. Sabir hesitated for a moment, his skin crawling with a sudden inner certainty which whispered ‘and no more Lamia, either’. She would never forgive him for abusing her tacitly given word.
So Sabir did nothing. For the very first time since his mother’s suicide, he realized that he was putting the welfare and happiness of another person before his own. The thought was a novel one. Was he really beginning to emerge from nearly ten years of emotional lock-down? He glanced possessively at Lamia in the rear-view mirror.
Acan reached out and touched Lamia’s face. Something changed in his eyes as he made the movement. The fear went out of them. He nodded, as if something had been successfully explained to him – some secret to which he had always wished to be privy.
