Without a word, Vincente exited the tent and returned in a few minutes with the fourth briefcase. He set it beside the others and opened it. 'Six million, five hundred thousand. You said you have some rare religious objects from the American Southwest. Are they included too?'
'For the extra five hundred thousand you can have them,' answered Zolar. 'You'll find the Indian religious idols under the glass case in the corner.'
Vincente walked over and removed the glass dust cover. He stared at the strangely shaped gnarled figures. These were no ordinary ceremonial idols. Although they looked as if they had been carved and painted by a young child, he was aware of their significance from long experience of collecting objects from the American Southwest.
'Hopi?' he asked.
'No, Montolo. Very old. Very important in their ceremonial rituals.'
Vincente reached down and began to pick one up for a closer look. His heart skipped the next three beats and he felt an icy shroud fall over him. The fingers of his hand did not feel as if they came in contact with the hardened root of a long-dead cottonwood tree. The idol felt more like the soft flesh of a woman's arm. Vincente could have sworn he heard it utter an audible moan.
'Did you hear that?' he asked, thrusting the idol back in the case as if it had burned his hand.
Zolar peered at him questioningly. 'I didn't hear anything.'
Vincente looked like a man having a nightmare. 'Please, my friend, let us finish our business, and then you must leave. I do not want these idols on my property.'
'Does that mean you don't wish to buy them?' Zolar asked, surprised.
No, no. Spirits are alive in those idols. I can feel their presence.'
'Superstitious nonsense.'
Vincente grasped Zolar by the shoulders, his eyes pleading. 'Destroy them,' he begged. 'Destroy them or they will surely destroy you.'
Under an Indian summer sun, two hundred prime examples of automotive builders' art sat on the green grass of East Potomac Park and glittered like spangles under a theatrical spotlight.
Staged for people who appreciated the timeless beauty and exacting craftsmanship of coach-built automobiles, and those who simply had a love affair with old cars, the annual Capital Concours de Beaux Moteurcar was primarily a benefit to raise money for child abuse treatment centers around metropolitan Washington. During the weekend the event was held, fifty thousand enthusiastic old-car buffs swarmed into the park to gaze lovingly at the Duesenbergs, Auburns, Cords, Bugattis, and Packards, products of automakers long since gone.
The atmosphere was heavy with nostalgia. The crowds that strolled the exhibit area and admired the immaculate design and flawless detailing could but wonder about an era and lifestyle when the well-to-do ordered a chassis and engine from a factory and then had the body custom built to their own particular tastes. The younger onlookers dreamed of owning an exotic car someday while those over the age of sixty-five fondly recalled seeing them driven through the towns and cities of their youth.
The cars were classified by year, body style, and country of origin. Trophies were awarded to the best of their class and plaques to the runners-up. 'Best of show' was the most coveted award. A few of the wealthier owners spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring their pride and joy to a level of perfection far beyond the car's original condition on the day it rolled out of the factory.
Unlike the more conservatively dressed owners of other cars, Pitt sat in an old-fashioned canvas lawn chair wearing a flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt, white shorts, and sandals. Behind him stood a gleaming, dark blue 1936 Pierce Arrow berline (sedan body with a divider window) that was hitched to a 1936 Pierce Arrow Travelodge house trailer painted a matching color.
In between answering questions from passersby about the car and trailer, he had his nose buried in a thick boater's guide to the Sea of Cortez. Occasionally he jotted notes on a long pad of legal notepaper, yellow with blue-ruled lines. None of the islands listed and illustrated in the guide matched the steeply sided slopes of the monolithic outcropping that Yaeger had gleaned out of the Drake quipu. Only a few showed sheer walls. A number of them inclined sharply from the surrounding water, but instead of rising in the shape of a Chinese hat or a Mexican sombrero, they flattened out into mesas.
Giordino, wearing baggy khaki shorts that dropped to just above his knees and a T-shirt advertising Alkali Sam's Tequila, approached the Pierce Arrow through the crowd. He was accompanied by Loren, who looked sensational in a turquoise jumpsuit. She was carrying a picnic basket while Giordino balanced an ice chest on one shoulder.
I hope you're hungry,' she said brightly to Pitt. 'We bought half ownership in a delicatessen.'
'What she really means,' Giordino sighed as he set the ice chest on the grass, 'is we loaded up on enough food to feed a crew of lumberjacks.'
Pitt rolled forward out of the lawn chair and stared at a sentence printed across Giordino's shirt. 'What does that say about Alkali Sam's Tequila?'
'If your eyes are still open,' Giordino recited, 'it ain't Alkali Sam's.'
Pitt laughed and pointed toward the open door of the sixty-two-year-old house trailer. 'Why don't we step into my mobile palace and get out of the sun?'
Giordino hoisted the ice chest, carried it inside, and set it on a kitchen counter. Loren followed and began spreading the contents of the picnic basket across the table of a booth that could be made into a bed. 'For something built during the Depression,' she said, gazing at the wooden interior with leaded glass windows in the cupboards, 'it looks surprisingly modern.'
'Pierce Arrow was ahead of its time,' Pitt explained. 'They went into the travel trailer business to supplement dwindling profits from the sales of their cars. After two years, they quit. The Depression killed them. They manufactured three models, one longer and one shorter than this one. Except for updating the stove and the refrigerator, I restored it to original condition.'
'I've got Corona, Coors, or Cheurlin,' said Giordino. 'Name your poison.'
'What kind of beer is Cheurlin?' asked Loren.
'Domaine Cheurlin Extra Dry is a brand name for a bubbly. I bought it in Elephant Butte.'
'A champagne from where?'
'New Mexico,' Pitt answered. 'An excellent sparkling wine. Al and I stumbled onto the winery during a canoe trip down the Rio Grande.'
'Okay.' Loren smiled, holding up a flute-stemmed glass. 'Fill it up.'
Pitt smiled and nodded at the glass. 'You cheated. You came prepared.'
'I've hung around you long enough to know your solemn secret.' She fetched a second glass and passed it to him. 'For a price I won't tell the world the big, dauntless daredevil of the dismal depths prefers champagne over beer.'
'I drink them both,' Pitt protested.
'If she tells the boys down at the local saloon,' said Giordino in a serious tone, 'you'll be laughed out of town.'
'What is it going to cost me?' Pitt asked, acting subdued.
Loren gave him a very sexy look indeed. 'We'll negotiate that little matter later tonight.'
Giordino nodded at the open Sea of Cortez boating book. 'Find any likely prospects?'
'Out of nearly a hundred islands in and around the Gulf that rise at least fifty meters above the sea, I've narrowed it down to two probables and four possibles. The rest don't fit the geological pattern.'
'All in the northern end?'
Pitt nodded. 'I didn't consider any below the twenty-eighth parallel.'
'Can I see where you're going to search?' asked Loren, as she laid out a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, smoked fish, a loaf of sourdough bread, coleslaw, and down-home potato salad.
Pitt walked to a closet, pulled out a long roll of paper and spread it on the kitchen counter. 'An enhanced picture of the Gulf. I've circled the islands that come closest to matching Yaeger's translation of the quipu.'
Loren and Giordino put down their drinks and examined the photo, taken from a geophysical orbiting satellite, that revealed the upper reaches of the Sea of Cortez in astonishing detail. Pitt handed Loren a large magnifying glass.
'The definition is unbelievable,' said Loren, peering through the glass at the tiny islands.
