'The second condition is that you help me as much as possible to find out why my brother was killed.'
'Won't that interfere with your jaunt in Yucatan?' he queried.
'I'm not so certain it will,' I said. 'I think that whoever wanted the tray enough to send a man armed with a sawn-off shotgun also knew that the tray had a secret. Possibly we'll meet him in Yucatan -- who knows?'
'I think you're nuts,' he said. 'But I'll play along with you, I agree.'
'Good,' I said pleasantly, and prepared to harpoon him. 'The third condition is that Halstead comes with us.'
Fallon sat bolt upright and roared, I'll be damned if I'll take the son of a bitch.'
Halstead jumped from his chair. 'That's twice today you've called me that. I ought to knock your -- '
'Belt up!' I yelled. Into the sudden silence that followed I said, 'You two make me sick. All afternoon you've been sniping at each other. You've both done very well in your investigations so far -- you've arrived at the same point at the same time and honours ought to be even. And you've both made identical accusations about each other, so you're square there, too.'
Fallon looked stubborn, so I said, 'Look at it this way. If we two join forces, you know what will happen: Halstead will be hanging around anyway. He's as tenacious as you are and hell follow the trail wherever we lead him. But the point doesn't arise, does it? I said that all three of my conditions must be met and, by God, if you don't agree to this I'll give my tray to Halstead. That way you'll have one each and be on an even footing for the next round of this academic dogfight. Now, do you agree or don't you?'
His face worked and he shook his head sadly. 'I agree,' he said in a whisper.
'Halstead?'
'I agree.'
Then they both said simultaneously, 'Where's the tray?'
Four
Mexico City was hot and frenetic with Olympic Gamesmanship. The hotels were stuffed to bursting, but fortunately Fallon owned a country house just outside the city which we made our headquarters. The Halsteads also had their home in Mexico City but they were more often than not at Fallen's private palace.
I must say that when Fallon decided to move he moved fast. Like a good general, he marshalled his army close to the point of impact; he spent a small fortune on telephone calls and the end result was a concentration of forces in Mexico City. I had a fast decision to make, too; my job was a good one and I hated to give it up unceremoniously, but Fallon was pushing hard. I saw my boss and told him of Bob's death and he was good enough to give me six months' leave of absence. I bore down heavily on the farm management, so I suppose I deceived him in a way, yet I think that going to Yucatan could be construed as looking after Bob's estate.
Fallon also used the resources that only money can buy. 'Big corporations have security problems,' he said. 'So they ran their own security outfits. They're as good as the police any time, and better in most cases. The pay is higher, I'm having Niscemi checked out independently.'
The thought of it made me a bit dizzy. Like most people, I'd thought of millionaires as just people who have a lot of money but I hadn't gone beyond that to the power and influence that money makes possible. That a man was able to lift a telephone and set a private police force in motion made me open my eyes and think again.
Fallen's house was big and cool, set in forty acres of manicured grounds. It was quiet with unobtrusive service, which clicked into action as soon as the master set foot in it. Soft-footed servants were there when you wanted them and absent when not needed and I settled into sybaritic luxury without a qualm.
Fallon's tray had not yet come from New York, much to his annoyance, and he spent a lot of time arguing the archeological toss with Halstead, I was pleased to see that loss of temper was now confined to professional matters and did not take such a personal turn. I think much of that was due to Katherine Halstead, who kept her husband on a tight rein.
The morning after we arrived they were at it hammer and tongs. 'I think old Vivero was a damned liar,' said Halstead.
'Of course he was,' said Fallon crossly. 'But that's not the point at issue here. He says he was taken to Chichen Itza , . .'
'And I say he couldn't have been. The New Empire had fallen apart long before that -- Chichen Itza was abandoned when Hunac Ceel drove out the Itzas. It was a dead city.'
Fallon made an impatient noise. 'Don't look at it from your viewpoint; see it as Vivero saw it. Here was an averagely ignorant Spanish soldier without the benefit of the hindsight we have. He says he was taken to Chichen Itza -- he actually names it, and Chichen Itza is only one of two names he gives in the manuscript. He didn't give a damn whether you think Chichen Itza was occupied -- he was taken there and he said so.' He stopped short. 'Of course, if you are right, it mean? that the Vivero letter is a modern fake, and we're all up the creek.'
'I don't think it's a fake,' said Halstead. 'I just think that Vivero was a congenital liar.'
'I don't think it's a fake, either.' said Fallon. 'I had it authenticated.' He crossed the room and pulled open a drawer 'Here's the report on it.'
He gave it to Halstead, who scanned through it and dropped it on the table. I picked it up and found a lot of tables and graphs, but the meat was on the last page under the heading Conclusions. 'The document appears to be authentic as to period, being early sixteenth-century Spanish. The condition is poor -- the parchment being of poor quality and, perhaps, of faulty manufacture originally. A radio-carbon dating test gives a date of 1534 a.d. with an error of plus or minus fifteen years. The ink shows certain peculiarities of composition but is undoubtedly of the same period as the parchment as demonstrated by radio-carbon testing. An exhaustive linguistic analysis displays no deviation from the norm of the sixteenth century Spanish language. While we refrain from judgement on the content of this document there is no sign from the internal evidence of the manuscript that the document is other than it purports to be.'
I thought of Vivero curing his own animal skins and making his own ink -- it all fitted in. Katherine Halstead
