Curses!

'Be back at nine,” Howard had told them at the base of the pyramid. Only not quite. He'd begun to say it, all right, but he'd interrupted himself. “What time is it now?” he'd asked, and that was the missing piece Gideon had been searching for ‘without knowing it; the piece that didn't fit.

Because if Howard had asked the time, it meant that he hadn't been wearing a watch, and if he hadn't been wearing a watch, then the broken one lying under the skeleton-wrist on the stairwell couldn't very well have been his. And if it wasn't Howard's, then whose was it?

Earlier Gideon had spent a lot of time wondering what it was that he and Stan Ard had had in common. There had, after all, been attempts on only two lives: Ard's (successful) and his (close enough). Why? Why Ard and Gideon in particular, and no one else?

Once he'd realized that the watch in the stairwell wasn't Howard's, the answer had been obvious. His mind had gone back to the interview with the reporter on the veranda. Ard had asked Gideon how he'd happened to know that the stairwell ceiling had begun to give way at exactly 4:12 p.m. Gideon hadn't been able to remember at first, but then he'd recalled. He knew, he'd told Ard, because he'd noticed later that Leo Rose's watch, broken in that first shower of rocks, had stopped at 4:12 p.m.

And then, having told him, he'd called Leo over and blithely repeated it in front of him. Leo had laughed pleasantly and gone into his waterfront-flexivilla spiel, but he'd been aware from that moment that Gideon and Ard knew something he couldn't permit anybody to know—not when Howard's body was going to be turned up any day. And when it was, there was going to be a broken watch near it. And that watch was going to say 4:12 p.m.

There hadn't been any way Gideon could be certain of all this, of course, but it had been a reasonable guess: if you find a watch with a snapped band next to the body of a murdered man, and it isn't his own watch, then—as any observant cop would point out in a flash—it could very well be the murderer's, broken and pulled off in a struggle. Ordinarily, murderers took pains not to leave such things lying around. But if the victim had been knocked to the foot of a stairwell by a sledgehammer, and if that flailing hammer had then accidentally slammed into a weakened prop and dumped five or ten tons of rubble down on the body, then retrieving a watch would be a bit of a problem. As would be anything else under the debris—such as a priceless Mayan codex.

The codex had already been recovered. The watch had still been there, and all it would take to find out if there was an incriminating 4:12 on it would be to go and turn it over. That was what he'd been trying to tell Marmolejo, and apparently he'd succeeded.

That still left plenty of questions, but his brain was aching with the effort of thinking. Julie was right. They could talk about it later.

He turned his face blindly toward her. “Been a long night?” he asked, enunciating carefully.

'Not too bad. Abe kept me company until a couple of hours ago, but I finally made him go get some sleep.” She squeezed his hand gently. “How do you feel?'

'Pretty good, actually. But my eyes don't seem—'

'Dr. Plumm said they might be paralyzed for a while, but not to worry about it. They'll be okay. Is everything else all right?'

'I think so. I'm just a little weak. And a little surprised to be alive.” The words were coming more easily now.

'You can thank Dr. Plumm for that. He keeps a few vials of coral-snake antivenin on hand, just for times like this. Not that there are ever times like this, except when you're around. He really loaded you up with it. Had to get refills by air from Valladolid. You're also brimming with other intravenously administered goodies. You know, we very nearly had to helicopter you to the hospital in Merida for the iron lung. Dr. Plumm says you're a very lucky young man. I quote him.'

'It was a coral snake that bit me? How did he know?'

'From the chew marks, I suppose.'

'I thought poisonous snakes always left two fang marks.'

'Nope, not Elapidae. They chew on you.'

'Elapidae?'

'That's the family. Coral snakes are in the family Elapidae.'

'Oh.” He could feel a gauze bandage on his left hand. “Did he have to incise the fang marks, squeeze the blood out?'

'No, there's no point in doing that after the first thirty minutes. Anyway, it doesn't do any good with Micrurus.'

'Micrurus?'

'That's the genus.'

'Micrurus,' he said again, more languidly. “You sure know the damnedest things.'

It was very comfortable there, with his eyes closed and Julie holding his hand. He was relaxed and content, almost asleep. Those intravenous goodies, no doubt.

'Funny about the eyes,” he mused. “Why would only the oculomotor nerve be affected, and nothing else? No, wait a minute, the abducens must be screwed up too, because I'm not getting horizontal movement of the eyeball, which must mean involvement of the rectus lateralis. So...'

She laughed deep in her throat and lay her head on his chest. “I think I can stop worrying now,” she said, still laughing. “You're back to normal.'

The low chuckling turned to slow, shuddering sobs against his chest. Her hands tightened along his sides. “Oh, Gideon, Gideon, I was so—thank God you're—'

'There, there,” he said drowsily, and lifted his hand to stroke her hair. “Everything's all right now.'

And it was. He heard his own breathing become deep and regular, felt his hand slide flaccidly from her head,