Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [32]
Eduardo “Henry” Sanchez may well be the ugliest man I’ve ever met. He stands maybe five-seven, carries around close to 230 pounds, and has a nose that looks as if it’s been affixed to his right cheek with clear tape.
I met Henry during the initial study and excavation of the temple. It was midmorning and I was busy unearthing what would turn out to be a cooking pot, manufactured circa 1992 by the Able Steel Works in Able, Pennsylvania. Henry, one of the locals investigating the unprecedented activity, fell into a fresh hole. When I found him, he looked like a turtle on its back. He wouldn’t let me help him until he’d exhausted himself trying to get out on his own. Over the next several weeks, as he spent more time at the work site, I surmised that he made most of his money working with various smuggling operations, running drugs through San Cristóbal. He had a nice house, a new car, and a lovely family, and I had dinner with them a time or two. When working in a foreign land, it’s wise to cultivate good relations with the indigenous people.
“I was a little short of funds at the time,” I try, with my most magnanimous smile.
Henry uses the gun to scratch his leg, then the side of his face.
“You hurt me, Jack.”
“That’s kind of his thing,” Esperanza says.
It’s nice that the two of them are discovering a camaraderie based on mutual disappointment, but there’s still the matter of the gun. I’m reasonably confident that Henry won’t shoot me—intentionally. But the way he’s waving the thing around, gesturing, scratching, makes me nervous.
“I’m good for the money, Henry.”
Both he and Esperanza laugh at the same time.
“I trusted you once, Jack. I’m going to need the money now.”
I know it must be a matter of principle for him. Seventy-five dollars is hardly worth the hassle, even in a poor country. And I didn’t mean to stiff him. We’d been chased out of the site by the government, who’d finally caught wind of our activities, but I’d paid off enough of the right people so they let us leave instead of tossing us into prison. On our way back to San Cristóbal, I’d brought the team here to let off a little steam. Most of them were young and on their first assignments. Some of them weren’t even being paid, except with degree credits. I’d come up light in the wallet when all was said and done, and Henry had floated me the balance, unaware that we were on our way out.
I raise my hands in helplessness. “I’m not carrying that kind of cash on me, Henry. So unless you can take a credit card, there’s not a lot I can do for you.”
I think I’m off the hook. While Henry looks like a mean sort, the odds are in my favor that he won’t shoot me.
“We can take a credit card,” says an oddly high-pitched voice from behind me. “We just got a machine.”
I turn around and the bartender is pointing at the technology in question, a proud smile on his face. The machine sits next to the manual cash register. I must have missed seeing it earlier.
“How about we run it through for a hundred and fifty? Cover your lunch, too?” He holds out a large hand that is incongruous with a voice which sounds as if it should belong to a cartoon character.
I know when I’m beat. I pull Mr. Reese’s card from my wallet and hand it over. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be in the same room with his accountant when the charges come through.
As I watch the man swipe the card and punch in the numbers, I try to ignore Esperanza’s satisfied smile.
CHAPTER 8
The first thought to enter my mind as we drive the trucks out of the jungle and into the small clearing is that if age could be a physical property, it would be the crumbling limestone walls of this temple. Quetzl-Quezo, or what’s left of it, is something set apart from the timeline, as if it died before the world began, and everything else has grown up around it.
It was once the tallest structure for hundreds of miles in any direction, the only one that could be seen rising above the