Elisha's Bones Part 3

He trails off and I give him a small smile-one that tells him I appreciate the sentiment. I think he feels guilty about not getting hold of me after it happened, but then I didn't make it easy for anyone to find me.

"My mom appreciated the flowers."

"It was the very least I could do. If I'd had more notice, I would have made the trip."

"Me too," I say, then wave off his questioning look. My body was there for my brother's funeral, but my mind was a world away. It's almost like trying to remember a dream. I see flashes of the people who filed into the church, the blue of the sky at the grave site, my mom in her black dress for the second time in four years. It's the scenes from the Valley of the Kings that are as vivid as the shots from a digital camera, and I've advanced frame by frame through them often enough that I see no reason to do it again, even for the purpose of commiserating with an old friend.

"Your store still looks like it belongs in one of those back alleys off of Red Square."

Romero takes the cue and plays along. "When you've got a good thing going."

I laugh at that, because it's just what I said to Angie a few days ago. Was it only a few days ago? "How's your sister?" I ask him.

It's the only sore spot between us and I immediately want to kick myself for mentioning her. But what choice do I have? I need to see her, or else my trip here will be handicapped by a factor of ten. Still, it bothers me to see Romero's face darken.

"What do you need?" he asks after a measured moment.

There is no hint of irritation in his voice-just an acceptance that something beyond the pleasure of his company has brought me here from North Carolina.

I shrug. "I'm not sure. It depends on what my subject-matter expert can tell me."

It hangs in the air between us while I watch his face. It darkens a shade more.

"You can't be serious."

"I am."

He lets out a long sigh-one that denotes a weighing of undesirable responses. Finally he says, "She may kill you."

"I wouldn't blame her."

CHAPTER 5

I've always appreciated that Romero did not sever ties with me when I left his sister. He would have had every right to, regardless of our long friends.h.i.+p and our mutually profitable trade partners.h.i.+p. I know his loyalties must be divided, that he has to weigh our history against the protectiveness any big brother would feel toward his sister. Still, I think there's a part of the man that may be frightened of his sibling, and it's that part which counseled me against what I am about to do.

That concern, though, didn't extend to coming with me. He walked me down the stairs and handed me a business card with her address scrawled in pencil on the back. He muttered something about waking slumbering monsters before clapping me on the back again and shoving me into a waiting cab.

Now that I'm here, I don't know how to proceed. I'm smart enough to know that the Bogart/Bacall thing doesn't work in real life. Bogey didn't have to deal with the screaming, the crying, the possible gunplay. But I've really got no choice. I'm certain that Reese knew about Esperanza when he approached me; he's a careful researcher. What it comes down to is that Espy knows more about Venezuelan history than anyone alive, and she's likely the only one who can help me make sense of Reese's doc.u.ments.

Espy's office is in a new business park-so new that the landscaping hasn't been completed. There are mounds of expectant dirt ready for shrubs and flowers, and stretches of flat earth prepared for sod. Romero said the university leased most of the office s.p.a.ce before the developers even broke ground.

I pull open the gla.s.s door of the white faux-stone building that has the numbers 100120 on a sign at the top of the second story. Inside, the place smells new, the commingling of factory chemicals and manufacturing odors that have yet to fade. The card in my pocket says 105. I follow the hall, glancing at the numbers above the doors, spotting the one I need too quickly. The door is open and I feel my heart start to beat faster as I approach an event that is as unpredictable as it is inevitable. Pausing just beyond the entrance, I chance a peek inside in some weak attempt to steel myself.

She's at her desk, leaning over a book, her reading gla.s.ses perched on the end of her nose. I smile as I see her lips move along to whatever she's reading. It's likely Russian, which is the only language I can remember giving her trouble enough that she had to sound out the characters.

I give the door a light rap with my knuckle.

When she looks up, and after her mind makes sense of this image from years ago, the transformation is both instantaneous and terrible. A veil of pure anger darkens her skin and I hear a sharp intake of breath that is a strangled, almost guttural sound. I barely have time to move out of the way of the book as it sails by in a flurry of pages past my right ear. The size of the tome and the velocity at which it connects with the wall behind me leaves no doubt that she meant to injure. Failing that, she lets loose with a string of curses in her native tongue-all of which sting far worse than the book would have.

I bear the diatribe with the understanding that I deserve every bit of it and more, but hoping that the anger will peter out. I'm not much into self-flagellation, and if this trip yields nothing more than an opportunity for Esperanza to find some closure, then it will have been wasted.

As I take a step deeper into the room, Esperanza holds up a belaying hand.

"You've got to be out of your mind!" she says, forcing herself into English. Something occurs to her then. "Did my brother tell you where to find me?"

She brings her fist down on the desk and I jump back a little.

I've got nothing. I can lecture all day in front of college students-often while my mind is far away-and never have trouble articulating. Most times, though, I'm not scared to death.

"It's good to see you."

Even though it's how I feel, surprisingly enough, it's probably the worst response I could have selected from the menu. Her lips tighten and she leaves the chair, and I am certain that she means to do me the physical harm the book failed to accomplish. But she stays behind the desk, her hands on the brown solidity, and takes a deep breath. I can almost see the anger leaching from her, lowering from its dam-cresting strength, receding to something quieter and slower yet no less powerful.

"What do you want, Jack?"

That's what I wanted to hear. The pragmatist in me knows that when someone gives you the ball, you can command the situation. The simple fact that she has asked an open-ended question means I now have more leverage than I had when I entered the room. If I'm careful, I can control what happens from here.

The problem is that when the cabbie let me off, what I wanted was to show Esperanza the research, get her opinion, and be on my way. Now I'm not so sure. Things are more complicated when you're past the planning stage. Once you're involved in the real deal, it can be difficult to stay on script. I'm reminded of all the reasons why this woman once meant the world to me. A familiar longing is suffering through a surprise rebirth.

"I don't know," I answer, and it might be the first honest thing I've said in a long time.

"You're not serious."

"Oh, but I am."

"But you've got a PhD."

I think a curse toward Gordon Reese, back in the comparative safety of Dallas. But for him, I would be enjoying my vacation. It's all I can do to avoid backpedaling like some cartoon character, although the fleeting image of her chasing me around the desk almost brings a smile.

"If you want my help, you'll have to stand there like a man and let me take a punch. Otherwise, you and your research can walk right out that door."

I suppose I should be pleased I have her ear at all. In the brief time she gave me to state my case, I could see a flicker of interest.

I'm not frightened. She won't hit me until I tell her she can. That's the payoff for her: that I acquiesce to the a.s.sault. I suppose that's where the PhD rears its ugly head; she'll get more enjoyment having me stand here and take it than she would have received by nailing me with the book.

I don't suppose I have any real choice. "Fire away," I say with mock fearlessness.

Right before her small fist connects with my nose, I register two distinct thoughts. The first is the deep sadness in her eyes. The second is that I hadn't considered she would go for the face. The pain blinds me. Which leaves me wholly unprepared for the follow-up to my sternum, the one that knocks the breath from my lungs and sends me to one knee.

In the time it takes for oxygen to decide whether my damaged insides are safe enough to revisit, I feel as if I've been gasping for an eternity. Blood trickles from my nose and I harbor a pa.s.sive-aggressive hope that the fluid will stain her carpet so as to leave some lasting proof of her brutality.

"You said one punch," I manage.

"I lied."

When I open my eyes, and after I see that there are several dark spots on the tan carpet, I look up to find her sitting on her desk, leaning back on her hands. There are a mult.i.tude of bright spots that dance over her, the kind a.s.sociated with my own sublimated pain.

"Happy now?"

She tosses me a clean white rag and I take it and plug up the sieve that is my nose. I don't even make a pretense of mustering fictional dignity as I get my legs under me and push myself up. Perhaps Romero was right: a woman spurned is a woman best avoided. Still, I'm not sure what frightens me more-that an equally painful emotional deluge may be coming, or that I'm not prepared to run from one should it arrive.

Instead, she offers a satisfied smile and says, "You hungry?"

I pull the cloth away from my nose to see if the bleeding has stopped. I feel no fresh trickles of blood, but now the clotting fluid plugs my nostrils.

"I'm not sure. I just had a knuckle sandwich." It hurts to talk, and my voice sounds funny.

I've elicited a small chuckle from Esperanza. She hops off the desk and retrieves her purse from behind the chair.

"Let's go. You can buy."

And then she's out the door. After a last dab at my nose, I toss the b.l.o.o.d.y rag on her desk and follow. It's strange, but something in me feels happy about the whole physical violence thing. It's something I can understand, even appreciate. Some sort of cause and effect, yin and yang thing that my male brain can process. I won't delude myself into thinking that the rest of our reunion will be as amicable-as odd as it may seem to use that term-but, for now, I consider myself blessed.

Llamo's is a small, quiet restaurant that specializes in the premier dish in any Venezuelan restaurant: steak. I used to frequent this place, and it looks just the same as it did all those years ago. The walls are white, decorated with pictures of the owner's family. At least five generations smile on us, or cast somber looks our way, according to the prevailing generational mood.

Esperanza is working on a tuna salad sandwich and there's an untouched gla.s.s of white wine near her right hand. I might as well not even be here for the attention she's giving me. One of Gordon Reese's notebooks lies open on the table, and she is devouring each word with the same voraciousness with which she's downing her sandwich. I know her well enough to identify the expression in her eyes. It's a combination of intrigue and skepticism-the proper professional dyad. She turns a page, the sandwich held in her free hand, chewing a bite slowly. She grunts and turns another page.

"Your friend's done a lot of research."

"Yes, he has." When I was going through the notebooks back in Dallas, with Reese at my side to clarify the more obscure notes and references, I was impressed by the exhaustive nature of his records. If I were to grant him nothing else, I would at the very least have to give him acknowledgment in this area. I can remember digs I've conducted that haven't come close to this level of doc.u.mentation.

"Have you corroborated any of this?"

I shrug. "I haven't found any references to Fraternidad de la Tierra, but some of the other names in the record appear to be genuine. It would take me months of Europe hopping just to verify all the players." What I don't mention, at least not yet, is the umbrella organization that Reese is certain exists-the one that orchestrates the pa.s.sing of the bones from caretaker to caretaker.

She flips another page, then another, before closing the book. "What I want to know," she says after a long pause, "is where he got his first name."

I raise a puzzled eyebrow.

"Think about it," she says. She sets the rest of her sandwich down and reaches for the winegla.s.s, which she drains with the same consideration someone in my part of the world might give a gla.s.s of ice tea. "He's got this thing going back twenty-five hundred years. But from what I can see, he only tracks the bones back to the thirteenth century-the Chevrier family, or paternal designation. Question is, how did he get from the cemetery to there? He has to have something he hasn't shown you yet."

I shrug. I'd wondered the same thing but hadn't considered it a deal breaker. If I can prove that his findings from the thirteenth century on are accurate, then I can feel good about pursuing the matter. What I need Esperanza for is to confirm the last portion of the record, the place where Elisha's bones seem to have dropped off the face of the earth: Fraternidad de la Tierra. The Brotherhood of Dirt.

She can read my mind.

"Fraternidad de la Tierra existed."

"Existed. As in, they no longer exist?"

"Definitely past tense. It was an organization that was active in the region during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Mostly merchants, a few political aspirants."

"So they weren't a.s.sociated with a single family?"

"They were a guild. In the truest sense of the word. Members.h.i.+p crossed national and economic lines."

I take another bite of my steak. It's excellent. I've never had a bad meal here.

I'm more than excited. The way Espy is describing this group means they are one of those fringe peoples unknown to all but the most serious academics. The fact that they're integral to Gordon's research, and that she has verified their existence, means a great deal.

"When did they disappear?" I ask.

The last of the tuna salad sandwich disappears. "Not sure. From what I can remember, they were a nonent.i.ty before Bolivar came along."

"Why's that?"

It's her turn to shrug. "All pseudo-guilds dissolve over time. All it takes is for one branch to splinter because they think they're on the bad end of a business deal, or that some organization-wide decree doesn't favor them. Sometimes it's even because of political altruism." She raises her winegla.s.s to one of the waiters lining the near wall. "All I know is that, by the start of this century, they were gone."

"Sounds like that bothers you."

"In a way, I guess it does." When I raise an eyebrow, she says, "I know I'm running the risk of oversimplifying here, but how many of the problems South America's experienced over the centuries are a direct result of the same sort of tribalism that kept Europe from unifying for so long? Something like a stronger version of this guild might have had some stabilizing influence."

"You've got the Catholic Church," I say, only half kidding.

"Funny."

Like me, Esperanza had a religious upbringing. But Latin American Catholicism is an entirely different animal from the staid Protestantism I know and love like a weird cousin at a family reunion. I think one would have to live among the Amish back in the States to understand how religion can so permeate a people group. I think what hides under the surface of both approaches, though, is fear. Fear of G.o.d. Fear of there being no G.o.d; fear of there being a G.o.d who is in a perpetual state of irritation; fear of discovering that your religion got it horribly wrong; fear of being afraid because that is a.s.suredly a sin. The people here wrap themselves in what they fear most, like hunters who would dress themselves in the animal skins of fierce predators, while we pay distant homage to that same horrific thing from behind the three-inch safety gla.s.s of pious ceremony.

Esperanza stopped going to church when she went to Cambridge, and her mother didn't talk to her for two years. To hear Espy tell it, her mother attended Ma.s.s daily and lit candles for her daughter's soul. When I first met Marie Theresa, I was sure she blamed me for her daughter's rift from the faith, even if I had not met Espy until she was well into her third year at university. It took the older woman a long time to warm up to me, and I still think she crossed herself every once in a while behind my back. I was always finding garlic in my pocket, but that stopped after I ate a clove of it in front of the woman. She almost fainted.

Esperanza remains silent while I take another bite of the steak. When I've swallowed and chased it down with a few sips of water, she gives me a curious eyebrow.

"You're not buying this, are you?"

"The part about the bones having some kind of power? No. But could there be ancient remains that have been pa.s.sed through millennia?" I shrug. "Stranger things have happened. Who's to say that in a thousand years people won't be wondering if Oliver Cromwell's head is hidden someplace? Or Mother Teresa's index finger?"

"Don't poke fun of a nun."

"Wouldn't think of it. But you can see what I'm saying.

There are countless cultures that preserved the bodies of their holy men."

"Not the Israelites."

"That depends on the period. You're talking about thousands of years of history, two major captivities, a dozen occupations, and generations of ignorance about Levitical law. They would have handled their dead in lots of different ways, and there only needed to be a small window of time during which the Israelites had to preserve the bones. And it's possible they lost possession of them within a few years of removing them from the tomb."