He also explained in detail how his operation worked, with evident pride. “This is the starting point,” he said, standing beside his draftsman, who he referred to as Antonio. “Antonio here does drawings from photographs of artifacts, and designs the molds. You see, he is drawing a beaker with scenes of a deer hunt. Over here,” he said, moving to another part of the shop, “the molds are made, and here,” he said, gesturing expansively about the room, “are my artists who decorate the pieces in accordance with the drawings.
“I’m very proud of my people,” he went on. “They do wonderful work. Here, see this stirrup-shaped vessel in the shape of a fish, the detail.” The young woman working on it smiled shyly. “Some pieces we make are inexpensive, for the tourists, but in other cases, such as this one, what we do are not strictly speaking reproductions: Rather they are original pieces done in the Moche style. I think these are works of art, really. Don’t you agree?”
I did, and I said so. Carlos’s people were very talented artists, and watching their deft strokes as they drew intricate designs on the ceramic surface was a pleasure, albeit one I’d have enjoyed more under different circumstances. “Do you do replicas at all, Carlos?” I asked. “Exact copies of Moche ceramics?”
“You mean use the original methods of manufacturing?” he asked. “No, we like our electric kiln far too much for that.” He smiled. “In reality, we can’t afford to make replicas. I can’t make money on them, because they’re so labor-intensive and expensive to do.”
We walked the full length of the room, Montero chattering away as we went. He showed me where the shipments were packed, told me what museum shops carried some of his work, and so on. It was a revelation to me, not so much what Montero was telling me about Moche craftsmanship—Ralph had already told me a great deal about ceramics—but that he was so knowledgeable and so proud of the work that was being done. I suppose I’d assumed on the basis of his previous behavior that he was an ignorant man, but he wasn’t at all. He was obviously a much more complex person than I’d thought.
He spoiled it all, right at the end, of course, with a lecherous little squeeze, but I suppose I was already getting used to his particular way of dealing with the opposite sex. I merely extracted myself from his clutches and said my good-byes.
As I left the place, I had a very quick look in the body shop. It looked like a body shop just about anywhere, a storey and a half, open right to the roof, two service bays, and lots of mess. Nothing whatsoever looked suspicious.
That night, as usual, Hilda Schwengen disappeared soon after dinner commenced, not to be seen again all evening. Lucho continued to creep around the place, looking, I was sure, for his gun. I’d caught him in the lab, looking through the boxes, earlier in the day. Also as usual, after everyone had turned in for the night, I heard whispered conversations below me, and the creak of the main door, the click and squeak of doors on the second floor opening and closing.
I thought of the visit I’d had that day to Paraiso. I could find absolutely nothing wrong with the place. I could see no places to hide caches of priceless Moche artifacts, although I supposed someone could deliver them at the last minute and slip them into the packing cases. But then what? How did they get them out of the country? I thought about all the shipping I’d done from foreign countries for the shop. I regularly filled containers for shipping by sea, and I supposed I could have put illegal objects in the containers if I chose to. But it would be a risk at both ends I’d get caught. Lizard, of course, had been a customs agent, but surely he couldn’t be the one to check every single box from Paraiso through customs. Was there someone somewhere in a museum shop waiting for the shipment and whisking the real thing out? How difficult would this be to organize, I wondered, and my conclusion was very difficult. And how, then, did the objects end up at Molesworth Cox?
Perhaps it wasn’t Paraiso, after all, I thought. If not, though, then the only other prospect in these parts was the archaeological project I was working on. I decided I needed to know a lot more about what was going on at the Hacienda Garua. On the face of it they were a friendly and relaxed group. Just beneath the surface, though, there were tensions. Hilda disliked Tracey, that I could tell, but why, I didn’t know. Ralph was more than a little entranced by Tracey, but Tracey was with Steve, and Ralph could hardly help but know it. Was this just all the stuff of soap opera, the result of a small group of people isolated together far from home, or was it something more than that?
Then there was the nocturnal visitor and the man in the arches who might or might not be the same person. I decided I needed to attack this problem on two fronts: to go back to Paraiso when no one was there, and to learn a lot more about this project. It was time Steve and I had a little heart-to-heart chat.
11
It haunts me still. Sometimes I dream I am standing on a distant planet, or a desolate moon, perhaps, or some spent asteroid hurtling erratically through space. The dusty surface is pockmarked with the craters of a thousand meteorites. A single hill rises from the surface, its sides streaked, ravaged, by some ancient storm. There is no one there. Someone once inhabited this lonely place, I know, a very long time ago. The cratered surface is littered with their bones. There are other reminders too: here and there a scrap of ancient fabric, and at my feet a plait of dark hair, bleached red by the light of a distant sun seen dimly through the haze. In my dream I hear their ghostly whispers in the mist; I feel their touch in the wind-whipped dust that stings my face. Cerro de las Ruinas.
My plans to interrogate Steve were delayed by an incident in the market that heralded the arrival in Campina Vieja of one of the most unprincipled people I have ever met. Pond scum, Steve called him. It was a chance encounter that hurled us headlong on a collision course with disaster. At the time I didn’t know whether the events that unfolded were diverting me from my course, or were instead another strand in the tangled web that I was attempting to unravel. Not that it mattered what I thought: I found myself drawn along with everyone else.
When it happened, Steve, Tracey, and I were on the upper level of the market, surrounded by clusters of bananas piled five or six feet high, searching for the perfect avocados to bring back to the hacienda to serve on Ines’s day off. We’d come into town to shop, for Tracey to make one of her telephone calls home (I thought all these calls were a little obsessive, but perhaps I was jealous), and for a little RR. We were wandering around together, just enjoying ourselves, when Steve stopped so suddenly, Tracey almost ran into him.
“Shit!” I heard him mutter as he squinted off into the distance. “Tell me I’m seeing things. Shit!” he said again.
Then, as Tracey and I stared after him, he broke into a trot and, calling back over his shoulder to us, said, “I’ll meet you at the El Mo in an hour.” We watched as he dodged through the crowds, down some steps to the market’s lower level, and then, ducking under a tarpaulin that flapped behind one of the stalls, disappeared from view.
“What was that all about?” I asked Tracey.
“Haven’t a clue,” she said blithely. It took a lot to worry Tracey, I noticed.
Perhaps growing up beautiful, rich, and smart gives you a feeling of invincibility. “Not a happy camper, though, is he?” she asked. “What’ll we do now?”
“Finish the shopping, I guess, then we’ll go have a beer and wait for him.” I shrugged. If Tracey wasn’t worried, then why should I be?
It took us quite a bit longer than we’d anticipated to get to the cafe cum bar and restaurant we were to meet at, El Mochica, better known as the El Mo. We still had a bit of shopping to do, and a couple of times we ran into some of the students—it was a day off for everyone—then Puma and Pachamama, and stopped to chat. When we entered the bar, Steve was already there. He was slumped in his chair and didn’t even look up as we came in.