The Codex Read online

  There was a faint pause. “Max never talked about it?”

  “No.”

  “I can hardly remember it now. You know how it is when two people are thrown together for a long stretch of time, they get on each other’s nerves.” Hauser laid his cigar down in a cut crystal ashtray. The ashtray was as big as a dinner plate and probably weighed twenty pounds. Philip wondered if he had made a mistake coming here. Hauser seemed like a lightweight.

  The phone blinked again, and Hauser picked it up. This was the last straw; Philip rose. “I’ll come back when you’re less busy,” he said curtly.

  Hauser wagged a gold-ringed finger at Philip to wait, listened for a minute, and then hung up. “So tell me, Philip: What’s so special about Honduras?”

  “Honduras? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Because that’s where Max went.”

  Philip stared at him. “So you were in on it!”

  Hauser smiled. “Not at all. That was the substance of the phone call I just received. Almost four weeks ago today his pilot flew him and a planeload of cargo to a city in Honduras called San Pedro Sula. From there he took a military helicopter to a place called Brus Lagoon. And then he vanished.”

  “You found all this out just now?”

  Hauser generated a new and mighty cloud of smoke. “I’m a PI.”

  “And not a bad one, it seems.”

  Hauser emitted another meditative cloud. “As soon as I talk to the pilot, I’ll know a lot more. Like what kind of cargo the plane was carrying and how much it weighed. Your father didn’t make any effort to cover his tracks going down to Honduras. Did you know he and I were there together? I’m not surprised that’s where he went. It’s a big country with the most inaccessible interior in the world—thick jungle, uninhabited, mountainous, cut by deep gorges, and sealed off by the Mosquito Coast. That’s where I expect he went—into the interior.”

  “It’s plausible.”

  Hauser added after a moment: “I’m taking the case.

  Philip felt irritated. He didn’t recall having offered Hauser the job yet. But the guy had already demonstrated his competence, and since he now knew the story, he would probably do. “We haven’t talked about a fee.”

  “I’ll need a retainer. I expect the expenses in this case are going to run high. Anytime you do business in a shitcan Third World country you have to pay off every Tomás, Rico, and Orlando.”

  “I had in mind a fee based on contingency,” Philip said quickly. “If we recover the collection, you get, say, a small percentage. I also should mention that I plan to divide it with my brothers: That’s only fair.”

  “Contingency fees are for car-crash lawyers. I need a cash retainer up front. If I succeed, there will be an additional fixed fee.”

  “A retainer? Like how much?”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  Philip almost laughed. “What makes you think I’ve got that kind of money?”

  “I never think anything, Mr. Broadbent. I know. Sell the Klee.”

  Philip felt his heart stop for a moment. “What?”

  “Sell the large Paul Klee watercolor you own, Blau Kirk. It’s a beaut. I should be able to get you four hundred for it.”

  Philip exploded. “Sell it? Never. My father gave me that painting.”

  Hauser shrugged.

  “And how did you know about that painting anyway?”

  Hauser smiled and opened the soft white palms of his hand, like two calla lilies. “You do want to hire the best, don’t you, Mr. Broadbent?”

  “Yes, but this is blackmail.”

  “Let me explain how I work.” Hauser leaned forward. “My first loyalty is to the case, not the client. When I take a case, I solve it, regardless of the consequences to the client. I keep the retainer. If I succeed, I get an additional fee.”

  “This discussion is irrelevant. I’m not selling the Klee.”

  “Sometimes the client loses his nerve and wants to back out. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. I kiss the babies and attend the funerals and keep going until the case is solved.”

  “You can’t expect me to sell that painting, Mr. Hauser. It’s the only thing I have of any value from my father. I love that painting.”

  Philip found Hauser gazing at him in a way that made him feel odd. The man’s eyes were vacant, his face calm, emotionless. “Think of it this way: The painting is the sacrifice you need to make to recover your inheritance.”

  Philip hesitated. “You think we’ll succeed?”

  “I do.”

  Philip gazed at him. He could always buy the painting back. “All right, I’ll sell the Klee.”

  Hauser’s eyes narrowed further. He took another careful puff. Then he removed the cigar from his mouth and spoke.

  “If successful, my fee will be one million dollars.” Then he added, “We don’t have much time, Mr. Broadbent. I’ve already booked us tickets to San Pedro Sula, leaving first thing next week.”

  7

  When Vernon Broadbent finished chanting, he took a few moments to sit quietly in the cool, dark room with his eyes closed, allowing his mind to resurface after its long meditation. As consciousness returned, he began to hear the distant boom of the Pacific and smell the salt air just penetrating the myrrh-fragrant confines of the vihara. The glow of candles on his eyelids filled his internal vision with a reddish, flickering glow.

  Then he opened his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and rose, still cradling the fragile feeling of peace and serenity that the hour of meditation had given him. He went to the door and paused, looking out over the hills of Big Sur, dotted with live oaks and manzanita, to the wide blue Pacific beyond. The wind off the ocean caught his robes and filled them with cool air.

  He had been living at the Ashram for more than a year, and now, in his thirty-fifth year, he finally believed he had found the place he wanted to be. It had been a long journey, from those two years in India through Transcendental Meditation, Theosophy; EST, Lifespring, and even a brush with Christianity. He had rejected the materialism of his childhood and had tried to find some deeper truth to his life. What to others—especially his brothers—seemed a wasted life, had been to him a life of richness and striving. What else was the point of life, if not to find out why?

  Now he had the chance, with this inheritance, to do some real good. Not just for himself this time but for others. It was his chance to do something for the world. But how? Should he try to find the tomb on his own? Should he call Tom? Philip was an asshole, but maybe Tom would want to join forces with him. He had to make a decision, and quickly.

  He tucked up his linen robes and started down the path to the Teacher’s hut—a sprawling redwood structure set in a gentle vale, nestled among a stand of tall oaks, with a view of the Pacific. On the way he passed Chao, the cheerful Asian boy who ran the Teacher’s errands, bouncing up the trail carrying a bundle of mail. It was the life he sought: peaceful and uncomplicated. Too bad it was so expensive.

  As he rounded the side of the hill, the Hut came into view. He paused—he was a little intimidated by the Teacher—but then resolutely carried on. He knocked on the door. After a moment, a low, resonant voice called out from the depths of the compound, “Come in, you are most welcome.”

  He removed his sandals on the veranda and stepped inside. The house was Japanese in style, simple and ascetic, with sliding screens of rice paper, floors covered with beige mats, and expanses of polished wood planking. The interior smelled of beeswax and incense. There was the gentle sound of water. Through a series of openings Vernon could see down the length of the house to a Japanese garden beyond, with mossy rocks standing among raked pebbles, and a pool with blooming lotus flowers. He could not see the Teacher.

  He turned and peered down another hallway to his left, through successive doorways, which disclosed a teenage girl in bare feet and robes, with a long blond French braid down her back entwined with wilting flowers. She was chopping vegetables in th
e Teacher’s kitchen.

  “Are you there, Teacher?” he called.

  The girl went on chopping.

  “This way,” came the low voice.

  Vernon went toward the sound and found the Teacher sitting in his meditation room, cross-legged on a mat, his eyes closed. He opened them but did not rise. Vernon stood, waiting respectfully. The Teacher’s fit, handsome figure was draped in a simple robe of undyed linen. A fringe of long gray hair, combed straight down, fell from a small bald spot, giving him a Leonardo da Vinci look. Astute blue eyes crinkled under strongly arched orbital ridges carved out of the broad dome of his forehead. A trimmed salt-and-pepper beard completed the face. When he spoke his voice was soft and resonant, underlain by a pleasing bed of gravel, with a faint Brooklyn accent that stamped him as a man of humble origins. He was about sixty—no one knew his exact age. Formerly a professor of philosophy at Berkeley named Art Brewer, he had renounced tenure to retreat into a life of the spirit. Here, at the Ashram, he had founded a community devoted to prayer, meditation, and spiritual growth. It was pleasantly nondenominational, loosely based on Buddhism, but without the excessive discipline, intellectualism, celibacy, and fatalism that tended to mar that particular religious tradition. Rather, the Ashram was a beautiful retreat in a lovely location, where under the gentle guidance of the Teacher each worshiped in his own way, at a cost of seven hundred dollars per week, room and board included.

  “Sit down,” the Teacher said.

  Vernon sat.

  “How can I help you?”

  “It’s about my father.”

  The Teacher listened.

  Vernon collected his thoughts and took a breath. He told the Teacher about his father’s cancer, the inheritance, the challenge to find his tomb. When he finished there was a long silence. Vernon wondered if the Teacher would tell him to forgo the inheritance. He remembered the Teacher’s many negative comments about the evil effects of money.

  “Let’s have tea,” said the Teacher, his voice exceptionally tender, placing his gentle hand on Vernon’s elbow. They sat and he called for tea, which was brought in by the girl with the braid. They sipped silently, and then the Teacher asked, “How much, exactly, is this inheritance worth?”

  “I figure that after taxes my share would probably be worth a hundred million.”

  The Teacher seemed to take a very long sip of tea, and another. If the sum surprised him he didn’t show it. “Let us meditate.”

  Vernon, too, closed his eyes. He had trouble concentrating on his mantra, feeling agitated by the questions facing him, which only seemed to grow more complex as he thought about them. One hundred million dollars. One hundred million dollars. The phrase, not dissimilar in sound from the mantra, got tangled up with his meditating, preventing him from achieving either peace or internal silence. One hundred million. Om mani padme hum. One hundred million.

  It was a relief when the Teacher raised his head. He took Vernon’s hands and enclosed them within his own. His blue eyes were unusually bright.

  “Few are given the opportunity that you have been given, Vernon. You must not let this opportunity pass you by.”

  “How so?”

  The Teacher stood and spoke with power and resonance in his voice. “We need to recover that inheritance. We need to recover it now.

  8

  By the time Tom had finished doctoring the sick horse, the sun was setting over Toh Ateen mesa, casting long golden shadows across the sagebrush and chamisa. Beyond rose up a thousand-foot wall of sculpted sandstone, glowing red in the dying light. Tom gave the animal another quick lookover and patted him on the neck. He turned to the Navajo girl—the horse’s owner. “He’s going to make it. Just a touch of sand colic.”

  She broke into a relieved smile.

  “Right now he’s hungry. Lead him around the corral a few times and then give him a scoop of psyllium mixed in with his oats. Let him water afterwards. Wait half an hour, then give him some hay. He’ll be fine.”

  The Navajo grandmother who had ridden on horseback five miles to the vet clinic to get him—the road was washed out, as usual—took his hand. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Tom gave a little bow. “At your service.” He thought ahead to the ride back to Bluff with anticipation. He was glad the road had washed out, giving him the excuse for a long ride. It had wasted half his day, but the trail had taken him through some of the most beautiful red-rock country in the Southwest, through the Jurassic sandstone beds known as the Morrison Formation, rich with dinosaur fossils. There were a lot of remote canyons running up into Toh Ateen mesa, and Tom wondered if any paleontologists had ever explored up there. Probably not. Someday, he thought, he’d take a little side trip up one of those canyons ...

  He shook his head and smiled to himself. The desert was a fine place to clear your mind, and he had had a lot of clearing to do. This crazy business with his father had been the biggest shock of his life.

  “What do we owe you, doctor?” the grandmother asked, breaking his reverie.

  Tom glanced around at the shabby tar-paper hogan, the broken-down car half sunk in tumbleweeds, the skinny sheep milling in the pen.

  “Five dollars.”

  The woman fished into her velveteen blouse and removed some soiled dollar bills, counting out five for him.

  Tom had touched his hat and had just turned to get his horse when he noticed a tiny cloud of dust on the horizon. The two Navajos had also noticed it. A horse and rider were approaching fast from the north, from the direction he had come, the dark speck getting bigger in the great golden bowl of the desert. He wondered if it was Shane, his vet partner. It alarmed him. It would have to be one hell of an emergency for Shane to ride out there to get him.

  As the figure materialized, he realized it wasn’t Shane but a woman. And she was riding his horse Knock.

  The woman trotted into the settlement, covered with dust from her journey, the horse lathered up and blowing. She stopped and swung down. She had been riding bareback without even a bridle across almost eight miles of empty desert. Absolutely, totally crazy. And what was she doing with his best horse and not one of Shane’s glue-plugs? He was going to kill Shane.

  She strode toward him. “I’m Sally Colorado,” she said. “I tried to find you at your clinic, but your partner said you’d ridden out here. So here I am.” With a rustle of honey-colored hair, she held out her hand. Tom, caught off guard, took it. Her hair had spilled down her shoulders over a white cotton shirt, now powdered with dust. The shirt was tucked in at a slender waist, which itself was snugged into a pair of jeans. There was a faint scent of peppermint about her. When she smiled it seemed her eyes had changed color from green to blue, so bright was the effect. She wore a pair of turquoise earrings, but the color in her eyes was even richer than the color of the stone.

  After a moment Tom realized he was still holding her hand, and released it.

  “I just had to find you,” she said. “I couldn’t wait.”

  “An emergency?”

  “It’s not a vet emergency, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then what kind of emergency is it?”

  “I’ll tell you on the ride back.”

  “Damn it,” Tom exploded, “I can’t believe Shane let you take my best horse and ride it like that, without a saddle or bridle. You could have been killed!”

  “Shane didn’t give him to me.” The girl smiled.

  “How did you get him, then?”

  “I stole him.”

  It took a moment of consternation before Tom could bring himself to laugh.

  The sun had set by the time they headed north, riding together, back to Bluff. For a while they rode in silence, and then Tom finally said, “All right. Let’s hear what was so important that you had to steal a horse for it and risk your neck.”

  “Well ...” she hesitated.

  “I’m all ears, Miss ... Colorado. If that’s really your name.”

  “It’s an odd name, I know. My great-grand
father was in vaudeville. He did the patent medicine circuit dressed as an Indian, and he took Colorado as his stage name. It was better than our old name—Smith—and so it kind of stuck. Call me Sally.”

  “All right, Sally. Let’s hear your story.” Tom found himself watching her ride with a feeling of pleasure. She looked like she’d been born on a horse. A lot of money must have gone into that straight, easy, and centered seat of hers.

  “I’m an anthropologist,” Sally began. “More specifically, I’m an ethnopharmacologist. I study indigenous medicine with Professor Julian Clyve at Yale. He was the man who cracked Mayan hieroglyphics a few years ago. A really brilliant piece of work. It was in all the papers.”

  “No doubt.” She had a sharp, clean profile, a small nose, and a funny way of sticking out her lower lip. She had a little dimple when she smiled, but only on one side of her mouth. Her hair was dark gold, and it bent in a glistening curve over her slender shoulders before heading down her back. She was an amazingly beautiful woman.

  “Professor Clyve has assembled the largest collection of Mayan writing in existence, a library of every inscription known in ancient Mayan. It consists of rubbings from stone inscriptions, pages from Mayan codices, and copies of inscriptions on pots and tablets. His library is consulted by scholars from all over the world.”

  Tom could just see the doddering old pedagogue shuffling among his heaps of dusty manuscripts.

  “The greatest of the Mayan inscriptions were contained in what we call codices. They were the original books of the Maya, written in glyphs on bark paper. The Spanish burned most of them as books of the devil, but a couple of incomplete codices managed to survive here and there. A complete Mayan codex has never been found. Last year, Professor Clyve found this in the back of a filing cabinet that belonged to one of his deceased colleagues.”

  She drew a folded sheet of paper out of her breast pocket and handed it to him. Tom took it. It was an old, yellowing photocopy of a page of a manuscript written in hieroglyphics, with some drawings of leaves and flowers in the margins. It looked vaguely familiar. Tom wondered where he had seen it before.