rambling ways of a stoner. “Where you staying?”
He frowned when she mentioned the Pension Paraíso. His driver, he said, would pick her up at seven the following morning.
Back at the hotel, Maggie showered away the almost disastrous beginning to the day. She had brazened her way past Mr. Jericho, the interstellar traveller, but what were the ramifications if the U.S. Embassy started asking questions? If her ruse went undiscovered, though, she might find literary fodder in holidaying with a controversial senator.
She laced up her expensive new walkers, then studied her San José map. The University of Costa Rica: that is where Fiona Wardell could bone up on pre-Colombian history.
Outside, sunlight was filtering through a hazy smog; the city seemed creaky and slow, hungover on a Sunday, a tacky tropical America – Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders looked misplaced here. After a half-hour traipse east, she came to the San Pedro district, the university area, where she found a vegetarian restaurant. She bought a bran muffin and a bundle of carrot sticks, and munched these while strolling through the campus, a clutter of low buildings. Students were lounging outside the library; a few were studying within.
In the deserted history section, she found several shelves of pre-Colombian Americana, many of the texts in English. As she was carrying a few books to a long table, a dark-skinned Latino strolled in, withdrew some maps from a drawer, and sat down to study them. He looked up at her, caught her eye and smiled, then returned to his maps.
She glanced furtively at the man. Tan slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt, skin the colour of milk chocolate — she presumed he had Indian blood. With his thin waist and broad shoulders, he could have been a flamenco dancer. He was tall for a Tico, almost her height, jet-black hair curling over his shoulders, dark eyes, and a long savage moustache. His smile had been unforced and dazzling.
She could sense him still staring at her as she flipped through the books. He said something in Spanish, a polite mellifluous voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t understand.”
He rose and walked to her side. Looking at her texts, he said, “Ah, you are interested in the history of my country.” His accent charmed her:
heestory, contry
. Not quite forty, she guessed; no sign of grey. Although laugh wrinkles webbed from his eyes, his lined face reflected a world-weariness.
“I’m a writer. From Canada. I was thinking of setting a book here. A novel.”
“It is what I teach. Our history. And what do you seek to know?”
“I’m searching for, um, a lost Mayan city. My heroine is, I mean; she’s an archaeologist. I need something with intrigue as backdrop to a … well, it’s a romance novel. That’s what I write.”
She strove to curb her babbling, and scrambled in her bag for a copy of
No Time for Sorrow
. He studied the cover for a moment: the heroine, eyes ablaze with desire, giving token resistance to a shirtless male.
“So. You are rich and famous.”
“Not yet, but I’m working at it.”
His expression hinted at disbelief. “A lost city … We had the Choretegas, who were linked to the Mayan people. But they had not so much advanced. They did not lose any cities, I am sorry.”
“Well … it will be fiction.”
“But it is best to base on truth, no?”
He extended his hand. “Pablo Esquivel.”
“Margaret Schneider. Maggie.”
“And for your romance you seek some unusual mystery.”
“Mm-hmm.” She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Then you must write about the buried treasure in the valley of Rio Savegre — the Savage River. It is a story of desperate men and desperate times. But may I be permitted to tell you over lunch?”
He insisted on paying for the taxi, which let them off at a plaza where vendors hawked hammocks, pottery, and assorted gewgaws. The restaurant was on the terrace of one of San José’s grander, older hotels. This was