“Sounds far enough.”
“Wait here. I’ll go up and use the express checkout and bring the packs down here by the back stairs.”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll call Selma and let her know where we’re going.” She paused. “Where are we going?”
“Cancún.” He hurried into the hotel.
In a half hour they were on the road in the rental car, beginning the nine-hundred-mile drive from Huatulco to Cancún. It was now late in the evening so there was little traffic. Sam drove hard, watching to be sure they weren’t followed. Remi took her turn driving after two hours, and they kept going until four. They pulled over at a closed gas station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez and slept until it opened at eight, filled the tank, and drove on to Centro on the Gulf Coast. All day they kept changing drivers at intervals until they reached Cancún. They checked into the Crown Paradise Club, showered, and slept until morning.
In the morning, they drove to El Centro, the central part of the city, to shop. They found a number of small stores that had been designed, built, and stocked with American tourists in mind. They bought a number of souvenirs, all of them cheap replicas of Mayan artifacts—pots, bowls, wall hangings, mats, and fabrics that more or less reproduced Mayan art and writing. Everything bore images of Mayan kings, priests, and gods, but crudely and garishly painted. At a hobby shop, they bought a water-soluble acrylic paint set that included silver and gold paint and brushes.
At the hotel, Sam went to work on the genuine Mayan pot from the shrine. He painted designs and altered pictures to make the painting on the pot look as cheap and crude as the souvenirs he and Remi had bought. He used sparkly gold paint to cover the pieces of jewelry the Mayan king wore. Parts of his shield and war club Sam highlighted with silver.
When the paint was dry, Sam and Remi asked the concierge at the hotel where they could find a mailing company that would ship their souvenirs home. He replied that the hotel would do this for them. Sam and Remi watched him pad a large packing box, load the pot into it, fill all the spaces around it with the mats, wall hangings, and fabrics, then fill the box the rest of the way with Styrofoam peanuts and seal it up. With the concierge’s help, Sam and Remi filled out the customs declaration, saying the contents were “souvenirs from Mexico,” and declared the price they’d paid to be under a hundred dollars.
They paid the cost of shipping the souvenirs to their house in La Jolla, gave the concierge a large tip, and went off to the beach to do some snorkeling in the shallows after their hot morning in the city.
That night, Sam and Remi called Selma from their room.
“Hi, you two,” Selma said. “What is it this time, a flood?”
“Not yet,” said Sam. “We just wanted you to know that we’ve sent some souvenirs from Yucatán to the house in La Jolla.”
“I’ll watch for them. Is this one big box?”
“Yes,” said Remi. “There’s some pottery, which we really don’t want broken.”
There was a very slight pause, during which they could tell that Selma had understood what the package was. “Don’t give it another thought. Are you on your way home?”
“As soon as we can get a flight,” Sam said.
“Have you given any thought to where you plan to sleep when you get to San Diego? The fourth floor of the house is still a process, not a product.”
“Until yesterday, we’ve been sleeping on the side of an active volcano,” Remi said. “We’ll manage.”
“You could stay at the Valencia Hotel. I can reserve a suite or even a villa. Then each day you can walk home across the lawn or down to the beach.”
“Sounds good,” said Remi. “If we rent a villa, will they let Zoltán stay with us?”
“I’ll see if they can arrange it. I can even bring him there to show them what an exemplary animal he is,” Selma said.
“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Sam said. “A hundred-twenty-pound dog who sits when you say sit is still a little scary.”
“I’ll sing his praises, then, and offer to put up a damage deposit.”
“Make sure it’s enough to cover any kindergartners he might eat.”
“Sam!” said Remi.
“We’ll call before we get on the plane.”
Sam used Remi’s computer to buy plane tickets home. Then he researched the names of American archaeology professors specializing in the Mayans. It was a pleasant surprise that one of the most distinguished seemed to be Professor David Caine at the University of California at San Diego. Sam e-mailed Dr. Caine and said that he and Remi had made an unusual find at Volcán Tacaná, and attached the Mexican news article about it. He asked Caine if he would meet with them when they returned home. He asked Remi to read the e-mail before he sent it.
She did, and said, “My advice is, click send.”
“You don’t think we ought to include something about ourselves? Maybe list the places we’ve excavated in other countries and so on?”
“Nobody needs to do that anymore. When he reads this, he’ll be sitting in front of a computer. He can Google us and get much more than he wants to know.”