The desk clerk advised against walking to a mall barely half a mile away. Too hot out there. Maybe I should have listened, but the idea of a walk appealed to me. Before the heat enveloped me like a fog, I’d considered jogging.
There was no sidewalk, just dusty gravel by the side of the road. People gawked at me in passing from behind the tinted windows of air-conditioned cars. Look, Ma, a tourist attraction, a woman using her legs for transportation. Heat and auto exhaust steamed off the gravel and tried to choke me. The air felt too thick to breathe and I was sweating like I’d played a tough volleyball game by the time I hit my destination.
The mall was anchored by a Burdine's so cold it made my damp T-shirt stiffen. I wondered whether all the stores cranked the AC as high, and whether they did it to make the outdoor temperatures seem even worse. Shopping's not my strong suit, but dime stores and shoe stores, while not up there with hardware stores and gun shops, suit me better than most. I hurried through Burdine's, goosebumps prickling my arms, and checked a mall directory.
I found a pair of open-toed Barbie-sandals with clear plastic spikes in a shop that catered to the beach trade. Swimsuits and heels are not a usual pairing in Boston, but that's what this place carried, I swear, bikinis and heels, like they went together, like hot dogs and beer. The shoes were 10s, but I could walk in them, and they were on sale. I could have tried three other stores, but as much as I’d wanted to leave my hotel room, that's how much I suddenly wanted to be back. I checked my cell to make sure the battery was charged, soothed myself with the thought that Vandenburg could reach me here. Mooney could reach me. Paolina could reach me.
I bought the other required items, minus the tattoo, at a Walgreen's, remembering at the last minute to add a disposable razor, a necessity for legs and underarms in wintertime Boston mode. As I left the store, a sign caught my eye.
Jaira Jewels was a small shopfront with more security than a little costume jeweler in a mall might require. I checked my watch, then my cell: no messages. The lawyer hadn’t called yet. The party would probably start late. I studied the discreet display in the window. A sign requested customers to please ring the bell, so I did, waiting thirty seconds till a buzzer sounded. The door made a clicking noise, and I walked inside aware that I’d been scrutinized by a video system and found un-threatening. Maybe it was the shopping bag with the shoes.
Inside, it was dark and a little musty. There was a faint smell of oranges, like someone had just peeled one in a back room. A waist-high glass case divided the long narrow space, leaving enough room for a thin salesman to squeeze behind the counter. The wall opposite the counter had glass-fronted display cases, too, but these were attached to the wall at eye level. The back wall featured two large framed mirrors; one or the other or possibly both were one-way glass. Behind them, probably a workroom, and watchful eyes. I studied the contents of the cases on the wall. Wristwatches, Breguets and Rolexes, a couple of high-end, diamond-studded Baume & Merciers, a few nice art-deco pieces Roz would have liked. I’d just turned my attention to the long display case when a man came silently out of the back room, pushing aside a beaded curtain.
A smile brought out deep creases beside his dark eyes and emphasized the lines running from the corner of his mouth to his beaky nose. The smile was welcoming and gentle, hopeful, as though he’d been waiting for me all day. I wondered how many casual customers wandered in and impulsively dropped five thousand bucks on a watch.
“If I can help you, show you something, answer any questions, please, you have only to ask.” His English was smooth, but accented.
“Thank you,” I said. “You have some lovely pieces.”
He nodded solemnly. It was a courtly gesture, almost a bow.
“Do you buy gold?” I asked impulsively.
He shrugged. “Sometimes, on occasion.”
My eyes swept the velvet backing of the low case. Pearl cluster pins and amethyst pendants, a group of glinting blue sapphires. Nothing remotely like the little man.
I took the small felt bag from my backpack. The dark man watched as I shook the birdman onto the counter. Without a word, he opened a slim leather folder and placed it flat on the counter. The inside of the folder was black velvet. When he lifted the little figure onto the fabric, it caught the light.
“Ha,” he said, after studying it for a minute, “this is very nice.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“You mean, how much?”
“That, yes, but what is it, where did it come from?”
“It's not yours?”
“I inherited it.”
He pressed his lips together, and I got the feeling that if I’d been a black male, he’d have slipped into the back room, checked a stolen-property list, and possibly called the cops. The fact that I was a Caucasian female made him think I might be telling the truth.
“Well,” he said, lifting it, “for a start, pre-Columbian.”
Roz had told me that; I knew that.
“From one of the cultures wiped out when the conquistadores showed up. The old cultures. Indian, if you take Indian to mean tribal. I got a guy works for me would know it like this.” He snapped his fingers. “He’d say, ‘That's early Calima’ or ‘That's late Quimbaya,’ but I don’t know exactly where this came from. I’ve never seen a piece quite like it. You inherited it? You have more?” He had a habit of running his tongue over his teeth.
“Just the one.”
“Well, I can tell you the gold is not pure. Too red in color. One of the tribes, I forget which, had a dozen words for gold, from bright yellow all the way to copper. A lot of tribes used a gold and copper alloy. Tumbago, I think, or tumbaga. In the modern reproductions, you don’t see it too often.”
“This is a modern reproduction?”
“A good one, too, possibly Cano stuff, but it isn’t quite—I don’t know.”
“Cano?”
“Galleria Cano. Latin American outfit, but they’ve got a branch in New York. The Cano family has been involved with gold for generations. They sold the Gold Museum in Bogota most of their permanent collection.” The man ran a finger over the narrow band that edged the wings of the tiny figure and nodded approvingly. “This is very detailed, very nice. Cano uses the lost-wax method, like the ancient tribes.”
“What's that?”
“I don’t want to bore you.”
“Please.”
He gave his little courtly bow again. “They use a dental paste, very rubbery, to make a mold of an original. Once you have the mold, one for each side of the figure, then you join the two halves of the mold so they swing open.” He made a shape with his hands, the sort of thing a child might make to show how an alligator bites. “Like the two sides of a shell, you see?”
“Yes.”
“Into the mold, you pour black wax, molten wax, and you let it cool. You check the mold to make sure it corresponds exactly to the original. The artisan fixes it, then positions it on a special stand with five hollow rods. The rods are the supports.”
I nodded.
“Then the artisan puts thin coats of plaster on the mold. With a brush, many layers until he has a solid mold. Then he heats it, so the wax inside melts and drains out through the supports. You see? Lost wax.”
“So the mold is hollow.”
“Yes, and into the hollow, the artisan pours molten gold.” His eyes gleamed when he said the words ‘molten gold.’ “Today they spin the mold on a centrifuge so the gold penetrates to even the smallest part of the interior, but the Indians, they probably didn’t do that. When it cools and hardens, you break the plaster.” He held up the figure. “And there it is. Beautiful, no?” The little figure looked smug, as though he was enjoying his stint as center of attention.
“The Spanish,” the man added with disdain, “melted down the gold.
They sent it away in ships, in plain flat bars or pieces of eight. People still go hunting for those galleons, off the coast, all over the Caribbean.”
I wondered if he was a treasure hunter, if that accounted for the gleam in his eye, if working with gold provoked a lust for it. I touched the little birdman. The black velvet backing and the overhead light combined to ignite the golden shape.
“Is it a bird or a man?” I asked.
“Both, I guess. I wish the guy works for me was here. He’d tell you. Animals stand for different things in different tribal cultures. Some of the Indians thought they could transform themselves into animals, become jaguars or tree frogs. Some of these little statues are familiars, some fetishes, some fertility things, but the birdman, I think, is sort of a religious figure. The tribal leaders, not the war leaders, but the spiritual leaders, the shamans, they had visions, you know?” He glanced at me to see if I was following.
I smiled. “Hallucinogenic visions?”
“Some did it through deprivation. Starved themselves till they saw visions, or refused to sleep. But drugs played a part. They used things we don’t even know about, mushrooms, leaves, all kinds of plants. They used snake venom and the glands of certain frogs. The shaman would go off into the mountains or the jungle and come back in a month or two, and talk about his journey, about how his soul took flight. Pretty soon, he had everybody believing he’d been somewhere else, on another plane of existence, with the gods, with the holy spirits. The birdman was a representation of the shaman, of the symbolic flight, so this little guy here, he's probably some kind of spirit guide. If you want, I could call the man works for me, ask him.”
I had sewing to do and makeup, not to mention leg-shaving. Roz hadn’t mentioned my hair, but I’d need to do something about that, too.
“That's okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Eight hundred,” he said.
“Huh?” I’d gotten so wrapped up in his story, I’d forgotten my initial query, and his offer took me by surprise.
“I’d go eight hundred for this. The gold isn’t worth anywhere near that much, but I know somebody who’d really go for it.”
“People collect this kind of thing?”
“People collect anything. Soap dishes, tea trays, cigar bands. Art deco is the biggest down here. You move to Miami, and you’ve got a few bucks, you collect deco.” A smile crinkled the edges of his mouth and eyes. “I talk too much.”
“Not at all. But I think I might not want to sell this now that I know so much about it.”
“See? I talk too much. Where did you say you got this?” His hand caressed the figure.
“I didn’t.”
“Hey, no offense. With collectors, the more you know about a piece, the better they like it. Eight hundred's a good offer. Especially if you don’t have papers to go with it.”
It was more money than I’d imagined. “I’ll think about it.”
“Maybe I could go another hundred. It's a very nice piece. Do you have a card? A phone number? I could give you a call later this afternoon, or tomorrow. I don’t think you’ll get a better offer.”
“I know where you are. If I decide to sell, I’ll come back.”
He pressed a store business card on me, scribbling his name on the back before unlocking the door so I could leave.
I was halfway to the motel, walking in the fierce sun, before I realized I still held the birdman in my right hand. His felt pouch, released from my backpack, exuded the perfumy odor of Paolina's locker. The mix of scents blended with the heat, and suddenly it seemed as though she stood there, in front of me, wide-eyed and smiling, a mirage shimmering in the heat.
Where is she? The question was so firmly in my mind I almost spoke to the blank-eyed statue aloud. Dammit, if you’re supposed to be her spirit guide, where the hell is she?