Hooker, Buzz Kaplan, Connie Braithwaite, and Alita, their wrists bound firmly behind their backs, stood at the base of the dais in the throne room of Holchacán’s palace and faced the king. There was no more of the smiling urbanity shown earlier by the tall Mayan chief. The veneer of civilization had been stripped away, and the anger of his Indian ancestors glittered in the dark, deep-set eyes.
A row of guards stood immediately behind the four captives. They were armed with the usual spears, plus mean-looking double-edged swords, and knives at their belts. Hooker, Kaplan, and Alita wore the white Indian garments provided for them. A loose-fitting cloak had been thrown over Connie’s shoulders and fastened in front to cover her nakedness.
Ranged behind the captives and their guards were some dozen Mayan men who wore robes of soft cloth in colorful shades and complex decoration to indicate their rank. Their dark faces were impassive.
Holchacán turned his glittering eyes on Hooker. “It was a mistake,” he said, “after I had given you the freedom of the city, for you to enter the sacred temple of my people.”
“Sacred, my ass,” Hooker said. “What your high priest was going to do when I walked in wasn’t any catechism.”
He broke off with a grunt of pain when a guard jabbed him in the kidney with the butt end of a spear.
“You will be silent until you are instructed otherwise,” said Holchacán. He turned to the assembled Indians and spoke for several minutes in their own language.
When he had finished his speech, the Mayan chief returned his attention to the captives.
“As I told you, we had planned a ceremony for this evening at which I hoped to have you as my guests. The ceremony will still take place, and I still expect you to be there, but as we know, your situation has changed.”
“Why don’t you get on with whatever your going to do and cut the bullshit,” Buzz said. He stood upright with difficulty, leaning awkwardly on a cane, his wrists bound together. His wooden foot was missing, and his face was a mass of bruises.
A guard raised his spear to Buzz, but Holchacán held up a hand, staying him.
“You are impatient, Mr. Kaplan. Don’t be. You will not have long to wait.”
“How about giving me my foot back?”
The tall Indian studied him for a moment, then said something in the Mayan language to the guard standing next to Buzz.
“Your foot will be restored to you,” he said in English. He waved a hand, and Kaplan and the women were taken away by a detachment of guards.
The robed Indians filed out after them, leaving Hooker alone, flanked by a pair of guards, to face the Mayan chief.
“You are a disappointment to me, Hooker,” said Holchacán. “I had hoped that as men of some experience and education, you and I could come to an understanding.”
“Why bother with the con?” Hooker said. “You never had any intention of letting of us leave here.”
“That is true,” the Maya admitted. “There was no possibility that the secret of Iztal would have remained safe had I allowed your party to return to the outside, and we both know it. I did, however, entertain the hope that you might choose to remain here and join me.”
“Join you in what, drilling holes in people’s heads?”
“Ah, yes, you found the Pit of Skulls.”
“I wasn’t exactly looking for it.”
“I’m sure you weren’t, but you were in a part of the temple no Maya, save myself and the high priest, would have dared to enter.”
“You should have put up a sign.”
There was no amusement in the Indian’s unreadable eyes.
“Speaking of your high priest,” Hooker said, “is screwing white women part of his job?”
Holchacán’s face clouded. “What happened in the temple today was not my doing. Zoaltl will be called to account for it in due time. Meanwhile, I suggest you do not concern yourself with our affairs.”
“I guess I do have enough other things to worry about,” Hooker said.
“Quite so.”
“Can I ask you about something?”
“Specifically?”
“The skulls with the holes where they shouldn’t be.”
Holchacán glanced at the guards, who stood alertly on either side of Hooker, understanding nothing of what was said but ready to slit a throat, their own or their captive’s, at a sign from the chieftain.
“I suppose it can do no harm,” he said. “You will carry no stories out of here. In ancient times, the Mayas had a highly developed understanding of medicine. Even then, they recognized insanity as an illness, while the so-called civilized people of the outside world were still blaming it on possession by devils.
“Surgical methods of the day were, of course, primitive. Yet through trial and error, the ancient Mayas discovered that in certain forms of mental illness, the symptoms could be relieved or removed entirely by an operation that involved cutting through the skull and removing the diseased portion of the brain.”
“Lobotomy,” Hooker said.
“In a very rudimentary way. Naturally, the percentage of cures was small, considering the rather unsanitary conditions under which the operations were performed. Nevertheless, enough of the patients recovered so that the risk was considered worthwhile. Especially when the alternative was insanity and death.
“Unfortunately, or so they thought at the time, there were certain side effects to the operation that appeared with marked regularity.”
“Aha,” said Hooker.
“You are ahead of me?”
“It’s just a guess, but do these brain operations of yours have anything to do with the walking dead men … the muerateros?”
“It was observed in that long ago era that sometimes, even though the victim’s condition was relieved by the operation, he was turned into something like a walking vegetable. Through the ages, the surgeons among my people became more skillful in bringing about exactly this result. They discovered that by severing certain nerve endings in the parietal lobe and removing minute portions of tissue from the motor area of the brain, a willing, if insensible, slave could be produced.
“When it was done properly, the subject would come out of the operation with enormous strength and absolutely no sense of pain. He could be given simple orders, which he would follow even if it meant his own destruction.”
“And with your premed work at Stanford, you learned how to do it,” Hooker said.
“I did return with certain refinements to the operation, which was still being performed in the crude manner of my ancestors. I also saw the value of keeping alive the legend of the muerateros, the walking dead. Mayas throughout Yucatan, even the most civilized of them, are surprisingly willing to make donations to the ancient city of Iztal to assure themselves immunity to the muerateros.”
“Nice racket,” Hooker said. “You collected protection money, and you built your own army of goons.”
“Ideal as it sounds, there is a flaw. You see, even with the refinements I brought back with me, the operation causes a rapid degeneration in the subjects that I have been unable to check.”
“Rapid degeneration,” Hooker repeated. “That means the walking dead men quickly become real dead men.”
“Bluntly stated but true. Some of them last only a matter of days; others, several weeks. In some instances, they continue to exist for months, but always the decay is there, and it is irreversible.”
“So you need a constant supply of raw material.”
“Fortunately, that is not a problem. Quintana Roo has long been a hiding place for renegade Mexicans — murderers, bandits, chicleros. When one of them disappears, no one ever comes looking for him.”
“Do any of your own people ever get the treatment?”
“Only for the most heinous crime. That is why we have no crime in Iztal. You have seen the muerateros. Would you take the chance of breaking a law that might sentence you to become one of them?”
“Not likely,” said Hooker.
“Quite so. That is why outsiders are the ones who are chosen.”
“I suppose that’s another story you wouldn’t like spread around.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference. Oh, I would like to keep superstition of the muerateros alive, but even if the people knew we were creating them by drilling into the skulls of some worthless Mexicans, I doubt they would rise up and march on Iztal. You must have noticed there is a reluctance among Mexicans, even Yucatecans, to enter Quintana Roo.”
“Yeah, I found that out,” Hooker admitted.
“I thought you might have. I admit that some of the fearsome tales of Quintana Roo may be exaggerated, but others, I assure you, are most horribly true.”
“One thing still puzzles me,” Hooker said. “Even if you collect from the peasants in every village of Yucatan to keep the muerateros away from them, you could hardly have made enough to fix the city up like this. There must be another source of income.”
The eyes of the tall Maya were lost in shadow. His mouth compressed into a thin line. “That is one question too many,” he said.
Holchacán spoke briefly to the guards, who moved in to seize Hooker by the arms. They spun him around and marched him down the length of the throne room and out of the temple.
• • •
Back in the dwelling where he had been briefly housed with Buzz, all the homey touches were gone. No cozy fire in the fire pit, no bubbling pot of savory stew. No Mayan maiden, brown teeth or not, waiting to do his bidding. Despite his situation, Hooker had a momentary regret that he hadn’t at least tried Xita out on something simple.
The only pieces of furniture remaining were two of the stretched-hide chairs. Buzz Kaplan sat slumped in one of them, his hands still bound behind him. The wooden foot had been reattached to his leg.
“Find out anything?” Buzz asked as Hooker’s guards prodded him into the room.
“A few things. All bad. What’s been happening with you?”
“Same old shit, only nobody’s friendly anymore. They took the women away again and clapped me in here. At least the bastards gave me back my foot.”
The two Mayan guards who had brought Hooker from the palace shoved him into the remaining chair and took up their stations at either side of the door, relieving the one who had been watching Buzz. The guards stood with their spears in a sort of parade-rest position, while their free hands rested on the hilts of their swords.
“I don’t think we’re going to fake these guys out,” Hooker said.
“That’s what I was thinking. They look a little tougher than the whittlers.”
Hooker flexed his wrists, which were cramped behind him against the back of the chair. The tough henequen cord was too strong to break, the knots too tight to budge. There was no object within reach that had any kind of an edge to saw through the cord.
“Any suggestions?” Kaplan said.
“Yeah, let’s hypnotize the guards and make ourselves invisible like the Shadow.”
“Why the hell do you want to make jokes now?”
“To keep from crying, buddy. To keep from crying.”
• • •
At dusk, another pair of guards showed up, and the four of them yanked Buzz and Hooker to their feet and marched them out of the dwelling and along the path that led into the city.
“What’s up, do you think?” Buzz said.
“The chief invited us to a show, remember?”
“I only hope we’re not in it.”
They were led into the temple through a different entrance from the one Hooker had used earlier in the day. The corridor was similiar, with the oil lamps at intervals for illumination, but there was no black curtain at the end. Instead, they were taken directly into the amphitheater.
The stone benches were filled with silent, watchful Indians. Hooker spotted Connie and Alita down near the front. Their hands were bound, as were the men’s, and each had a guard for company.
The two men were led down the aisle to seats directly behind the women. Hooker leaned forward and whispered, “How’s it going?”
Connie started in surprise and turned to look at him before the guard forced her to face front again. “It’s going shitty,” she said. “At least we’re still alive.”
Alita tilted her head back. “Are you all right, Johnny? I was so worried.”
“I’m fine, chiquita. Considering.”
The guards made menacing gestures toward their mouths, and the captives fell silent.
Into the amphitheater from a hidden floor-level entrance came a procession of the robed Mayas they had seen earlier at the palace. Bringing up the rear was the aged high priest and Holchacán himself. The priest’s robe was an elaborate garment of dark blue with silver thread woven throughout. By comparison, Holchacán’s simple yellow smock was almost drab. Yet his carriage and his height gave the chief an air of majesty. A murmur went through the crowd when he entered.
First the priest, then Holchacán, addressed the assembled Indians in the Mayan language. Hooker understood none of it, but he recognized the tone. It was solemn as death. He shuddered in spite of himself, drawing a warning glance from the guard.
When Holchacán concluded his remarks, he turned toward the entrance and made a small gesture with one hand. Immediately, two sturdy Indians came in. They supported between them a thin brown man wearing only a white diaperlike garment. He trudged along between the other two without any show of resistance. His head lolled as though he were drunk or drugged. The head had been shaved and the naked scalp oiled until it gleamed under the light of the lamps.
As the man was escorted toward the altar, his face turned toward Hooker and the other captives. Although he showed the effects of drugging, there was enough reason left in the eyes to reveal his unutterable terror.
“Jesus,” Buzz whispered, “it’s Chaco.”