Part 10
The next day, Bill was reading, propped against the trunk of a tree near the shack. Betty came to join him, carrying a paperback book and a sarape. "How can you read with all the eyes on you?" She was talking about the several children, standing around fascinated by the big Anglo.
"You get used to it. Right, Roberta?" Roberta giggled and shyly studied Mrs. Franklin's bathing suit.
Before Betty could sit, she saw a figure approaching through the trees. "Company coming, not a European, wearing real clothes." Real clothes, to her, could mean either jeans or a suit.
The man introduced himself in Spanish and quickly changed to English to match the American's tongue. "Mister and Missus Fránglin, I have heard much about you."
"We're flattered, but the house owner doesn't know us very well." (Why would anyone search us out?) "You must be looking for us?"
"Yes. It is a long story . . . " Señor Sirrolo began to explain. He was a professor at the Science Institute in Tampico and had come to enlist possible help from the American tourists. He was nervous about asking a great and dangerous favor and felt obliged to explain why the Franklin's were picked. "I feel that a European or Anglo American is required. The American consul provided your names as being operatives, if you still remained in Mexico. You were very difficult to trace from Palomas, Chihuahua onward."
"We're sorry for your trouble, Professor, but we made no effort to hide our trail." Bill was thinking of the difficult research, sleuthing, and obscure discoveries that must have been required. "You traced us by yourself?"
"Oh, no, the police and government has done most of it. Your own Intelligence Agency helped too, all they could. Your list of friends and contacts are quite impressive and, for a good cause, contributed information." To finish the account, Sirrolo noted that the white Dodge with New Mexico registration was the most distinguished, traceable object. "The Tampico police located the car, and official interest now lies with Police Inspector Ruiz, in Tampico, and myself as curator of national heritage."
"Whoa up, uno momento. Before we hear more, I should say that we are no longer active agents and didn't know we were registered that way."
"I understand your wish to retire from dangerous service and to rest up, at least for a time. But you should have maintained your registration. A trip to any consulate would renew you for six-month periods — that is my understanding. Inspector Ruiz and I will see that your status is reestablished properly so that you can be paid for your help. Your retirement pension must be very small and that would help?"
It occurred to the woman, (The Mexicans don't want to pay us . . . or can't. Just as well, our State Department is much more generous with taxpayer's money.)
The money problems had disappeared when their Mastercard credit line recently increased from $1,500 to $3,000. Bill pondered if they could use the extra money, "Hmm . . . yes and no."
"Maybe." Betty said. "Mr. Sirrolo, we . . ."
"Juan, please. May I speak with you as Bil and Bety?"
"Sure. Juan, Bill has two matters to speak to you about, not concerning this business in Tampico." Sirrolo turned to Bill expectantly.
"There are three items. We have many kilograms of Spanish-Colonial through nineteenth-century artifacts on the other side of the border. We would like to return them if we don't go to jail in the bargain. Second, there is an early archaeological site, possibly representing the Mixteca migration into Chihuahua and Durango." Bill looked puzzled, "Honey, what was the other?"
"The shipwreck."
"Yeah, an unusually intact, sixteenth- or seventeenth-century war vessel in shallow water. It needs urgent attention because it is shifting with the tide and can become lost again. We would like to pursue that one as a private salvage venture, under archaeological direction, of course."
"My friends, you have been busy for unsanctioned operators." Sirrolo had been distracted from his primary purpose. He excitedly proposed, "I can personally receive information about the pre-Columbian site. Durango? I will communicate with workers closer to the location. For such finds, your own satisfaction will be the only reward."
He thought a moment about the treasure, "There is a finder's fee the government pays for returned artifacts, fifteen percent of assayed value for the colonial items. They are always quite generous, evaluating individual objects, because their source is voluntary and usually represents a loss to the benefactor."
Juan promised to locate a salvage company to explore the shipwreck, "My department of the university can supply underwater expertise and supervision. The best-equipped salvage people are foreigners, American and European, but for shallow water . . . I would prefer to have a Mexican firm handle the work. Excuse me for being in the business, myself, of salvaging and building native Mexican resources. But you, Bil and Bety, must fund an expedition with a large deposit to make it a private enterprise. The Mexican government will take half value, returning half to you."
"Good gosh, we aren't business people. Look what we are getting into." Betty was overcome, "Bill, can we handle all these things?"
"No. I hope you understand, Juan, we can do only one thing at a time. But if we were to set up an office in Tampico, with people to keep track of everything, we could do it."
"We'd need an accountant, lawyer, and a secretary. Maybe a gofer to help the others. A telephone, which we understand is impossible to get in less than a year."
"The entrepreneurial expedition funding . . . please take a guess for us, Juan."
"A European salvage company, perhaps 150 mil pesos, $50,000 U.S. A smaller, hard working, Mexican crew, maybe $20,000. Sometimes a deal can be struck, when the risk is low, for a share in profit." Sirrolo chuckled with relief, "I'm happy to talk of such things as a small office for you — I was shocked to think of doing all these things myself."
The professor continued, "Foreigners may not own a registered business, but for an operations center, I can get you started with ease. May I ask the relative distance to the sunken wreck?"
Betty questioned Bill with eye contact. He nodded and she pointed straight out to sea, "Don't wade too far or you'll step on it."
Bill begged for time, "We need to think about these things, which have nothing to do with what brought you here." The big-time business people much preferred to be slow and deliberate.
"Ah yes, the reason for my visit." Sirrolo drew an exceedingly long breath for such a short sentence, "We have a vampire praying on tourists in Tampico."
"What has that to do with us? What has it to do with you, a student of cultural heritage?"
Several patterns had emerged from the crime wave in Tampico. The victims had always been guilty of some form of exploitation of natives, cultural items, or wealth and most had been European or American. The murders had occurred near the Cathedral of the Indian Virgin, and the deaths had been punctuated by throat slitting and blood letting, but most of the blood was not accounted for.
The case seemed to center on the church cemetery, which contains ancient-Indian burial grounds and Spanish-age burials from earliest colonial times to present. Sirrolo's group was involved with excavations of the older parts, documenting what they found, and developing a museum for the finds on the site, inside the mission.
There had been eleven deaths in the past two years. The latest two occurred a month ago — a Mexican had been an intermediary agent between a destitute family, selling the family jewels, and a Dutch antique dealer. The bodies were found together, apparently as the exchange took place. The valuables mysteriously reappeared as an unlabeled museum exhibit in the church.
Betty shuddered, "Makes you think twice about ripping off antiques. How about recent items, such as revolutionary age stuff?" Two victims had been dealing in antiques for export — nothing to do with the church, but their bodies had been found nearby; one on the cemetery grounds, the other in the street.
"Your people must be straight-arrow, Professor?"
"I am ashamed, Bety, my own assistant was murdered after selling an item, obviously stolen from the cemetery. The piece was found in private hands — the recipient is a resident, still retains it, and was not harmed."
Betty grasped the scenario, "You want us for decoys to bring the vampire out of hiding. One of us will be bait, the other, fisherman."
Juan was embarrassed, "I wished to introduce you to the idea slowly."
"Should we be involved, honey? Is the vacation over? Sooner or later, we'll have to deal with all the other projects we've accumulated."
"We should do it, old man. If we work it right, maybe we can sneak down here from the city for a weekend now and then."
"Okay, Juan, we're in."