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Chapter One
I first realized that I was changing from a sedentary, word-mad bibliophile into a genuine biblio-adventurer on the Sunday evening a dark and dangerous man showed me that priceless piece of treasure.
It was a bright warm June in Long Beach, in 2001, the year of our Lord Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the moments before I was to lay my hot hands on this prodigy. At seven p.m., the California sky loomed clear, sapphire, cloudless; down below, the city's shining boulevards teemed with slim-limbed soccer players and beach sylphs. Despite the example set by this rabble of healthy humanity, however, I had ensconced myself in my scrumptiously tome-spangled adventure-and-fantasy bookshop, the Red Lion.
I, Lola Sanchez, am small, tawny, librarianish, and blessed with extravagant Maya bones. Ox-eyed, tiny-busted, with nice, sturdy legs, I will also allow that I looked particularly fetching on this night, as I had dressed in a hand-sewn violet gown designed after the description of priestess robes in The Mists of Avalon. After checking my cell phone for "texts," I dusted a little, admiring the sparks shed by my wee diamond engagement ring. I then plumped the plush red-wine-colored leather chairs that waited for the fundaments of Sherlock Holmes fans and the devotees of Bram Stoker. By these thrones stood a small cherrywood table upon which I had placed a heavy lead-crystal decanter of sherry and a plate of homemade Gruyère puffs. Richly colored kilim rugs, imported from the black sands of Arabia, glimmered on the oak floor. All of this lavish scenery set the stage for the real stars of the store, which of course were the books. My splendid first-edition octavos and fabulously grotty pulps towered in their cherry shelves, their covers illustrated with square-jawed portraits of "dark horse" adventurers—Allan Quatermain, "Indy" Jones, Dirk Pitt, Professor Challenger, Gabriel Van Helsing.
I stocked my shop with such an old-fashioned collection because I have a personal weakness for these sorts of knuckle-dragging raiders. I'm intrigued by pulp heroes because my biological father happened to be one such dinosaur. Not that I'd ever met the man. Nor, I thought, would I probably have liked him if I did, as he apparently had been a hateful brute, and nothing like my adopted father, a gentle neurasthenic to whom I am slavishly devoted. Nevertheless, like many others of my generation (in 2001 I was thirty-three) I was born to a departed, prodigal dad. Instead of popping Xanax, I simply tended to linger over my King Solomon's Mines and my Lost Worlds a bit too much, like a strange readerly version of Antigone.
And yet all my fan-girldom did not prepare me for that trio of X-Men-looking boys who suddenly came rap, rap, rapping at my glass door!
"Hello? Ms. de la Rosa?"
The three strangers stood right below the Red Lion's sign. Through the door's glass window I could see that the first fellow was light-haired and thick as an ox. The second was red-haired and fox-wiry. The third man regarded me with such dark and dramatic intensity he seemed to blot out the other two as if by eclipse, and I noticed also that he held a small, silk-wrapped parcel in his strong-looking hands.
This Third Man dressed with a Londoner's restraint, wearing a rich black three-piece suit, but he had glowing eyes that are meant to transfix women from behind a silk vizard-mask. His face had sharp cheekbones and swarthy skin; his hair was short and black and soft. His brow brooded in a sardonic mood that matched the curl of his mouth.
He, and his friends, came in.
"May I help you?" I asked, the standard question.
"Yes, I believe you may," he answered in Spanish, with an accent that I recognized immediately as Guatemalan.
"We sell adventure and fantasy books here," I said automatically, switching tongues. "Used editions, mainly. That is, used, but first to seventh editions in spectacular condition—"
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "I have no interest in fiction. The business that draws me to this store tonight is of a much more . . . practical nature than that of fantasy."
A cold finger seemed to touch my heart when he said that.
"Oh—pretty ring." He glanced down at the diamond-glow wavering above my knuckle. "But . . . enough with the pleasantries! Let's get right to business, shall we?" He held up the parcel so that its white wrapping caught the lamplight, rustling the papers inside a little, and this did snag my attention. "For I've traveled such a very long way to see you."
"From where, Mr. . . . ?"
"My name is Marco. And I've been everyplace . . . Prague . . . Zurich . . . lately, Florence and—Antigua."
"Yes, your accent is Guatemalan. My sister's from there, so, I'm familiar—"
"And your father as well, no?"
I folded my hands in front of me. "I'm sorry—do you know my family?"
"Everyone knows your family," he said smoothly as he walked around the store, looking at the books with more than a little interest. "That's why I'm here. I just happened to come into the possession of a very interesting document—a sort of puzzle, you might say. Really intriguing, as it may involve money. A great deal of it, Miss de la Rosa."
"Actually, my name is Sanchez. Lola Sanchez."
"Ah, sorry." He gestured with the hand carrying the parcel, so that it dangled in front of me, like a bright fishhook or a mesmeric charm. "But you are related to Tomas de la Rosa, no? The great—but dead—archaeologist? And—more famously—the war hero? If you're not a de la Rosa, please excuse me, I seem to have made some mistake, and though I would always like to remain in the company of an attractive woman such as yourself, I am on a schedule and would have to take my leave."
"Oh! Agh! We couldn't have that," I exclaimed, quite stupidly flattered.
The King's Gold
Excerpted from The King's Gold: An Old World Novel of Adventure by Yxta Maya Murray
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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