Curses! by Aaron Elkins Page B

tropical ambience.
    "Is that something you dropped?” Julie said, pointing toward his feet.
    He looked down to see a white sheet of paper folded into quarters on the red-tiled floor. “No, someone must have slipped it under the door."
    The brief message was centered on the page.
    Gideon Oliver, leave Yucatan or you will die. This is not a joke.
    —The Gods of Tlaloc
    After he had stared at it for a few seconds Julie took it from his hand and read it. “I don't...is this supposed to be funny?"
    "I don't know. Personally, I thought the bloodsucking coatimundi had more going for it."
    "Do you think it's really a threat? A death threat?” Gideon shook his head slowly back and forth. “I just—Christ, what am I thinking of!” He flung the door open and leaped out into the hallway.
    But no one was there, of course. The tiled hallway gleamed emptily at them, peaceful and benign, and the potted plants weren't big enough for anyone to hide behind. When he came back into the room, Julie's face was anxious.
    "Hey,” he said softly, putting his arms around her again and pulling her close, rocking slowly back and forth with her. “Hey, there isn't anything to worry about, believe me. Really."
    She lifted her head from his shoulder to throw him a mute, skeptical look.
    "No, honestly,” he said. “Threatening letters are just so much bluster. No one takes them seriously. I certainly don't, and with all the forensic work I do, I get a lot of these things."
    She looked at him again, this time with surprise. “You do?"
    "Sure, all the time."
    Well, twice. Once he'd been scheduled to testify that the skeleton of a Mafia figure found in Lake Michigan showed signs of strangulation. The other time had been when he was going to give evidence on the identification of a dope racketeer whose face and fingerprints had been scraped off before he'd been dumped in the desert near Las Vegas. Both times he'd gotten anonymous letters explaining in repellent detail just what would happen to him if he showed up in court.
    "And they never amount to anything?” Julie asked, not looking overly convinced. “Nope, never."
    Well, once. The night after his testimony in the Mafia murder someone had fired two shots through the door of his room in the Holiday Inn, but he hadn't been there at the time. It was only Gideon's second case for the FBI, and he had been thrilled.
    "What about the time someone mailed you a letter bomb?” Julie said. “What about the time someone set that monstrous dog on you? On us, rather. How about—"
    "We're talking about threatening letters,” he said sensibly. “People who write threatening letters don't follow through. Never.” Or was he laying it on too thick? “Well, almost never."
    She gazed at him doubtfully.
    "It's an accepted fact,” he told her. No question about it."
    It wasn't that he was feeling especially brave, but how could anyone get very excited about this silly note? The two he'd received in the past had been poisonous; explicit enough to bring on a sweat just from the reading. This one was so...quaint, so juvenile. This is not a joke. The Gods of Tlaloc. Almost certainly a joke was just what it was, probably by the same person who had put the coat in the work shed.
    Besides, what he had told Julie was true. People who wanted to kill you, killed you. They didn't write you letters about it.
    He grinned at her. “Come on, Julie. Would I lie?"
    She was not reassured. “Why,” she wondered, addressing a window over his shoulder, “do these things happen to him? They don't happen to other people. They only happen when he's around. Curses, death threats..."
    "It didn't used to happen to me. I don't do it on purpose."
    "I know,” she said and managed a wry smile. “It's some kind of gift. My theory is that you give off some kind of electrical field that attracts weirdness. Oh, Gideon!..."
    She hugged him tightly, then stepped back. “What are you going to do?"
    "I don't know. I suppose the police ought