Dancing Aztecs Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t get in touch with anybody,” Pedro said.
    â€œYou’re not listening,” José told him. “You’re talking, and you’re not listening.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll listen, and no talk.”
    â€œGood.” José took a deep breath, and went on with his explanation: “I have the original statue of the Dancing Aztec Priest here in my house, on loan from the National Museum, so that I can make a mold from it to make reproductions.”
    Pedro gestured at the little army of Dancing Aztec Priests on the dirt floor in one corner of the room. “Yes, I see them,” he said.
    â€œOne of the reproductions,” José said, “I did some extra work on, so that it looks exactly like the original.” Reaching down beside his chair, he picked up the small statue and placed it on the table, saying, “Here it is.”
    Pedro frowned at the Dancing Aztec Priest, glittering muted saffron in the candlelight. About eighteen inches high, it was a complicated figure of a man in an unusual pose. Both knees were slightly bent, the left hand was on the left knee, the right foot was raised off the base on which the figure stood, and the right arm was bent up across the chest. The figure was nude, except for rings of feathers around his ankles and a glaring devil mask covering his head. The beady gleaming eyes in the mask were green. “That’s very ugly,” Pedro said.
    â€œUgly doesn’t matter with antiques,” José explained.
    Pedro picked up the statue and looked at it more closely in the shifting candlelight. “So this is worth a lot of money,” he said.
    â€œNot that one,” José said, and picked up another identical statue from the floor. “This one is the original.”
    â€œLook out!” Edwardo warned. “He’ll mix them up!”
    Pedro looked offended, while José said, “No, he won’t. I put a red X with a Flair pen on the bottom of the original. See?”
    They all looked at the red X . Pedro, putting down the copy, said, “I didn’t want to look at that one, anyway. I just want to know what we think we’re doing with all of these ugly statues.”
    â€œAh,” said José Putting both statues away, he said, “We’ve waited for just the right moment, and now at last it’s come. Those American archaeologists left this morning in their ATV, and they’re certainly across the—”
    Pedro said, “ATV?”
    â€œAll-Terrain Vehicle,” José explained. “Four-wheel drive.”
    â€œI don’t understand any of that,” Pedro said.
    Edwardo, speaking through clenched teeth, said, “Pedro, you don’t have to understand anything except that they traveled through the jungles and across the border and out of Descalzo, and that they left tracks .”
    Pedro nodded. “Yes. Everybody leaves tracks.”
    â€œGood,” said Edwardo, and gestured to José. “Back to you,” he said.
    â€œThank you,” said José, and he leaned once more toward Pedro. “Tonight, after midnight, the three of us will raise a sudden alarm. We will yell and cry out. You will shoot that pistol of yours.”
    Pedro said, “At what?”
    â€œInto the air,” José said. Being a sculptor, he was a very patient man.
    Pedro said, “Why.”
    â€œBecause we are scaring off thieves,” José said.
    â€œBut there aren’t any thieves,” Pedro said. “Except us.”
    â€œWe will pretend ,” José told him. “We will pretend that foreign thieves came here to steal the famous Dancing Aztec Priest, and we will pretend that we scared them away.”
    Pedro said, “Why.”
    â€œBecause,” José said, “everybody will be very happy when the Dancing Aztec Priest is put back in its closet in the National Museum tomorrow, and nobody will notice that it’s my copy instead of the