The Codex Read Online Free PDF

the pavement until I found a job, a shitty job, washing dishes at Mama Gina’s on East 88th and Lex. A dollar and twenty-five cents an hour.
    Philip was shaking his head. Tom felt numb.
    Broadbent stopped pacing, planted himself in front of the desk, and faced the camera, slightly hunched, glowering at them. I can just see you three now. Philip, you’re no doubt shaking your head sadly, Tom, you’re probably up and swearing. And Vernon, you think I’m just plain nuts. God, I can just see the three of you. I feel sorry for you, I really do. This isn’t easy.
    He resumed his pacing. Gina’s wasn’t far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went in there one day on a whim, and it changed my life. I spent my last dollar on a membership, and I began going to that museum every day. I fell in love with the place. What a revelation! I’d never seen such beauty, such—He waved his large hand. Christ, but you know all this.
    “We certainly do,” said Philip dryly.
    The point is, I started with nothing. Nada. I worked hard. I had a vision for my life, a goal I read everything I could get my hands on. Schliemann and the discovery of Troy, Howard Carter and King Tut’s tomb, John Lloyd Stephens and the city of Copán, the excavation of the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii. I dreamed of finding treasures like these, digging them up, owning them. I cast around: Where in the world were there lost tombs and temples still to be found? The answer was Central America. There you could still find a lost city. There was still a chance for me.
    Now he paused to open a box on his desk. He withdrew a cigar, trimmed and lit it.
    “Jesus Christ,” said Philip. “The old man’s incorrigible.”
    Broadbent waved out the match, tossed it onto the desk, and grinned. He had beautiful teeth, and they glinted white. I’m going to die anyway, why not enjoy my last few months. Right, Philip? Still smoking that pipe? I’d give it up if I were you.
    He turned and paced, trailing little puffs of blue. Anyway, I saved my money until I had enough to go to Central America. I went there not because I wanted to make money—although that was part of it, I’ll admit—but because I had a passion. And I found it. I found my lost city.
    He spun, turned, paced.
    That was the beginning. That got me started. I dealt in art and antiquities only as a way to finance my collecting. And look:
    He paused, gesturing open-palmed to the unseen collection in the house around him.
    Look. Here’s the result. One of the greatest private collections of art and antiquities in the world. These aren’t just things. Every piece in here has a story, a memory for me. How I first saw it, how I fell in love with it, how I acquired it. Each piece is part of me.
    He seized a jade object on his desk and held it toward the camera.
    Like this Olmec head, which I found in a tomb in Piedra Lumbre. I remember the day ... the heat, the snakes ... and I remember seeing it for the first time, lying there in the dust of the tomb, where it had been for two thousand years.
    Philip snorted. “The joys of theft.”
    He put the piece back down. For two thousand years it had rested there—an object of such exquisite beauty it makes you want to cry. I wish I could tell you my feelings when I saw that flawless jade head just lying there in the dust. It wasn’t created to vegetate in the darkness. I rescued it and brought it back to life.
    His voice cracked with emotion. He paused, cleared his throat, put the head down. Then he fumbled for the back of his chair and sat down, laying his cigar aside in the ashtray. He turned back to face the camera, leaning forward on the desk.
    I’m your father. I’ve watched you three grow up. I know you better than you know yourselves.
    “Not likely,” said Philip.
    As I’ve watched you grow up, I’ve been dismayed to see in you a feeling of entitlement. Privilege. A rich-kid’s syndrome. A feeling that you don’t have to work too hard, study too