The Laughing Falcon Read Online Free PDF Page A

the heart of San José, Professor Esquivel told her: the Plaza de la Cultura and, across from it, the National Theatre, a down-sized copy of the Paris Opera House.
    That graceful building, the plaza extending to it, the hum of activity — buskers, a juggler, a guitar duo, children clutching cones, their faces slathered with ice cream — persuadedMaggie she was finally discovering the San José that had been waiting for her.
    As he spoke, Pablo Esquivel gestured a great deal, and she found herself mesmerized by his hands, so sinewy and slender. Flattered beyond measure, she wondered at the attention being showered on her. Did he find her attractive? Maybe it was the cachet of being a novelist; the well-read were often curious about writers. Professor Esquivel himself had authored a text, a history of Mesoamerica, he said.
    Maggie nibbled at a fruit salad, listening intently to his colourful though gory tale of the sack of Panama in 1671 by a mob of buccaneers led by Henry Morgan. Before the fall of that wealthy colonial city — “ah, Panama, she was the most prized jewel of the Spanish crown” — three galleons escaped, laden with gold, silver, and jewels. Two ships found their way to Ecuador.
    “The third was galleon
La Naval;
she disappeared. There is a local myth that she put into a faraway island called Cocos, that the crew buried the treasure and were later lost at sea.”
    Pablo was a masterful storyteller; his words cast spells — Maggie could visualize the swashbuckling Morgan and the desperate men of
La Naval
. That vessel, newly unburied journals revealed, had sailed up the coast of Central America, the crew seeking refuge at a mission in Costa Rica — the only Spanish habitation for a thousand miles.
    It was in Costa Rica, in “thees, my contry,” in a river valley high above the Pacific coast, that the treasure was most likely buried. “The Savegre, I believe, but there are other rivers near, the Parrita, the Naranjo. Sadly, the mission was destroyed not by arms but by the scourge of plague, and its site has never been found.”
    Finding a lost Spanish mission by the Savage River, buried gold and silver and emeralds — this could be Fiona’s quest. Buffy the warbler would stay vanished.
    Where had she heard of this river before? It came to her: a brochure.
Beautifully situated in an isolated valley near the Savegre River, the Eco-Rico Lodge affords all the comforts of home
. “What an odd coincidence, I am going to the Savegre.” She described her wrangle at the Eco-Rico office, how she had cajoled Elmer Jericho.
    He found her story droll, and chuckled. “Then you, Maggie Schneider, who are so delightfully conniving, you could be the one to find the treasure.” He shrugged. “The whole business, it is maybe a myth. But I have given you some truth to work into your fiction, no?”
    “No. I mean, yes.”
    “But tell me about yourself.”
    She struggled for anecdotes that might entertain him, but her humdrum life in Saskatchewan seemed pale and uninspiring. She talked about her girlhood on a farm, the thrill of her first publication, her love of birding and bicycling, any inane matter that came to mind. The Christmas party at the Voice of the Wheatlands, the people she worked with. He began smiling, and finally broke into laughter.
    “What can possibly be so funny?”
    “You are most engaging, unlike some of the empty-headed women I have been forced to know.”
    They parried for the cheque, but Maggie insisted, dipping into her fanny pack for her colones.
    “You are alone here in San José?”
    “Yes.”
    “I am alone, too. Maybe you will do me the pleasure of returning the favour this evening. There is a delightful restaurant I know in the hills above Escazú.”
    “Actually, that sounds enjoyable. Yes, I’d like to.”
    The restaurant at which they would meet, La Linda Vista, was in the hills west of the city. Pablo had been apologetic aboutbeing unable to escort her there, but, alas, his