Chocan

by Brian Butler

Cover Art by Barbara Butler
Copyright ©2004
ISBN: 0-87714-900-3 eBook edition
ISBN: 0-87714-327-7 PB edition

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For Mom and Dad, who passed to the other side.
May their ashes rest at peace on a tranquil sea.

THE AUTHOR

Brian Butler lives in Montana. When not writing or remodeling houses, his spare time is spent hiking, hunting and fishing in the Beartooth Mountains. He also enjoys white water rafting, snowboarding, and horse back riding with his wife, two daughters and their families.

Chocan is his second novel and he is now at work on a third book. His other professional writing credentials include non-fiction magazine articles for major publications along with several. radio and TV commercials.

THE BOOK

Derek Reed is a botanist and treasure hunter with an overpowering need to succeed. His previous adventures all had ended in failure. This time, he has a chance to make something of himself and prove to his soon to be ex-wife that he is not a fool.

He is not the only one searching for the sacred Mayan emerald known as Chocan that had been cursed in an ancient ceremony after the conquistadores had stolen it from the Lacandones.

Not only is the baseball-sized emerald worth millions, but within the gem's snake face that replicates the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl's visage lays the essence of Asmodeus, the despoiler of Adam and Eve, promising fortunes to anyone possessing the icon and disaster to those who defy its foul disposition.

A murder that takes place within a hundred feet of him triggers his pursuit of a legless man and his two bodyguards who have stolen the emerald from its previous owner and made a zombie slave of his only friend, Alex Scott.

Derek's quest takes him from a dingy voodoo shop in Los Angeles to Yuma, Arizona, where he witnesses the start of his own autopsy, and then through Cancun, Mexico, to the newly discovered Mayan ruins of Yaxchilan on the Mexican/Guatemalan border. Time is an important factor for him to use the deconsecration ceremony he acquired from the voodoo priestess in Los Angeles to expel the evil presence living within the beryl as he takes on the legless man on more than one occasion to gain control of the priceless emerald.

Ikoki Uac, the new medical examiner from Yuma and Captain Jorge Aguiar from the Cancun Police Department, help him search for his friend and the sacred gemstone. Deep within the Mexican rain forest, genealogy and ethnic motivations enter the equation as Derek Reed tells his story about the demonic icon and voodoo power.

Sample

May 2, the year of our lord 1498

Herein follows is the Signed Confession of Don Martìn Diaz de Toledo, a Jew and trader in gems, as given to the court of Tomas de Torquemada.

"Perdoneme, Padre, por yo he pecado."

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

I was with Hernan Cortez in the Americas, in search of precious gems for my family's business, when I came upon the giant emerald known to the Mayans as Chocan. Murder was my first sin, for I killed the pagan priest and his family who were the keepers of the sacred stone carved in the image of a snake's face.

He and his lineage died after many hours of torture such as I now justly suffer at the hands of your inquisitor, but not before I learned how to subvert the holy icon's powers. The priest could endure the pain of the rack and fire, but not bear to see his wife and child suffer the same afflictions.

The emerald portraying the visage of their benevolent god Quetzalcoatl was soon to become a graven idol for damnation. Asmodeus became the talisman's unholy appellation, named after the serpent that despoiled Adam and Eve. An ancient baptismal ceremony of the dark side transformed the talisman's virtuous powers to serve Satan, and with the help of my Voodun sorcerer, I consecrated Asmodeus for evil under the ascending sign of Taurus.

The sacred jewel of the Mayans was vilified in the smoke of the dead priest's heart and bones. Residues of henbane, belladonna, atropine, red sandal and copal incense were ground into powder in an earthenware dish and rubbed on the stone. It was then rinsed in a decoction of brains ripped from his living wife's split-open skull along with waste voided by the terrified pagan priest upon watching her desecration.

I wrapped the icon with my Voodun's incantation chart and secured it within a hemp-cloth bag that I draped close to my sorcerer's black breast with a strip of human sinew torn from the priest's murdered child in order to incubate the talisman's new aura of corruption. There, it completed its satanic transmutation, shedding el Chocan's benevolent endowment to ward off evil and matured into a foul entity to confer its depraved powers to its possessor. Upon the first rising of the next moon in Taurus, I unleashed that conjuration from hell to serve my selfish needs and prey on mankind.

I beg Almighty God to grant me forgiveness for my unspeakable deeds and deliver my soul from the snake-faced demon's gullet. I also implore the court of the honorable Tomas de Torquemada to exact due justice and end my life quickly for I have endured enough pain on this earth and will suffer for eternity in hell because of my sins.

Let this record be a warning for all who wish to follow my indiscretions and consort with demons.

Matìn Diaz

Chapter 1

Treasure hunting is not all adventure and wild, exotic locations. You go nowhere without massive amounts of butt-numbing, eyeball-busting research. Your bright idea of finding an instant fortune and gloating during the ensuing book signings and appearances on late night talk shows where you show off samples of your booty quickly loses its shining aura of expectation. This happens to you without cognitive perception during the process as you grub through documents, folktales, files, newspapers and any other form of information you can get your sweaty hands on that might validate your objective. Doubts creep into your psyche and a scornful inner voice chides you, "Hey, doofus, get a life. There ain't no such thing!"

That reprimand echoes its reproach like an insolent nay-sayer until its fading repeats finally go mute and come to rest in the dumb part of your brain. That particular section of my neural makeup is spacious and accommodating and houses a substantial number of great ideas that have gone bad. Failure to heed warnings also gets one into trouble and if I was the type to listen to advice, I might not have accumulated the problems I've had to face up to in my life, something else I'm not very good at.

The discovery of el Chocan's existence had been the result of countless hours of searching and I had made the find of my lifetime. The university library's copy of one of the few surviving documents from the Spanish Inquisition that I had come across was faded and blurred on every side of its tattered edges. Astounded, I translated the hand-scrawled document through strained, watery eyes.

Big jewelry is good jewelry and I never met a gold bar that I didn't like. Unfortunately, the truth is that I've never met either, and a more focused search within the archives of my alma mater turned up no further reference regarding the giant emerald. This did not surprise me too much and I didn't consider it to be the end of the world; it only meant that I had to do more research. I was, however, inspired and the thought of finding this obscure treasure and reaping the financial rewards that would go with it obliterated everything else that was taking up space in my brain, including the massive data base stored within the vacuous dumb part of my skull. I was hooked and truly believed that had this information been readily available, el Chocan would have been recovered a long time ago and I'd be drooling over Time Magazine article extolling the good luck and new-found wealth of the discoverer.

A trip to Spain about broke me financially and contributed heavily to my marital woes, but my spirits were catapulted to Nirvana when a few arduous weeks of digging uncovered more valuable information within government shipping records and Harbor Master passenger lists dating back to the end of the Spanish - American War. Therein, I found a singular reference that mentioned the emerald by its name and stated that it had been placed in the hands of an emissary of the king who was charged to take el Chocan to a place far, far away from Spain. I found out a short time later that there were some valid reasons to get that green rock out of town without further delay in spite of its monetary value.

Since the Portuguese had a lock on the Orient at that point in history, a return trip to the New World for the stone was the most likely travel option. Simple, deductive reasoning dictated that a frigate named el Principalè had to be the ship that the Chocan's courier had boarded. The only other ship on record that was capable of transoceanic travel and documented leaving port within that time frame was the Santa del Mar, a bulk cargo ship without passengers and manned only by a minimal crew. Records showed that she had arrived in Haiti a month before el Principalè had been reported captured, looted and sunk.

The sinking of el Principalè off the Canary Islands on June 25, 1898, was also a matter of United States Naval records pertaining to the war. I looked it up when I got back home and found the confirmation, "Sighted ship, sank same."

What the naval records didn't go on to say was that el Principalè had refused to stay sunk. The next day, while digging up everything I could find on the Canary Islands, I found the ship listed as a recurring navigational hazard in the straits between them and the coast of North Africa. It had become a derelict, a ghost ship that would haunt the Atlantic until the sea inevitably crushed the last gasps of air from her hold and scattered her timbers over miles of ocean bottom along with the bones of her crew. There were no current sightings on record, but there was no indication that the ship had been de-listed as a problem either.

Thoughts and theories surrounding el Chocan pounded at my brain. It seemed logical, at least to me, that an item of such important religious impact and sizeable monetary value as the Chocan had to have had some documented history of stewardship to insure its safe-keeping. This is a basic truism of any organized religion. For example, you don't see the Vatican leaving its stuff lying around unattended.

My belief in the Chocan's modern day survival and validation for the stewardship concept was reinforced a month later by information that I found in a book on Mayan folklore at a flea market bookstore in Tijuana. There was a date ascribed to the vignette that I translated and I can only assume that it is an approximate reference given by the author of the text. Unfortunately, contacting him for an explanation proved to be impossible. The scholarly Lacandone gentleman of Mayan descent who wrote the book was seventy-six years old when it was published in 1902.

I'm fluent in two other languages, so these kinds of things I'm about to explain interest me. I have studied a lot of Mayan as part of my research on el Chocan and it's kind of quirky in that the Quiche' Mayan language uses what we Anglos perceive as numbers to represent certain letter sounds and the letter X has its own peculiarity.

4 = Ch3 = KayX = Sh

For example, a description of my usual morning routine would read: Xit, Xower, and Xave.

I read this following account while standing in front of the vendor's stall lest I found out that the book was not for sale or that someone might snatch away the little tome before I had a chance to finish the text:

June 26, 1898 - Southern Mexico Near the Guatemalan Border

Deep within the Lacandone jungle, a meeting had been called. The few hundred inhabitants of Aldea del Lago Naja were dressed in their traditional long white gowns and, instead of sitting on the ground, squatted on their haunches in the small beach area. Heavy smoke billowed from copal incense burning in god-pots and hung in the humid air as a sweet-smelling fog encircling them. The incense was both an offering to the gods and a barrier against evil that appeared in the forms of malevolent spirits and voracious mosquitoes.

Mahogany dugout canoes had been pulled far up onto the beach, resting on their bottoms sculpted flat by many tedious hours with the adze. There would be no fishing today. The abundant supply of mojarras in Lake Naja would get a day off.

Maize growing in small milpas dividing the beach from the jungle stood unattended. Hunters' long bows made from guayacan hardwood hung unstrung and idle inside their owners' thatched-roof chosas from stout bamboo pegs along with quivers of arrows patiently awaiting their next kill. Women had left metates on their tables and taken cook pots off the fires.

The elder of the Lacandones was a stout, barrel-chested man with soft brown eyes, a large nose and ears. He bore an accurate resemblance to the ancient Mayans depicted in the carvings decorating Palenque, Villahermosa and Rotten Cane, and he spoke in the old language of the Quiche` Maya as he addressed the group.

"The gift of his image from our benevolent god Quetzalcoatl to our people and so horrendously vilified by the Castilian is once again out of the hands of an evil man."

Uoc turned and solemnly nodded to Al4aholom, his wife of twenty-plus years. In response to his unspoken command, she stepped into the center of the circle that the group had formed and withdrew a wooden image replicating the stolen 4ocan's serpent face and head of tufted feathers from the pocket of her flowing gown.

Her fourteen-year-old daughter was summoned to join her at center-circle by another nod from Uoc and she dug a small hole in the ground with an obsidian knife into which Al4aholom placed the carving face down. The young woman set a quincunx of copal incense around it sixty degrees apart, one on each compass point. She lit the fragrant sticks and reverently sprinkled the jungle earth over the image until the centered hole was filled.

"I am very old," Uoc began speaking again. "The 4ocan is still on its journey through hell, just as our god Quetzalcoatl made his pilgrimage through the fires. My wife and I will not live to see the next Katun stone erected. It is time to pass on my sacred duty to another so that he might find and return the 4ocan to our people."

Uoc stepped into the circle and stood between his wife and daughter and took them by the hand. Together, they crossed to the north side of the gathering and stopped in front of the tallest man in the group. He was a comparative giant at six feet, standing a full head above the rest of the Mayan descendants, yet retaining the powerful torso of his heavy-bodied ancestors.

"It is our request, Xolotl, that you marry our daughter, Iko3ih."

The huge man called Xolotl bowed respectfully to the three and gently grasped the hands of Iko3ih as they were passed into his by Uoc and Al4aholom.

"I humbly accept your offer and I am honored by the sacred duty to return the 4ocan so foully despoiled by the followers of the Castilian Hernan Cortez."

Xolotl turned his head aside and spit a foamy puddle of hate on the ground after mentioning the abhorred name.

A moment of silence followed before Xolotl spoke again as the group gave thought to their credo to recover Chocan.

"We shall bear you many strong children to continue our lineage and accomplish this ordained task for generations to come."

Xolotl held Iko3ih close to his side and continued.

"One day the image of our god will be purified and we Lacandones shall possess the 4ocan as is rightfully so. The Mayan empire shall be restored to its former greatness in the Sixth Age as the ancients have calculated. It is my pledge to you and the gods of the Quiche`!" Xolotl said forcefully as the villagers cheered each of his declarations.

"So be it. You are one," Uoc and Al4aholom said in unison.

Uoc looked up from the eyes of his daughter and Xolotl and into the crowd.

"Be ready, our 4ocan will not rest forever. Xolotl shall summon you when it is time, for he will hear and feel the despoiled spirit when it rises again. If he passes on as I soon will, Xolotl and Iko3ih's lineage shall call upon yours as I do now. It is your sacred obligation to continue the quest of the Lacandones."

Each member of the village individually affirmed his and her sworn duty, then all dispersed to prepare the wedding feast.

Maybe it's not a bad way to live. Hang around the lake all day and fish for crappies while washing down home-made tortilla chips with some local brew. It was a nice reverie, but the book vendor who was glaring at me from a short distance away interrupted it.

"This isn't a library, señor. You going to buy that or not?"

I paid for the book and walked back toward my VW bus knowing that it was time to get out of the archives and into the real world. I was sure about what I was after and possessed enough information to get started. My next order of business was to get in touch with Alex Scott.

Finding Alex was not a problem, he lived two miles away and I had his phone number. Convincing him to show up and listen to what I had to say was the real challenge. He still bears the scars from the last hair-brained adventure I conned him into. Hopefully, a year would help him forget.

Chapter 2

Los Angeles, California - May, 1973

"El choke on a man's what?" Alex rasped, hanging his tongue out at me and grabbing at his thick neck in mockery.

"El Chocan," I answered in a hushed voice, motioning for him to keep his voice down. "It's a talisman."

Alex sat up straighter and his massive, six feet six inch chiseled body nearly filled an entire side of our booth at the back of Casey's Suds Emporium.

It had taken a lot of fast talking on the telephone before I had been able to convince him to meet me, knowing full-well that Alex wouldn't be overly anxious to listen to me pitch another one of my fortune and fame schemes. My promise of free beer on a hot Friday afternoon was the closer.

"For Christ's sake, Derek, what the hell's a talisman?" he asked, placing his palms flat on the table and leaning forward until his face was inches from mine.

"It's a special object, like an amulet or a gemstone," I answered, taking extra care to place emphasis on the last word.

I held my position at the end of his nose. To move away would be a sign of uncertainty on my part and I knew that Alex would not budge until he got an acceptable answer. Wavering now would kill my proposal on the spot.

"A talisman is used in conjunction with a chart or a drawing to evoke psychic or supernatural powers. The user dangles the icon over the chart, concentrates, says some scripted magic words and soon after gets what he wants."

Alex stroked the stubble on his chin just above the self-inflicted red marks on his neck. He was silent and held his stare. With my face so close to his, I swear I could hear the wheels turning inside his head. Anyone looking at us now might think we were about to kiss like a couple of homosexuals on their first date, but we were in the wrong place; the gay bar was two doors down.

Moments later he looked away thoughtfully at the tight, blue-jean covered rear end of a shapely redhead on her way to the ladies room.

"Boy, I sure could wish for that," he sighed and sat back and watched her with his mouth open.

She was a knockout and I knew I could reel him in if I could convey my plans in the right light. I had no intentions of lying to Alex, but neither did I want to stick my size ten foot in my mouth and have him blow off the idea without hearing everything I had to say first. If he didn't like it then, I could deal with him not coming along without any animosity on my part.

"Yes, you could, my friend," I confirmed in a con man's whisper, and looked around nervously for added effect as if to be sure that no one was listening in to steal the magic answer.

"But in this particular case, you might not want to."

"Why's that?" Alex snapped when the door closed behind the redhead. He sounded like a kid who just had a toy grabbed away from him.

"The spirit of Satan was supposedly set loose on Earth during the Spanish Inquisition in the form of a carved emerald called el Chocan. Its purpose was to collect souls for hell. Kind of a Faustian concept, but essentially, the spirit would buy them in return for wealth, power or whatever the seller wanted while he or she lived out their life."

"Cool," Alex said, sounding mildly intrigued. "You mean you could have power over women and seduce them?"

"Yes, you could, I suppose."

Alex shifted his gaze back to the ladies' room door and stared at it as if he were trying to see through the thing.

"So why would you want power to seduce women, Derek? You're already married," he said, focusing his attention back on me.

"That's not what I'm after," I told him and made a point of showing some annoyance. My marriage was not something I really wanted to discuss with anyone right then, not even with my best friend.

"To begin with, this emerald is estimated to be about three or four inches in diameter with a snake's face carved into it. If it's as big as legend has it, the thing is worth at least ten million bucks for the gemstone alone. Find the right collector of antiquities and we're home with twice that tax-free to boot."

Alex frowned.

"Of what we do you speak in that hushed, guilty little weasel voice of yours?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You and me, who else?"

"I was afraid of that," he said, and grimaced while I continued.

"I need someone I can trust to cover my butt. Somebody that's big and mean. Just like you, Mud."

I tried to humor my friend while I smiled and reached across the table to good-naturedly poke a finger into the man's massive chest. Everyone smiled when they called Alex Scott "Mud."

Alexander Wainrite Scott and I had grown up in the same neighborhood. He was a skinny, frail little shit at the age of ten when we first met and now is six feet-six inches tall, weighs two hundred thirty-five pounds and has a body fat content of maybe eight percent.

We had gone from grade school through USC together. I had worked my way through with part-time jobs and studied my skinny ass off in tough subjects while Alex played four years of Division One football on a full-ride scholarship majoring in Physical Education. He seemed to attract dirt like a magnet attracts bits of metal. By half time, Alex Scott, star defensive end, matched colors with the darkest spot on the field and had consequently picked up the nickname as a freshman starter.

We had played high school football together and my dreams of playing college ball as a wide receiver on the same team with him were shattered the first day I showed up to sign up to try to make the team as walk-on. The water boy was bigger and faster than me and I didn't do too well on the pre-screen interview conducted by one of the lower-ranking assistant coaches' interns.

"Height?" he asked, pencil poised above the underlined blank at the top of the page under my name.

"Five-eleven."

"Weight?"

"One seventy," I lied.

"Forty time?"

"Four-seven," I lied again regarding my forty yard dash time.

He tapped his pencil on the questionnaire and showed a wry smile.

"We will weigh you and take you out to the track for time trials, Mr. Reed. Unless you can gain fifteen pounds and somehow jack up your speed across the ground a few notches by tomorrow morning, you're going to be wasting both my time and yours."

He had been polite and understanding and it most likely wasn't the first time that he had been lied to by some desperate wanna-be. I apologized for taking up his time and showed myself to the door. There's not much call for an underweight receiver with average speed and a large fear of physical abuse at the hands of guys the size of, and even bigger than Alex Scott. The scary thing was that most of the guys who made the team could have given me a ten yard head start and still have run me down in a matter of seconds.

Immediately after graduation, I lost track of my only friend. We were sitting at Casey's one night shortly thereafter, having a few beers and shooting the breeze when Alex announced that he needed a real challenge in his life. Being an assistant gym teacher at a local high school just wasn't cutting it for him. He joined the navy the next day and spent the following three years as a SEAL. I had no contact with him until the day he showed up at my front door announcing that he was out of the service, free to communicate with the outside world and living down the road from me. His only excuse for not writing or ever calling, he explained, was that he had been on secret missions for the entire term of his enlistment.

Vietnam had been over with for a few years and I couldn't recall that we had been shooting at anybody else during his enlistment tenure. I didn't bother to ask any questions, I had been too happy to see him again.

In that interim, for reasons I still cannot explain to any one, let alone myself, I married a woman I had met in one of my botany classes three weeks after our first date. Why she consented to marry me is beyond my comprehension, but not as much as it was beyond her mother's wildest imagination.

Alex's frown changed to a nasty glare.

"Where did you come up with this scheme?" he grumbled. "I just hope it's better than the last time we sat here and I let you con me into going along somewhere to protect your bony ass."

His remark struck a nerve and I responded with a chagrined look.

"Hey," I said defensively, "if we had found Blackbeard's treasure, we'd be rich men now and you could be sitting a boat somewhere with a crew of naked redheads like the one in the ladies' shitter!"

"And if I hadn't been able to find us a way out of that sand pit cave on the Charles River when the tide came in, we'd both be dead men right now!" Alex countered with a gruff laugh.

He drained his beer and I sat in silent discomfort while he went back to mulling over what little I had told him so far. Alex was not famous for making quick decisions. When I was single and we were roommates, a simple excursion to the store for a few groceries was a two-hour event.

He was a pretty good cook and would work out a menu as he shopped, deliberating the pros and cons of green vegetables versus not green, black beans or pinto beans with the enchiladas he was preparing that night, tossed salad or coleslaw, and so on. I would answer his question, "What do you think?" immediately, but this was mainly a rhetorical query on his part and my response had little to do with his final selections. Once in a while I would give him a nonsensical answer just to see if he was really listening.

"French dressing or Italian?"

"Six."

"Humph," he'd reply and grab the Roquefort.

But the grocery store was more than just a place to satisfy the basic human need of hunger. It provided a venue for another powerful need as well, and was the sacred hunting ground for Alex. Most of the women he came home with were picked up there, in the aisles between the corn and the peas, at the dairy case or the meat counter, never at the local bars where we often slaked the compelling man-thirst need. More than once I had found butter packages with telephone numbers scrawled on them.

After enduring a wait that seemed like one of those trips, Alex spoke with resignation.

"What's the deal this time?"

"It's a long story," I answered, trying to read his true frame of mind, yet grateful that he hadn't turned me down.

"So tell me, I've got time" he said and leaned back in the booth. "But first, I have the feeling that I'm going to need more beer. A whole lot more."

I went to the bar and returned with a jumbo-sized pitcher and a huge basket of peanuts that I had scooped out of a dented fifty-five gallon drum across from the waitress station. The nuts were much bigger than the ones you get in the store and were extra salted in the shell, Alex's favorite. In total contradiction to being a health food fanatic, Alex was a salt freak and I have never been above simple bribery to get my way. Besides that, it was happy hour; draft beer was half-price and the peanuts were free.

"Like I said, it's a long story," I told Alex while filling our stubby glasses.

Casey's is your basic workingman's bar; it's a shot and a beer at best. No fancy steins glazed over with frost from chilling in the freezer were set on coasters bearing the label of some imported beer were proffered. You only got a seven or eight ounce glass that is a little bigger on the top than on the bottom. Whether you get the larger of the two is the bartender's call and you don't want to lose it because you won't get another glass unless you want to buy it. I consider myself lucky if I get a clean one. My scholarly presence was tolerated there because I had worked a couple of years in construction while going to school and a few of the regulars had worked on the same crew. Alex went anywhere he wanted without being hassled.

Having wine at Casey's was out of the question, even if it was Vermouth for a Martini or a Manhattan. Which, if you did happen to ask for one, you would be informed by Skip the bartender that "We don't make them fancy fuckin' cocktails here!"

Don't let the diminutive name fool you. Skip was about the size of a tattooed VW. Not much taller either. A VW also has more hair.

Ordering a Chardonnay pretty much guaranteed that you were going to get beaten up by some of the hard-hat patrons if you hung around too long after letting that request slip off your lips. Champagne and Pouilly-Fuisse were suicidal requests.

I flicked off the foam rising over the top of the cold droughts with my finger before sliding the basket of peanuts along with the salt shaker over to Alex. Once I was sure that he was comfortable and that he had an adequate supply of liquid refreshment along with enough elephant food to keep him from wandering away, I began an in-depth explanation of what I was after and the supporting evidence behind it.

"No one has ever proven that el Chocan is really an actual representation of Satan himself bottled up inside that emerald like a genie in a lamp, or just some diabolical folk tale about selling your soul to the devil like Faustus. The name Chocan dates back to the Mayans centuries prior to the discovery of the New World.

"El Chocan was not credited with any evil-doing until about the time of Hernan Cortez. The Spaniards are the ones that put the definite article el into the name. Prior to that, the carved emerald was known to the Mayans as Chocan. Not something specific, but an all-encompassing, religiously respectful expression that represented its being. Kind of like saying almighty, not the god so-and-so."

Alex poured himself a second glass, dumped some salt on the foam and used a thick forearm to scrape a mound of peanut shells off the table and on to the floor, adding to the day's collection of husks from other customers. My guess is that Casey must have calculated that it was more economical and easier to sweep the floor once at closing time than to hire additional help to bus peanut baskets and steal her beer.

"How did you get into all this?" he asked, smacking his lips after a sip of beer and reaching for the salt shaker again.

"My interest was piqued when I saw a story about the legend of the talisman in one of those off-beat, occult magazines at that convenience store over on Sixth Street. After I read that, I did some research at the university and found that el Chocan had a nasty history of bad luck, starting with the poor sap that was literally grilled by the court of Count Torquemada during the Spanish Inquisition until he admitted putting a curse on it."

"Court Torkey who?" Alex mumbled with his mouth full of peanuts.

"Tomas de Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor-general at the time," I explained.

"The guy was kind of an early version of Hitler. A major part of his political motivation during that phase of the Inquisition was to run the Jews out of Spain."

Alex went back to a silent mode for a few minutes and I waited for him to digest what I had told him along with the half pound of peanuts he had eaten.

"You're telling me that thing has a curse on it?"

"Uh, I guess so," I muttered and continued, not sure if he was losing interest or just giving me a hard time.

"In the 1580's, the talisman came into the hands of Philip II of Spain. Shortly after that, he sent out the Spanish Armada and that was promptly sunk by the English Navy off the Isle of Wight.

"The Spanish kings kept possession of the Chocan all through the decline of the Spanish Empire. Shortly before the Spanish-American War, the talisman was presented to a church in Valencia for safe keeping. A month later, the church burned down and the stone was moved to a museum."

"Let me guess, the museum got torched," Alex remarked.

"Not exactly. The place was made of stone. It was blown to bits by a lightning storm three months later."

Alex held a peanut shell between his thumb and forefinger.

"No shit," he commented as the husk shattered noisily.

I took one of the peanuts Alex offered and continued, thinking that it was an affirmation that he was interested.

"About the time el Chocan was returned to the king of Spain, the Spaniards were defeated at the Battle of Manila.

"El Chocan was packed up and given to a courier who was on his way to Santiago, Cuba. Unfortunately, the boat he was on, el Principalè was sunk by an American warship off the Canary Islands. Having been in the navy, you'll like this part. El Principalè was documented to have become a ghost ship in that region, mysteriously appearing in the shipping lanes, and then suddenly disappearing."

"So this talisman is floating around on a derelict ship somewhere between North Africa and the Canaries."

"Possibly, but my guess is that it's not on board anymore."

"What do you attribute that theory to, Sherlock?"

"According to newspaper articles in Restiga, a couple salvage divers found the wreck of el Principalè in 1957."

"What's so unusual about that? Restiga, if I recall from my navy days, is a seaport in the Canaries. There are probably lots of wrecks in the area. Shipwrecks and diving do kind of go together, you know."

I took a long gulp of beer and thoughtfully moved a neat stack of husks to the edge of the table.

"The divers were both Americans who had moved there after the war. One of them, a guy named Gary Wilson, lost part of a leg in a shark attack. Claimed he saw his partner get eaten alive when they accidentally swam into a feeding frenzy on their way back to their dive ship."

Alex winced at the shark story.

"Judging from the luck of Mr. Wilson's late diving partner, my guess is that a shark swallowed the stone along with the rest of him," he said flatly. "It could have shit it out later almost anywhere in the Atlantic. I don't know the gestation period for a shark turd."

"That's a possibility," I admitted. "But, as far as I know, Gary Wilson is still alive. My guess is that he either has the talisman or knows where it is."

I pushed the husks on to the floor.

"Besides, there have been no sightings of the Principalè since fifty-seven."

Alex gave me a look of distrust and arched one eyebrow high for emphasis.

"Derek, by any chance did you go to the Canaries, or were the folks in Restiga kind enough to send you copies of the local news from 1957?"

"I went a couple weeks ago, but only for a few days," I answered defensively.

"And I assume your wife and employer were ecstatic to see you upon your return," Alex said.

"Not exactly. Enchanted Floral Gardens fired my ass as chief fertilizer bag man and water boy and Jean has hardly said a word to me since I got back."

"How much money have you blown on these treasure hunts, Derek?"

"More than I can afford, that's for sure. But if we can get our hands on el Chocan, we'll be rich."

"What makes you think that some freak accident won't happen to your skinny ass if you find the thing?" Alex asked, looming across the table from the edge of his seat.

I heard the peanut shells crunching under his sandals. It was as if he was planting his feet to brace for my explanation.

"Old family saying," I laughed nervously, "for every curse, there's an anti-curse."

"What are you babbling about, Reed?" Alex asked, rubbing hard at his chin with both hands.

I sensed my friend's frustration and skepticism. Chin rubbing was something he did when faced with tough decisions. Chee-tos or Fritos. Dark beer or regular beer. Go with Derek or stay home. The use of both hands indicated that he was facing a major dilemma.

I continued to reinforce my case. Hopefully, Alex would accept my belief that the evil hex could be removed.

"When something is cursed, it can be de-consecrated. Purified to take away the evil. Change bad to good. An exorcism, if you will."

"I know I'm going to regret this, Reed," Alex huffed through gritted teeth. "Are you going to find this anti-curse before we start, or are you going to wing it at the last second as usual?"

I sagged back in my seat with relief. From the inception of this scheme, I had harbored serious doubts that Alex would go along with me on this venture. The last trip was much worse than what Mud bitched about. I had come too close to losing the only friend I had, not that there would have been much time to grieve. Had he not bailed us out, both of us would have ended up as crustacean fodder.

The aborted treasure hunt in Bath, North Carolina for Blackbeard's treasure was only my most recent disaster. For as long as I have been chasing the big dream of fast reward, my record of failures has remained unbroken. Even worse, each one was getting progressively closer to terminal.

I was calling on all the powers that exist in the universe to help make this venture pay off big. The fact that el Chocan's record of fatalities remained unbroken to-date did not provide good odds. It was a fact that I had to admit, even with my own jaded optimism.

There existed, however, a reasonable chance that Gary Wilson was still alive. He either had possession of the Chocan or knew where it was. Whether or not he had taken advantage of its powers, debilitated the curse or sold it to some collector for a ton of dough remained unanswered questions.

"I couldn't find a trace of Gary Wilson through the telephone company and the Department of the Navy wouldn't release any information on veterans without authorization," I told him, and began laying out my plan, avoiding his question about something that I was still researching.

"One of the newspaper stories I found in Restiga mentioned that Wilson had a sister in San Diego who came and got him after the shark attack. She should at least have some idea as to where he is now."

"So, we just mosey on down to San Diego and find her?" Alex scoffed.

"Yeah, why not?"

"That could take forever," Alex said with exasperation. "What if she's married, deceased or joined a nunnery under some assumed name like Sister Mary Worrybeads and taken a vow of silence?"

I had similar apprehensions, but not quite as extreme, and I put them out of my mind whenever possible. One of the thoughts that haunted me to no end was how tough it would be to explain to Jean that I had no time to look for another job, only time to attempt another failure.

Alex must have been reading my mind.

"What did the little woman have to say about this treasure hunt? I remember after the last misadventure she about threw you out on your ass. I still can't believe she took you back."

"I haven't told her yet," I answered meekly.

Alex looked at me and rolled his eyes upward. "Why does that not surprise me?"

Since that revelation in the library, I had tried to find out everything I could about the talisman, all the time wondering if the legend of el Chocan was for real or just a fable. The magazine article I had originally read contained no references for its sources and I had received no response on my calls to the editor of the publication to ask for more information about the article and its author.

The local library had a fair amount of information on ancient Mayan civilization but nothing that I read ever mentioned anything regarding the legend of el Chocan. I ended up spending most of the week prior to meeting with Alex searching through dozens of occult bookshops in Los Angeles, asking questions, and nosing through books and magazines on display.

Within a few days, it became evident that word was circulating among the shop owners as to who I was and what I was looking for. Most of them regarded me with suspicion, obviously not pleased that I was pumping them for information and poking through their shops without spending a dime. Unfortunately, for both them and me, I was short on cash for incentives to bolster their memory recall. A few shopkeepers had even warned me of immediate disaster should I ever find the Chocan.

Advice to quit searching did nothing but add to my belief that somewhere out there el Chocan was waiting for me to find it. The talisman's promise of wealth and power would be mine.

It meant a lot to me. I could rid myself of my "continuous failure syndrome," as Jean had more than once accurately described my life over the past few years, and I could reward Alex handsomely for his past help and heroic deeds. .I only needed to find the emerald and discover a way to break the alleged curse that hung over it like a remora on a shark.

I finished a second beer with Alex.

"The rest is yours, my friend," I told him, tapping the side of the half-full pitcher. "I'll pick you up at your place tomorrow morning at seven."

He poured himself another glass and glanced over toward the ladies' room before focusing his attention back on me.

"Going home to pack and say good-bye to Jean?"

"Eventually, but first I have to check out a voodoo store in Watts that I got a new lead on."

Alex shook his head, but said nothing. His cocked eyebrow did all the talking necessary to convey his doubts.

Justifying all this to Jean was not something I was looking forward to. Leaving a note and explaining it all when I came back filthy rich would be a whole lot easier. Cowardly for sure, but money talks and most people listen politely to what it has to say when a chunk of it is coming their way.

From what I had been reading about black magic, it made sense to me that voodoo was probably the most potent force to launch against the curse that haunted the possessor of el Chocan. It is an ancient art and much more than a ritual that requires dancing naked around a fire. Voodoo is a real science that melds attitudes and toxins to make the living dead a reality. Real pharmacology is at work and it is not being dispensed by amateurs with junior chemistry sets.

One of the friendlier occult bookstore owners that I had encountered suggested a specialty shop that might broaden my horizons and it took me a half an hour to find the place after I left Alex sitting at Casey's, probably regretting his decision to accompany me and drowning his adventurer's remorse in the second pitcher that I had ordered and paid for on my way out.

The shop was not listed in the yellow pages although it had been in business for several years.

"At least fifteen that I know of," the esoteric book-man had volunteered when I had made some remark to that effect.

"Zombie land" I said under my breath upon entering the store dedicated to the Voodoo arts of Africa and Haiti. The air within was stagnant and heavy with the smells of my paternal grandfather - old cigars and musty wool suits hanging in cedar closets. Had I smelled whiskey, I would have cried out, "Pops, what are you doing in here?"

The source and reason for the cedar smell became immediately apparent; the floor of the shop was covered with cedar shavings. Two chickens, one huge black rooster and a tan colored hen, strode across the wood scraps toward me. The rooster showed no fear and stopped when he reached my feet. He eyed my shoelaces and started pecking at them. Finding that they weren't edible, he turned to the hen and ruffed his feathers, let out a squawk and they walked away together, both giving me the evil-eye.

I turned my attention to the front area of the shop constructed of weathered, dark mahogany boards affixed to the wall in a horizontal lap pattern that made the stucco building look like it had been built inside out. Ornately carved elephant tusks framed a large picture window in the center of the siding that should have been on the outside and the glazing putty around the dirty, single-paned window facing the street was grayed and badly cracked. Its roughly scored edges showed the points of the diamond-shaped pins used to hold the glass in place and they stuck out like tiny, jagged teeth. If the dusty shop was seventy years old, that glass had been there just as long.

A small deadbolt latch was screwed loosely into the doorframe and didn't appear to be functional. Even if it was, I doubt that it could secure a kitchen cabinet. For added effect, a small fetish made from the shrunken head of what appeared to have been a child's hung at eye level in the door's leaded glass window by braided strands of its human hair.

The place had remained untouched by crime and violence indigenous to the neighborhood and I knew that the fetish was the real lock on the door. Its power was as old as time itself, a survivor of riots and earthquakes, born of black magic and human sacrifices.

A tarnished brass bell jangled quietly when I pulled the door shut behind me. It was an eerie effect in that the bell had not made a sound when I opened the door.

At the darkened back of the shop, an old woman and a half-dozen more chickens were watching me from behind a dimly lighted showcase full of dolls and small, oddly shaped objects. From where I was standing, I couldn't tell whether they were ivory carvings, bone shards or merely whittled pieces of wood.

She was a haggard looking black woman of indeterminate but advanced age. My immediate guess was that she was Haitian and well over eighty years old, maybe even a hundred.

She sat on a rickety cane stool. Her head, atop several inches of craned neck, poked up over the counter like a wary ferret peering around outside its hole in the ground, alert for danger, ready to attack or dive back in, depending on which phase of the food chain it was in at that moment.

I have seen a lot of black people from around the world, but none like the woman I was staring at now. It was her eyes that stunned me; dark green, cat-like eyes, glowing at me eerily through the dank gloom of her shop. It made me feel like I was being x-rayed. I stopped in mid-stride and stared back at her while my own eyes adjusted from the glaring sunlight outside to the dimness within. The fetid smell of the building made me momentarily gag and choke back my lunch of peanuts and drought beer. Was it my imagination, or could I hear her purring?

A large cork bulletin board plastered with dried carcasses of mice, rats, toads, spiny puffer fish, bats and frogs hung on the wall behind her. They were not neatly tacked or pinned up for display, but were securely nailed in place with construction grade hardware as if they had once posed an immanent threat to run away. An 8d nail appeared to be the minimum requirement to hold the critters in place.

The old woman continued to bore into my head with her cat-eyes as I looked about the store.

"You are seeking information concerning the Chocan," she said, taking a drag off a thin, twisted black cigar and startling me with her raspy smoker's voice.

"Uh, yeah," I stammered and strained my eyes to see if she had one of those microphone devices implanted in her esophagus. "How did you know?"

"Knowledge is a large part of my business," she answered with a noticeable French accent that scraped through the gravel in her throat.

I moved involuntarily forward, closer to her, her eyes riveted to mine. I fought the magnetic force and tried to step back but instead found myself an arm's length from her, separated only by the glass counter, a cloud of rum-scented cigar smoke and a few nosy chickens.

"Do you know anything about it?" I asked hesitantly.

My hands were dampening and a bead of sweat rolling down my spine caused me to twitch with a quick shiver in spite of the heat. Outside, it was in the low nineties and it was at least ten degrees warmer inside the building. A ceiling fan hung high above my head, motionless, with layers of silvery cobwebs spanning the wooden blades like tinsel on a bare Christmas tree.

"Not in any of those," she answered and made a sweeping motion with her hand in the direction of the large shelves sagging under the weight of books and magazines at the back of the shop.

My eyes robotically followed her gesture as if she had commanded me to look at each and every volume.

"The Chocan is bad luck. It should be left alone."

Her coldly voiced warning contrasted dramatically with the heat of the shop.

"So I've heard," I answered, trying not to sound like a smart-ass and offend her in the same manner I had managed to piss-off most of the other shop owners.

"It's supposedly cursed," I said.

"Not supposedly," she growled angrily and stretched her skinny neck out until the wrinkles disappeared and showed only taut strings of purple veins through her ebony skin, "it is!"

"But there's a deconsecration of some sort to take off the curse, isn't there?" I asked, now finding the courage that somehow seemed to have deserted me when I first entered her grisly, sweltering domain.

Her immediate response was to tuck her neck back in and give me a silent glare. The black pupils within her shimmering cat's eyes narrowed into horizontal slits. I began shifting my weight from foot to foot, glancing furtively about the shop, avoiding her stare. My mouth was too dry to nonchalantly whistle a tune.

I focused on the charms and amulets within the glass display case to divert her gaze. They were made of ivory, jade, precious and semi-precious stones, gold and silver. No plastic. Thousands of dollars worth of merchandise sat there, yet the glass on the storefront facing the poverty-stricken neighborhood remained unbroken. Her shop maintained its own aura of protection, the power of the supernatural held its bony hand of death in the face of any intruder. No printed sign was necessary; security by the grim reaper was the unwritten warning.

"Can you give me any information at all about the talisman?" I asked again, this time with an undisguised undertone of urgency.

She repeated her warning in the same firm, icy tone.

"My advice to you is to stop looking for it!"

I was getting nowhere and headed for the door. As I turned the antique crystal knob, her voice froze me in place.

"You will not stop your search, will you?"

I turned to her and shook my head negatively.

"No, I'll find that damned amulet if it kills me," I said.

She ground out the last remaining inch of the cigar in an old tuna can and caught me off guard with a warm, resigned smile when she looked up from the make-shift ashtray.

"I admire your resolution young man, but the Chocan is a talisman, not an amulet," she said softly and fired up another twisted cigar with a kitchen match she brought to flame with a flick of her thumbnail across its top. She inhaled the powerful vapor deeply and puffed out a chain of smoke rings. I cocked my head to one side, the empty side, and watched the pupils in her green eyes widen back to normal configuration.

All sorts of visions as to what the Chocan actually looked like had been dancing through my head since I had first read about the thing. Did it have a rope attached to it like a bar of soap so you could carry it around real easily? Was it round like a soft ball, square like a box?

"I hate to sound stupid, but what's the difference?"

I interpreted the smirk she responded with as she puffed out two acrid-smelling smoke rings and the raspy chortle that she made no effort to stifle as confirmation that I did indeed have that sound.

"A talisman gives power to its owner," she explained. "Amulets are used to ward off evil or bring good luck."

My comfort level went up a bit.

"How do you know about all this stuff" I asked, gesturing at the interior of the shop.

I got the "Boy, you are dumber than you look," look, this time without the laugh and only one smoke ring.

She looked me up and down from behind a veil of sweet tobacco fog.

"What is your name, boy?" she asked.

"Derek. Derek Reed," I answered in a near-whisper.

She paused and seemed to give my timorous sounding answer serious thought as she furrowed her already wrinkled brow deeper.

"In my old country, Monsieur Derek Reed, I am called a Mambo. I have been trained since my childhood in Haiti to become a high priestess in the Voodoo religion. My father and grandfather were both Houngans, or what you would call high priests.

"The talisman you seek is the embodiment of evil. It preys on the essence of man, damning the eternal spirit in exchange for temporary success and wealth on earth. Once it has corrupted you, it will discard you in favor of another more innocent, for that is its true sport. The dark spirit of Asmodeus hides in the guise of the Chocan and has the appetite akin to a satyr in search of virgins. It will tease and tempt you with its seductions and you will feel its aura when you get near."

She pulled something out from under the counter.

"I know you are not an evil man," she said, laying a yellowed envelope and a small bundle wrapped in hemp cloth on the glass counter. "Take this."

"What is it?" I asked, walking back toward her, this time on my own volition, not at the behest of her unspoken command. As I got closer, I noticed that the package was tied shut with what looked like a sinewy strand of leather strapping and shuddered at the thought of Don Martìn Diaz's confession.

"It is the deconsecration you seek," she answered flatly and put the sachet into a small cardboard box along with the envelope.

"Where did you get those?"

"For a very brief time, my great grandfather had the Chocan in his possession. It cost him his life but not his soul."

I was unable to contain my curiosity, hoping that her answer would hold more clues as to how I could protect myself from the legendary evil residing within el Chocan.

"How did he die?"

"In a sea battle. He was on a Spanish ship during the Spanish-American War," she answered and went on to explain.

"My great grandfather was a slave on a sugarcane plantation in Haiti and had gone to Spain with the owner, serving as his valet. The master was a very wealthy Frenchman and had purchased the talisman for a large sum of money from a Spanish envoy profiteering from the dereliction of his duty to deliver the emerald somewhere in the New World. Before they got on the boat to go to Cuba and then take the plantation owner's smaller trading ship home, the master learned of a deconsecrating ceremony from a powerful houngan he had become acquainted with while in port. He hired two dock workers and they killed the houngan in order to steal this packet," she said, as she sealed the box with heavy tape of the same construction grade as the nails stuck in the board behind her.

"Unfortunately for the master, he died attempting the exorcism. My great grandfather was with him at the time and was serving in the ritual as his apprentice. The master had been drinking a lot of rum to celebrate his find and died immediately when he erred in the ceremony.

"Fearing that he would be blamed, not only for killing the master, but for desecrating his corpse in such a heinous manner, my great grandfather hid the mutilated body and signed on as a crewman for the Spaniards in order to save his own life."

"If he was a slave, how did he get away with doing that?" I asked.

"The Spaniards were short of men to sail their ships and probably would have shanghaied him had they seen him walking around alone. He just made things easy for them. Besides, he was an experienced seaman and they were glad to have him aboard."

She brought me back to the subject at hand by pointing at the crusty envelope.

"He kept the Chocan with him when he sailed, but entrusted the houngan's pizom to a fellow slave bound for Haiti on a cargo ship and he was to give this to my great grandmother upon his arrival."

A very serious question developed in my mind.

"If the deconsecration didn't work the last time it was tried, how can I be sure that it will work if and when I try it?"

She pursed her lips and nodded as if to say, "Maybe you are brighter than you look."

"While the master got ready for the ceremony, my great grandfather was ordered to dispose of the houngan's body. It turned out that the houngan was still barely alive, and in his dying moments, pitied my great grandfather's predicament. He swore him to secrecy because the master was an evil man and had my great grandfather write down a vital part that he had intentionally omitted in the original text. It is on a second sheet of paper in the envelope, separate from the Frenchman's murderous acquisition."

The Mambo gave me a stern look.

"Remember, you must complete the ritual in full, leave nothing out," she warned. "The pizom has all the consecrated items that you will need wrapped inside the cloth. I have gone to great trouble finding and purifying the right ingredients to strip away the evil power of the defiled spirit."

"Is there an incantation chart?"

"No, there is none with it. The drawing is known only to the ancients and it is carved into the floor of a Mayan temple. You will have to find it. That was one of the two mistakes the master made."

"How's that?" I asked, my voice going up about two octaves.

She cackled like one her chickens and said, "The master tried to draw a replica according to the description of the chart written in the text I have given you. It might have worked, but he was not such a good artist."

The chickens joined in the cackling and shut up the moment she turned serious again.

"If you succeed with the ceremony, the evil spirit residing within Chocan will lose all its powers and be returned to the depths of hell."

It was a concept I could live with. The sale proceeds from the now harmless gem would provide a pile of green-backed benevolence and take care of my needs quite nicely. I thanked her for her kindness and reached for the package. She grabbed hold of my arm with unbelievable strength and numbness overcame my entire body. My brain flashed a vision of her hand on my arm as that of a large cat's paw. Her face was that of a panther contentedly blinking at me with its green eyes.

The sound of a rattle echoed in my head, demanding attention. I came out of my daze and saw the Mambo shaking a squash gourd wrapped with snakeskin over the box.

"Pay attention to this sound," she said, shaking the rattle in my face. "Asmodeus does not strike without a warning!"

It made me wonder if there might be a rattle carved into the opposite side of the emerald's serpentine face.

"Do not open the pizom cacal until you have the Chocan in your possession," she said, tapping her bony ebony claw on the bundle.

Her voice dropped to a low, harsh whisper.

"Other men have been here many times over the years asking for this. I have told them there was no such thing. They are corrupted, evil men."

"Was a guy with one leg among them by any chance?"

Her neck craned out and she glanced furtively toward the front door. Glints of paranoia flashed through her green eyes.

"Yes," she hissed. "You must go now and beware of the man with no legs."

That got my attention. I desperately wanted to ask her for an explanation, but the Mambo's aura shoved me out of the shop and into the bright, hazy sunlight before I could spit out my query.

I squinted to filter out the smoggy glare when I looked back toward the store from my van. The shade had been pulled down tight to the glazing and the child's head was silhouetted grotesquely between the dingy fabric and the streaked window. It swayed back and forth, glaring menacingly through sewn shut eye sockets at those who passed by on the opposite side of the street. No one treaded on the sidewalk directly in front of her shop.

It's true that I had gotten what I came in for, but I had no idea about what I had gotten myself into. Given the information the Mambo had provided, it was very likely that Gary Wilson was still alive and in possession of the Chocan. All I had to do now was find the guy and to make a deal on the emerald. I should have been overjoyed, but feelings of fear and misgiving began to deeply permeate my psyche, especially the part where the mambo had told me the Houngan corrected the section of the ceremony where the Frenchman had erred. Erred? Just how accurate was this bit of ancient editing I had in my greedy little hands and why did he intentionally leave something out to start with?

I gave some serious consideration to the thought that maybe I should quit while I was still alive, find a real job and settle down. Unfortunately, there are certain unpleasant drawbacks to that ambition. Mainly, what do I put on my job applications?

Current Address - Volkswagen Bus parked outside. I like to live close to work.
Education - USC, Botany, B.S., M.S.
Employment History - Various nurseries, plant shops, and tree farms too numerous to name in this allotted space.
References - Alex Scott. Call only on Fridays between 1 and 4 PM.
Interests/Hobbies - Treasure hunting at the expense of job and family.

My odds for long-term financial success are better on finding Gary Wilson in possession of el Chocan and convincing him to share the wealth. Living happily ever after with Jean on my share of the proceeds is also on my agenda.

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