HONKY IN THE WOODPILE

by John Brunner

“They’d hush it up—” he began, and I cut him short.

  “They wouldn’t have the chance. I really am here on behalf of one of the leading London newspapers. And when did you know a paper that was prepared to conceal the truth about the fate of one of its own correspondents?”

  That was a weak line of argument; in fact, papers do that kind of thing all the time even in countries with a relatively free press. But it sounded convincing.

  “Jesús, we must go along with this plan for a short time,” Sarita said firmly. “You know our staff like the Sabatanos no better than you and I. We can count on them to help protect Señor Curfew.”

  She turned to Diego. “And what about you? If he’s likely to be arrested at any moment, you’re likely to be killed out of hand!”

  “Remain here,” Diego said. “With Señor Curfew’s permission, at the edge of his shadow. Perhaps you would put a cot in this room.” He glanced at me, and I nodded vigorously. A trustworthy companion who knew Madrugada intimately was exactly what I most needed right now.

  Lorreo said, “Faugh!” And turned to the door. I called after him.

  “Señor Lorreo, ought there not to be a song about El Cristo Negro letting out the prisoners, a song life Rafé’s which will spread throughout the islands?”

  “A wonderful idea!” Sarita exclaimed. “Jesús, you will occupy yourself with it, won’t you?”

  “But if I sing such a song in public—” Lorreo objected. I interrupted.

  “Oh, no one’s asking you to perform it at the president’s birthday concert!”

  “I—ah…” He swallowed hard. “I could not safely refuse that engagement, you know.”

  “I’m sure you couldn’t,” I agreed, and smiled him out.

  SEVENTEEN

  All these arguments about whether you can exceed the speed of light… People in dictatorships solved that problem long ago. Nothing in the universe could travel faster than gossip on the grapevine in a country which doesn’t believe the government’s official news.

  I spent a lot of the night talking to Diego—too much, I guess, considering the sort of day I had to face tomorrow. Or, to be more exact, I spent a lot of it listening to him; I didn’t contribute much, because there was one factor in my plan which I didn’t want him to question me closely about As yet it was a mere suspicion, and if it were ill-founded I might do a lot of damage by mentioning it.

  Still, it was worth sitting up late, because with everything he told me I felt the odds against my gamble were shortening. That trap of mine, I told myself comfortably as I finally lay down, was going to be sprung at the time intended… and by the intended victim.

  I slept well.

  When I got up, rather late, at my insistence I went to breakfast in the dining-room. Diego wanted me not to at first, and then he wanted to accompany me, and I argued him out of both. I left him with a meal on a tray and went downstairs on my own, feeling like Agag. If I hadn’t figured the situation right, I would probably be dead before lunch. It was kind of an eerie sensation.

  Even eerier was what happened when I appeared in the doorway of the dining-room. It was like the entrance of José Moril, but with knobs on. Juan, who had been chatting deferentially to a customer, broke off to show me personally to my table, and every single waiter came to make sure my wants were being attended to. An explanation went around the room like a gale; I heard it distinctly as it crossed from the table on my right to the one on my left.

  “He must be one of those Sabatanos!”

  Of course everyone else present was a tourist.

  I let the impression fester for as long as it took to enjoy three leisurely cups of coffee, two admirably fresh rolls, some rather sour white cheese and a preserve I didn’t recognize with a lot of pips in it, made perhaps from some variety of guava. After that I accepted the offer of a morning paper and a light for my cigarette—Juan again dealt with that personally—and stayed put until I’d smoked it.

  The paper was called El Diario. It was terrible. It had eight pages, with pictures of Don Amedeo on five of them.

  At length I put it aside and rose. Three waiters almost banged into each other in their rush to move my chair, and two more ran to open the door for me. On the threshold I checked and looked back.

  “By the way!” I said loudly, and everybody eating turned to stare.

  “I am not a Sabatano! I would rather be dead than be a Sabatano. Sabatanos are the people who lick Don Amedeo’s arse after he’s had a shit. Sabatanos are hired murderers, and I’ve never found any who come cheaper—they’d kill their mothers for a drink and a sandwich. Sabatanos are a disgrace to the color of their skin. Next time you see one, tell him that from the man who turned the prisoners out of their jail yesterday. I didn’t see that in El Diario!”

  Right! Now I had one more small detail to attend to, and then I was going to have to move like greased lightning. I’d just lighted the verbal equivalent of a powder-train I could tell that from the way the waiters were trying to stifle their laughter with their palms.

  Drawn-faced as though she had slept much less well than I had, Sarita Redón greeted me through the window of her office behind the reception desk, after carefully making sure no one was in earshot except the clerk on duty.

  “You are going out now? Will you come back?”

  “Yes, this evening. Without fail,” I assured her.

  “Well… Well, I hope you’re right.” With a glance at the clerk, who was looking puzzled because he wasn’t in on the secret. “Let me at least wish you good luck. Ah—any idea what time? Just in case.”

  “Not terribly late. I don’t want to stretch my luck too far. Certainly not after ten o’clock.”

  She nodded, forcing a smile, and slid shut her little window.

  Then I collected Diego, who met me at the back entrance of the hotel where deliveries were made among the usual Brascosan mess of garbage-cans a week overdue for emptying, and we set off by taxi for the bank where Rafé had lodged his spare funds. Diego wanted to come inside with me, but I insisted he remain in the car.

  I’d turned enough traveler’s checks into cash at the airport to last me a week or more, so I hadn’t been into a bank here before. I could have predicted, though, that I’d find myself entering magnificent premises, lavishly decorated, because it’s always like that in poor countries. The less money people in general possess, the more they seem to expect splendid temples to be erected in its honor.

  The Banco Seguridad fitted my preconceptions to a T. It occupied the ground floor and basement of one of Brascoso’s newest and biggest office-blocks, and there was an impressive list of companies and individuals on the wall directory I passed as I went in—doctors, lawyers, insurance firms, architects, a whole cross-section of the most profitable professions.

  There was little risk involved in being here on my own. A good half of the people present were tourists, and on both sides and opposite the street was lined with stores patronized by the wealthiest visitors, so it was very unlikely that the Sabatanos would come after me. When they’d beaten up Rafé and Fierro they’d waited until they were up the hill near the clinic, with nobody in sight but local people.

  I gave the right number to an affable clerk who escorted me down to the basement and, after showing me a bell-push to press when I wanted to be let out, left me alone in the tiled vaults.

  They weren’t up to much, and indeed I wondered why the liberation movement hadn’t made them an immediate target, because you could have cut these doors with a carbon-steel bit in a hand-drill, let alone something really useful like a thermal lance. Then I decided that maybe they had had this bank on their list, and it would have been a valuable bit of by-play if Rafé, along with all the other customers, could have complained about the insurgents robbing him.

  Still, never mind all that. I daren’t spend long here. I used the key Diego had given me, and found that Rafé had been right in saying that the funds he’d left here were unlikely to have come to the attention of the
Sabatanos. At any rate, although I didn’t count what I found, it looked like at least the ten thousand bucks in used American bills which he had promised.

  I counted out a thousand in a mixture of large and small and hid them carefully inside my undershorts, choosing the shabbiest bills so the paper would not crackle when I moved. That ought to be enough for urgent bribes.

  Dressed again, I rang for the clerk to let me out. But, when the doors slid back, there wasn’t just one man awaiting me. There were three, all young, tall and muscular, all wearing grins like the Cheshire cat’s.

  “Señor,” the one in the middle said, stepping forward and giving a half-bow, “may we see the number on the key you have just used?”

  So much for Diego’s recognition-signal of light jacket and dark pants—though at least this lot didn’t look like Sabatanos; I couldn’t imagine them bowing to anybody. But who the hell…?

  Still, one against three was worse odds than I felt inclined to face down here. I shrugged and let him inspect the key, wondering how fast I could get to my stolen gun, which I was wearing well hidden around the left side of my belt where my coat hung loosest. Diego had offered to obtain me a proper holster, but that would have involved stopping by at the store of a leather-worker sympathetic to the cause, so I’d vetoed the proposal on grounds of wasting time.

  “Ah,” the guy said when he had examined the number on the key. “Kindly then accompany us to the office of the manager.”

  I went.

  But it wasn’t the manager whom I was taken to see. We went up not one flight of stairs but two, and then through a door which led directly into a room lined with leather-bound books where a man sat at a desk wearing a look of desperate determination. The moment the door shut behind me and my escort he pulled an automatic on me. Christ, this damned country must be lousy with guns!

  Between excellently cared-for teeth he hissed, “So you are the thief, are you?”

  By that time I knew who he was. He must be the lawyer, Pedro Latanores: a thin man of less than average height, impeccably clad, and with half-rimmed glasses—yes, he corresponded perfectly to Fierro’s description, and what was more I could now read the titles on the books behind him, which were all legal tomes. If I’d bothered to give more than a cursory glance at the wall directory in the lobby below, no doubt I’d have spotted his name there.

  So, my back turned to the three young men whom I’d privately christened Huey, Louie and Dewey, I did something which Fierro himself had shown me. I crooked my right forefinger across the index and middle fingers of my left hand, to make CN for Cristo Negro.

  He started visibly, to the point where I half-expected him to jolt the trigger of his gun.

  “Oh, put that thing away,” I said wearily, kicking a chair around to face him. “And you might as well get rid of these three, too. How the hell do you think anyone could get to that particular vault unless the owner told him he should?”

  A mixture of doubt and excitement chased across his features. He compromised. Not putting down the gun, he crisply ordered the three men to go out but stand by in case they were needed. They obeyed, with obvious reluctance.

  “Who then told you to go to that vault?” he demanded as soon as they were out of hearing. “Keep your voice down!”

  “Rafé, of course.”

  He relaxed visibly. “But what right have you to that money? He told me no one would be allowed to touch it until—well, until a certain time. And anyone who did come for it would be a thief, or an agent of the Sabatanos.”

  There was the explanation for using this particular bank, then. Clearly, it had been chosen so that Latanores, upstairs, could keep a discreet eye on the cache. Or cash.

  “My name’s Max Curfew,” I said. “I—”

  I broke off. He had started so violently this time, he’d nearly dropped the gun altogether. Plainly he wasn’t cut out for this kind of caper.

  “You’re Curfew?” he whispered, and his voice died on the second word, dissolving into a mere hush of breath. “You mean”—getting back to normal volume a moment later—“you’re the man the Sabatanos couldn’t keep in jail?”

  Faster than light, baby! I nodded modestly.

  “Oh, señor, forgive me!” He jumped to his feet, forgetting the gun and almost making as though to shake hands with it. Grinning with embarrassment, he thrust it in a drawer the far side of his desk—it was only a .22, a toy, which would have done minimal damage unless it was aimed dead straight, but I was glad to see it disappear. “Oh, this is wonderful!”

  “How did you hear about me?” I demanded.

  “Why, this morning a stranger came to see me”—a woman, I knew by the termination of the word—“and asked if I would defend you at a trial, promising to pay my fee whatever it was. She was almost hysterical, and said she had been waiting since before my office opened today. Of course I knew nothing about you at the time. It was not until I had managed to get rid of her that one of my clerks told me the story of a foreigner who was arrested yesterday by the Sabatanos, but escaped from their foul jail under the Cinema Coloseo, the old slave-cells.” He hesitated. “Is it true? It is so difficult to believe.”

  “Yes, quite true.”

  “Amazing.” He shook his head. “Quite amazing. Well, I am most sorry about the misunderstanding, Señor Curfew. You see, I was left to—to stand guard on that money Rafé hid, and I arranged with the manager of the bank to inform me if anybody asked for the number of the safe-deposit, letting him understand that it is because I am acting as legal adviser to an American gambler who wishes to conceal his winnings until he can take them safely to the States. Gamblers often bring good business to his bank, so he co-operates.”

  He grimaced. “Well, we shall one day see the end of all that. But for the time being one survives as best one can.”

  “The name of the woman who came and offered to pay for my defense,” I said.

  “I have it here.” Latanores turned up a memo pad on the side of his desk. “Señora Dolores Ken…? No, I believe that must be pronounced ‘coo’.”

  “Quentin?”

  “Yes!”

  “Did you tell her you were willing?”

  “Oh, señor, to me it was all a fabrication, a delusion! She was confused, practically babbling! If I had known then what I learned, as I say, an hour later from my clerk, I’d have said yes immediately. There are few lawyers in this country who care about right and wrong. Most confine themselves to civil practice, and it’s their highest ambition to obtain a stake in some long suit between two rich families which will last for years and provide a comfortable income. I, Pedro Latanores, spit on them—I care for justice, not profit!”

  Well, he didn’t have to care about profit. Fierro had explained to me that as the only son among five daughters he’d inherited the lion’s share of a fat estate from his father. Never mind, though; it was nice to find someone in this country willing even to talk in such terms.

  “So you’re consenting to be my legal adviser,” I said.

  “Naturally!”

  “Fine. What’s your advice?”

  He hesitated. “You really were arrested?” he said after a moment.

  “By Don José Moril in person.”

  “And you really broke out of jail?”

  “And let the rest of the prisoners go too, and wrote Criné! on the wall,” I said with a sigh. If I had to repeat the story many more times, I could foresee not believing it myself in the long run.

  “Then I say: leave Madrugada. Not by an orthodox route.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Don José is one of the half-dozen most powerful Sabatanos. To offend him is a guarantee that you will be shot by the next Sabatano who recognizes you.”

  “Alternatively?” I said.

  “There are no alternatives.”

  “Okay, counsellor, I don’t like your advice. I took some of Rafé’s money—no point in having it lie idle right now—so I’ll go see what that will do instead.”


  “They won’t be bribed! Not the Sabatanos!”

  “Who the hell said I was going to bribe Sabatanos? I wouldn’t give them a sheet of used toilet-paper, let alone money.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Abruptly he dropped his eyes.

  “Señor,” he said half-inaudibly, “it has sometimes occurred to me that in this country we may be so—so starved of ideas and information that we must have a transfusion from outside before we manage to implement the reforms we so badly need. Perhaps you have brought such ideas with you. I hope so. Let me shake your hand again before you go.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Which left me with one abiding impression. Either Latanores had missed his vocation and was actually the greatest actor since Olivier, or I could eliminate him at once from the list of suspects. Everything about his manner carried conviction. He came on as a man basically rather timid, whose support for the liberation movement had grown instead of diminishing during this hiatus in its advance, who regarded himself as holding a watching brief for it and was prepared to risk being exposed as a sympathizer himself whether by standing up in court to argue with the régime’s attorneys or by making arrangements to be told when anyone went to Rafé’s safe-deposit. It might, after all, have been a Sabatano who had given that number.

  So I was making excellent progress. I already had a vague notion who the blagro must be, and indeed I expected to have confirmation of my guess very shortly. It would be nice if I didn’t have to run for cover until I’d completed my assignment for Fierro, and nicer still if on the way I managed to spit in the collective eye of the Sabatanos.

  Speaking of Sabatanos, though…

  When I rejoined Diego in the taxi, he was sitting far back in the most shadowed corner of the rear seat, and as I slid in behind him he murmured, “See those two?”

  Across the street was a drugstore with a small counter fronting the sidewalk to sell soft drinks and ice-cream. A brace of Sabatanos had stopped their car illegally alongside and a shoeshine boy aged about twelve was bringing them cokes.