The Travel Writer

by Jeff Soloway

  “Neither do I want to speak of politics,” I said, “and I absolutely do not want to cause damage to your business. But you behave as if you want to hide the truth.”

  “Lies! The hotel has spared no expense on investigation. Furthermore, I have permitted Bolivian governmental investigators, from the police and the military, and even your arrogant FBI, yes, and even the girl’s unattractive parents, to infest this hotel with their dogs and their stupid questions, despite the discomfort caused to guests and staff alike. What have they found? I’m sure you read the reports. They were published in the most eminent Bolivian papers. We have copies if you require them. As I said, they declare the hotel to be completely blameless!”

  “Very good,” I said.

  “When the rains fail in the United States, the flowers die in the elegant gardens of your millionaires. When the rains fail in Bolivia, the poor people go hungry. Thoughtless, poisonous questions like yours will kill us as well. You are a blind American, stumbling wildly through a sacred garden, killing everything on your way to McDonald’s for another Big Mac!”

  “Just don’t forget,” I said. “Everyone at the American embassy knows I’m here. Important people.”

  Barrientos exhaled repeatedly through his flat nose like a bull. I insisted to myself that I was safe. I was an American, ignorant and weak, but with the aura of power and influence that protected me and poisoned all others. As much as he hated me, he couldn’t risk another FBI investigation. I hoped.

  I opened my eyes and tried to think of the Spanish for “I’ve had just about enough of you.” Just as I opened my mouth, the door opened behind me.

  I turned. It was Dionisius.

  “It’s him!” Kenny hissed, curling up in his chair like a startled snake.

  “I know,” I said, with as much serenity as I could muster. If it wasn’t for Kenny my courage would have been completely routed.

  “Dionisius will take you back to your room,” said Barrientos.

  Dionisius led us back to the lobby. He let his eyes linger on Gabriela, the astonishing Orientation Specialist, who was frowning over some piece of paperwork at the concierge’s desk. She lifted her head and smiled. “Hombre!” she said, the word conveying nothing to me but the earth-shattering fact that she knew Dionisius and liked him, or could at least pretend to like him. He was just another professional: intimidating people during the day, flirting with co-workers after hours. In the elevator, his muscles seemed to bulge even further against his T-shirt, and his breath filled the space. It was like being caged with a gorilla. I didn’t dare take a breath until the elevator door opened.

  We followed Dionisius’s wide-screen back through the twists to our room. He didn’t need a map.

  “Does all the money from this hotel go to Condepa?” I asked.

  If he knew the answer, he wasn’t letting on.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “A man in your position would not know such details.”

  I wished Kenny could understand and appreciate my insolence.

  Dionisius snapped a card key and opened our door. He must have access to all the rooms; he could come in at any time for any reason and do as much damage as he liked.

  “I’m very much obliged,” I said. “You’ve been very amiable.”

  He just stood there staring at me.

  “Are you expecting a tip?” I asked.

  He moved his arms, and the room flew by me like the world out of a car window until some part of it crashed against my head. When the spinning relented, I felt my forehead for blood. Nothing. I looked up. He was gone. Kenny helped me to my feet.

  “Bastard,” he said.

  I agreed. The lump was probably already swelling into a hairy mound out of the top of my head. I deserved the pain for what I had said, but still I would have sold my soul for revenge. What could I do? Maybe find Dionisius’s address and write him a letter when I got home, mocking his subservience to Barrientos, his job prospects after Condepa fell out of favor with the electorate, his ugly face.

  “He’s really big,” said Kenny, to console me.

  Our refrigerator had an ice maker. Kenny wrapped some ice up in a hand towel and helped apply it to my aching head.

  Chapter 21

  I tried again to nap but couldn’t. Kenny nudged me out of bed at eight o’clock. “I’m hungry,” he said. I insisted we change clothes before dinner. I even helped him iron a rumpled rugby shirt excavated from his duffel bag. He followed my instructions and hummed in satisfaction as the wrinkles smoothed and faded, another mystery of adulthood explained.

  As we descended to the lobby, I told him what had happened before his eyes but below his comprehension in Barrientos’s office.

  “I knew that butthole looked familiar. What’s his problem? You said he was political. What’s he doing here?”

  “He says he’s the manager of the hotel.”

  “That’s a lie. Right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you said the FBI had been here. Don’t they know who this guy is?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. His eyes bulged.

  “The FBI doesn’t just tell you everything you ask,” I said. I was disappointed in myself too.

  Kenny was still staring, uncertain, looking to me for courage.

  “I’m starting to figure things out,” I said. “We now know Condepa’s running the hotel, right? Or maybe the other way around. And we know that Condepa, like all left-wing groups in Bolivia, hates the U.S. and supports coca growers. Do you understand? Maybe there’s more of a drug connection than anybody knows. Maybe Hilary figured it all out.”

  Kenny nodded. He wanted to be impressed.

  “That’s pretty smart,” he said. “What did she figure out?”

  “She figured out the connection.”

  “But what about the security guard? The boyfriend from home. That’s got to be big, right? Do you think he kidnapped her? You said we could ask around about him.”

  “We will. We have an insider, remember? Pilar. We’ll ask her about your friend the security guard and everything else. She thinks Hilary was kidnapped, and she has evidence that she wants to show me. She doesn’t know who did it, but maybe we can find out. She can give us access that nobody else has ever had, maybe not even the FBI.”

  “Our ace in the hole,” said Kenny, relieved. “So is she your girlfriend or what?”

  “As long as she has information that can help us, she is,” I said. I poked him guy to guy with my elbow. Embarrassing, but I figured Kenny needed a guy-to-guy buddy. “You have to keep your emotions separate from your goals, especially when dealing with women.”

  Kenny nodded; he would remember that one. A rule he might hope to live by someday, if by some wild chance Hilary wasn’t in love with him anymore.

  * * *

  Gabriela was still on duty at the concierge’s desk. Kenny scanned the vast glass-domed lobby and then ducked behind a low-hanging palm frond.

  “There he is,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “That dumb-ass Ray! What do we do? Tell the cops?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Fuck yeah! I don’t forget faces. Usually.”

  “Go talk to him first.” I wanted to see how confident Kenny was in his identification of the man.

  “Idiot. He’s probably got a gun. Go and ask the girl at the desk. You said we could ask about him. You said.”

  “I said we’d ask Pilar, not her.”

  “What’s the difference? Now’s our chance.”

  Maybe it was. Kenny could have suffered this mirage at any moment in Bolivia, but he’d only had it now. And he had recognized Barrientos. Above all, if Kenny was right, then we’d knocked our heads on a real chunk of undiscovered information, not just talked ourselves into seeing some political conspiracy. Reporters got lucky; it was just as good as being brilliant, diligent, or well connected.

  The trick was to confirm the discovery without scaring away the subject, or alerting the hotel. I d
ecided to start with Gabriela. Only a fool would pass up the chance to talk to her anyway. A hedge of tropical shrubbery, studded with unfamiliar and doubtless invaluable flowers, hid the lobby desk from the post of the security guard.

  “Gabriela, may I ask a question?”

  “Certainly,” she said, smiling. Soldán was pottering about behind her.

  “As you know, I’m doing an article for the American market. It will be heavily illustrated, of course. Four color. Lots of spreads. We’re hoping to make Martha Stewart.” She might have heard of Martha Stewart. “Earlier, my colleague snapped a picture of the lobby, and that security guard was in it. Would it be possible for me to speak to him later on? Perhaps I could include a comment in the caption.” Her smile grew less radiant. This was a request for Soldán, not her. He hustled over to field it.

  “I’m afraid he’s on the job right now,” he said. “Perhaps after his shift something could be arranged.”

  “In any case, we’ll need him to sign a release form. I’ll get his signature later. Can you give me his name?”

  Soldán stretched his lean body over the desk to gaze around the hedge. For the first time, I saw his little pink bald spot, like the belly of a mouse.

  “That’s Ray Quinones. One of our very best! I interview all the security staff personally. I’ll be sure to arrange for you to chat. You have a lot in common. He has lived in the Great Apple himself.”

  I borrowed a desk pen and scribbled the name down. Kenny elbowed me in the ribs below the counter. “What’s the Great Apple?” he whispered.

  “The Big Apple,” I whispered.

  “Why didn’t he say that?”

  “I’ll tell you later. And how long,” I asked Soldán out loud, “has he been at the Matamoros?”

  “Just a few months. As we grow, we must constantly upgrade our staff.”

  “I see. He was lucky to get a job here. I understand the Matamoros is very selective.”

  “Indeed. But Ray came recommended.”

  “From who?”

  “From our friend Pilar, in fact. She knew him in America, which of course gave him a great advantage. Referrals are important to us, as is experience with Americans.”

  Kenny and I retreated the way we came.

  “This is big,” said Kenny.

  “Just keep quiet about it until I talk to Pilar.”

  “Why?”

  To stop his sputtering, I had to promise him a beer.

  * * *

  At the rooftop lounge, Kallawayas milled about among the guests. Most had translator-attendants, but several could speak Spanish, and a charmed handful were even chatting with guests in English. Serious rituals were always conducted in the indigenous language, but serious tips required English, at least when the marks were American, German, or Japanese. (The Kallawaya that can converse with German or Japanese guests in their native tongue has yet to be discovered or invented, even by the Hotel Matamoros.)

  Arturo sat alone at a café table, staring regretfully at an all-but-empty bottle of Coke. When he saw us across the room, he rattled two neighboring chairs in invitation.

  “Let’s tell him we got news about the guard,” said Kenny. “Why not? Maybe he knows something he hasn’t told us. This could be our big break.”

  “Not until I talk to Pilar,” I said. “We don’t want to give anything away.”

  “I won’t give anything away. I’ll be cool.”

  “I said no.”

  “Wish I took Spanish in high school. Wouldn’t have to depend on jerk-offs that got an unfair advantage.” Kenny glared mutinously.

  “That’s what you get for being an ignoramus.”

  He sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Get me a beer. After a day like this, I got to get loose.”

  The bartender, inexplicably dressed in a tuxedo with a tropical pink bow tie and cummerbund, referred me to a drinks menu the size of a double-issue Vanity Fair, complete with color photos of drinks in dew-beaded glasses. I chose a Young’s from the English Bitter section and a Bud for Kenny. The bartender raised his eyebrow to congratulate me on my discernment. I gave him my room number and made a mental note to remind Pilar to wave the magic PR wand that made journalists’ tabs disappear.

  When I returned, Kenny was sitting with Arturo and an English-speaking Kallawaya, who was trying to explain, obviously in response to blunt American inquiry, how much a man of his profession could expect to earn yearly. This Kallawaya was younger and more expressive than his colleagues. I wondered how many of the English-speaking Kallawayas were university students who had struggled up from Aymara-speaking families. How hard could it be to learn to throw coca leaves convincingly? Not as hard as to learn to speak English.

  “Your friend was telling me that he has seen an acquaintance here,” said Arturo.

  “What did you say to him?” I asked Kenny.

  The Kallawaya thought I was talking to him. “We talk about being Kallawaya. No?” He had certainly not mastered the mask of impassivity. Kenny must have used the Kallawaya as an intermediary to convey his news to Arturo.

  “Your friend has some strange delusions,” Arturo said. “He insists that I investigate one of the hotel’s security staff.”

  “My friend is an idiot. All Bolivians look alike to him. All Latin people, I mean. You know.”

  “What’s he saying?” said Kenny.

  “I told you to stay quiet,” I said.

  “Eat me.” He turned to the Kallawaya. “You’re smart. What do you think?”

  “Maybe I not translate well.” The Kallawaya looked guilty and confused; somehow he had wandered into an American minefield. Arturo shook his head.

  “Pilar, although she is beautiful and for that deserves our respect, is foolish,” he said. “I had never before heard what your friend just told me, that one of our security guards was a prior acquaintance of both Pilar and of Hilary Pearson. This is a strange coincidence. I wish Pilar had never brought you here. I warned her personally not to collaborate with you in spreading rumors. I hope she took my warning seriously. Or if not mine, then Dionisius’s.”

  “Go to the devil!” I said. (I’m not good at swearing in Spanish.) “Pilar hired us to write an article, nothing more. My friend is simply interested in the case of Hilary Pearson. Isn’t everyone? You said you felt something for Hilary as well.”

  “Yes, and I also feel something for Pilar. That is why I warned you. Tell Mr. Ken that we will talk later,” Arturo said, and left, gripping his Coke bottle like a dagger. The Kallawaya smiled uncertainly and trotted after him.

  I refused to talk to Kenny as we drank.

  “You said we shouldn’t trust him,” I said, when my drink was lukewarm in the glass.

  “We got to trust somebody,” Kenny said. “I asked that guy, that young Kallawaya guy, and he said it would be okay to ask a question. A Kallawaya’s got to be pretty smart. Right?”

  “He didn’t look like a genius to me. Let’s eat.”

  Dinner was the finest meal Kenny had ever had, though he didn’t know it and wouldn’t have believed it if you told him. The waiter brought us Lake Titicaca trout, fresh jungle fruit, and a few kitschy exoticisms, such an appetizer of fried piranhas standing on their tails in a plate of mashed altiplano potatoes seasoned not with garlic or butter but with a mango chutney. The chef used to work at Chanterelle in Tribeca, or so the menu claimed. Where he learned to handle piranha was not explained. Kenny dispatched the fishes greedily; anything fried is good.

  Afterward, we lumbered up to the room like pregnant women and heaved ourselves on the alpaca-skin sofa. Kenny wanted to hit the lounge again for a beer, but I encouraged him to study his Spanish and go to bed early.

  “We have a long day of investigating ahead of us,” I said. I tried to decide what to do with him tomorrow. On the one hand, I couldn’t stand to have him tagging along with me ruining crucial but ostensibly casual conversations with his dopey demands, befuddled looks, and untimely questions; on the other, I could hardly have him
running around unsupervised. Maybe I could get him booked on an organized tour. A stab of fatherly guilt pierced me. You live alone without responsibility, but you have the right feelings after all, I told myself, even if you don’t act on them. I hadn’t understood before the pleasure of guilt, the reassuring reminder that despite our failings we really, deep inside, want to do the right thing.

  “I can’t sleep,” said Kenny. “My stomach’s all jangly. You play any games? Backgammon’s my game. Think they got a board here?”

  It was only ten o’clock, probably several hours before I could expect my visit from Pilar. I dialed room service and ordered a backgammon board.

  I won the first game when Kenny refused to accept my double. “Wouldn’t be prudent,” he said, though we weren’t playing for money.

  I won the second game the same way. In the third game, Kenny took the double and lost.

  “You’re lucky,” he said spitelessly.

  I nodded. “Did your father teach you backgammon, Kenny, like he taught you blackjack?” I too had played with my father when I was a kid.

  “I had a friend, high school, taught me. Used to invite me over. Good guy.”

  “You have to hold on to friends like that.”

  “Yeah. He was a few years older. He dropped out, but he got his GED and signed up for the Marines. Cool, huh? Or maybe it was the Army. My mom said he wouldn’t last, but I bet he did. I told Hilary about him one night. Not the night. Another one. She said she thought about joining once. She wanted to see the world, she said. I called her Sarge and she laughed. She’s like five two. She was with her boyfriend that night, but I didn’t care. Know why?”

  “You were laying the groundwork.”

  “Yeah,” he said, disappointed that his punch line was spoiled.

  “You keep laying the groundwork, Kenny, but do you ever get any reward? Maybe you need to go for the gold sometime.” The subject was best approached via cliché.

  “Is that what you do? Is that what you did, the other night? With Pilar?”