The Penalty

by Mal Peet

  “He’s a fool to his own damn self,” Prima said softly.

  “There are perhaps other ways of releasing Ricardo,” Bakula said. “But even then he would not be safe, especially if he returned to San Juan. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  Bakula nipped his lower lip thoughtfully, then said, “We are a long way from anywhere up here, Paul. Can you remember when you last saw national TV coverage of anything that happened in San Juan? Apart from football or carnival? When did La Nación last run a story about anything up here, before this?”

  “The point being?”

  “The point being that if a recently released kidnapped football star from San Juan suddenly turned up dead in an alley behind a crack house or floating face down in the river, it would get maybe a page on the first day, a paragraph on the second day, then nothing. Right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. A national uproar, a great demand for justice? I don’t think so. And in this city there’s not exactly a long tradition of policemen arresting other policemen. Most of the Anti-Corruption Squad have been suspended for two years, charged with corruption.”

  “I don’t think I like the way this is heading,” Faustino said.

  “The reality is, Paul, that Ricardo’s life isn’t worth a toss unless the people who’ve got him get put away for a very long time. Along with the people protecting them. Believe me, that won’t happen unless the world is watching to see that it happens. We need the glare of publicity.”

  Faustino grimaced at the cliché, but Bakula was undeterred. “National publicity. And for it to stay there, shining on the wicked until they are gone.”

  “Oh, come on, Bakula.”

  “I’m perfectly serious. That’s why we need your help. You have the power to summon them up, the media, the really big shots. The nationals. We do not. Who’s going to listen to us?”

  Faustino felt a tingle in his lower body: excitement, perhaps, or perhaps just cramp. For a second or two his professional lust for a great story warred with his instinct for survival; but then he recalled Captain Varga’s icy smile, the photograph of Max’s waterlogged corpse. He shifted on the hard seat.

  “Your faith in my influence is flattering,” he said. “And misguided. Let me tell you a few things, just to put you in touch with reality.” He held his hand up again, this time to count off points on his fingers. “First: I’m not your man. I am not a crime reporter. In fact, right now, I’m not a reporter at all. I’m working on a book, and that’s keeping me fully occupied. Second: Maximo Salez was covering this story, and he ended up with a knife in his chest. Whether the two things are connected or not, I have no intention of occupying the mortuary slab next to his. Third: last night I booked myself on this afternoon’s flight home, and I have every intention of being on it. Fourth, and last but not least, the fact is that I have no reason to believe a word you’ve told me. Call me a cynic, but saying something’s the truth don’t make it so.”

  “I understand that,” Bakula said. “Which is why we want you to come to Santo Tomas with us.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Faustino stated. Calmly, as if it were a scientific fact. “And if you want my considered opinion, you’re getting into something way over your head. Stick to being a tour guide. You’re pretty good at that.”

  He stood, and Prima looked up at him. The expression on her face was odd, Faustino thought; almost as though she felt sorry for him, rather than herself.

  “Paul,” Bakula said. “Please reconsider. There are flights every day.”

  “Yep, and I’m getting today’s. Good luck, and thanks for the hospitality.”

  The three men at the far table got up and went to stand by the door. The curtains parted and they were joined by a fourth, equally powerful man, then by the huge proprietress. They all looked at Faustino, their faces full of solemn sympathy like people watching a disabled person attempt something overambitious.

  “Bakula? What the hell is this?”

  Bakula sighed. “I’m sorry, Paul.”

  The woman smiled. A big arc of white teeth, apart from the canines, which were gold.

  She said to Faustino, “Me sons. Mateo, Marcos, Lucas, Juan. You’ll be okay with them. They’ll watch over you. Nothing to worry ’bout.”

  GENTLY, MARCOS DROVE his minibus into a part of San Juan that Faustino hadn’t known existed and wouldn’t have gone to if he had: a swarming network of creeks and quays, of puddled streets and soot-smeared sheds. At one point, where Marcos took a sudden left, the vast and rusting hull of a ship reared up just beyond a row of ramshackle buildings. Men hung against it in terrifying cradles, welding. Sparks, small electrical blizzards, flurried among them.

  Marcos parked in an area of oil-stained concrete where other vehicles – mostly pick-up trucks and small motorbikes rigged with trailers – stood abandoned. His passengers climbed out and followed Prima through a short sequence of narrow alleyways. If the gringo hadn’t looked so sullen, they might have been taken for an oddly assorted group setting out for a picnic on one of the islands. Mateo, the eldest brother, the one with the bandanna, had an orange cool box perched on his head; he supported it casually with two fingers. Lucas had a big rucksack slung over one shoulder, Bakula a smaller one; Marcos carried a large Nike sports bag. Faustino walked closely alongside Juan because their wrists were fastened together by a thick plastic strap.

  They emerged onto a flagstoned quay overlooking a channel crowded with boats. Many were derelict, tilted onto the muddy shallows as if by some ancient gale, their timbers sprung from their ribs, their innards rusting. The water looked thick and grey, except where it had a prismatic skin of oil. Green coconuts and plastic bottles bobbed in it.

  From the quay a wide gangway sloped down onto a floating pontoon to which working boats were tethered. There was a good deal of human traffic and business. The quay was piled here and there with engine parts, crates of fruit and vegetables, butane gas bottles. At one end of the pontoon a man in a blood-smeared singlet was cleaning fish, taking them from a wooden tray, slitting them open, flicking the guts into the water. He seemed oblivious to the screaming cloud of gulls he’d summoned. Faustino and his abductors descended the gangway; a number of people nodded greetings to Prima, glancing at Faustino and away again.

  On the pontoon, Marcos made his farewells. He held Prima’s head in his huge hands and kissed her forehead, shook hands respectfully with Bakula, clasped hands with each of his brothers. Finally he touched Faustino lightly on the shoulder.

  “You’ll be okay with these guys, man.”

  “I was even more okay without them,” Faustino said sourly.

  Marcos looked slightly hurt. He turned and gave Faustino a reproachful glance before climbing the gangway.

  The boat was called El Peregrino, and it looked almost seaworthy. About six metres long, with a three-sided wheelhouse towards the bow and an awning over the middle section of the deck. Lucas squeezed himself into the wheelhouse. Mateo went to a wooden deck locker and undid the two heavy padlocks that held it shut. He put the bags and the cool box into it, then took out a number of thin foam cushions which he spread in the shade. That done, he busied himself with the ropes that lashed El Peregrino to the pontoon. Bakula and Prima sat cross-legged on the cushions. Juan sat himself down on the bench that ran the length of the boat, on the side furthest from the dock. Because he couldn’t do otherwise, Faustino sat next to him.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Is bad for you,” Juan said.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Faustino said, fumbling left-handed in his jacket pocket.

  The boat’s engine coughed and rumbled, then steadied into an eager roar. Faustino felt it through his feet. Mateo called to Lucas, moving quickly towards the stern. The bow swung outwards, the engine settled into a heavy beat – coarser than Faustino would have liked – and the pontoon receded. At the moment that Lucas brought the boat into midstream, all the churches of San Juan
set up a clamour of Sunday bells.

  The waterway twisted like a gut. In some places it was no wider than a city street, with ancient and improvised buildings looming over it. Like Venice, perhaps, Faustino thought. If Venice had been torched and looted. In other places it was broad, fringed with stilted jetties.

  After twenty minutes or so the jumbled silhouette of a broken fortress appeared on the north bank; and then, suddenly and miraculously, they were in the bay. The sky became vast and the air surged; Faustino felt his face freckled by saltwater droplets. El Peregrino began to buck and shudder in the onshore swell. Off to the left, the city of San Juan occupied the entire horizon: a barricade of white and ochre towers between the green-blue sea and the grey-blue sky.

  Lulled by the tip and slide of the boat and by the pulse of its engine, Faustino found himself losing consciousness. After twitching awake a few times he surrendered and went under. At one point he heard or dreamed Bakula’s voice close to his ear, saying, “These same waves have lapped the shores of Africa.” When he awoke – embarrassed to realize he’d slept with his head on Juan’s massive shoulder – the world had changed.

  THEY WERE ON the Rio Verde. The river was indeed green, a soft green, the colour of an olive. It looked more than a kilometre wide. On the north bank, there was nothing but vegetation, like a continuous low green cloud along the horizon of water; beyond it, vague in the hard sunlight, crests of taller forest trees arose then fell away. Turning his head, Faustino saw that on the south bank there were still signs of primitive civilization: small clusters of tin-roofed shacks squeezed into gaps in the trees; boats pulled up onto narrow silt beaches; the occasional thin column of smoke. Of the great and sprawling city of San Juan there was no sign whatsoever.

  Prima was kneeling on the cushions, peeling and slicing fruit onto a flattened plastic bag. Bakula lay close to her, on his side, his head cupped in his hand. Their murmured conversation was lost behind the sound of the boat’s engine. Mateo was reclining on the locker, smiling across at Faustino.

  “Okay, Señor?”

  Faustino was not okay. His backside and left leg were numb. Someone had lined his mouth with Velcro.

  “I’m thirsty,” he said.

  Mateo looked at Juan, who shrugged, then he swung his legs onto the deck. He took a clasp knife from his pocket and flipped it open; the blade looked hefty enough to butcher a cow. Mateo held the tip of it close to Faustino’s nose.

  “Are you a good swimmer, Señor Paul?”

  “What? No.”

  Mateo’s smile broadened. He stooped and sliced through the strap that bound Faustino’s wrist to Juan’s; then he closed the knife by swiping it against his thigh.

  Faustino got to his feet and stood lopsided, clutching an awning rope. Mateo rummaged in the locker and took out a plastic bottle, which he tossed to Faustino. The water was cold, and Faustino drank half of it. He looked at his watch. By now he would’ve – should’ve – been at the airport, finishing a last gin and tonic in the first-class section of the departure lounge. He went and sat at the stern, watching El Peregrino’s green wake fan out and fade. Self-pity was as tempting as a warm bath. He looked into the shade of the awning and saw Bakula observing him, so he inhaled deeply and straightened himself. To hell with you, man.

  So. Maybe there was a story to be had out of this.

  MY KIDNAP HELL, by Paul Faustino.

  Too tabloid.

  THE RELUCTANT TOURIST. In the Deep North to research his forthcoming book on the legendary El Gato, top sports writer Paul Faustino is lured to an obscure backstreet bar. So begins his nightmare journey into the dark badlands of Kidnap Country. Read the full story in La Nación Weekend this Saturday.

  Something like that.

  Or maybe even HOW I FOUND BRUJITO AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE.

  But there was at least one improbability in that title…

  He felt the bench shift. Prima was sitting next to him, proffering fruit in a plastic dish: trimmed chunks of pineapple and guava, crescents of melon.

  “No, thanks.”

  “It’s good for you. If you smoke, you should eat plentya fruit.”

  “I find it deeply touching that everyone is so concerned about my health.”

  She continued to regard him solemnly; it seemed she had no grasp of irony, but then she said, “We don’ want you to come to no harm, Señor Paul.”

  “Hah!”

  She set the bowl down on the bench between them. Faustino expected her to leave him, but she sat studying the deck, her hands clasped between her knees.

  “Prima,” he said, “you do know that this could get you into a world of trouble, don’t you? As far as I know, there are still laws against abduction in this state. You could get put in jail, even at your age.”

  Without looking up she said, “We wanted you to come voluntary.”

  Faustino appeared to consider this seriously. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to sound convincing in a court of law.”

  She didn’t reply. So Faustino sighed and turned his upper body towards her, laying his arm along the back of the bench. His fingertips were close to her shoulder.

  Quietly he said, “Okay, let’s not worry about that. The fact is, I’m here. You’ve got me. And I don’t suppose that what’s-his-name is going to turn the boat round no matter how nicely I ask him.”

  “Lucas,” she said.

  “Yeah. So why don’t you tell me what this is really about?”

  Her eyes flickered up. Bakula was now sitting cross-legged, like a yogi, gazing ahead, but there was something in his posture that suggested he was listening, separating murmured words from the throb of the engine.

  “Like Edson said. We need a eyewitness. Someone who can get publicity. People die up here, it get hushed up.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Edson says you someone who don’ believe somethin ’less you see it with your eyes.”

  “That’s kind of normal, isn’t it? At least, it is where I come from.”

  She said nothing, just shook her head in a sad sort of way. It annoyed him.

  “Is Brujito really your brother?”

  It was as if he’d slapped her, made her eyes water. That was better.

  Before she could say anything he said, “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t know what to believe.”

  She studied his face for a moment. “Yeah. Edson told me that, too.”

  Silently, Faustino heaped obscenities on the man.

  He said, “Did you watch Brujito’s, your brother’s, last game? The one when he—”

  “Yeah. On TV.”

  “So did I. It seemed to me that, I don’t know, something happened to him. Suddenly. I think he maybe saw something in the crowd. Do you know anything about that?”

  She looked down at her feet again. He waited.

  “I already told you. Rico believe he got a hex put on him.”

  “What, in the middle of a game? Why then?”

  God, it was like pulling teeth.

  After an age she said, “Maybe to show the power of it. Yeah. I think so.”

  It made some sort of sense, Faustino thought. If sense was joined-up madness. If religion was involved.

  “All right. But then he went and took the penalty. That, I don’t understand.”

  “He was checkin. Needed to make sure.”

  “So if he’d scored he’d have been okay? Free?”

  “Free?” She wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing. It was as though she were practising a word from a foreign language.

  They sat silently for a while. Juan lay massively sprawled on the other bench, apparently asleep. Mateo, leaning against the wheelhouse, said something; from within, Lucas laughed. Bakula sat still as a carving, his eyes closed.

  Faustino said, “Someone told me that Rico always talked to a pai before big games. Do you know who that was?”

  “No.”

  It was obvious this was a lie. Did that mean that up until then she had be
en telling the truth?

  She stood up. “Eat some fruit, Señor Paul,” she said. “It’s nice.”

  She went over to Bakula and sat down beside him. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Faustino selected a wedge of pineapple and bit into it. It was delicious. Spare juice ran down his chin, and he wiped it away hurriedly with the back of his hand before it could drip onto his shirt.

  AN HOUR LATER the river had narrowed and the wilderness had edged closer. One bank was the mirror image of the other: a dense and endless swathe of mangroves brooding over their own shadows, stretching their thick spidery legs into the water. The unbroken monotony of the scene and the dead flatness of the water created an illusion of absolute stillness. Despite the steady thump of its engine, El Peregrino seemed stationary, locked in place by the slow green current. Only the stubborn movement of the hands of his watch persuaded Faustino that time itself had not come to a standstill.

  Prima was now asleep, her knees drawn up close to her chest, her head and shoulders shrouded by Faustino’s jacket. Faustino was staring moodily at the treacly drift of water past the boat; he looked up when Edson Bakula settled himself down on the bench beside him.

  “I thought you might like a little background on Santo Tomas,” Bakula said.

  Faustino was damned if he’d admit it. “You thought wrong,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Bakula was unfazed. “No doubt. But it will help pass the time. Santo Tomas was once the first important place along the Rio Verde. It was founded by Don Tomas d’Oliviera in 1600 or thereabouts. He was a grandee who owned vast amounts of land to the north of the river. He needed a port on the Verde so that he could ship his sugar down to San Juan. And so that his slaves could be shipped up, of course. He chose Santo Tomas because it’s where a kink in the river pushes the deep-water channel right up to the north bank. His grandson, another Tomas, built a great mansion there. You can still see traces of it on the hill above the town. The family also tried to build a church, but it was struck by lightning, not once but twice. They took the hint and gave up.”