I passed a Madame Bovary and a Light in August in their original languages, but nearly every other book was in Spanish, including Crime and Punishment. At the head of this row, in what seemed a place of honor, were two pedestals together that held both volumes of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. They looked so old that I thought perhaps Cervantes himself had had them bound.
A voice from behind me said, “Do you read Spanish, Mr. Holiday?”
I turned to find a handsome man of less than medium height with Patrician Latin features. He had the taut face of a runner or swimmer, and was the kind of man who at seventy looks fifty. This was not just due to his genes and his fitness regime, but also owed much to his three or four-thousand dollar suit, which shaved away twenty pounds and left him looking svelte.
“I regret that I can barely speak it,” I replied.
“Then English it is. I am grateful that you accepted my invitation.” He extended his hand, and I shook it, noting that he had the manner of a Castilian gentleman. He reminded me of the Mexican-American actor, Ricardo Montalbán.
“It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse,” I said evenly.
“Indeed,” he said in a tone that was at once polite and dismissive. “Permit me to introduce myself, Mr. Holiday. I am Ramon de Poores. Perhaps you’ve heard the name.”
Yes, I had heard the name. I had heard the name the way you hear an anonymous threatening phone call awakening you at four in the morning. I paused a moment to choose my words.
“I heard of a Colonel Ramon de Poores, who was purported to be a chief architect in the Iran-Contra Affair. This de Poores was alleged to be the head of a Columbian death squad, alleged to have run interference for Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel as well as other cocaine cartels. He’s said to have helped the Central Intelligence Agency transport drugs into the United States. It’s also been suggested that he helped Colonel Oliver North and his confederates run guns into Nicaragua.”
“Alleged?” he said as he looked at me with a level gaze.
“Actually, unproven allegations,” I said, “like the charges of murder, treason, and robbing the Columbian National Treasury.”
“Mr. Holiday, you seem to know a good deal about me.”
“I suppose I should. In Poli Sci 102 I did a paper on you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I remembered seeing the headline IRAN-CONTRA FUGITIVE IN GITMO on one of Smitty’s supermarket tabloids two days ago. The first paragraph declared that the National Enquirer had incontrovertible proof that the infamous Ramon de Poores was finally being brought to justice and was currently held in Guantanamo Bay. I could hardly wait to tell Smitty that that was not a true fact because I had met the man himself, and he wasn’t in prison. I wanted to tell Smitty, because after all, who else would believe me?
Nestor, de Poores, and I sat at separate sides of a round table that seated six in front of a large bay window that faced the periwinkle-blue Caribbean Sea. A man named Henri with a thick French accent served broiled Columbia River salmon and rice pilaf. De Poores sipped pinot noir while I drank Foster’s Beer from a frosted mug. My host apologized for not being able to secure my brand of New Zealand beer, and I assured him Foster’s was fine. After several bites of salmon, de Poores dismissed Nestor and ordered Henri not to disturb us. The two of us were now alone.
A thousand thoughts raced through my mind but the predominant one was, What in the fuck does Ramon de Poores want with me? I assumed that my host would get to the reason for our meeting at once, but instead he asked about the content of my college paper. I began with the caveat that the paper had been written about twenty years ago and concerned events that happened more than twenty-five years ago.
I told de Poores that his name first came up during a United States Senate inquiry into the Iran-Contra Affair. According to the Kerry Committee Report—a report that noted the many fruitless attempts to interview de Poores—the colonel was the son of an affluent and prestigious Columbian family. Still in his teens, he chose a military career and moved quickly through the ranks, working in intelligence and keeping a low profile. The only authenticated photo of him was from his first book of poetry—he published four—and taken when he was twenty-five. It was said that he often employed disguises, wearing glasses, beards, heel lifts, wigs, and padded clothing. He was purported to be both a double agent for the CIA and DEA—although both agencies denied this—and one of the chief sources of arms for the Contras, although the National Security Council’s Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North testified under oath that he had never met anyone named Ramon de Poores.
De Poores’ face was impassive until the mention of North, which made him smile slightly. I went on to say there’d been innuendos in the late eighties that he robbed two major cocaine cartels, which he was supposedly protecting, in the amount of ten million U.S. dollars. It was also alleged that he’d embezzled funds from the coffers of the Columbian Government to the tune of seven figures. He went to ground sometime in the fall of 1989, and it was reported that he vanished to become one of the biggest international arms merchants in the world. There was every indication that he had the capital to do so, and no question that he had the connections.
De Poores stared at me with a level gaze and nodded for me to go on. I did, but I left out the unconfirmed story that when he was the enforcer for the Medellín cartel, he punished those caught stealing, or suspected of informing, by having the soles of their feet cut off. I didn’t mention that he was the prime suspect in the assassination of the brigadier general who ran the Columbian National Police, or that he was suspected of the ambush and murder of a top CIA agent in Ecuador. I felt it proper to leave out what I had read about most of his family having been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.
I told him my paper ended with the rumor about his having become a major international arms dealer. I knew little about what he had done in the past twenty-some years, but it was reported that he not only supplied arms from Central America to Afghanistan to Africa, but that he often sold to both sides of a conflict. I mentioned the rumor that there was a price on his head in at least two countries, and that a committee formed in The Hague had a warrant for his arrest for war crimes. When I was finished he nodded and thanked me.
“Is it good manners that made you refrain from stating all the names I have been called? Because I am sure that you know I have been called them all. Traitor. Mutineer. Thief. Merchant of Death. Assassin. I have even been called The Antichrist.”
“Yes, but I suppose you know that you have also been called a Renaissance man.”
“That, too,” he said in an amused tone.
“With good reason, I suppose. You’re a poet, a respected translator of English poetry, a soldier, and of course, an international businessman. In doing research, I found that your translated anthology of modern English poets was used as a textbook in a number of Latin American universities. At one time you were said to be one of the preeminent Spanish translators of … was it Auden?”
“W.H. Auden, that’s correct,” he said. He sipped his wine and stared out into the Caribbean as if searching the sea for a forgotten dream or a lost ambition. He was silent for several long minutes.
“Yes, Auden, but I am not certain how ‘preeminent’ a translator I was. But all in all, very good, Mr. Holiday. Very good, indeed.” He took another sip of wine. “You impress me as a man of intelligence and sophistication. And not without some erudition. So I must assume you are a courageous man. Am I correct?”
“Not particularly,” I said, not particularly following his logic.
He leaned forward and his eyes grew dark, and all the oxygen seemed to leave the room as he said, “Then I am puzzled, sir, because you have been warned off and yet you persist. Since you obviously are not a fool, I must assume you are a very brave man to meddle in my affairs.”
He leaned back, and as he formed a steeple with his fingers he regained his gentlemanly charm. I took a deep breath as air seemed to flow b
ack into the room and said, “I believe there is a mistake. I believe you are talking to the wrong man.”
“Wrong man?” He seemed genuinely surprised. He picked up a file from the table and began reading aloud from it. He read all my vital statistics. He read everything from my birth date, social security number, blood type, and my mother’s maiden name—everything down to the generic name for the antihistamine I use for hay fever. He then said, “You were indicted by a United States Federal Grand Jury on thirty-nine counts of violating The Bank Secrecy Act, twenty-seven counts of wire fraud, thirty-one counts—”
“You’ve made your point, Colonel,” I said, cutting him off. “I am that man. Still, I think there is a mistake.”
“Indeed. And it seems the mistake is yours. For reasons best known to yourself, you have been stirring up dust, and disturbing the bones of a murdered Catholic priest named Cortez. Are you some avenging angel out to eradicate evil from the world? What is that shop-worn, tedious slogan? I believe it goes, ‘The best way for evil to prevail is for enough good men to do nothing.’ Perhaps that is an aphorism you subscribe to?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I went for broke.
“I have my reasons for looking into the death of Jesus Cortez, but I don’t subscribe to anything. Not a religious doctrine, a political ideology, or a school of philosophy. I don’t even subscribe to a newspaper, much less an aphorism. And frankly, I don’t know much about good men, and with all due respect, Colonel, I’m confident that I know a great deal less about evil than you do.”
He stared at me for a long moment then he began to chuckle softly. His chuckle turned into a laugh. He picked up his napkin, touched it to his mouth—still laughing—and then placed it back on the table.
“It’s now clear to me,” he said. “Yes, I understand quite clearly why you and my son were such fast friends.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The colonel rose from the table, and taking a small box from a bookshelf, approached me, opened the box, and offered a cigar. I was still reeling from the revelation about Jesus. I politely and silently declined his offer.
“A gift from Fidel,” he said. “I met Castro just once. Charming and interesting man, but like all ideologues, myopic.”
De Poores took a chair to my right, cut the end of the cigar, and ever the consummate gentleman, inquired if the smoke would bother me. When I assured him that it would not, he lit up, and somehow the cigar, or perhaps the revelation about his son, made him seem less formal.
“The man you knew as Jesus Cortez was in fact Estefan Garcia de Maria de Poores, my second son, and the youngest of my four children, and,” he said staring at the burning ash of his cigar, “my last heir.
“While I make no excuses for who I am or what I have done, I do ask that you recognize that the times I lived in in my country were tragic in a Shakespearean sense. A time and place where ‘treason,’ ‘murder,’ and ‘betrayal’ became relative terms. A place where when a compatriot said, ‘After the assassination the first thing we do is kill all the lawyers,’ he was speaking not in hyperbole, but literally. A place and time where to survive and prevail, a man must choose to do unspeakable things or perish. I chose to survive and prevail, and I chose to do unspeakable things. A famous Frenchman said that he wished to be neither a victim nor an executioner, but I became both.”
De Poores rose, and looking out at the Caribbean, told me of his and Estefan’s exodus from Columbia. The colonel came home to find his entire family brutally murdered, except for six-year-old Estefan who had discovered a hiding place underneath the house. For the next decade he and the colonel spent their lives in a number of countries, always in monasteries, abbeys, or seminaries—safe sanctuaries from the revenge of his enemies. De Poores said he found it remarkable that men who would slit the throats of women and children always honored the consecrated grounds of any property of the Catholic Church. While de Poores was building his present island compound, Estefan was restless. He was no soldier and had no interest in his father’s business. He ran away, was kidnapped, ransomed, and soon found that it was too dangerous for him to live in the “real world” as the son of Colonel Ramon de Poores. Estefan went back to the safety of seminaries and monasteries in Spain, in Central and in South America. With his mentors, friends, and teachers all priests, brothers, and monks, the colonel found it little wonder that he chose a religious vocation.
“So Estefan really was a priest?” I asked.
“According to the Vatican, the Jesus Cortez you knew was indeed an ordained Roman Catholic priest,” said de Poores, smiling.
“But—” I said.
“I answered your question, Mr. Holiday. How Estefan became Jesus Cortez is of no real importance.” He was polite but dismissive. “Let’s move on to the purpose of our meeting. Espresso?”
De Poores left the window, and reaching the table, picked up a bell summoning the chef, Henri, who took our coffee orders. In a few minutes he was back with coffees then excused himself. De Poores again took a chair to my right.
“You have not stated why you seek the man who murdered … for our purposes, let’s call him Jesus. I recognize that part of your search is in your own self-interest, as whoever killed Jesus must know who you are. Perhaps you are acting out of loyalty to a friend, or perhaps you don’t know all the reasons why yourself. His murder may have caused complications in your life you need to resolve. Your motives aren’t of any particular interest to me, but I will tell you what my interest is. In a moment.” He took a long puff on his cigar. “First, who do you suspect killed him?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I am working closely enough with the police to know they don’t have any real leads, either. Do you? An enemy of yours, perhaps?”
“I’m certain it was not an enemy of mine. I have a good share of deadly enemies, but they would not do it in this fashion. They would kidnap or otherwise hold him to gain leverage. If they were to kill him it would not be in such a humane fashion. No, it is much more likely to be a jealous husband, a spurned lover, or just a random robbery. I had him watched over, but had to keep him on a long leash. Also, he was always a sneaky, secretive boy. He ran away at sixteen, and by the time he returned he had developed a taste for narcotics, women, and rum. He overcame the narcotics, but not the women and the rum.”
De Poores rose and looked out the window at the sea again. Then he turned and smiled at me. “I know he was your friend, so I feel I can speak freely. The bishops and abbots will overlook a lot for a friend of the church,” he said, “and I am a friend of the church, as I have performed favors to protect her wealth and welfare in more than one Marxist-leaning country. But even for someone paying the exorbitant amount of room and board I was paying for my son, I found there were limits. The clergy’s pragmatism ends at sneaking prostitutes into a monastery or seminary. On more than one occasion he was discovered in the church’s confessional booth being fellated by some lady of the evening. We were running out of sanctuaries by the time he learned to be discreet. But he did mature, and as he did, he began to develop a genuine empathy and compassion for his fellow man. It’s true that until his dying day, my son, your friend, was a drunken womanizer. But he had another side, the side that should be his legacy. You must understand, Mr. Holiday. I don’t care who murdered him; what I care about is how he is remembered.”
De Poores walked to the other side of the table and opened the file from which he had read my vital statistics. “With the galaxy of raw information that lives and breathes in the Internet I fear that facts about him will come out. Such as the wastrel years he lived in a heroin haze in the brothels of Morocco and Algeria, items such as his drunken and sexual excesses, his real name, and most importantly, the fact he was the son of an international—what shall I say?—criminal. Let him be remembered as his bishop eulogized him.” De Poores read from a paper, “ ‘Not just a good priest and a good man, but a very good priest and a very good man, one who brought right where there was wrong, brought hope where
there was despair—a man who always had time for everyone from the infirm to the indigent to the incarcerated. Yes, and a man who brought a sense of the miraculous to an ungodly world.’ ”
De Poores stared at the paper for a long moment, and as he puffed on his cigar, he seemed to have forgotten I was there. Finally, he broke his silence.
“There are two reasons I wished to meet you, Mr. Holiday. The first is to thank you personally for being a friend to my son. He was a man who was thrown into a world of isolation, and friendship was mainly an unaffordable luxury. Secondly, I wish to strike a bargain with you. You are involved in the solving of his murder. With all the attention around his death, I am anxious that he might be linked to me and the other facts of his life disclosed. I ask that you do all in your power to see that does not happen. Your end of the bargain: I am a man of wealth, power, and connections. At the risk of seeming immodest, I have had the rulers of industrialized nations and cardinals of the Catholic Church do my bidding. Whatever you seek, if it is reasonable and within my power to provide, it is yours. If it is money, set an amount; if it is not satisfactory to me it will at least be a point to begin negotiations. After a suitable period, after all the dust has settled on his grave, you will be contacted for your end. Do we have a deal?”
He rose and extended his hand, but I balked. I couldn’t decide how to respond.
The Big Bitch Page 13