by Ted Bell
Well, what could you do? That was America for you.
Times were strange. People were stranger. Especially the strangers you saw around here.
But, like Daisy always said, strangers were people too.
Who was he to argue with that?
45
M argaritaville was chock full of interesting characters. Just walking up Duval, you came across more unique people in one block than you’d stumble across in Prairie in a whole lifetime.
When Dixon arrived at the bustling café at the southeast corner of Duval and Greene streets, there were a couple of Harleys parked out front and he could hear some pretty good music coming from inside. Looked like a place where a man could duck out of the rain and get a decent cheeseburger.
He liked the name, Sloppy Joe’s, and he quickly stepped inside. He looked for someplace to hang his wet oilskin but didn’t see one. Dusters didn’t seem to have caught on down here. Of course, the only horses he’d seen in town were busted-down mares pulling a bright pink surrey with yellow fringe on the top.
It was still pretty early by Key West standards and luckily there was an empty table right over in the corner. It was way in the back so he figured it would be nice and quiet. He caught a pretty waitress’s eye and she nodded “okay”, so he went on over there and sat down. There was a fella on stage dressed pretty much the same way he was, jeans and boots. He was singing a Jerry Jeff Walker song. The busty red-headed waitress came right over and handed him the menu.
“What’ll it be, stranger?” she said, with a cute smile.
Her name tag announced she was Savannah. He ordered something called the Ernie Burger, rare. “Who’s Ernie?” he asked Savannah, “The owner?” And she’d looked at him like he was kidding, which of course he wasn’t. She suggested something called Conch Fritters as a go-along and he said, sure, that sounded good too. And a cold Corona with a chilled glass would be nice. Savannah winked at him, told him she liked his hat, and disappeared into the crowd.
So there he was, minding his own business, sipping his beer and listening to Jerry Jeff’s Hill Country Rain, when the stranger in the rumpled white suit from the hotel lobby came over and asked could he sit down.
“Don’t see why not,” he said, and the man sat.
“Sheriff Franklin W.Dixon?”
“Yep.”
“Eduardo Zamora,” he said, and stuck his hand across the table, thin gold bracelets dangling from his thin wrist. A big pair of black sunglasses stuck out of his breast pocket and a black tie was tied loosely around his neck. His teeth were very white under his black moustache. His smile was big but not very believable. Franklin looked down at his shoes. Black and shiny, all right.
He shook his hand and said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Zamora?”
“Here is my card, senor. I am a stringer for a chain of Mexican newspapers as you can see. Los Reformos. I’ve got my press pass, too if you’d like to see it. My credentials.”
“Like to know what you want,” Franklin said, turning the card over in his hand, reading it. He somersaulted it through his fingers before he slid it back across the table. He’d noticed a phone number written in pencil on the back. He’d heard of the Mexican newspaper chain. A big one and not particularly partial to American interests. Backed the Communist candidate for president in the last election. Supported Chávez, too.
“What do you want, Mr. Zamora?”
“A story, of course, I’m a reporter. We’ll be hearing from you tomorrow, Sheriff? I saw you listed as one of the Texas Border Sheriffs’ Coalition members who will speak, I believe?”
“I’ll speak my piece if they have time for me.”
Zamora got out a thin spiral notebook and held a stubby pencil poised above the page. “What our readers would like to know is, what do you intend to say to attendees at Secretary de los Reyes’s Latin American conference?”
“You’ve got your press pass, Mr. Zamora. You’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’d like to get a scoop, señor.”
“You’re at the Green Pelican Hotel, aren’t you? Saw you in the lobby a while back.”
“You have me confused with someone else. I was here when you walked in, Sheriff, remember?”
Franklin decided to let it go.
“Listen, I don’t want to take too much of your time. But, it will come as no surprise to learn that people in my country are very unhappy about this security public relations meeting. Feelings in my country are running very high. Still, some responsible journalists, like myself, we are trying to present this American conference to our readers in a fair and balanced way. Our readers would be very interested to hear the personal view of the situation from a Texas sheriff who sees it up close.”
“Which struggle is that?”
“The struggle against injustice, señor! The struggle for a humane solution to the pain and suffering. An end to our poor honest people risking death just to find a minimum-wage job to support their families.”
“I’m not a politician, Mr. Zamora. I’m a lawman. Your citizens are breaking the law. Day in, day out. And your government is encouraging them to do it. Tell your readers to fix their country instead of breaking mine.”
“But this is not true! My government would never—”
Dixon stared at the man until he looked away.
“A borderline ain’t nothin’ but a law drawn in the sand,” Dixon said. “I’m sworn to uphold that law, however fragile it may be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think my supper’s about ready.”
The man in the white suit made no move to get up.
“Yes, yes, of course. But, Sheriff, there are stories circulating here in Key West that you plan to show a video shot on the Rio Grande. A very explosive video. Any truth to that?”
“What did you say?”
“A video? Shot recently along the border?”
Franklin just looked at him. There were only two possibilities. One, June had told a lot of folks what she’d seen before she’d called him. Or, two, this hombre had a friend working the Green Pelican switchboard. He favored the latter.
“How’d you hear about that?”
“I have a job to do, too, señor.”
“Get up bright and early and see for yourself.”
“Your speech is not until the afternoon.”
I might move it up some.”
“Señor. I am here to offer a very substantial sum of money for this video. My paper has authorized me to offer you fifty thousand U.S. dollars for the film. I have the money. Here. Waiting for you in a safe deposit box at the Key West Bank on Whitehead Street.”
“Who do you really work for, Mr. Zamora?”
“I told you this already. Los Reformos.”
“You’ve got the wrong man. Mr. Zamora. I’m sure you fellas are pretty much used to buying whatever it is you want. But attempting to bribe a law enforcement officer is a serious crime in this country. I think you ought to stand up and walk out now and let me eat my supper in peace.”
Savannah had arrived with his food. She put it down in front of him and Franklin began to eat immediately. He was hungry. “Uno mas Papa Dobles?” Savannah asked the Mexican.
“He’s not staying,” Dixon said.
“Si, uno mas,” Zamora said, with a big smile at the waitress. Savannah looked at the sheriff and he nodded, okay, bring him another. It’d be nice to end this without a fuss.
“Listen to me, Mr. Zamora,” Dixon said, trying to keep his voice low. “My cheeseburger’s getting cold. Now, I don’t know who you people are or what you think you’re doing. But I want you to know one thing. I’m not for sale. At any price.”
“Sheriff, there’s no need to get excited. We’re both businessmen. I can see you were disappointed with my original number. Perhaps it was a bit underwhelming. Let me make my offer more realistic. I am prepared to pay a hundred thousand dollars for this video. Okay? Cash.”
“You got something in your ears?”
“I’m sorry.
Still no good, huh? Maybe you have decided to sleep on this offer. Good. I have written my mobile number on the back of the card. If you change your mind before the conference, please give me a call. I wish you good night. Buenas noches, señor.”
“Mr. Zamora,” Franklin said, dismissing him without looking up. He picked up his burger and took a bite. It was good.
The man stood up and pushed his chair back from the table. He tilted his head back and drained his cocktail. Even though there was no one within earshot he leaned forward and put both hands on the table, speaking very softly.
“Sheriff, I must ask you a personal question. It must be hard to go away on business and leave your poor wife all alone in a small house so far from town. Is it not?”
“Say that again?” Franklin leaned forward and put his nose inches from the man’s own.
“Sorry. I am just saying it must be difficult. For your wife. She must get frightened sometimes, without her brave husband to protect her.”
“My wife.”
“Yes. Her name is Daisy, is it not? Such a pretty name. You must tell her to be careful. The desert is full of coyotes, eh? Especially at night. A woman alone.”
Franklin’s right hand shot out and clamped around the man’s left wrist. He didn’t break any small bones, but he came close.
“If you people ever get anywhere near my wife…if she even hears a voice she doesn’t like on the phone…if you or any of your kind ever cause any harm to come to my wife, I will take off this badge and hunt you down like the worthless piece of filth that you are. I will kill you, Mr. Zamora. Do I make myself clear?”
He let go of the wrist and the man in the white suit was gone out the door and disappearing into the throng outside.
Franklin threw some money down. He got up and left his uneaten hamburger on the table. Then he, too, disappeared into the crowded carnival that was called Duval Street.
HE PUSHED UPSTREAM, bucking the tide of boisterous humanity. He was six blocks from the hotel. He could already see the big animated bird up ahead, all lit up in the misty night sky.
He looked at his watch. It was an hour earlier in Texas. Daisy would be finished with her supper. She’d be standing at the kitchen window, washing up the dishes. It would be getting dark pretty soon. The coyotes would be fixing to start singing.
At that instant, he would have about killed somebody for a cellular telephone, even though he hated the damn things.
“Excuse me,” he said to the large woman. She was standing on the corner with her right hand pressed to her ear, the way people do these days.
“What? Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing, mister? Give me back my cell phone!”
“I’m sorry. Official police business, ma’am. I won’t be long.”
He flashed his badge and turned away from her.
“How does this thing work?” he asked her, stabbing at buttons with his index finger.
46
H awke stared into the coal fire still burning merrily in the basket grate. He and Ambrose had retired to the ship’s small book-lined library immediately following dinner. Congreve had suggested a brandy. The detective was feeling a bit homesick, Hawke thought. Missing his beloved Diana Mars and snowy walks by her side in the country. He was anxious to be home.
The conference, Hawke’s part of it anyway, was over. Next morning, Ambrose and Pippa were scheduled to fly back to Britain. Hawke himself was headed for points south. He’d given Langley and the State Department what information C had allowed him to share. What Conch and Washington chose to do with the intel he had provided was out of his hands. He was now operating on his own. He was mentally clearing his decks, well on the verge of taking the fight to the enemy.
He was sufficiently motivated. Revenge, in Hawke’s mind anyway, was a highly underrated and overly maligned emotion. He personally had found it to be vastly energizing.
On this cold and rainy Saturday night in Key West, only Pippa had elected to go ashore. One last night on the town, she’d said. The two men remained aboard to work on the Code, even though it meant foregoing a spot Hawke had chosen for its name, the Hot Tin Roof.
The small ship’s clock on the library mantel struck four silvery bells. Hawke, lost in a daydream of drum-beating savages and thick, unyielding jungle, was roused from his reverie. He had been listening to the lovely song now playing softly over the system. It was Andrea Bocelli’s haunting version of Vorrei Morire. He’d decided not to dwell for too long on why this particular lyric had such morbid appeal.
It was just ten o’clock and through the library’s starboard windows, Hawke could see that the rain had finally let up. A rind of yellow moon was visible behind tattered rags of cloud slowly sliding off to the east. The cold front had almost cleared. Tomorrow promised balmy sunshine.
A sleepy sigh was heard above the gentle music and Alex looked from the fire to his friend.
“I’m afraid I’m bloody well stumped,” Congreve said, removing his gold pince-nez glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. He laid aside the Zimmermann letter. He’d been staring at the bloody thing for hours on end. He stood and stretched his arms above his head.
“You? Stumped?” Hawke said, holding his thistle-shaped snifter aloft so that its many facets refracted the firelight. “Where’s Miss Guinness? We need her famous Record Book!”
“Very amusing, Alex. But I tell you, if C’s Signals section can’t crack it, and I can’t crack it, it simply cannot be cracked.”
They had discussed a variety of approaches to the puzzle at dinner. They kept coming back to the deathbed letter that, for convenience sake, they now referred to simply as the Zimmermann Letter. The numeric code, so promising at first, was now deemed to be a random sequence, computer generated, and thus indecipherable.
“Everything can be cracked,” Hawke said, reaching for the damnable thing. He stared at the letter blindly for a few moments and then put it back down with a sigh of frustration. Numbers. The bane of his existence.
“Gibberish,” Hawke said, giving up any last hope of discerning some kind of repeat or pattern. “Maybe you’re right. We’re both bloody well stumped. There has to be another way.”
Congreve eyed Hawke carefully, his invisible brain wheels spinning so rapidly and obviously Hawke was surprised they weren’t audible. Ambrose stood with his back to the fire, lighting his first pipe of the evening. In a second, the familiar fragrance of Peterson’s Irish Blend was in the air.
“Before the towel is thrown,” Ambrose puffed, “Or, at least, whilst the flag of surrender is still paused mid-flight above the gaping maw of the rubbish bin, bear with me a moment longer.”
Hawke sat back in silence, waiting for Ambrose’s genius to slip silently into the room.
“Consider. The ambassador wanted a letter delivered to his wife. We both assumed, until we actually saw it, that the thing might be some kind of poetic deathbed farewell to his soon-to-be widow in Brazil. Yes?”
“Yes,” Hawke said.
“You subsequently learned from the captured Venezuelan officer, that Zimmermann’s widow has fled Rio de Janeiro for the tatty Amazon River town of Manaus, correct? Fearing for her life.”
“Correct.”
“A problem arose in Mexico City. The ambassador was abducted from his hotel in the Zona Rosa by Brazilian agents, whereupon he was quickly disappeared into the jungle.”
“Yes. Where Top tried unsuccessfully to kill him. Zimmermann was up to his neck in this thing. But he lost the heart for it, or the nerve, and escaped to England.”
“So, we have a German ambassador with links to Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico City. And all three somehow go back to this Syrian, Muhammad Top.”
“Top stands at the crossroads,” Hawke said. “He’s the link.”
“Why Mexico, though? Why are they in bed with a Muslim terrorist?”
“Who stands to benefit most if Top succeeds? Mexico, I’d say. A few successful border skirmishes, America succumbs to the media outra
ge, and they have a chance to reclaim all the land they lost to the Americans in the war of 1848.”
“I suppose you’re right. Finally, Alex, one thing I may have overlooked. There was a second gift in addition to the coded letter. A book of poetry, perhaps. At least, it had the heft of a book to me.”
“A book, yes, that’s exactly what it was.”
“So you examined it?”
“Of course. I’m a snoop.”
“And?”
“It’s book. Innocuous enough. A popular novel.”
“Any good?”
“It’s no War and Peace. I can hardly imagine giving it as a final farewell gift to a grieving widow. Still, there can be no disputes about taste.”
“De gustibus non est disputandum. Still, you kept it.”
“I can hardly put it down.”
“And where is that book now?”
“Brought it along for the voyage. Stuck it in my library desk over there. I thought to finish it tonight.”
“Where, exactly?” Congreve asked, moving to the desk.
“Left bottom drawer most likely. That’s where I usually stick things I want to keep track of.”
Congreve crossed to the small leather-topped desk, sat down, and opened the left hand drawer.
“I don’t see it.”
“It’s there.”
47
H ere we are. Let’s take a look, shall we?” Congreve withdrew the book and placed it on the desk before him, staring down at it.
“Careful,” Hawke said, “Anything ticking? You’d best shake it a few times and see if it rattles, Constable.”
“Very funny. Still, a rather good, although belated, point. It’s the Da Vinci Code.”
“Hmm.”
“The special Illustrated Edition.”