by Joe Gannon
It had once seemed impossible. Joaquin Tinoco had detested Vladimir Malhora. Unfairly, true, but openly detested him. He was just like Montoya. As if a man’s abilities or loyalties could be measured only in how many years he spent creeping around the mountains with little more than bows and arrows. Vladimir Malhora had spent the war in Mexico, true, but in Mexico he cultivated the contacts with the Soviets and Cubans, the Bulgarians and Romanians that had paid off so handsomely in weapons and training. And now El Mejicano was dead. Malhora felt his stars continue to align just as the hairs on his mustache did under the careful grooming of his heavy fingers. Align as they had since the night at Los Nubes when he’d killed that fool Salazar. He had followed the visitor’s advice that night, too.
“So…” Malhora trimmed the ash from his cigar.
“So if Captain Montoya is as unstable as he appears to be, then his failure—which we all so adamantly hope for—his failure in this matter will just be bad policing by a bad policeman. Not politics. Whereas everything State Security does is political.”
“So who better than Ajax Montoya to fuck up the investigation?”
“If you think so, Comandante.”
Yes, he did. He was sure of it.
5
Matthew Connelly—freelance journalist extraordinaire—stood in his bathroom looking at himself in the mirror. The afternoon heat beaded sweat on his forehead while he practiced an acceptance speech for an award he had not yet been nominated for.
He was certain that journalists and writers all over the world began their mornings the same way. But he felt close, so close now. If his full-time war reportage from the mountains didn’t put him up for a Pulitzer, then the book he was closing in on must.
“This award is not for me, but for the people of Nicaragua.”
Yeah, that would do it.
Then the doorbell rang.
“Shit.”
“Matthew, le buscan!” That was his housekeeper, Graciela.
“Momento, Graciela. Momento!”
Someone’s looking for you! At this or any time of day—post-siesta—the doorbell could mean bill collectors, panhandlers, vendors of almost anything—last time it had been his errand boy, Jerónimo, with an ocelot cub on a rope. Still, a quiet caller who simply knocked was a blessing compared to the daily street vendors below his window—usually while the sun was still cruelly low—crying, “Mangoooooos! Fruuuuuuutas! Banaaaaaanos! Tomates! Cebooooooooooyas” in that distinctive, ear-splitting, high nasal screech of the street merchant. In fact, it was a kind of extortion. They might as well be screaming, “Buy my pathetic fruit or I will stand here and drive you mad with my screeeeeeeeching.” As often as not, he did.
But whoever it was now would have to wait. He was late sending copy and the afternoon deadline raced toward him. He’d even left Epimenio parked downstairs under the care of Graciela, whose roots in the countryside put Epimenio at his ease. He looked back into the mirror. What a trip this place is. He’d gone to bed last night ready to wake up this morning and send copy or tape to every one of his seven major strings. Instead, even before he’d coffeed up, Graciela had called Matthew, le buscan! And he’d found Epimenio perched downstairs on the edge of a rattan chair in his Sunday whites like some great egret. Matthew knew Epimenio well from his many visits to Enrique Cuadra’s coffee farm, and Epimenio’s arrival sans Enrique had seemed strange. But nothing could have prepared Matthew for the bombshell Epimenio had dropped: Don Enrique asks that you help find his murderer.
What the fuck was he supposed to do with a line like that?
“Matthew, le buscan!”
“Momento, Graciela. Momento!”
Matthew turned to the mirror to scrutinize his reflection. He didn’t look bad. Blond hair, not prematurely gray; deep blue eyes, neither lined with bags nor bloodshot; white teeth un-rotted; and a pink tongue uncoated with bad news. Even his long nose was still straight, despite having been broken twice diving for cover.
But he felt tired.
“I am bushed from all that bush.”
It was a cutesy line he’d coined for dinner parties and cocktails with friends when they inquired after his health.
But that wasn’t it either. He was scared.
Matthew Connelly was the only truly full-time war correspondent in a country whose war was a major headline around the world. He had remade himself from an adventure-seeking tourist from Boston Catholic into a freelance journalist whose byline was read in every capitol from Washington to Moscow. Matthew was the only independent witness to the hottest proxy battle between the Cold War superpowers. In Managua, he was a downright luminary: visiting journalists and broadcasters, dignitaries, celebrities, the Managua-based diplomats, and especially the military attachés all wanted briefings from him. It was lucrative, too, kept a staff of four working in a house grander than any he’d known back in Boston, nor was likely ever to know. It was his future, too. If he could gather enough material to finish his book on the war, it would open doors to any newspaper or magazine back home.
All he had to do to remain a big fish in a small pond was to not get killed delivering the goods.
He locked back onto his own eyes in the mirror. That last trip north. He had tape and photos from the biggest firefight yet. An actual battle between Contras and the battalion of government troops he was writing a biography on. But six more of the original one hundred and sixty boys he’d been writing about were dead. A total of thirty-one KIA in a year. His editors should love it. But the phone messages last night were all about Senator Teal and the death of Joaquin Tinoco. It was a fucking parlor game to them—a game played in Washington, Miami, and Managua. He had to fight every time to get space for the war in the countryside.
Then his white phone rang.
Then his blue phone rang.
He drew himself up in the mirror. He shook off the funk. Matthew Connelly liked this part of the job.
“Showtime!”
By the time he crossed from the bathroom to his desk, he had done his dispatches in his head. He snatched up the blue phone, NBC radio: “Sheila? I’m ready. One second.”
He snatched up the white phone, the Miami Herald, “Paul? Pass me to the tone. I’m sending now. Six hundred words on the senators, and four hundred on who’ll replace Joaquin Tinoco.”
What a world! Matthew had stayed long enough to see the journalism biz rocket into a new age. For years he’d had to laboriously dictate his stories over the phone and have them read back to him, or, worse, to go down to the international exchange and bang them out on the old Teletype and then hand feed the tape into the machines. But now, these new RadioShack computers let you store 1,200 words and then send over the phone to any newspaper office in the world. (As long as the international operator didn’t mistakenly cut in, or the wind wasn’t blowing the telephone wires too hard.) Soon they’d be coming out with a model that could store 2,000 words!
He stuck the white phone’s handset into the rubber cups and sent his copy to the Herald. Then he went back to the blue phone—NBC radio—closed his eyes a moment and composed.
“Sheila? Okay, recording in three, two, one: Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista Front is engaged in their biggest internal crisis in years as different factions fight to place one of their own on the National Directorate, which makes all policy for the beleaguered country. The Nine, as they are known, became eight with the death of Joaquin Tinoco, known as El Mejicano. Tinoco was one of the last original founders of the Front to serve on the Directorate, and his replacement represents a generational turnover. The only candidate openly talked about for the position is Vladimir Malhora, the current head of State Security, who is known as a hardliner. The skirmish takes place against the backdrop of tomorrow’s arrival of a fact finding mission from the US Senate whose verdict will sway the pending vote in Congress on a one-hundred-million-dollar aid package for the Contra rebels, which will likely pass and instigate a huge escalation of the war. For NBC radio, this is Matthew Connelly in
Managua. Three, two, one. Out. How was that?”
Sheila would have a supercilious comment or two, or three, to make. Every editor he’d ever had believed reporters were simpletons sent to the field because they didn’t have the brains to be editors.
“I used ‘known’ twice? Okay, I’ll do another one for another fifty bucks, but then I just used ‘another’ twice, too … What? Great. I’ll send the profile of Malhora to the mainframe for the commuter rotation.”
He hung up, checked his copy had gone to the Herald, and walked to the bathroom, running the abacus in his head. Between Tinoco’s departure and the senator’s arrival, the radio pieces alone would cover expenses for two months. The newspapers would surely cover his R&R to Belize in September. He flipped open the medicine cabinet and ran his finger along the rows of pills. He chose a Praziquantel for his Olympian battle with intestinal parasites. It would turn his stools rock hard. He hadn’t had a satisfying bowel movement since 1984.
He closed the medicine cabinet, had a good look at himself in the mirror, and dry chewed the Praz.
“Matthew! Le buscan!”
He did not hurry downstairs, but as he went, he picked up the faint murmur of Spanish from his sala. To his surprise, he saw two uniforms, a captain and a lieutenant, seated around his matching rattan rockers and table. Graciela, he noticed, had laid out the good cups and served up the good coffee in the French press. Epimenio sat with them, ramrod straight, his face the stoic blankness of the campesino in the presence of power. And for a campesino, that was pretty much everybody. Matthew’s left foot had just touched the marble tile of the sala floor when he recognized the captain’s face. For a split second, he was amazed. Son of a bitch, that’s Ajax Montoya! But then the full memory flooded back. Ajax Montoya, that son of a bitch! For a very long moment he stood staring at the captain, who kindly returned the stare.
“Got a cigarette?”
Montoya patted his pockets. “No.”
“Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you don’t have a cigarette?”
Montoya held his hands up. “I don’t smoke.”
“You don’t smoke.”
Neither of the uniforms had risen, so Matthew looked at the short-haired lieutenant with the crisp uniform. “How about you?”
“She doesn’t smoke either.”
“Does she have a name?”
She stood up smartly. “Lieutenant Gladys Darío.”
He shook her hand.
“Nice to meet you, compañera. I’m Matthew Connelly. This is my house.”
“Yes, compañero, we know.”
“Do you? How?”
Matthew was sure he saw a flicker of a smile on Montoya’s face. But Epimenio remained stock-still, not knowing what part was his in the game. Matthew released Gladys’s hand and turned back to the son of a bitch who, seven years ago, had abandoned him under a tree after he’d risked his life to bring back a bag of cigarettes meant to secure his passage all the way to Managua in the company of the most renowned guerrilla leader of the day. It would have been a hell of a story, and now here he was sitting in Matthew’s chair, drinking his coffee and pretending not to remember him.
“I’m sure we know each other. Ajax Montoya right?”
Montoya stood and held out his hand. Matthew took it and pumped in a friendly way, but he was sure he detected recognition in Montoya’s eyes and felt he was being fucked with.
“I didn’t think the Policía Sandinista were of interest to you big-shot international journalists.”
“Well, you weren’t always Policía.” Matthew scrutinized his insignia. “Captain now, is it? You used to work State Security, didn’t you? As a colonel?”
Montoya’s grip seemed to lessen. Matthew gave in to the affront of being fucked with and decided to fuck back: “Weren’t you involved in the killing of Jorge Salazar?”
The iron went back into Montoya’s grip before he broke the handshake and sat down. The lieutenant sat up straight and almost turned the French press over trying to pour more coffee.
“Lieutenant, you look kind of young, do you remember l’affaire Salazar? Cotton grower back in ’81 got caught up in a CIA plot to turn the army high command against the National Directorate, staged a coup d’état.” Matthew took the French press from her fumbling hands and poured for her. “Salazar was shot by State Security agents, some say executed, at a gas station up in Los Nubes. They found some weapons in his trunk.” He turned to Montoya: “Or maybe you found the weapons, Colonel. I mean Captain. More coffee?” He overfilled Montoya’s cup.
“I only bring it up, Lieutenant, as it was one of my first front-page stories. Graciela!” Graciela hurried into the sala from the kitchen. The look on her face showed Matthew she’d heard every word and disapproved of every one.
“Sí, don Matthew?”
“Bring the Oreos from the Diplo store. Would you like a cookie, Captain Montoya?”
A rueful smile had come over the captain’s face. It didn’t connect to the look in his eye.
“Lieutenant, cookies?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Matthew was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about the cookies.
“So.” He leaned closer to the lieutenant, as if catching her up on old-school stories he and Montoya shared. “After the killing, the MINT put the weapons on display and a photographer friend took close-ups of them, close enough to get the serial numbers, which I was able to track back to an East German weapons shipment that State Security received the previous year. Bingo! Front page!”
Matthew turned to Montoya for help to close their mutual trip down Memory Lane. “And do I remember right? It was never really explained how Salazar got hold of weapons shipped to State Security, assuming, as the government had assured us, the weapons weren’t planted there after the fact to justify Salazar’s killing.”
Graciela hurried back in and handed off a plate of cookies to Matthew, who held them out in the cold, dead silence he had woven.
“Now, how can I help you, Captain?”
“Enrique Cuadra is dead.”
Matthew was lifted out of his chair by a cold shiver down his spine. He turned to Epimenio, who’d brought the news Matthew had dismissed as foolery. He didn’t realize he’d dropped the plate of cookies until it broke at his feet.
“Dead?”
Montoya set his coffee down. “Dead. Deceased. Murdered. Last night. Maybe early this morning. It seems a robbery.”
Matthew cut his eyes surreptitiously at Epimenio. But the campesino was staring at the tiled floor.
“Murdered? But we went to the morgue. They said there weren’t any unclaimed bodies.”
“Why did you go to the morgue?”
Matthew shook his head. No matter how long he was in Nicaragua, how much he felt he knew it, the country always made him feel like a child bewildered by the adults.
“Epimenio brought me a message from Enrique’s wife, she…” Matthew couldn’t finish. How could he without implicating Epimenio?
Epimenio looked briefly into Montoya’s eyes, Matthew knew, to signal he was addressing the captain, and then back down at his shoes. It was the manner of the campesinos Matthew often saw. The revolution had changed many things, but not the humble farmer’s view of where he stood in relation to the world. Epimenio had not once referred to his dead cousin as anything but don Enrique.
“La señora woke me up. She was very upset.…”
“Enrique’s wife, you mean?”
“Yes, Captain. Doña Gloria. She said she saw her husband in a dream.” Epimenio spread his hands as if the dream unfolded between them. “Don Enrique said he was lost, that he needed help. That she should ask don Mateo in Managua to help find him.”
Montoya briefly touched Epimenio’s knee. “When was this dream?”
Epimenio counted on his fingers. “Night before last? Yes.”
Montoya and his lieutenant, who’d been taking notes, exchanged a look, l
ike a tag, and the lieutenant jumped in. “Enrique Cuadra wasn’t dead the night before last.”
Epimenio spread his hands again, as if reviewing the film of his story. “Doña Gloria came to me as soon as she woke up. She was so frightened she didn’t even want to wait until dawn to send me, and the roads are full of soldiers at night. She paid a man, a neighbor, to drive me here.”
“That’s true, Lieutenant,” Matthew jumped in. “Epimenio called me from Matagalpa yesterday saying he was coming and asking directions to my house. I’d had a message from Enrique, too.”
“When?” Montoya deigned to speak but didn’t take his eyes off Epimenio.
“Two nights ago. Said he was coming to Managua and we should talk.”
Montoya’s eyes now fell on Matthew, and he was relieved to be the center of attention again. He felt a need to protect Epimenio.
“Talk about what?”
“He didn’t say. Enrique and I exchanged hospitality. He stayed with me and I with him. We’re friends. I report a lot from the war zone; he was a source. His coffee finca’s in El Tuma. Lots of Contra and army around. He kept tabs on a lot of things through a store on his farm. Man knew what was what up there.”
“And what was what?”
“Battles, troop movements. Comings and goings. The price of coffee. Local gossip. Everything. We just talked, mostly. He had no secret knowledge of anything.”
“You ever discuss it on the phone with him?”
“What?”
“Whatever information he was giving you? Did you talk on the phone?”
“There’s no phones up there. You know that. The nearest town only got electricity two years ago. Enrique ran a generator for what he needed. He’d call when he got to the Hotel Ideal in Matagalpa. But only to say when he was arriving. And he didn’t give me information, per se. He gave me perspective, like how the revolution’s going for the average Nica.”