“We all know him,” she said guardedly. “What you want him for?”
Bell couldn’t get a read on her. He wasn’t sure if she was protecting Talbot or was suspicious of anyone associated with him. He said, “I met with him just before he left. I want to know if he’s come back.”
“You talk to Jimmer. Him run the store. He and Ojo Muerto are . . .” She meshed her fingers together to indicate the two were tight.
“Thanks.”
“You trouble, man?”
“Like, am I in trouble or do I cause trouble?”
“Both, I think,” she said cryptically and then returned to her job.
Bell was grateful for the beer because the stew was fiery hot but delicious. When he’d scraped the plate clean, he returned it to the kitchen, catching the woman’s eye when he set it and the empty bottle on a shelf just inside the door. He nodded his thanks.
He went to the town’s store in the abandoned railroad car. The wheel trucks had been removed, leaving the box portion of the car resting on the ground. Rot was slowly making its way up the walls because the wood wicked moisture from the ground. Inside, shelves fashioned from wood scraps had been built along all four walls and were stocked like this store was the jungle version of a five-and-dime. There were gallon cans of lamp fuel, bolts of cloth to make clothing, boots in several sizes, plus socks, and flour, cornmeal, and lentils in five-pound sacks. Bell saw pouches of tobacco, hand-forged tools, tins of condensed milk, fishing line and hooks. He didn’t see things like soap or shampoo, or any luxury items.
“Help you, sir?” the proprietor asked. He was about the same age as the woman at the commissary, but he was rail thin, and while his hair was silver, his face was smooth.
“I’m looking for Courtney Talbot.”
“He ain’t here.”
“I know that. I saw him off a few days ago. I was wondering if he’d come back.”
“He tell Gemma ’n’ I he comin’ back this afternoon.”
“Gemini?”
“Gemma and I,” he said slowly and pointed to where a woman—his wife, presumably—was coming in from the back storeroom carrying a big pot of yams.
Bell couldn’t believe his luck. Then he reconsidered. It was likely he did know of Talbot’s return but had forgotten it as a result of his amnesia. Yet on some deeper level the knowledge lingered as only a hunch, and that’s why he’d driven to Gamboa.
He wondered what else his lapsed memory was trying to recover. More than his conscious, for sure. Gemini? He admonished himself. The shopkeeper had clearly said “Gemma and I.”
Bell thanked the storeowner and returned to his car. The shadow from one of the warehouses fell across the passengers’ compartment in back. He stretched out as best he could, adjusted his hat so the straw brim better covered his eyes, and napped through the hottest part of the day.
He was awakened by a train chuffing into the Gamboa depot, steam boiling around its four drive wheels, its bell chiming merrily. He would have awoken in a few minutes, as the sun had swung enough to put its light and heat inches from where he lay. No one was waiting to board the train, and no one descended from any of its carriages. It didn’t need to take on coal or water, so no sooner had the wheels stopped than the locomotive began to pull away again, its schedule fulfilled.
Bell left the car and cut around the warehouse so he could stroll across the gravel expanse fronting the harbor. Men were standing at the edge of the pier. He picked up his pace. When he got close enough, he recognized Court Talbot’s silhouette. One of the Major’s men pointed past his shoulder and he turned. He froze for the moment it took to recognize his visitor.
“Bell, how are you?”
“Good. How was your hunting trip?”
“A disaster.”
They shook hands.
“Did you find the Viboras?”
“No. Instead, we discovered twenty or thirty different family groups living on rafts all along the lake’s shore. The first time we saw the cooking fires on one of them, I was certain we’d caught the Vipers—remember how I said that was how we were going to get them? It turned out to be a false alarm, just a family of fishermen, two brothers and their wives, an abuela and a handful of kids. And for the next few days, and the next twenty or so fires we spotted, it was false alarm after false alarm. Maddening. Wait. What’s with the lump on your head? What happened to you?”
“Long story involving an avalanche and me impersonating laundry inside a washing machine. Spent the night after our last meeting in the hospital, and people had to tell me the story because I remember nothing from that day.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing of any significance. The doctor calls it retrograde amnesia. He said it’s not uncommon for people with head injuries. I don’t even remember what you and I spoke about.”
“You had some questions for Rinaldo about his brother. You came to the conclusion that Raul was working for the Colombians. You left here wanting to talk to diplomats back in Panama City.” Talbot glanced over Bell’s shoulder. A group of workmen had opened a warehouse door to give them enough room to reorganize the jam-packed interior.
“There’s more to it than that,” Bell said.
“You suspected another player? A European connection, perhaps?”
“That’s what I’m working on now.”
“Do you have anyone in mind in particular?”
“At this point, I’d rather not say.”
Talbot just about begged. “You’ve got to tell me who. I just spent days chasing my own tail out there in malarial swamps with nothing to show for it. Can’t you give me something?”
Bell ignored his plea. “What are your plans?”
Talbot recognized it was prudent to drop the subject. “Refuel, restock, and return.”
“You’re going to keep hunting them?”
“What other option is there? Every day I don’t get them is less money in my pocket and that much closer to the Marines showing up and Colonel Goethals kicking us out. They have to be hiding on the lake.”
“When do you plan on leaving?”
“Few hours.”
“Enough time for me to get to Panama City and back?”
Talbot nodded. “We could wait for you, sure.”
“Okay. I need some place to lay low for a while, and malarial swamps sound perfect.”
27
Bell parked three blocks from the Hotel Central. He approached slowly and cautiously, watching windows and doorways, alleys and idling cars. He saw nothing suspicious. The street had its normal amount of hustle.
He wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks. He avoided the main lobby door and sidled around the block to a loading dock at the rear of the hotel. Its big door was up. Inside was a platform for workers to stand on to unload directly from the back of trucks or horse-drawn wagons. A couple young men in bellhop uniforms sat with their feet dangling while sharing a cigarette.
They spoke to him in Spanish as he approached. He knew the context of their phrases, if not the actual words. This was a restricted area, and he shouldn’t be here.
“Señor Ramirez is mi amigo. It’s okay.”
He brushed past them without giving them time to react further. That was the other key, he knew. Act like you belong, and people generally accept you being there. He climbed the steps up to the loading dock and went through the double doors into the hotel. He found himself in a utilitarian space used for the storage of dry goods as well as a place where the housekeepers parked their cleaning carts when they weren’t making their rounds.
Bell took the service elevator up to his floor and dashed down the hall to his room. The brass key slid into the lock and turned smoothly. He held his .45 low and inconspicuous. He let himself in and closed the door behind him. That’s when he realized he wasn’t alone. A man in a suit jacket, but without
a tie, was sitting on his bed. Another had been behind the door, while a third was close to the window. These two men wore the blue uniforms of the Panama City police department. Bell guessed the man in civilian attire was the lead detective. He saw this in the first fraction of a second and it was enough to tell him he didn’t stand a chance of escaping. He released his grip on the pistol and let it dangle from his index finger.
“Isaac Bell?”
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if I was someone else here to rob his room?”
The officer behind the door had come up behind him with a pair of heavy handcuffs. His partner stepped closer and pulled a wooden baton from his belt as an unsubtle threat. The cop took the Colt from Bell’s finger and handed it to the detective before slapping on the cuffs. At the last second, Bell bent his wrists backward, as the manacles were cinched, to enlarge the circumference of his wrists. The metal dug into his flesh until he relaxed his hands, then the cuffs were loose enough to no longer be painful. One of the many tricks he’d learned from the cons he’d arrested over the years.
“Droll, Señor Bell. You have wasted a great deal of my time.” The man’s English was good. He was older, in his fifties, with a veteran cop’s wariness and weariness. He had more Spanish blood than native, his skin being on the lighter side, and his hair was brown and wavy with a few strands of silver in it. “After our first hour waiting in the lobby, Señor Ramirez insisted we leave and that he would call us when you returned. I trust him less than I trust you, so we came to this compromise. I knew you would come back sooner or later.”
“Am I allowed to know your name and what I’m being charged with?”
“I am Detective Ortega, and you are charged with trespassing and attempted burglary.”
“Where and when did this supposedly take place?”
“Otto Dreissen is an important man here in Panama, Señor Bell. We take his complaints seriously. He caught you in his home last night, attempting what he called”—Ortega read from a small notebook he pulled from a pocket—“‘industrial espionage on behalf of his American masters.’ Those were his exact words.”
Bell knew his only chance was to get ahead of this thing now before it got worse. “I am here on behalf of the Canal Authority to help them stop the attacks by Viboras Rojas. This can be confirmed with Colonel Goethals and Courtney Talbot. In fact, he’s waiting for me in Gamboa right now.”
“Do you deny being in Dreissen’s house last night?” Ortega asked archly. “Before you answer, know that he gave a very accurate description of you and noted that you ran through manchineel trees and likely got burned. I can see the red marks on your hands and face, just as he predicted.”
“I think maybe I shouldn’t answer that question at this time,” Bell said.
Ortega got off the bed and moved so his face was inches from Bell’s. His breath smelled of the rum he’d had at lunch. “But you will answer it.”
He nodded to the officer behind Bell, and the man rammed a fist so deeply into Isaac’s right kidney that the pain dropped him to his knees. That put him in the perfect position for Ortega to drive a fist into Isaac’s cheekbone and collapse him to the floor. He wasn’t out completely, but his brain misfired for a few seconds.
Orders were given in Spanish. Bell was lifted from the floor and held upright on rubbery legs by one of the officers. All his possessions had been packed in his valise, which the other cop carried when they followed Ortega down the hall to the main elevator.
Outside, one of the uniformed patrolmen ran off and returned in a car a few minutes later. Bell was taken to a nearby police station. He wasn’t formally charged with anything. Or told anything, for that matter. While Ortega vanished into a side office, the other two escorted Bell through a central workroom abuzz with activity and the clacking of typewriters. At the far end was a heavy door that had to be unlocked with an enormous key. Beyond was a whitewashed hallway with individual cells along the right-hand wall. The paint was peeling badly and speckled with drops and smears of what could only be blood. There were no bars, just solid brick walls and steel doors.
Bell was shoved into one of the cells and its door slammed shut behind him. The only light came from the dime-thin crack under the door. The lock clanked home. Bell sank to the floor, his back against a wall. The stench was unimaginable.
He hadn’t seen this coming and had no plan. His surroundings were so bad, he found himself overly grateful for that razor slash of light coming from the hallway. It was something, a ray of hope perhaps. But then a switch was flicked, as the cop left the cell block, and the fixtures in the hallway went dark. Bell couldn’t help but feel the claustrophobic dread of being trapped in the water tank all over again.
He had to order his thoughts. Dreissen was playing games, Bell realized. He knew full well why he’d been at the man’s house, so this was just a stunt to involve the police and ramp up the intimidation. As soon as he thought it through, Bell had already considered his options and figured out a way to completely turn the tables on the German.
The big if hanging over his plan was the level of corruption within the Panamanian police. Ortega was obviously in Dreissen’s pocket, and, to a lesser extent, so were the two uniformed cops. Bell needed to talk to someone higher up, someone who couldn’t be bought or, if he had been, wouldn’t do the Hun’s bidding once he realized the truth.
There was one other tack to take, but it again depended on how deep the police corruption ran. If it was as bad as he feared, Bell’s only other option was to hope Court Talbot and Colonel Goethals could somehow spring him.
He estimated two hours had passed when he heard the squad room door creak open in the cell block and the lights turned on. The little aura seeping under Bell’s door was a welcome sight, though he understood the techniques at play here. The deprivation was meant to soften him up.
Fat chance.
He pretended to be asleep when his cell door was wrenched open. He acted like they’d startled him awake and he blinked owlishly. The same two cops stood outside his cell. “Oh, hey, fellas. Morning already?”
They yanked him off the floor and frog-marched him down the hall and into the big reception area. This time, they had him climb to the second floor to a windowless interrogation room. There was a table, with two chairs on the side closest to the door and a single chair opposite. That’s where the men dumped him. The psychological tactic on display here was that for him to gain his freedom, represented by the door, he had to get past the interrogators. The only thing missing was a one-way mirror set into the wall so Detective Ortega could judge how his prisoner was faring.
Bell folded his hands on the table and waited. If they didn’t have access to one of those new mirrors, then there was a peephole someplace for spying. He guessed that Ortega was watching him now and would keep checking in on him for a while. For the next hour, other than the slow blinking of his eyes, Bell didn’t move a muscle.
It was his way of telling the Panamanian officer that petty little intimidations were wasted on him.
At the two-hour mark, the door opened. Ortega strode in and took a seat followed a moment later by a strongly built man in a white tropical suit. Bell’s eyes widened a fraction when recognition hit. It was Otto Dreissen.
“Your accuser wanted to meet you, Señor Bell,” Ortega said. “Señor Dreissen said he might let this matter drop if the two of you can come to an understanding.”
Bell cocked his head. Dreissen removed his hat and sat down. He had a slim file folder in his hands that he set in front of him on the table. The antagonism he showed Bell was instinctual and instant. Dreissen knew he was facing an adversary, and from the squint of his eyes to the tension carried in his shoulders, he let Bell know it too.
“A compromise entails each party wanting something from the other,” Bell said blandly. He’d faced far tougher men than Otto Dreissen. “How can I possibly help you?”
; “Detective Ortega was kind enough to inform me when they had arrested the man who broke into my house.” His English was accented, his voice deep. Bell had to admit that the man had a commanding presence. “The detective also mentioned you are in Panama under the auspices of the Canal Authority to help them hunt down the insurgents plaguing the construction efforts.”
“That’s true,” Bell admitted.
“So perhaps you aren’t a spy looking to steal trade secrets from Essenwerks after all, that maybe your presence in my home was a mistake.”
Bell nodded, playing his role, for Detective Ortega, in this bit of theater. “You are correct and have my sincerest apologies,” Bell said. “I had intelligence that the leaders of Viboras Rojas were headquartered in a hacienda on the coast road. I got carried away in my quest to hunt the vermin down. Again, I am sorry for the fright I must have given you.”
Dreissen turned to Ortega. “Detective, would you excuse us for a moment. I need to ask Mr. Bell the specifics of what he might have seen in my office. There are important patents involved that need to remain secret.”
Ortega stood and straightened his jacket. “I understand, señor. I will be right outside, should you need me.”
“Danke.”
When the door to the interrogation room closed behind the detective, and the two men were alone, Bell and Dreissen dropped all pretense of civility.
“What are you getting at?” Bell said, snarling.
“Proving to you that you are in far over your head, Herr Bell. Goethals and the Americans hold sway in the Canal Zone. Out here, I’m more powerful than you know. With a snap of my fingers, I can see you stuffed down a hole so deep and so dark you’ll wish I’d had you killed instead.”
In one fluid motion, Bell pulled the knife from his ankle sheath, the one the police hadn’t found because, foolishly, they’d not frisked him after he gave up his .45. He was over the table with the blade against Dreissen’s throat before the businessman had time to react. “Feel powerful now?” Bell snapped.
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