Jungle of Glass

by Gerald J. Davis

  I nodded. "Yeah, that was the driver of the man who was kidnapped, James Roderick. That was where we were ambushed. And that was where your husband was shot dead."

  She couldn't restrain herself any more. She took a couple of swallows of the liquor. "What happened?" she said. "I mean, when he was shot."

  "He drove me to the place. We were walking up to the house when they started shooting at us from both ends of the street. He took one of the first bullets in the head."

  She held her head in her hands and rocked back and forth on the bed. "Oh, God," she said, her voice choking. "Oh my God."

  I had a very strong urge to put my hand on her shoulder and comfort her but I decided not to. I just stood there and waited until she finished crying. It took a couple of minutes. She must have had a real case on McInerny. I couldn't help feeling envious, that a woman loved a man so much.

  Finally she stopped and rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  "Do you have the disks here?" I asked her.

  She nodded. "Yes."

  "Let me take a look. Maybe I can make something out of them that you didn't see."

  CHAPTER XXII

  "Hello, sleepyhead."

  "Who is this?" I said.

  It was after nine the next morning. I was still sacked out when the phone rang.

  "This is Sister Angela," came the voice. "I'm calling you on the house phone. I'm downstairs in the lobby. Come on down."

  "Give me ten minutes," I said.

  She was sitting on a sofa staring at the carpet when I walked up to her. Her knees were close together and her hands were folded in her lap. She was wearing a white shirt and black slacks and sensible white nurse shoes with good arch support.

  When she saw me, she stood up and gave me a firm short handshake. Once up and once down. "I have the person you wanted to meet," she said with her flat Massachusetts accent. She leaned in toward me and whispered, “You know, El Ciego, the blind one.”

  I nodded. "Good," I said. "When can I see him?"

  "What about right now?"

  "Outstanding," I said. "Lay on, MacDuff."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Let's go."

  She turned to look at me. "Are you still angry with me?"

  "I was never angry with you. What you were doing was stupid and I told you so. You know you'll always get the truth from me — at least, the truth as I see it."

  "Oh sure, behold the master of truth," she said with a nod and a note of sarcasm. She walked out of the hotel. I followed her. There was an old Ford truck waiting at the curb. It was a small flatbed without any uprights on the back. It had no markings and it carried no cargo.

  She climbed into the driver's seat. I got into the seat next to her.

  "Deja vu all over again," I said. "All we need is your factotum." She looked sideways at me.

  "You can't talk until we're out of town," she said.

  "Whose rule is that? Leon Trotsky's?"

  She made a face at me and gunned the engine. We pulled out of the hotel driveway at an excessive rate of speed. For a nun, she had a very heavy foot on the accelerator.

  We drove to the outskirts of San Salvador. When we were out of sight of any houses, she pulled over to the side of the road and stopped on a grassy patch out of the way of traffic.

  "Are we there yet?" I said.

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I have to take your gun."

  "How do you know I have a gun?"

  She smiled at her cleverness. "Because no one would wear a suit in this heat unless he wanted to cover over a holster and a gun."

  "Smart girl," I said. I took off my jacket and tie, since she'd given me an excuse. Then I took off the holster and gun and gave them to her. She stuck them under her seat.

  She hesitated.

  "Well?" I said.

  "There's one more thing I have to do."

  "I hate to guess what that is," I said.

  She shook her head. "No, I have to blindfold you so you can't see where we're going."

  "That's pretty childish, isn't it?" I could just picture myself driving around the countryside with a kerchief over my face.

  She gave me a half-embarrassed smile. "That's what they told me to do."

  "Couldn't you pretend you did and tell them so?"

  The look she gave me was the same as if I'd asked her to drive naked to Des Moines over the Pan American highway. "Oh, I couldn't lie to them," she said. "They trust me."

  I shrugged. "Since you appeal to my better nature..."

  She pulled out a flower-pattern cloth from her pants pocket and wrapped it around my face. It still had the faint odor of her body clinging to it. Better than nothing, I guess.

  She shifted into low gear and we took off. At first, the roads were paved and the ride was fairly smooth. As we kept going, the ride got rougher and rougher. But that didn't slow us down. Not the nun on the Cannonball Run. We kept bouncing up and down in the cab of the truck like two jackrabbits in heat. We drove for more than an hour, maybe closer to two. It was tough to tell how long it took.

  We didn't talk for a while. Then she broke the silence. Some people just have a congenital aversion to the absence of speech. She started telling me about her childhood in Massachusetts, growing up in a small town. About her boyfriend in high school, both of them shy and innocent. She said she was still innocent, but not so shy anymore. She told me of her rebellion against her religious upbringing and the strictures of the parochial schools. And of her epiphany and conversion in the face of the death of her boyfriend and her own near-death experience. She said her faith was stronger now than ever and that it was manifested by the desire to protect and support the downtrodden of the world against the depredations of the money-grubbing capitalists.

  It sounded like the same old song, enlivened only by the ferocity of her words and her obvious sincerity. It was actually a strange experience, bouncing up and down, sucking in all that dust on an empty stomach, without being able to see a damn thing and listening to the communist manifesto spoken by a girl with a Massachusetts accent. Disorienting, really.

  I didn't say much. Just grunted assent now and then. If you want to know the truth, I liked listening to her talk. It helped pass the time.

  She started shifting gears more frequently and making right and left turns, so I knew we were getting close. Then she slowed down and said, "You can take off your blindfold now."

  "Where are we?" I said.

  She laughed. "After all that trouble with the blindfold, and now you ask me that?"

  "Can I have my gun back?"

  She didn't even bother to answer that one. She just giggled and whacked my chest with the back of her hand. She shifted into low and urged the truck up a steep incline.

  We were in a heavily-wooded area on the side of a hill. The truck strained and rocked back and forth over a rutted ditch as it tried to make the grade. It was tough going.

  It took a good ten minutes, but we finally made it over a rise and pulled into a small clearing. There were two rustic huts with tin roofs in the middle of the clearing.

  Some men were squatting around a pile of wooden crates, a stack of ancient rifles on the ground next to them. There were two mangy horses without saddles tied to a tree at the edge of the clearing. A thin plume of smoke came from the roof of one of the huts. The door was open and you could see a woman making tortillas over an open stove, her hands slapping the dough back and forth. Two bareass kids ran in and out of the hut, making squealing noises as they played tag.

  The men who were squatting got up and waved at Sister Angela as we drove into the clearing. There wasn't even a road, just a dirt path that we rode over. There were seven men in all. They were wearing tattered olive drab uniforms. The whole place had a bad smell, as if it was sitting on an open sewer.

  Sister Angela got out of the truck and walked over to the men. They talked for a few minutes. Then she came back to the truck and said to me, "These men will take you to meet El Ciego. I'll give th
em your gun. They'll give it back to you after your meeting and they'll see that you get a ride back to San Salvador."

  I climbed down from the truck. "Thanks," I said.

  She looked square into my eyes. "I've done my part of the deal," she said. "Now will you let me take care of my business without any trouble?"

  I shrugged. "You can do what you like. I was just talking to you like a Dutch uncle."

  "Dutch uncle or not, I don't need your advice."

  "Fair enough," I said. "But you should know that people fall all over each other and pay large sums of money just to get my advice."

  She rolled her eyes at me by way of farewell. "Take care of yourself," she said. "You're much too nice to be in this line of work."

  "So are you," I said.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Two rebels separated themselves from their comrades and came up to me. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders with the muzzles pointing down. They motioned for me to follow them.

  We fell into single file as we left the clearing and headed into the woods. I walked between them. There wasn't even a path to follow, as far as I could tell. We walked for fifteen minutes, more or less, until we got to another, smaller clearing on the side of the hill. This one didn't even have a hut, just a fire pit with some boulders in a circle around it. There was nothing else in the clearing.

  We stood there waiting. After a couple of minutes, six guerrillas came out of the woods. Five of them were wearing the same ratty olive drab uniforms. The sixth man had a new, neatly-pressed uniform. He was taller than the others. He had a full beard that was turning gray and eyes that looked far beyond me. He walked haltingly, holding a cane in one hand and the arm of the man next to him with the other. The men walked up to me.

  The blind man extended his hand in my direction. "Mister Rogan," he said. His English was unaccented.

  "You know my name?"

  "That's not all I know."

  I took his hand and shook it. "What's your name?" I asked.

  "You know my name," he said. "As a matter of fact, you've met my uncle. A most disagreeable fellow, wouldn't you say?"

  Something buried away in my memory came back. A story about a boy burned in a fire. Blinded and crippled. Hoag's story of greed, revenge and a blood feud. It had to do with an essential oil called Balsamo de Peru and a combination in restraint of trade. A dying man's deathbed request to his brother to avenge a wrong done to the family. It sounded like the stuff of operas.

  "Well, I'll be damned,” I said. "You're Dieter Strassberg's nephew." There was a momentary vision of a metal-working factory in the heart of the jungle with steam and flames rising from the ovens like a fiendish depiction of purgatory. And one son of a bitch who still had my treasured Glock.

  "A brilliant deduction," he said. "No wonder you're highly paid as a private detective."

  "Not so highly paid," I said to set the record straight. "But tell me one thing. If you were a card-carrying member of the privileged class, why did you become a revolutionary? You had everything you wanted, and then some."

  He gave me a small smile. "There is such a thing as idealism. I won't try to explain it to you, since I know your mindset. Suffice it to say that I felt a need to better the lot of the poor people of this country."

  "Then why didn't you do it through the system?" I asked him, even though I knew the answer before he said it.

  He sighed. "When I started this life ten years ago, the non-violent way wasn't possible," he said with a note of sadness. "Now, perhaps..." He spread his hands in front of him, the cane in his right hand. "But now it's too late for me."

  "No amnesty?"

  "Not for me," he said. "There's too much blood on my hands. They want me to pay for my sins."

  I took a look around at the rebels and then back at El Ciego. "Your English is very good for a guerrilla," I said.

  "How kind of you to notice. I was educated in the States, actually, and graduated from Tulane. So I'm quite familiar with your culture and all its flaws."

  "You're making a value judgment based on your prejudices. You're supposed to be value-neutral."

  He snorted. "That doesn't apply in my case since my profession depends on my prejudices."

  There was no use wasting time. I got to the point. "The reason I wanted to see you is that I'm trying to locate a man named Jaime Roderick. I was informed you had information as to where he was being held."

  "You were partly misinformed. I have a pretty good idea of who kidnapped him and the circumstances of his captivity, but I have no information concerning his whereabouts."

  "OK," I said. "Why don't you tell me what you do know."

  He started to turn in the direction of the boulders. "It's difficult for me to stand too long. My leg, you know. Do you mind if we sit?" Without waiting for an answer, he moved with the man supporting him over to the largest rock and sat on it.

  I walked over and sat on a big rock next to him.

  "Your friend was held in a room dug in the ground, with a dirt floor, cinderblock walls and wooden boards for a ceiling."

  It didn't sound like a room with too many amenities. "How do you know?" I said.

  He shrugged. "Because that's the way it's always done."

  "And who took him?"

  He moved his cane from side to side. "From what I've heard, a group of ex-military officers. But I could be wrong."

  "You don't think the Left has him?"

  "I would have heard if they did. And I’ve heard nothing. Besides, you're using the wrong tense."

  I was starting to get a bad feeling. "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "You're using the present tense. I used the past tense."

  I didn't like the way that sounded. "You mean he's dead?"

  "That's what I've heard. But that's only a rumor circulating among the revolutionaries, for what it's worth to you."

  "Was he killed?"

  He shook his head. "I don't believe so. The word is that he died of a weak heart, because he lacked his medicine."

  "You said he was taken by military officers..."

  "Ex-military officers," he corrected me.

  "And why did they do it?"

  "Look at it this way," he said. "Imagine you're a colonel in the army, living high on the hog. Your word is law. You're a demi-god. You can get as much money as you want through bribery, corruption and extortion. Then imagine the war comes to an end. You are surplus. Unnecessary baggage. Under the peace accord, the army must reduce their ranks. You're unwanted and unneeded." He ran his fingers over his beard, smoothing it out.

  "Now think of a man who had so much power and money reduced to the status of pensioner. A few colones a month income. Stripped of his power and influence. Shunned by those politicians who once courted his favor. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Ozymandias, King of Kings."

  He attempted a smile in my direction.

  "So these ex-colonels decided to pick up some loose change by kidnapping wealthy businessmen and collecting ransom money," I said.

  "Precisely. You must understand that times are hard now and there are few employment opportunities available for men who have practiced the profession of violence all their lives."

  "And these ex-officers pooled their talents and split the proceeds?"

  "That is correct," he said. "And the reason they kidnapped wealthy businessmen is that these people have the liquid funds."

  "Very cute," I said. What this guy said was starting to make sense. "But there's one thing. I made a payoff in New York. Why didn't they release Roderick?"

  He laughed. He was probably enjoying the delicious irony of big bucks passing from one dirty pocket to another.

  "Why should they? Your client was already dead. What good would that have done?"

  I couldn't answer that one.

  "Do you..." I stopped talking.

  There was a big hole in El Ciego's forehead.

  Then I heard the shot.

  I hit the deck. Specks of his brain and
skull were all over my shirt.

  Then all hell broke loose. I looked up the side of the hill and saw puffs of smoke where the sniper was located. I rolled behind a boulder for cover. It looked like the clearing was taking incoming from all sides. The rebels were shouting and running for cover as the rounds kicked up dirt all around us.

  One guerilla was hit in the back as he made for the boulders and the force turned him around before he went down with a grunt. That left six.

  They gathered in the fire pit with me, shooting back at an unseen enemy with their rifles and sidearms. It was an uneven contest. The firepower pounding us was overwhelming. The noise sounded like a jackhammer was in the hole with us, working on overdrive. The smell of gunpowder made it tough to breathe. Everybody was shouting and coughing. It was total confusion and then some.

  Then they remembered me. This uninvited stranger in the hole with them. The cause of all their present discomfort.

  "I will kill this son of a whore," one of the rebels shouted. He lowered his rifle and pointed it at my chest.

  It wasn't exactly the most cordial situation I'd ever been in. Matter of fact, it was pretty grim. My stomach tightened up like a dried pig's bladder.

  The guy next to him knocked his rifle away with the butt of his own. "Let him live," he said. "If he is alive, he may be our way out. If he is dead, they will kill all of us."

  "Good thinking," I said. "Let me be your meal ticket."

  They gave me a blank look. Maybe they didn't know what a meal ticket was.

  Another volley took out one more rebel. A slug caught him in the neck as he stuck his head up for a better look and the blood sprayed out all over the place like an oil gusher. He flapped his arms up and down as the life ran out of his body. It didn't take long.

  There were five guerrillas in the pit with me. We were hunkered down behind the boulders, wishing the pit was deeper and the rocks were bigger. But it wasn't bad cover. If we kept our heads down, it would be tough to dislodge us. We had good fields of fire in all directions around the clearing.