Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

All the houses on the block front directly onto a narrow sidewalk on each side of the street, several of them with bushes and vines invading the sidewalk. The roadway itself is wide enough for only a single car, so that several of them are parked partway on the sidewalk.

  I point out Katia’s house to Herman.

  “I see it.” At the moment he is more interested in several cars parked on each side, from here to the end of the block. We start to walk.

  As we reach the house at the other end of the block, I tell him, “It’s the first arched gate.”

  Herman turns his head and takes a look. By the time we get to the end of the block, Herman seems satisfied that all of the cars are empty. Still, he keeps walking around the corner to the right as if we are leaving the area. I follow him.

  Ten feet around the corner he stops. “I don’t like it. Too much light from that pole,” he says.

  I step back to the corner again so I can see. Herman is right. The entrance is lit up like a spotlight on a stage, with the streetlight directly above the locked gate leading to the front door. A car turning the corner or somebody walking down the street is going to see us in a heartbeat, standing out in front working on the lock.

  I step back to where he is standing. “I don’t know of any other way in,” I tell him.

  “I’m just gonna have to work fast,” he says. “Can you whistle?”

  “What?”

  “Can you whistle? You know, like the lady said, put your lips together and blow?”

  I try it. My lips are dry and nothing comes out. I lick them and try again. This time I get a weak whistle.

  “It’ll have to do,” says Herman. “I want you to stay here. You see a car comin’ or anybody walking this direction you whistle. And make it loud enough so I can hear it.” He pulls a small black plastic case from his pocket, opens it, and selects a lock pick and another tiny curved tool of some kind.

  “What if somebody comes from the other end of the street, up the steps?” I say.

  “You’d have to be crazy to walk there in the dark,” says Herman.

  “We just did.”

  “Yeah, but the locals aren’t stupid.” Herman smiles at me. “Just remember to whistle, and make it loud so I can hear it.”

  Before I can wet my lips again, Herman is back around the corner and down the sidewalk. I watch as he crosses the street on a diagonal and walks to the far end of the house and directly up to the arched gate. Hunched over, with his back to me, he starts working with the pick on the lock.

  It was the problem with a lot of the countries in Latin America; even if they had access to natural gas they never developed the infrastructure, the pumping stations, and the underground pipes to deliver it, at least not for domestic use.

  Fortunately for him, the kitchen Liquida was in this evening had a nice new gas stove. It was hooked up to a large propane tank. He was guessing close to a thousand gallons. The tank was situated in an area that had once been a garage at the back of the place. As far as he was concerned, it was as good as natural gas. In fact, it was probably better. Propane burned faster and hotter than natural gas and was therefore more efficient. It took less time to cook or, for that matter, to do other things.

  Tonight it was one of those other things that Liquida was working on. He had easily slid the stove out and turned off the gas valve where the line came out of the wall. He unscrewed the nut holding the compression fitting from the copper line feeding propane into the stove and was busy installing the small unit that was not much bigger than a deck of cards. It had two quarter-inch copper tubes coming out of each end, both with compression fittings. He screwed one end to the propane line coming out of the wall and the other end to the feed line into the stove. He tightened the fittings with a wrench. When he was satisfied that they were snug, he turned the valve and listened for any hissing of gas. It was silent. He sniffed the air close to the unit—nothing.

  Then he picked up the small set of controls from the countertop where he had left it. There were all kinds of buttons and switches, along with a tiny joystick toggle. The unit was designed to control model airplanes in flight. But Liquida cared about only two of the buttons. He pressed one of them and listened once more. This time there was the distinctive hiss of gas as propane leaked from a hole in the side of the little box. Some of the vapor turned to liquid dripping from the hole as it continued to run. He pressed the button again and the hissing sound stopped. He reached down, wiped away the liquid, and watched the small hole. There was no more dripping. Liquida smiled; another job well done.

  Herman was hunched over the lock cylinder in the gate with the tension wrench, holding back four of the pins. He was working on the last one, feeling for it with the pick, when suddenly there was a loud whistle from the corner behind him, at the end of the block.

  “Shit!” Herman whispered under his breath. He looked back over his shoulder while trying not to pull the tiny tools from the lock. Paul was standing at the corner motioning, drawing one hand with his finger out stretched across his throat, a sign to cut and run. A second later the bright beam of headlights lit him up from behind.

  Herman pulled the pick and the wrench from the lock, put his hands in his pockets, and started walking casually back toward the corner where Paul was standing. For an instant the oncoming headlights blinded him as the car turned the corner. It slowed as the driver turned to look, checking Herman out closely. Then the car drove on down the street. It slowed again as the motorized metal doors on a garage in front of a house two doors down from Katia’s started to grind and squeak as they opened. Herman continued to walk and watch as the car pulled into the garage and the doors reversed the groaning and closed behind it.

  By then Herman had reached Paul, at the corner.

  “Damn it. I almost had it.”

  “You told me to warn you.”

  “I know. She took a good look when she went by. I doubt they get a lot of walkin’ traffic at night on this street. Bein’ a dead end and all,” says Herman. “We better give it a couple of minutes so she’s not peeking through the front window when I go back.”

  Liquida was sliding the stove back into place when he heard a noise out on the front street. He stopped and listened. A car went by, headlights flashing as they blazed past the window in the dining room. He left the stove where it was and headed for the window, which was about six or eight steps up on a landing where the stairs turned and went up to the bedrooms on the second story. The view out was partially obscured by a thorny bush whose branches wound their way through the wrought-iron metal bars that guarded the window on the outside.

  By the time Liquida looked out, the car was gone. But as he looked the other way, to the left, he saw a man walking away, crossing the street. The guy was huge, a black man, bald as a cue ball, with shoulders like a bull. If he was Tico he was on supersteroids.

  The man was nearing the walkway on the other side of the street. Liquida was just about to turn from the window when another man stepped from the shadows near the corner. The two of them stopped to talk.

  Liquida looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to eleven. It was a strange time for a conversation out on the street, too late to be coming home from work and too early for the bars to have closed. When he looked back the two men were gone.

  He thought about it for a moment, then went back to the kitchen and finished sliding the stove back into place. He checked to make sure that everything looked just right. It probably didn’t matter. By the time she arrived in the morning, if everything went as planned, she would never have a chance to make it to the kitchen. He would snag her at the front door with the chloroform. He would then arrange her on the floor in front of the stove for her accident. They would find her bones mixed in with all the ashes, probably under the house where the stove would have burned through the floor. And they would never think anything more about it.

  After all, this was not the United States where authorities had gadgets to sniff the air and endless money to sift all t
he debris through screens looking for the reason the gas had exploded. By then, the little plastic box in the back would be vaporized, its metal parts, like everything else that was once part of the house, now just pieces of charred junk to be shoveled into the back of a truck and hauled away.

  Liquida was putting away his wrench and closing the lid on his small plastic tool container when he heard a noise again. He glanced back at the window. This time there was no car out on the street. The noise came from out near the front door. He listened. Then he heard it again.

  He slid the small toolbox into his left pocket, pulled the knife from the other pocket, and punched the levered button on the side of the handle. The needle-sharp blade snapped open.

  Liquida stepped silently through the dining room, then cut through the corner of the living room into the entry, where he pressed himself against the wall next to the entrance to a small powder room near the front door. He stood inches off to the side of the entrance, the knife drawn up in his left hand, close to his ear, ready to be thrust the instant the door opened.

  Whoever it was didn’t have a key. They were scratching at the lock with a pick, working on the wrought-iron gate outside. The gate formed a barrier leading to a small exterior entry area maybe four or five feet square. Once through the gate, whoever was there would be in the shadows of the entry area, free to work on the lock at the front door.

  Liquida glanced at the inside of the door. It was solid enough, thick tropical hardwood of some kind, but the lock and handle assembly was cheap and very old. It wouldn’t hold for more than a few seconds. Liquida knew this because it was the same way he had entered.

  There was a small rectangular viewing port cut at eye level in the wood of the door. The port was open, uncovered on the inside, and protected only by a small brass grid on the outside.

  Liquida took a chance and glanced quickly through the opening. The man outside the gate was bent over, looking down, working on the lock. Liquida couldn’t see his face but he could see the bald head and broad shoulders. It was the man he had seen crossing the street. Liquida was sure of it.

  He pressed his head back against the wall and thought for a moment. He considered the razor-sharp blade in his hand, and weighed it against the size of the man outside. Even if he could kill him, how would he dispose of the body? Authorities wouldn’t think twice about a woman who died in her own house in an accidental fire. But an unidentified male who died with her would raise questions. And what about the other man, up at the corner? Was he still there? If he came down to join his big friend in the house after the locks were picked, Liquida would have his hands full.

  He listened as the sharp metal worked the lock in the gate outside. If he was going to do anything, he had to do it now. His eyes scoured the entry area for something, anything he could use to drive the man away. But it was the back of Liquida’s right arm and his elbow scratching something on the wall behind him that found the answer. He moved quietly away from the wall, turned, and looked down. There was a plastic cover plate and two light switches mounted on the wall between the front door and the door to the bathroom. He leaned into the bathroom and checked the wall inside with his right hand. There was no switch on the wall. Liquida guessed that the switch on the right, outside the door, was for the light in the bathroom. The other switch had to be an entry light. There was no overhead light in the interior entry itself, just a floor lamp in one corner. It was possible that the switch turned on the lamp.

  Liquida eased over and looked through the port in the front door one more time, just as the locked bolt snapped open on the metal gate. There was an overhead light in the ceiling of the entry area outside. Liquida reached over and flipped the switch.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Liquida heard the tinkle of metal on the concrete walkway out front, and then footsteps as the man retreated from the wrought-iron gate.

  Liquida smiled. In his panic the big one had dropped his lock pick. He listened as the loud sound of rubber soles slapping concrete on the street diminished into the distance toward the dark stairs at the dead end of the street.

  By the time he turned off the entrance light and opened the front door, the man had disappeared into the darkness. Liquida could still hear the faint sound of the man’s heavy footfalls as he ran. He waited several seconds, until the sounds disappeared in the distance. Then he swung open the gate and stepped out onto the sidewalk, under the streetlight. He looked down, then stooped to the cement and pinched the tiny lock pick between his fingers. He stood up and looked in the other direction, toward the corner where he had seen the two men talking earlier. The other guy was gone. Or else he was hiding around the corner. Liquida figured he couldn’t have gotten far. If they had a car it would be in the other direction, where the big man ran when the light went on. Instinct would drive him toward safety. And there was no way for his friend to have joined him. Liquida had him cut off.

  He moved quickly back into the house. This time he didn’t bother to lock or even close the gate behind him. He wouldn’t be there that long.

  FORTY

  As Herman works the lock, I stand at the corner. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, and my attention begins to wander.

  As I look around, I suddenly realize that if things go bad, there are no yards to hide in or fences that can be jumped easily. As far as I can see, in every direction the buildings all butt up against one another. There are a few gated side yards and two high iron fences, but all of them are guarded by large rolls of razor wire coiled and stretched along the top.

  I look away and am thinking that they must have a problem with home security in Costa Rica when suddenly I hear Herman’s voice saying something unpleasant.

  By the time I look back, Herman is moving away from the gate. The next thing I know, he turns, running in full flight, down the street and away from me, toward the darkness and the stairs at the other end.

  I can’t tell what has happened. My first instinct is to follow him. Herman must have managed to pick the lock, because the gate at the front of the house is open just slightly. Then I notice the hand gripping one of the wrought-iron bars.

  Without even thinking I seem to levitate back around the corner until I find myself on one knee, peeking around the stucco siding. Whoever is coming out of the house is now between Herman and me. There is no way I can follow Herman, and nowhere to hide.

  It was, of course, possible that the two men had selected this house under the bright streetlight, and this night, for a random burglary. But Liquida was never one to embrace coincidence. It was the reason he had stayed alive so long.

  To Liquida there was only one other person who knew he would be here, his employer. He had taken pains to inform the man that because of previous commitments, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the woman’s house in San José until the following evening. He remembered because his employer, the man in Colombia, wrote back to confirm this.

  By now I am down on my stomach on the sidewalk, peering with one eye around the corner of the building across the street, watching the entrance to Katia’s house.

  My mind is racing. All I can see is the hand gripping the iron bar on the gate. If it is a woman, it might be Katia’s mother. It is possible she has arrived home and Harry was wrong. Perhaps her cell phone is out of order.

  If she steps out onto the sidewalk, if I could be sure it’s her, I might take a chance and approach her, try to introduce myself in the hope that somehow she might have gotten word that her daughter is in trouble in the States.

  I’m hoping that her English might be better than my Spanish when the gate suddenly opens and a man steps out. He is lit from head to toe under the blaring gaze of the streetlight, looking the other way, toward the dark end of the street where Herman has disappeared.

  I’m studying him when suddenly and without warning he turns and looks directly at the corner of the building where I am hiding. I pull my head back close to the edge of the house and hold my breath. I can’t be sure
if he’s seen me. If he hasn’t, it is only because I am close to the ground and his eyes are searching up higher. Still, I have the feeling, the way he snaps his head in my direction and looks over here, that somehow he knows I am here.

  It is possible he might be one of Rhytag’s agents, but not likely. If the FBI is camped in the house, perhaps with the assistance of the Costa Rican police, they would have allowed Herman to enter and then bagged him to find out what he was after.

  Katia never mentioned any male residents in the house. So who the hell is he? I take a chance. With my chin on the concrete, I edge toward the corner of the building until my right eye clears it. The man is bent over, picking something up off the ground. Then he suddenly disappears, back into the house. But he doesn’t close the gate, he leaves it ajar, which means he’s coming back.

  I stand up and start to collect my thoughts, realizing that if he comes this way, I’m going to be out on the sidewalk all alone, with nowhere to hide. I try to check off in my mind the routes on the map that would take me back to the Sportsmens Lodge.

  I could turn and run down the street behind me. It’s well lit. At the next corner, if I turn right and run another block, by the time I got to the end of the street I should be almost at the front entrance to the lodge. That’s if I read the map correctly. If the FBI was set up out in front, they couldn’t miss me.

  Or I could go in the opposite direction, across the street and up one block. I know with certainty what lies in that direction: the fence that bounds the zoo and the winding lane that runs alongside it. It would be dark as pitch, but if I followed the lane it would loop around and take me past the stairs at the other end of Katia’s street, where Herman disappeared. Retrace my steps a few hundred yards farther on and I would come to the green door at the back of the Sportsmens Lodge.

  Without thinking twice I bolt across the street and dodge behind the corner of the house on the other side. I stop for a second to catch my breath and try to dismiss the thought that he might have been watching through one of the windows when I broke cover.