by James Siegel
“What happened last night?” Joanna asked.
“A USDF patrol,” she said, shaking her head. She seemed to be having a hard time meeting Joanna’s eyes.
“How many were killed? Besides Puento?”
“Four,” she said.
“I don’t care about Puento. He killed Maruja and Beatriz—I know he did—him and Tomás. He got what he deserved.”
“They care about Puento,” Galina said, still averting Joanna’s eyes.
“What were they arguing about last night?”
“Nothing,” Galina said.
“Nothing? I heard them. El doctor—some of the others. What’s wrong, Galina? Why can’t you look at me?”
“They’re angry,” Galina said.
“About Puento?”
Galina shrugged. “Not just Puento. They think . . . you brought the patrol maybe.”
“What does that mean? How could I have possibly brought the patrol?”
“They think they came looking for you.”
“For me? That’s ridiculous. How would they even know I’m here?” Joanna found that she was talking faster than normal, that her voice had taken on a slight air of desperation.
“Some of them . . . they’re only boys. Almost children. They think maybe you’re unsafe.”
“What happens when you’re unsafe, Galina?”
Galina didn’t answer. Instead, she reached down to slick back a stray hair on Joelle’s head.
“What happens to you when you’re unsafe?”
Joanna noticed Galina’s hands were shaking.
“Were Maruja and Beatriz unsafe? Is that what they decided?”
“I didn’t know about Maruja,” Galina whispered.
It was the first time she’d mentioned either of their names since Joanna discovered the bloody stain on the mattress. The first time she’d acknowledged out loud what had happened to them.
“I didn’t know about Beatriz,” Galina continued. “I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with me. I would never have . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Joanna stood up, using the wall for support. She needed it.
“Are they going to kill me?”
Galina looked up, finally met her eyes. “I told them you’re an American . . . Doing something to an American would bring more trouble.”
“Doing something? Killing. You mean killing an American. What did they say when you told them that, Galina? You’re right, Galina? Thank you for reminding us?”
Galina lifted her hands together—fingertips touching. Make a steeple, Joanna’s mom used to say. Make a steeple and pray.
“Promise me something,” Joanna whispered.
“Yes?”
“You’ll find her a good mother.”
JOANNA SPENT MOST OF THE DAY TRYING TO MEASURE HER LIFE. NOT too bad a life, she decided, but nothing exceptional either.
The thing she regretted most of all was not getting to raise her daughter. She thought she would’ve made a spectacularly good mom. It was that life she saw hurtling before her eyes—the one missed. Strolling on a carpet of leaves in Central Park on a fall afternoon, taking a spin on a hundred and one merry-go-rounds. All those mother-daughter chats they’d never have. Things like that.
That would’ve been lovely, she decided.
Toward the end of the day she noticed a tiny stream of amber light peeking through the boarded-up window. A small piece of wood was missing now, blown off in yesterday’s fusillade.
She put her face against it, drinking in the smells.
Nightshade. Peat. Chickenshit.
She put one eye there.
Galina was standing outside with someone. She could only see half of them. But she had the strong sensation she knew the other person. Those brown shoes. The tan cotton pants with a sharp crease down the front.
Yes, she thought. Of course.
What was he doing here?
FORTY-THREE
He came home from the mental hospital, locked his door, and fished the piece of folded paper out of the bottom of his sock drawer. The page he’d ripped from Miles’ phone book in an office reeking of blood.
He sat and stared at the number written in spidery blue ink.
Think of it as his lottery number.
Lotteries were a joke around the halls of his company—the kind of thing actuaries snickered at over morning coffee. These numbers were a one-in-a-million long shot that might just come in.
Cross your fingers.
He took a deep breath and dialed the long-distance number.
When they’d lost the two million dollars’ worth of drugs in the New Jersey swamp, he’d thought he’d lost something more important. The only thing in the world he had left to bargain with. He’d been wrong about that.
He’d discovered he had something even better. When he constructed the fault tree that day, he’d understood that its gnarly branches might save him. All of them.
That he might be able to bargain his family to freedom.
Only he wouldn’t be bargaining with FARC. No.
This negotiation would be conducted with a party of two, and only two.
There was Galina. And there was someone else.
It had occurred to him only when he remembered back to that awful day it began, when they’d gone to Galina’s house and woken up somewhere else.
Before their world turned topsy-turvy, while they were still making perfectly polite conversation over escopolamina-laced coffee, Galina’s lumbering dog had picked up a slipper sitting on the doormat and dropped it at someone’s feet.
Boom.
The sound of one shoe dropping, just before the other one did.
Dogs are creatures of habit.
Does Galina live alone? Paul had asked on the ride to Galina’s house. And Pablo had hesitated a long moment before saying yes. Why?
Because she didn’t live alone.
She had a husband.
“Hola?” Pablo’s voice, clear and intimate, as if he were sitting right there.
“Hello, Pablo.”
He obviously recognized his voice. Yes. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been the ensuing silence.
Paul took a deep breath. Then asked the question he’d been dreading since he’d picked up the phone—even before that, on the long ride home from the hospital.
“Are my wife and daughter still alive?”
Nothing else mattered but the answer to this question. Everything hinged on it.
“Yes,” Pablo said.
Now it was Paul’s turn to be silent. Not entirely. He gave an involuntary half-sob, the kind of sound you utter when you make it out of a vicious undertow and discover you’re surprisingly and gloriously alive.
Okay, go.
“I met your granddaughter today,” Paul said.
“Who?”
Pablo had answered the way Paul would’ve expected him to, but there was the slightest quaver in that one word that spoke volumes.
“Your granddaughter.”
“I don’t understand what—”
“The little girl you sent to America so her father wouldn’t get her. I don’t blame you. Riojas wouldn’t be my idea of an ideal son-in-law either. Are you following me so far, Pablo? If I’m speaking English words you don’t understand, please tell me. I need you to understand everything I’m saying today. Every word. Okay?”
“Yes,” Pablo said. “I understand.”
“Good. You sent your little girl to America because you wanted her to be safe. You arranged things with a lawyer we both know because you knew he could get her out of the country. And because he was going to adopt her as his own. That was the deal, Pablo. Am I right so far?”
“Yes.”
“You broke all contact with your granddaughter. You did this for her own safety. I understand. It made perfect sense. And you took comfort in knowing that she was being raised in a nice home in Brooklyn. Far away from Manuel Riojas. Under a new name. Ruth. That Miles was keeping his promise. To raise her, protect her, eve
n love her. Isn’t that what Galina made him swear?”
“Yes.”
“After all, you were keeping your part of the bargain, weren’t you? The two of you? Whenever he asked you to, whenever he gave you the word, you’d help kidnap some couple for your friends in FARC. Just like you agreed to. You did your part and Miles did his. Right?”
“My granddaughter. Where did you . . . ?”
“What did he send you, Pablo? Pictures? Birthday photos? Once a year, so you could put them in a secret album and look at them now and then? A little letter here and there so you’d know everything’s okay? What did he tell you? That Ruth’s just a typical American kid, living a typical American life? That she’s popular in school, pride of the community, the apple of her father’s eye?”
“What are you saying? Is something . . . ?”
“Let me tell you about Ruth. Listen closely. She’s not a typical American kid. Not exactly. She’s not pulling As in school. She’s not on the cheerleading squad. She’s not dating the captain of the football team. She won’t be going to the senior prom this year. Or any year. She isn’t doing any of the things Miles told you she was. None of them. That was fiction, that was made up. Do you understand?”
“Where is she?”
“Not in a nice house in Brooklyn. Not in a nice boarding school in Connecticut. She’s in a hospital.”
Silence.
“What kind of hospital. Is she sick?”
“Yes. No. Not in her body—in her mind. I have no idea what she went through back in Colombia. I can guess. I have no idea whether she was sick enough to be put in that hospital, or whether being there made her sick enough to stay. I don’t know. What I do know is that Miles never adopted her. I’m pretty sure he never intended to. The day after he picked her up, he dumped her there. She’s spent most of her life looking through bars.”
Crying. Paul could distinctly hear the sound of Pablo sobbing.
“How is she?” Pablo asked.
“How’s my wife?” Paul replied. “How’s my daughter?”
Silence again.
“What do you want?” Pablo said. Okay—he’d weathered the storm, he’d come through the other side, and now he was beginning to catch on.
“What I’ve always wanted. Them. On a plane to New York.”
Long ago Pablo and Galina had brokered a deal.
Now it was time for another one, for Paul to use the bargaining chip of all bargaining chips and implement the plan he’d hit on back in that DEA cell.
“Think of it as a prisoner exchange. FARC does exchanges all the time, don’t they? With the Colombian government or the USDF? One of theirs for one of ours? Think of this as another exchange, Pablo. Your granddaughter for my wife and child. Okay, it’s a little different this time. FARC won’t be making the exchange. You will. You and your wife. My guess is, that won’t be so easy. I don’t care. You’ll find a way to do it. Fast.”
There was one last thing.
“There’s something I haven’t told you. Are you listening? Good. Riojas might be in a federal prison here, but he’s still looking for her. You don’t want him to find her.”
FORTY-FOUR
They were on their way to the zoo.
Paul was riding in the bird-watcher’s Jeep, just the two of them.
After Paul had hung up on Pablo, he’d needed to make one more call.
The bird-watcher had given him a number if Paul needed to reach him.
Twenty minutes later he showed up at Paul’s apartment—I was in the neighborhood, he said.
Paul told him about the Bronx hospital. About Miles’ little sentencing trick from his days in juvenile court. About finally standing face-to-face with Manuel Riojas’ lost little girl.
The bird-watcher was suitably impressed.
“You want an honorary badge? We give them out to schoolkids who take the official DEA tour in Washington. You can be my real make-believe deputy.”
Paul declined. He was up to the hard part, what he needed the bird-watcher to agree to.
The exchange.
“Whoa, I don’t know about that, Paul. You didn’t mention anything about a trade. Last time I looked, that wasn’t part of my job description.”
“My wife’s an American citizen. You promised you’d help get them out. Here’s their chance. Here’s how. Miles must’ve gotten Riojas’ daughter into the country illegally. Isn’t that normal U.S. protocol—sending illegals back where they came from?”
“After suitable bureaucratic bullshit, which you cannot begin to believe. I imagine you’re talking just a little bit faster here. And the girl might—and I reiterate might—be valuable to us. Wasn’t that the nature of your enticement, Paul? The carrot you so artfully dangled in front of us?”
“She’s not going to disappear. You can make whatever arrangements you want after you send her back. Put her someplace you can see her—stick her in another hospital. I don’t care.”
He was lying, of course.
He did care.
Spending ten minutes with her in that awful place had made him care. If he could effect the trade, he’d be helping three people.
“I don’t know, Paul. You’re asking me to go outside normal channels. To put my cowboy hat on. I’d have to think about that one. By the way, did the weeping widow mention anything about illicit money? Assuming Miles didn’t blow it all on the Cleveland Cavs? There’s nothing the DEA likes better than bags and bags of ill-gotten gains. It’s how we keep score.”
“No,” Paul said. “She didn’t have a clue about any of this.”
“Okay, fair enough. You’ve done a bang-up job, Paul. First-rate. At some point we’ll have to do a full body search on his bank accounts. As far as your trade scenario, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I admit I’m kind of leaning toward helping you. I mean, fuck those little Marxists, right? They won’t be very happy when Pablo kidnaps their hostages. It puts a smile on my face just thinking about it.”
This was two days ago.
One day later the bird-watcher called him with the good news.
He’d done some thinking, run it up and down the flagpole a few times.
He’d made a few calls to overseas assets.
He’d wangled the necessary papers.
In the end he’d put his Stetson on.
The plan. The girl would be taken to a debriefing house in Glen Cove, Long Island. How much she knew was probably negligible, but it was worth the effort to find out, and worth seeing what Riojas might do when he found out they had her. They’d make sure he knew. Maybe he’d send someone to try and get her. It’s possible. They’d keep the girl there long enough to find out. To make sure Paul’s wife and daughter got on a plane. To flush Riojas’ men out of the weeds. Then, if all went according to plan, they’d reciprocate.
Paul, honorary DEA deputy and faux insurance agent of the late Miles Goldstein, would accompany the bird-watcher to Mount Ararat Hospital.
Plan on.
THEY WERE CURRENTLY ZOOMING OVER THE 138TH STREET BRIDGE. Well, not zooming, moving in fits and starts, due to construction in the left lane.
Clouds were gathering over the East River. It was late morning, hot and humid.
“Looks like rain,” Paul said.
“Thank you, Uncle Weatherbee,” the bird-watcher said.
Paul realized he still didn’t know the bird-watcher’s name. When he’d asked him, the bird-watcher said he preferred to remain an international man of mystery, then asked Paul if he’d preferred Austin Powers 1 or 2.
Yankee Stadium was looming off to the left, its graceful arches bone white against the blackening clouds. Twins vs. Yanks 7:30 tonight.
When they got to the end of the bridge, they veered left.
“Not exactly prime real estate, is it?” the bird-watcher said. “If I put my jacket on and yelled DEA, half the neighborhood would start running.”
The bird-watcher pointed out a restaurant—best chorizo in New York. He nodded at a kid in ret
ro basketball shorts, nervously bopping up and down on a graffiti-scarred street corner. Ten to one he’s pulling guard duty for a skank house.
Now they were headed up Hunters Point Boulevard.
“Ever been to the Bronx Zoo?” the bird-watcher asked.
He seemed relaxed and chatty today, as if Paul were his partner riding shotgun on a case, instead of an insurance actuary who’d taken an unfortunate detour.
“When I was a kid.”
For some reason Paul had never visited the zoo as an adult.
He knew the reason.
You go to zoos when you’re a kid.
Or when you have kids.
THE HOSPITAL SEEMED MORE OPPRESSIVE TODAY.
It might’ve been purely physical—the air-conditioning was on the blink, someone said—but Paul thought it had more to do with just being there again. Seeing it a second time let him appreciate the full awfulness of the surroundings, what it must’ve been like for Julius to stare at these salmon-pink walls for three years.
What it was like for Ruth he could only imagine.
Now she’d be leaving it behind.
He felt as if he were at the end of a marathon. Exhausted, yes, but with an exuberance that felt like hope.
After the bird-watcher had presented his credentials, they were ushered into a wood-paneled office, where the hospital administrator offered them seats. The bird-watcher had called ahead. He’d pulled strings, twisted arms, pulled rank, produced papers, done whatever a high-level DEA agent does to get what he wants. Mostly, he’d played the national security card—which, like AmEx platinum, seemed capable of opening all doors and rebuffing all dissent.
The administrator seemed glad to see them, as if he were in the company of minor celebrities. At least one minor celebrity.
“I don’t suppose you can tell me any details?” the man asked the bird-watcher in a tone of voice that suggested he was more than capable of keeping national secrets.
The bird-watcher declined.
“Let’s just say if it wasn’t crucially important, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.
The man—Theodore Hill, the degree on the wall said—nodded knowingly.