She complained, “Damn, I look like a cheap hooker.”
“We are asked to confirm the two ladies are safe. This request is from, they call themselves Operación Libertad, but it is coming also from … here is Benito, my uncle.” Buho sat upright.
In an old clip, Benito Madrigal was shown at a political rally. Following that came words that sounded of an urgent plea. “This is a message to us; it is Don Benito recorded from yesterday.” Buho’s words took on a high, excited pitch. “Gracias a Dios, he is saying he will soon be with us, and we must keep our guests safe, and … also he is saying, ‘Do not trust Archbishop Mora.’ He warns the archbishop is working for the other side. He is very sure of this.”
Maggie found the admonition to shun the archbishop odd. Apparently so did Halcón, who was frowning, still writing. During a commercial break, the four guerrillas talked spiritedly in Spanish about Benito Madrigal’s advice. They seemed encouraged if not elated by his words.
The next item caused her an odd sensation, something between déjà vu and a jolt of recognition, though she had never seen the man being interviewed: known to her as Jacques (Slack) Cardinal, her own not-so-fictitious character created out of bar chatter. He seemed not to have shaved for a week; he looked like a hard drinker, a tall shaggy man, loose of limb, a tousled crown of red hair peppered with grey.
“This man, he is a strong sympathizer to our cause.” The gerente of Mono Titi Tours listened to questions with impatient shrugs, answered in Spanish in a cantankerous voice, almost bellicose. Buho clapped. “He says Senator Walker is a dangerous fool.”
Glo was gaping at the screen with incredulity, but Halcón was laughing. “How delightful is literary irony. This is your character, Maggie, your very own Jacques Cardinal. I like this man, this ruffian, as you call him.”
Glo looked sharply at Maggie – an intense message Maggie could not decipher – then hid her consternation under laughter. “Jesus, somehow the media found some dumb donkey to take your side, Halcón.”
“Thank goodness he’s not on their list of go-betweens,” Maggie said, and felt a sharp nudge from Glo’s elbow.
Maggie yawned her way up to her room soon after dinner. Glo joined her a few minutes later, bolting the door behind her.
“Honey, I’m going to tell you something top secret. Maybe I should have told you earlier, but it came from bedroom talk with Chester. That real-life character of yours, Slack Cardinal, he’s not just your ordinary jungle buzzard. Chester found out he spent some years with the CIA doing undercover shit.”
“Are you putting me on?”
“He’s been hiding out here – Jacques Cardinal is a pseudonym.”
“Hiding from whom?”
“Everyone, he said. I reckon an infiltrator of terrorists makes a lot of enemies. They retired him after he screwed up big-time; he caused a messy ruckus with the French government.”
“You are talking about the Quepos pisstank?”
“The one and only, my sunset tour guide. I was right curious about his history, and I asked him a whole lot of questions. He got as nervous as a sore-tailed cat and I promised I’d keep his secrets.”
A spy who had retired under a cloud, a former infiltrator … Maggie was having difficulty readjusting the picture; it did not want to hang properly for her.
“A ‘strong sympathizer to our cause.’ I reckon I know what’s going on, Maggie.” Glo suggested a scenario: the CIA was seeking to plant Slack Cardinal inside Comando Cinco de Mayo, or at least setting him up as an acceptable go-between. They broke off discussion when they heard Tayra coming up the stairs.
“Not a word to your pal, Halcón, okay?” Glo left to help Tayra haul up her bedding.
No, it would not be wise to mention any sunset kayak cruise, nor to hint at the subversive role Cardinal might play. All Halcón knew was that Glo had encountered Slack in a restaurant — Glo had regaled them about the kayaker quarrelling with her husband and laying low someone from their party. When Maggie reflected, she could see that Halcón would view the episode as being to Slack’s credit.
Maggie lit a candle on her writing table, then pondered: a disgraced former spy? How intriguing – but was he hiding from the world, as Glo had intimated, or from himself? I like this ruffian, Halcón had said. The captain of Cinco de Mayo might profoundly err and take the bait.
She had found a writing pad downstairs and had already begun to record her impressions of the last ten days. Dr. Fiona Wardell would go on sabbatical while she composed a truer, more electric tale. But she could barely raise her pen; she was fatigued almost beyond measure from her day of toil and her nightlong gruelling trudge. Creative Writing 403: A bad writer has a hundred excuses not to start. A good writer has only ten. Where to begin this twenty-first-century odyssey? Where better but the here and now …
It is December twenty-second, a pitch-dark night, and only a fluttering candle illuminates these opening words of the bizarre adventure I am living. I find it almost impossible to conceive that only eleven days ago I was pouring hot coffee into the frozen lock of my car door, my nose pinched red by the harsh winds. But now I am caressed by warm breezes that suffuse the air with the perfume of angels’ trumpets – flowers that unfurl unseen in the tropical night. From the buzzing jungle come the trilling of crickets and the moans of the Río Naranjo.
Yet I am in a prison and my life is in danger. I must never forget that.
The music of the night is lulling, and I am so exhausted …
– 3 –
On the morning of the third day of my confinement at the Darkside, I rise to birdsong and I stretch and look out the window. It is raining again, but bees and butterflies are dancing among the citrus blossoms and my wren is singing. Yesterday, during Spanish class, several capuchins came by to see the humans behind the bars: white-faced monkeys, or cariblancos, as Buho calls them. Glo and I tried to coax them closer, but they held back shyly in the trees.
Tomorrow is Christmas Day, but it will surely be far from a traditional one. My memories are of skating on the pond, gifts piled high and mincemeat pie, Aunt Ruthilda in the kitchen, my mother directing traffic. But Lake Lenore seems far away, impossible and unreal …
Maggie put aside her notepad and rose from bed, pulling on panties that had probably survived their last washing — the elastic spent, one cheek hanging by a thread. Her shorts were also wearing out; someone had better provide new issue soon or she would be baring her bottom.
The morning sun was throwing barred patterns on the walls: her watch read seven-fifteen. Halcón had returned it to her after sorting through the valuables in the lock-closet. Peeking over his shoulder, she had seen the guns; Halcón’s short-wave radio was there, too, also a Polaroid camera.
Downstairs, she found Buho preparing the day’s lesson – the young man was teaching Maggie and Glo Spanish for three hours every morning, using an old textbook they had found. Buenas tardes, señor. Donde está el baño? He was an excellent teacher.
Glo was reclining in a tasselled hammock, reading. “ ‘The portals of success could open for you,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘but think twice about seizing the first opportunity.’ ”
“I beg your pardon?”
Glo showed her a book she had found while rummaging: The Complete Annual Horoscopes. She read: “ ‘Don’t give in too quickly to the many signs of attention coming from that special person.’ That must mean Zorro.” He didn’t hear; he was still slumbering in another hammock.
Tayra was in the kitchen scrambling the last of their eggs; Maggie began squeezing oranges. The fridge had been full when they arrived, but with so many mouths to feed, supplies were running low. Maggie wondered how they planned to restock. One does not simply wander down to the nearest pulpería and order five kilos of rice – a buying spree would raise eyebrows and loosen tongues. Already, a local farmer had briefly engaged Coyote after catching him urinating from the bodega staircase. Coyote had explained he was a caretaker for absentee landlords.
“He speaks the c
ommon slang,” Halcón had assured her. “No one will mistake him for a member of the revolutionary elite.” At any event, the authorities were not looking here for their suspects. Maggie had sent them wandering off into the Talamanca forest.
The house looked clean-scrubbed now, the tiled floor made glossy by a second coat of wax. From the windows hung polished crystals, slowly turning in the breeze, dappling the gaudy walls with the purer colours of the spectrum.
After breakfast, Maggie and Glo sat down with Buho. Lesson three, Anna and Carlos go to a restaurant: Te gusta la salsa picante?
The rain had relented, and Halcón was outside, playing solitaire at a concrete table. Lacking cigarettes, he had been of brittle temper, but his edginess did not translate into a lack of dexterity. His nimble hands expertly riffled the deck and he made a clean one-handed cut. His card skills, he’d told Maggie, had been sharpened in Caribbean casinos, where he had been a dealer and a croupier. Soldier of fortune, gambler, aficionado of history, of the arts — he could walk into any salon and be embraced by the most priggish of its snobs.
It came as no great surprise to her that he admitted to a postgraduate degree in history. But he had rejected the soft life of an academic, becoming an adviser to the Zapatistas, a fugitive, hunted by the Mexican army, forever moving camps, hiding in the homes of poor peons. Chile, Guatemala, South Africa — where had he not been? Sometimes, though, he became confused about his dates — he had himself lying near death in a Bogotá hospital when, according to an earlier account, he was serving with Cuban soldiers in Angola.
Maggie could not bear to imagine how many women he had slept with; she had not coaxed his romantic history from him but would not have been surprised if he was on the run from a former partner. She found anomalous and strange that he continued to confide in her. He seemed to enjoy flirting with her, too. But however flattered she felt, she knew she must constantly check her feelings; there had been erotic fantasies, followed by self-rebuke.
She called to him: “Can I pick more fruit?” She had been allowed a guarded outing yesterday.
“Yes, but let me help.” Halcón rose and unclipped the keys from his belt.
Glo paused from her splits and stretches in the living room to call to Halcón: “When’s my turn?”
“Tomorrow, Señora Walker, I will give you a tour of the gardens.” He was invariably formal with Glo, and, like a dog once bitten, had steered clear of her after their wrestle beside the highway.
Glo’s comportment had been excellent since their arrival here: much teasing and suggestive banter but no unpleasant eruptions. Zorro had not managed to grow on her, but she hid her antipathy behind a condescending smile. He was awake now, staring slack-mouthed at Glo, braless in a faded cotton T-shirt. Yesterday, in his presence, she had complained: “Well, damn, I’ve worn out all my undies. I surely don’t enjoy going around without anything underneath.”
Maggie did not know why Glo insisted on playing this risky game, taunting the excitable Zorro. Especially right now while Tayra, with a plate of food for Coyote in the guardhouse, was standing at the front door waiting to be let out. She gave Zorro a look that could draw blood.
Halcón led Maggie across the patio into the orchard, under a spreading orange tree laden with fruit. A nearby lime tree was in white, sweet-scented bloom.
“I will be your ladder,” Halcón said as he knelt. Maggie hesitated, unsure of protocol. “Climb onto me,” he ordered. He lowered his head, and Maggie hoisted herself on top of his back, and, for whatever unlikely reason, underwent a reaction akin to that of fear of flying. He grasped her waist, ducked his head between her thighs, and bore her upwards on his shoulders, but staggered back a step. Trying to stay balanced, Maggie wrapped her hands under his chin. Her shirt rode up and a tuft of his jet-black hair tickled her bare skin.
Wordlessly, taking deep breaths to slow her heart, she straightened up, pulled down her shirt, passed the basket down, and began handing him the oranges she plucked. He had not shaved for two days, and his stubble prickled her thighs, but with his neck cradled tightly against her pelvis she was feeling other, warmer sensations.
She was forced to close her legs around him as he walked her to another bough, his hand gripping her above the knee. She was facing the house now, and could see Glo upright in her hammock, staring at them. Maggie wiggled her fingers and tried to smile.
The basket full, she slid from him with a leg-flailing lack of grace, landing on her behind. She refused his hand and hurriedly turned from him, began picking up a few stray oranges.
Together, they carried the filled basket to the concrete table, where he lit one of the cigarette butts he had saved on the trek. “What do you think about this Jacques Cardinal?” he asked. “It is like an omen that this character was plucked by you for your novel and now appears to us again. This strange man with a kayak business, he is brave to speak so loudly on our behalf. But you say he is a drunkard.”
Maggie was in a dilemma: should she encourage Halcón to take the bait, or would she be endangering lives? She was not at all sure that she wanted someone with a history of causing diplomatic crises to barge his way into this already-risky situation.
“I think he could be a dangerous friend.”
“Why would you not trust him?”
“Someone called him a walking disaster.”
“I sense a rebel spirit in him – though perhaps he is not too bright.” He gazed thoughtfully at the distant mountains. “You have not yet been to the river.”
He led her toward an opening in the forest, where stone steps curled down a steep rocky knoll. The river was a hundred metres distant, sounding with unremitting thunder as they neared it. Then came into view a roaring cascade, water spouting over a two-metre ledge before seeking escape between giant boulders, its course widening in the shallows below. They sat together on the bank.
“In the summer, it is smaller, and there are places to bathe, but with the rains it is dangerous.”
“I’ll believe you. But it’s beautiful.”
“You add to it.”
He was looking intensely at her; she felt giddy.
“You are so simpática, Maggie. Your courage in these difficult times has helped raise my own spirits.”
Her mind did not quite go blank; she saw events clearly, but some external force was acting on her. She turned to him and kissed him on the mouth, and was then unable to pull away. He neither responded nor withdrew, and she disengaged and quickly rose.
Stunned at her audacity, she ran back up the steps, stumbling in her haste. He followed at a distance in silence.
Blushing crimson, she dared not look him in the face as she retrieved her basket of oranges and waited for him at the door. But he said nothing as he escorted her inside, lighting another butt.
Glo, who had returned to her stretches, made matters worse by saying, “And what have you two been up to?” Maggie responded with a stiff smile.
She fled to the bathroom feeling almost faint at the thought of the brash act she had committed. This was a wake-up call. Maggie was modern, mature; she was not about to succumb to those wild emotions she wrote about under the name of Nancy Ward. She took a few deep breaths and tried desperately to obliterate the kiss from her mind. It didn’t happen.
Tense with embarrassment, Maggie sat as far as she could from Halcón, unable to meet his eyes as they settled over dinner to watch the evening news: the odd family, four terrorists and two captive tourists, paying homage to the electronic Cyclops. St. Nicholas, according to a satellite tracker, had departed the North Pole and was on a bearing for Central America. The announcer traded a smile for a scowl as he turned to Operación Libertad and the hostage crisis. The search was now being concentrated in an area north of the Pan-American Highway. Buho interpreted: “It is believed the kidnappers spent the night in this dwelling.”
They watched footage of police examining the dilapidated structure in which they had waited out the night. Surely they must have found her
note, but no mention was made of it, or of any injured man having been taken to hospital. Maggie wondered if Gordo and his young companions had slipped the net.
Suddenly, there was her mother – staring nervously at the camera, her dad next to her, shifting in his chair, uncomfortable, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Maggie began swallowing hard, too, as Beverley and Woodrow Schneider took turns pleading for their daughter’s safety, beseeching the kidnappers to look within their souls for charity in this season of good-will.
Maggie burst into tears just as they cut away to commercials and stumbled up to her room, where she fell onto the bed and buried her face in a pillow. That had been taped on location, in Quepos.
Glo came to her a minute later, her eyes also wet. “The season of joy,” she said, carefully closing the door.
“I’m okay. I’ll get over it.”
“That had Buho wiping his eyes, too.” She sat on the bed and stroked Maggie’s hair.
Halcón announced himself outside the door. “Upe. Con permiso.”
Glo let him in. He was holding the Polaroid camera. “I will prove to them that you have not been harmed.”
He sat them down, moved close, and aimed, and there came a click and a flash.
A growl of engine awoke Maggie in the night, her eyes blinking open to the play of light on her wall, a bright beam diffused by leafy branches. Then the headlights were switched off and the engine was cut. The glowing dials of her watch told her it was three-fifteen.
No lights came on in the house, but from the window she could make out the vehicle under the fattening moon: an old Jeep, Zorro walking toward it. He turned and looked in her direction, and she ducked but continued to peek over the sill.
When the driver opened his door, a cab light momentarily went on, and she could see he was blond, his ponytailed hair falling to mid-back. Here was a gringo confederate – might he also be the Pink Floyd fan?
It came to her suddenly who this man was: the ear-ringed manager of the Eco-Rico office in San José. I used to run tours for these guys; now they got me down here clicking slides, man. How had he introduced himself? Elmer Jericho, devotee of interstellar travel. He was clearly a veteran of the sixties, perhaps of antiwar demonstrations. Had he helped plan the kidnapping?
The Laughing Falcon Page 21