“They should just pay these people something and send them off to Cuba,” she said.
“Chester’s too ornery to do that.”
In that case, Maggie decided, she must get word out that the kidnappers were well meaning; they must not be harmed. Maybe the key was Jacques Cardinal – Halcón must be persuaded to let her talk to him, to demand assurances.
But Glo offered a grim scenario: “It’ll be too late. They’ll follow Cardinal out here. This place has huge windows, there’s nowhere to hide. They’ll have floodlights. They’ll have about ten sharpshooters; they’ll each have a target and orders to kill.”
“Gloria-May! For God’s sake, don’t talk that way. We’re not going to let anyone get hurt.”
“Snipers — that’s how Chester will do it. I know how he thinks; I’ve been married to him too long.”
Her last sentence hung in the air for a few moments. She looked so sad and beautiful, the candlelight playing on her breasts.
“Too long, Glo?”
“You know what I mean. Hey I love him; we’re just on different wavelengths.” That seemed an understatement: she had loathed the politico-military world into which marriage had plunged her, had expressed herself as hating every second of her two years in Washington.
“You knew what you were getting into.”
Glo sighed. “I was twenty-seven. I thought I was over the hill. I’d seen what happened to some of the other girls. I was too scared to walk away from the altar.”
“What do you mean, the other girls?”
“Oh, you know, friends in the business.” Their conversation abruptly ended. “I’m tuckered out. I’m crawling in.”
Maggie blew out the candle, and they covered themselves with the sheet. She was tired, too, but jangled by thoughts of the disastrous events Glo had augured. Should she warn Halcón? Do not trust Slack Cardinal, he is an infiltrator, a spy … But that could ruin a well-planned attempt at a bloodless rescue. Glo had been posing the worst possible outcome. Surely they would want to negotiate first.
She tried to shut off the turmoil in her head, focusing on the night sounds, the whistle and whir and chirping from the jungle, the grumble of the river. An owl hooted. Or was it a moan from the other room? The bed began to creak again.
The erotic energy emanating from across the hall made Maggie restless. She could tell sleep was not coming easily for Glo, either; she kept shifting positions.
“You ever try it with another woman?”
Maggie was startled by the question; it seemed fraught with hazardous prospects.
“No.” That time with her cousin didn’t count, an adolescent examining.
“I’m not going to suggest we try it; I was just thinking … Cooped up here, those guys grunting and thrashing all night, how can you not think of sex? Ever do a threesome?”
“No, and not many twosomes, either.”
“I did more than my fair share … Are we off the record?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t want this appearing in a damn book that’s going to be in every store window.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I specialized in Japanese guys, suits from Tokyo, humongous expense accounts. Some of those old boys would pay incredibly large for two girls.”
“You were a prostitute?”
“Less crassly put: an escort, my dear, with an exclusive gold card listing. Seven-fifty a pop – that was real money then. Yeah, honey, I did some bad things. Freckle-faced runt of fifteen, I wasn’t wasting any more of my life in Tuscaloosa. I was going plunk straight to Hollywood to fuck a producer, get into the flicks. Only instead I got stuck in the desert, and had to hustle a bit, and I found it paid. Did it for a few years until someone realized I could also dance. Graduated from honky-tonk bar to chorus line.”
Maggie did not know what to say. “Glo, that’s outrageous.”
“Don’t you whisper nary a word. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“Obviously, Chester doesn’t know.”
“And no one he knows knows. Just a bunch of rich Japanese know; maybe the entire board of directors of the Sony Corporation knows, and they’re not saying. To Chester, I was just a sweet southern belle with a sense of rhythm trying to raise money for college tuition.”
“I don’t know what to say. I feel actually … honoured you told me.”
“Because I trust you. More than my own sister. If I had one. Always wanted a sister.” Maggie pressed Glo’s hand. The gesture was returned with a hug and a kiss.
VARIOUS VIEWS FROM THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE
– 1 –
Slack wedged his Rover between a pair of almond trees and cut the engine. The beach was deserted tonight, everyone heading down to the New Year’s Eve baile, a popular salsa band from San José at Maracas, the dance hall by the Palma Tica dock.
Memo’s, a beach food-and-booze outlet, was closing up, a waiter turning off the lights, but this is where Slack’s anonymous caller said they would meet. “Say in about an hour, it’s about something that’s big in the news, man.” That was at ten, now it was just after eleven, no sign of him, he was probably a crank.
Slack hadn’t planned on going out tonight, revelry would disturb his equilibrium. The folks at Operación Libertad wouldn’t be doing much partying, either, there’d been several useless forays into the Talamanca, all blind alleys. A few days ago, another note arrived at the U.S. Embassy: “The five names are rejected. We are deadly serious, please be serious, too.” The word “mortalmente” — deadly – was underlined in red.
The note was accompanied by a Polaroid of the two captive women in ragged clothes, holding hands, Gloria-May forcing a smile, Maggie melancholy, her expression wistful. Most of the background had been cut away with scissors, but the women seemed to be sitting on a bed, so they were no longer out in the weather – but in what hideaway? The Central Valley seemed likely, the note had been mailed in San José.
Op Libertad had responded by broadcasting a plea to the gang: offer your own list of mediators. Should Slack’s name appear on it, he would reluctantly accept.
Where was the mysterious caller? Slack walked around the cement tables to the water, high tide now, an exhausted breaker swishing by his sandals. The moon was full, its silver light prancing on the waves. As he sat on one of the outdoor stools, the waiter, Miguel, glanced at him. Slack recognized him from the squatters’ village, he figured to be a jerk, one of Camacho’s many distant cousins.
He was pleased to be able to sit and nurse his bruises from that street fracas, a bunch of drunken cretins egged on by El Chorizo. Slack hadn’t been sure he could handle them all by himself, and had to admit that his shadow had finally proved his worth. But tonight Joe Borbón had been given leave from guard duty – astonishingly, the killing machine had proved capable of the higher emotions, he’d gone sweet on that girl from the squat, Camacho’s sister, he’d escorted her to the New Year’s Eve soirée.
Miguel approached. “I am sorry, we are closed, Señor Cardinal.”
“I’m waiting for someone.” Was he going to order him off the premises? It might take some gall, this establishment was trespassing on the public beachfront.
“But I would like you to have this.” Miguel extended a litre of Ron Abuelo. “It is to thank you for your support of our church.”
The fifty dozen cases of beer. “Yeah, thanks.”
As Miguel departed, Slack looked dejectedly at the bottle, it looked alluring. This was the Roman calendar’s great night of celebration, the thirty-first of December, the end of a bad year, Borbón was a couple of miles away. But he kept his perspiring hands off the screw cap. His portrayal in Maggie Schneider’s book as an ignoble drunk still rankled. A farm girl turned copywriter, composing romantic slurp as a sideline, why had she targeted him?
He heard a crunch of foot on dried almond leaves, and turned to see someone in the shadows, watching him. Tall and thin, a long ponytail pulled tight behind his ears, mid- or l
ate-fifties. Slack had an uncertain feeling he’d seen him before.
The man approached with a lazy shuffling motion, he was wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed, “Don’t sweat it.” From the thick roll-your-own pressed between thumb and forefinger came the fragrant odour of cannabis.
He extended it as he sat. “Toke?”
Slack hesitated. He didn’t handle pot very well, but it wasn’t on the prohibited list and might dull the need for drink. He took one short sweet suck, and realized this stuff was potent, not the usual seedy junk available around here. He passed the joint back.
“You don’t know me, but I heard a lot about you, a guy who don’t take no shit, who sings his own tune.” He spoke with a relaxed drawl. Slack had seen him, or a photograph. “Heard you was wanted on some kind of counterfeit beef, how’s that going?”
“Bum rap. They got me mixed up with someone else.”
“Yeah, I bet. You gonna offer me a drink of that?”
“Help yourself.”
“Hey, man, happy new year.” Don’t-Sweat-It unscrewed the cap, wiped his lips, slugged back a healthy dollop of rum, and belched. “Check out that moon. I figure it’s stingy of the universe to give us only one. Jupiter’s a hog, it’s got sixteen.”
“Those are the breaks.” Slack was feeling uncomfortably stoned.
“They’re all different, them moons of Jupiter. Some are almost all gas. One of them, Io, has got volcanoes. Spews shit into the sky.”
The moon expert tamped down his bomber and pocketed it. Slack could hear the thump of electrified bass all the way from the Quepos dock, the volume turned up as midnight approached.
His companion didn’t get straight to the point, instead carried on about how impressed he was with Slack’s recent public utterances. Slack was a radical, just like him, he was right about that Senator Walker, the guy was a piece of shit. Slack murmured his agreement, he sensed he was being scouted out, a kind of loyalty test.
“You really a Bolshevik, man?”
“Yeah, un rojillo.”
“So you’re asking, what’s this all about, right?”
“I’m listening.”
“Let me put it to you straight. I got a friend of a friend who knows a friend in the body trade. As in, like, he’s willing to trade a couple of bodies for a certain revolutionary hero plus fifteen million in change and cheaper beans, though it’ll be pretty hard to enforce that one, I bet they let it pass. Anyway, he’s looking to find some responsible businessman to volunteer to make this happen. I don’t know nothing about it, actually, I’m just passing information on I’ve sort of heard.”
“Why would I be interested in helping out?”
“’Cause your heart’s in the right place. Good cause and all. And also there could be a little palm oil in it for you.” He tilted the bottle back again, passed it to Slack.
“Not right now.” Abstinence was requiring courage, Slack wanted to celebrate, it looked like he’d hit the jackpot.
“You know, a percentage, a finder’s fee, six points, something like that. A guy could walk away a rich man. Now, I’m not saying I know these people real well, but if you’re interested, I could maybe pass your name up the line.”
“Why me? Why not you?”
“Hey, I’m a little too close to this scene. I’m gonna trust you, and if this gets repeated I’m going to say you’re full of shit. The thing is I work for that Eco-Rico Lodge, and of course that could put a lot of unjust suspicion on me. Name’s Elmer, that’s all you gotta know.”
Despite his slight marijuana fog, Slack was able to sort through some of the files and photographs they’d implanted in his head. Elmer Jericho, Vietnam vet with medals, old Costa Rican hand, kicked around Central America for twenty-five years. Most recent employment, eight months at Eco-Rico, ran some of their tours, did shifts in the San José office. Looks older than his picture. Clean bill of health, said the interviewing agent. “Harmless brain-dead hippie, no priors, no bad friends, openly admits to use of soft drugs and LSD.”
They’d passed over Elmer too quickly, which was odd, because he seemed the sort of guy the straight-laced agents of the CIA would put high on any list. They’d given Slack a deaf ear with his theory about someone working inside, casing the lodge.
“The question I ask is, if your name was proposed as a kind of broker for this deal, would you go along? Like, for the right vig.”
Vigorish, there was definitely a mercenary flavour to this business. Ham Bakerfield still insisted they were politicos. Some of them, maybe, the naïve believers, probably not Halcón, definitely not this guy.
“The cops hate my guts, not a chance.”
“They got no choice, man. They’re saying, okay, you don’t like our list, give us yours. So maybe Cinco de Mayo comes up with a list, and there’s only one name on it. And here’s the kicker, that counterfeit rap? Hey, man, I bet they bury the papers on that one.”
The redesigning of the secret agent had worked superbly, Elmer was hot after the product. “What would the drill be?”
“I don’t know, maybe they’ll figure it out as it goes along. The main thing right away, as I see it, they want this Benito Madrigal, one of them guy’s is his nephew. And I guess they’ll make sure you’re not being followed or wired or nothing, and then I imagine they’d sort of blindfold you and take you to … wherever. Where those women are. And then you negotiate for the other stuff. And then somewhere along the line, you show up with a suitcase full of bread. You rescue them two wenches and come out of it a rich hero. What I can’t figure is how you can lose on such a deal.”
“I could get stiffed.”
“How? Who’s carrying the dough? Take your cut in advance, man. Think about it, six pieces of fifteen million, that’s some real walking-around money. Plus you strike a blow for freedom.”
Slack was almost sorry he was such an upstanding citizen, the deal proposed would tempt a lesser man. Walk into the Cinco de Mayo nest with the blessings of the U.S. and Tico governments, stash away a small fortune in an offshore account.
“So I guess they’d want me to be a tough negotiator.”
“Yeah, you got the idea. Way I hear it, there’s not going to be much wriggle room. Hell, for that guy Walker, fifteen mil is peanuts, Santa has been real good to him.”
True enough. Walker’s team had organized a Keep Chuck Running movement, and suddenly the non-campaign for the Republican nomination was taking off. Investing heavily in him were some well-heeled private interests in tune with his Neanderthal views. But worse, Mr. and Mrs. America were also responding, widows were sending their pension cheques, children were digging into piggy banks to keep Chuck in the race for high public office.
Comfortably quartered in a sumptuous suite at the Cariari Hotel near San José, Chuck Walker, according to the latest polls, was now number two in the hearts and minds of registered Republicans, he had momentum. Only in America, it’s why Slack loved the good old U.S.A., it was Hollywood. The civilized world would owe him a favour if he got those women freed fast, screwed up the senator’s campaign, eliminated the sympathy factor.
He realized he wasn’t focusing on Elmer’s words, the pot was a bad idea. Elmer was still making his pitch, a good salesman, though Slack wished he’d just drop the transparent pretence. He was probably in it with Halcón about fifty-fifty.
“The suits say, okay, we’re forced to go with this Slack guy, but how can we trust him? We’ll have to pay him off with some coin. You see, that’s a scenario these Cinco de Mayo guys have probably figured out. They want to make sure they look after you better. It’s like I say, a no-lose deal.”
“You mind standing up?”
“I’m clean.”
“Just want to check. There’s a few people who’d like to set me up.”
Slack went through a show of patting him down for recording devices. “Okay, thanks. I’m in for twenty per cent.”
Elmer seemed taken aback. “Maybe they’ll think that’s a little extreme.”
“You want a strong negotiator? Try me.”
“It’s not my call, man. I’m just, like, a courier of information.”
A long pause, Slack looked at his watch, almost midnight. Earth’s lonely boring moon was rolling behind a veil of thin cloud. This was going too well, Elmer wasn’t much of a deep thinker, easy to handle.
“They might double the six.”
“Twenty per cent. I don’t have an inch of wriggle room, Elmer.”
Elmer grinned. “Man, you’re too much. I’ll pass on the suggestion.”
“Stop the bullshit, you’re into this up to your ears.”
“Well, shit, I knew we had the right guy.”
Elmer extended the bottle. Slack gave it a careful study, no dead mice. Then, abruptly, he seized it and took a swig. It was the dawn of a brave new year, goddammit, and he was about to pull off the perfect undercover scam. He’d get that albatross from around his neck, the label of all-round fuckup.
A distant din of celebration. Horns honking.
Slack raised the bottle again. “Happy new year, partner.” One last drink for auld lang syne.
Slack knew generally where he was, somewhere in the old section of San José, barrio Amón, in a saloon that brought anxious memories of a dungeon where he’d been tortured years ago, in the Arabian desert. In fact, this place was called the Dungeon, heavy architecture, stone walls, the cellar of a century-old building.
Elmer knew this town, he was a kind of San José boulevardier, and he called this joint one of his “stash” bars, places that don’t get mentioned in all those earnest guidebooks, off the main streets, barely legal.
It looked like lots of payola had passed under the counter to keep this one open, an all-nighter, full of grifters, a guy wandering around selling coke like he had a licence, numerous business-women. One of them was sitting on Elmer’s lap, dyed-blonde, skinny legs. Another was wedged beside Slack on his bench, reeking of perfume, her hand caressing his thigh, her purple nails playing with the frayed cuff of his shorts. Loretta, she called herself, a sultry black Tica from Limón. He really didn’t want to encourage her, he was unsure he could carry out his end of the contract, his nuts had been fried in that dungeon. Or maybe he was just finding excuses, a team of neurologists had examined him, couldn’t find anything disconnected down there.
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