The Laughing Falcon

by William Deverell

  “He isn’t dangerous; we relate well. I’ll look after him.”

  “My comrades would feel uneasy if we did not lock you inside. And there will be no electricity.”

  “We’ll use candles. There’s propane; there’s plenty of food.”

  “I have run out of arguments. I have disappointed you deeply. I regret that with all my heart.”

  She stood and grasped a window bar, steadying herself, looking down on the play of light and shadow from the headlights of the truck.

  “I wasn’t hiding it very well, was I?” She could make his features out dimly and saw sadness.

  “I am to blame; I did not discourage you. I found you most attractive – but for me, you were a lady, and I feared dishonouring you. As a modern woman, maybe you do not accept that, but … it’s my old-fashioned attitude.”

  “Why is it so different with Glo?”

  A helpless shrug. The answer seemed too obvious: Glo was street-smart, vivacious; she made a fit with him that schoolteacherish Maggie Klutz could never match. “I’m twenty-nine, and you’re the first man I’ve truly loved. I guess I waited too long, and it built up, then came crashing down on top of me.”

  “I am honoured. A few times I have felt the sting of love, and each time swore the tragedy would not be repeated.”

  “I used to be afraid of you, but I never disliked you. Glo did at first, though, and you shared the feeling. What happened?”

  “God knows.” He rose and came beside her, and they stood silently at the window. Gordo, still with a slight limp, was packing a submachine gun and several pistols in the cab, behind the front seat.

  “In two or three days, I will send a message telling them where you are.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll have to tie Glo up.”

  “She will come without protest.”

  “Protect her.”

  “With my life. There will be dangers ahead, and I admit to some relief that even as brave a spirit as yours will not have to risk them.”

  Maggie found herself smiling, however weakly: this honey-tongued rogue remained relentlessly charming to the end. “What is the plan now? Or do you dare tell me?”

  “But I must. Of all persons, I trust you most closely, my prisoner but also my confidante. So I ask of you, when you have the ear of Slack Cardinal, give this message. Tell him Limón, Sloth Park, at nine o’clock on the night of this coming Saturday. Tell no one else.”

  “I promise.” She was right to assume that she would remain his friendly conspirator: she had lost her heart to him. She again wanted to tell him: do not trust Slack Cardinal. But let his paramour deliver that warning.

  Outside, the truck engine had started.

  “What’s going to happen, Halcón?”

  “I am no longer sure. My thoughts are confused by … well, it is better left unsaid. Hasta la vista, Maggie. Now we must begin a long journey. We will find our way to heaven or to hell as God wishes.” He took her hand, kissed her fingertips, released it. “Ciao.”

  “Buena suerte,” she said.

  She listened to his footfalls on the stairs, then heard the front door being locked. She saw two shadowy figures walk toward the van, talking, smoking; she heard Glo’s throaty laugh. She felt devitalized, drained of feeling.

  THE LOST MISSION OF HARRY WILDER

  – 1 –

  Dear Rocky,

  Here’s some more mash for the pulp mills. I have written out the health freak, substituted a new sidekick, and introduced Harry to an acid head, a black-moustached Snidely Whiplash, and the author of When Love Triumphs, No Time for Sorrow, Return to the House of Heartbreak, and The Torrid Zone, as her masterwork was titled before she entered into the uncertain world of non-fiction.

  She wasn’t what Harry expected. Her defiant expression was burned into memory when the camera flashed in the night, when he looked into her eyes. He saw something in them too vital to be the dull glow of Stockholm Syndrome – the woman was madly in love with the putative villain of this piece. This is a form of literary irony, Rocky, in case you didn’t get it.

  Operationally, Harry is in so tight with the bad guys he barely has room to fart. Things continue to go too well for his comfort; he keeps wondering how he’s going to blow it. He isn’t sure where this plot is going to take him, but he suspects he is to be thrown to the wolves again; he isn’t going to get the money, he isn’t going to get the girl, he’s going to get it up the ass in the end. I have had a ghastly premonition that you are going to have it your way; there will be blood, Harry’s blood, a lovely flow of it. If I don’t come up with an ending, you’ll know the blood was mine.

  Cheers,

  Harry

  P.S. I don’t know why the red herring insists on smelling like overripe cheese. Maybe Zork does have a secret army.

  Slack showered the sea salt from his body, not a bad day, two tours in the morning, another just finished. Twelve days had passed since his visit to the Darkside, and he was sliding back into familiar routines, but this evening he was feeling the nervous edge of anticipation: the ransom monies had finally been put together, Elmer Jericho would be making contact tonight – by phone to Bar Balboa. He wasn’t sure the proprietor would be there, he’d seen Billy in town, lit up like neon, one of his all-day drunkaramas.

  His own lines were tapped, so he’d given Elmer the number at the bar and a time, eight o’clock, two hours from now. He hoped Elmer had got that straight, he’d been almost comatose during the drive back to the hidden moto. Slack had to take over the wheel while Elmer and Gordo slept.

  Physically, he was in reasonable shape, he hadn’t been beaten up for a few weeks, his ribs no longer felt as if they had been roughly welded together. Only one snag had marred his return to Quepos – the discovery that Joe Borbón was cuddling in a bedroom with Camacho’s kid sister, an inviting young woman who had invited her uncle and cousin over to sort through Slack’s belongings. He had walked in just as they were grubbing among his CDs.

  He’d fired Borbón on the spot, which is why Slack was now doing all the tours – a hassle, he’d had to hire a local layabout for some of the driving chores. Ham, too, had been disappointed in Borbón: the pursuit of love softens you, that’s how stone killers lose their edge.

  Frank Sierra was Slack’s new henchman, they’d met clandestinely several times, trading suspicions, speculations – they shared something deeply felt: a brooding distrust of their overseers. Slack had straight-faced lied to Ham, telling him he hadn’t a clue where he’d been taken, a campesino farm in the boondocks.

  Senator Walker had looked shocked when presented with the photo of his wife hamming it up on Slack’s lap, and nearly popped a collar button when Slack dumped the full refund on a table. Ham Bakerfield suffered one of his rare losses of composure, sputtering, “Never seen anything like this. Never. Who does this guy think he is?”

  Johnny Falcon. What style, give this man the gold medal for chutzpah.

  Everyone had been amazed at how deep Slack had penetrated. Walker, his faith in the master spy oiled and greased, had been spurred to come up with four million. Halcón would be happy with that until he was collared about ten minutes later.

  He pulled on cut-offs and went out to the balcony to take a piss in the general direction of the squatters’ village. The big shudder a few days ago had collapsed some shacks, but they were going up again. Foundations for the church were being poured. You got a church, ipso, you got a town – Slack was feeling the fight go out of him, resigned to it, world over-population had arrived at his front door.

  A tourist microbus was parked outside Billy’s restaurant, and Slack could hear noises of confrontation from within. About a dozen men and women were crowding the bar, giving Billy a bad time, the Chattanooga Kinsmen Club, according to their badges.

  “Go away,” Billy shouted. “We are closed.” He seemed barely able to stand, eyes glazed over, smelling like a fermentation plant.

  “Look here now, we reserved. We have drink vouche
rs.”

  “Maybe tomorrow we open.”

  “We would like to speak to the owner of this establishment,” said an amply endowed woman, a Kinette, Slack thought that’s what they were called.

  “He’s not here, lady.”

  “We made reservations with a Mr. Balboa,” said the tropical shirt. “Is that you?”

  “No, it’s some other guy.”

  His chef and headwaiter were conversing at a table, unsure what to do. The waitress, a young woman with an insatiable addiction to inane chatter on the telephone, was tying up the line. “Okay, back to work,” Slack told them. The cook butted a cigarette and returned to the kitchen.

  He helped Billy onto a cot in the back room, then promised the rebellious customers an extra round on the house. The Kinsmen, happy to see a white guy take charge, took their coladas and margaritas off to the balcony and began taking photos of the sunset, which was turning out to be a non-event, a cloudless sky, earth’s life-sustaining star plopping onto the horizon like a ripe tomato.

  Elmer might be trying to get through, Slack hollered at the phone junkie, interrupting her breathless account of her second cousin’s unexpected pregnancy. When she didn’t hang up immediately, he drew a finger across his throat.

  He checked the reservation list, all seven tables booked on a Tuesday night. Two names stood out, Woodrow and Beverley Schneider, Maggie’s parents. He was supposed to instruct them to mend their marriage, but he’d been forbidden to approach them. “They’re out of the loop,” Ham had said.

  Four old toughs came in, tried to claim the best table. Slack apologized, it was reserved, and settled them elsewhere. These were new faces, older and beefier than most of the bulls around here, but lawmen of some kind, you could always tell, the swagger, the shifting flickering eyes, the presumption of authority. Maybe this was a SWAT squad, they had that look about them, maybe marksmen.

  The bar stools began to fill, a few locals, some media types, one of them Ed Creeley, the AP reporter who’d been on location at Eco-Rico, they shared a distaste for Senator Walker.

  “Double Black, straight up. I think he’s going all the way, Cardinal.”

  “God help us.”

  “He’s got a lock on New Hampshire, sending organizers streaming into Florida and Alabama. Huge in Texas and the sun belt. All he needs is for those loonies to rape his old lady, something like that, he’ll ride in on a tsunami of sympathy. He’s even better off if they snuff her.” He lowered his voice. “Nobody’s got the guts to publish this, but there’s been a grand jury leak out of Nevada, word is she used to hang with parties of dubious reputation, washed their money at the tables.”

  When Woodrow and Beverley Schneider entered, Slack ushered them to the table he’d saved for them, a view across Manuel Antonio bay, lights flickering in the distance, the stars switching on at the last glimmer of sunset. He held Beverley’s chair, lit a candle, introduced himself.

  “You’re the Bolshevist,” Beverley said, she had seen him on the TV. She was wider and shorter than her daughter, attractive if she weren’t scowling. She quickly butted her cigarette and rose. “We’re leaving.”

  “Now, Bev, don’t get riled up.” Woodrow was a tall drink of water, all loose bones, the less aggressive of the two, obviously. Maggie inherited her spunk from her mom.

  “He’s a damn communist.”

  This was getting off to a bad start. “I’m totally on your side, Mrs. Schneider. Nobody understands my sense of humour. Really, it started off as a joke, I guess I’m the only one who gets it.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, you cut off your nose despite your face,” Beverley said.

  Slack continued apologizing, fulsome in his praise for their daughter, he really admired her, if there was a Nobel Prize for heroism she’d get it. Somewhat mollified, Beverley reclaimed her seat. Slack told them to order whatever pleased them most, dinner was on him, it was the least he could do.

  He dared not hint that Halcón had reeled her in, that she was wiggling on his hook. Not naïveté but bold innocence, that was the crime of this seeker of romance from the wheat fields of Saskatchewan. A rare specimen, a caring person, worried about her parents, loyal to her buddy.

  “Table number four,” he told the waitress, “bring them champagne, everything’s on my tab.”

  Ed Creeley was well into his cups, building up his own hefty tab buying drinks for media pals. He was still going on about Chuck Walker, railing about his war against the godless Marxists of Nicaragua, about the Contras he’d trained in the violent arts.

  “Half those fuckers are street muggers and bank robbers now. And after you take off the uniform and the silver eagle, Chuck’s just another pissass drug dealer. How do you think he financed mercenaries if it wasn’t dope? Remember the epidemic in the eighties? The streets of L.A. were paved with the crack cocaine his boys flew in.” The congressional witch-hunt, the senator liked to call it, had been about allegations he and his boys had helped the Contras run the pipeline from Colombia.

  “Speak of the devil,” Creeley said. The senator himself had just come in, flanked by two Secret Service agents and trailed by Orvil Schumenbacker, his campaign manager, and Clay Boyer, official gas attendant, in charge of pumping out the press releases. Walker looked puzzled at seeing Slack behind the bar. More agents came in, fanning out.

  As Walker pressed flesh with some American tourists, Schumenbacker bellied up to the bar, smiling and fat, you couldn’t tell where his chin left off and his jowls began. “Heard there’s some great food happening here. Table for three.”

  “Sorry, they’re all reserved.”

  Schumenbacker chuckled. “I guess you don’t recognize that gentleman over there.” Walker was now laughing with the four grizzled bruisers, there was some backslapping going on, a scene of camaraderie.

  “I don’t care if he’s the king of Siam, we’re booked.”

  “Maybe you can ask this fine fellow.” He gave Creeley a punch on the shoulder. “Ed, haven’t seen you since we got invaded by the body snatchers. Great story, you get my note?”

  “Hey, Orvil,” Creeley said, “you’re looking kind of white. Just crawl out from under something?”

  Schumenbacker’s smile didn’t dim. “Northern tan, Ed, northern tan. Be the first to know, Senator Greer’s coming on board with most of Kansas. Listen, why don’t you tell this gentleman who his special guest is?”

  “Why don’t you tell us if Gloria-May Walker used to run errands for Vinnie the Monk DiLucchi?”

  Schumenbacker finally lost his smile, his lips puckering like they’d sucked on a lemon. Walker wasn’t paying attention, he was still with those four gorillas, Slack guessed the hidden war, the so-called military advisers to the Contras, they called them Walker’s Rangers. Was he putting together his own team?

  Now Walker was coming over to glad-hand some of the reporters, but his progress was halted by Schumenbacker. A quick briefing, and Chuck frowned, then went red and taut, and suddenly he was in Ed Creeley’s face.

  “You print any shit like that I’ll kick your fucking ass from here to Honolulu.”

  “Senator, let’s go.” Schumenbacker had him by the arm, pulling it, agents went on ready alert. The colonel’s aides made a try at recovering their good humour, a brave effort at laughter, Boyer telling the reporters it’s been a strain for Walker, how can you blame the guy.

  Slack was called away to the phone. He listened to coins drop as he watched the senator’s party leave with an offering of shrugs and smiles, the room now buzzing with conversation.

  It was Elmer. “Hey, man. Qué tal?

  “Pura vida.”

  “You cool?”

  “I’m cool, what’s up?”

  “You settle up with the, ah, trust fund yet?”

  “They’ll give us four.”

  “Out of sight.”

  A reporter was tugging at him, another waiting, both wanting the phone, anxious to file the Walker temper tantrum item. Slack cupped his mouth
into the receiver. “Let’s not fart around. Let’s do it.”

  “Friday night okay?”

  Three days from now. “Darkside?”

  “Yeah, you remember how to get there.”

  “Yep. You got my home number?”

  “Hey, man, you said not to use it.”

  “Disguise your voice. Just say, ‘Friday, usual place, usual time.’ ”

  “Got it, that’s just to confuse –”

  Slack cut him off. “Hasta luego.”

  – 2 –

  The Swedes just ahead of Slack claimed to have had some river experience, but they were constantly in trouble. He had a full complement today, mostly Scandinavians, a couple of Yanks, an Australian. They were two to a duckee, the inflatables. Slack was in a hardshell, their sheep-dog, trying to keep them moving.

  He churned back to the Swedes, they were hung up on a rock. “Back right!” he shouted. “Back paddle!” He came alongside and tugged, and their inflatable finally swung about, then shot the three-foot drop. The other duckees, waiting at an eddy, started to move downstream again.

  He’d done a gentler tour yesterday, a paddle around the pretty beaches tucked behind Punta Quepos. That was for a private party of two, the Schneiders, who’d seemed puzzled at the attention paid them. Slack found out they were sharing if not a bed at least a hotel room, that was a good sign. Much of their conversation was about Maggie, of course, and he had to bite his tongue to avoid telling them he had met her, that she was well, was thinking of them.

  Maggie, it turned out, lived in a suite overlooking the Saskatchewan River. Skating, bicycling, birding, an outdoors person, unattached. Beverley’s flow of words and imagery seemed inexhaustible. “She’s too choosy, she’s going to miss the boat if she waits until the cows come home for Mr. Right to gallop up the road.”

  Slack had read Maggie’s novels, Mr. Right didn’t gallop, he wasn’t a cowboy, he was a clean-cut academic, cultivated, slightly mocking in manner, a virtuoso in bed. Slack had none of these faults.