The Girl in the Glyphs

by David Edmonds

  “You’re not really with AID, are you?”

  “Please Jen, let’s don’t start that.”

  “Either you tell me or I’m out of here.” I reached for my purse.

  “Christ, Jen, if you must know, I work for the Treasury Department…in their Customs Investigations Division. And please keep your voice down. My specialty is illicit antiquities.”

  “How does Ricardo fit in?”

  “Let’s just say he does in the States what I do in Nicaragua.”

  We drank, we danced, and as the sangria went to my head, Sutter faded into the background. Then we were telling each other how painful our breakup had been.

  Each sip of sangria brought out another anecdote. Every tune was a sad reminder of what we’d lost. And by the time dessert came to the table, we’d shared enough suffering for two or three country songs, a dog, and a pickup truck.

  “Let’s take a stroll on the beach,” he whispered.

  I was dressed in sandals and the same black outfit I’d brought for what was supposed to have been a celebration dinner with Sutter. Not appropriate for a beach stroll, but I followed him out the door anyway and headed south along the beach.

  There was no moon or glare of city lights, only a soft breeze, the slap of water, stars so bright the entire sky was glowing, and that wonderful salty smell.

  Alan carried my sandals in his pockets, his own shoes about his neck. “Nights like this,” he said, “I’d look up at the stars and wonder if you were thinking of me.”

  “Did you dream about me?”

  “What do you think?”

  Our stroll carried us to a giant lava formation that jutted out of the water onto the beach, here and there forming shallow tidal pools that were protected from the ocean. We tested the water, found it warm, and waded in until we were knee-deep, holding hands. From the restaurant came the sounds of Macarena. “Tell me about your dreams,” I said.

  He took my hand and pulled me closer. “It was always the same thing, the two of us back on Ana Maria. I’d snuggle up beside you. It was so real, I could feel your warmth, hear your breathing.” He drew in a sharp breath. “God, it was wonderful.”

  A wave of arousal passed over me. “What does wonderful mean?”

  “Well, it was like, you know.”

  “Erotic?”

  “Yeah, X-rated.”

  We were tight against one another now, my heart beating twice as fast as normal. He stroked my hair and kissed my neck. “Very X-rated,” he whispered.

  What happened next, I wish I could blame on the sangria. Or the stars. But I knew better. It was Nicaragua. It was Alan. So when his mouth found mine, I didn’t care that we were up to our waist in water. Or that a perfectly good dress was being ruined.

  “I’m never letting you go again,” he whispered.

  I protested when his hand went up my thigh and tugged at my panties. I said it was wrong when he eased me back on a boulder. I said we shouldn’t when he entered me. But I was Glyph Girl. I was slut. I was back on Ana Maria Island, and when the spasms came over me, I cried so loud that Alan put a hand over my mouth.

  Not until the sounds and smells of night came back, and I heard Macarena again, and we were pulling ourselves together, and I was shivering in my wet dress, did the realization of what we’d done hit me. Oh, God, this was so wrong.

  “I’m freezing,” I said. “Let’s get back to the cabin.”

  Chapter 94

  The brochures in our room touted Montelimar as a romantic getaway in a tropical paradise, but there should have been a warning about making love fully clothed in salt water. My sandals and dress were ruined. My soul was tainted, and it took a long time to wash sand from all the wrong places. As for Alan, his shoes had floated away in the darkness, his wallet was soaked, and he had to break down his pistol and clean it.

  After our showers, we put on hotel-supplied robes and sat in the candlelight, sipping Undurraga and listening to a salsa station. Alan, being Alan, untied the clasp on my robe and put his face to my breasts. “No,” I said, and pushed him away. “I don’t feel good about this.”

  We talked until midnight. Alan proclaiming his love for me, saying he never wanted to lose me again, and the next time he reached for me, I didn’t push him away.

  A jangling phone woke me at daybreak. I sat up in a panic, certain it was Sutter.

  “Don’t answer,” I said.

  He answered anyway, then hung up, rolled over and looked at me.

  “Damn it to hell, the ambassador wants to see me this afternoon.”

  He sat up in bed, pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  “Didn’t you tell me last night you were quitting?”

  He took a long drag and ground it out.

  In the event he didn’t get the message, I fanned my face and opened a window. Alan pulled on his jeans and was reaching for his boots when the phone rang again.

  He grabbed the receiver and barked hello. A pained look came over him. He glanced at me and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s the Brit.”

  I wanted to evaporate, to die, to crawl under the bed.

  “Your mom gave him this number,” he whispered. “He knows you’re here.”

  I took the phone and waited for Alan to retreat into the bathroom before managing a shaky hello. There was silence on the other end, and I could picture Sutter sitting on the bed in his London hotel, feeling betrayed. “Lane, are you there? I can’t hear you.”

  “I’m here,” he said in a strained voice. “I thought you were going home.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lane. I was going to call this morning and explain.”

  “Nothing to explain. I see what’s going on.” His voice failed him. He mumbled something about not being able to talk and the connection went dead.

  How long I sat there, staring into the mouthpiece, I do not know. Alan came out of the bathroom, took the receiver, and placed it back in its cradle.

  The winding drive out of Montelimar was in silence. I leaned back and tried not to cry. Alan tried to comfort me, but all I could think of was how Sutter must be hurting, how I should never have become involved with him. How my dreams had been shattered. After a few minutes, Alan reached back and handed me his briefcase. “Here, why don’t you take out the files on Gonzales? See what kind of monster we’re dealing with.”

  I wiped my eyes and read every sickening report and saw all the sickening photos—women raped, villages plundered and burned, innocents executed—and by the time we reached Managua and ended up at the embassy guesthouse in Las Colinas, I was thinking someone should have driven a stake through Gonzales’ heart years ago.

  An armed guard opened the gate and let us in. The front door opened—and there stood Carla. “Oh my God,” she said. “I thought you’d be in Florida by now.”

  “Unfinished business.”

  She looked at Alan. “Yes, I can see that.”

  Ricardo came out and stood beside her, looking like a handsome mobster with slicked-back hair and a shoulder holster pistol. “Christ,” he said. “You should have gone home. It’s dangerous for you. Your face is all over the tube.”

  Alan shaved and put on a nice shirt and tie for his meeting with the ambassador. Ricardo also changed. Paco arrived in the Land Rover, and as soon as the iron gates clanged shut behind them, Carla frowned. “Okay, let’s have it. What’s going on?”

  She squeezed lemons in the kitchen, made a pitcher of iced tea-lemonade, and motioned me out to a bougainvillea-shaded patio, where I confessed like a sinner in the confessional.

  Carla listened and said, “Do you know what a universal truth is?”

  “I think I discovered one last night: guys will say anything to get in your pants.”

  “Well, here’s another one: magic rarely repeats itself. It’s like going out to a wonderful restaurant where everything’s perfect—the food, the service, the ambience. Then you go back a second time and everything’s different. Food’s bad, the waiters rude, lights too brigh
t. That’s what’s happening with you and Alan, isn’t it?”

  “No, Carla, just the opposite. The food tastes the same.”

  It was almost dark when Alan and Ricardo returned from the embassy with a box of pizza. “The ambassador wants this business settled ASAP,” Alan announced. “And he doesn’t give a big Texas damn how it’s settled so long as his name’s kept out of it.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “There’s no we in this equation. It’s us, Ricardo and me.”

  I took a slice of pizza. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I’m waiting for a phone call.”

  “From?”

  “You can bet it won’t be the Boy Scouts.”

  Paco showed up around nine, looking like the thug he was.

  It was going on ten when the phone finally rang.

  Alan took it, muttered a few words and hung up.

  “Coyotepe dungeon,” he said, frowning. “It’s a nasty place. You girls wait here.”

  “No way in hell,” I said. “I’m going with you.”

  There followed one of those child-like arguments of no-you’re-not, yes-I-am, and it didn’t end until Carla weighed in.

  “I’m going too. Either that or I’m saying goodbye and heading for the airport.”

  Chapter 95

  We rumbled out of Managua on the Masaya Highway, Paco driving, Alan in the passenger seat, Ricardo and Carla in back with me. The volcanic smell of sulfur grew heavier each kilometer.

  “Volcán Masaya,” said Ricardo. “The Indians used to sacrifice virgins there.”

  Far below us, the town of Masaya sparkled like a thousand jewels in the night air. A turn to the left, a bumpy ride up a steep winding drive, and there before us stood the hilltop fortress of Coyotepe, as ugly as the barbed wire fence that surrounded it.

  A caretaker sprang from the darkness, opened a gate, and motioned us in. Alan took out his pistol and chambered a round. “You never know,” he said. “This place has a sordid history.”

  “It was a torture chamber,” Ricardo added.

  We climbed out, followed the caretaker into a musty smelling bunker and down a flight of concrete stairs. There, in the cool air and brooding quiet, he lit a lamp that threw enormous shadows on the walls. “This way,” he said, and motioned us to follow.

  We passed iron bars and graffiti, air vents and concrete toilets. There was also the nasty smell of urine and things worse. Behind me, Ricardo was whispering about political prisoners sealed behind concrete walls. “They say you can still hear their screams.”

  “Just shut up,” Carla said. “This place is spooky enough.”

  Around a bend, down another corridor, and we came to a cell illuminated by an oil lamp. A man and woman stepped from the shadows—Comandante Ponce and Luz Maria.

  The comandante was dressed in civilian clothes, but Luz Maria looked like a jungle fighter in green army fatigues and black beret. She glared at Carla and me.

  “What are they doing here?”

  “They’re not here,” Alan said. “No one is here.”

  Paco left with the caretaker. As their footfalls faded into the darkness, the comandante lit a cigarette and motioned us to a concrete bench. “What happens in this dungeon stays in this dungeon. This meeting never took place. Understand?” He began pacing the room. “We know who the target is. We know what we have to do. Only question is how, when, where?”

  Cigarettes burned. The air became stale. Ricardo and Alan did most of the talking, and everyone agreed that Gonzales couldn’t be arrested because he’d just claim he was innocent.

  The comandante flipped his cigarette against the wall, creating a shower of sparks.

  “Is that the best we can come up with?”

  I raised my hand like a schoolchild. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Alan frowned as if to tell me to shut up. Luz Maria raised an eyebrow.

  “What is your idea, señorita? Enlighten us.”

  “Lobo Jacks. He goes there every Saturday night.”

  “Oh, really? How do you know that?”

  “It was in the embassy’s bio-sketch. He goes there to pick up girls.”

  Alan shot me one of his what-the-hell-are-you-doing looks. The comandante asked if he could see the report. Alan grudgingly pulled it out and slapped it on the table.

  The room fell silent as the comandante read.

  “Interesting,” he said to Alan. “Do you also have one of these on me?”

  “If I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

  The comandante kept reading. “Pumps iron to stay in shape. Smokes Marlboros, has a nasty temper, favors light-skinned Costa Rican women.” He handed the report to Luz Maria. “So all we need is to plant a pretty tica tomorrow night at Lobo Jacks.”

  Carla and I exchanged glances. Alan stood. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Alan started on me the moment we were back on the road. Things could go wrong. People could be killed. It was too dangerous. He was still complaining when we drove through the iron gates of the guesthouse and went inside.

  Ricardo and Carla retreated to their bedroom. Alan led me into the family room and motioned me onto the sofa. “Damn it, Jen. You saw what it was like tonight—meeting in a dungeon, planning a dirty operation. I can’t let you get mixed up in this mess.”

  “I’m already mixed up in it. It was my discovery he stole. My dreams he shattered.”

  I stormed outside and sat in the coolness of the patio where Carla and I had sat earlier. Alan came out with a bottle of wine and poured me a glass. “Look, I’m getting out of this business as soon as this operation’s finished. I want a dog and children and a mortgage—and neighbors I don’t have to spy on. And I want to share that life with you.”

  There was no lovemaking that night. Everyone was too tense, and when the roosters woke me, I brewed coffee and sat at the table until the doorbell rang.

  Alan padded into the kitchen. “Paco,” he groaned. “It’s gonna be a long day.”

  After breakfast, Ricardo hauled in a chalkboard and we spent the morning planning. Carla helped me trim and lighten my hair. We also took a drive around Lobo Jacks. Then we drove to an outdoor market to choose outfits that were sufficiently slutty.

  As darkness approached, we ordered out for Chinese and turned on the TV in time to catch Elizabeth Alvarado interviewing a panel of legal scholars, one of whom propounded a theory that the entire thing was a hoax. “There was never anything in that cave,” he said. “Nothing but bat dung. She and her friends rented a dozer and cleaned out the place.”

  “Why would she do that?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Look, you’ve got crazies writing about hidden codes in the Bible. You’ve got Atlantis and Big Foot, and now this. I’ll wager she already has a book deal.”

  Alan turned off the TV and we went over our plans again. Ricardo cleaned his pistol and counted the cartridges, pushing them one by one into the magazine. Alan tried to look calm, but I could see from the way he kept drinking mineral water and glancing at his watch that he was as nervous as the rest of us.

  At eight, Carla and I painted our lips and nails and darkened our brows and lashes. I put mousse and spray in my hair, doused on perfume, changed into my slut dress, and hung the brassiest earrings I could find on my lobes. Then I inspected myself in a mirror.

  Yes, I could make a decent living as an escort.

  At nine, Luz Maria called to report that she and the comandante were staked out near the house of Gonzales and that he was inside with Prudencia.

  A few minutes later, she called to say they were leaving in a black Honda SUV.

  “That’s it,” Alan said. “Rock and roll.”

  Chapter 96

  Lobo Jacks

  Within minutes, we were speeding down Carretera Sur toward Lobo Jacks. The dress I wore reached midway down my thighs. Trinkets dangled from the belt around my waist and for the hundredth time I checked my weapons—a Swiss Army knife I’d clipped to one side and Domingo
’s pepper spray canister on the other.

  Paco found a parking spot and eased into it. From this position, we watched five or six young women go in, a parade of wild hair, heavy makeup, heels, and those god-awful double-pleated dresses that were so popular in the provinces. “Hookers,” Carla muttered.

  “No,” Ricardo shot back, “just poor working girls trying to supplement their wages.”

  Carla and I climbed out and adjusted our outfits. Alan, who was on the phone with Luz Maria, said, “I’ll wait over there. Whatever you do, don’t get in the car with Gonzales.”

  I said okay and followed Carla toward the entrance, chewing gum, heels clacking on the brick walkway, Ricardo following a short distance behind.

  “There he comes,” Ricardo mumbled behind us.

  I glanced back and caught a glimpse of a black SUV creeping slowly down the street.

  The guard at the door looked us over and waved us in.

  The bar could just as well have been in Tampa’s Ybor City. Loud music, cigarette smoke, lots of young women in short skirts, and the smell of beer and wine. A middle-aged man in a guayabera shirt sidled up to me. “Hey, pretty señorita. How about a dance?”

  “Sorry, I’m waiting for someone.”

  We ordered nica libres—rum and coke—and I had just turned down another offer when the stubby figure of Gonzales came through the door.

  My legs weakened. I couldn’t bear to look and didn’t have to since Carla did it for me.

  “He’s looking the place over. Now he’s heading up the steps to the dance floor…still looking…glancing this way now. Oh, my God, Oh, my God, he’s coming this way.”

  She buried her face in her drink. Then I felt his malignant shadow at my back.

  He touched my arm. “Qué bella eres. Have we met before?”

  I swung around and looked into his pitted face and saw the black eyes of a murderer, this man who’d hijacked my dreams. “No, I don’t think so.”