As they traveled deeper along the estuary, thick mangroves covered the shore, the roots tangling atop the calm green water while tiny swallows darted among the branches. Fishermen lingered in small inlets, tending crab traps and the plastic jugs they used for float markers. Pelicans drifted sleepily in the mangrove shade or took off with slow, loping thrusts of their wings. Here and there houses sat in ruins, overgrown by flowering vines.
After twenty minutes, the old man steered the boat toward a wooded sand spit. A trio of open rickety thatch structures occupied a clearing near the shore. Cutting the motor, the old man let his boat drift in beside a small dock lined with ancient tires crusted in sea salt and barnacles.
“From here,” Jude said, gathering Strock’s bag, “we walk.”
The old man stayed behind as first Strock then Jude climbed onto the dock and headed up a set of log stairs. At the top, three dark Indian women in varying states of heftiness waited in the thatch shade with strained smiles, gathered around an ice chest smudged with char. Something stringy and small—rabbits, Strock guessed—roasted over a smoldering fire pit. Buckets teaming with live crabs rested nearby in the sand beside piles of mangos and coconuts. Jude gestured for Strock to keep walking as he said something to the women that sounded apologetic. They nodded their understanding but it was clear they would have preferred hearing something else.
Leaving the shelters behind, Jude and Strock trudged along a path of dirty sand lined with palms and thorn thickets. They passed a primitive wellhead topped with a bicycle wheel chained to a crank. Off in a clearing, two emaciated horses grazed in a patch of scrub.
Jude turned toward the ocean and Strock followed, digging into the sand with his cane. The wind blew stronger into their faces, its intensity matched by the rising sound of the surf, till finally they came within sight of the shoreline.
The deserted beach extended as far as Strock could see in both directions, the bright sand scruffed with sprawling plants and dotted with horse apples. Hermit crabs, tiny and faint as tufts of hair, vanished into pencil-thin dens. Sun-bleached driftwood lay scattered about and a three-foot sand cliff extending the length of the shoreline marked the tide break. It seemed odd, Strock thought. Such a getaway. No one around.
Jude pointed to the left, where beyond a border of indigo plants a tall cinder block enclosure stood. Razor wire coiled atop the walls. As they drew closer, Strock could hear the thumping chug of a generator coming from inside.
Jude led the way around to the leeward side, where a thick wood gate stood locked. He reached and pulled on a thin line of hemp rope connected to a bell, ringing twice.
“Who are we waiting for?” Strock asked.
Jude shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
The gate opened. A dark-skinned Latina stood there, tall and hipless, her black hair tied into a ponytail with a white ribbon. She wore a simple blue dress, belted and modestly buttoned up the front all the way to the lace-rimmed collar. Smiling shyly, she waved them inside.
“Buenas,” Jude said, passing through the gate. He gestured for Strock to follow along. Strock obliged, feeling a twinge of arousal as the Latina closed the gate behind them.
Palm trees shaded the walled yard. Fallen green coconuts and sun-bleached palm fronds littered the sand. The house, erected on slab, was modest in size and run-down, with cracked, badly patched wall plaster and dry-rotted wood around the windows. A pelican perched atop the ragged tile roof. Strock looked around, leaning on his cane. The generator was silent now. An almost eerie stillness lay just beneath the sound of the wind and surf.
He felt the Latina approach from behind and turned to greet her. She was slightly bucktoothed and wore no makeup. Dark freckles mottled her cheeks. Her blue tennis shoes matched her dress but had no laces.
Extending her hand, she said in a soft, birdlike voice, “Mucho gusto, señor. Me llama Clara. Estoy su servienta.”
“Clara.” Strock took her hand and smiled. He had no idea what she’d said except for her name. “Call me Phil.” When she seemed confused, he shortened the introduction to just his name, which she then repeated back to him, making it sound like “Feel.” That’ll do just fine, he thought. Call me Feel. Clara smiled and sauntered into the house. She walks like a girl, he thought, not a woman.
Jude nudged Strock’s shoulder. “Let’s get you stowed away.”
Inside, the house was tidy but in much the same state of disrepair as outside. The refrigerator, run off a storage cell charged by the generator, was relatively new but looked like it had fallen off a truck. In contrast the iron stove, run on propane, looked primordial. How did they heft all this stuff out here, Strock wondered.
The kitchen opened onto a large dining room, bare except for a wood-plank table and roughly carved chairs. Sliding glass doors opened onto the sandy yard.
“This way,” Jude said, tugging Strock’s sleeve. “Your room’s back here somewhere.”
Strock followed Jude down a musty dark hallway to a small room at the end. Dust motes hovered in the light filtering in through a screened window. The furnishings included a narrow bed, a chest of drawers painted an almost psychotic shade of yellow, and a rickety desk of such blatant shabbiness it didn’t even merit the lunatic paint job.
None of that caught Strock’s attention, though, as much as the Colt AR-15, fitted with a Redfield three-to-nine power scope, perched on its bipod atop the desk. A crate filled with ammunition boxes sat on the floor against the wall, along with cleaning rags, a bore brush, and a tin of Hoppe’s No. 9 solvent.
He stepped toward the weapon. “Somebody wants me to practice out here.”
Jude hefted Strock’s bag onto the bed. “The place is isolated enough, I suppose.”
Strock looked out the window screen at the swaying palm trees. “The wind’ll create havoc with shot placement. Blow me around like a boat. Hard to settle in, get a stable sight line.” He noticed there was a spiral notebook in the crate with the ammunition, for logging his practice shots, he supposed. “But I guess none of that’s your problem.”
Jude looked puzzled and bored and ready to go. “It’s just not my end of things.”
Strock lifted the rifle, measuring its balance in his hands, smelling the sheen of oil, like invisible sweat, on its metalwork. “I trained on a weapon just like this. We stopped using it long-range ages ago. You got a .223 round, hard to bring a man down with a load that light. You’ve got to hit him square in the middle of his face or his ear hole or straight through his heart to do the job. Otherwise, he’s hurt but he’s still walking. You hit him in the skull, the round can just bounce off. I’m not joking. Seen it happen. That’s why we switched to a retooled Remington 700—hogged-out stock, free-floating bull barrel, fires a big fat nasty 7.62 NATO round.”
Outside, the pelican on the roof shrieked and flew off toward the beach, its shadow flickering across the sand. Jude said, “My guess is you’ll just be there to scare off thieves. See a guy digging under the fence, you fire off a warning round. He doesn’t respond, you wing him.”
Strock set the rifle back down on the desk, then nudged the crate of ammunition with his foot. “Wing him? Oh, you mean shoot to wound. Sure. That always works. Nobody ever fucks that up and kills the guy by mistake.”
Jude glanced at his watch. “I’ll let you straighten all that out with the people you’ll be working for.”
“And they’ll be coming around when?”
“Tomorrow morning as I understand it.” Jude turned to go.
Strock caught him by the arm. “You’d leave me here with no more to go on than that?”
Jude dislodged Strock’s hand. “Go outside. Look around. A thousand guys would trade places in a heartbeat. If anybody meant to screw you over, why would they leave you with a weapon and enough rounds to hold off half a division? Not to mention, ahem, they gave you a maid. I’ll bet there’s even beer in the fridge. Stop worrying. Everything’s going to work out.”
He said it like he meant it
, then turned away. Strock hobbled behind, thinking what the kid said made sense. And yet, with Jude on his way out, Strock felt an odd streak of almost boyish lonesomeness. “I don’t even know where I am. There’s no phone.”
Jude stopped at that. Over his shoulder, he said quietly, “Hold on.” After a quick trip to speak with Clara in the dining room, he came back carrying her cell phone. “Correction. On one front anyway.” He thumbed the dial pad. “There. I’ve logged in my number, in case something comes up, nobody shows, whatever. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Strock said. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Just ask Clara for the phone. Teléfono.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t answer, no big deal. I’m back on duty come tomorrow, and I don’t pick up all the time. Leave me a voice mail. I’ll answer when I can.”
With that he went back to the dining room, returned the phone to Clara, then headed out. He crossed the sand toward the gate; Clara followed, to secure the lock behind him. Strock stood in the doorway to the house, leaning on his cane, watching Jude disappear. Kid McManus, they used to call him. Pop Gun’s son.
Clara walked back to the house and, as she came close, offered the warmest smile, pretty despite her horsey teeth. Her eyes seemed sad, he thought. Maybe it’s me.
“¿Quiere su almuerzo ahora?”
He shrugged, not knowing what she’d asked, then limped after her on his cane into the house. Again, he caught that same queer silence lingering beneath the roar of the wind and the breaking waves.
19
Jude drove from La Puntilla under the same blistering midday sun, storming in a back-blast of dust past the pricey hotels and elegant ranchos along the Costa del Sol. He tapped his horn as he passed the teenage bread vendors on their bicicletas de la carga, the women balancing baskets of tamales atop their heads, the wandering dogs and cows and pigs rooting along the roadside for fallen mangos or cashew pods or even half-rotted cabbages, while armed men watched from behind iron gates. The jarring clash of luxury and want prompted an uneasy candor: He felt guilty but grateful to leave Strock behind. Just one last connection with Malvasio, report on things, then he’d put this curious little picaresque behind him for good.
He’d been lied to, sure. Used, maybe—and for what? He couldn’t tell. That’s just the way things get done sometimes, he told himself: No harm, no foul. God loves drunks, fools, and Americans. Here’s hoping. But then, rounding a bend, he felt a surge of nausea build to the point he had to pull to the side of the road. He opened the door, leaned out over the billowing dirt of the roadbed, ready to hurl. Nothing came, just a trickle of bile up his throat, while from somewhere nearby a rooster shrieked. He felt ridiculous. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized what a buildup of fear he’d been sitting on. It seemed odd, not to know a thing like that.
Glancing up, he saw a billboard for Schafik Handal, the FMLN candidate for president, looming over the road. The old guerrilla’s beaming, bespectacled, white-bearded face was gone, obscured by a giant blotch of black paint. The country had held its elections on Sunday, while he’d been in Chicago, and the efemelenistas had lost big. More to the point, as the vandalized billboard made plain, the areneros were ugly winners.
It made him wonder about Eileen—out of concern for how she was taking the election, sure. He’d ask her about that, ask her about everything. But ever since he’d landed, despite all this business with Strock and Malvasio—or maybe because of that—she’d become the star of increasingly shameless daydreams. He felt like a ten-year-old with a crush on the babysitter, a state of puzzling arousal humming in his groin. And, bowing to the humility inspired by his sudden bout of dry heaves, he admitted to himself he felt unworthy of her. What do you do with something like that, he wondered. Sit on it, like your fear?
Malvasio sat waiting at the same beachfront restaurant in San Marcelino. This time there were other customers too, two men, one woman, sitting together: the men filthy from fieldwork and stormily drunk, one of them wearing a sweat-stained cowboy hat of yellow straw; the woman young, dark, and willowy, with doe-like eyes that belied the fact she was a prostitute.
Malvasio offered a Hey buddy smile. “Everything squared away?”
Jude sat down across the table, the artery in his neck throbbing. “I’d get somebody out there to follow up quick. Before somebody we both know goes batty.”
“No worries. That’s the plan.”
“I gave him my cell number to call if he gets edgy and I’d prefer he didn’t blow up my phone wondering what the hell’s going on.”
Malvasio cocked his head a little. “You guys do some male bonding on the way down?”
“What’s that crack for?”
“Nothing. I just—”
“I felt for the guy. God knows he’s a drunken pain in the ass, but he’s out there alone, middle of nowhere.”
“What about Clara?”
“She doesn’t speak English. He doesn’t speak Spanish.”
“My point,” Malvasio said, “is he’s not alone.” He reached across the table and gave Jude’s arm a little buck-up shake. “And he’ll get connected work-wise tomorrow, first thing. Relax. He’ll be okay.” His eyes warmed again. “He’s somebody else’s worry now. You did great. I’m grateful. Really.”
Despite his own better instincts, Jude felt reassured by the attaboy. Malvasio had the gift. “You were right about one thing, incidentally.”
“Just one?”
“He says he’ll kill you if he sees you down here.”
Malvasio looked out across the white sand, the rustling palms, the shimmering blue water. “I wish I knew what to say to that.”
“He filled me in on the Winters story. The parts you left out.” And more, Jude thought, holding on to that for now.
Malvasio turned back. “And which parts might those be?”
“Mainly, the part about planning the hit two months before Winters died. And leaving Strock with his knee torn up when he fell through a rotted stair trying to get into position.”
Malvasio looked like something had crawled up his pant leg. “Come again?”
“I think you heard me.”
“Jude—”
“That’s not your recollection of what happened?”
“I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about,” Malvasio said. “Phil and your dad always told me they were working in your basement and there was an accident. Phil fell off a ladder, I think. A screwdriver or saw blade or something went through his knee. You’re telling me that isn’t his story now?”
Jude felt another lurch of nausea but he tamped it down, picturing how it might have happened—not Malvasio but his dad the one who wanted Winters dead, the hooker snitch too, planning it out with Strock, only to have it all go wrong. It made sense, actually, after a fashion. But then why blame Malvasio? Because he’s the lucky prick who got away clean. Give yourself ten years to perfect a fable of blame every time you’ve got a drink in front of you, God only knows what you’ll concoct.
“No,” Jude said. “That’s not the way he tells it.”
“You ever talk to your dad about what happened?”
Assuming I’d believe my dad, Jude thought. “Never.”
“So it’s Phil’s word against mine.”
“Yeah. Seems so.”
Malvasio rubbed his eyes and groaned. “The funny thing? It’s not like I didn’t know this might happen—I told you he puts everything on me, right?”
“You’re saying he’s lying. His version of what happened to his leg, Winters—”
“Jude, let me stop you, okay? I can’t make this right. I can’t go back and prove anything for you. I’ve already told you my side, he’s told you his, there’s no getting from one to the other. You just have to decide who to believe. Him or me. Maybe neither.” Malvasio shook his head with a sad little laugh. “If you don’t mind me changing the subject, how’d you find him?”
“The kid you told me about,” Jude said. “I tracked her through V
ital Statistics, found the mother in East Chicago. She told me enough I could figure out the rest.”
“You met her. The mother.”
“She’s a dancer. The exotic kind.”
“Okay, that fits the picture. She got a name?”
Jude thought about that. “Listen, don’t take this wrong. I don’t mean anything. But given the bad blood—”
Malvasio raised his hand. “Jude, we’re good. Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know. I was just curious, okay?”
“He’s not crazy about the weapon you left for him, incidentally.”
“Not my problem. Or yours. Besides, that’s just him. Olympic-class whiner, that guy. Give him twenty-four hours, he’ll be knocking caterpillars off coconuts at three hundred yards, trust me. Be doing the same if you left him a slingshot and a box of rocks.”
“He says it’s too windy to practice out there.”
“So they’ll find someplace else he can practice. Look, it’s covered. Your worries are done. Let’s wrap up—any problems along the way I should know about?”
Jude thought through what had happened the last few days—from tracking down Strock to finally dropping him off at the rancho—the whole time not knowing whether he was doing a good thing or a dumb thing, wondering what came next and would he get dragged into it somehow, getting his mind whipsawed by one tale after another with no way to tell what was true: Did any of that constitute a problem?
Malvasio said, “Don’t do that.”
Jude snapped to. “Do what?”
Malvasio pointed to his mouth. “That thing with your lip. The way you chew at it. It’s a nervous tic. Gives you away.”
Jude could feel the blood rush to his face. “Sure.” On a sudden impulse he searched his shirt pocket for the slip of paper he’d removed from his pickup’s firewall—unfolded it, set it on the table, turned it so Malvasio could read the hand-scrawled lettering: “This look familiar?”
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