Blood of Paradise

by David Corbett

  “I’ll try to stop by at least once a day, but I’ve got a lot on my plate. So Sleeper’s gonna be your main source of face time. He can get pretty buzzed himself and he’s chatty when he is. Just so you know.”

  Strock turned back to his weapon, closed one eye, and sighted through the scope again. “Let’s hope that’s the worst of my problems.”

  When he reached the ground, Malvasio gestured for Sleeper to join him by the van. He counted out money for groceries. “Buy the stuff we talked about, plus the kitty litter if you can find it. And water, make sure he’s got plenty. It’s gonna get hot up there.” He handed the cash over. “Another thing—let’s think about keeping your pal away from my pal the next few days.”

  Sleeper counted the bills, then stuffed them in his pocket. “What’s his hang-up?”

  “It’s a cultural thing. You said you had something to tell me?”

  “Yeah. Me and Chucho, we went to one of those meetings, La Tregua? On the button, man, like you said, bunch of putas chavos just want their tats removed.”

  “Fascinating. But Truco.”

  “He’s around.”

  Malvasio waited. In the background, Chucho squatted in the shade, gripping his head. “That’s it—he’s around?”

  “What do you want? I press too hard, I get made, then what?”

  “You’re going back.”

  “Tonight, yeah—What’s with you, man? Lighten the fuck up.”

  “Tonight, what?”

  “Me and Chucho, we got a bead on a guy who’s in touch. Think so. We’ll chat him up, tail him if we have to. By tomorrow—day after, tops—I’ll have your guy.”

  “There,” Malvasio said, grateful the prediction he’d given Hector wouldn’t need revision. “Better.” He opened the van door and climbed behind the wheel.

  Sleeper stepped away into the sun, glancing up at the sniper hide. “That’s an evil piece your buddy’s got. Chucho and me gonna get the same?”

  “That what you want?” Malvasio already had identical weapons put aside, minus silencers and scopes. Part of the plan. “Let me see what I can work out.”

  Sleeper liked that. “Qué chivo.” Awesome.

  “Put your shirt on.”

  Sleeper, clowning, mimicked boo-hoo. “Poor Duende. So much on his mind.” He undid the knot in his sleeves. “Give us a lift to town?”

  “No. I just thought of something I forgot to tell my guy. I need to go back up.”

  “We can wait.”

  “It’s gonna be a while.”

  Malvasio waited for Sleeper and Chucho to sulk away, then retrieved from the back of the van a cell phone with an earpiece and a box of sabot rounds.

  The cell phone was so he could communicate with Strock during the shooting if it came to that. He’d try to limit use before then so no one could trap the signal.

  The sabot rounds were boattail bullets sheathed in a thin plastic shell that split and fell away after firing. The barrel’s striations wouldn’t appear on the round itself, just the plastic, which normally landed no more than ten yards away from the shooter’s position, easy to pick up afterward. If Strock hit anyone, there’d be no way to trace the bullet to his weapon—or, given ballistics down here, no way to prove for sure it hadn’t come from someone else’s.

  Like Sleeper’s. Or Chucho’s.

  And so it goes, he thought, drawing no pleasure from how well things were falling into place. In fact, the more the plan crystallized, the more his mind turned ashen. He couldn’t shake a forbidding sense of waste. God help me, he thought. Help me and Phil and Ray’s unlucky kid.

  33

  Over a late, leisurely brunch on the Intercontinental’s sun-washed restaurant patio, Axel clutched Consuela’s hand in the shade of their tasseled umbrella and gamely tried to broaden the conversation to invite Jude in.

  “I miss waking up to the parakeets,” he said with a sigh. “What do we get instead? Chicharras. Criminy, what a racket.”

  He was referring to a variety of cicada that bred noisily and laid its eggs during March each year, then died off, like something from an insect opera. Their eerie trilling echoed down through the hillside canyons above the city and resembled wind through high-tension wires.

  “I guess I tuned it out,” Jude said, unable to take it further. He’d risen early, checked his e-mails, and confirmed arrangements for the coming trip east to San Bartolo Oriente. Then he’d cleaned his weapons, checked the spring tensions on his magazines, practiced speed reloading and presentation—grip, clear, clasp, sight—from both his belt and his ankle holsters. Next he’d dry-fired two-shot hammers and split hammers at imaginary targets around the room, then worked up a good dense sweat with calisthenics, after which he’d taken his longest cold shower in memory as he waited out the lovers dallying in bed next door. Andante amoroso, was how Axel put it. They still had that sated afterglow.

  “I’m beginning to think that everything I love about this country is getting overrun by bugs, blackbirds, and buzzards. Well, not quite everything.” Axel smiled at Consuela, who indulged him, rolling her eyes. “Imagine the wildlife you’d still have here, though, if they hadn’t clear-cut ninety percent of the forests for the sake of plantations.”

  Or the locals didn’t need to eat everything they could lay their hands on just to survive, Jude thought. Then something caught his eye. Turning, he stared across the patio of sandstone pavers to the French doors leading into the restaurant. There, framed by two large urns overflowing with mano de leon, stood Eileen—dressed comfortably, seductively in a white camisole, denim skirt, and sandals. The sun reflected off her glasses, causing her lenses to flare. She clutched a manila envelope to her chest.

  Sensing Jude’s bewilderment and following his gaze, Axel said, “What in God’s name is it?”

  Before Jude could respond, Eileen started walking toward them, negotiating a path among the other tables, tapping people on the shoulder and murmuring, “Con permiso,” with a smile. If she’d been a jumpy, sweaty stranger—or brandishing a gun—he’d have known exactly what to do. As it was, he just sat there, watching her approach, his meal churning in his stomach and a vein thumping in his neck like a plucked string.

  Reaching the table, she bent a little at the waist, so her face could be seen beneath the umbrella’s tassels. “Hello, Jude.”

  That voice, he thought. Axel and Consuela shot mindful glances back and forth. Eileen spared him further agony by extending her hand to Axel.

  “I don’t believe our paths have crossed. Eileen Browning. I’m an anthropologist who’s been working down here for a year or so.”

  Axel brightened. “Delighted. Axel Odelberg. This is Consuela Rojas.”

  “I know. Actually, it’s Señora Rojas I’ve come to see.”

  Consuela blanched quizzically. Axel said, “You know each other?”

  Jude, mastering his shock finally, looked about for a chair. “Let’s find you a seat.”

  “Actually, I was going to ask if there was someplace private we could talk. Señora Rojas, I’ve been working with a reporter named Bert Waxman the past week, ever since his former assistant was told to leave the country. I have some pictures here I would like to show you.”

  On the brief ride up in the elevator, Eileen leaned toward Jude and whispered, “You look well.” It stunned him, all things considered. Punk. Bruiser. And her eyes conveyed a fond warmth, reminding him how much he’d missed her. Now here she was, like a conjurer’s trick, but before he could process all that into an appropriate response, the doors slid open. Everyone filed into the hall.

  He felt awkward making them wait outside Axel’s room while he cleared it, as though Eileen might have lured them into a trap, but as he’d heard more than once, one can’t sacrifice the client’s safety on the altar of good manners. He’d explain later; for now, he ventured in himself and asked everyone to wait just beyond the open door.

  Housekeeping had already tidied up, but the room felt close and hot, the maid having switc
hed off the air-conditioning since no one was in the room. Jude opened the sliding glass door to let in a breeze, knowing Axel’s preference for fresh air, and checked the balcony for anything out of the ordinary. He cast one quick glance down, onto the hotel grounds, then out toward the Boulevard de los Héroes and the gentle, smoggy hills of the European Zone, before returning inside.

  The room was typical of the local hotels, spacious but bland as a box, and yet the drab decor had the advantage of making it easy to search. A pool of sweat formed in the small of his back as he went about things quickly to compensate for a little more thoroughness than usual, in case somebody who’d known of Eileen’s coming, or who had followed her here, had somehow managed to sneak in while they were all downstairs. He checked the closet and behind the curtains and wall hangings, then inside every drawer, under the cabinets, the bed. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and earpiece on the phone, checking for transmitters, then did the same with the most accessible wall sockets, using a small screwdriver on his key chain to undo the faceplates. He even lifted the toilet lid to see if anything lay in the reservoir—a microphone, or a bomb sealed in plastic—but found only a pair of dead mosquitoes and a dissolving puck of chlorine. Last, he tried the TV remote to make sure all that happened was a program came on.

  Satisfied the room was clean, he invited everyone inside with: “Sorry to make everyone wait.”

  Axel directed them all to a circular table near the patio door, where the curtains rustled in the parched wind. He took the chair next to Consuela’s, then inched it closer till their arms touched. Sensing his protectiveness, Eileen addressed her words to him.

  “Jude may have told you about the woman whose body was found along the Río Jiboa about a week ago.” She waited, received an acknowledging nod, then: “A photographer took some pictures at the scene. In particular, he was able to get a shot of the woman’s head when one of the soldiers lifted it up for his … for the other soldiers to see.”

  The blood drained from Consuela’s face. A whisper: “My God …”

  Eileen turned toward her. “Another man named Truco Valdez was able to get away with the camera. He had the pictures developed here in San Salvador. You met with a woman named Marta Valdez who complained about the wells near her village below San Bartolo Oriente. I have the pictures here. I’d like to know if you’d be willing to look at them.”

  Squirming in his chair, Axel mustered the beginnings of a protest, but Consuela stopped him.“Of course,” she said.

  Eileen undid the envelope’s clasp and removed several prints, sorted them, then handed one across the table, saying, “This will be hard.”

  Consuela took the picture, studied it, then put her hand to her mouth. The hand began to tremble and her eyes hollowed out. Axel reached his arms around her and unwittingly knocked the picture to the floor. Even looking at it upside down, Jude nearly got sick. It was one of those grainy, hideous images that could make a photographer famous: the soldier jubilant, arm held high, with a fistful of matted black hair—the dusty, marble-eyed face with its crooked, gaping mouth; the sawed flesh of the neck; the clinging mass of flies.

  Eileen said, “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  Consuela nodded.

  “There’s no mistake?”

  “No. No.”

  “Because right now, officially, Marta is simply missing. The PNC claims someone came forward, identified the body as that of a runaway prostitute.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that. We all have. But I recognize her.”

  Eileen leaned closer. “There’s a boy who saw the men who abducted her.”

  Consuela nodded, collecting herself. “Oscar.”

  “Yes. He said he’d spoken to you. About Marta. It’s why I came here today. I tried you at your home, but—”

  Axel broke in. “What is it exactly that you want?”

  “Please, Axel,” Consuela said.

  “Oscar’s in hiding,” Eileen said. “The people who have him are already being watched, though. They think. No one knows for sure. But it would probably be wise to move him. They’ve asked for our help, me and Wax—Bert, I mean, Mr. Waxman.”

  “Bring him to me,” Consuela said, her revulsion already quickening into anger. “That’s what you’re asking, yes?”

  “It’s too dangerous. Bringing him all the way here, I mean. Sooner or later we’ll have to, I suppose. There are lawyers here in the capital, the Human Rights Ombudsman—”

  “Bring him to my house then. Until it’s safe to move him. I’ll go back today. With you.”

  “Consuela,” Axel said. “Think for a moment.”

  “It’s not just him now,” Eileen said. “It’s his mother as well.”

  “Very well.” Consuela seemed impatient, conflicted—her sense of obligation, her outrage, Axel’s concern. “I don’t—”

  “Men came to their home recently,” Eileen continued, “looking for Oscar. He isn’t sure whether they were the same men that killed Marta, but they took his little sister, an infant. They told his mother the baby would be safe as long as Oscar tells no one what he saw—which, of course, means nothing. The woman’s half-mad with fear.”

  Jude leaned down finally and lifted the picture off the floor. He set it back on the table, facedown, as Axel said, “I’ll be staying at the Hotel Gavidia tomorrow night. Why not bring the boy and his mother to me?”

  Jude cut in. “Axel, wait.”

  “I don’t think,” Eileen said, “bringing Oscar and his mother to a hotel would be wise. Too many people could see them.”

  “They’ll be safer in the company of an American.”

  “Axel,” Jude said, “you know that’s not true.”

  “I’d have to agree with that,” Eileen said. “If we didn’t have reason before not to trust the authorities, we do now. The way they’re handling Gilberto Soto’s killing—”

  “Let’s put it this way then,” Axel said. “An American without the baggage. I don’t mean any offense, but let’s put it plainly. Mr. Soto belonged to a union people think of, rightly or wrongly, as an arm of the Mob, and the killing occurred here. To most Americans, that’s a man they don’t much care about killed in a place they’ve never heard of. I’m not trying to slander the man, I’m just saying …” He fluttered his hand suggestively. “I’m a little different. Perhaps. I could be their uncle. That could mean political heat back home if anything happens to me, and even the creatures who run things here don’t want to alienate the boys in Washington.”

  “Actually, it’s more the reverse,” Eileen said. “El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops still in Iraq. Now they’re sending private security contractors too. It’s the boys in Washington, as you put it, who want everything smoothed over here.”

  “Even so, can we agree it would be something of a statistical oddity, two Americans killed here, one right after the other? Even during the war, it was very rare. I know that much local history.”

  Jude rose from the table. “I don’t think whoever’s behind all this will be swayed much by the math. Would anyone mind if Axel and I spoke alone for a moment?” Without waiting for a response, he gestured for Axel to come with him to the adjoining room.

  Axel didn’t move. “Anything I have to discuss on this issue, Jude, I’ll discuss with Consuela present.”

  “I think—”

  “I know, Jude. Please.” Axel’s eyes hardened with a sad, protective defiance. Jude felt oddly helpless against it.

  “I’ll go,” Eileen said, getting up from her chair. “I don’t mind waiting alone.”

  Jude unlocked the door connecting Axel’s room with his and showed Eileen through. Suddenly modest, he ducked a quick glance around to make sure housekeeping had hit here as well. All was neat, tucked away, but stifling. “Go ahead and open things up,” he said, “or switch on the air conditioner if you like.” He turned to leave, but Eileen snagged his arm.

  “Could I talk to you alone? Just a second.”

  Jude stepped all
the way into the room and closed the door. Despite himself, his pulse was jumping. “We really do need a breeze in here,” he said, needing the distraction every bit as much as the air. He went to the sliding glass door, opened it, drew the curtains. Turning back to the room, he found Eileen sitting on the bed, her ankles crossed. She ran a finger along the lace rim of her camisole, the fabric sticking to her skin. A sheen of sweat glistened on her face and throat. Her glasses slid down her nose, and he found himself wishing she’d take them off.

  “I realize this is awkward,” she said, fanning herself with her hand. “But the boy, Oscar, he specifically mentioned Consuela and—”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  She nodded self-consciously, then pulled back her hair. “Good. Thank you. I just mean it’s difficult, clumsy, given what happened between us.”

  She made it sound so final, he thought. “I’m not sure I could tell you, one way or the other, what happened between us.” It came out needlessly flip.

  Her eyes flared. “What I mean is, Jude, the situation here, it’s bigger than a sport fuck, okay?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t act like—”

  “Wait. Hold on.” He could feel heat rising to his face, his neck. “My sole concern right now is keeping that man in there out of harm’s way.”

  “He’s not the only one in a bit of a jam here, big guy.”

  “I’m sorry about the woman, the boy, his little sister, all of it. But—”

  “How American. They ought to start putting that on the dollar bill, don’t you think? ‘We’re sorry. But.’”

  “Oh, great, drag that in.”

  “Now don’t get snide.”

  “You want snide?” Before he could catch himself, he went to his briefcase and fished around for her poem. Stop this, he thought, but the thing had a momentum all its own. Finding the worn sheet of notepad paper, he unfolded it and held it out for her to take. “You forgot this at your house in La Perla.”

  Staring at the limp sheet of yellow bond, laced with her script, she pushed her glasses up her nose. “Good God. Listen, Jude—”