Blood of Paradise

by David Corbett

  “A woman’s body—her body and her head—got found under the bridge over the Río Jiboa. The PNC claims she was a prostitute, but her name’s Marta Valdez. That’s been confirmed through a photograph taken at the scene. She complained about salt in the wells south of town.”

  Torres still said nothing, but his gaze hardened.

  “A boy saw the men who abducted her. Later, Bill Malvasio came around but the boy escaped. Malvasio took the boy’s infant sister hostage instead, telling the mother if her son told what he saw, the little girl would be killed.”

  For the first time, Torres showed a genuine reaction. Nothing much, a deepening groove in his brow, an idle twitch at the edge of his mouth. Surprise, perhaps. Jude didn’t know what to make of that. Regardless, Torres regrouped quickly.

  “Let me say this again. I do not know who or what you are talking about or why you came here—”

  “Axel wanted me to let Señor Sola know that despite all the effort that’s been made to make it impossible for him to do his job—ruining his wells, sabotaging data—he’s actually ready to provide a full analysis. A favorable one, in fact. Depending.”

  Another twitch—Torres recognized the cue but refused to jump in. He sat, waiting.

  “Axel will do that, sign off on the aquifer’s drawdown and recharge levels. What he asks for in exchange is the safe return of this little girl.” Jude reached for a pen resting beside the ledger at Torres’s elbow. “I’ll leave you my number.”

  “Enough.” Torres ripped the pen from Jude’s hand and slammed it back down on the table. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. McManus, but get out. I have food and drinks to sell. That is who I am. That is what I do. I cannot help you.”

  Just then a woman burst in from the bar in a panic of muttered curses. She wore heels, pedal pushers, a scandalous blouse, her hair a lacquered swarm of black curls. She carried a fan of bills tucked between her fingers—a cocktail waitress—threw her hands up in despair, and was about to let loose with a full-blown cry when, seeing Jude, she caught herself. That fast, she buried her indignation and nodded a silent, apologetic hello. Approaching Torres, she leaned down and whispered feverishly, almost tearfully into his ear. He patted her arm as he listened, then twisted his head around, whispered something back. She smiled, took his face in her hands, and kissed his hair. “Gracias, gracias, amorcito.” Turning to Jude, she whispered, “Lo siento, señor,” then minced in her high heels back to the bar.

  That’s how easy it ought to be, Jude thought, to beg for a little girl’s life. The folly of the whole business hit home then. He felt ridiculous, the butt of a cosmic joke: The devil feeds the multitude. The devil comforts Mary Magdalene. The devil suffers the little children.

  Torres turned back. “If there’s nothing more—”

  “Just this,” Jude said, determined to see it through. “The pictures, the ID of Marta Valdez, even the child labor on Judge Regalado’s cane plantations—we know he’s the source for the bottling plant’s sugar—nothing will be said. That silence plus a favorable report on the water issues. All we ask in return is for the mother to get her little girl back.”

  A fleeting shadow crossed Torres’s face, as though he were tallying the cost of dropping the pretense. Dealing. Encouraged by that, Jude added, “It’s a generous concession. All things considered.”

  Torres said, “Please. I’m trying to be polite. Don’t make me call my men.”

  Jude pictured that, pictured as well making short work of Torres in the meantime. To what end, though? “Fine,” he said. “But I think Señor Sola will be disappointed if he learns I tried to get this information to him, through you, and you refused to pass it on.” Jude reached down again, took the pen, and, fending off Torres’s hand this time, jotted his cell number in the margin of the ledger. “In case Bill’s misplaced my information.” He dropped the pen and turned to go, glad at least he’d gotten through the thing without gnawing a hole in his lip.

  As he reached the door, Torres said from behind, “I foresee a day, Mr. McManus, when you realize how badly you have misjudged me.”

  Malvasio had traveled all the way out to the rancho the night before. He should have stayed in town, but he’d figured the numbing monotony of the surf and the ocean breeze would help with sleep. The last few days of crank excess had taken a jittery, mind-hissing toll, but he’d crashed into a dead black stupor and dozed till noon, then gone out to the beach for a drop-dead run, miles and miles of empty beach. He was sitting in the garden now, eyes closed, back against the trunk of a shading palm, sucking wind and drenched in toxic sweat. His legs and lungs were on fire. Behind his eyelids, neural flashes shimmered. The pain felt cleansing. Not bad for middle age, he thought, then his cell phone trilled. Checking the display, he saw it was Hector. Save me a lobster, he thought, flipping it open. “Go ahead.”

  “What’s this about an abducted girl?”

  Looking in through the glass doors, Malvasio saw Constancia clasping her little hands tight around Clara’s thumbs as the two of them marched around the dining room table—Clara bent over like a puppeteer, the little girl bow-legged, pudgy feet slapping pavers, happy as a peach.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve just been visited by the hydrologist’s bodyguard, the one you told me about, the son of your old friend? He used your name with the hostess, said he knew you worked for me. Said you told him so, actually.”

  “That’s a lie.” Then: “He showed up at the restaurant?”

  “Those pictures you’ve been looking for? Don’t bother. He has them. And, like I said, he claims you kidnapped a girl.”

  Malvasio looked in through the glass doors again. With Clara still guiding her, little Constancia wobbled on her feet, about to peal with glee. Jumping up, he moved as far away from the door as he could. If she makes a noise, he thought, say it’s a parrot.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. It seemed absurd now, one of those thoughtless little blunders that turns out to be a cancer. Why hadn’t he told Hector about the girl? He couldn’t say exactly. He’d been improvising when he’d taken her, improvising when he’d brought her here, and the problem with improvisation, of course, is predicting how it will end. He’d trusted his instincts, though, and they’d said keep quiet, just as they told him now it was out of the question, if not insane, to own up. Hector Torres wasn’t a man to indulge mistakes, let alone confessions. “What girl?”

  Static on the line echoed the wind scouring the beach. “The little sister of this boy you’ve been looking for. The mother says you took the girl as a hostage, to keep the boy from talking.”

  “No. That’s … It’s nuts, frankly.”

  “Why would she claim such a thing?”

  “Hector, how would I know? She had a kid, a baby, yeah, I saw it when I was there. If the kid’s gone now, I’d bet she hid it, made up the story of a kidnap to keep it safe. Now she’s trapped in her own lie. Other than that, you tell me.”

  Hector dragged out the next silence even longer. “The hydrologist is willing to write off the water usage if the little girl is returned. And nothing said about what the boy saw, the woman who was killed. The old fool gives us what we want and goes away.”

  Well, let’s crack out the good stuff, Malvasio thought. “What are you saying?”

  “If you have any access to this child, she could be very valuable to us.”

  No, Malvasio thought. I turn around, admit I lied, the girl’s here, it’s just a matter of time. May as well put the gun to my head myself.

  “You want me to try and find her?”

  The next, final silence was the longest yet. Then: “Strickland, the man from Torkland Overby, he arrives tonight. He’s due to meet with this hydrologist tomorrow, and there’s no telling what the old fool knows or doesn’t know, what he’ll do or say if he doesn’t get what he wants. God only knows who he’s spoken to already. I’ve already discussed all this with Wenceslao, by the way. No surprise, he’s furious. We
were so close, now this. Judge Regalado, the colonel, I’ve spoken to them as well. This young man, the bodyguard, he’s been very foolish. And whoever helped him cook up this scheme must have been mad. What were they thinking? It’s like dealing with children ….” His voice trailed off. Malvasio considered prompting him but thought better of it. Finally, a growling sigh, then: “You know what’s expected. I realize it will not be pleasant, since we’re talking about the son of a friend.”

  Malvasio caught something coy in Hector’s tone. “You name the need, I do the deed. That’s how it works. I know it, you know it.”

  “Unless, of course, you hear something about where you can find that child easily.”

  Malvasio looked back toward the house. Clara and the little girl stood in the doorway, looking up into the palm trees as a pelican fluttered back to its nest.

  “I’ll get things together.”

  Squinting through the Redfield scope, the crosshair optic gleaming in the bright sunlight, Strock watched Jude putter back up the cul-de-sac in the VW station wagon he’d left in two hours earlier. Quite a step down from the Mercedes he’d styled around in yesterday, Strock thought. The car belonged to the lanky woman in the glasses, she’d shown up again this morning. Jude’s girl, maybe, except she’d stayed behind while he’d gone off, all on his lonesome. Strange, him doing that, given it was his job to protect the old man, go where he goes, stay where he stays. But now the kid was back and everyone would tell him the place had been deader than dead while he’d been gone.

  Strock pulled his eye away from the scope and rested his chin on his arm. A sense of malaise swept through him, a mood he’d been suffering more and more the past two days. And yet who wouldn’t get morose, he thought, cooped up in a room this size, lying stock-still hours on end like a turkey in the oven.

  Deciding it was time to stretch, he hitched his way down the ladder till he stood on the roof of the garage, the sun high and hot. He found a corner of shade and set himself down there. A parrot fluttered its huge green wings in the feathery branches of a nearby ceiba tree and, in time, turned its eyes toward Strock. Shortly they were staring each other down. He found it calming, gazing into the small obsidian eyes, and as he sank deeper into the meditative mood, something he’d been thinking about quite a bit lately drifted slowly to the surface of his mind.

  He began to talk quietly aloud: “Ray, I don’t know if you can hear me, don’t know if you even exist in any meaningful way. Hell, you could be this fucking bird for all I know, or I could just be sitting here, talking to myself. But if I’m lucky—and I realize I’ve got no right to think I am—but if I’m lucky you can hear me, because I’ve got something to ask. I’m going to save your boy’s life. I realize that makes us even, you having saved mine way back when, but I’m going to ask you for just a little more. I’ve no idea how this thing is gonna play out. Dumb, I realize, trusting Bill all over again, and I could tick off the reasons for that but mostly I couldn’t leave your boy to fend for himself, not with these jackals in the picture. I’ve got a little plan in mind, might work, might not, we’ll have to see. But I realize I may not come out the back end alive. So here’s my request—look after my little girl. Chelsea’s her name. I’m fond of her—God, why is it so hard to say I love somebody? I love her. There. I love my little girl, and she’s got more of her mom than me in her so watch over her, if you can. And, while I’m asking, look after Clara and little Constancia, too, if possible. I’m not sure why, but I just can’t stop thinking about those two. They deserve a better break than I’ve a feeling they’re gonna get.”

  He wiped away a thread of sweat quivering down his brow. The parrot ruffled its wings again and glanced away.

  “That’s enough to ask for, I suppose. I don’t mean to be greedy. Just do what you can if you’re up there, and thanks, partner. Over and out, amen, whatever.”

  39

  The phone didn’t ring till sunset, and a mere glance at the incoming number crushed Jude’s hopes: He’d been waiting for a call from Malvasio, Torres, Sola, anyone. But it was Fitz, telling him that Bob Strickland, Torkland Overby’s chairman, would be landing at Comalapa as scheduled that night, staying over at a hotel on the Costa del Sol, then heading on to San Bartolo Oriente in the morning. He intended to meet with Axel first, a working lunch at the Hotel Gavidia to review his findings, then indulge the Estrella board with some face time. “I’ll e-mail the security plan in a bit,” Fitz said, sounding overwhelmed, as always. “Anything happening on your end?”

  Jude squelched a laugh. It did, given events, sound a little like the setup to a punch line. “Weather’s been a beast,” he said truthfully. Then: “Too hot for trouble.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.” Fitz pulled back from the receiver to clear his throat. “Look, maybe I did go over the top about all this, your staying there, the woman’s house. Looks like it’s all worked out.”

  Give me one more day, Jude thought, I’ll second that. And yet he felt oddly moved by the apology. Something had happened; Fitz seemed untypically subdued. “Nothing wrong with playing devil’s advocate, I suppose.”

  “Like sex in the movies—good for you, good for me.”

  Poor sad, lonely Fitz, Jude thought. “Well said.” He signed off, taking heart from his enhanced knack for lying, then went upstairs to pass on the news.

  Consuela sat on the bed, propped on pillows, ankles crossed, listening to the radio while Axel tapped away on his laptop, sitting in a chair and using the foot of the bed for a desk. The contented couple, Jude thought. With the curtains closed, the air was hot and stale except for a hint of perfume.

  “That was Fitz on the phone,” Jude told Axel. “You’re set for tomorrow with Strickland.” He might as well have said they had a funeral to attend.

  “We’ll hear something by then,” Axel said, trying to buck everyone up, himself included.

  Jude rested his back against the wall, feeling the pitted surface of the cinder block through his T-shirt. “If not, they win anyway. You said so yourself—you don’t have the data to prove the aquifer depletion.”

  “That’s not precisely what I said.” Axel returned his glance to his laptop screen. In its glow his facial features hollowed out, his eyes shimmered eerily. “Besides, funny things can happen with data.”

  “Funny as in …?”

  “Extrapolations, projections, best guesses.” Axel tapped away at the keys. “If I could do it to fudge up an analysis to get that little girl back, I can do it to mock up something like the truth.”

  For what, Jude wondered—revenge? It never buys back what you lost. “Your reputation’s on the line, Axel. With nothing to show for it now. Or am I missing something?”

  Axel stopped typing. His hands, poised in midair, looked unearthly. “Let’s just say I’m rethinking my reputation.” His eyes turned to Jude’s, bringing with them the saddest of smiles. “Don’t worry, I’ll save my full presentation till I’m out of the country, as I promised. I won’t make your job any harder than it already is.”

  Downstairs, Eileen waited in the dining room with two glasses of ice water, squeezing lemon into each, then stirring in sugar. Water, sugar—for Jude they conjured the bottling plant, the judge’s plantation. Even the littlest things struck him as symbolic now. Perhaps it was the candles. They filled the room with a museum of shadows.

  “Beating yourself up?” she asked.

  She was uncannily wise to him. “Only on the inside.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “It’s how I pat myself on the back.”

  She passed him his glass, went back to stirring hers, glancing up now and then. Finally: “Just because you’re doing the right thing doesn’t mean it’s your fault when it doesn’t work out.”

  Pithy, Jude thought, let’s sell T-shirts. He couldn’t help himself—comfort felt insulting, and that tapped into a reservoir of bile. “If you decide to run for Queen of the Obvious, let me know.”

  Eileen shrank back in her chair. “Touché. Sorry.”
<
br />   “No. That was out of bounds.” His nerves were shot. So little sleep. “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. We’re both sorry.”

  Like sex in the movies, Jude thought.

  “I said it before.” She shrugged and sighed. “I get stupid when I’m scared. Whistle a happy tune, that’s me.” She took a sip of her drink, hiding behind her glass. “Mind if I spend the night here? That is … I don’t mean—” She winced.

  “It’s okay. I understand.” It felt impossible, this thing between them. Impossible and necessary, like everything else of late. “It may not be safe.”

  “Who outside your company knows that Axel’s here?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know.”

  “And not even your company knows Oscar’s here. So why would anybody be safer somewhere else?”

  Jude smiled helplessly and tipped his glass, a salute. “There you go.”

  “You trusted me with the shotgun before. Be good to have someone here who can use it.”

  If you tell her no, he thought, she’ll just fight harder. Admit it, she’s staying. He wiped his nose, tickled by tallow smoke. “Sure. Good. Make yourself at home. I can sleep on the floor.”

  “No. I will. I just need a sheet.”

  Jude pictured it, the two of them lying there, a few feet apart, awake, pretending not to be.

  Eileen cut short his reverie. “That poem I wrote, you were never supposed to see that, you know.”

  “You told Waxman you didn’t want to see me.”

  She blanched. “I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

  There she was again. Little Sister Sorry. He could relate. “No need.”

  “I’m not so good at the boy-girl thing.”

  “Me neither.”

  She laughed. “There. A trait in common. Something to build on.” She rattled the ice in her glass. Her shadow quavered on the wall behind her. “What are you going to do after all this is over?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Once Axel’s gone, what will you do?”

  Once again, she’d nailed where his head was at. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this work.” He drained his glass. The lemonade tasted even runnier at the bottom, plenty of sugar, though. It made him thirsty all over again. “I want to travel for a while. Then I think maybe I’ll head back home, get a contractor’s license.”