by Linda Barnes
I wondered whether the man and woman who’d delayed me at the airport worked for Justice. They’d been dressed well enough.
If the silver-haired man in 32F hadn’t dropped his eyes and looked away, I might not have noticed him. The sudden motion, the tilt as he shifted his weight to gaze blankly out the window, drew my eye like a magnet and I thought: Where have I seen him before? Not in the security line. Not in the boarding lounge; I hadn’t spent any time in the boarding lounge.
I edged into the tiny restroom. My breathing was shallow and my palms felt damp. Maybe it was simply lack of sleep. No sleep, Paolina’s disappearance, the stubbornly clinging blue Saturn, the anonymous airport agents—the combination had me reacting like a rookie cop in a bad neighborhood, imagining a machine gun in every violin case. I needed to steel myself, get a grip. The plane dipped its wings and gave a sudden lurch. The PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEAT sign flashed accusingly as I splashed water on my face.
Emerging from the toilet, I stood near the rear of the plane expecting, hoping, to recover my perspective and reclassify the man as a harmless stranger. I ran my eyes over his muscular back, protruding ears, thick neck. Paranoia crept between my shoulder blades. Dammit, I was right. I distinctly remembered the laughing brunette on his arm, the tall frosted glass in his right hand, the tops of his sunburned ears. I couldn’t be mistaken. I’d noticed him near the pool, crossing the patio by the crystalline water.
At Drew Naylor’s party.
CHAPTER 16
I feigned sleep when the plane landed, but the ploy would have worked better in the window seat. When the passenger next to me prodded me mercilessly awake, I had little choice but to precede the man in 32F off the aircraft. I dawdled in the arrival lounge until he deplaned, then made a minor show of realizing I’d forgotten something, and reentered the plane. Mr. 32F hadn’t left anything in his seat compartment, but then neither had I.
He wasn’t visible when I exited the jetway, already in line at customs when I collected my duffle. I showed the photo of Paolina to each of the customs agents in the busy room, disrupting the orderly lines and earning scowls from my fellow travelers. My little sister, I explained, had forgotten to tell me where she was staying in Bogota. Possibly you’d remember her; she was traveling with her aunt and uncle.
No one recalled her. I was urged to get back in the proper line. The line crawled. I caught a glimpse of Silver Hair lingering near a coffee vendor. As soon as I got past customs, I made a beeline for the El Dorado airport ladies’ room.
There was no toilet paper in the stall. Oh well, I thought, that’s okay; Kleenex in my backpack. No toilet seat on the toilet, either; I retreated into the common area of the restroom to think things over. The next woman in line took my place. She was holding a wad of toilet paper.
Aha. A communal dispenser hung on a nearby wall. I grabbed a handful and reinserted myself at the end of the line. Plenty of time to kill.
The man in seat 32F couldn’t follow me in here, and the terminal was so jammed with travelers there was a good chance he hadn’t seen me enter. If I stayed long enough, he might assume I’d rushed outside and grabbed a cab. He might give up and depart.
I considered the coincidence factor. Coincidences happen. Cousins who haven’t spoken in years meet abruptly in strange cities. But when I’m working a case, I regard any hint of coincidence with suspicion. I recalled the curious sensation I’d had in the mirrored room at Miami— Dade, the feeling that the man was asking me unimportant questions, holding me temporary prisoner for a purpose, deliberately delaying me. Could 32F have been behind the mirror?
Could he have been the man in the blue Saturn?
Paranoia?
I used the facilities, such as they were, and idled away the minutes washing my hands twice, applying lipstick, combing my tangled hair. None of the women lingered long enough to question my continued presence.
After twenty-two minutes, a bright-eyed cleaning woman brought in a mop and bucket. I dug out Paolina’s photo again, and asked if she might have noticed the girl two nights ago, about this time. She was very sorry, but no, she hadn’t. There were so many girls and so much work. When I gave her a five-dollar bill, she stared at it speechlessly.
“Keep the photo,” I said. “Show it to friends who work at the airport. If anyone saw the girl, tell them to call the phone number on the back of the picture. Call collect. There will be a reward. For both of you.”
I’d printed Gloria’s number on the back of twelve copies. She doesn’t speak much Spanish, but she knows enough to ask a caller to hold on, and there’s always a Spanish-speaking driver who’ll help her out.
“Si. Gracias.”
I left the restroom. No silver-haired man near the coffee stall; none in the corridor.
I found a money machine that spit pesos and bought a tourist map of the city. At the gift shop, waiting to pay for the map, I hauled out another copy of Paolina’s photo. The stony-eyed clerk hadn’t seen her. Every time I saw a person in uniform, a security guard, an airport employee, I displayed the photo and got the same response. Twice, guided more by instinct than reason, I gave the photo away, urging the recipient to ask around, to call the phone number on the back if anyone gave a positive response. I emphasized the reward.
A bank of phone booths nestled between the money exchange booth and the entrance to the duty-free shop. I checked my watch. The plane had landed at 10:42. It was well past midnight now, too late to try the numbers from Naylor’s bill. In Boston, I’d have grabbed my crisscross directory, gotten addresses to match the phone numbers, checked them out. A simple public-records search would net the identity of the inhabitants. With cop help, I could quickly learn more, like whether or not a handgun was registered to anyone on the premises.
Mooney’s warning echoed in my head: Avoid the local police.
Was it really too late to call? What did I have to lose? If the numbers were office numbers, there might be illuminating recorded messages. If I woke people, I might learn more from their sleepily indignant responses than I’d get in the calm, collected morning.
I studied the directions on the phone, went back to the gift shop, and bought a bag of coffee-flavored candy. A two-fer, change and caffeine, both needed.
All the booths were empty when I returned. The number of travelers in the terminal had markedly decreased. No sign of the silver-haired man. I entered the second booth from the right, piled a stack of two-hundred-peso coins on the tiny corner shelf. Each was the size and shape of a quarter.
I tried the number that appeared most frequently on Naylor’s bill. It rang and rang. No message machine. I listened, hypnotized by the repetitive sound, hung up and tried again. Same thing.
With a sigh, I punched the less frequently dialed number. Eight rings. Ten. I was about to hang up when the phone clicked.
“Zona Rosa. ^Ald?” Loud lively music in the background, laughter. “^Ald?”
I stammered my way through an inquiry about the hours.
Open till three, the gruff voice said, but the line was already out the door. He doubted they’d all get in. Tomorrow night, before midnight, I’d have a better chance.
He hung up before I could respond. Zona Rosa. I scratched the name on the back of my used airline ticket, opened the phone book that lay next to my stack of coins on the shelf. Zona Rosa; no listing.
I felt suddenly exhausted, drained. Even if the address had been neatly printed, even if the Zona Rosa’s greeter had told me they’d be open till dawn and I should rush right over, I’d have hesitated. If the phone booth had been equipped with a seat, I’d have been tempted to spend the night, sleep right there.
In the main lobby, a tape-recorded voice announced that buses were available for transport to the domestic terminal where departures to Cali, Medellin, Pasto, and Monteria were imminent. I went outside and joined the queue. The air, warm and heavy, was scented with the tang of greenery. I watched grandmothers greet children with open arms, fathers slap grown sons on
the back with pride. I imagined Paolina, racing across the pavement into my arms. The overhead lights cast strange shadows on the ground. Buses and taxis came and went. I didn’t see the silver-haired man.
When the bus came, I showed Paolina’s photo to the driver. He shook his head. He looked as tired as I felt. I dragged my duffel through the domestic terminal, asking whether anyone had seen my daughter. Daughter. Mi hija. It slipped out instead of sister, and I let it be. A fluorescent light flickered intermittently; it would have brought on a seizure in an epileptic.
After forty-five minutes of denials, I followed the signs to a cabstand and told the driver I’d appreciate the recommendation of a reasonably priced hotel near the offices of El Tiempo. Then I opened the compact I keep in my backpack and watched the traffic behind us all the way. I don’t think we were followed, but at night in a strange city, I couldn’t be sure.
CHAPTER 17
I woke to sunlight tilting from the wrong angle across a room of the wrong proportions, the wrong pillow beneath my cheek, the wrong smells in my nostrils. I swung my legs out of bed, stilled the alarm, and sat, recalling the rushed journey by taxi, the bright lights glinting from skyscrapers, the softly lit cathedrals.
The little gold birdman stared at me blankly from the bedside table.
“Welcome home,” I told him.
The tile floor felt icy under my bare feet as I crossed to the window and pushed the curtain aside. A steady procession of noisy traffic streamed by. Cars of all makes and sizes, boxy sedans, and buses, big and small, red, yellow, and green, commuters waving them down in the streets the way a New Yorker would flag a cab. A mule-drawn cart slowed traffic in the right-hand lane.
Church steeples towered over roofs of Spanish tile. Mountain peaks vanished in the morning mist. When I shifted my attention to the pedestrian traffic, I found the hurrying walkers on the narrow sidewalks well dressed: suits, ties, and slim attache cases for the men; high heels for the women.
I showered and dressed quickly. My wardrobe didn’t allow for much in the way of choice, but after my glance at the impeccable pedestrians, I decided to forego jeans and sneakers in favor of navy pants, a low-cut white tee, and the smoky silk jacket. I did my makeup in the small square of mirror over the sink, draped a scarf around my neck to add some color. After tucking the little birdman into his pouch and placing him in the smallest compartment of my backpack, I took the stairs to the lobby.
The Hotel del Parque, a glass and concrete square, the cabbie’s recommendation, fit the bill, cheap and near the newspaper building. Twenty-five thousand pesos hadn’t sounded cheap, but once I’d wrapped my mind around the exchange rate, it meant about ten bucks a night, a bargain.
No one in the adjoining diner seemed familiar. The only man with silver hair had a pink seamed face and a flabby build. Not the plane man. When the waitress appeared I ordered arepas, the small corncakes Paolina loves. While hungrily forking them down, I studied the morning newspaper. Luisa Cabrera’s byline appeared on the third page.
I’d made up my mind last night, after a wee-hours webcrawl through [Que Hubo!, the Colombian Yellow Pages: Plodding detail work wasn’t the key to this quest. I needed to find Roldan, and I needed to find him quickly. The best way to do that was by starting as many hares as I could, by stirring up a hornet’s nest. I’d chase down the Zona Rosa and check the other number on Naylor’s phone bill, but I’d also talk to Cabrera. Nothing like a journalist for stirring up a hive. I signaled for la cuenta and figured the tip.
Walking down the street, I felt conspicuous in ways that don’t apply in Boston. There, my Irish coloring, misleading as it is, makes me one of the gang. There, I live surrounded by universities that field women’s teams in basketball and volleyball, bringing in an influx of tall women every year to serve as camouflage. Here, even in flats I was tall, and my red hair stood out like a flare. At a busy intersection, two child acrobats tossed juggling pins, then rushed through traffic to collect tips before the light changed.
Entering the El Tiempo building was like passing through airport security all over again. I placed my backpack on a conveyer belt for the X-ray machine. An armed guard patted me down, scrutinizing my passport, comparing my face to the photo. When he nodded me through to the front desk, an elderly man used a telephone to ask Senorita Cabrera whether she’d agree to see me. After a moment, he offered me the phone.
“Can you give me some idea of what this is about?” Her voice was low, curt, and businesslike.
“I’ve come all the way from Boston to speak with you.” My Spanish might not flow the way it did when I was a child, but my fluency would improve rapidly once the language surrounded me; I was confident of that. Mexico City Spanish and Bogota Spanish weren’t the same, but Paolina had schooled me in the differences.
“That’s a long way to come with no appointment.”
I simply agreed with her, assuming that journalistic curiosity would win out over caution. The desk man gave me directions to the third floor and a pass to clip to my jacket. VISITANTE, it said. Guest.
Cabrera was waiting when the elevator doors opened; small, dark, and young. Not beautiful; her features were crowded too closely around a sharp nose for beauty. She was striking, with soft caramel eyes and long hair scraped back from a high forehead. Her figure was slim and her black designer suit gave her some of the gravitas age and stature had denied her.
“Give me a minute. I’m in the middle of something.” Without waiting for a response, she moved quickly down a long hallway. A young man emerged from an office and tagged behind her.
Computer screens dominated the twenty-odd desks in the large room. Wall art was confined to news clippings push-pinned to bulletin boards and a few framed Botero prints. Eyes peered at me from behind the screens. If I wanted to blend in better, I was going to need to invest in a bottle of hair dye. I hoped Lady Clairol had a South American distributor.
I turned my back on the curious eyes and focused on a display case containing silver-framed studio photographs. I’ve visited both the Herald and the Globe. They have display cases, too, filled with journalism awards, engraved plaques and silver cups. This case was different. There must have been twenty photos inside, each edged in black, each the likeness of a Colombian journalist, killed in the line of duty.
That would account for the security downstairs.
“Sorry.” Cabrera was back. “It’s a busy morning. What can I do for you?”
“Is there someplace more private?”
“Follow me.” Her skin was the color of a good Florida tan. Her heels clicked on the floorboards and I had to walk briskly to keep up in spite of the difference in our heights.
She rated a window office with a mahogany desk and a high-backed black leather chair. She sank into the chair, eyes unfocused, as though she were thinking about whatever story she’d just abandoned.
“I’ve been reading you,” I said. “You’re good.”
“You must want a favor,” she said.
“Maybe I can do you a favor.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “People from your country come to do us favors all the time.”
“You know many people from my country?”
“Just last week, I spoke to a journalist from a town in Ohio. It was amazing, his ignorance. He didn’t know Colombia was a democracy. We have been a democracy since 1830!”
“He was doing an article on Colombian civics?”
“Your newspapers only do articles on Colombia when someone in their town gets killed during a drug deal gone bad. In fact, I would say the average North American knows nothing about my country that can’t be summed up in a
Since her hostility was on such open display, I thought I might as well use it.
“Speaking of drugs,” I said, “you’ve written about a man named Carlos Roldan Gonzales.”
“You see? Of the many topics you could discuss concerning Roldan, the one you choose is drugs.”
“What other topics would you recommend?�
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She picked up a gold fountain pen and seemed absorbed in removing the top and studying the nib. “First, we might speak about the history of Colombia.”
“Starting when?”
“We have a two-party system, as you do, but there is a tradition of violence between the parties. Eight civil wars were fought here, just in the nineteenth century. Liberal and conservative, for decades, were fighting words.”
The Ohio journalist had probably gotten the same earful. I didn’t see what it had to do with Roldan.
“After a brief military dictatorship, the parties reached an agreement to share power. Every four years the presidency shifted from one party to the next.”
I supposed that was a form of democracy.
“And when the agreement came to an end, lo and behold, both parties were much the same, parties of the elite. Neither reached out to the rural areas of the country. The only ones who helped the peasants in the countryside were the guerrillas.”
“The FARC and the ELN?”
She gave me a look, like a teacher whose slowest student had surprisingly done his homework. “What do you know about them?”
I’d just read a slew of articles about Colombia, but I was no expert. “Marxist guerrilla groups.”
“Bolivian Marxists, not Soviet. Some groups stand for agrarian reform, for nationalizing the country’s resources, for property redistribution. North Americans come here, they think the old Soviet army is roaming the Colombian countryside. They think all guerrillas are the same, the FARC, the ELN, the MM-19. But then, what else can one expect from people who live where the only decisions they make are whether to snort cocaine or smoke it, and how much money they should send this country to defoliate the ground?”
I kept quiet. She was on a roll and I didn’t want to interrupt.
“I would speak to you about the tradition of the outlaw,” she went on. “Roldan, because he existed outside the two-party system, became part of a tradition that I would compare to your Western outlaws. Your Jesse James, perhaps.”