Inside Out: A novel

by Barry Eisler

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, Taibbi was smart to steer clear—guy’s a survivor type, you can tell. Anyway, after he did Juan, Larison would watch his back even more carefully than usual just to make sure the rest of the gang, if there was a rest of the gang, wasn’t on his ass. Nothing happens, though, and anyway he’s only in San Jose sporadically. And all this was three years ago. So at some point, he figures these were the only two guys he had to worry about. And he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore.”

  “What did Taibbi mean when he said ‘whatever you’re planning to do’ with Larison?”

  Ben glanced at her, then back to the road. “He meant, what do you think happens to someone who tries to read the angel of death his rights?”

  “What are you going to do if we find him, then?”

  “I’m not going to wind up like Carlos and Juan, I’ll tell you that.”

  “What are you supposed to do?”

  “All I’m supposed to do is find Larison. So if we tree him, I hope you’re not going to try to arrest him, okay? You bring that mind-set to the job, you’ll be at a lethal disadvantage. And I don’t want to fill out the paperwork.”

  “I’m touched that you care, really.”

  They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  Paula said, “Where’d you get that ID?”

  Ben glanced at her, then back to the road. “You knew there were other alphabet soup agencies involved in this. You said so yourself.”

  “I want to know which one you’re with.”

  “I told you, forget about it.”

  “You’re some kind of assassin, aren’t you?”

  “I’m just here to find Larison,” he said again. The weird thing was, it was the truth. So why did it feel like a lie?

  “Taibbi said you looked like Larison. What did he mean by that?”

  Ben looked at his watch. “Why don’t you tell me what our next move is. You know, don’t you?”

  “Are you talking down to me?”

  “Not that I was aware of. But I can if you’d like.”

  “Our next move is, we canvass restaurants and bars around the sewer where Juan’s body was found. Larison couldn’t have moved him far—the body would be heavy, for one thing. He wouldn’t have time, or concealment, for another. So wherever Juan was found, Larison was nearby that night. If we show his picture in a few places, and if Larison’s been back or if he was a regular, we might just catch a break.”

  Ben nodded. “How’s your Spanish?”

  “I can get by. You?”

  Ben’s Farsi was fluent, his Arabic decent, and his Spanish high school rusty. “I think we’ll need to rely on you in that department,” he said. “And by the way, it’s not just that Larison must have been close by to where he did Juan. It’s also that, when he killed Carlos, it wasn’t in a place that mattered to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d already spotted the surveillance. He wasn’t going to lead them all the way to his correct address. He’d either get off the bus early, or ride it well past his actual destination. Barrio Dent comes up before Los Yoses on the way from the airport. My guess is, Larison’s real destination that night was Los Yoses, or maybe the next stop, San Pedro, or maybe somewhere farther east. He got off in Barrio Dent to make sure the killing wouldn’t be too close to a place he was connected with. The second time, he wouldn’t have that luxury. He wasn’t being followed, he’d been discovered. It’s a whole different dynamic.”

  “So you think the fact that both killings happened near a restaurant is a coincidence.”

  “I think the first one was a coincidence. The second one, maybe not. Anyway, most of the streets in San Jose don’t have names. People use restaurants and other landmarks to describe locations. That’s all Taibbi was doing.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Read it in a guidebook on the plane.”

  “Well, that was a good idea.”

  Ben nodded. He didn’t mention that reading extensively about a place before going operational was ordinarily only the beginning of area familiarization, and that not having had time to do more than read this time made him feel like he was groping and stumbling in the dark.

  “So you think his girlfriend lives in Los Yoses?” Paula said.

  “Or farther east. But not Barrio Dent. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten off the bus there. Now, tell me this. You think he’d still be dining out a hundred yards away from where he put Juan in a sewer?”

  “From what Taibbi told us, I don’t think we’re dealing with someone who gets indigestion from murder.”

  “What about tactically? He’d practically be returning to the scene of the crime.”

  “Yes, but like you said, he’s only in San Jose sporadically. A month, or six months after the murder, he knows the case is closed. Juan was some sort of street criminal. I can pretty much guarantee that if they didn’t have a suspect within seventy-two hours of the crime, they dropped the file into a cold cases basement drawer. Which would be like dropping it into the Bermuda Triangle. And Larison would know that.”

  Ben nodded, glad she wasn’t asking any more assassin questions.

  He ran it all through his mind again, and felt pretty sure they were looking at it the right way. And although canvassing restaurants was going to be a long shot, it wouldn’t be any longer than what Juan Cole was up against when he’d gone looking for Larison.

  Which was not a comforting thought at all.

  17

  His Friend Nico

  The drive from Jacó took three hours. The road zigzagged up through the jungle and then down again, the diffused glow of the moon behind the clouds from time to time silhouetting mountains in the distance. Here and there they passed the odd roadside soda selling tacos or a bodega advertising fresh mangoes and avocados, and the light from these tiny and invariably empty establishments would shine in the distance like a promise of permanence and then fade away behind them, leaving nothing but the headlights pushing feebly against the dark again, the jungle close on either side, the van feeling small, enclosed, improbable, a bathysphere exploring an accidental canal along some ocean’s lightless floor.

  They passed the time talking about pistols, loads, and their favored carries. For someone who took a dim view of violence, Ben had to admit, Paula knew her hardware. Paula used the iPhone to find a hotel in San Jose—the InterContinental, in Escazú—and to confirm there were vacancies. Ben told her not to make a reservation. The hotel wasn’t going to sell out its remaining rooms this late, and he saw no advantage to possibly alerting someone to where he would be spending the night. Not that anyone was looking, but … he just had this weird feeling, like there were forces moving around and beneath him, forces he could sense but not understand, and the feeling was keeping his usual low-grade combat paranoia at a healthy simmer.

  They arrived in Barrio Dent at close to eleven. The iPhone’s GPS function took them straight to La Trattoria, where Taibbi said Carlos had been killed.

  Ben parked the van and they stepped out into the sultry night air. There was an audible whoosh of traffic from the central avenue a block away, but other than that the neighborhood was quiet, its colonial houses decaying in stoic dignity beneath the swaying palm trees.

  A streetlight across from the restaurant cast a sickly yellow cone of light on the crumbling sidewalk beneath it. Outside the illuminated pall, the street was cloaked in shadow. Ben stood at the edge of the light and glanced around.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “He got off the bus on the central avenue, took a couple turns, walked past this light … yeah, he could have come at Carlos from anywhere in the dark, and disappeared as easily. Okay.”

  They walked back to the van. “What does that tell us?” Paula said.

  “Maybe not much. I just need to get in his head.”

  “Is it working?”

  Ben nodded, imagining what Carlos would have looked like spotlighted under that streetlight. “Plug in
the coordinates for that restaurant Spoon, will you? Let’s see if we can figure out what happened there.”

  Paula did. It wasn’t much more than a kilometer. They drove the short distance, parked just down the street from the restaurant, and walked over. Spoon was on the corner of two reasonably busy streets, cars parked on both sides, an auto body repair place across from it, the neighborhood a weird mixture of small restaurants and light industry, overgrown lots behind rusting chain-link fences, high-tension wires clinging to low buildings, plaster façades giving over to creeping mold feasting nonstop in the incessant tropical moisture.

  Ben looked inside the restaurant. A neighborhood joint, brightly lit, cacti in the windows, plastic chairs and vinyl booths, locals talking and laughing over what looked like desserts and coffee. He could hear eighties American pop playing incongruously from inside. Windows ran the length of the place on both streets it was facing, and Ben was on the verge of deciding this wasn’t where Juan Cole had seen Larison—he wouldn’t have needed to go inside—when he saw there was a back room that wasn’t visible from the windows. So he would have gone inside to check. Okay, Spoon was a possible.

  He turned and watched the street for a moment, imagining Larison inside with his girlfriend. Juan Cole pops his head in, you spot him, but he doesn’t spot you spotting him. What do you do? You make the decision. You come up with an excuse and get up. You go outside, and …

  He looked around. Not the street facing the entrance. Too busy. You’d make a right, instead, toward what looked like a more residential part of the neighborhood. Yeah, that felt right. And according to Taibbi, it was where they’d found Juan Cole.

  He walked down the cracked sidewalk, Paula just behind him. As soon as he was beyond the light cast through the restaurant window, he was enveloped in darkness. It felt right. So right he was nearly convinced this was exactly how it had gone down.

  The block was short. He passed a rust-colored, two-story apartment building on the right, its windows, like all the others he’d seen in San Jose, barred. Then a windowless wall. The sidewalk curved right onto the cross street, and on instinct, Ben followed it rather than crossing the street, and bam, there it was, he saw exactly what Larison had done. There was a staircase and an entranceway immediately to his right. Larison had ducked into it the second he’d turned the corner. If he had any street sense at all, Juan Cole would have realized what had happened just an instant after turning the corner and seeing that Larison was gone, but in that instant Larison had already stepped out from the shadows and broken open the back of Cole’s head. An instant could be a hell of a long time against a guy like Larison.

  He looked around. Taibbi had said southeast corner, right? That meant across the street. Ben waited for a car to pass, its headlights momentarily cutting through the darkness, then crossed over.

  Yeah, there it was. A corner sewer, the cement lip eaten away by time and humidity and lack of repair. It would have taken Larison all of five seconds to drag Cole across the street and shove him inside. If Cole hadn’t been a big man, he would have fit easily enough. If he had been big … Ben knelt, took hold of the metal grate, and lifted it. It came free easily.

  Yeah, brain him, take his wallet, wait for any cars to pass, drag him, dump him … he wouldn’t have been gone longer than three minutes. People left for longer than that when they got up to take a leak.

  “I think it was in Spoon,” Ben said, standing up.

  “Where Cole saw Larison?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ben shook his head. “Just a feeling. Let’s go see if anyone in that restaurant recognizes Larison.”

  They walked back to Spoon and went inside. It was lively with laughter and conversation and the sounds of Billy Idol playing through speakers in the ceiling. Yeah, a neighborhood place. The crowd—about twenty men and women, ages ranging from mid-twenties up to maybe fifty—felt like they belonged there, like they were regulars. Just a neighborhood dessert place, good when you’re tired after a night out, but not quite ready for the night to be over.

  The host, a smiling man with a belly and a handlebar mustache, walked over with a couple of menus.

  “¿Cuantas personas?” he asked. How many?

  Paula smiled and responded in Spanish while she showed her credentials. Ben was able to make out most of it: We’re looking for a regular customer of yours, we’d be grateful if you could help us find him. He’s not in trouble, we just need to ask him a few questions.

  “Your Spanish is very good,” the host said in English, returning her smile and wiping his hands on his apron. “But if you like, maybe English is better?”

  Paula laughed. “Oh, my goodness, thank you for saving me from embarrassing myself. Yes, please, English, if that’s okay.”

  The host’s smile broadened. “All right. How can I help?”

  Ben had to admit this was the right time for Paula to take the lead. When she wasn’t busting balls, there was something so … soft about her. It was disarming. Maybe that’s what she’d meant about people not seeing her coming.

  Paula took out her phone and showed the host a photo of Larison.

  “Sure, I know him,” the man said.

  Ben’s heart kicked up a notch. He wanted to jump in, but reminded himself that Paula was doing fine, better than fine. He kept his mouth shut.

  “You know him how, sir?”

  “He’s a regular. Well, not a regular, exactly. He comes in a few times a week, or two weeks, and then he’s gone for a while. But he always comes back. He’s a good customer.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe … a month ago? Two months?”

  Ben felt a little clench in his stomach, that twist of combat excitement. That was it. The first solid evidence they had that Larison was alive. And if he was alive, he had to be the one behind this thing.

  “Is he … alone, when he comes here?” Paula asked.

  “No, he comes with his … friend. Nico.”

  From the slight delay between the “his” and the “friend,” and slight stress on the latter word, Ben realized instantly. He thought, Holy shit. He thought of Larison’s wife, Marcy. No wonder she couldn’t let Larison’s Costa Rica excursions go. Did she know? Did she suspect?

  And was Larison the father of their son? And if not, did he—

  “This Nico,” Paula said, “do you have any way you could put us in touch with him?”

  “No, not really. He comes in a few times a month.”

  “Do you know his last name, sir?”

  “I … no, I don’t.”

  Ben sensed the questions were now making the man nervous, and that his memory would start to deteriorate as a result.

  “When was the last time Nico dined here?” Paula asked.

  “Maybe … sometime in the last month? We have a lot of customers.”

  “I’m sure you do, sir. Does he pay with a credit card?”

  “I think so, yes. Sometimes.”

  Bingo. Unless the guy was mistaken and Nico paid only with cash, Ben was sure he now had enough for Hort to take to the NSA, whose supercomputers would triangulate on the name Nico and regular appearances at Spoon in Los Yoses. Ben doubted they’d get even one false positive.

  And whatever Larison’s relationship with this guy, it was long-standing, and ongoing. If Nico didn’t lead them to Larison, it was hard to imagine what would.

  18

  Jumpy’s Not My Style

  Back in the van, on the way to the InterContinental, Paula said, “It’s him. He’s not dead.”

  Ben nodded. “Sure looks that way.”

  “What’s our next step?”

  Ben almost pointed out that after tonight, “our” was likely not going to be applicable. Instead, he said, “We report in and try to get some sleep. And we’re going to be staying in the same room, okay?”

  “Say what?”

  “Look, why would a man and woman with n
ext to no luggage be checking into a hotel together without a reservation at near midnight? A spontaneous business convention? You want to appear to be what people expect you are, that’s how you avoid getting noticed. So I want you to get back in that sarong and halter. Put your jacket over it. It’ll look like you’re a prostitute I met at a bar who’s wearing a cover-up to be presentable in the lobby of a nice hotel.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “And just how far do you expect we’ll have to go in performing our roles?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. This is just for public consumption.”

  “My hopes. You really are something. Anyway, why don’t we just check in separately and solve the problem that way?”

  “Because I don’t trust you. I don’t want you off in your own room, talking to I don’t know who and doing I don’t know what.”

  “You don’t trust me. My God, you have nerve.”

  “Also, it would be natural for a married man arriving at a hotel with a prostitute to wear a baseball cap with the visor pulled low to obscure his features. Never know when you might run into a business acquaintance coming out of the bar. And to keep his head down a bit so his face doesn’t get picked up by security cameras. To be reticent about meeting the eyes of any staff he encountered. And you should do the same. Keep the jacket open, show some cleavage. No one’s going to look at your face.”

  “Why are we worried about all this?”

  “It’s just better not to be remembered or recorded now. You never know what’s going to happen later.”

  Escazú was on the west side of the city. They drove through San Jose’s crumbling but vital center, and after a few minutes found themselves passing every conceivable western chain restaurant and retailer. Escazú was obviously an upscale enclave of Americana, right down to the ritzy-looking shopping center across the street from the hotel.

  They parked in the lot rather than taking advantage of the valet. Anyone who noticed them walking in without bags would assume they were already checked in. If they thought otherwise … well, a man and a woman shacking up for the night away from their spouses could be expected to be discreet. Along with the baseball cap and averted eyes, the parking lot rather than the valet fit the pattern, which was what Ben wanted.