by Alan Filewod
Ross: Yeah, he’s the CIA liaison.
Harlan: How do you know that?
Ross: He told me.
Harlan: Hi, I work for the CIA.
Ross: Pretty near. He said he’s the CIA liaison and he’s the fuckin’ contra liaison too. He said it like it’s secret, right, but he was always joking about it, like this one time he said that every month the U.S. government puts ten thousand bucks into his Miami bank account, and then, then he said, God help me if the revenue people find out about it.
Harlan: What did you do there?
Ross: At the farm?
Harlan: Yes.
Ross: Hung around. We’d off-load planes that’d land on his strip. Go to Amparo and get pissed. Then the contras’d come, and Jim Kemp and Vega and them’d talk, and I’d bring ’em coffee.
Harlan: Did they let you listen?
Ross: If I looked like I was interested they’d ask me to leave. They talked mostly in Spanish anyway. Fuck, man, I was getting really pissed off ’cause I expected to see some action and I talked to Vega about it. And then when he went to set that charge that time after Jim Kemp chewed him out, he said to me do you wanna come.
Harlan: Vega crossed the border, too?
Ross: Yeah.
Harlan: He’s pretty high up.
Ross: Well, he knew Stassen and Martin Holme. And those guys treat him with respect.
Harlan: But he crossed the border.
Ross: Yeah, he wanted to fight too, man.
Harlan: And he sold the plastic.
Ross: Yeah, but it was to either Costa Rica Libre or the Civil Guard. Vega’s always moving, making deals, making friends. And Costa Rica Libre can do things we can’t, they got friends high up in San José.
Harlan: Who?
Ross: Some guy in the government. The guy that runs the police.
Harlan: Minister of the Interior.
Ross: Yeah, the interior, what the fuck’s the interior, anyway?
Harlan: The guy that runs the police.
Ross: Yeah, right, thanks man.
Harlan: You think Vega set you up?
Ross: Fuck, man, I got no grief with Vega.
Harlan: Maybe he told Kemp you crossed the border.
Ross: He wouldn’t do that.
Harlan: So why did Kemp set you up?
Ross: He didn’t know I crossed.
Harlan: Maybe he did.
Ross: No way.
Harlan: Maybe he had some other reason to set you up.
Ross: I wouldn’t know.
Harlan: Looks like someone set you up.
Ross: Yeah.
Harlan: I think you’re right.
Ross: ’bout what?
Harlan: You’re in prison because they have to come down on someone. Big show. Everyone’s happy.
Ross: Can you get me out?
Harlan: No.
Ross: I’m a U.S. citizen.
Harlan: That doesn’t matter.
Ross: What’s the embassy for?
Harlan: The embassy didn’t ask you to come to Costa Rica.
Ross: Fuck, what do you do at the embassy, anyway?
Harlan: I work with the cultural attaché.
Ross: You came to get me out, right?
Harlan: (pause) No.
Ross: Then why’d they send you?
Harlan: To pass the time, I guess.
Ross: What’re you doing here?
Harlan: I don’t know.
Ross: Fuck, man, I been straight with you.
Harlan: I don’t know why I’m here.
Ross: Who sent you?
Harlan: I was getting into my car, two guys point guns at my head.
Ross: But you’re from the embassy.
Harlan: Yeah.
Ross: Holy fuck.
Harlan: Yeah.
Ross: Holy fuck. (pause) Going into the embassy, that’s fuckin’ serious, man. You must be in real shit. I come down here to fight communism and you’re from the embassy, and they fuckin’ arrest us. Why would they do that? You gotta have some idea, right? Maybe they don’t trust you or something. You selling embassy secrets? It’s gotta be something pretty heavy for them to go into the embassy. … This is really, really fucked. You know, man, sometimes I wonder what I’m doing down here. You ever think about that?
(Prison noises off stage. Then the lights fade.)
SCENE THREE
(As the lights come up Harlan is seated and Ross is doing push-ups.)
Ross: You should be doing something to keep in shape. We could be in here a long time. … You wanna do some with me? … Fuck, man, I wish a had a gun. (He mimes firing a pistol.) You don’t shoot every day, you lose the edge. It’s something you gotta do every day.
Harlan: Like playing the violin.
Ross: Yeah, right. Hey, you know the Beretta 92SB dash F?
Harlan: No.
Ross: It’s the new standard army pistol. Short recoil, semi-automatic. Mean nine-calibre piece, man. I got the 92SB. Same thing as the dash F but, no way was I gonna pay fifty bucks extra for a few fuckin’ fluorescent dots on the sights, then I read in The Defender that in a stress situation the dots’d just confuse you anyway. Six hundred bucks apiece. I got one at home, couldn’t bring it with me, right? You shoot much?
Harlan: No.
Ross: Cultural attaché, huh?
Harlan: Assistant to the. (Prison sounds)
Ross: I guess you don’t need guns for that, huh? … Don’t you carry a gun?
(The door opens, Wade comes flying in, blindfolded. The door closes behind him. Harlan removes Wade’s blindfold.)
Wade: Harlan, what are you doing here? … What’s going on?
Ross: Who’re you?
Wade: What’s going on?
Ross: We don’t know.
Harlan: They arrest you?
Wade: No one said I was under arrest. Two Civil Guard …
Ross: You sure?
Wade: Por favor, señor Sinclair. Lo siento, señor Sinclair, take me to their car, put this (blindfold) on me.
Harlan: The Costa Rican government does not arrest embassy people.
Ross: Maybe they started.
Harlan: Who’re they gonna bring in next, the ambassador?
Wade: I hope so.
Ross: Maybe they’re picking up Americans all over Costa Rica.
Harlan: This isn’t Lebanon, Wade.
Wade: Shit, Harlan, we’re here, ain’t we?
Harlan: So what’s going on?
Wade: How the hell do I know? You got any ideas?
Harlan: (pause) He’s been at the farm.
Wade: With Jimbo?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Welcome to the fifty-first state … Tico-land? Costa Rica? Wade Sinclair, son. (offers his hand)
Ross: Ross Gibson Jr.
(Ross and Wade shake hands.)
Wade: Imagine them spies treatin’ us like this. Even odds we bought them this place, and their shiny weapons too. How long have you been here, Harlan?
Harlan: A few hours.
Wade: (to Ross) You?
Ross: Four days.
Wade: Have they been … cruel?
Ross: Fuck man, I haven’t even seen anybody.
Wade: They feed you?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Thank god for that. It’s some mistake, Harl. (He pounds on the door.) Come on you friendly Ticos. I’m the first secretary at your favourite embassy, I demand to be interrogated. Stupid spics. (to Ross) You know they call Costa Rica the Switzerland of Central America? Truth is it’s the Puerto Rico of Central America.
Ross: No way they’re gonna arrest people from the embassy.
Wade: Yeah, well maybe we’re hostages. Let’s think. Who’d want us? And what the fuck for? … You start, Harlan. This is more or less your field. … I’ll start you off. The Ticos, I mean the government of Costa Rica, acting in an official capacity. Why? Wait. This place wired?
Ross: It’s all right, man, I checked it out.
Wade: Good. Okay Har
lan, the friendly Ticos. Why?
Harlan: For show.
Wade: If it was for show, they’d pick up some merc like …
Ross: I’m not a mercenary.
Wade: Well, what are you, then?
Ross: I’m an adventurist.
Wade: They’d arrest an adventurist like Ross, here, and make a speech about Costa Rican neutrality. They wouldn’t touch the embassy.
Ross: Not unless it’s sanctioned.
Wade: Big word. By who?
Ross: The CIA.
Wade: Why?
Ross: Kill us, blame it on the Sandinistas.
Wade: CIA do a lot of that? … Who’s next?
Ross: The contras.
Wade: Why?
Ross: Same reason. But they wouldn’t go near the embassy either, unless it was sanctioned. They’d want the okay from Jim Kemp.
Wade: Jimbo.
Ross: Costa Rica Libre might do it.
Wade: Smart kid.
Ross: They could even do it without Jim Kemp.
Harlan: ARDE (AR-day), FDN, MDN, UNO (OO-Noh), you know this shit, Wade, some of them like us, some of them hate us, doesn’t matter, there’ll be a new one tomorrow.
Wade: That don’t stop any of them from wanting us dead.
Harlan: Us. (Harlan and Wade) Then why’s he (Ross) here?
Wade: (to Ross) Harlan’s very important. He’s assistant to the cultural attaché. That means he’s in charge of Coke sales here in Costa Rica, the drink, not the drug. Maybe the mothers of kids with cavities are out to get you, Harl. (pause) What about the Company, Harlan? What do you think?
(pause) C’mon, Harlan. This is too important for the usual rules of secrecy.
Harlan: If the Company’s involved, you know about it.
Wade: I know you mean that as a compliment, but I want to think it through. If the Company’s involved, I know about it. That means either the Company isn’t involved, or else I know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s going on. So the Company must not be involved. But that doesn’t satisfy me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business it’s that no one’s safe. Someone might not like the colour of my eyes.
Harlan: So we’re hostages.
Wade: Whose?
Ross: Hostages are for trading. I’m not worth trading. And I got nothing to hide, not from our people. I’ve been in here four days, I haven’t seen anybody, no one’s asked me a thing. They slip food in under the door. It’s like they don’t want to be bothered.
Wade: I think there’s a lot in what the boy says, Harlan. If ARDE’s got us, well they might wanna trade for CIA money. But you couldn’t trade the kid for a tortilla. Maybe the Ticos are trying to make a point but we’re big fish, Harlan, too big for the friendly Ticos.
Harlan: You’re going in circles.
Ross: What about the Sandinistas?
Wade: What about ’em?
Ross: They’re communists.
Wade: Yeah.
Ross: Yeah, well, maybe they got the order from the Soviets. And they’re pickin’ up Americans all over and making a move into Costa Rica.
Wade: Call in the marines!
Harlan: Something unusual is happening, Wade.
Wade: You think Nicaragua’s invaded Costa Rica?
Ross: There’s a fucking war.
Wade: What are they gonna do?
Ross: They’re gonna kill us.
Wade: Here in Tico-land?
Ross: Anywhere.
Wade: They do that kind of thing?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Really?
Ross: Yeah. Those two Civil Guards.
Wade: On the border.
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: That’s the border.
Ross: So?
Wade: Take it, Harl … (looking at Harlan) Someone, I don’t know who, fires across the border. The Sandinistas shoot back, they hit a couple of guards. How are the Sandinistas supposed to know they were friendly Ticos? (To Harlan) Did I get it right?
Ross: Why are you defending them, man?
Wade: I’m just telling you what happened. Don’t quote me.
Harlan: What …
Ross: Jim Kemp says the Sandinistas are gonna invade Costa Rica and it’s only ’cause we’re keeping them pinned down inside Nicaragua that they don’t.
Wade: Right, let’s keep ’em there. Now, back to the Company.
Harlan: What are you doing, Wade?
Wade: I’m just …
Harlan: We get picked up in the middle of San José and you act like you’re on a game show. Except that within two minutes of walking in here you announce to the world that we’re … CIA.
Wade: Ross here isn’t stupid. He’s figured out for himself that the cultural attaché doesn’t need an assistant. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on, and I want to know what you think. That make you uncomfortable, Harl? Ross isn’t uncomfortable, he isn’t hiding anything, are you Ross? I got nothing to hide, from friends. But I’m glad you let me know you’re upset, Harl, this is a good place to get things off our chests. What about you, son, you upset too?
Ross: About being in here?
Wade: Well, Harlan says I’m upsetting him. Am I doing anything that upsets you?
Ross: No.
Wade: See, Harlan, (pause) No air conditioning. I’m gonna have to talk to the ambassador about that.
Harlan: Ross crossed the border.
Wade: Into Nicaragua?
Ross: No, into fuckin’ Afghanistan.
Wade: Good work, Harlan, what else you find out?
Harlan: He’s lying about something.
Wade: ’bout what?
Harlan: I don’t know.
Wade: You keeping secrets from us, Ross? (Ross doesn’t answer.) So, you crossed the border. Jimbo send you across?
Ross: Man, I came down here to see some action, I spent a thousand bucks of my own money to come …
Wade: Did Kemp send you?
Ross: No.
Wade: You just went.
Ross: Fuck.
Wade: By yourself.
Ross: No.
Wade: With who?
Ross: Some people.
Wade: Name one.
Ross: Ricardo Vega.
Wade: Richard Vega took you.
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: You like Vega?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: You trust him?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Did Jimbo explain why you couldn’t cross the border?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Jimbo’s very sensible. Jimbo’s the salt of the earth. You should listen to him. Did he tell you about his neighbour Bruce?
Ross: Yeah.
Wade: Did he show you those pictures in Life magazine? Bruce with the wife and kids in the friendly Tico sunset? Bruce charging through the trees in camouflage, Bruce with twenty contra up to their pits in water, their M16’s held high over their heads. That stream runs through Bruce’s farm and it’s this high (half metre) and they’re on their asses to make it look deep. I love Bruce. Salt of the earth that man. Bruce was a poet too. “Just a little piece now and a little piece later, until we’re all gobbled up by the Red Alligator. Remember, you can’t play good guy with murderers and thugs …
Ross: … or shake off their threat with handshakes and hugs.”
Wade: Too bad the friendly Ticos had to kick him out of Tico-land. What did Jimbo say when you asked why you couldn’t fight in Nicaragua? … Tell us.
Ross: Why doesn’t the fuckin’ army just invade!
Wade: What did Kemp say?
Ross: He said they don’t want U.S. citizens caught in Nicaragua.
Wade: Jimbo’s a very sensible man.
Ross: (pause) You gonna tell him I crossed?
Wade: I don’t know.
Ross: Come on, man, don’t tell him, all right?
Wade: (to Harlan) What do you think?
Harlan: Get him (Ross) out of Costa Rica.
Wade: That’s kind of extrem
e, Harl.
Harlan: There’s no controls. It makes the Company vulnerable.
Wade: They’re doing things for us, they’re risking their lives.
Harlan: There’s procedures, Wade.
Wade: Sometimes you got to compromise.
Harlan: There’s rules.
Wade: That’s funny, you talking about rules.
Harlan: The border’s a zoo.
Wade: Aw, they’re just taking a little initiative, Harlan. Anyway, it’s none of your fucking business.
Harlan: You asked what I thought.
Wade: Did I?
(Pause. The lights fade.)
SCENE FOUR
(Lights come up. Middle of the night, no one can sleep. Wade is hitting the bench with his fingertips.)
Harlan: Wade. (Wade continues.) Hey!
Wade: (He stops.) Fuckin’ Tambs.
Harlan: Something bothering you?
Wade: I like it here. The quiet, the home cooking, (pause) This wouldn’t have happened with Windsor.
Harlan: What wouldn’t happen?
Wade: This.
Harlan: What’s this?
Wade: Us. Here.
Ross: Who’s Windsor?
Harlan: Ambassador before Tambs.
Ross: You don’t like Tambs?
Harlan: He’s not very popular.
Ross: What’s wrong with him?
Wade: Noting a brain couldn’t fix. (Ross laughs.) They threw him out of Colombia.
Ross: Yeah, I knew that.
Wade: He fucks up there, they send him here.
Ross: Why would they do something like that?
Wade: Same reason they do anything. He’s got friends.
Ross: Jim Kemp says he’s all right.
Harlan: Kemp likes anyone that hates Reds.
Ross: Yeah.
Harlan: Tamb’s got the speech down and it’s the same speech Kemp makes, only Kemp put it together himself and it took him twenty years to write. He doesn’t know you learn that speech the first day of ambassador school.
Wade: Ooo, I don’t know if you should be talking about a U.S. ambassador like that, Harl. Besides, I thought you liked him, I thought he was your kind of man.
Ross: Vega doesn’t like him either.
Wade: Yeah.
Ross: He said Tambs came down hard on drug traffic in Colombia, now he’s doing it here. He said how do they expect the contras to raise money.
Wade: I thought you liked Tambs, Harlan.
Harlan: Why?
Wade: You didn’t like Windsor.
Harlan: He was ineffective.
Wade: I thought Windsor put forward the U.S. position very well. Costa Rica should have an army. And shove neutrality up their ass.