09-Twelve Mile Limit (33 page)

“I’m not here to please you, Earl. You need to lower your expectations. And your voice. I’m going to ask you again: Where’s Kazan?”

He sat back, his cask-sized chest moving beneath the white guyaberra as he breathed, his hands flat on the table. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make me mad, man, you want to get me pissed off. It’s like a business thing, one of those deals the big shots on TV tell you to do. To get an advantage. Well, guess what? It’s not going to work. Keep it up, I’m not going to help you find your friends.”

“Don’t help me find my friends, you won’t get paid.”

The grin was back on his massive face, the smooth skin of the burn scar wrinkling. “If I don’t get paid, you’re never going to see either one of those girls again. What was the white girl’s name?”

His grin broadened when he saw my attention vector at that specific, telling bit of information because he knew that he was now back in control.

I said, “Why don’t you tell me? Prove you’re not wasting my time.”

“I don’t got to prove nothing to you, man! You think I’d bother with the name of a girl ugly as that? Chubby white girl with brown hair and a pretty black girl, only Earl doesn’t do black girls.”

I said, “I can hardly blame them, Earl. You can’t fault their taste. So let’s get down to business. Okay?”

Stallings sat there puffing away on his cigar as he talked, trying to blow smoke rings, showing me how relaxed he was. I wanted to play tough? No problem. He could handle it, not a big deal. He said, “Let’s get something straight right off. I don’t know anything about any of this. I’m just telling you what I hear. Okay? I’m not guilty of nothing, I’m not admitting to anything. You savvy?

“When I go back to the States, I don’t want the feds grabbing me, carting my ass off to jail. Kidnapping’s illegal—even here in Colombia, though just about every shithead you name out there in the jungle does it. I mean, it’s a legitimate profession here. You got your lawyers, your plumbers, your fucking kidnappers, okay? So you and me, we’re just sitting here discussing things that might have happened, talking … what-do-you-call it—?”

“Hypothetically,” I said.

He swung his head up and down. “Exactly. We’re talking hypothetically. So you go first. Hypothetically, what makes you think I was on the boat that morning, sailing back to Florida?”

I said, “You had a lot of passengers, remember? The illegal variety. It was in the newspapers. I knew a fairly large boat had to be in that area at about the right time, so I went looking. I talked to a couple of the refugees before they got deported.”

“Those spics, the Haitian trash, they gave you my name? I don’t believe it. No way, not possible.”

“Not your name. Just your description.”

He said, “Those people are so fucking dumb, what we should’a done was dump them all about a mile offshore. Done the world a favor.”

It is an irony I’ve noticed before: It’s not unusual for members of minority groups to be unrepentant racists.

I said, “No, the refugees told me that you stopped when you saw the swimmers. Dexter Money told me your name, where to find you, everything. He was so drunk the night I talked to him, he didn’t even try to charge me for the information. Nice guy, Dexter. But he doesn’t speak so highly of you.”

I took a perverse joy in Stalling’s expression. “That white whale, what he maybe needs is for someone to cut his tongue out. He flaps his jaws too much. Now I’m kind of looking forward to seeing him again. I owed him money, but now I think my debt’s paid in full.”

I said, “Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone involved. So now it’s your turn, Earl. Where are my friends? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Why did he continue to check his watch? It seemed to make no sense.

I should have known why. The depth of my occasional stupidities continues to be a source of surprise.

Stallings said, “What could’a happened was that the guys running that shrimp boat stopped and picked up all three people. They ran into shore, dumped the refugees, then boarded a larger boat out in open sea—the mother ship. That ship brought all of them back here to Colombia except for one, the guy who ran the shrimp boat back to Cortez.”

I said, “That’s the way I figured it could’ve happened. I find it very hard to believe, though, that you picked them up but still don’t know their names. Or do you?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. If I was there, which I wasn’t, I didn’t take a personal interest. If the white girl had a body on her, yeah. They was just cargo to me.”

“Are they okay? Are they hurt?”

“My guess is, they’re happy as clams, but probably sick of living in a shack eating shit for food, wondering what’s going to happen. Which is why we need to talk money. How much are you willing to pay per person? If I can find them, that is.”

“I need some proof they’re alive before we do anything. Are they at a place where there’s a phone? We could call them.”

“Fuck you. I’m the only proof you’re going to get until we see some money. They’re your friends, not mine, so it’s a seller’s market. You know what you need to worry about? While you’re sitting here playing word games, the humps got your pals up for sale. They’re in touch with their hump friends back in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, you name it, talking price. How much will they pay for the white girl, how much for that pretty colored girl?”

I said, “Humps?”

His expression said: Are you stupid or what? “Humps. You know, the sand niggers, the ragheads. Like in camels—humps. In Colombia, if you got a woman to sell, the humps always do the negotiating because they’re the only ones who have contact with the guys who have the real money. The oil sheiks, the big-time weapons dealers.”

“Which is why I should be talking to Kazan, correct? Not you.”

“That albino freak, he’s not my boss. This deal’s between you and me. But we’ve got to do it quick and clean. No more of your bullshit.”

When he reached for his right pocket, I tensed slightly, ready to throw myself back out of my chair. But instead of bringing out a weapon, he brought out a pen. He took a paper napkin, then paused. “How much money do you have on you? I’ll give you a big discount if we do a cash deal now.”

“I’m not stupid, Earl. The way it’s going to work is, I’ll hand the cash to my friends, and they’ll hand it to you.”

He began to scribble on the napkin. “In that case, it’s going to cost you this much per person. No questions, no more negotiations, that’s how much it’s going to be. You can buy one or all three. It’s no skin off my nose.”

I looked at the napkin and read, “$50K.”

“I don’t have that much.”

He stood up. “Then find a way to get it.” He tossed the pen on the table. “You may want to write this down. At the southern boundary of Colombia, there’s a little airstrip at a place called Mameluco. It’s not too far from Araracuara, where there’s a bigger strip, but don’t go there. Mameluco. That’s the place.”

I didn’t bother noting the name. I’d already seen it on a map. Mameluco was very near the village of Remanso, the name that Harrington said meant “still waters.”

He checked his watch yet again. “I’ll give you two days to get the dough. Today’s Tuesday … you’ve got to land at the airstrip before sunset on Thursday. Get off the plane and walk to the dirt road. We’ll know you’re there. Just you, alone, and the money in a briefcase. Cash. Bring anybody else, your friends are dead. Talk to anybody about this, your friends are dead. Have anybody follow you, we’ll know about it. Same thing. Dead. Savvy?”

I told him, “I’ll try my best to raise the money.”

I didn’t tell him I already had a briefcase.

When I left Stallings, it was a little after 2 A.M. Amelia would be asleep, and I was feeling restless, so I stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall place called La Habinita, bought a beer to go, looking at all the photos of Che and Fidel on the wall as I waited. Then I took the long way back to the hotel.

I walked along the narrow street that follows the northern-most wall of the city, walked past lovers kissing on cannon parapets, passed vendors selling from munitions ramps—all the antiquated architecture of war now obsolete, nothing more than public furniture for modern life.

The great novelist, Gabriel García Marquez, has a fortress-sized hacienda across the street from the Hotel Santa Clara. There’s always a lone guard outside the little door, predictably holding a 12-gauge shotgun. As I passed, I said hello and asked him how his evening was going.

I was surprised to hear him answer, “It’s not been a good night, friend. It’s not been a good night for anyone in our little quarter.”

I stopped to face him. What did that mean?

When I hear something that truly shocks or frightens me, I feel an ether-like sensation move through the frontal area of my brain to my spine. I felt it now as the guard said, “There was an incident in the hotel. A man was shot, and a woman was kidnapped. I saw them turn the corner, a man on each side of her, moving as if she were very drunk.” He slapped the barrel of his shotgun. “The cabrones! I wish I had known. I could have rescued her! One of them, I’ll be able to recognize again.”

I was already running toward the hotel as he added, “As I told the police: He was a tall albino man, but strange-looking. Not American, not Colombian. Colorless. He was white.”

Carlos Quasada, one of Colombia’s best heavyweight boxers, had fought his last fight.

His body was sprawled in the open air stairwell between the second and third floors of the hotel, surrounded by police and hotel employees. The police tried to stop me from entering what was now a crime scene, but I forced my way through the perimeter, shouting that I had information that could be helpful to them and demanding to visit my own room.

Or maybe they let me through because they saw the look in my eye.

I’d left Carlos standing guard in the third floor’s open corridor. From where he was stationed, he had a clear view of the stairs, the elevator, and of San Felipe castle, built high on a hill outside the old walled city. Amelia didn’t know that I’d asked him to stand guard there until I returned. I didn’t want to frighten her.

Another stupid mistake on my part.

Whoever had killed him wasn’t a very good shot. It’d taken them three rounds. One in the back, another just above his butt, and a third in the back of the head.

I knew the head shot was last, because Carlos was a bull of a man, and he’d done some crawling—probably toward his attackers.

He’d been well loved in Cartagena. I didn’t realize how much, but I now knew. Standing in the little circle around the body, most of the hotel employees, in their neat beige uniforms, were weeping, as was one of the cops.

A woman who seemed to be the detective in charge said, “You knew the victim?”

I said to her as I pushed past, “Wait. I need to check my room,” and ran toward the stairs.

I took the steps two at a time and threw open the door to our suite.

I didn’t expect Amelia to be there, and she wasn’t. But she had not gone quietly into the night with her abductors. There’s a difference between a room that’s been the scene of a fight and a room that’s been purposefully ransacked.

There’d been a fight here. There were broken lamps, a shattered mirror, an overturned chair that she may have clung to rather than be dragged from the room. She had found weapons where she could. The most touching of them was a small, lignum vitae box, beautifully carved, very dense and heavy, that I’d bought for her that afternoon in the market. I stooped, picked it up, noticing that a corner of the box was moist and slightly darker than the rest of the wood.

Maybe she’d gotten a good blow in. I found myself hoping desperately that she had.

Something else I noticed was that the room had a strange, medicinal stink. It made my eyes burn, caused me to feel slightly dizzy. Probably some variation of chloroform.

I remember the guard telling me that, because of the way the two men were pulling the woman along, he thought she was drunk.

Behind me, a woman’s voice said, “Is there anything missing?”

I turned to see the detective. She wore a dark blue skirt, light white blouse, and a badly cut navy-blue jacket. She had short, frosted blond hair, silver fingernails, and she was nearly as wide as she was tall.

Feeling sick, close to panic, I said, “Yes. I’m missing my girlfriend.”

The detective said, “I’m aware of that. The redheaded American woman. Witnesses in the lobby already told us. Are you missing anything else? Did they steal anything, that’s what I’m asking you.”

The question was so asinine that I didn’t reply. I was searching around the room and finally found what I hoped would be there. Murderers don’t leave notes. Kidnappers do.

On the night stand, under the telephone, I found a folded sheet of hotel stationery. Behind me, the detective demanded, “Sir! Please don’t touch anything. My people haven’t been through her yet. That could be evidence.” I opened the paper and read words written there: “Bring the money. Come alone, or she’s dead.”

I stood there, my brain scanning for a quick, fail-safe solution. There was none.

I allowed the detective to take the note from my hand and read it. She folded the note and said, “I think this is very encouraging. In Colombia, kidnappers are also businesspeople. They keep their word. They keep their victims alive until they get paid, or they’re out of business. I’m sure these men will be in touch with you soon. They’ll provide you with a price and a deadline.” She paused to look at me. “Unless you’ve somehow already been in touch with them?”

I answered, “No. Of course not,” thinking of no reason why I should tell her the truth.

“Unfortunately,” she added, “the note is now worthless for gathering fingerprints. This is a crime scene. I’m going to remind you one last time.”

I told her, “Lady, your country is a crime scene,” and walked out the door.

At the hotel’s front desk, I retrieved my heavy briefcase and told the clerk, “When Seńor Carlos’s family arrives, if they need anything, anything at all, please charge it to our room. Perhaps you should call a physician as well. Tell him the situation, ask him to bring sedatives.”