Blood Lake (22 page)

The boat's gone.

I have to find my way back upstream by heading through this muddy maze to the main highway where I flag down a bus heading north, get off in the city center, and take another bus back to La Chala. I want to ask Mishojos what else he saw and heard.

But when I get there, there's a gathering of souls at the water's edge, pointing and speaking excitedly, their white and yellow clothes flapping animatedly, almost luminous. I wedge myself in and see the green-eyed mountain boy floating faceup, the blood long gone. A warning to me, and to all others.

This was a local hit.

For the first time since I've been here I truly feel like someone's eyes are upon me, right now, watching for my reaction. Well, here it is:
You cowardly piece of shit
.

And poor Mishojos, lost in all this, just one more thing floating in the swamp, all his hopes and dreams sinking deeper into the sludge and dreck. His skin's not even
waterlogged yet, but his eyes are already cold, silvery fish eyes staring up through the scummy surface, staring up at me saying, You, Filomena, you are the reason this happened to me, and you must find out who, and why, or these eyes will follow you around for as long as you live.

But I have my own child.

And I spend the rest of the day reminding myself of that.

Don't grieve for the dead: they know what they're doing.

—Clarice Lispector,
A Hora da Estrela

STAN.

Oh, Stan, that's my man.

Did you miss me, honey?

Yes. Oh, yesss.

“Wake up, Filomena!
¡Levantate!
”

Ugh.

“What?”

“Phone call!”

Head filled with glue. Brain packed in bubble wrap. The blood's all down in my clit, I think. I stumble to the phone.

“That you, F?”

“Carlos? It's—” Too early to focus on the clock.

“Yeah, listen. Nobody at the ASN fits the description you gave me, and about that other thing? That body's gone totally missing.”

Missing
. That word. So empty. So full of evil.

“Okay, never mind about the body. When is the coroner going to issue a death certificate?”

“No, I don't think you get it, Miss F. I'm at the end of the road on this one.”

“You sure are.”
Click
.

Damn. Without proof of death, it's as if he just disappeared. And, to put it in cold police detective terms, his body would have been the best piece of evidence about the killer's method of operation.

By the time the creature wrapped in a human skin named Filomena makes it down the cement stairs for coffee, an express package has arrived from Cuenca. It's the
padre
's pamphlet.

I slurp up some coffee and toast, then Uncle Lucho helps me find the best print shop for my needs. They take one look at the paper and wave an arm towards reams of the stuff stacked on their shelves, up to the ceiling. The typeface is a standard one, twelve-point Helvetica Light, laser-printed for an offset press. But the ink intrigues them. It's unusually water-resistant. Very expensive. Probably imported, says the master, handing back the pamphlet and wiping his hands on his ink-stained coveralls.

So I'm back to the same jawbreaker as before: high-grade ink on cheap-shit paper. Maybe the militiamen just stole a cache of fancy ink—it would suit their MO to a T. Or maybe somebody's getting paid to look like a regular organization, and they decided to skimp on the paper and pocket the difference. Or else it's a combination, some kind of collaboration between two normally distinct groups—you supply the ink, we'll supply the paper, and that way nobody can trace it back to either of us. Boy, if that's their game, it's working.

Back home, armed with a second cup of coffee, I pick up today's
El Despacho
and turn to the police briefs. Nothing about a young boy's life ending at thirteen, but on the second to last page, under the soccer scores, is a two-inch article. No byline. It reads:

JANITOR: I KILLED PRIEST

Ismaél García Parra, janitor of the church and parish house in the
barrio
la Chala, confessed to the shocking crime of murdering Padre Samuel Campos, whose body was found with numerous stab wounds early Sunday morning.

The guilty man admitted that he used a kitchen
knife to commit the crime after police detectives noticed scratches and bruises on his face and forearms as a result of the victim's unsuccessful attempts to defend himself.

Jesus, they can't even lie right. It took them
three days
to notice scratches and bruises on the suspect's face and forearms? And the details keep changing like a smooth-talking sex killer who keeps getting caught with his facts down: Sure, we left the bar together, but she went to the burger place on Madison and I went home. You say she was a vegetarian? Well, maybe it wasn't a hamburger place, it must have been the donut shop. The one near the park. Yeah, the park. Then we separated. These scratches? My cat made those.

I'm rushing out the door, electrified with the desire to head straight over to the offices of
El Despacho
, but Antonia stops me.

“Mom, when are we going to do something together? Like go to the beach or see some Inca ruins?”

“The Inca ruins are in the mountains. Maybe we can go next week. Just give me a few more days, okay?”

I'm not sure if she understands. I haven't told anyone about what happened yesterday in La Chala.

But I'd better stay away from there for a few days. Let 'em think I'm spooked, which isn't so damn far from the truth.

As I approach the main avenue, I notice that the walls of the
barrio
are sprouting vast fields of red-and-white Canino posters like poppies swaying in the breeze after the fertile rains, thanks to that last “poll.”

And it'll be harvest time soon.

I buy copies of all three dailies, and cast in my lot for another bus ride. Now, the Greek epic heroes used to literally cast their lots into a warrior's helmet, something that would come in handy in case another riot starts. I could also use one of those divine-intervention deals, too, if anyone up there is listening. Hello? Athena? Ishtar? Hello?

I comb through the papers page by page. Each one says that Governor Segundo-the-Chosen-One Canino is planning
a rally today. I've got an urge to see the man himself. The man Padre Samuel owed a “favor.”

There's nothing about the other murder, not even in
El Globo
. Guess it wasn't sensational enough. After all, kids die of hunger every day without it making the papers.

We head uptown, where whole buildings have been rebaptised with the colors of the various political parties. And unlike the progressive United States, backwards Ecuador doesn't permit any of its political parties to use all three of the colors on the national flag—red, yellow, and blue. So there's an awful lot of red and white, some pale blue and white encroaching, a smattering of yellow and white—the Neoliberal Party of Ricardo-of-the-Noble-Opposition Faltorra, which has a much stronger following in the
sierra
—and a dozen smaller parties doing what they can with orange, green, and black.

For some reason nobody wants to use purple.

Some impish part of me would vote for the first bastard who had the balls to use purple.

You don't want to know what else my impish parts would like to do.

These civilized city buses actually come to a complete halt to let people off, so I wait behind a covey of female office workers stepping daintily off the bus in high heels sharp enough to puncture the hull of a nuclear submarine, then I hit the ground and race-walk along the Calle Colón towards the river. Pretty soon the street is crawling with white-shirted office workers and cops and firemen and the idle eyes of passersby.

I pick out Ruben talking to another man and glancing up at the offices of
El Despacho
across the street from them. It looks like the whole building has emptied out.

“
Señorita
Buscarsela.” He smiles affably, shaking my hand like an old friend. “Just in time for our latest disaster.”

“Which is?”

“A bomb threat.”

“We get them all the time,” says the other man with breezy dismissiveness.

“Uh-huh. Listen, can you tell me who wrote this article?” I show them today's crime report, with Ismaél's so-called “confession” in it.

“It reads like it's printed directly from the Police Department's press release,” says Ruben.

“Well, how can I find out more about how it got in there?”

“You can't go into the building now,” says the other man.

And pretty bloody conveniently, too.

Ruben suddenly remembers his manners and introduces me to
señor
Claudio Moscoso.

“Are you an investigative reporter?” I ask.

“No, nothing that exciting. I cover the oil business.”

“Oh? And what's new there?”

“Actually, there's been a major disruption in the
oriente
,” says Moscoso. “Hundreds of Shuar Indians have seized control of five pumping stations.”

Ruben picks up excitedly, “They're threatening to occupy more sites and shut off the flow of two hundred thousand barrels a day in exports.”

“What do they want?”

“I'm sorry?” says Moscoso.

“They don't want oil,” I say. “Our money doesn't mean shit to them. So what do they want?”

“Oh. They're protesting the damage to their fields and fishing grounds. During the extraction process the oil companies spill about ten thousand gallons of crude every week, and maybe four times that much in toxic waste.”

So they want survival.

“Who organized them?”

“I beg your pardon?”

I look at him, trying not to say, Are you
sure
you're a reporter?

“The Shuars aren't afraid of anything,” I say. “Except maybe evil spirits. They'll surround an army helicopter with twenty tribesmen armed with nothing but bamboo spears and raw courage. But they're pretty insular. Intertribal communication is not their strong point.”

“Uh, that's correct.”

“So who helped them organize? Earth First? CONAIE? CONFENIAE?”

“There's no direct evidence of outside involvement,” says Moscoso.

“And what about the army?”

“They have mobilized fifteen hundred troops,” he says.

“A three-to-one ratio for a bunch of naked Indians.”

The Ecuadorian army relies on U.S. support, so they don't usually crush the opposition to a fine powder when
gringo
interests are involved. But when it's just a bunch of landless peasants in the middle of nowhere …

“I mean, are they going to try to negotiate, or are they going to call out the gunships?”

“Honestly, I don't know,” he says, but after some prodding from both of us, Mr. Moscoso admits that some sources suggest that an elusive guerrilla group may have helped organize the Shuars, but the government and the oil industry want that kept hush-hush.

A disruptive, peasant-based guerrilla action. It almost sounds like—

“
There
you are!”

I spin around, legs apart, weight balanced.

“Where you guys been?” says Peter in that hopeless
gringo
-accented Spanish. “How 'bout this bomb threat, huh?”

Gee, got any beer? What's on TV?

“We have been right here,” says Ruben.

“I was looking all over for you, dude,” says Peter, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “Wanted to make sure you got out okay.”

Ruben pats him on the back. “I'm old, but I'm not
that
old.”

“I hear people saying maybe the Black Condors had something to do with this,” says Peter, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper.

“The Black Condors wouldn't blow up a newspaper,” I say.

“Oh? Then what
would
they blow up?”

I don't answer.

Ruben explains to freaking Clark Kent here that the
Ecuadorian guerrilla movement is really very small compared to some of the neighboring countries, and that Americans don't realize that the damage they cause is way out of proportion to their numbers. When you see a single set of high-tension wires scalloping up a mountainside like a seventh-grade string art project, you realize how a band of straggly guerrillas can take out the electricity in half a province with
one
well-placed bomb.

Hell, you could do it with one well-placed swing of a sharp ax.

Peter nods understanding.

Prematurely.

A street cop in a dark-blue-and-white uniform struts over and tells us that it's going to take them most of the day to secure the building.

“Come on,
amigos
, we've got work to do,” says Moscoso, tipping his thumb up to his mouth in the international sign language for quaffing a few
tragitos
.

Ruben says, “We can work out of my hotel room. It's got a phone, a laptop, a TV, everything but a fax. Come on.”

“Has it got a bar?” asks Moscoso.

“You've got to bring your own, my friend. That hotel room booze is too damn expensive.”

“Give me your room number and I'll come by after the rally,” I say.

“Governor Canino's rally?” asks Peter. “Can I go with you?”

“Sure, let's go.”

The two reporters head east towards the river. Peter and I head north up the Calle Escobedo.

“If you really want to make a name for yourself writing about the guerrillas,” I advise him, “you should head to the Amazon. Some of the factions might even talk to you.”

“Really? They'd talk to me? Why?”

“To get their side of the story out.”

“Cool! What do you mean by ‘faction'?”