Blood Lake (51 page)

But I don't have to. The people of La Chala are at their doors and windows, on the rickety cane walkways to their forgotten shacks, pelting my pursuer with rocks and bottles and anything else they can find. A couple of direct hits slow him down, another one and he has to drop down and curl up to survive the gauntlet of outrage.

I retract the blade.

Antonia says, “Thanks, Mom. Those nuns were starting to drive me crazy.”

I leave my child in the security of the Freire brothers' workshop, then head out to scrounge up some supplies for this unconventional situation.

It's time to go out over the airwaves.

Pancho's got a couple of cops watching the door to the street and two more leaning on a patrol car, smoking fat yellow cigarettes. But nobody's watching the roof.

I backtrack down the side streets and get easy access to an apartment building at the foot of the block. Five flights up, I'm able to creep across three adjacent rooftops to the last building on the corner. The roof above the studio has several new antennas and some boosting equipment. Just what I need.

I get out my mountaineering clips and fifty feet of half-inch nylon rope. The studio is soundproofed, which works both ways, of course.

I secure my lines and rappel down to the window. Too bad it's not a big picture window I can come crashing through in a shower of broken glass. This calls for drama.

Big red letters shout
ON THE AIR
.

Good.

Pancho's broadcasting to half the population of Ecuador with a hot-hot-hot merengue number from the Dominican Republic. When he goes to pee, I ease in through the window and drop to the floor.

Flush
.

I'm shutting and bolting the front door to the studio.

“What are you doing here? Do I know you?” he asks.

“It's funny you should say that,” I answer, turning around. “I believe those were the very first words you ever said to me. But there's been so much water under the bridge since then, hasn't there? I mean, you've found things out, I've found things out.”

The clock on the wall says 11:55.

“Hey, who the fuck are you, anyway?”

“I'm an investigator. A smart-ass like you, Panchito. Sand in the machine. A merry prankster who knows that when everybody around me wants me to run the other way that means I'm on the trail of something hot and closing fast. And I'm just as persistent and pesky as you when the wind carries the smell of blood, but I've got no angle, no army of cops to protect me, and no information to work with. So talk, or I'm likely to stay here all night until you do.”

“Oh, and one other thing,” I say, pulling the package out of my trusty shoulder bag.

I bite off a corner, spill a little powder out on the table and ignite it with my lighter, as proof:
paf!
Then I hold the lighter up to a fuse in the top of the package.

11:56.

“That much powder will destroy the top floor,” he says coolly.

“Yeah. It might even make the whole building come down. But I'll do it to stop you.”

He adjusts his baseball cap, all smooth and confident, like he knows I'm not crazy enough to do it.

“I'll take out the whole fucking building unless you tell me who killed Padre Campos.”

11:57.

I light the fuse.

Jesus, maybe she
is
crazy enough …

It burns.

My will is iron.

It burns to the last centimeter.

His comfort level shifts.

“Listen—” he begins. A noise. A flash. A scream.

A puff.

When the smoke clears I've got his hair in my left hand and a knife at his throat with my right thumb pressing in.

I thought he might need a little persuasion.

“Now, where were we?” I say. “Oh, yes. You were going to tell me who killed Padre Campos.”

“I don't know who killed Campos. No one knows.”

“Bullshit. Whoever killed him knows.”

“Well, yeah, I mean—”

“You mean this whole connection to Senator Faltorra is fake.”

“Uh, fake?”

“Trumped up. A scam. A load of hooey.”

Dead air.

“Nobody knows,” he repeats.

It's a lie. But it's the best I'm going to get.

11:58.

“Say it again for the folks at home,” I instruct him.

He smiles, hearing the long-awaited sound of boots stomping up the stairs, swivels towards the mike to turn it on and discovers that it's already on. His smile fades like a firefly squashed on a windshield.

“What about that announcement you were going to make?”

The stomping up the stairs gets louder. Closer.

11:59.

Pancho turns down the music, leans in to the microphone, and says, “To all our listeners: As you know, it's been rumored around town that we had this big announcement all ready to give you, but, uh, no, that's wrong. There's no announcement.”

He puts on a slow, sad tune filled with lost dreams and broken promises.

I put the blade away.

“You're out, Pancho,” I say, handing him his baseball cap.

“Yeah, so are you.”

“Tie game. Zero-zero.” The door is taking a serious beating. It's time to get out of here.

“How did you do it?” Pancho finally asks me.

“I've watched you switch on the mike a dozen times. What do you think I am, stupid?”

“No, not that. The other thing.”

“Oh, that. A hint of flash powder in a sack of flour. Here, you can have the rest. Do some good and give it to a poor family.”

I'm halfway out the window when the cops finally bust in and grab me.

“Jesus, it's about time, fellas,” he tells them. “What did you do? Stop on the third floor to take a piss?”

Sometimes the system works. Friends in the Department of Justice, including some I didn't know I had, arrange it.

Filomena Buscarsela is pardoned.

Juanita Calle isn't.

Someday, maybe.

I ask if they can set Ismaél free for lack of evidence, and they say, Ismaél who? What? Never met the guy. I'm told not to press it. I've spoiled their game enough.

So I get to see the light of day again, and steer my ship of fate to the family liquor store, where I trade all my fame for the warmth I find in the hands and hugs of the best girl in the world. Suzie says she heard the whole thing live over the radio, and wasn't I afraid for my life?

“Of course I was. And boy, could I use a drink. So I guess I've come to the right place.”

“You can't drink now,” says Aunt Yolita.

“Why not?”

“There's a
ley seca
for twenty-four hours,” says Uncle Lucho. A dry law! “No one in the country is allowed to buy or sell alcohol until after the votes are counted.”

“But I'm not allowed to vote, damn it!”

“We can't sell it to you.”

“What if I steal it?”

“Stealing's okay,” says Suzie.

I lift a cold Pilsener from the cooler, and raise a glass to the spirits of Samuel Campos and Ruben Zimmerman. There'll never be another Padre Samuel, for me. And Ruben— if he had the time to leave a clue, why didn't he just write his murderer's name down?

Unless Peter planted the whole thing to point me towards “Putamayo.” Darn it. I forgot to ask the guy before the soil absorbed all that was left of him.

Maybe Ruben figured an obvious message would be discovered and destroyed, but a broad associative clue like the watch just might reach me. It was a long shot, and he took it. Either way, Ruben put larger national issues before his own life, even to the end.

Cheers.

The international observers say that thousands of ballots were not delivered until two hours before the polls closed, and there were no early returns at all from the more politically rebellious provinces because heavy rains knocked out the telephone service across much of the eastern
cordillera
.

Faltorra won, by the way.

He sucked.

And he only built one of those roads.

Four years later Canino won. He sucked.

Then Gatillo won.
He
sucked. Get the picture?

Some of Gatillo's men were actually seen walking out of the presidential palace with bags of money the day he fled the country.

Maybe Johnny was right.

“Phone call from Cuenca!”

It's Sergeant Tenesaca. “So, did you find anything?”

“Nothing but his ghost,” I say.

A mighty good-looking ghost.

On Inauguration Day, President Pajizo hogs
five hours
of airtime before he finally relinquishes power to his constitutional successor.

The sucre goes to 25,000, and there's talk of switching to the dollar. At this rate, we might as well switch to cowrie shells.

And I don't know what happened to Peter's watch. Some young rebel is probably flashing it right now.

I hate good-byes. They're so sad. And every time I have to fly, my stomach gets all knotted and I can't sleep. Seems like I'm always on the move, leaving one place and heading for another. So where am I headed now?