Authors: Jeff Soloway
It was signed “La Organización.”
“The kidnappers gave this to you?” It seemed a bit matter-of-fact for a ransom note, not that I was an expert.
“They slipped it under my door when I was out.” She glanced down at the cigarette, now completely cold, and handed me a picture of a dark-haired woman glumly holding up a copy of
La Razón
. I pulled one of the Hilary’s parents’ flyers out of my pocket and compared the images. It looked like Hilary.
“Their English isn’t bad,” I said. “But I can’t read the date on the paper.”
“The headline’s recent. You can go online and look it up on the website. I checked it myself.”
“But why was this delivered to
you
?”
She shrugged and flipped away the cigarette butt like she was tossing a coin.
“I’m the PR person. They must think I can get the word out to the right people. And Hilary knew me. I was her friend, in a way. Maybe she recommended me. How should I know?” Her voice squeaked in exasperation.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
She took the note from me, turned it around, and returned it. It said, “If you tell anyone about this, you die too. We know where you live. We also know”—an address on SW Fourth Street in Miami followed. It looked familiar.
“My aunt’s house,” Pilar explained.
The wind rose, shaking the branches on a nearby tree, which made the moon shadows
around us dance like boiling water. “What if they’re out here, listening to us?” I asked. “You said they were everywhere.”
“Nobody knows about this place except me. I told you—I know the secret ways better than anyone. Even them, I hope. But they’re not stupid.”
I took a deep breath. “I think maybe I know who the kidnappers are. Barrientos is a Condepa hack. I think Condepa traffics cocaine and uses this hotel to launder the money. Somehow Hilary found out what they were doing, so they kidnapped her. That’s my theory. But I don’t know how the security guard fits in. Maybe you can help me find out.”
She lit another cigarette and stared down at its tip. Her face glowed a sunset red.
“That’s a stupid theory,” she said.
“It’s a work in progress,” I said defensively. “And there’s no doubt about Barrientos and Condepa. You must have known about him. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Of course I knew. It helps to have a party connection in this country. We’re not supposed to talk about it. But he has nothing to do with Hilary. Where would you get such a crazy idea?”
“Because political thugs don’t normally become hotel general managers—or the other way around.”
“And the hotel laundering drug money?”
“That’s what my sources tell me.”
“What sources?”
I pictured the manager of the Gran Hotel París marching in with her hands on her hips to set Pilar straight. “Lots of sources.”
“They can’t be reliable.”
“Why not? You know something else, don’t you? Why won’t you tell me? You said Hilary was your friend. What do you mean by that? You had drinks with her on Guilford trips? We all had drinks on Guilford trips. Did you have something to do with Hilary’s disappearance?”
I wished she understood just how much she could trust me, but I couldn’t explain without making clear that I suspected her story up to now was a lie. I could take anything from her, even the knowledge that she was in league with the kidnappers, just as she was in league with Arturo, though I knew that if she had done something criminal, I should stop asking her questions, so I couldn’t later be accused of knowingly harboring a fugitive. No, I should find out the truth, and afterward, we’d have to get married; no husband can be forced to testify against his wife.
“What are you talking about? Of course not. I received the note just before I left for New York, and I told you about it as soon as I could. I needed someone to come and help me, someone I could trust.”
Pride surged within me, and pity—Pilar must be very lonely if I was the best she could do.
“And it had to be someone who could pretend to write some fluff for us,” she added. “So Soldán would believe me.”
Right. She had needed a travel writer.
“This is what you have to do, Jacob,” she said. “Take the message back to Hilary’s parents. They have money. They can pay the ransom, and then Hilary will be safe and so will I.”
“Safe from what? Who are these people?”
“I’m not sure. But I know I’m afraid of them.”
“Then why don’t you just leave? Go back to the States.”
“They’d meet me—at the airport, at the border, wherever. You don’t understand. I’ve never felt like this in my life.”
“They scare you more than Dionisius?”
“Yes. Maybe. I guess I’m afraid of everybody. I just want it to be over. I’m sorry I brought you into this.”
“I’m not sorry. I’ll get you out somehow. And then maybe we can try again. In New York.”
She smiled feebly, and unconsciously brought her index finger to her mouth. I realized she was biting her nails, and for some reason my hopes soared.
“When I’m with you I feel like I can’t be depressed or bored,” I said. “Didn’t you feel that way with me? I’m so afraid of getting older and more bored and miserable, Pilar, until one day it’ll be all over, and I’ll die knowing I did everything wrong. But when I’m with you it’s like we’re fighting off boredom. Fighting off death. The two of us together.”
I was glad I said it, though I wished I hadn’t made us sound like superheroes.
“No, Jacob. That’s not it.” She shook her head, and for a moment it was as if we were back in a hotel room on a Guilford trip, arguing companionably late at night. “The only thing that fights off boredom is freedom. And the only way to be truly free, to be independent and not to worry, is to have money. Don’t call me a Republican. My father was a socialist, you know, like half of Spain. All work at someone else’s command is drudgery. Misery.”
“I don’t work for anyone else,” I said. “And I’m not happy.”
“Because you’re still poor. You think you live like a prince, and you do, but only for a few days at a time, and then you’re stuck back in Queens. We’re both servants who live in the palace. That doesn’t make us kings.”
“Maybe you need them both,” I said. “Love and freedom.” Perhaps we could compromise.
“Maybe. Yes. I think you’re right. Jacob, let’s try to do something complicated, you and me.”
“What?”
“I have an idea, a brilliant idea, Jacob. A way out of this for you and me … and Hilary.”
Her words quivered with a strange new energy.
“What?”
“I have to talk to somebody first, to secure an agreement, but I promise I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“You’re putting me off
again
?”
“I need to arrange it, Jacob,” she said. “If you can hang on until tomorrow, I’ll show you something that will take away your every doubt. The kidnappers—I think I can show you who they are. Safely.”
“How?”
“I’ll have to persuade them. Can you wait until the morning? I’ll contact you in your room by eleven—noon at the latest. I have more work to do tonight and I’ll need to sleep. I don’t have to be in La Paz until the evening, so I’m not planning to leave before one tomorrow.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here. Soldán told me—”
“He can’t know I’m here. No one can.”
“No one like Dionisius?”
“For example.”
“What if they find you?”
“No one’s looking for me. And besides, I’m very careful. Don’t worry, Jacob. Just be careful yourself.”
We stepped back into the hill, and she pulled the door shut on the stars and the moonlight. I followed her back through the tunnels to my room. At my door she whispered her regrets and left me.
But this time I was not to be put off so easily. I waited until she turned the corner and then followed. The carpet silenced my footsteps as I stalked her from far behind. She never thought to turn around. Her featureless form ahead of me was like a memory. How much had she changed in the last year? Had I ever really known her? We never know anyone. People reveal themselves to us slowly and incompletely over months, years, even decades. We never even know ourselves. What once we approved of becomes unbearable; what we despised becomes strangely persuasive. We blame time and the world for changing on us, but really we ourselves have betrayed our beliefs.
The corridor forked and twisted; I lagged behind on the straightaways and speed-walked
ahead when she vanished behind a curve. She kept to the main passages always, moving, as near as I could tell, away from the heart of the hotel. Finally she paused before a door, and I slipped behind a corner. I heard an electronic squawk and peeked to see her open the door and disappear behind it. I darted ahead and was able to jam my sandal in the doorway just in time. Then I passed through myself.
I was in a glassed-in corridor, an enclosed walkway stretching between the peaks of the mountain. The ceiling was also glass. Above and all around me were the stars, so numerous and so bright that they faintly lit the velvet valleys below. Cold air pricked my ears, fingers, and face. As I ventured out into the middle, I tensed my body against the stiff night breeze, but there wasn’t even a draft through the glass. The floor was carpeted. I glided forward, following Pilar’s shadow farther on.
The glass walls and ceiling ended, and the walkway widened. I could perceive on the wall beside me the outline of a beast like a llama but more upright. An alpaca. I realized we were in the new wing of the hotel, the one they had closed to save on heat and maintenance. The overhead lights in this corridor were even dimmer than in the old wing; only one in five was lit, perhaps for the odd worker or for emergencies. Far up ahead, Pilar stopped; I crushed myself against a doorway. She rapped at a door and opened it with her passkey. A light shone from the room, she slipped inside, and then nothing more could be heard through the soundproof walls. I walked faster. Here was the answer. I would knock and announce myself, and all would be revealed. Once admitted into the circle of truth, I was sure I could never be expelled.
My legs seemed to cramp in anticipation. To knock was to announce myself as a spy and a stalker; perhaps instead I should kneel by the door and try to listen to the conversation inside. But what if she spotted me through the peephole or opened the door suddenly? I crouched against the wall. I could hear nothing.
Time passed while I gathered my courage and assembled justifications for following her. But just as I lunged to my feet, I heard a low, steady pulse from behind me. At first I thought it was my ears ringing from mental strain, but then I turned and saw, back through the corridor, across the glassy walkway, a tiny light flashing red and furious on the entry door, near the card key slot. Each flash was accompanied by a low beep. I stared at the door. Was the security device complaining of an intruder? Or warning the front desk that the door was open? Would they soon send a guard? I stepped slowly back toward the light and the tone, speeding up as I crossed the walkway. The sound continued. Was it getting louder? How long before a guest or housekeeping heard it? My heart was beating faster than the red light. I could just pull shut the door, I thought, but what if it locked and I was trapped in this dim, cold, unserviced outpost? I might never get back. But if instead I passed back through the doorway, back into the populated
regions of the hotel, and shut the door, it would surely lock and I’d lose my chance to discover Pilar’s secret. I made my choice and slipped back through to civilization, closing the door behind me, leaving Pilar on the other side. The light and the pulse died instantly. I tried the door again—locked, of course, but at least it didn’t throw another tantrum. The only sound now was my own breathing. It was all right. I would speak to Pilar tomorrow, in the light of the morning. I knew where she was hiding. Now all I had to do was find my way back.
A mere handful of twists farther on I heard ahead of me the rumble of hurrying men and angry Spanish. Arturo almost trampled me as he turned a corner.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
I did my best to look surprised and annoyed.
“I was going for a drink,” I said. “I must have got lost. This place is a labyrinth. Where’s room three forty-five? Ah! This way.”
“Have you seen Pilar?”
“Pilar? Of course not. Soldán told me she’s in La Paz. She’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”
“She is not in La Paz. She never returned to her apartment. You swear you haven’t seen her?”
“Of course! Why do you need to find her?”
“Hotel business. Not yours.”
He and his men forged ahead.
I had planned to sleep late the next morning, but a beam of sunlight squeezing through the half-open blinds woke me, and with that first flicker of consciousness, the day’s promise flooded my brain. I had penetrated Pilar’s defenses. She had promised to show me who the kidnappers were, and I would make her tell me why she was hiding in a neglected wing of the hotel. I would join the conspiracy. I sat up and chucked off the covers. It was 8:30. Everything was always so much better in the morning. Maybe Hilary really was alive; maybe Pilar really would return to New York with me; maybe the three of us—no, the four of us, Kenny too—really were too young, too spirited, too American, to be dead, or in danger, or even depressed. She’d deny it, but in her heart Pilar was as American as I was.
Kenny was still asleep on his stomach, his sweating face mashed into the pillow. I fished
one of my
New Yorkers
out of my bag but quickly gave up reading. I couldn’t endure the morning in this room. I left Kenny a map with the dining room circled, in case he wanted breakfast.
Down in the lobby, Gabriela was at the desk. My morning luck was persisting.
“Will you be joining the Jungle Jeep Convoy this morning?” she asked. “It departs in fifteen minutes.”
“Not today,” I said. “Can I leave a message for Pilar Rojas? I understand she won’t arrive until this evening.”
Perhaps Gabriela would report my activity to Arturo.
“Would you like her voice mail?”
“Just please tell her that I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”