White Lines

by Mel Stein

  Luis expressed some disappointment that the car was still there and then drove Mark to Salazar’s office. It was an imposing house set in the heart of La Candelaria district. The building was of colonial style on Calle Nine, having been lovingly restored, and contrasting wildly with some of the more modern properties nearby. Salazar was obviously doing well in his practice. The reception area was filled with expensive antique furniture although the telephone manned by the well-dressed girl behind the desk was top-of-the-range technology. They waited some ten minutes and were then led through to the lawyer’s own office. Luis whistled softly.

  ‘Only ten minutes. He is taking this seriously. He has been known to keep people waiting for days.’

  ‘What is he, a lawyer or a saint?’ Mark asked, but Luis had no time to answer even if he had wanted to, because Salazar was there waiting for them at the door. If he was expensive then he was going to make his clients feel they were getting their money’s worth just by his appearance. He was tall, as tall as Mark, and wearing a light Hugo Boss suit over a cream silk shirt, topped off by a perfectly tied brown cravat. Somewhere in his past there must have been some Aztec blood as he looked for all the world like a chief from that ancient tribe, waiting to receive his tribute if not his sacrifice. His skin had a burnished look about it, his sleek black hair hanging long at the back over his collar. The aquiline nose gave him a look of permanent superiority and the knowing eyes, as black as coal-dust, seemed to miss nothing.

  When he spoke, Mark was surprised to hear what appeared to be an American accent.

  ‘Mr Rossetti, I am delighted to meet you, although I would have preferred other circumstances. Please come in. I will have my secretary make us coffee and you’ll tell me all about it.’ He saw Mark hesitate and, as if reading his mind, said quickly, ‘This coffee will be the finest you have ever tasted.’

  Mark got the impression that this was a man who would always require the finest.

  They chatted generally for a few moments and Mark was surprised by how much the man knew about football, not just in Colombia, but throughout the world. He learned that his American accent stemmed from a few post-graduate years at Harvard and eighteen months in exile in Washington when the threats to his life in Bogota had grown too great. His confidence rose. If anybody could set Patti free then this was the man.

  ‘So, let’s get down to business,’ Salazar said. ‘We have, I understand, a small problem with your lady friend. Take your time, drink your coffee and tell me everything you know about her, why she should be in this country and why she should have any interest in cocaine.’

  It was at that point that Mark’s confidence evaporated, because he had no answer to any of Salazar’s questions.

  CHAPTER 24

  Eduardo Salazar wasted no time. By mid-afternoon he had pulled all the necessary strings and had arranged a court application for five p.m. to seek bail for Patti. He had also taken care to speak to the judge who would hear the application and had been assured that it would be granted.

  ‘Will she be able to return to England whilst we sort out this nightmare?’ Mark asked.

  ‘One step at a time, my friend. First we ensure that she does not spend one single night in one of our jails.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Many people might think that was enough in Miss Delaney’s situation.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid I’m not many people.’

  ‘So I can believe, Mr Rossetti, so I can well believe. This is a city where, despite the noise you might hear in the streets, people only talk about important matters in whispers. And amongst the whispers today I have heard your name and that of Miss Delaney on several occasions.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ Mark asked, wondering why on earth anybody would have heard of him, let alone be talking about him. He wondered if the lawyer was merely being dramatic to justify his fee. Salazar looked him straight in the eye and Mark was grateful he was unlikely ever to come up against this man as a witness on the stand.

  ‘No, it is not a good thing,’ Salazar replied. ‘It is a dangerous thing. But I will answer your earlier question. I will do my best to get the lady out of the country, but that may not be so easy. Believe me, I do not mean to boast, but for anybody else it would be virtually impossible. Yet I will endeavour to achieve it because I truly believe that every day that she – and you – remain here, your lives are at risk. Life can be very cheap. We are a young nation. When English explorers were colonising the world we simply did not exist. It takes centuries to come to respect human life and other countries have a head start over us. People vanish and even those who might be concerned as to what has become of them do not necessarily make enquiries.’

  ‘Why not, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Because they value their own lives more than their curiosity.’

  The accent was on the word curiosity and Luis kicked him gently to indicate that this was not a helpful path to tread in the cause of Patti’s release.

  They left Salazar’s office just after one. Mark had four hours to kill and decided to turn his attention to Barry Reed. He was, as far as he was aware, still at the same police station as Patti, although Salazar had told him Patti would now be taken to the court to await his application and there was no point in trying to speak to her before then. Luis drove him down there, between Calle Twenty and Calle Twenty-One where he was just in time to meet the lawyer who had been found by the embassy. He extended a lazy, plump hand and his whole appearance exuded sloth and obesity. It was impossible to tell which had preceeded the other. He was only a little more than five feet tall, sparse hair spread hopelessly across a greasy scalp, patches of sweat staining his shirt and none-too-clean linen suit. He looked like a cross between Peter Lorre and Danny de Vito without the redeeming features of either of them. If Salazar would never be seen dirtying his hands at the scene of an accident this little man would certainly have been running behind the ambulance.

  ‘Manuel Lopez,’ he said by way of introduction, the accent sounding as Mexican as his name. ‘I am counsel for your Señor Reed.’

  Mark half expected him to thump his chest with pride as he made the announcement so loudly that he might well have been appearing in a New York courtroom before a very deaf judge.

  ‘I am Barry’s friend, Mark Rossetti.’

  ‘Yes, he is asking for you all the time. He is puzzled that you have not come to him before.’

  ‘I’m here now. Is he in serious trouble?’

  Lopez spread his arms wide and hunched his shoulders.

  ‘It is hard to say. He tests positive for drugs. To have drugs in this country is an offence if you are going to sell them. To take them …’ Another shrug. ‘To take them, that is another thing all together. Also it is not certain that he took them here in Colombia. We are waiting for the final analysis to tell us what drug it is exactly that he took. Then we wait to see how much he took. We wait to be sure that there are no more drugs amongst his possessions. And if there is nothing, as my client assures me is the case, then I think they will let him go home. He is a very frightened boy and that is what they have set out to achieve. But you ask is he in serious trouble? I do not think it is the right thing for a professional footballer to take drugs, so as far as his career is concerned, yes, I think he is in serious trouble.’

  ‘Are they absolutely sure that he tested positive?’

  ‘That is not in doubt. Quite frankly my advice is to tell him to apologise for all the trouble he has caused, maybe pay a small fine, and then he will be going home.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Lopez shrugged yet again. It was a habit that was beginning to annoy Mark.

  ‘It is not in my gift.’

  ‘So who is Santa Claus in this dump?’

  Luis took him by the arm.

  ‘It is not good to start offending people. Rightly or wrongly, there is a certain national pride despite all the problems.’

  Lopez looked from one to the other in bewilderment and
Mark realised that the reference to Father Christmas had probably stretched his command of English beyond his limits.

  ‘Who can arrange for me to see him?’ Mark asked again.

  ‘Only the officer in charge of the case. Now, if you excuse me, I have other clients to attend upon.’

  Mark grabbed him tightly by the arm and forced him back inside the building.

  ‘No, I don’t excuse you. And I won’t excuse you until you find a way to get me in to see your client.’

  Luis smiled at the lawyer’s discomfort, but the smile faded as they entered the outer sanctum of the police station and saw a scene of utter chaos. Tourists who had been robbed, women screaming for their husbands, a drunk in the corner vomiting on the floor. It was Hogarthian in its decadence. A man hurried by, picking his route carefully so as not to touch a soul, his black, gleaming shoes hammering a staccato rhythm on the cigarette-butt strewn floor. His left hand clutched the handle of the pistol at his side and Mark felt he was just waiting for an excuse to use it. Mark tapped him lightly on the arm as he passed him and out of the corner of his eye saw Lopez shrink back against the wall in a vain effort to make himself invisible. The police officer turned to face the Englishman, his eyes distended and blazing with rage, as if Mark had been a leper touching him in the street as he tried to beg a coin. Without even asking, Mark knew he had found the man who held Barry Reed’s immediate destiny in his hand. It was too late to withdraw from the confrontation.

  ‘My name’s Rossetti, Mark Rossetti. I understand you have one of the England players here in your custody, Barry Reed.’

  The officer gave Mark a stare that he probably reserved for prisoners who declined to sign confessions.

  ‘We do not have an England player here named Reed or anything. There are no names in this place, only common criminals.’

  He spoke or rather barked out the words in Spanish and a glance at Lopez told him to translate and to translate with total accuracy. Lopez obliged and Mark continued despite a warning hand from Luis.

  ‘I was wondering if it might be possible to see him.’ The police officer seemed to understand enough English to comprehend Mark’s request.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, the tone clipped, indifferent now, as if whatever the answer or explanation might be it was doomed to fail in impressing him.

  ‘Because he’s a friend.’

  The answer understood, the reply again in Spanish, the translation from Lopez.

  ‘He needs a lawyer. He has no need of friends. He has a lawyer.’ He nodded in the direction of Lopez who bowed as if it were a great compliment although the expression on the officer’s face gave absolutely no indication that it had been intended as such. Then, as if to show exactly what he thought of the lawyer, the officer spat on the floor, leaving Mark with the certainty that he would far rather have spat in his face.

  ‘Can I at least have your name?’ Mark asked, wanting to know with whom he was dealing, drafting the official complaint in his mind. The man hesitated. He ran his tongue over nicotine-stained teeth, and touched a long scar that ran the full length of his left cheek as if it might give him inspiration to reply to a perfectly simple question.

  ‘My name is Rodriguez. Colonel Enrico Rodriguez.’

  Again Mark could see Lopez mouthing the rank in a mimed prayer. It was clear that if you lived in Bogota that the name meant something. But Mark Rossetti did not live in Bogota and had no intention of spending any more time there than was absolutely necessary to get Patti and Barry on a plane home. What happened after that to the pair of them he’d worry about at leisure. He could still hear Salazar’s words in his ears. As long as he was here he was in danger. But why? What had he done as a football commentator to justify such interest? Or was it just because of his relationship with Patti? He didn’t know which nerve Patti had struck but it was obviously a sensitive one.

  ‘Well, Colonel,’ Mark said, drawing himself up to his full six feet and looking down on the Colombian by a good six inches, ‘perhaps I should ask to see your superior officer. Tell him Lopez, tell him what I’m saying.’

  Lopez virtually sunk to his knees, terrified just to be a witness to the conversation, let alone translate it. Rodriguez turned to him, kneeing him in the stomach in the same movement, forcing him back on his plump haunches. Luis who had said nothing, supplied the translation.

  Rodriguez virtually ignored him and let fly a torrent of Spanish at the figure of Lopez who had not yet risen from the floor. Lopez hung on every word with the intensity of an Israelite receiving news of the Ten Commandments from Moses, then looked up at Mark with wide-eyed astonishment.

  ‘The colonel is impressed by your courage and persistence. He likes that in a man and is surprised to find it in a gringo. He has graciously granted you fifteen minutes with Señor Reed. Somebody will escort you to his cell.’

  Rodriguez clicked his heels together, like a stage character from Evita, and for a moment Mark thought he might be about to salute him. However, he merely turned on his heel and marched along the corridor, his back as stiff as a poker, his head firmly fixed ahead to ensure that nothing further hindered his path.

  Lopez pulled out a grimy handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow, a hopeless task, as fresh rivulets arose almost immediately.

  ‘You are a very lucky man, Señor Rossetti. The colonel is a powerful man within our police force. You could have found yourself in court with my client.’

  Mark grinned, despite the situation.

  ‘You know, it looks like I am about to find myself in a cell with your client. Where do I wait for my collection?’

  There was no need for Lopez to answer the question as another man in uniform, this time ill-fitting and begrimed, appeared behind them and without undue ceremony pushed Mark towards a door just off the corridor. They descended a flight of stairs in silence save for the tread of their shoes on the stone steps. There was no air and the heat lay over them like a smothering blanket, its smell rancid with age and decay. From his uniform it was hard to tell if his guide was a policeman or a soldier although Mark could well believe that at times the forces were indistinguishable. They continued down into the bowels of the building, a weak light coming from half-hidden oil lamps set in the wall. Mark was reminded of visits to old English castles as a child, the imagination running wild over the thoughts of the ghosts of abandoned men who still dwelt within. The journey seemed endless and Mark had a horrible thought that perhaps Rodriguez’s surrender had merely been a ruse to entice him into voluntary incarceration. As he was about to turn back and run up the stairs to light and safety the descent, ended abruptly and they came out to a level corridor looking very much like the pictures of Death Row in American jails that Mark had seen in magazines. The guard opened the second door on the left with a key, ushered Mark in and then locked the door behind him. Mark waited to hear his footsteps disappear but there was only silence from outside and he breathed a sigh of relief. If he were going to be waiting then he could only be waiting to take Mark back up to the surface as soon as his fifteen minutes were up.

  Barry Reed lay on a bunk in the corner, his clothes dishevelled, his eyes red from tears, looking nothing like the young football hero who had been the darling of the English fans and media the night before. He was still wearing his England blazer, but it no longer seemed to fit him, hanging loose on his frame as if made for a bigger man. He had only been in captivity a few hours, yet it was almost as if he had shrunk into himself, had withdrawn from the reality of the situation.

  He looked up as Mark entered and the expression of hope that crossed his face gave his visitor the terrible feeling that he was never going to be able to live up to his expectations, that at the end of the day all he had brought with him was a parcel of false promises.

  ‘Thank goodness, you’ve come. What took you so long?’

  Thinking it might help, might make him feel less isolated, Mark quickly told him of Patti’s arrest. It was typical of the lad that his concern was at once
redirected from himself to the journalist.

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  Mark made a valiant effort to sound more confident than he actually felt.

  ‘You know my Patti, she’s a survivor.’

  Even as he said the words, he realised that Barry didn’t know Patti. Nobody knew Patti as he knew her, as he had come to know her, and with the thought he struggled to keep his voice from breaking, struggled to keep dry-eyed.

  ‘What’s going to happen to me, Mark?’ Barry asked, in tones of an eight-year-old up before his headmaster.

  ‘I’ve been speaking to your lawyer. He seems very confident you’ll be out of here soon, although I wouldn’t be planning to take my holidays in Colombia if I were you.’

  ‘Believe me I’m not. It’s afterwards that worries me more. What happens then, what about my career?’

  ‘You have to face the fact that there’ll certainly be an inquiry, a disciplinary tribunal. They don’t like drug-taking at the best of times, and, quite frankly, taking them in an England shirt is not the best of times.’ He’d meant to boost the lad up, but somehow it seemed best to be honest with him, to get him to face the worst so that it could only get better.

  ‘I didn’t take any drugs, Mark. Why should I? I’m good enough without them.’

  The boast sounded hollow emanating from the mouth of the slumped, sad figure.

  ‘But you tested positive.’

  ‘It has to be wrong. It just has to be. We have to make them test again. I must have some rights of appeal. I’m telling you, Mark, I’ve never taken drugs in my life. I smoked a fag once behind the lavvies when I was at school and it made me sick.’ He gave Mark the look of a wounded animal, begging its finder to cure and not destroy it. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  Mark hesitated, the easy answer rising to his lips. He began to speak then changed his mind. He did not think this boy would accept the easy answer.

  ‘I want to believe you, I really do, Barry.’