by Janice Weber
I blew a bullet hole in my husband’s priceless red divan. Never liked the color much. “You would have gotten the wrong eye. If you had just stuck around Watergate that first night instead of following me back to the hotel, you would have saved us both a lot of trouble.” I laid the Colt on the piano. “You almost killed me at Louis’s house.”
“I like to see what I’m up against.” He took the gun. “You’re good.”
Sometimes. “I’m surprised Fausto left you behind.”
“He doesn’t know it yet. He was not what you’d call with it when they loaded him on the plane.”
“Listen,” I said, sitting next to Cecil, Bobby, whoever the hell he was. “I have to know who killed Polly.”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing myself. Who was she looking for? She never told me.”
“The guy you just sprang from Lorton.”
“Shit! Figgis Cole? Who’s he?”
“A friend of Fausto’s. Can you lie low for a few days?”
Cecil frowned. “I’m getting a serious case of cabin fever, babe.”
“Fifty grand.” I’d blow Barnard’s slush fund to find her killer. “And you jump off the Washington Monument if I tell you to.”
“You got a deal.”
I stood up. “Who knows about you?”
“Justine and Fausto. That’s it.”
“Let’s hope so.” Told Cecil it was time to get invisible and turned off the lights. We were halfway up Fausto’s driveway when I noticed headlights coming a tad too slowly down the street. “Duck.”
Rhoby’s Hummer nearly squeezed me into the curb. As she leaned out the window, her tank top revealed half a boob and lush tufts of armpit hair. The studs in her eyebrows gleamed like fireflies. “Hi Les! I had a feeling you might be rehearsing with Fausto.”
“Aren’t you working tonight?”
“I’m on my way in. Did you get my message about lunch?”
“I’ve been really tied up lately.”
An awkward silence then, “Chickie hasn’t been leaning on you, has she? That stupid bitch! I’ll cut her in half!”
“She’s pretty big,” I said. “I’ll call you, Rhoby.”
“I’ve been practicing!” she called after me.
I hooked left on Connecticut Avenue. “You can get up now.”
“Who was that?” Cecil asked, unfolding from the floor.
“Another friend of Fausto’s.” I passed Walter Reed Hospital, where Jojo Bailey had lain in state for almost two weeks now. “Where’d he find you?”
“Through a friend in Belize. Simon. Does all the contracting.”
He was contracting with the worms now. I dumped Cecil with a wad of cash at a flophouse in Silver Spring. He’d relax with the porno flicks until I caught up with him in a day or two. Loose cannon, Smith. Absolutely right. But he was all the ammo I had. Returned to the hotel, tried to sleep but kept hearing footsteps in the dark so I packed a few things and joined the first wave of commuters on the Beltway. Time to jump jungles again.
Chapter Thirteen
CALLED THE QUEEN from Miami just to let her know that Louis had escaped yet again and I was going after him. “Where’s the double?” was her only question.
“Waiting for me in Silver Spring.” I tried not to take the ensuing oaths personally. “We’re not kidding anyone, Maxine. He saw me hanging from Barnard’s balcony. Cecil knew she wasn’t just a bimbo named Polly. He doesn’t care what my business is. He just wants to know who killed her. Even a mercenary has a sense of vengeance.” Plus I was paying him fifty grand.
“What makes you think he’s not going to squeal on you?”
“We made a deal.”
Maxine sighed. I was so far blown I might as well have tattooed Special Agent Smith on my forehead. Ah well, perhaps I’d step on a fer-de-lance and end her troubles. She could start all over again with seven wilier women. “Where’s Fausto, by the way?
“With Louis.”
“It is Louis you’re after.”
“I’ll take care of him first.”
She didn’t ask what loose ends I’d be wrapping up second. The Queen had replenished my insomnia kit in Miami so I gave myself a booster shot before going to the gate. Every television in the terminal was squawking about Jojo Bailey. Poor Bobby, speaking from the hospital, looked as if he had been swabbing his eyes with ammonia.
The plane to Belize was even emptier than last time, but we were flying right into hurricane season. I sat behind a bunch of student archaeologists who had paid two thousand bucks each to excavate someone else’s site. Two fiftyish women with long red nails and hair like cotton candy, obviously misinformed about the chances of picking up a second husband in the jungle, struggled past with buffalo-size carry-ons. The two of them filled the cabin with aromas of perfume, sunscreen, mouthwash, talcum, and hairspray, determined against all odds to smell clean during this expedition. A pair of Creoles with teeth like kernels of corn straggled on last. We flew over dark blotches on the Gulf of Mexico, then tree-choked earth: soon all that green would swallow me again. Bumpy landing, inside and out.
Fausto’s Piper was parked at the end of the runway at Belize City. I felt nothing: it was just a machine. Harmless. The old headache roared back the instant I stepped onto the tarmac. Already my brain was screaming for water. My clothing wilted halfway to the terminal and breeze only thickened a film of sweat. Cosima Wagner, back for more puff journalism, sailed past a dull customs official. I rented a jeep. Bought water and machete and once again headed west, passing the same car wrecks under rotting porches, the same laundry on sagging lines, even the same people slouching in the same armchairs. Only the road kill had been rearranged.
After a quick downpour, a plague of frogs flopped onto the highway. I tried not to flatten too many of them but I feared slowing down, letting daylight slip away from me, because with it went my sight and most of my nerve. I buzzed past the bus from hell and, one by one, les misérables waiting for it. No traffic whatever at Belmopan, the capital in the middle of nowhere. Rattled across the bridge at San Ignacio. With each mile, mechanical sounds were increasingly displaced by the noises of birds, insects, water, until finally only the purr of the jeep reminded me that I had come from the twentieth century. I made the mountains by dusk.
A few thousand tons of water had pummeled the side road since my last visit: whatever time I had gained on the highway, I lost in the ruts. Muck slurped my tires, shimmied the axle this way and that. Bats zipped inches from the windshield as the sun crashed behind the mountains. Keep rolling, Smith. I parked in the ferns. The moment my feet touched moss, the cicadas shrieked. Their noise was ugly, menacing, everywhere: already I was outnumbered a billion to one, and that was only the insects. Would have turned back but Fausto was on the other end of this path, chortling at his cleverness.
Brandishing my machete, I stomped into the jungle. This time around, my fangs grew much more quickly. The heavy smells, the gnats, the sweat, were not unfamiliar and I had a working flashlight now. Would have preferred a rifle and wings but hey, fire and rocks had done the job for the Neanderthals. The terror would never recede, though, not in this darkness. The ratio of appetite to food was just too overwhelming.
Hours later the jungle ended and I hit tall grass. The black sky shivered with stars. Leaves dipped in the slow wind. Anywhere else, props for a romantic evening; here, weapons for the hunt. I played my flashlight over Ek’s shack but no one came to greet me. Nothing inside but dead beetles. Even his hammock was gone. I sat on the stoop, watching heat lightning buffet the hills: only one place left to go. First I drank a liter of water. Every seam on my body had turned slimy and fragrant. Dirt had settled in all cavities and I itched from head to toe. Didn’t know if I could make this next hike without Ek. If I got lost between here and those hills, no one would ever find me. Was that such a dreadful thing? This time around I didn’t think so.
Took my last look at open sky and dipped back into the jungle. Perhaps someone was expecting m
e after all: Barnard’s notches in the tree trunks had recently been refreshed. I thought of Ek as I followed the trail. Was he glad that Louis had come back? Would he be glad to see me again? Then the cicadas went fortissimo, I came too close to a growl in the brush, and subjective thought ceased. I began to hallucinate that Ek’s flare was just beyond the next vine. I thought I heard his voice. Stay with it, Smith. You’re almost here. The hell I was. Sooner or later those notches would lead me to a river.
Crossed two mountains, dreading what lay in my path. Gradually I heard thunder that sounded heavier than the whole planet. The floor of the forest began to slide downward. I skidded to water’s edge and nearly cried when I saw the thick green torrent. God, I’d never make it across! He’s on the other side. Hiked upstream, looking for stones, logjams, maybe a ferry. Night was losing its grip when I finally discerned a rope connecting two trees on opposite sides of the surging water. Gave it a vicious shake, warning the snakes. Put my boots in the knapsack, tested the knot, waded in. Warm as a bath: typhoid pudding but I could worry about that after I got to the other side.
Lost my footing almost immediately. River turned cold and the rope sagged as the current sucked me toward the falls. I went underwater. Kick up, slide left.
Did that a half dozen times, inhaling more water than oxygen each time I surfaced. Slimy amphibians brushed my legs. When the current warmed again, I knew I was close to land. Swallowed another quart of sewage before the rope broke the waves. I pulled myself ashore. Refreshing little swim. I had lost the machete. Rope burns scored my forearms, boots weighed a ton. I hiked back to where I thought the path might continue. The sun barely peeped above the horizon but the temperature had already begun to rise. Finally I saw a notch.
Every bird in the jungle awoke with a wee-wee-wee-wee or wakKK-wakKK. Legions of cicadas shivered in retaliation. Eerie gray green light perfused the forest as I struggled uphill, toward the limestone caves. Sweat ran past my eyes, down my legs: my clothes would rot before they dried. What if Fausto wasn’t there? Don’t think. Just move.
Outside Barnard’s cave I saw a tent, a dead fire. Peered through the mesh: there lay my husband, in almost the exact position I had left him in Washington. I sat on the low stool next to his cot. His skin was a mélange of unhealthy pastels. I didn’t like the noises he was making. Sniffed the empty glass on the floor: more of the vile stuff he had been drinking back home. I was monitoring his pulse when a few pebbles moved outside the tent. Looked up as Ek looked in.
We stared at each other for a long moment. “I knew you’d come,” he said finally, without the hint of a smile. “So did Fausto.”
“He’s not going to make it, is he.” Ek didn’t answer. Beside me, the zipper rasped. I glanced at a thin man with the face of a hawk. “Dr. Bailey, I presume. My name’s Cosima.” Louis came in. I didn’t shake his hand. “Why’d you lug him all the way out here?”
“We took a helicopter in. Landed in a clearing on top of the mountain. All he had to do was walk down.” Louis felt Fausto’s forehead. “We almost lost him last night. You do know about his medical condition, don’t you?”
I smiled ever so gratefully. “Why don’t you explain.”
First, Louis told Ek to make coffee. “I became fascinated with this case thirty years ago, when Fausto’s mother died. In simple terms, the family goes mad. The first episodes occur around age seventeen and return at random with seizures that precipitate deep psychosis. Then all symptoms may disappear for years. But they always return. I’ve named it the Kiss syndrome and documented it through three generations. No one has ever survived the fourth recurrence. By then the chemical and electrical disturbances are insuperable.” He tested Fausto’s pulse and frowned. “He’s up to number four.”
“What are you doing for him?”
“The first time I treated him with human secretions.” Raw material kindly donated by med school cadavers and Morris Morton. Nothing like killing two birds with one music critic. “That didn’t work. When he was thirty, I tried hallucinogens.”
“Strike two,” I smiled. “The seizures returned and he nearly burned to death in the bargain.”
“I told him to quit smoking in bed,” Louis snapped. “Next time I tried lasers.”
“What do you have in mind this time around?” I asked. “Eye of newt?”
“I’ve spent seventeen years in the rain forest. I know more about plant compounds than anyone on earth. I think I’ve found a phytochemical that stimulates the vagus. That’s the nerve that tells the brain to shut off the seizures. If they can’t get started, the whole cycle might be suppressed.”
“This stuff?” I sniffed the empty glass. “Then why’d he have a bad night?”
“The supply’s low and stale. Ek and I are making fresh distillate now. He needs it immediately. If it works, I’ve made a major medical discovery.”
Patents, riches, Nobel Prize: strike two for the Hippocratic oath. I brushed a fly off Fausto’s eyebrow. “When’s he going to wake up?”
“He might be out all day. He might smell the coffee and snap to life. It varies.”
“He had no signs of a recurrence before you went on your wild goose chase to Washington?”
“Absolutely not! This malady is totally unpredictable. And it wasn’t a wild goose chase.”
The cicadas suddenly rioted: had their noise been water, the tent would have washed down the hill like a toothpick in a typhoon. Wake up, husband. “That catches me up with Fausto,” I said. “How about filling me in on yourself. We can begin with your pal Krikor Tunalian.”
Louis’s eyes went muddy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He wired five mil to your Swiss account on July second. Met you in Koko’s about a month ago to check on progress. You blew him off and went to Washington with a head full of assassination plots. Got yourself waylaid at the FBI, so Tuna had to help Fausto spirit you out of prison and back in the saddle.” I picked a leech off my elbow. “He wants you to make a poison.”
“You’ve been spying on me!” the great doctor snapped. “Who are you?”
“A friend of Polly’s. She’s been murdered, by the way. Followed you to D.C. and stepped in someone else’s cow pie.”
“My God! Who killed her?”
“You tell me.” I accepted a gourd from Ek. “Has anyone brought you up-to-date on Yvette Tatal?” Louis looked violently at Ek, who averted his eyes. “She ran into a fer-de-lance. I guess it’s been classified an accident.” Bitter coffee here. “So you see, Louis, your little sideshow with Tuna is the least of my headaches.”
He sank to the ground as the enormity of my news hit. A month ago I might have felt sorry for him. Now he was just the last domino in a long, toppling row. “Tell me about Tuna,” I repeated.
Louis flecked a beetle off his neck. “He wanted an irreversible poison absorbed through the skin. I’m still working on it. It’s not quite ready.”
“You got that right. All it does now is reduce grown men to diarrhea factories.”
“Since you seem to know everything, perhaps you could tell me what happened to Yvette Tatal.”
I reported her death concisely and without a trace of emotion. After Louis called me a liar, Ek went to the cave and returned with a small mesh box. “She tells the truth. I found this on the shelf above Dr. Tatal’s body.”
Louis flung the box into the corner. “Who did it?”
“A hired killer.” I glanced at Ek. “Now dead. Was Tatal working on the poison with you?”
“For God’s sake! She was a doctor!”
Fausto shuddered then went still. I kneeled by his ear, whispered his name. He didn’t respond. Again I smelled that terrifying odor of spoiled meat. “Get back to your distillery,” I told Louis. “I’ve had enough of you for the moment.”
Louis stumbled out of the tent, Ek two steps behind. I swore under my breath before returning to the cot. As I was neatening Fausto’s hair, his putty lips edged slowly into a smile. “And you call
me a troublemaker.”
Alive: I forgave everything. “How long have you been listening, you schmuck?”
“I was awake when you came in.”
Covered his face with kisses. “How do you feel?”
“Lousy.”
“You’ve got to get to a hospital.”
“Won’t do any good. Have a little pity on Louis, sweet. He’s been trying to save me for thirty years.” Fausto patted my hand, felt no ring. “Still married?”
“I’m a covert government agent,” I said. “So was Polly. She was supposed to find out what was going on with Louis and Tuna.”
Again that cherubic, doomed smile. “I’m perfectly innocent, of course. I only needed Louis to make some more medicine for me.”
“You went through all the hassle of a double to get Louis out of prison? Why didn’t you just tell Bobby to write a pardon?”
“That’s no fun, sweet. And I had a small point to make with Bobby. He needed reminding that all his beloved power was just an illusion. That perhaps he had sold his soul and gained nothing.”
Of course these lessons in piety were much easier to pull off when you had limitless disposable income and a healthy disregard for the laws of the land. “The hell with humbling Bobby,” I scowled. “You just wanted to see if your scheme would work.”
“That too,” Fausto admitted. Then he got serious. “I couldn’t risk telling Bobby about Louis. Too many nervous advisers in the Oval Office, especially in an election year. The fewer people who knew Louis was in jail, the better. His life was in danger.”
“What did he plan to do in Washington? Meet the press?”
“Darling, Louis doesn’t often get fits of conscience. When he does, he’s not terribly practical. It took him days to buy a Guatemalan passport and get to D.C. First thing he did was call me. I told him to sit still in his office until I got there. Instead he called the FBI. Someone intercepted the call and tried to kidnap him. Fortunately, our girl Rhoby alerted the cops first and Louis ended up in jail. I knew I had to move him out of there quickly, so I enlisted Tuna. Obviously, he was eager that the doctor get back in the saddle.”
