by Layton Green
“Creepy blue Indians killin’ folk with slingshots and knives? You know we a superstitious race. I don’t want no part of that.”
“We kept the slingshot out of the police report.”
Freckles swallowed as his eyes slipped downward. Fred handed him the bill, retaining his grip as his informant reached for it.
Freckles sat back. “Okay, yeah, back in the day rumor was there was someone bad out there. Real bad. Someone even the high-level cats were scared of. And they don’t scare.”
“Who is this guy?”
“I got no idea, man. I always figured it was bullshit. Hey, we dealers got urban legends just like the straight folk do. All I know is there’s supposed to be somebody down in South America who pulls strings like you said, and can hit you anytime, anywhere. That blue Indian, he uses her to get under people’s skin. S’posed to be some spirit he calls up for vengeance on dealers who step outta line.”
Fred would have laughed if Freckles didn’t look so serious. “Why don’t you see if the rumor’s still around?” He released his grip on the hundred-dollar bill. “There’s more of these if you dig something up, on this or who ordered the Lopez hit.”
Freckles snatched the bill, then pointed a crooked finger at Fred. The tip of the digit couldn’t stay still, like a fishing bob with something nibbling on the line. “I’ll ask around ’bout Manny, but you leave that other thing be. Ain’t no one gonna help stir that pot. Even the DEA got limits.”
Lana woke bleary-eyed, having spent most of the night poring over CIA records. She was looking for a connection, a ghost in the machine, that ephemeral association among seemingly unrelated parts that would lead her to her quarry.
Unfortunately, she had come up short. And that did not sit well with Lana Valenciano. Trained to look for patterns in both people and databases, she had been one of the Company’s best analysts before switching gears to become one of their most driven field operatives.
After reviewing the painfully thin CIA file on the General for the umpteenth time, she had pored over the records of agents who had gone missing in action south of the border over the last four decades. Not an easy task. Eventually she might have to broaden her search; she supposed the General could have dropped off the radar somewhere else and made his way to Latin America. It made less sense, but at this point, she was willing to try anything.
She prepared a cafecito and stepped onto the balcony of the Brickell condo at which she was staying, one of the CIA’s safe houses. Brickell was Miami’s new business district, full of lush foliage and chic restaurants and sleek glass buildings. It had exploded since Lana had left Miami after high school.
As she turned to go inside, she saw her reflection in the window, the hardened limbs and stress-filled eyes. The city wasn’t the only thing that had changed since graduation.
Needing a break from the data, she pondered her options as she showered. The analysts would monitor the chatter. Fred would work the street for her. What she needed was a different sort of information, something beyond the scope of the DEA.
Something that shouldn’t exist.
Or someone, rather. Colonel Ganso was a distasteful resource, and consulting him required authorization from the highest levels.
Luckily for Lana, she had such authorization. And she had something even better: she had grown up next door to him.
After a power breakfast of oatmeal and a fruit smoothie, Lana took her customary morning jog, followed by taekwondo and self-defense routines. She scanned the news outlets and her inbox, then headed out in her company sedan.
Memories of her childhood in Miami overcame her as she left Brickell via the corridor of flame trees on South Miami Avenue. She loved this city, with its sensual humid nights, afternoon showers, and endless sunny mornings that could scatter the worst of memories into tiny motes of light.
And Miami, for Lana, possessed the worst of memories.
She could still draw a map of the Fairchild Botanical Gardens, picture the evening light sinking into No Name Harbor, and tell friends visiting the city where to find the best ceviche, the most authentic sangria, the perfect little wine shop hidden in the maze of Cuban bakeries on Coral Way. She loved the smell of roasting coffee, the sexy fashion boutiques, the day trips to the Everglades and the weekend trips to the Keys, the serendipity of a peacock sighting on the way to the grocery store, the delight of biting into one of the mangoes weighing down the limbs of neighborhood trees in summer.
She knew that for most people, Miami was not a shade-filled paradise with maids and lanai-covered pools. Yet she also knew, all too well, that money did not buy happiness. Though her mother still owned the house in Coral Gables, Lana almost never visited. She loved her mother, but had never forgiven her for not standing up to her father. A prominent importer who spent most of his time in Europe, her father had kept his wife resigned to the life of a show poodle and held Lana, whose will he could never quite overcome, at arm’s length.
Lana rolled down Miracle Mile, though the only miracle about this stretch of Coral Gables, littered with bridal boutiques and surgically enhanced telenovela wannabes, was that it had not dropped into a sinkhole under the weight of its own pretension. Shaking her head, she turned her attention to Colonel Ganso.
Since the Freedom of Information Act reared its ugly head, it was known that in the early 1980s, in order to oust the socialist-minded Bolivian government, the CIA had supported a group of cocaine overlords and neo-fascist mercenaries who took over the country, resulting in a violent dictatorship known for torturing its citizenry. Dubbed the “Cocaine Coup,” Colonel Ganso had been a key player in the new government. Trained in the art of torture by the Argentine secret police during the Dirty Wars, who were in turn trained by the CIA, Colonel Ganso had gone on a rampage to oust “leftists” from Bolivia. They called him the Butcher of Santa Cruz.
The CIA had turned a blind eye because, at the time, it was the expedient thing to do. Colonel Ganso was an unfortunate by-product, a known torturer and murderer who, along with countless other Latin American strongmen stashing drug money and damning information on the United States offshore, had been given asylum and new identities when their brutal regimes were overthrown.
And where did a disproportionate amount of those former torturers and dictators call home?
Miami.
If the residents of Coral Gables and Pinecrest knew just how many of their neighbors were in fact war criminals given a free pass by the U.S. government, they might have relocated to Alaska.
Lana knew, and she could feel the sticky sins of the past crawling up the vines of the banyans and worming through the eaves of the ivy-covered mansions. Even growing up, before she had access to CIA files, Lana had felt the Colonel’s reptilian gaze when she was in her swimming pool, had felt his eyes stripping not just her clothes, but her essence, her dignity. It was what he was trained to do: use torture to reduce another human being to such a state that his or her identity was lost, subsumed in pain and fear.
And Lana had felt it from across the lawn.
Passing by the majestic Biltmore Hotel, she delved deep into the heart of her old neighborhood. Chock full of Mediterranean architecture and enveloped in mature hardwoods and fruit trees, Coral Gables screamed wealth and power.
She passed by the house where the Bad Thing had happened, the one that had changed the course of her identity, and a few houses later she was pulling into the driveway of her childhood home, a double-story villa with a terracotta roof and a walkway lined with royal palms.
Her mother was visiting relatives in Tampa, and Lana didn’t bother going inside. Instead she smoothed her pants and walked next door to Colonel Ganso’s flat-roofed stucco house, painted a soothing soft orange and shrouded by a forest of bamboo.
Lana had negotiated with dictators and arms dealers, CEOs and heads of state, but none affected her as this man had, which she attributed to the impressionability of childhood.
She pressed the doorbell and forced he
rself to remember who she was and where she had been. The Colonel himself answered. Still a handsome man, tall and trim, he looked remarkably like her own father, something she had always held against them both.
But it was the secrets hidden behind the Colonel’s green eyes that always spooked her. A gaze that contained the knowledge of souls stripped bare, bodies wracked by torture.
“Lana! Que sorpresa.” What a pleasant surprise.
Lana switched to English, where she had the advantage. “Do you have a moment? I know this is an unofficial visit, but there’s something on which I’d like your opinion.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, unfailingly polite as always. “Would you care for coffee?”
“Please,” she said.
He led her down a garden path on the side of the property adjoining Lana’s house, to a sitting area that overlooked Lana’s mother’s pool. A maid brought two cups and a moka pot of coffee.
After the maid retreated, the Colonel asked, “And to what may I attribute the pleasure of such a rare treat? Are you visiting your mother?”
“I’m in Miami on business.”
His forehead lifted. “Business that involves me?”
She nodded slowly. They each knew who the other was; Colonel Ganso was a high-level informant for the CIA, and Lana had interviewed him on occasion. Though the first time interviewing her neighbor had been awkward, Lana had requested the assignment. She was a woman who confronted her demons.
Nor was she worried about her identity. Except for the blackest of operatives, complete anonymity was a Hollywood myth, and the Colonel had no idea what she did at the CIA. Also, like other war criminals with asylum in the States, the Colonel’s life depended on the discretion of the U.S. government.
And somehow, Lana knew he would never put her in harm’s way—unless that harm involved the Colonel himself.
“Just a few questions about the past,” she said.
He grinned. “Isn’t that what it always is? I have no present or future. How’s your father, Lana?”
Lana stiffened. “The same as always, I assume. I wouldn’t know.”
“Yes, yes. And your mother?”
“Even more static. And your family, how are they?”
It was a jab. The Colonel’s wife and daughter had been slain by hit men from a rival cartel days before the CIA had brought him to the States.
“Tsk tsk,” the Colonel said. “I was being polite.”
“No, you weren’t. You know how I feel about my father.”
“I was hoping things had changed.”
“Were you? I think you were trying to get under my skin, as you always have.”
The smile broadened even farther. “So wrong, Lana, so wrong. I’ve always cared for you.”
The way he said the words cared for you sent a shiver down her spine. When the Bad Thing happened in the house down the street, a group of Cuban street thugs had stumbled on the scene, presumably when trying to break in. The thugs had freed Lana and disappeared, along with the serial rapist. A week later, her attacker had been found in a dumpster, shot and tortured almost beyond recognition.
The authorities assumed it had been the vigilante work of one of the victims’ fathers, but Lana knew better. She knew the Colonel had somehow found the man and defended her honor and lost virginity.
She should have been relieved, but it only made her feel more uneasy around him. As if something of his had been taken, and he had rectified it.
The incident had changed her forever, morphing her from an easygoing cheerleader destined for a U of F sorority into a laser-focused overachiever with a death wish, destined for the highest levels of the CIA.
“Let’s dispense with the small talk,” Lana said. “I need your input on something. I’m looking for a man, a criminal, known as El General. Not un general, but El General. Do you know of whom I speak?”
Colonel Ganso unfurled his left palm, revealing a stack of dominoes. As was his habit, he began to stand the dominoes on the table and let them fall into his palm. “You know, Lana, I remember what your dream job used to be. You used to aspire to open your own wedding boutique.”
Lana gave a harsh laugh. “The inventor of the AK-47 wanted to be a poet. What’s your point?”
“That is my point. We often get the opposite of what we want in life, find ourselves in the most absurd situations. But we accept them. Sometimes the choice is to accept them or die.”
“Thus your shadow existence in this prison of a house.”
He tipped his head downward, acknowledging the point. “But there is often a turning point. A fateful moment when we still have the opportunity to follow our dreams, no matter the consequences—or bow in resignation and accept our fate. It may be a choice of career or love or family, or something else entirely. You might think that your turning point has already passed. In my humble opinion, you would be wrong.”
“Are you trying to tell me that pursuing this man is my turning point?”
The dominoes stacked and fell on the table, stacked and fell. “I am simply saying,” he said softly, “that you might wish to consider carefully such an inquiry. I would not wish to see your future choice taken from you.”
“I believe I can take care of myself.”
His eyes found hers as he continued to sort the dominoes, and she knew what he was thinking. Like I took care of myself when I was raped?
Lana checked her watch, though she didn’t have an appointment. “Don’t forget at whose mercy you exist,” she said coldly. “I’d prefer to keep this visit cordial. All I’m asking for is information. What do you know about this man?”
“A former colleague of mine dealt once with his associate, Señor Guiñol. Are you aware of him? I believe he’s known in Colombia as el doctor de zombi.”
“Doctor Zombie. We’re aware. He went underground years ago.”
“This man arrived one night at a meeting between my colleague and one of our Colombian partners,” Colonel Ganso said. “I was out of the country on business. At the meeting, we learned that our Colombian partner had failed to pay Señor Guiñol’s superior the proper allotment for his services.”
“What kind of services?”
“Bribery of a customs official.”
Lana leaned forward. “What happened?”
“Our associate left the meeting under the care of Señor Guiñol. Voluntarily. He was never seen again.”
Lana interlaced her fingers. “What else do you know?”
He clacked the dominoes together. “Only that he was a man to whom we could always turn for help, and who even the Colombianos would not cross.”
“Help?”
He waved a hand. “Extra product. Government relations. Bribes.”
“But who is he? Where is he based, where does he keep his money?”
“Simple questions all, yet I do not have the answers.”
“His nationality?”
Colonel Ganso shook his head.
“Do you know of anyone who has met him in person?”
“No.”
“Physical appearance, even the rumor thereof?”
“He was a man without a face.”
Lana sat back, frustrated. “This is absurd.”
“Have you ever considered, Lana, where a man who protects himself so extraordinarily well might have learned his craft?”
She looked at him sharply, but his eyes betrayed nothing. “I need you to think long and hard about our conversation,” she said, “and whether there’s anything in your past that might help. I’ll check back in a few days.”
His cultured voice was a purr that sent a shiver down her spine. “I look forward to it.”
The next morning Grey followed his Google directions through downtown and onto Eighth Avenue, known as Calle Ocho in Miami, delving into the heart of Little Havana.
It was another world. Grey had been posted in Bogotá and had traveled in other Latin American nations, and he could not tell the difference. The signs in
Little Havana were in Spanish, pedestrians and stray dogs crowded the streets, sketchy health clinics and panhandlers and iron-barred grocery stores selling strange fruits and vegetables lined the sidewalks.
But it was also a world of banyan-shaded patios, street art and tiled murals, cozy cigar lounges, Cuban diners, parks filled with wizened old men in guayaberas pushing squadrons of clacking dominoes across a table, aromas of garlic and rum and dried tobacco. Every block full of life, throbbing to the unique cacophony of Miami: techno and merengue blasting above vendors shouting in Spanglish, the rattle of low-riding hoopties competing with the roar of exotic sports cars, the melodic chatter of tropical birds a calming backdrop to it all.
Grey parked a few blocks from the botánica and grabbed a cortadito, a sugary Cuban espresso, from one of the coffee windows fronting the street. By ten a.m. the humidity took his breath away. He thought about his game plan and then strolled to Botánica Caldez, the name on the bag of paraphernalia he had spotted at Manny Lopez’s bungalow.
There were no windows, and a bell tinkled as he stepped inside. A sign just inside the door read SI LO ROMPES, TE VAMOS HACER UNA BRUJERIA. If you break it, we curse you.
A strong whiff of incense hit him as he strolled around the shop. Metal shelves lined the walls, stuffed with the tools of the trade: candles, oils, plastic and ceramic statues of saints, feathers, cowrie shells, beads. Grey browsed a bookshelf along the rear wall, rubbing shoulders with two other patrons.
As far as Grey could tell, none of the literature involved Palo. He circled the shop and returned to the side of the counter nearest the exit.
The sallow-skinned Latino man behind the counter eyed Grey with a neutral expression. He was medium height and dumpy, with a round face and oily hair. Grey noticed faint chalk marks on his fingertips. “Can I help you?” the man said, in heavily accented English.
“I think so.” Grey tried to reduce his predatory vibe and sound like a curious patron. Though uncomfortable in social situations, for some reason Grey had no problem playacting. He supposed it was because he had to reveal nothing of his true self. “This is my first time to a botánica.”
