by Layton Green
“Say what?” Fred said. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Quechuan: so we’re talking Bolivian, Colombian, Peruvian?” Grey asked.
“Possibly Chilean or Ecuadorian as well.”
Fred leaned back in his seat. “So how does some peasant sicario in blue paint with no ID get all the way to Miami, kill a couple of hardened drug dealers, then stick around and infiltrate a CIA safe house? Incan spirit of vengeance, huh? After what we saw in Mexico, I’m starting to think we need an exorcist.”
“The prints?” Grey asked.
Lana pressed her lips together and folded her hands on top of the manila folder. “Your trip was not in vain. We have a match.”
Grey uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “Is it him?”
“No, it’s not the General. Or if so, I would be highly surprised. The man to whom the fingerprints belong is a man named Julio Ganador, the son of a former powerful member of the Escobar Cartel. Julio himself has a minor arrest record. Juvenile infractions, no drug offenses.”
Fred spread his hands. “The apple never falls far from the tree.”
“So they say.”
“But the real curiosity,” Fred said as he bit into his toothpick, “is why the son of a Medellín bigwig is delivering money to a Mexican cult leader.”
“I don’t think he’s delivering,” Grey said.
Lana turned towards Grey, eyes sharp.
“I think he’s picking up,” Grey continued. “He’s got a pyramid scheme going, doesn’t he? Tata Menga takes money from the Alianza for ritual protection, and pays out to the General. Which means the General,” Grey mused, “might be Tata Menga’s palero.”
“I had the same thought,” Lana said. “And the import of the Colombian connection?”
Fred whistled. “It must be where he’s based. We’re closing in on the bastard.”
Lana looked from one man to the other, then said, “Agent Hernandez, you’ve fulfilled your part of the bargain. I’ll have you reinstated regardless of what you choose next. And Grey, you’re of course free to do as you choose. But I can’t speak further unless you wish to continue. This assignment still needs to stay dark. We have an unprecedented opportunity to find this man, but the window will be miniscule, and the time is now.”
“They may not figure out the fingerprint angle for a while,” Grey said, “but everyone’s going to be on high alert. Enough that they’ll change their routine.”
“Exactly. I believe we have days, at best, to act on this information.”
“What do you propose?” Grey said.
“Same as before. Follow the Palo Mayombe link in Colombia. Stay out of the way and report back if you find something. Julio Ganador has two residences on file. One is in Bogotá, the primary. The other is a second home in a small town a few hours outside Medellín, in coffee country. I believe both bear investigation.” She cupped her tea in her hands. “I know it’s asking a lot—”
“Are you kidding?” Fred said. “This is what I signed up for, catching someone who matters. Not pushing paperwork around the suburbs or chasing two-bit gangbangers in this swamp of a city. Just get me a piece on arrival this time.”
Grey eyed Fred, thinking he had acquiesced a bit too quickly. Then again, Grey had already considered the prospect himself and come to the same conclusion.
Lana gave Fred a thin smile. “That can most definitely be arranged. Grey, what do you say to extending your consultancy a bit longer?”
Grey rested his thumbs against the sides of his coffee cup, eying Lana before he spoke. She eyed him back without a twitch. One cool customer, this Lana.
“What I think,” Grey said, “is that I don’t like drug dealers, I don’t like black magic rituals involving myself, and most of all, I don’t like being on someone’s hit list.”
Lana’s smile expanded, though still hard around the edges. “Then welcome to the team again. Due to the time constraint, I propose a division of duties.”
“I was posted in Bogotá,” Grey said. “I can get around.”
“I’ve been to Bogotá as well,” Lana said, “and I was thinking the Palo angle might be more pronounced in the countryside.”
Grey bobbed his head back and forth as he considered the idea. “Maybe, maybe not. Cults thrive just as easily in the cities.”
“In any event, Señor Guiñol’s last-known residence was Bogotá. I think it’s the more dangerous play, and I’d feel more comfortable going there myself.”
The corners of Grey’s mouth lifted. “Up to you.”
“Bogotá and Medellín are an hour’s flight away should one of us find something. And remember, again, your goal is information. There’s no need to engage.”
Fred rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because that worked out so well in Mexico. But this time it’s Colombia, land of peace and honey. What could go wrong?”
Lana began drumming her fingers again, this time on the folder. “There’s one more thing you should know. Just before I arrived here, I received a call from the DEA station chief. The body of the blue indigenous woman I killed has disappeared from the morgue.”
Grey took the couch, Fred the bedroom. After Fred turned in, Grey paced the suite, unable to wind down. He was still buzzing from the flight through the cenote, thinking about Nya, thinking about the case.
Thinking about the wooden Incan cross Lana said the coroner had found on the empty slab in the morgue where the blue lady’s body should have been.
Thinking about Fred’s closed bedroom door and wondering how the cartel had found them so quickly in Mexico.
He eyed Fred’s cell on the kitchen table. After listening by his door until sure he heard the soft breath of sleep, Grey padded back to the phone and checked it for suspicious calls.
Finding nothing, he stepped into the parking lot and dialed Lana’s number. It was almost midnight. She answered on the first ring. “Everything okay?”
“It’s Grey. We need to chat.” The cell phone was DEA issue, and Grey knew everything he said might be played back in the future. “In person.”
A moment of silence. “Just us, I take it?”
“Yeah. Can you pick me up?”
“Where are you?”
After a pause, he told her.
“Be there in twenty.”
After ringing off, Grey’s fingers hovered over the keypad, his mind calculating the time difference for Harare.
Seven a.m. Zimbabweans rose early to take advantage of the morning light. Nya would be having tea in her garden, or perhaps taking an early morning stroll through the riotous foliage in her neighborhood, as lush as any zip code in Miami. Birds would be chattering above, spots of color in the shimmery morning light, wheeling through Nya’s piece of the vast African sky.
If he were there, maybe there would be a power cut that night after work, and Grey and Nya would have dinner by candlelight, boiling water for the pasta on the propane gas burner, lingering with wine on the patio, a pleasant chill in the air, hand in hand under a canopy of starlight, lost in the feeling that the bottomless night sky and that red earth below, the two of them, had always been there.
He knew he wanted her as much as he had before, perhaps more so. More than he had ever wanted anything.
Too much.
He left the phone on the table and waited for Lana outside.
When he got in the sedan, Lana eyed his clothing—jeans and a black T-shirt and boots—as if making a decision. “Hungry?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Thirsty?”
“Sure.”
She took him to a Spanish joint on Calle Ocho, a relaxed tapas bar with a dozen tables and a small stage in the corner. Lana ordered white sangria, Grey a draft Estrella.
Grey leaned back and eyed the crowd, surprisingly diverse in age and socioeconomic status. Except for him, however, it looked one hundred percent Latino. “Another cousin’s place?”
Lana chuckled. “A high school fr
iend, actually. Old Miami’s a small town.” Once their drinks arrived, she said, “You don’t trust Fred.”
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
She smirked. “You’re not exactly Mr. Small Talk.”
“True.”
“So what makes you trust me?” she said.
“I don’t.”
She waited as if expecting him to add something, then raised her glass. “Touché.”
“I wouldn’t say that I don’t trust Fred,” Grey said. “What I don’t trust is the situation. The Alianza found us awfully fast, even if they were passing our photo around.” He took a swig of beer. “And how’d they get to you in the safe house?”
“Someone must have noticed me staking out the informant’s house and followed me back. Someone very good at avoiding detection, because I’m one of the best.”
She said it immodestly, but offhand, without bravado. Grey took her at her word.
“Needless to say,” she continued, “I’ve cut off all communication with the DEA. No one but us knows where we’re going next.”
“No one but the Deputy Director.”
“Only him,” Lana said evenly, “and it was a secure line. If he were turned, he would have absolutely no reason to initiate or continue this investigation.”
“No reason you can fathom.”
She spread her hands. “Give me one.”
“He practices Palo Mayombe. He’s doing as he’s told by his palero.”
Lana started to laugh, then cut it off. “You’re serious.”
“I’ve seen it before. Ambassadors, ministers of state. Maybe not for the same reasons as villagers, but the end result is the same.”
She shook her head. “He’s a family man, staunch Catholic, a deacon at his church.”
Grey laughed. “So? You train people to lead double lives.”
“When would he have the time? Look, I applaud you for seeing all the angles, you’re clearly a smart and careful guy. But I’m not buying it. And it begs the same question: even if he’s under someone’s thumb, which is highly improbable, why initiate the investigation?”
Grey tipped his bottle. “That, I’ll give you. It seems illogical, and there’s no reason I can think of. Which is why I agreed to go to Colombia. But you still shouldn’t dismiss it.”
She shifted closer to him, tilting her chin down and raising her eyes. “The same goes for any of us. Me. Fred. You. Your file’s a bit strange, you know. Between when you lived with your father in Japan and when you joined the Marines, you’re a blank. Half a decade off the grid? That’s awful young for a blank.”
A blank, Grey repeated to himself. A pretty good description of his years of living on the streets and in seedy hotels in sketchy cities across Asia and Europe, earning his way by street fighting and the odd security job at bars and night clubs.
Grey met her eyes. “I know the leak’s not me. And I was there when Fred was shot in the arm and chased through the jungle by an angry mob.”
Lana’s curvy lips formed a half-frown, not an unattractive gesture. “And I came within inches of dying in my apartment. You didn’t ask me to meet to talk about Fred, did you? You’ve already formed your opinion on him. You wanted to look me in the eye and ask your questions.”
“I want to make sure I’m not walking into an ambush in Colombia.”
“You can never be sure. So why go at all?”
“You know why,” he said. “You profiled me.”
Her head tilted back, though her body was still shifted towards his. “There’re a few things I’m wondering about, that weren’t in the profile.”
“Such as?”
“What was your mother like?”
Grey didn’t reply, unwilling to play her psych games. Despite himself, he thought, My mother was the type of person who made everyone else feel glad to be alive.
“I thought so,” she murmured, looking in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t think so much.”
Grey turned his beer up for the last swallow. Lana gestured to the waiter for two more. “Tell me one thing you regret,” she said. “I’ll even go first. I regret sleeping with my crim law professor.”
“Was he married?”
She nodded, her grin wicked. “His wife found out and he gave me a D. Knocked me out of valedictorian.”
Grey wrapped his hand around the fresh glass when it came, enjoying the cool feel. The air in the bar was hot and sticky. “I wish I knew how to build a house.”
“A carpenter?” she said, amused. “A killer with a Jesus complex?”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t have any real-life skills. You know, fixing a sink, building a tree house for the kids. I’ve never even mowed the grass. Though I could probably figure that one out.”
“Your skills are pretty sought after in my world.”
“If this world was anything like it should be, I’d be out of a job.”
“Well, it’s not. You’ve never been raped, have you?”
Lana said it with such calm that Grey’s eyes snapped over.
“If you’d been raped,” she said, “you wouldn’t wish things were different. You’d be glad you’re exactly who you are.”
Grey tried to figure out her angle for telling him that information. Was she opening up so he would do the same? Or was it a fabricated claim, designed to elicit a response?
Judging by her face, the look of pain and anger and lost innocence in her eyes, maybe the first true emotion he had seen, he didn’t think it was a fabrication. “That’s not what I said. I said I wished the world were different. When were you . . . I’m sorry.”
“In high school. Look, if it hadn’t happened I’d be some silly divorced society woman like my mother, shopping and playing tennis and serving on the board of her country club to try to plug the bitterness. Hey, don’t say I can’t put a positive spin on things.”
Grey touched her arm. “I can tell it will never happen again.”
“You’re damn right it won’t.” She looked up at him. “That wasn’t in the psych eval either.”
“What?”
“That when you want to, you know exactly what to say.”
He removed his hand from her arm, but she had shifted close enough that her leg was brushing his. “Did they catch the guy?” he asked.
“Someone did,” she said, and Grey could tell there was a story there. “Some local tough guys, Mariel boatlift types, found me and disappeared with the rapist. He turned up a week later in a dumpster. Someone killed him very slowly.”
“Good,” Grey said, and then a loud clang sounded from the corner of the restaurant. Before Lana could react, Grey had palmed a dinner knife and sprung to his feet, eyes sweeping the place for the source of the noise.
Lana was pulling him down. “Sit down,” she whispered, at the same time he saw a flamenco dancer emerge onstage, wrists turning and gypsy skirts twirling, more cymbals clanging in the background.
Grey returned to his beer with an embarrassed shrug. The people at the tables around them were stifling laughs.
“God, you’re fast,” Lana said, her thigh now pressed into Grey’s leg. “Though maybe you should try not to take out the entertainment.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“Two more questions,” she said.
“Please tell me they’re situational behavior scenarios and not personal questions.”
“Sorry. Do you still love Nya?”
Grey started. “Seriously? I get it now, you’re trying to find my pressure points in case things go south. Congratulations.”
“As someone who understands physiological responses, I’m sure you realized that your eyes moved to the side and you swallowed imperceptibly before responding. So you still love her. Good to know. Final question,” she said, moving a hand on top of his and looking him in the eye, her gaze challenging. The scent of her perfume cut through the smell of tarragon and fried potatoes from the next table over, and the skin of her hand felt c
allused but warm. “Does it make any difference?”
He held her gaze for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said softly, not bothering to hide either his conviction or the undercurrent of regret. “It does.”
DER HEILIGKEIT DES LUFT SANATORIUM
Viktor woke the next morning stiff from the long walk, but with the satisfaction of an obstacle overcome. Still, despite his present condition, he didn’t long for sobriety. He missed his emerald muse and the places it took him. Life was too complex to label such things as alcohol or wormwood bad, to not appreciate and explore the different states of reality they offered. Absinthe was a part of him and he hoped they could coexist again one day.
Just not quite yet—and on his own terms.
He listened to the message from Grey and absorbed the information. Later that day, Grey would step on a plane to Bogotá in pursuit of the link to the General.
Viktor frowned. While Palo was present in Colombia, especially near Cali, it was not prevalent. Then again, neither was it widespread in Mexico.
Palo priests were highly territorial and stayed in one location. They did not control international drug rings and send out blue-painted assassins. On the other hand, it was clear that Tata Menga was involved in drug activity, and connected to the General.
Viktor felt as if they were missing something important. That this case was not as it seemed.
He thought back to Grey’s description of the cemetery. The fact that the graves bearing crosses had been untouched by the gravedigger meant that Tata Menga worked with Palo Judeo, the type of Palo Mayombe untouched by Christianity.
Palo of the purest form, the kind that traced its lineage straight from the ancient forests of the Congo.
The kind used to kill.
About the time Grey would be dashing to the airport, just after Viktor finished a late lunch of apple- and fig-stuffed pheasant with crisp rösti potatoes, he received a response to his Interpol inquiry.
