The Laughing Falcon

by William Deverell

  He fell asleep.

  “He gonna be all right when he comes down?” Elmer asked.

  “They will pay for this,” Gordo hissed.

  When Gordo unlocked the back door of the van and slid it open, Slack could see the truck was loaded with provisions: vegetables, canned goods, boxes of corn flakes and dried pasta. On top of these were two inflated air mattresses, poolside toys looped with rope.

  “You get to ride in comfort,” Elmer said.

  They wouldn’t need to blindfold him, the back of the van was windowless, a tin cage. They hefted Benito onto one of the air mattresses, then Slack moved some boxes around to make room for the Honda.

  Gordo objected. “Something could be concealed in it, a weapon, a transmitter.”

  Slack sighed and wheeled it down the slope into a thicket of wild cane, it should be safe there until daybreak.

  “I want you to search Señor Cardinal. Make him take his clothes off.”

  “Hey, Gordo, relax,” Elmer said. “Go sit in the truck.”

  Gordo seemed about to take umbrage at being ordered about, but he just pulled up his sagging pants and climbed behind the wheel.

  Elmer bent his elbow around Slack’s neck, a tight hug. “Don’t worry about that worrywart, he can just sit there and pull his weenie. What’s in those bags — you score some folding off those guys?”

  “Six hundred grand.”

  “Hey, man, that’s incredible, top shelf.”

  “But I’m expected to get something for it. Some gesture. One of the women, at least, Maggie Schneider.”

  “I don’t follow. Why don’t we just keep the dough and both women and say, ‘More, please.’ ”

  “We have to show we’re square, otherwise they’ll stop dealing. Gloria-May Walker is worth millions.”

  “Let’s see what Halcón says. Listen, you gotta piss, better join me, we got a long road ahead.”

  They strolled to the edge of the escarpment, Slack hauling the saddlebags with him. Elmer peeked in one of them, fingered the money, pulled out a sample. “This is looking like a very sweet deal. So where you going after you make your nut off it?”

  “Staying right here, I guess.”

  “Thailand, man, that’s where I’m heading. They don’t give a shit for nothing over there, and they got some mondo reefer.” He lit a joint. “See that up there, near the Dipper? That’s Mars, man. It’s got mountains three times as high as Everest, volcanoes, canyons deeper than we got on earth.”

  Elmer continued to fill him in about Mars as they shared brotherly release at the edge of the escarpment, their streams descending into the great glowing bowl of the Central Valley.

  Elmer had given Slack a flashlight before locking him in, and he used it to probe for holes, finding several cracks, all too narrow to see through. Then he found a larger aperture, near the roof, about the size of a fat peanut, but he could make out very little, it looked like foliage rushing by.

  They had been travelling for three hours along paved mountain roads, falling and rising, curling and meandering, the pavement deteriorating to gravel, dust finding its way in, causing him to choke. Benito, however, lay peacefully on his mattress, a whinnying noise as he slept.

  They must still be high in the cordillera, he could feel the chill. Forget the memory training, Slack hadn’t a clue if they were going north, south, east, or west. Otherwise, things were going too well, it was almost worrying. He hadn’t screwed up for two weeks so maybe he was due.

  Now they were on a dirt road that for the most part seemed to descend. They were moving more slowly, branches brushing the walls of the van, a track for four-wheelers that coiled through the mountains, not intended for clangers like this. The rig could lose its steering at any moment, Slack could be in a tomb.

  The van braked, and Slack, who was trying to stand, fell clattering against the piled boxes. The vehicle began moving slowly again, gingerly engineering its way into and out of a deep rut, then groaning up an incline. When Slack looked through his hole all he could see were stars.

  The jolt had awakened Benito. “Where are we?”

  Slack played his light on him. He was sitting, his glasses in his hand, rubbing his eyes.

  “We are in a vehicle, Benito. We are taking you to your people.”

  “But we are being followed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have acute sensory receptors. Also, I must tell you, in all honesty, I have a problem of a personal nature. The true revolutionary should not be embarrassed by normal bodily functions, so I tell you I have to take a shit.”

  “A shit.”

  “The demand is urgent.”

  Slack crawled to the front and banged loudly on the tin wall several times, and finally the truck came to a halt. “We’ve got a problem here!” he shouted.

  A moment later the door opened a crack and when Slack explained the situation, Gordo helped Benito out, he was more alert now, his tranqs wearing off. “The drugs they force down my throat, they act like a laxative.”

  Gordo scowled. “The pigs. They should all be hanged.”

  “Who are you? I know that voice. Why, it is my friend, Herman. So this is no dream.”

  “No, Don Benito, this is reality, gracias a Dios.” He helped him off the rutted trail to a spot behind a large rock.

  As Elmer poked among the supplies for toilet paper, Slack did a quick field study. They were below the cloud forest, at about five thousand feet, he guessed, from what he could make out of the climate and vegetation.

  Tall trees obscured the valley bottom, but to the south was a gap through which he could see moonlight glinting on a pie-slice of ocean. Which one? The stars and moon told him he was facing south-west, toward the Pacific. But it could be the Gulf of Nicoya, they could be in Guanacaste, in the Tilaran mountains, anywhere.

  Operation Defecation succeeded without mishap. Benito, looking much relieved, said, “Now, if they follow, all they will find is shit.”

  Gordo didn’t know what to make of that, Elmer found it funny. Benito’s words, however, struck Slack as clairvoyant. Had they slipped more than drugs down Benito’s throat? He relished the image of the chiphead from Langley bending down to examine a transmitting turd.

  “We must keep moving,” Benito said. “It confuses their beams.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gordo said.

  “If you try too hard to understand it becomes impossible.”

  Gordo thought about that. “Yes, I see your point, Don Benito.”

  “Can you read my thoughts?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Bueno.”

  As this colloquy continued, Gordo looking increasingly baffled, Elmer drew Slack aside. “It’s like he’s flashing on acid, man.”

  “He’s been in a hospital, he’s schizophrenic.”

  “Jeez, these simple souls think that’s just bullshit, I half convinced myself. A bowl of fruit salad, that’s what we got here. What a weird blast of fate, man.”

  The moon, now low to the horizon, rolled out of a bed of wispy cloud, illuminating Gordo’s distraught features, he had given up trying to make sense of Benito’s words. “He says they have altered his brain patterns. Obviously, he was broken under torture.” He squinted hard at Slack, suspicious, looking for someone to blame. “In case he has a problem again, he should ride up front. You will return to the back.”

  “You’re the boss, Gordo.”

  “Let’s get this carnival back on tour, man.”

  Slack spent the next two hours playing with a dark suspicion that Ham Bakerfield wasn’t playing the game according to the agreed rules. He hoped Benito had shit out their damn bug, a form of anal poetic justice.

  As the truck wound its way down from the hills, the road improved, gravel again, a valley bottom. A strong flickering light outside, a smell of smoke, the remnants of a slash-and-burn fire, cattle farmers razing the jungle, leaving their burns to smoulder all night. Such scenes played out every dry season, co
wboys standing around sucking on their sugar cane, hypnotized by the flames. It was a kind of murder, we’re devouring the wilderness as we gobble our Big Macs and triple-patties.

  The air became dense and sweet, a rich rain-forest smell, which meant they were definitely not in the dry north country. No, this felt very close to home, the Central Pacific zone. Through his peephole, Slack could see fields flow by, the occasional yardlight, maybe a farm. Now they were on a clanking metal bridge. Half a mile farther on, the truck slowed, and he glimpsed a few lights burning, a village. A sharp left turn. The road became rough again, rocks spinning from the tires. They were ascending once more, up a river valley.

  This configuration of bridge, village, and river near the Pacific coast seemed all too familiar. Slack had an almost instinctive sense he had many times travelled this route, hauling kayaks past a burg called Londres, up the Naranjo River. After fifteen slow minutes over rocky bumps and shallow pits, he was sure: he would know this route in his sleep, the rockiest country lane this side of the cordilleras. He could hear rapids as they dipped, and through his peephole saw the truck’s lights striking a rusted oil drum, Mono Titi Tours’ garbage receptacle. This was the Naranjo, his very own kayak launch point. He wasn’t ten miles as the crow flies from his own bloody home.

  After another twenty minutes of tortuous progress, the truck wheezed to a halt. Slack felt a shift of weight as someone got out of the cab, he heard muffled conversation, and after a few moments the creak of gate hinges. He remembered trucks hauling gravel and concrete block up this way several years ago, recalled a metal gate, a bodega, but had never seen the house, it was buried in the woods. The vehicle resumed its progress for about a minute, then the engine was turned off. More conversation.

  He lay down, pretended to be asleep as the door opened. The moon had fallen below the horizon, and the night was black, the stars hidden by trees. He caught a scent of angels’ trumpets and citrus blossoms. Distantly came the moans of the river.

  He was momentarily blinded by a flashlight beam. “Rise and shine, old buddy,” Elmer said.

  Slack groped about for his saddlebags, flung them over his shoulder. The beam was directed down, lighting his way onto a patch of grass. Otherwise he could see nothing but moving shapes, several people.

  “Viva Benito Madrigal!” A joyous shout.

  “Yeah, man, you can have him.” Elmer sounded weary, Benito had worn him out.

  “Announce me to Halcón,” Benito called out. “But be careful. We may be near the Americans’ secret base.”

  “Yeah, right,” Elmer said. “Sorry to keep you in the dark, Slack, but el capitán figures if you can’t see nothing, you can’t say nothing, like when the boys uptown try to quiz you.”

  The narrow circle of light on the grass began to move, and Slack followed it to a brick patio. The shadowy mass nearby might be a building, but it was nearly impossible to tell.

  “Apaga la luz, por favor.” A gently spoken command, a voice that reeked of self-assurance. Halcón, Johnny Diego, he seemed to be sitting down.

  The flashlight was extinguished, and Slack swore as he stumbled against a folding chair, his legs tangling in its rungs, and his first thought as he went sprawling onto the bricks was that this was a snare they’d rigged up. Spy-trap.

  But no, Elmer was helping Slack to his feet, chortling.

  “A grand entrance to our humble hideaway, Jacques Cardinal,” Halcón said. “I must apologize, those fold-up rockers are a menace. When you’re safely in them, however, they are comfortable. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine.” Slack righted the chair and eased himself into it. Whose pad was this, he wondered. A norteamericano, he guessed, a pal of Elmer, his tropical hideaway.

  “Hey, Halcón, man, we got a problem with Benito Madrigal.” A scraping sound, as Elmer sat. “I got a whole load of him driving down here. He’s on a different planet, not one I heard of.”

  They could hear him, maybe thirty yards away, demanding that people identify themselves. Someone was attending to him, speaking in a squeaky pleading voice. Buho, maybe, the student, Benito’s nephew.

  “I was hoping the press had exaggerated,” Halcón said. “He is that ill?”

  “My question,” said Elmer, “and maybe you want to ask yourself this real seriously, is what the fuck are you going to do with him?”

  “Who are you?” Benito shouted.

  “It is Vicente.”

  “Vicente, my dear nephew! And my brave Sandinista warriors! Ah, now we are a fighting force again. Let us inform the president we will take up arms if the minister is not dismissed.”

  Elmer snorted. “It’s gonna be like having the mad hatter around here, man. Tell him what you got in the bags, Slack.”

  Slack took a deep breath, he was about to test Johnny Diego’s sense of honour.

  “A six-hundred-thousand-dollar down payment, in return for Maggie Schneider. They understand Mrs. Walker will be more expensive.”

  After a silence, Halcón said, “Amazing. And they trusted you with this?”

  “My life wouldn’t be worth a sparrow fart if I stole it.”

  “I would not have expected such initial generosity from them.”

  “It makes sense to sell Miss Schneider to them,” Slack said. “Reduces your burden. You’d never get that much for her alone, her family has no money. If they’re willing to pay that much for Maggie, they’ll go well into the millions for Gloria-May, she’s your real ticket.” He hoped he wasn’t overplaying his hand, but they had to see he was making excellent sense.

  Benito was still carrying on. “Where is my headquarters, my office?”

  “He’s supposed to take a couple of these every four hours,” Slack said. “Downers.” He gave Elmer the pill bottle.

  As Elmer shuffled off in the darkness, Halcón sighed. “This is sad, about Comrade Madrigal. Why can’t things go smoothly, Mr. Cardinal?”

  “There’s always something. Call me Slack.”

  “Elmer says you are a man of goodwill, Slack. Also that you drive a hard bargain.”

  “That’s in our mutual interest, isn’t it?”

  “He must have been drunk when he agreed to twenty per cent.”

  “He was stoned.”

  “When isn’t he? But Elmer is not so lazy of mind as he pretends. He says he trusts you. But the American government also seems to trust you. Do I trust you, too?”

  “I guess you have to take chances in life, Halcón.”

  “You could be more reassuring, my friend.”

  “Look, there’s no point in kidding around. Comando Cinco de Mayo — it’s brilliant, I give you credit. I know where I am, near the Naranjo. You’re about the last gringo house on a dead-end road. I don’t think you have any choice but to trust me.”

  A silence. Halcón struck a wooden match, lit a cigarette. He didn’t try to shield his face, and Slack saw the sardonic smile. “I think it would be a mistake to underestimate you, Slack.”

  “You have everyone else bamboozled. To the cops, you’re dangerous revolutionaries.”

  Halcón’s laughter seemed open and generous, not contrived. “A Bolshevik — I had to smile at that. You share our noble motives to the tune of twenty per cent.”

  “It’s a bargain already.”

  Halcón’s hand reached out and Slack gripped it firmly. “Maggie had her doubts, but I had an instinct that I would find you a person muy amable.”

  Maggie had doubts? Why was she even consulted?

  “Throw those pills away,” Benito called out. “I know what’s in them. I’m thirsty, someone please get me a soda, and I want to see it opened in front of me.”

  Halcón turned business-like. “Slack, I wish we had more time to enjoy each other’s company, but the night is slipping away. You require to be photographed with our guests, that must be done. We must settle on a maximum, though reasonable, figure. You’ve met with them. How high will they go?”

  “For Gloria-M
ay Walker?”

  “Yes, we will put the matter of Miss Schneider aside for the moment.”

  “I’m not sure, maybe five or six million if we guarantee to move fast on it. More than that, they’ll probably wait us out, hope you’ll make a mistake. Walker isn’t afraid of spinning things out, he’s begun to realize human crises win votes.”

  “Feeding that man’s ambition is something I hadn’t counted on. They say he is cold and conniving – married to a woman like Glo, it makes no sense.”

  “He’s an extreme guy, all the more reason to pull this off.” Slack had to remind himself he was working for the forces of law and order. It would actually be a lark to pay these guys off, let them get away, there goes the campaign, down the toilet, a politician who won’t deal with terrorists gets tubed by them.

  People were shuffling about, moving sacks and boxes into the house, as Slack and Halcón discussed tactics and figures, moving fluidly between English and Spanish, trying to come up with a fair figure, suggesting negotiating ploys. “Always get them to name a figure first, triple that, agree halfway,” said Halcón. “It’s a formula that seems to work.”

  “We can promise one-day delivery?”

  “Two, maje, to be safe.” Maje, pal, they were getting on like long-lost lovers. “To give us time to disappear. Then Glo can be picked up here.”

  “And Maggie will go with me tonight.”

  Halcón remained silent, thinking about it. “The problem is this. Like you, she has a very good idea of where we are. Unlike you, she has no reason to be shy about saying so.”

  Slack hadn’t factored that in. “This place may be getting a little hot, anyway. Anywhere else you can go?”

  “Yes, of course, we have backup locations. Elmer can tell you where, but … Let’s see what Maggie has to say about it.”

  Slack was content with that, let Maggie have a vote.

  “Can you get access to the media?” Halcón asked.

  “What would you like me to tell them?”

  “Maggie has written a note, it was her suggestion, actually. It will explain that any funds we gain will be distributed to the poor.”

  Slack could see the benefit, the tactic would marshal public support, someone stumbling onto their scam might be less than eager to turn them in.