Saffire

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Buying you breakfast,” I said. “Not enough as payment?”

  He laughed. “Hardly. I’m in the business of trading information. Leave me with a little pride. There has to be some kind of story behind your questions. Promise that if you ever speak to a reporter, I’ll be the only one.”

  “You have my word.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “The lay of the land.” I could ask that question of a dozen people and get a dozen subjective perspectives, all valuable to me.

  “That’s a general enough question to almost be worthless.”

  “You mean worthless to you.”

  He laughed again. “Then how about a general lecture? I’ve been working on it for an article on why the United States should settle with Colombia for stealing Panama, and I might as well give it a trial run with you as an audience.”

  “Mind if I get more coffee first?”

  He made another lazy circle of his finger, as though the waiter were a trained monkey. It gave me a sense of how the Panamanians might view us.

  I sipped the coffee as Harding began.

  “First, since the day Teddy gave the command to let the dirt fly, this canal has been our one great national enthusiasm, aside from baseball. The great unwashed public is so engrossed in the building of the canal that, until Cromwell’s involvement came to light, few gave any thought to how we secured the right to build it. Newspaper editors have learned that the public can’t seem to understand the difference between attacking the corruption behind our acquisition and attacking the patriotic act of building it. The official diplomatic version of the secession of the province of Panama from the mother country of Colombia has been commonly accepted. So humor me—what’s that version?”

  “I’m part of the great unwashed then?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Fine. I would play along. “In 1903, we had a canal treaty in place with Colombia, where we would make a ten-million-dollar payment to extend the rights they gave to the French for the Canal Zone. They decided to blackmail us into paying more. So America helped Panama declare independence, and then Panama signed a treaty with us.”

  Harding inclined his head. “I’ve just spent a month in Bogotá, and I searched the record of diplomatic correspondence with the United States Senate, the Spanish version of the same records, the annals of Colombian congress, and the files of local newspapers, and I found no vestige of justification—official, semiofficial, or unofficial—to support an accusation that Colombia attempted to blackmail the United States. What’s of enormous interest, however, is where this accusation originated. In Washington, the paid American lobbyist for the French owners of the Panama Canal Company pointed out in writing that he foresaw the Colombians demanding ten million dollars to extend the right-of-way concession belonging to the PCC. And then he turned around and made a public outcry that Colombia was attempting to blackmail Congress.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “This lobbyist was paid two million for convincing the United States to purchase the PCC from France for forty million.”

  Neither of us needed to state said lobbyist’s name. Cromwell.

  “If Teddy hadn’t sued the World, I wouldn’t have been sent to Paris to find out where that money went. In a sense, I’ve accomplished that. We were told that details were in a sealed vault. It took lawyers to get us access, as the French company was publicly held, yet the records inside the vault were nonexistent. Let me quote to you what our paper’s British counsel said about this, since it’s fresh on my mind. ‘I have never known, in my lengthy experience in company matters, any public corporation, much less one of such vast importance, having so completely disappeared and removed all traces of its existence as the New Panama Canal Company.’ Keep in mind, the United States needed to purchase the New Panama Canal Company to gain access rights to the canal.”

  Harding was on a roll now. “The mystery extends to this side of the ocean. In Panama, all I’ve really discovered is that vital cable evidence has been destroyed and that the original Panamanian revolutionaries are good at keeping political secrets. They won’t even admit to meeting Cromwell. Yet here he is, on his estate, effectively running the country. And that would include his command—without any shred of evidence that could prove this in court—of the National Police.”

  He leaned forward. “You still okay with poking someone’s eye with a stick? Great efforts have been taken to hide the money trail, and asking about Cromwell and Sandoval is like asking about the money. I’m safe because I work for the World, and with world attention on Roosevelt’s lawsuit against my newspaper, they wouldn’t dare risk anything happening to me. But you’re a cowboy without friends.”

  His expression chilled me. As did his final words: “Keep in mind, Mr. Holt, that there’s a lot of jungle between here and Colón, and you aren’t leaving until tomorrow.”

  A few hours passed. Although I wasn’t hungry, I wanted to pass time. I entered the restaurant through the lobby of the National, enjoying a faint scent of cinnamon wafting on a breeze sweeping through the dining room. The windows, though open, were screened for mosquitoes.

  Stefan gave me a courtly nod. I removed my hat and allowed him to take it to the coatroom. This time I had no immediate plans after lunch and wouldn’t mind waiting for the hat’s return when the meal was finished.

  Stefan led me to a table near the windows overlooking a wide veranda. The veranda reminded me of the one and only hotel in Medora—a hotel built when I was a boy, before the Dakotas had been granted statehood. Same type of overhang, same width of veranda. It was now called the Rough Riders, in honor of Teddy Roosevelt, who made a stop there as president in 1903, all those years after he’d played at being a deputy sheriff during his ranching days.

  In Medora, the view from the Rough Riders was restricted to a stable across the street and a backdrop of the hills of the Badlands formed by the Little Missouri River. Depending on the time of year, those hills would be lush green, dusty brown, or mottled with snow.

  Here, the view was dominated by the palm trees ringing the plaza, where the concert had played the night before. The squat stone buildings on the other side blocked a view of the Pacific. The plaza was empty during the heat of the day, and I remembered Saffire telling me that the coloreds had their own concerts on a different night of the week.

  Stefan maintained his silent gravitas until I was seated and had placed a napkin across my lap. The first time I’d dined in a formal restaurant, I’d tucked the top of the napkin into the gap between my shirt and collar. The waiter had been aghast, and the older woman opposite me had giggled and then schooled me for the remainder of the meal and the evening.

  Stefan opened the menu.

  “Sir,” he said, “it may appear as if I am discussing your lunch selection, but that is not so. I intend to have a conversation with you.”

  “I’m fine if you sit across the table from me.”

  “I am not.” His accent was a rich, dignified mixture of West Indies and British. “Speaking in a direct manner like this to you would lead to my unemployment if you complained, but I would not have this conversation unless it was important.”

  “Please continue.”

  “Saffire is a remarkable girl. Even though she has a bodyguard, she—”

  “Bodyguard?”

  “A well-known secret that she is under the protection of Ezequiel Sandoval. Neither he, nor I, would like to see her come to any harm.”

  Bodyguard. I liked that. It let her move through the city as if she owned it.

  “Neither would I,” I said.

  “You say that like a man who agrees merely so the conversation will end.” Stefan lowered the menu slightly. “So let me tell you a story about her. This is a girl who saw children her age scavenging in the garbage each night behind the hotel, looking for the food scraped off the plates of those who dine in the hotel. She found a way to organize these children to each pay her a tiny amount from what they beg.
This bounty she pools to pay our kitchen staff to put the waste food in separate bags so she can distribute it to the children so they no longer have to fight rats to eat.”

  I thought of the money I’d given Saffire the night before. I nodded. “A remarkable girl. Forgive me if I seemed insincere. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Of course you didn’t. I can see that on your ears. We call it the bite of the alligator. Those clamps leave an unmistakable pattern. Sometimes we see it on the dead. You were lucky.”

  I took a deep breath. “The bite of the alligator.”

  “National Police. Ears first. Then downward.”

  I thought of the change in Miskimon’s body language after he’d looked closely at my face.

  “But I didn’t need to see the bite to know you faced the National Police,” Stefan said. “Saffire told me where Raquel found you. And the circumstances in which she found you. This is why I fear for Saffire.”

  I managed to smile. “I might point out that she’s the one who rescued me.”

  “A remarkable girl, and it will do her no good to be involved with someone who felt the bite of the alligator. She will be here, within reach of the National Police, long after you are gone. Do you understand?”

  I understood the depth of his affection for her.

  “Tomorrow I will be on the noon sailing of a steamer bound from Colón to New York,” I told Stefan. “There is nothing to fear from me.”

  My steak had been set in front of me, but before I could cut into it, Robert Waldschmidt swept through the restaurant and pulled out a chair to sit at my table.

  “Tell me a Buffalo Bill story, yah?”

  I sliced off a corner of the steak and popped it into my mouth and chewed. Very tender and flavorful. I swallowed and cut another piece.

  “Just one story, yah?”

  I assumed that sooner or later, as I enjoyed this steak, Waldschmidt would realize I would tell no stories.

  He didn’t appear to take it as an insult. “Very well, I have a story for you. About the first and only person to die in the first revolution for the country of Panama. It was a Chinaman. He was the unfortunate victim of a stray cannonball. Here, on the Pacific side. Other than that, no real fighting. Imagine, Panama the province leaves Colombia to become Panama the country and no fighting because the Americans have chosen to protect it.”

  I chewed slowly. Perhaps if I made my silence last long enough, he would leave.

  “Of course, some might say the Americans made a choice to steal it, rather than protect it,” Waldschmidt continued.

  I cut yet another piece of steak and looked past him as I chewed.

  Waldschmidt considered me. “If that doesn’t interest you, perhaps if you tell me a Buffalo Bill story, I will tell you about my eye. People always ask.”

  I shifted my gaze as he pointed at his eye patch. “Yesterday, the patch was on the other eye, yes?”

  Waldschmidt made a move to touch it and frowned.

  I raised an eyebrow. All I’d been doing was testing him to see if the eye patch was necessary or for show.

  “Very good then.” Waldschmidt nodded. “You caught me in a small deception. But I am sure to always put it on the same eye.”

  I resumed my methodical attack on the fine piece of steak.

  “We shall keep this our secret, yah? I am doing my best, after all, to pretend I am living a different kind of life here. I do hope you have heard the rumors that people think I am a spy. Such a rumor adds to the spice of life, and women find such imagined danger attractive.”

  “I imagine your money helps with the attraction,” I said. “Your secret is safe with me. I have no one to tell and I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  “What if I am a spy pretending to be a man pretending to be a spy?”

  “And what if I tell you that I truly don’t care?” I cut another piece of steak.

  “You Americans are a remarkable people. Although you are upstarts in the world, there is no longer any doubt that you will accomplish what the French failed. But have you considered that if the Americans left Panama today, another country could finish the project? A country, perhaps, like Germany?”

  “Have you considered that I truly have no interest in a conversation like this?”

  “When the province of Panama revolted against Colombia, the only value of this land was a treaty to allow the Americans a canal zone. But now that you Americans have proven the canal is a certainty, the entire world sees the value of a way to save weeks of travel by ship. Of more value is the fact that it establishes your country as a military power controlling this entire side of the Atlantic and the Pacific. Imagine if Colombia, with help from a naval power like Germany, could take possession of her former province. Or perhaps Panama could switch allegiance to Germany? Another revolution would accomplish that.”

  “That’s between you and the kaiser,” I said.

  “I tell you all this because perhaps you should wonder more about the events of last evening.”

  What game was this man playing? “Or not. I’m just a cowboy headed out of town.”

  “A cowboy who greatly interests Raquel Sandoval, if I may be so bold as to pass this along. After our conversation here last night, she did send Odalis after you, did she not?”

  I was down to a final piece of steak, which I cut with slow, precise movements.

  “Would it surprise you to learn that Raquel is a major supporter of Odalis in his run for mayor?”

  “I wish them both the best.” I speared the piece of meat. “Please pass that along.”

  “Watch the mayoral candidate closely, and see if you can figure out his secret.” Waldschmidt leaned his elbows on the table. “He is not much of a man. Some secrets are delicious, and it is all I can do to keep that one to myself.”

  “I wish them both the best,” I repeated. “Please pass that along.”

  “Would it surprise you to learn that Raquel Sandoval is a widow of her own doing? That she shot her first husband dead?”

  “As I have no intent of remaining long in Panama, I’m not that interested.”

  “How could a man not be interested in a woman of such beauty? By happy coincidence, she will be arriving soon for lunch with me, along with Odalis and the venerable T. B. Miskimon. If you stay, you can join us.”

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Does this appointment have anything to do with matters in regard to the building of the canal?”

  “It surely has nothing to do with anything that is of your business.”

  Waldschmidt lost his jocularity and leaned close. “I would be remiss not to warn you that it might be very dangerous to your health if you continue to be involved in the types of questions you were asking last night. Much is at stake, yah?”

  I departed before his guests arrived.

  My appointment was with a pillow in my suite several floors above the restaurant. The truth was that I did not have any plans except to avoid Miskimon and recuperate from the night before. My muscles ached from the violent contractions brought on by the electric shocks. I wanted to blame my malaise on the broken sleep rhythm, but I knew better.

  In regard to my emotional state, seething was too strong a word. Irritated, not strong enough. Humiliation—I didn’t want to think about it. I closed my eyes.

  Stop. Thinking. About. It.

  Better at this point not to feel. Or think.

  I let myself into the room. Too bad I didn’t have my valise. After a nap I could have added some journal entries to share with Winona. Or lost myself in one of the novels.

  But as I stepped to the window to look down on palm trees, the thoughts of books led me back to thoughts of Saffire. And to the night before…

  And to the helplessness and rage against the men who had tortured me.

  Was I a coward? Would I have broken and divulged the name of the man who’d sent me if Saffire hadn’t rescued me?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to explore those questions too fully.


  No books. No friends. And too much time on my hands.

  I snorted. Here I was in a luxury suite that Roosevelt himself might have used during his visit to Panama, and yet there was no joy. Which led me back to thoughts of Roosevelt…

  Would I have told them it was Roosevelt who sent me?

  As I relived the torture, I couldn’t accurately recall the jolts of electricity, only my emotional response. Pain like that couldn’t be comprehended on an intellectual level. It was too abstract. Yet dread washed through me—the dread I’d felt waiting for the third jolt that did not arrive.

  That’s what was so insidious about the bite of the alligator. The first prolonged jolt came with no warning of how horrible it would be, and therefore, I’d been innocent to its arrival. I’d just begun to recover from the first jolt, exhausted with relief that it stopped, when the second jolt hit. Then, innocence replaced by the realization that at any moment a third jolt could arrive, I’d been weak with dread all through the conversation that followed. And when my captor removed the clips from my ears and exposed my chest for the clips to be applied where the electricity’s venom would have exponential effect, I’d wanted to beg for mercy. That I’d managed to clamp my jaws shut instead gave me little solace, for I suspected I would have screamed for mercy after one more jolt.

  That residue of shame left me…grimy.

  Maybe that explained my rage at Miskimon this morning—a need to shove aside shame and find another emotion strong enough to mask it.

  And now?

  Here it was. I could not escape the truth that I’d been violated by other men.

  With this realization came another, that I’d been pacing the length of the suite. I needed to be outside. Walking. That would do it. A couple of hours in the heat, with nothing to do but wander and leave my mind blank.