Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  “I bet you’re right. Let’s keep our eyes out for a public phone sign.”

  The bus careened around corners, and more Inca Kola cups were passed down the aisle. I took some and immediately spit it out. It was Inca Kola mixed with fire. “Rum,” said Aussie Guy, his eyes dancing at me as he downed his cup of the concoction in one shot. “Have another go. The second sip’s always better.”

  Santiago laughed at the face I made on my second sip. “I do not like this drink, either,” he said quietly. “I can take your cup. You do not have to drink this.”

  As Santiago reached across my lap to take my drink away, I noticed the hint of stubble on his face, and the long upward curve of his eyelashes. I warmed at his kindness, disposing of my drink when no one else was looking so I wouldn’t be embarrassed.

  There were other guys out there. My life didn’t have to vacillate between the two poles of Jake and Juan Carlos. Maybe I’d meet someone when all this was over, and feel things again. Like love.

  Santiago signaled to the chiva assistant, or whatever she was. She took our empty cups and, with a gracious smile, flung them outside.

  My eyes widened at the blatant recycling violation, and Santiago threw up his hands in frustration. “We are sitting on gold here, with this beautiful country, but people still are throwing their trash in the streets.” He looked closely at me. “Something is troubling you. Is it the cups? You are a big recycler. I know from your TV show,” he added.

  “Ah. Right.”

  “I like very much your show. But it seems you are not a host any longer?”

  I looked at my lap. “Kind of a long story.”

  As the bus slowed, Mari poked me in the back, and then pointed to a hotel with a sign advertising a pay phone inside. “Call Darwin,” she mouthed, making a phone gesture with her hand.

  “Maybe you can tell me the story sometime? I am curious,” said Santiago.

  The bus lurched forward again.

  “Maybe.” I gazed at the hotel we passed, and the canyon of office buildings around us, as the rollicking bus barreled down another side street. From my wool tote bag I showed him the address Darwin had given me. “Do you know where this place is?”

  “Juan León Mera Street . . . that’s in La Zona.”

  “La Zona!”

  “Yes. Not so far from Mari’s apartment. And about three blocks from here. The driver is passing by there on the way to the Old Town.” Santiago took a closer look at the paper. “Is this place someone’s home? Or a club?”

  “A club.” That was the easiest answer. And I hoped it was correct. I didn’t want to be in somebody’s apartment, with Darwin, completely alone. I chilled. Why hadn’t I even thought to ask Darwin what kind of place we were meeting in?

  Santiago gave a short laugh. “I thought at first you were different. But maybe you are a typical gringa after all? Here to find an aventura?”

  I stared at him, my face hot. “What do you mean?”

  He looked down, his cheeks reddening. “Nothing. Never mind. I did not mean to sound in that way.” Then his eyes met mine again. Not angry, just direct. “But maybe you could just tell me why you’re really here?”

  Aussie Guy interrupted us, tapping Santiago on the shoulder to ask him something about an Ecuadorian drinking song. I leaned over the back of my seat and talked into Mari’s ear.

  “I’m getting off here.”

  “No, Tessa! I don’t think it’s a good idea after all. Not here, anyway. ”

  “I saw a sign for a pay phone,” I lied. “Cover for me, okay? Tell Wilson and everyone I got sick again and went to your place. It’s just a few blocks away.”

  Before she could protest again, and as the driver slowed for a red light, I slipped off the bench and jumped off the chiva.

  I tripped and landed on my knees but quickly scrambled to my feet, unhurt.

  I ran down the street as fast as I could. Footsteps slapped the wet pavement behind me as the light rain turned steady. I turned and saw whose they were.

  “What are you doing?” I said to Mari. “Are you crazy? Who’s covering for me if you’re here?”

  “You’re not just calling Darwin from a pay phone, are you? Something’s up. I know it.”

  “Fine. I’m meeting him. At this address.”

  She snatched the paper. “No way are you going in there to meet him alone.”

  Fat, heavy drops, splatted on the sidewalk with fury now. While people ran for cover under restaurant awnings and in doorways, Mari and I stood there and glared at each other.

  “This is not just your problem, Tessa,” Mari said, her voice breaking. “It’s mine, too. I should have inspected Juan Carlos’s damn bike more carefully while I had the chance. I had a gut feeling the bike wasn’t right, and I never followed through and took the whole thing apart. If I’d done it, we might have found out what was inside it before it left the country.”

  “But two weeks ago, what would you have taken the bike apart for? To look for enhancements?”

  “Maybe. Or drugs.”

  “So you were thinking about drugs, too? Before I mentioned it?”

  She nodded. “My aunt works for the TSA at Logan Airport. She saw a bike come through once, from Mexico, stuffed with bags of white powder. I didn’t want to go there in my head, you know? To think that about Juan Carlos. And I’m sick of stereotypes about drugs and Latin America. But I have to face reality. That might be what’s going on here.”

  “But why would they be bringing drugs into Ecuador? Don’t they travel the other way?”

  “Right. So maybe it’s cash, and maybe it’s not in the handlebars. I’ve been thinking a lot about this,” said Mari. “Carbon fiber can be hollowed out. You saw it for yourself. The whole frame could be stuffed to the gills.”

  I swallowed hard. “Santiago told me there was a lot of stuff going on here lately with young people working as drug and money mules. Maybe that’s what Juan Carlos was doing.” He traveled internationally. With a bike. A bike that could conceal contraband. Like drugs coming into the U.S. or drug money flowing back out. Had Juan Carlos been helping Darwin’s group at one point as a mule? What if he had screwed up, or deliberately turned against them, making them mad enough to kill him? The bike stashed in the woods, and the “information” these guys were looking for—none of this made Juan Carlos look good.

  “Look. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do,” Mari said, softer now. “If my friend was involved with a drug cartel, I want to know why.”

  “I get that. But Darwin specifically told me to come alone,” I explained. “If I break my word, and bring someone, he’ll spread dirt about me and my parents online. He’s already set up someone to frame my mom for harassment, and he’ll go after my dad, too.”

  Mari glared at me a moment longer, then blew out a long breath. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait across the street.”

  We hurried down the street, following the numbers until we came to the address of the meeting place. Salsoteca Mundial.

  Mari whistled under her breath. “Oh, no,” she said. “Not this place.”

  “What’s wrong with it? It looked okay during the day. Seems like a real nightclub.”

  The nightclub pulsed with salsa music, and a line was forming out the door even though it was early in the evening.

  “At night?” Mari shook her head. “It’s a place where money gets laundered and all kinds of shady business deals take place. It’s been written up in the paper, and the Vuelta staff told us to avoid it.” She gave me a long look. “If you’re not out in thirty minutes, I’m coming in to find you.”

  As I left Mari and approached the line at the door, I checked to make sure Juan Carlos’s necklace was safely tucked beneath my shirt and my cotton scarf. I also buttoned my sweater up tight. This seemed like the perfect place and t
ime to have someone run by and grab jewelry off my neck, if they happened to see a flash of gold. Even if the necklace wasn’t real gold, I didn’t need to look like any more of a target than I already was.

  While Mari lurked in the doorway of the SuperChicken across the street, a heavy-set bald man in a cream suit and a Panama hat—a bouncer, I guessed—came up to me and whispered in my ear, in English, with breath that reeked of cigar smoke, “What do you know about mangoes?”

  “Mangoes are best at this time of year?”

  The bouncer lifted a velvet rope, ushering me underneath. My heart racing, I pushed open the heavy wood door to the club, then parted the thick red velvet drapes in the foyer.

  The mango code had worked.

  And after this meeting? I was never going to eat another mango as long as I lived.

  Once inside, I immediately ducked into a restroom, and into a stall, to avoid the restroom attendant’s curious stare. I quickly set up my video camera inside my woven wool bag from the crafts market. I pulled apart some of the threads on the outside of a pocket to make a small hole. Then I nestled the camera lens right up against it. I stuffed wads of stiff, pink toilet paper around the camera in the pocket, to keep it in position, and zipped the pocket tight. I almost laughed, thinking of the projects and inventions I’d demonstrated step-by-step on KidVision. I’d come a long way from pizza box furniture.

  Back in the nightclub entryway, I scanned faces in what little light there was. Where was Darwin? Would he be alone? With a gang? Couples were shimmying and sliding around the dance floor in exotic salsa moves. I couldn’t imagine Darwin dancing. Small round tables, filling up with spectators, surrounded them. Nobody looked like him.

  Then Pizarro swooped in, seemingly out of nowhere, and took me firmly by the arm. “Right this way, señorita,” he said, maneuvering me through the crowds.

  “Ouch. You’re hurting my arm,” I complained.

  Pizarro only squeezed tighter. “You’re a flight risk. And we all have a job to do. Mine is to deliver you to my boss, and make sure you’re coming alone.” His face was carefully arranged in a pleasant expression, as he nodded or waved at people he knew—mostly bouncers, burly men posted around the club. But his voice was acid. He brought me to the farthest corner of the club, where five archways were cut into the brick walls, each one covered with red curtains. He made eye contact with one of the bouncers nearby. “Know that we have many friends here. Some of them work for the police. I suggest doing everything Darwin tells you to do.” He brought me to an archway, pulled back a curtain, and pushed me inside toward a table. The heavy fabric swished closed behind me, and I was with Darwin, alone.

  45

  IT TOOK my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light. Votive candles in red glass cups were all that lit this alcove. Darwin, seated at a wooden table, motioned for me to sit opposite him on a bench.

  In front of him was popcorn in a little dish, and a short ceramic mug with some kind of steaming hot beverage, which he sipped. The scent drifted my way. Hot red wine. But when it sloshed in the cup as he set it down, it made me think of blood.

  There was also a bottle of Inca Kola on the table, which he slid toward me. I refused it. For all I knew, he’d laced it.

  Other than sitting under a blood-red lamp, alone in a salsa club, Darwin looked not unlike a tourist himself. A young businessman passing through town, maybe looking to have a good time. In his black pants and striped polo shirt, he looked almost as straightlaced as Santiago, at first glance. But he still wore aviator sunglasses, as he had that day in the woods. In the lenses, the reflected light of the votive candles flickered.

  “So.” A slow, crooked grin spread across Darwin’s face. “You’re quite the globe-trotting teen. So far from home.”

  I thought I might faint or throw up. I did not want to be in here, where nobody could see us or hear us.

  But I was so close to catching Juan Carlos’s possible killer! I positioned my tote bag in front of my chest and hoped the camera would pick up at least the sound. The drapes muted the music from the club a little, yet music still leaked in.

  “What’s this meeting all about?” I asked, speaking loudly so the audio on my camera would pick up.

  He tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth, chewed it, and leaned forward. “Information,” he said, drawing out the word. “Missing information, that is.” He fell silent but kept on looking at me. Despite the candlelight dancing in his lenses, and the heat in the club, his gaze made ice run through my veins.

  “For someone interested in information, you don’t give very much of it.”

  Darwin chuckled, though I didn’t see what could possibly be funny. “I’ve got a problem on my hands, Tessa Taylor,” he said. “A certain individual stole classified information from someone in the organization that I represent.”

  An organization! It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Darwin could be part of a larger chain of command, that he might be working for somebody else. “What organization?” I demanded. I was so excited to finally get information from Darwin that I actually forgot to be nervous. I angled my tote bag upward, praying I’d catch his words and maybe his face on film. This was it. The grand confession! I braced myself for the words to come.

  “I’m giving information on a need-to-know basis,” he snapped. “You don’t need to know the specifics. But the stolen data got put on a flash drive, which we’ve been attempting to locate. If the data is leaked, it will cost the organization millions of dollars, irrevocable reputation damage, and a possible prison sentence for my client of up to twenty years if the feds were to come after him. This is something, I assure you, he does not deserve. It’s a situation that can too easily blow up over a simple misunderstanding.” He leaned forward again, and the reflected candle flames leaped in his shades. “I’m an information specialist, Tessa. Data is my business. But you might think of me more as a plumber. I am doing whatever I can to stop the leak.”

  A prison sentence was at stake? Millions of dollars? This had to involve drugs, and serious drug money. But now it sounded like Juan Carlos was trying to expose someone for buying or selling drugs, not participate in that business himself. He was trying to be a whistle-blower. A hero. A warm feeling slowly replaced the ice that had filled my veins.

  “So Juan Carlos took your client’s data?” I asked, shifting the tote bag with the camera even closer. I had to get all this recorded.

  “Ding ding ding!” Darwin pantomimed ringing a bell. “You win the sweepstakes! Yes. Juan Carlos should have stuck to the cycling path, but he rashly stole a flash drive belonging to my client, containing backup data from his personal computer. In doing so, he veered into my territory, and set off a whole chain of events with very serious consequences.”

  I leaned forward to pick up Darwin’s every word, his breath, even the upward curl of his lip. “So is that why you killed him?”

  Darwin looked startled. Then he laughed. “You think I killed him? You seriously crack me up. I can see why you were so popular on TV and why you already have four hundred followers on your new vlog. You’re very entertaining. Look. I told you, I deal in information. I kill reputations, not people. I don’t like blood on my hands. It’s not my thing. I didn’t knock your friend off his bike. If anything, his stupid accident made my work harder.”

  “Was it someone else you work with, then?” I tried to hold my gaze steady. “You know, don’t you, who rigged his bike?”

  He barked a laugh.

  “It wasn’t Dylan Holcomb, was it?”

  He gave me a long look and drummed his fingers on the table. “No,” he said slowly. “That moron of a mechanic was useful as a portal, though.”

  “What do you mean, a portal?”

  “He was willing to leave the trailer unattended long enough to let someone in. For a modest fee.”

  “You paid him off to leave the trailer? Did he kno
w why?”

  Darwin smirked. “Dylan’s not exactly the brightest bulb. He didn’t have a clue. But money talks, so he didn’t ask. Just as I predicted.”

  “Then call the police and tell them that!” I burst out. “Tell them who Dylan did let in!” I narrowed my eyes. “Who did Dylan let into the trailer when he left it unlocked?”

  He waggled a finger at me, as if I were a misbehaving child. “You’re changing the meeting agenda. I don’t like that. I’m here to talk about that missing flash drive. I’m not a murderer. Not even from afar.”

  “And I don’t have a flash drive,” I retorted. “Just like I didn’t have that bike you were looking for.”

  “You led us directly to the bike. In the bike shop where Juan Carlos worked as a volunteer.”

  “I didn’t even know it was there!” I spluttered. I wanted to explode. “Come on. You’ve cyberstalked me, you hacked my phone, and you had Balboa post crap about me online, and all for no reason! Why are you coming after me now?”

  Darwin shifted in his seat and folded his arms across his broad chest. “It has come to my attention that you were perhaps not as aware of the bike and its whereabouts as we once thought,” he said. “I understand now that another party may have had a hand in the bike’s removal. In fact, we’re grateful that you unwittingly led us to the bike shop, where our field agents could comb the premises and eventually locate the bike. So I’m no longer interested in your connection, or lack thereof, to the bike.”

  “So what’s this all about? Why follow me to the middle of the world to keep bothering me?”

  “Information. Connections.”

  “What?”

  Darwin scrutinized me a moment longer before continuing. “My organization has received intelligence that Juan Carlos planned to leak my client’s stolen information to the media. He planned to expose the person in question at Chain Reaction, which was crawling with cameras and reporters. We figured out you, of all people, were his media contact. A kid. What are the odds?”