Old Poison

by Joan Francis

  I was talking to myself again, but J. Edgar thought I was talking to him and answered.

  “Context of questions not specified. Answer unknown. Would you like his identification file?”

  I looked at the little robot. I have never known what all Sam had this guy programmed to do and would never impose upon our friendship by asking such an indelicate question. “Can you give me his identity, J. Edgar?”

  “His image matches one of my data records to eighty-nine percent. Would you like to view the record?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Sam walked in the door just as I finished reading the six-page bio on Harry Winczewski. He was a nineteen-year career officer in military intelligence and the commander of an elite black ops force with a budget carefully hidden as military child welfare and education. He had been forced out of the service when his continued presence might have exposed secrets regarding Ollie North, Ronny Reagan, and Irangate. I knew him as Harriman Woods of Blue Morpho.

  I handed Sam the bio and the picture of Woods/Winczewski printed from the news report. “Saw one of my kidnappers on television, and J. Edgar offered to ID him for me. I hope it was okay to accept.”

  Sam didn’t answer. He stared at the image. “Silly son of a bitch. He still likes to show off his colors and rank. Never was able to teach him subtlety.”

  “You know this guy?”

  He sat on the couch beside me. “Was this the guy at White’s Boatyard?”

  With that question, his face took on an expression I had never seen. His voice was low, controlled, in a tone I had never heard. This was the old Sam, the one who ran black operations for U.S. military intelligence. My gentle companion had suddenly morphed into someone I didn’t know, someone cold, hard, and dangerous.

  I nodded.

  “You read the bio?”

  Another nod.

  “You understand what this means? You can’t fuck with this guy, Diana.”

  “And how do I keep him from fu . . . messing with me?”

  Sam didn’t answer. I knew he was processing an answer, and I waited. He hit the picture with the back of his free hand.

  “There were a lot of guys like him in the service. They’re the reason I got out. They have no real understanding of freedom, of the true brilliance of our constitution. They are totally immoral and unprincipled, with no true sense of patriotism. For them it was just a game in which the end justified any means.”

  I had never heard Sam speak so passionately. He looked back down at the picture and shook his head.

  “The worst thing about it was, the end didn’t even have to make good sense. In most cases the real purpose was just to make good dollars. Most of what we did wasn’t for freedom or democracy, it was to prop up some fucking zillionaire corporation.”

  I nodded. “Well, I guess now he’s gone to work for the end client. I think this is the guy who has been sniffing around Nate for the last two weeks. I saw him at the insurance seminar as well as at White’s. My guess is he didn’t find whatever it was that Evelyn had on Morpho, and he’s nosing around Nate for a lead.”

  “That Martian crap? He’s a crazy son of a bitch, but I don’t think he’d bite on science fiction bait.”

  “I have been thinking about that, too, and about the articles I read on Evelyn’s first attempt to expose the problem with Morpho’s fuel. I think she had more than the Martian Diary. I think she had some sort of scientific proof, maybe some of Morpho’s own secret studies or something. She had something that scared the shit out of them.”

  “Diana, do you have any idea the kind of power you’re up against here? You think those clowns and puppets we elect to Washington really run this country? No. The world is no longer run by nations, it’s run by international, interlocking corporations. What you are after isn’t just Morpho. You’re going after the most powerful industry in the world. They’ll swat you like a fly.”

  I believed him. “Sam, I’m basically a coward, and I have no delusions about my ability to deal with this kind of organization. I would gladly drop it and hope to hell Evelyn’s story of ecological destruction was just an environmental nightmare. But do you believe Harriman Woods is going to drop it? He is already onto Nate. He already saw me. I may have been disguised, and he may not know my name yet, but how long do you think it will take him to ferret it out? Do I have any real choice?”

  Sam studied his hands for a moment, then scratched his head, then interlaced his fingers on the top of his curly gray locks, and sat staring out the window. I waited quietly for several minutes.

  “Costa Rica,” he said, then looked back at me. “That week between the day you saw Evelyn on the bike trail and the date she was found dead in the wash, she spent four days in Costa Rica. She flew from Orange County to San Jose, then back to New York. Then she flew to Phoenix two days before she was murdered.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He smiled. “You think I’ve just been sitting on my butt while you’ve been gone?” Thoughtfully, he continued, “I just didn’t know what to make of it until now. If they had found what they wanted on Evelyn, Harry wouldn’t still be looking. My guess is she stashed it in Costa Rica. I guess finding it first is the best life insurance.”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to see the rain forests of Costa Rica before they disappear.”

  “Yeah, well, we just have to make sure you don’t disappear.” He pulled me to him and hugged me.

  “You remember the story I told you last night? The one code-named “Pied Piper” that you made me stop telling in the middle?”

  I remembered the story all right. It was the one that was so horrific that I couldn’t bear to hear it. I pulled back and looked in Sam’s face, waiting for what I knew he was going to say.

  “It was Harry Winczewski who dreamed up the idea of sending those village kids back to their parents a piece at a time.”

  My stomach turned over in revulsion. I know my face showed my horror.

  “Diana, you’re going to have to be like the prairie dog with plenty of back doors to dive for cover, a half a dozen backup identities, lots of money, and some trustworthy help. I still have some contacts. I’ll make a call or two.”

  “OK, and I’ll get started on those backup identities.”

  * * * * *

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The next morning I was scheduled for special treatment at Rick’s Coiffeurs Americain. After I took a long soak in the hot tub and received an hour-long massage, Richard began my “beauty” treatments. I’d requested a disguise that would age me but not require face mask or body padding because that might be detected and cause questions and grief. He complied with uncanny artistry: fingernails short and broken, hair salt-and-pepper gray with that look of just growing out of a bad permanent, leg hair unshaven, varicose veins on the legs, liver spots on the hands, sunspots on the face, a light sprinkling of chin and mustache whiskers, eye bags and shadows, eyebrows thinned to wispy stubs, and every line on my face delicately deepened, all with makeup that would not wash off with ordinary soap and water. I was appalled as I watched myself age.

  Someone said, “Rick, what have you done? She was beautiful when she came in.”

  I knew the voice instantly but didn’t identify the speaker at first. In that split second before I looked up to see who it was, I felt a joyous response as if someone I knew and loved had just walked into the room. With my pupils narrowed in the bright makeup light and the rest of the room fairly dark, the woman behind me was only a shadowed silhouette, but that was enough. The hat brim pulled down slightly over one eye, the famous profile, and most of all, the voice and accent. Ingrid Bergman had just walked into the room. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Ilsa Lund, for the actress was costumed in the suit and hat from that wonderful parting scene in Casablanca.

  I turned around to get a better look. “Please, say something else.”

  “What would you like me to say?”

  “That is amazing. You have the voice and ac
cent down perfectly. That is the best Bergman I have ever heard.”

  She laughed, still in character it seemed, because it was Ilsa’s quiet, controlled little laugh. “That,” she said, “is the only thing about me that is real. All the rest I owe to Rick.”

  “Yeah,” said Rick in his very poor Bogart, “Of all the beauty shops and all the spas in Beverly Hills, she had to walk into mine.”

  “It’s a good thing you hire your Bogart, Rick.”

  He gave me a look but returned to his normal voice, which was closer to Tom Conte.

  “The minute I heard this lady speak, I knew I had to have her as my permanent Ilsa. Now I not only have an impersonator, but she also serves as my full-time receptionist, that is, when she’s not off digging up old bones.”

  “Yes, that’s what he says, but the truth is he knew my husband had died and I needed work. He is a soft touch, this one.”

  “Don’t say such things. Every out-of-work actor in Hollywood will be in here looking for a gig.”

  I was still spellbound. “No, you are wonderful. Face, body, voice, accent, you’re perfect.”

  “You certainly are,” said Richard wistfully. There was something so obvious in his voice that I realized he was hopelessly in love with this creation of his. Shades of Pygmalion. But of course, he would be. Rick of Rick’s Coiffeurs Americain finally finds his Ilsa. There was an awkward silence because all three of us had heard that telltale note in Richard’s voice.

  “OK, girls, I suppose you expect lunch too. Demanding, demanding, all the time. I never get a moment to myself. I just happen to have a quiet table for three reserved. Come along.”

  I looked at the old woman in the mirror. “You’re not really going to take me out in public looking like this are you?” In fact, what I was really wondering was if there was any chance that either Camas or Walsom might happen into the restaurant and yell, “Seize that woman!”

  “Well, of course I am. It will be a good chance for you to practice your Aunt Tillie walk and your Midwestern drawl. And Diana, if you’re going to fit that polyester jacket properly for the role, lose the bra.”

  The staff at Musso and Frank’s is just about immune to the dizzying luster of stardom. They have seen them all, the stars, directors, writers, and musicians; but none the less, the appearance of a young and beautiful Ingrid Bergman turned every head in the place. It was almost like stop-motion photography. All conversation and all eating stopped as gawking diners and waiters followed our procession to a secluded wooden booth at the back. I really didn’t need to worry about my appearance. Next to Ilsa, I might as well have been invisible.

  As we ate, I got to know the real woman, Sophia Hamerstat, and found her every bit as fascinating as the character she was hired to impersonate. Sophia’s husband had been a famous, if somewhat unorthodox, archeologist, and she had traveled with him to the ends of the Earth. Though she avoided discussing personal information, it was obvious that their marriage had been more than a romance and more than a professional partnership. She and her late husband had been soul mates who shared their passion for archeology and for each other. My heart went out to Richard. I could understand why he would fall in love with this woman who possessed such a strange combination of strength, joy, and sadness, but how could he possibly hope to take the place of the idealized ghost she still loved?

  The real surprise, however, came when her comments added a new mystery to my current case and made the hair stand up on my arms.

  On hearing that I was going to Costa Rica, she said. “Ah, you go to the land where the night frog sings. Paul and I went there.” Then she studied me like she was reading my mind and said, “You must go to the Diquis to see the mystery spheres. They are granite balls cut so perfectly spherical that even with today’s technology it would be hard to replicate. There is not one culture in the known history of the area that would have been capable of making them, yet thousands of them have been found. The indigenous population conquered by the Spaniards in the fifteen hundreds said the Old Ones had made them and that their purpose had something to do with the sky. My husband believed they were once arranged to chart the heavens and teach astronomy, navigation, and mathematics to a great seafaring culture, now forgotten in time.”

  Her description of the spheres and their purpose sounded so much like those in Antia’s last diary entry that astonishment registered on my face. Sophia misinterpreted my expression as disbelief and a controlled anger seeped into her voice. “But then he believed a lot of things that brought ridicule from his colleagues.”

  “No, Sophia, I have read somewhere of such a university, a place with granite spheres where they taught astronomy and navigation. Did your husband write a book on this idea? Is his theory something someone else could have read and picked up on?”

  When she realized I was not ridiculing her husband’s work, the defensive tone relaxed and was replaced with one of sadness and regret. “No, no book. He wrote a paper, but no scholarly journal in his field would publish it. With a choice of publishing in a magazine of doubtful scholarship or not publishing, he chose not to publish. To read it, one would have to check out the single copy of his graduate thesis from the University of Costa Rica library. Others, however, are now giving some credence to the idea, so I am not surprised you have read of it.”

  For the rest of our lunch I allowed Richard and Sophia to carry the conversation while I considered what the chances were that Evelyn had found Paul Hamerstat’s thesis. She had lived four years in Costa Rica and had taught at the university in San Jose. It was possible. Did that prove the Martian Diary was her creation? If so, who were the Caretakers watching Nate? Were they also Evelyn’s creation? More unanswerable questions. Perhaps I would find the answers in Costa Rica.

  * * * * *

  TWENTY-NINE

  I walked through the echoing concrete building, appraising the dirty walls and following the signs to what appeared to be the Customs desk and the lone Customs inspector. After eight hours on the plane, it wasn’t hard to move with the stiff-jointed old lady walk I had been practicing. I actually appreciated leaning on the cane. It wasn’t necessary to worry about my disguise for Customs, however, for the man at the desk never even looked directly at me. When I hesitated at his post, he impatiently waved me and my bags toward the open doorway.

  Once outside, I stood blinking in the bright sunlight. My first steps onto Costa Rican soil were not what my travel handbook had led me to expect. Though I knew that coffee and banana fincas and great parks of protected tropical forests were out there somewhere, my first view of CR was a small alley, surrounded by concrete walls, filled with yellow taxis and terrible tailpipe exhaust.

  I walked toward the line of cabs, my breathing becoming shallow as I tried not to inhale the noxious fumes. I paused involuntarily at a shiny new yellow cab that was like the rest with one exception. Emblazoned on the side in letters of forest green was the name The Green Machine. The moment I hesitated, the driver was out of his car, smiling and reaching for my bags.

  “Buenas, Senora. You go to San Jose?”

  I held tight to the bags, and he stopped and met my eyes. He looked to be in his early thirties, brown hair, blue eyes, and a serious demeanor hidden beneath a charming smile. “Los Yoses,” I responded. “Why do you call this bright yellow taxi the Green Machine?”

  “The taxi is yellow but the machine is green. Catalytic converter, unleaded gas, low emissions, and great gas mileage.” He smiled and patted the fender. “It is all new and all mine.”

  He reached for the bags again. I held on and asked, “How much to Los Yoses?”

  “Twenty U.S.”

  “I thought is was a ten-dollar ride into town.”

  “To San Jose in a pollutions machine, yes. To Los Yoses is more far. And with me, you get a driver who speak English and give you a clean, green ride.”

  I liked this guy. I handed him my bags and climbed in. As he shoved his Green Machine in gear, he looked at me in the rear-view mir
ror. “Where you want to go in Los Yoses?”

  “Just a second,” I said as I dug into my bag for my note with the directions. Sam and I had decided that renting an apartment from a private party in a suburb would be safer than staying in a hotel in the city, and would help preserve my cover. On the Internet, I had contacted a woman named Maria Campos who had advertised an apartment in the Tico Times newspaper. We made a deal and I asked her for a street address, only to receive a cyber laugh as she typed “LOL”. She wrote back, “No one in Costa Rica uses a street address. In fact most people don’t even know the name of the street they live on. Locations are given in terms of how many meters they are from known landmarks. She had then typed me very specific instructions to give the cab driver. Hesitantly I asked, “Do you know the Mas X Menos market?”

  “Sure. But you say, ‘Mas por Menos.’ It mean more for less.”

  “English, Green Machine, and Spanish lessons. Such a deal.”

  He checked the mirror to see if I was joking or complaining. Reassured by my smile, he beamed me his boyish grin. “My name is Roberto. Hire my taxi by the day and I also give you a very good price.”

  “Thanks, Roberto.” I handed him Maria’s directions to her home. “My name is Matilda, but most people call me Aunt Tillie.”

  “Tia Tillie, muy bien.”

  The ride from the airport took us by freeway to downtown San Jose, then by narrow, crowded streets through the city to the suburb of Los Yoses. The car exhaust was near asphyxiation levels, and I hadn’t had a ride quite like it since age nine when an aunt took me on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. Stopping at red lights and stop signs seemed to be optional, and the right of way went to the guy who was pushiest and fastest. Roberto squeezed his little Green Machine through tight knots of traffic where I was sure we had no more than two inches of clearance. He also placed a great deal more faith in his fellow drivers than my defensive driving methods allowed for. By the time we arrived at our destination, I realized that everyone here drove the same way and that Roberto was quite skilled at the local sport. With this realization, I decided against renting a car.