“Let’s get to work, Daisy. Jack’s one of us. He can hear or see anything.”
We arranged ourselves around a small conference table near the window. I was nearest the windows. Below me Mexico City started to fill with people and noise.
“First of all,” Gearheardt began, “what did we get last night locally? Let’s deal with that first.”
A redhead had come into the room, closing and locking the door after Benito had exited. She was a knockout, if you liked redheads. Without makeup she had a wholesome look, discounting the fact that she was ‘dressed’ in a diaphanous yellow gown. And not much else that I could see.
“Lisa was on duty last night to collect and write the report, Señor Pepe,” Daisy said.
“Ola, Lisa. You are lovely this morning. Anything of note?”
Lisa smiled her acknowledgement of the compliment and nodded at me. She consulted notes that she had brought in. “A policia major is bringing in men from Cuernavaca and Taxmil,” she said. “They will arrive tonight and be here until after the sixth of May. Maybe twenty men.”
“Not surprising, but good information. What else?” Gearheardt asked.
“Another police captain has on his team a sharpshooter who is one of the best in Mexico. He will be on top of the Angel’s tower, across from the park.” She looked up at Gearheardt. “He is trained by the Russians. This captain I entertained myself. He was very proud to have the honor of providing a sharpshooter from his station. If you want more information, I believe he will be back this evening. I promised him something special.” She actually blushed.
“I’ll let you know, Lisa. With the president giving a speech in the park, none of this is surprising. Anything unusual at all? From here or from our other offices?”
“I think so, Señor. An office near the palace had visitors from Russia and Cuba last night. The black men from Cuba were angry and the Russians were buying the drinks and paying for the girls. This is unusual for the Russians to pay for anyone.”
I spoke up. “Lisa, my name is Jack. I wanted to ask if the Cubans were living here or if they were from out of town. Did the ‘office’ tell you that?”
“Good question, Jack. I see where you’re going. What about it, Lisa?”
“I have no information on that, Señor Pepe. But the girls did say,” she checked her notes again, “that none of the men were regular. The other thing is that the girls promised to the men that new young girls, perhaps virgins, were coming to the place on the day after Cinco de Mayo. None of the men had interest.” She looked up at me and then Gearheardt. “This is unusual. Perhaps the men would not be in town.”
“A good assumption, Lisa. Tell the girls to have extra security men that night. If someone comes expecting a new young girl, they can get very angry to be disappointed,” Daisy said.
“Okay, Lisa. If you can get your notes typed up and back to Daisy before you start work today, I would appreciate it. Daisy, if you have nothing further, Jack and I need to pow wow and go over everything.” He stood up as Daisy and Lisa rose. “Perhaps we can have lunch brought in. If that could be arranged.”
“We did not discuss Nairobi, Pepe,” Daisy said. She nodded at Lisa, instructing her to go ahead and leave. I couldn’t help but follow Lisa’s departure.
“I’m afraid I have nothing new, Daisy. I may have to go there myself.” He turned to me. “The girls in our biggest office in Kenya unfortunately were discovered sending a teletype. We are not sure any of them survived the beatings but one or two may be in the Nairobi jail. I’m trying to get more information.”
“And Cuba?” Daisy asked.
“I’m working on it, Daisy. It looks pretty good, but there are a lot of ‘ifs.’”
After Daisy left, promising to have lunch brought in, Gearheardt moved to a desk.
“You’ll have to excuse me for a while, Jack. I’ve got a briefing paper that has to go out by nine. Part of my deal with the Agency. One for the DCI and one for the President.”
“Of the United States?”
“I spice that one up pretty good. Every once in a while we catch a mistress that’s pissed or has been dumped. France is good for one about once a month and we’ve had a couple of scoops from our Italian office in Rome.” He buried himself in teletype pages, pecking on a typewriter every few minutes.
“Can I look through some of these files?”
Gearheardt considered for a moment. “Sure. Just remember that the files you’re looking through are raw files. The girls are not always reliable. Those that say things like the police chief is planning to bomb the embassy on Tuesday are more than likely grudge reports. Guys let things slip and brag a lot, but usually don’t give away dates and times.”
“So how do you—”
“I don’t. I have an office in Paris staffed with ex-spy types from about half a dozen countries. They go over everything for hard data, cross-check with other references and write a report once a week. Or they flash it to me if they think they’ve found something really hot. We sell a lot of business information too. Those traveling bastards will tell a girl everything but the formula for Coke.”
While Gearheardt typed away I learned about a general in Africa who liked to wet the bed, a diplomat from a European country involved in shipping mines to Pakistan, a Saudi who insisted on whores with Jewish names and features who frequented a brothel in Egypt, and dozens of troop movements, assignments, and coming military promotions around the world. At once funny and immeasurably sad, the reports were evidence of a lot of drunken blabbermouth officials, feeding their egos by trying to impress women who hated them. I found I couldn’t open the Nairobi file. I didn’t want to see what the girls there had been beaten to death for finding out.
“What about Daisy, Gearheardt?” I forgot I was not to interrupt him.
“Daisy? She’s pretty unusual, actually. A lot of the madams are threatened by what the girls are doing. You can imagine. They’re in cahoots with the police or the brothel owners or both. That’s one of the things that make this business so dangerous for the girls. If the mama-san finds out you’re ISP, you better have an escape plan. And of course few of the girls do. We buy off the madams where we can. They’re usually even worse than the men because they fear the owners both physically and financially. The girls have the physical fear, but most of them don’t expect to be driving Ferraris any time soon.”
He shrugged. “Give me just a moment more, Jack. There’s a financial summit coming up in Lima and I’m outlining the traffic concerning the security.”
“Do you tell the girls to target certain people?”
“Hold on.” Gearheardt typed steadily.
“Okay.” He pulled the last sheet from the typewriter and put the stack into a large manila envelope. “Didn’t you say you’re meeting your secretary this morning? Save me a courier fee and give this to her. You can trust her can’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. I’ve got the name of who she should give it to.” He tossed the envelope to me. “Now you were asking about targets? Never. We don’t ever ask the girls to do anything. We never encourage them to take risks, ask questions, or go through a guy’s pockets. Their job is dangerous enough as it is. And we don’t pay them, in case you were about to ask. If they started having money, the pimps and owners would just take it, and beat them until they found out where they got it.”
He unlocked the side drawer of his desk and pulled out a thin file. Tossing it over onto my desk, he stood up and came over to where he could read over my shoulder. The file was marked “Goodbye Mexico.”
“That’s all we’ve gotten on our own mission so far, Jack. No one is talking.”
I was uncomfortable with him behind me, so I scooted back my chair and went to the coffee pot. I poured a cup and held it out to him. He shook his head no.
“Gearheardt, don’t get pissed because I ask you this, but helping these girls, or using these girls, isn’t it more or less hypocritical to—”
“Because I chase whores all the time, Jack? Is that what you’re asking?”
“I guess so. It just seems strange.”
“I didn’t say I was Mother Teresa. You can discuss the morality with Crenshaw, Jack. I treat the girls anywhere in the world with respect and always pay them well. And now I run one of the best damn intelligence companies in the world. I don’t apologize for that, or for frequenting the women.”
“But you use their information and you don’t pay them.”
“I don’t give them cash, Jack. But I give them a weapon to use against the rotten men they have to be with. And I give them hope for the future. ISP wants to prepare a place where they can go.” He paused, looking embarrassed. “I’ll be king there, Jack.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious. His serious smile and his jerking me around smile were too similar.
“I’m going to go meet Juanita. Walking will be good for me. I’ll be back about eleven.”
Gearheardt slapped my shoulder as I went to pick up the envelope. “That Lisa was a doll wasn’t she Jack? Did you notice she was a natural redhead?”
He sat back down and opened the Goodbye Mexico file. “Don’t get too introspective on me, Jack. You’re probably going to have to shoot that damn Victor day after tomorrow.” He paused. “Damn this mission is screwed up.”
At the door I turned back to him. “You mentioned something about me being sent here without knowing the language. Of course I know it’s strange, but what did you mean?”
“That someone at Langley is way ahead of us, Jack, me boy. The question is are we being made to ‘play the fool’ as they say.” He laughed. “Don’t you hate the missions where you have a bunch of people lined up to assassinate someone and then everything gets mixed up and no one knows who’s killing who?”
So he was as confused as I was. That was bad.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TO ASS* OR NOT TO ASS, THAT IS THE QUESTION
(*UNOFFICIAL ABBREVIATION FOR ASSASSINATE)
As I walked through the Zona Rosa toward Chapultepec Park, I tried not to think how much better my life had been running when Gearheardt was dead. I had a nice Austrian girlfriend. My Spanish was coming along. And I had a mission that was paying off. My assets and I had broken into a ring running bombs and weapons to American and Mexican would-be terrorists. The fact that we had discovered that the real object was drugs made it all the more important. Sure Rodrigo was not Father Flanagan, but he knew the ropes of the near-underworld trades and he was diligent. The Agency was beginning to get some heat for working closely with the criminal class, but it was laughable to think we could do the job without contacts in the gangs involved in the trafficking.
Now Gearheardt was drawing me into the foreign policy and global manipulation bullshit that I had avoided even thinking about since Vietnam. Namely, taking over countries, assassinating leaders, looking to change hearts and minds (nearly impossible) and being a part of some long term ‘strategy’ that was sure to leave the splintered flotsam and jetsam of third world societies in its wake.
It wasn’t that I disagreed with it, or could think of an alternative course of action for the U.S. I just didn’t want to be a part of it. I liked my intervention on a local level. As Gearheardt had said, “Nuclear bombs, smuclear bombs. I want to run over the sonsabitches in my car. Throw it in reverse and run over ‘em again. Nuclear warfare just means we’ve lost the will to get our hands dirty, or bloody.” Of course Gearheardt was crazy. And his scheme now was more ‘global’ than ‘local.’ And, and …
It was just damn confusing.
Turning the corner to reach the park I passed one of many flower vendors and decided to get flowers for Juanita. I was early, and therefore surprised when I saw Juanita sitting on a bench waiting for me. She had a briefcase which I assumed contained my files.
“Ola, Juanita. Thank you for coming to see me.”
“De nada, Señor Jack. It is good to see you. Very good.” She squealed with delight at the flowers, made to hug me and then awkwardly drew back and shook my hand.
We discussed the gossip around the office while I went through my files. Nothing very exciting. My jacket from Colombia was becoming an issue as the offices traded faxes over the payment of shipping costs. Finally it was sent by diplomatic courier.
Then a page of traffic caught my eye. It was actually addressed to Crenshaw. From the Bogotá office:
Request scope of Armstrong activity concerning Colombian citizens in Mexico. Top State (the ambassador) questions authority to prosecute without explicit finding.
Which meant that someone in Bogotá had been feeling heat about the missing Colombian student in Mexico City. It was more or less a fishing expedition. Probably a high Colombian official had made an unofficial inquiry on behalf of a friend. The Ambassador said he would look into it. It didn’t concern me. Yet.
“Anything else, Juanita? Has anyone heard from Crenshaw?” I wanted to give her the comfort of knowing that he was alive, but for now, she was better off only knowing what was official.
“They have said he is in the mountains. That is all that I know. The new Agency man, Señor Davis, tell me not to worry. He is taking care.” She came closer and lowered her voice. “He is look for you, Señor Jack. I don’t like him too much.”
“Juanita, tell him that you met me. Tell him that he needs to check with the ambassador to find out where I am and what I am doing.”
“The Ambassador, he knows?”
“No. But that conversation will buy me a few more days. Neither will trust the other to tell the truth. Since they will both say they don’t know where I am or what I am doing, then both will assume the other is lying.”
“Que?”
“Each will think that I am doing something that only the other one knows about.”
“Is smart, Señor Jack. You are good CIA man.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But listen, Juanita, I need another favor. Tell Eric that I need to see any traffic that comes through that mentions Cinco de Mayo or Goodbye Mexico. No matter whether I am copied or not. Can you do that for me? It’s only for a couple of days.”
“It’s no problem.”
“If you need to get in touch with me, you have my apartment number. I will give you another place. Don’t write it down, just remember it and give it to no one. Qien sabe? This number is only in case of emergency.” I gave her the number in Gearheardt’s office in Las Palomas.
“Oh, so you will be with Señor Gearheardt.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That damn Gearheardt was ahead of me every where. “Yes, you can reach me there if you have information that you think I need to know.”
“Señor Gearheardt has good mission, no?”
I wasn’t sure which of Gearheardt’s many missions she might be referring to so I just said ‘yes.’
“Cuba,” she said. A broad smile.
I nodded my head as if I had full and complete knowledge of what she meant.
“Vaya con Dios, Jack.” Juanita stretched up and put her arms around my neck. I had always suspected she had a crush on me. When I leaned into her, she whispered, “My sister, ISP.” She released my neck and smiled shyly, gathering up the papers and shoving them into the briefcase borrowed from the embassy.
“Your sister? I am sorry, Juanita. Can I help?” I assumed that dire straits led her sister to prostitution. “Where is she? Who is she?”
She shrugged at the ‘where.’ “Her name is Maria Teresa Sanchez.”
It was one of the names Gearheardt had given me when I was to pick up two women and take them to the motel the first night I met Gearheardt.
“Juanita,” I said, “this package is from Gearheardt. It has to do with the economic summit. Can you drop it to the name on the envelope?”
She took the package, folded it and thrust it into her purse. “Asta luego, Jack.”
“Asta luego, Juanita.”
I sat back down on the park bench and watched her walk
away, disappearing into the crowd on the sidewalk. The sun was warm on my face and the beautiful young girls that strolled by were a distraction. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the little ‘cigarette boy’ that I now knew was the Pygmy. “Hey,” I shouted, “over here.”
He saw me waving and began walking in the other direction. He looked back as I stood up and then began to run. His cigarette selling technique seemed poor.
I lost him in the crowd and sat back down. The flower vendors and tourists swirled around me. Chapultepec Castle was above me. I had dirty clothes in one of the many bedrooms. Did the tourists get to see those? Why had Gearheardt’s plan of using it for his headquarters gone wrong? There were so many things that I wanted to have answers for. But who to ask? I trusted Gearheardt but he was a genius of evasion and contradictions. Crenshaw? Aside from the fact that he was trapped in the mountains, I had betrayed him by working for Gearheardt without telling him. I doubted if he would have leveled with me. Marta was unreliable. She was obviously conflicted in her mission, whatever it was. And what had Gearheardt meant when he said ‘I’ll be the king?’
I took a taxi back to Gearheardt’s new headquarters at Las Palomas. At the front door I met Marta, also just stepping from a taxi.
“Did you find Victor?” I asked.
“Si, Jack.” She looked up the building. “What is this place that I am to meet Gearheardt?”
I took her arm and led her inside, up the stairs and through the double doors which were now open. A number of young Mexican women were sitting in the room this time. Several of them whistled lowly when they saw Marta. Chiquita saw me and got up to let me through the locked door where Gearheardt had taken me.
“Now do you know where we are?” I asked Marta. As soon as I said it, I wondered if Marta took it as an insult. But I was probably being too sensitive.
Goodbye Mexico Page 20