Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43

by High Adventure (v1. 1)

  Back at Fido’s around midnight, there was Tandy at the bar, talking with two American college boys. She left them, carried her glass over to Kirby, and said, “You and Daddy all talked out?”

  “Your father’s a forceful personality,” Kirby said.

  “I didn’t see you fight him off much,” she said.

  Kirby looked at her. “Honey,” he said, “if you haven’t got ahead of him in thirty years, how do you expect me to do it in an hour?” She blinked. She frowned. “Twenty-eight,” she said, and knocked back some of her drink.

  “My apologies.”

  “The sun ages you,” she said, forgiving him. “Every fucking thing ages you, come to that. Where are you staying?”

  “Nowhere yet.”

  Surprised, she managed to focus on him, saying, “You don’t have a hotel room?”

  “Not yet.”

  She laughed, a throaty chuckle that suggested the baritone she would be in 20 years. “You’re a damn beach bum!” she said.

  “I told you earlier,” he patiently explained, “I flew in this morning, thought I might fly out again this afternoon, never got around to it.”

  “That’s right, you’re a pilot, I forgot. Come on and sleep on the Cow.”

  He considered that. “Daddy?”

  “When Daddy sleeps, Daddy sleeps. That’s one place, Kirby, wdiere I will not put up with trouble.”

  He gave her an admiring grin. “Tandy, you’re an interesting woman. You have depths.”

  “Check it out,” she said.

  If Daddy slept through all that, his subconscious must have thought they were sailing through a hurricane. Tandy’s elegantly cramped quarters were below, a long isosceles triangle beneath the foredeck, while Daddy slept in the convertible sitting lounge above. A small air conditioner competed with the capacity of two active human bodies to generate heat, and lost. Everybody’d had a bit too much to drink, Tandy refused to permit any light at all, and The Laughing Cow bobbed and rolled in its mooring in arhythmic sequences that Kirby could never quite adapt to. The whole thing became as much an engineering problem as anything else, but one well worth the solving. Slippery rubbery flesh slid and tumbled, muscles moved beneath the skin, arms and hands reached for purchase and slid away. “I think it goes like this,” Kirby said.

  “Oh, Jesus. That’s the way, that’s the way.”

  Kirby chewed on a nipple that tasted of salt. Breath in his ear sounded like fanoff surf. The rhythms of sea and man merged and separated, merged and separated. “God, I’m thirsty!” Tandy cried, and collapsed like a sail, in the calm after a storm. Kirby had never heard a woman say precisely that in such a situation before.

  A lot of elbows woke him, some of them his own. Cool darkness, the hush of a nearby air conditioner, all these elbows and knees and— ouch—foreheads in this too-small bunk. Memory came to his rescue just as Tandy patted him all over, hoarsely whispering, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Kirby Galway,” he told her. “I’m the pilot. One of the better guys.” “Shit,” she said, “you probably are, at that.” She laid her hot dry head on his chest, and he put an arm around her vulnerable thin shoulders. “What a life,” she said, and they slept.

  7 GLIMPSES

  The sun that had greeted Kirby in the sky early that morning had a little later peeked down through the moist layers of leaf and branch and vine and foliage to the jungle floor in the Maya Mountains near the Guatemalan border where it caught glimpses of a hunched hurrying figure in camouflage fatigues, moving west, staring about himself, nervous, flinching from every jungle sound, occasionally staring up in anguish at the watching sun, as though it were a hawk and he a vole.

  Vernon panted as he moved, more from fear than exertion. He hadn’t expected another summons from the Colonel so soon, nor had he realized before last night just how completely he was in the Colonel’s power. He could no longer refuse the man, was no longer his own master. The Colonel could destroy Vernon at any time, not by reaching into his holster for that big Colt .45, but simply by passing on to the British Army or the Belizean government the proof of Vernon’s . . .

  . . . treason.

  “It means nothing” Vernon gasped, hurrying to meet his master. Guatemala could never invade, could never capture Belize. Taking the Colonel’s money was dishonorable, yes, chicanery at worst, because it was not within Vernon’s power, or anyone’s power, to sell Belize to Guatemala. And yet, and yet . . .

  Everything was coming together at once, in the most terrible way. He had murdered Valerie Greene, yes he had, he had murdered her just as surely as if he had done it himself with his own hand. But he was not cut out to be a murderer; too late he understood that. He wanted to be a man with no conscience at all, and he was riddled with conscience as another man might be riddled with leprosy. The sting of his petty treason was as nothing to the savage bum of his guilt as a murderer.

  And just as the Colonel held Vernon’s fate and future in the palm of his hand, so did the skinny black man, Vernon’s partner in murder. He had disappeared without a word, without a word except for a circular trail of Land Rover parts around Punta Gorda. Presumably he had fled the country; certainly, the police were looking for him. Could it be (astonishing idea) that he too had been unequal to murder, had been unhinged by it, driven to flight? If so, and if he were found, he would surely spill the whole story, starting with Vernon’s name.

  “Too many things,” Vernon muttered, thrashing through the undergrowth, the moisture of his face part sweat and part dew and part tears. The wet fronds slapped at him, the ground was soggy and treacherous beneath his feet, and he could never entirely hide from the sun.

  The Daimler wasn’t yet there. Good; it gave Vernon a chance to get control of himself, calm down, dry his dripping face on his shirttail. He walked back and forth in the clearing, in and out of sunlight, commanding himself to be at peace. The Colonel would not betray him, because he was still too useful. The skinny black man would not be found and would not return. Be calm, he told himself, be tranquil, be at rest.

  How he longed to be at rest.

  The Daimler came slowly through the jungle, like a whale, like a black puddle. Vernon stood to the side of the dirt track as the Daimler approached, sunlight winking at him from its glass and chrome. The big machine stopped beside him, its passenger compartment window slid smoothly down, and the Colonel appeared in the dark rectangle, leaning forward, eyes hidden by large dark sunglasses. Behind him the feral woman sat reading a French magazine: Elie, Vernon, inadequately protected behind his own sunglasses, blinked and blinked.

  The Colonel extended a ringed hand out the window, holding a white envelope. “This is for you,” he said.

  Vernon took the envelope. It was softly thick with currency, a lot of currency. What does he want from me? Why did things always have to move so inexorably from the theoretical to the real?

  The Colonel had something else for him; a single sheet of paper. Vernon took it, and saw it was a Xerox of a part of one of the maps he’d given the Colonel the last time, a map showing recent refugee settlements. One of these was now circled in red. As he frowned at this map, wondering what it meant, the Colonel said, “On Friday, the day after tomorrow, a group of British journalists will be in Belice.”

  “Journalists?” Vernon reluctantly looked up from the map. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “They are coming,” the Colonel said. “One of the things they will do in Belice is visit a refugee village, on Friday afternoon.” Pointing at the map in Vernon’s hands, he said, “You will see to it that is the village they visit.”

  “But— Journalists? That has nothing to do with my department, I don’t—”

  “You have a driver? Your confederate?”

  Shocked that the Colonel knew so much about him, Vernon stammered, “He’s— he’s gone. Ran away a week ago. No-nobody knows why.”

  “Someone else then,” the Colonel said, dismissing the problem with a flick of his fingers
. The woman turned a page of her magazine; this time, she had no interest in Vernon at all. The Colonel, delegating authority, said, “You’ll arrange it. The journalists go to that village.”

  “I don’t know if I can—”

  “It is necessary,” the Colonel said. He confronted Vernon, impassive behind his dark glasses, waiting for another objection, prepared to slap it down. It is necessary; that was all his creature needed to know.

  I will not think about why the Colonel wants all these things, Vernon told himself, his plans are foolishness and vain, nothing can happen, nothing can change. “I— I’ll try,” he said miserably.

  “That village,” the Colonel said, and the window smoothly rolled up, ending the conversation.

  Bewildered, bedeviled, hopelessly entangled, Vernon stood and watched the Daimler drive away, returning the Colonel to his world of certainties. Rest. Tranquility. What was going to happen? Would it never end? What terrible fate was he fashioning for himself?

  Nearby, in bright sun, a large parrot on a branch looked at Vernon, spread his wings, and laughed.

  8 NORTH GUATEMALA: ME TAUGHT RON

  The Indians of the Central American forests are peasants, farmers who scratch a living and a life from the rich jungle soil. Their ancestors have lived on that soil and been buried in that soil for 2,000 years. They have endured famine and flood, disease and wild animals, fire and enemy tribes; but whatever has happened, the passive Indians have always stayed with the land.

  Today, the Indians want no more and no less than what they have always had; a piece of land in the jungles, small interrelated communities, and to be left alone. But today Central America is a part of the great world, and in the great world no one is left alone. The Indians cannot fight the death squads armed with submachine guns and the soldiers armed with helicopters. They can expect no mercy from the Ladinos who call them “animals with names.” Almost unbelievably, driven beyond endurance, the Indians are leaving their land.

  Refugees. After thousands of years, they have become refugees. The Miskito Indians have been in almost constant harried motion through Honduras and Nicaragua for the last three or four years, chivvied and persecuted by “civilized” men, driven to distraction. More truly civilized men and women in private religious groups have been helping Salvadoran and Guatemalan peasants relocate in Canada, and what on Earth shall they think of Canada? And some, in tribal and family groups of 10 or 20 or 50, thousands of them by now, have made the terrible, long, dangerous overland journey to the border of Belize, and across it ... to heaven.

  It is the jungle, as at home, but a wonderfully empty jungle, with miles and miles of unclaimed territory in which to scratch out a piece of land and start to live again. No armed masked men rove at night. The only military aircraft is the occasional British Harrier jet, gone almost before it arrives, flashing along the border to remind the Guatemalans of the futility of their dreams.

  The refugees arrive, fearful, ignorant, almost without hope. They begin their settlements, hiding as best they can from the world, and in a week or six months or a year they are found and the Belizean government sends its emissary to them; a social worker, perhaps, or an unarmed policeman, or a medical officer. They are told they have been accepted as immigrants; there are no formalities and they shall not be returned to hell. So long as they live on their piece of land, and use it, it is theirs. So long as they mind their own business, they will be left alone. The government is not their enemy, and is not at war with them. It asks only that they send their children to school: “We want to make good Belizeans of them.”

  The Indians don’t entirely understand, nor entirely believe. They build their huts out of the materials available in the jungle, they work their fields, and they keep one eye over their shoulder. But nothing happens. And slowly, over the course of years, they come to realize the truth:

  The war is over.

  9 A SMALL FORTUNE

  Innocent hardly tasted his food at all, and barely glanced at the beautiful sea. Lunching on lobster at the Chateau Caribbean, just up the bayfront from the Fort George, he had smilingly but firmly refused offers to join friends at this or that table, preferring his own gloomy company. Two Belikin beers had not restored him, nor had the sounds of happiness and good fellowship all around him. (At a nearby table, businessman Emory King, an American-bom Belizean citizen, was explaining to his group, “How do you wind up with a small fortune in Belize? You start with a large fortune.”)

  Valerie Greene. He simply could not get her out of his mind. This morning, doing his usual laps in the pool, it had occurred to him that Valerie had never seen his house, had never swum in his pool, and the thought had so dispirited him he’d stopped swimming at once, breaking his morning ritual for the first time in memory, trailing away unhappily to the house to get dressed.

  Which was all, of course, ridiculous. None of his women had seen his house, nor swum in his pool. Take a girlfriend to that wife, those four daughters? Not a chance.

  And yet, however absurd the idea might be, it still had the power to deflate him. Every thought of Valerie had the power to deflate him, in fact, rob him of happiness and contentment. And the strange thing was, as time went by his thoughts and memories were less and less about sex and more and more about her. Her smile, her naivete, her simple worldliness, her passion for honesty and truth. In his mind, she was becoming a saint.

  He avoided the word that would describe his condition. He could acknowledge—to himself—that he was grieving for her, but not even to himself could he face the reason why.

  “Innocent St. Michael?”

  Innocent looked up from his untouched lobster and unassuaged melancholy to see a white man looming over his table, extending a hand with a card in it. A very white man, ashen as a barracuda’s belly; just off the plane from the snowy north, no doubt. “Yes?” Innocent said, wanting nothing more than for the man to cease to exist; or at the very least, to go away.

  But he wouldn’t; waggling his fingers, he said, “My card.”

  Come along, Innocent, he told himself, you re still alive. Here’s a man with a card. Here’s a North American with money in his pockets, probably looking for a little investment, some land to buy or a business to associate himself with, a man wanting to wind up with a small fortune in Belize. Take an interest, Innocent.

  He took the man’s card, though not really with very much interest. The card told him the man was named Hiram Farley and he was associated with a magazine in New York City called Trend. Had Innocent managed to drum up any interest, it would now evaporate: “Reporter, eh?”

  “Editor,” Hiram Farley said, and uninvited pulled out the chair to Innocent’s right. Seating himself, stacking his forearms on Innocent’s table, he said, “Mister St. Michael, how familiar are you with your nation’s Antiquities Law of 1972?”

  Innocent raised an eyebrow. “The act says the Mayan ruins within Belize belong to the nation of Belize,” he said, “along with any and all contents, all others to keep bloody hands off. Is that familiar enough for you?”

  “Good,” Hiram Farley said. “Fine. And since that law was passed, back in 1972, that’s been the finish of the trade in smuggled Mayan artifacts, is that right?” .

  “That’s called irony,” Innocent told him. “What you just did there.” Despite himself, he was becoming involved with this fellow.

  Hiram Farley smiled. “Occupational hazard,” he explained. “Such a good cheap weapon, irony. ” Then he switched to a keen look, saying, “Mister St. Michael, some time ago I became aware of a scheme to smuggle pre-Columbian artifacts out of Belize and into the United States.”

  “Which you promptly reported to the officials of both nations,” Innocent suggested.

  “Irony; that’s good. Mister St. Michael, I had no proof, only a vague rumor. Hoping to get solid documentary evidence, both to turn over to the authorities and to present in an exclusive story in my magazine—”

  “Ah, yes, of course.”

 
“It isn’t only charity that begins at home, Mister St. Michael.”

  “I don’t know much about charity, Mister Farley,” Innocent said. “Tell me what you’ve done.”

  “I encouraged two friends of mine to come down here and pursue the suggestion of becoming engaged in the smuggling operation. Antique dealers from New York.”

  By God: Witcher and Feldspan! Innocent became so delighted with this revelation that absolutely nothing showed on his face. So this was the reason for the taping!

  And if Innocent hadn’t stepped in to remove those tapes, Kirby and his smuggling operation would right now be plastered all over the pages of Trend magazine!

  And Valerie? Would she be alive or dead?

  No; Trend would not have come out in time to save her.

  Kirby . . . Kirby . . . Kirby would already have killed her, in any event.

  Hiram Farley continued, while Innocent’s thoughts went racing. Farley explained about the tape recordings, their being stolen at the airport, and went on, “My friends—they’re not the sort for intrigues like this, certainly not for anything dangerous—they’ve made it clear they don’t have the heart to go on with the investigation, particularly if those tapes are now in the hands of the smugglers, as they almost certainly are.”

  Innocent’s mind was full of thoughts of Valerie and Kirby, but he managed to follow Hiram Farley well enough to say, “So now you’ll do it yourself?”

  “Mister St. Michael, I still want that story for Trend. And I imagine you would like to help save your patrimony from the thieves and smugglers. ”