“So, what can I do for you?” he asked impatiently. He’d had enough cloak and dagger for one day, thank you very much.
The girl turned solemn once more and reached for the manila folder. Opening it, Dan snuck a peek inside and saw scraps of paper with hastily scrawled notes, Xeroxed copies, receipts, and a pile of other documents that looked to have very little to do with him. Fingering her way through, she pulled out one of the Xeroxes and handed it across to him.
Dan started to look at it, but before he did, another thought occurred.
“Hey, have you been following me?” he asked with more hostility than he intended. Then he thought, screw her. She wasn’t the one being followed.
“No, senor, I have not,” she answered with deep sincerity while making certain to look him in the eye.
Dan believed her. Still, he was confused as all hell.
“Please, senor,” she said imploringly. “Just look at the picture, and afterward, I will tell you what I can.”
Tired of looking at pictures of people he didn’t know, Dan glanced at this one and saw it was a formal, black and white profile photo of a World War II-era German soldier. He wore an Iron Cross around his neck and had other impressive regalia on his chest and arms. After a cursory inspection, wanting to get this the hell over with, he took one final look at the face, and the eyes, and he saw it at almost the same instant she spoke.
“It is Esquinaldo,” she said in a whisper.
It could be no one else, Dan knew. The man in this photo was around thirty-five, which would be about right. Attractive in a Teutonic way, he had penetrating eyes that burned with the fury of a righteous zeal. Dan had no doubt these were the eyes he had looked into just this morning. A chill rippled up his spine to think that his host had this in his background, but still. It was none of his business.
He slid back the photo and shrugged. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said, realizing then he hadn’t asked her name. Probably for the best, he thought, because he was just about done with this.
He made a motion to get out of his seat.
“Have you seen this morning’s paper?” she asked him.
Looking up, he watched her lift a copy of the newspaper from the seat beside her. Staring out from its tawdry cover was the now familiar bullet-ridden face of the recently deceased journalist. She set the paper on the table front page up and stared at it. Curious now, Dan waited for her to speak.
“His name was Rodrigo Salazar,” she began, her voice a blend of warmth and bitterness. “He was married and had three children, two boys and one girl, who he loved with all of his heart. He was the best and most dogged reporter in the country, rooting out corruption wherever he could find it. You see, senor, that will be the death of my country, the corruption. It is everywhere. For such a beautiful country and a proud people, with so rich a heritage, to have to suffer so much corruption for as long as we have, it is almost too much to bear. You know, it’s funny, we look to your country, to the United States, and yes, we see you have problems just like anywhere else, crime and racism and poverty and all the rest. And yet, you do not suffer the corruption that we do, and that so many poor countries like us do. I do not know how you do it. Yes, I know there is some, for there will always be some. It seems somehow ingrained in human nature, no? But it seems too there is something deeply rooted in the American character that rejects the petty corruptions that are so prevalent most everywhere else. Even your president is not above the law, no? Nixon, that one who had to resign in disgrace. Our presidents? Ha! Every one of them is more corrupt than the last, leaving office far richer and fatter than when they entered. Meanwhile, most of our people live in poverty. And it has been ever thus, since we were first made a Republic and even before. It is the one thing I am jealous of about your country, senor, this rejection of public corruption. Rodrigo Salazar felt the same way, and they killed him for it.”
She stayed quiet after that. Dan heard hushed conversation coming from the bar. An occasional harsh laugh. On the television, the soccer announcers were excited about something. He noticed then that a tear had fallen from the girl’s eye. She didn’t bother wiping it away.
When the silence stretched longer than made him comfortable, he asked, “How did you know him?”
Still looking down, she smiled gauntly. “I was his research assistant. I am only in college now, but I hope someday to be a reporter as good and as brave as Rodrigo.”
Nodding, Dan again glanced at the image of Esquinaldo. He wasn’t at all sure what he was supposed to do with it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before asking, “Hey, what’s your name?
She looked up. “Rosa Lopez.”
Holding out his hand, he waited for her to take it before saying, “I’m Dan Proctor. Nice to meet you Rosa.” He waited another few beats before adding, “And I truly am sorry about your friend, but I’m afraid I have to ask what any of this has to do with me?”
The whole thing was a jigsaw puzzle he had neither the time nor the energy to figure out. He again cursed himself for leaving the mansion grounds at all.
“I am embarrassed to say I do not know that either, and I am sorry if I have wasted your time. As soon as I heard the news about Rodrigo, I went to his desk and collected all of his notes from a locked drawer, one that only he and I had the key to.” She gestured toward the manila folder. “This was all that was there. While he shared most everything with me, there were some stories he was careful to leave me out of. In retrospect, he was right, of course, but I snooped anyway. And when I saw this investigation appeared to be zeroing in on Esquinaldo, I did my own research on him. From what I have gathered, Esquinaldo is the key.”
“To what?” asked Dan.
She blew out a sigh. “I do not know, senor. But I have learned that in addition to industrial machinery and airplanes and automobile parts, Senor Esquinaldo’s business extends to armaments, to guns and ammunition and heavy weapons. He has contacts throughout the world, both east and west, and will sell arms to anyone who has the money to pay. Rodrigo’s notes reveal that he believed Esquinaldo’s business interests recently extended further, to drug dealing on an international scale, with him the middleman in distributing drugs from South and Central America and Mexico into the United States. Oddly, Rodrigo also believed that Esquinaldo was an agent of the U.S. government. But that cannot be so, can it?”
When she looked at him wide-eyed, Dan wanted so much to reassure her, to tell her that yes, it could not be so. But he knew better. Instead, he just shook his head and answered, “I don’t know.”
The silence lingered a while before she spoke again.
“Anyway, Senor Proctor, I am so very sorry to have taken any of your time. But when I saw that man talk to you at the bar, the journalist in me thought it might be, how do you say, worth a shot?”
Dan almost smiled to hear the heavily accented colloquialism. Still, it was time to end this thing. Jesus, it had already been a long day.
“Look, Rosa, again, I’m very sorry about your friend. And I’m sorry that I can’t provide you with any information. But I do wish you luck. Sincerely, I do.”
She smiled tiredly. “Thank you, Senor Proctor. If nothing else, it has been good for me to talk. You have been very kind to listen. So thank you for that.”
Dan offered his hand. She reached for it, and the two shook firmly. He wished her well once more before getting up from the booth and heading to the door, stepping outside into the luminous sunshine of a postcard perfect Mexico City afternoon.
2
High on the jungle rooftop, Dugan flitted from tree to tree, leaping and swinging from one to the next with all the self-assuredness of an Olympic gymnast, and as deftly as any of the howler monkeys he passed along the way. For they were here too, at sluggish repose in their beds in the upper canopy of the forest, drowsily surveying him as he glided swiftly by. Aside from an occasional halfhearted squawk long after he’d passed, as with most all of God’s creatures, they
were content to keep their distance from him.
To his keen eyes, the handholds from one tree to the next were as unmissable as walking down a flight of stairs. He found it exhilarating every now and then to put these preternatural abilities to use, a gift to him courtesy of whatever cellular or molecular or biological changes had befallen him during his transition from human to vampire. There were so many downsides to his condition, he sometimes forgot there were at least a few benefits. Now, as he soared with abandon from limb to gnarly limb, from vine to ropelike vine, fifty feet above the hard ground, spurred on by the thrill of the hunt, he decided to just savor it, remembering too that sometimes, just when he needed them, he stumbled upon other skills that he didn’t yet know he had.
While executing one seemingly impossible vault, he thought back to those moments on the river in the perpendicular plane, staring up the eighty feet or so of fuselage to the twinkling stars above. He could easily have crawled up the sheer hold in seconds. Hell, he could have floated up there if he wanted to. But with Richards opposite him, he thought it best not to display any evidence of his more extraordinary talents, thinking it best to keep him in the dark. Of course, he had been in no actual peril on the plane. An orange burst of searing flame coming his way and burning him to a crisp? His flesh would reconstitute itself, given enough time. It would be painful as hell to be sure, but eventually, he’d be just fine. Drowning? Please. Though he did breathe, mostly out of long habit, vestigial muscle memory, and to aid his now better than canine sense of smell, he didn’t need to. He couldn’t drown.
No, the only things that could kill him so far as he knew were complete decapitation (unlikely) or the sharp spike of a wooden stake being hammered into his chest, bursting his heart, just as Larry had warned. That was his – just like every one of his kind – most primal fear. Oh, that and the sun, of course. Thus far in his new life, he’d had only one close encounter with the sun, in the sands of the Sonoran desert on a morning when his flesh started to sizzle. That one time was more than enough.
He was closer now. He could hear it rooting about in the low brush just ahead, it’s muted grunts and muffled snorts resounding in his ears and prompting him unbidden to salivate. Of their own volition, his fangs sprang from his mouth, gliding along the newly grown palates that had been another gift of his metamorphosis, and an agonizing as hell gift at that. Making one final jump, he found himself swinging above a small clearing and then saw it on the ground ahead. Huge and feral and furry, it had gnarled yellow tusks that called to mind a kind human he once knew who had horns on top of his head.
Smiling at the memory, with the high voltage exhilaration of the imminent kill coursing through his veins, he leaped to the ground below and captured the thing by its neck. Too surprised to even squawk, Dugan’s fangs were in its throat before it knew he was there, and he began to drink deeply of the pig’s liquid essence with the enthusiasm of a man who has stumbled upon a lush oasis in the desert. Immediately, the coppery, brackish fluid cascaded into his mouth and flowed through his body, spurting into his wide open maw with the force of an open artery, and in that manner Dugan slurped down the pig’s precious lifeblood and made it his own.
As always while feeding on an animal, just as he felt the creatures heart about to beat its last, he offered a brief prayer of thanks for allowing him to take its life for his own. It was simply the way of things, he knew, the strong feeding on the weak. Still, so long as he could recall, he had said a few words to whoever might be listening to hold and keep the soul of the animal who had sacrificed its own life for his. Among other creatures, he had said it over rats and cats, possum and raccoon, cows and horses, and a pair of growling dogs whose only crime was that they just would not shut up. He had never said it over any of the people he had killed, though, for every one of them had it coming and they could all rot in hell as far as he was concerned.
Nearing his fill, feeling the intoxicating tingle of fresh blood washing through his veins along with the potent surge of his returning strength, he siphoned the last few ounces of blood from the pig and caught himself overwhelmed with nostalgia, remembering a night in an Arizona pig sty when he had drunk his fill and then some. However, it was always with some shame and embarrassment he looked back and recalled that episode, because after gorging himself, he had killed the rest of the pigs without cause or purpose. He understood now he did it mostly out of rage and frustration at his then condition. He hadn’t known at the time that his conversion from mortal to vampire was not yet complete. He would never again waste so much of any creature’s lifeblood. Looking back, he wrote it off as the insane act of the human he still was, and not the vampire he would later become.
Sated finally, with the hulking beast dead beside him, he rolled over onto the jungle floor and reveled in his newfound vitality. Only when the almost carnal pleasure of that had ebbed did he get up onto his knees and do what had to be done.
3
The fire was burning when Dugan returned. He found Richards hunkered down in the concealed hollow, checking and rechecking his weapon, his bag open by his side. Through its open flaps Dugan saw inside mostly stacks and stacks of freshly minted bricks of one-hundred dollar bills. Explains the bulkiness, he thought. On the ground beside it was a handheld radio upon which a single green LED glowed. Next to that was a black electronic device with a toggle switch. He had no clue what that might be.
Though he had detected the fire on his way back, he had every confidence that the soaring canopy of leafy treetops would help ensure that most of the smoke dispersed before it would give away their position. And Dugan had a hunch this fire was about to get very smoky indeed.
“Hey,” he said to Richards.
Richards jumped, wheeling around with his gun at the ready. His eyes were wide. When he saw it was just Dugan, he shook his head in anger.
“What’s up with that, man?” he whined. “I don’t see you leave, and I don’t see you come back? Seriously, don’t do that again. Good way to get yourself killed.”
Dugan smiled at the inadvertent humor, remembering that most humans had always had found the trick irritating. He just found it useful. And fun.
Moments later, a baffled look crossed Richards face. Dugan watched him cock his head and sniff the air before turning to look just outside the hollow, where some improvements had been made to the rudimentary fire he had started. Encircling the flames now were thick logs, while above the fire, suspended on a ring of uniform and sturdy Y-shaped sticks, was a crude but serviceable grill assembled from tangled branches and woody vegetation. Atop the knotted reeds, just starting to sizzle in the steadily intensifying smoke, simmering on a bed of what smelled like flavorful tropical leaves and aromatic roots and heady spices, was a full rack of savory ribs, as skillfully cut and peeled and trimmed as any you’d find in a pricey New York City butcher shop.
“Oh, dude,” Richards said hungrily, seeing what was in store for him. “You and I are going to get along just fine.” Turning, he found Dugan grinning. “But how– ” he started to ask before just leaving it alone. But his glance revealed that reflected in the yellow firelight, the boy’s normally ashen face had taken on a more hale coloration, an almost healthy sheen. His upturned lips were a hearty crimson. It looked too like he had put on some weight in the short time he had been absent, his cheeks and neck and shoulders all appearing bulkier. In fact, it looked like he’d spent six weeks at the gym.
“You look good,” Richards said, meaning it. “Healthy, I mean. Better.”
Dugan nodded and looked away, ever diffident on the topic of things he needed to do to survive. He had yet to come to terms with some of them. He often wondered if he ever would.
Regardless, it was getting near time for him to leave. Dawn threatened, and he had passed a clump of large boulders with a deep recess within that appeared perfect for his daytime needs.
“Tell you what,” Dugan began. “I’m gonna have to leave now. But I’ll meet you back here just after sundown tomor
row. Does that sound like a plan?”
Richards eyes narrowed with misgiving. He flitted his eyes around the dark recesses of the nook they’d taken shelter in, perhaps under the misapprehension it would do just fine for Dugan’s needs.
“Uh uh,” Dugan said as if reading his thoughts. “Won’t do. Anyhow, like I said, just after sundown tomorrow, right here. Have a good day. Sleep well,” he added, and once again, just like that, Richards was alone.
4
In the sitting room of the beachfront villa, there was music, as Carlos the handyman strummed a buoyant Flamenco on his guitar. There was laughter, as Margarite, the handyman’s wife, sat on the couch clapping her hands together at the antics of the young girl. And there was dancing, Ana, swooping around the room, with one hand on her hip and her long hair swinging freely. She had her other hand raised as if she were playing a castanet. For some time now, she had been vivaciously circling the large man sitting in the Barcalounger and enticing him to dance.
“Baile!” she cried good-naturedly at the obviously uncomfortable man, circling him once again. “Baile!”
For his part, Pruitt looked on with varying levels of amusement, bemusement, embarrassment, and perhaps a kind of deep yearning. He used to dance, or at least, he thought he did. He might have even enjoyed it, for all he knew. But there was so much in his past he couldn’t recall. Or maybe, he often thought, he just wasn’t allowed to yet. He didn’t have it all sorted out, but he had learned over time that certain things did come back, though perhaps only when the boy thought he was ready.
Most of what had happened before he met the boy was lost in a dark haze. He did recall that as a younger man, he’d worn the uniform of his country. He remembered going off to war with that special blend of patriotic fervor and testosterone-fueled arrogance that was the exclusive province of the young and the male and the stupid. He dimly recollected tropical heat and devilish rainstorms and the gripping fear that only the nighttime could bring. Somewhere back there were dead friends, whose bodies were torn apart by mines and bullets and shrapnel. There were burned villages. There were dead children. Always, there were dead children.
Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between Page 9
