26

Bell had to assume that Otto Dreissen had phoned his people stationed in Panama City and that by now it was open season on his life. The Viboras would be combing the town for him, which meant he couldn’t go back to the Hotel Central. He spent the night in a seedier section of town, in a run-down rooming house on a street full of bars and brothels. He’d paid for a broom-closet-sized room above a cantina and was overcharged by the night clerk, who knew desperation when he saw it.

He’d washed up in the lavatory as best he could. In the silvered mirror over the basin, Bell could see the manchineel burns on his face were barely noticeable, but the lump on his head from the avalanche was a sickly-looking purple. He stood in his undershirt while he wrung out the linen oxford he wore under the poncho. A double whiskey sat on the edge of the sink.

Back in his room, he draped his wet things over a chair and hoped the night air would dry them by morning. The room’s lock was a joke, so he placed his wallet and .45 under his pillow. Ignoring the raucous singing and tuneless piano coming up through the floor, Bell was asleep in seconds.

He awoke to sunshine and recalled dreaming about a great-aunt he’d stayed with when he was a boy who’d punished him by making him swallow a spoonful of castor oil. He hadn’t thought about it in years yet still could feel the greasy emollient on his tongue.

His clothes were damp but wearable. He found a cheap restaurant near the cantina and sat in the far back. The food was simple—eggs, over thick corn tortillas, and a sweet green fruit he didn’t recognize—but the coffee was excellent, and the waitress came by often to refill his mug. The clientele were locals, who eyed him for a moment, then left him in peace.

Bell had parked the Renault a few blocks from his room in case its description had been passed on to the Viboras. He found a vantage point from which to watch the car, or, more accurately, watch if anyone else was watching it. After ten minutes and a careful assessment of all the open windows above the establishment-lined street, he approached the car. He got it fired up in record time and lit out of the rough neighborhood.

After filling the tank at a gas station next to Ancon Hill, Bell took the road back toward Gamboa. He’d thought that traveling it again and seeing where he’d been buried alive might jog some memories.

Seen from above, the landslide looked enormous, though it was nothing compared to some of the bigger ones slowing the excavation. A great tongue of soil and rocks stretched from the canal’s rim at Bell’s feet almost halfway across its breadth. In the middle of the rubble field, he could see where the workers had excavated around the water tank that had saved his life. The tank was still buried, but he saw the piles of dirt that had been shoveled from the hole and some large rocks that had been levered out of the way to give them access.

Bell was moved by the dedication his rescuers had shown—the amount of rubble they’d excavated was impressive.

Looking down the artificial valley that was the canal, he spotted work crews already laying a fresh set of tracks to reach the avalanche. They were a mile away or more, but he could see a large mobile crane, which was capable of swinging prefabricated sections of rail in place, atop the gravel bed, the men swarming it tamping each rail flat. When the track was completed, a steam shovel would be brought in to tackle the slide. The debris would be hauled out on a separate rail spur, while the ore cars would remain on the main line to haul out the overburden.

It might take them months—or, in the case of the Cucaracha slide at Panama City, years—to undo the damage, yet they went about their job undeterred.

What Bell didn’t get was the spark that coming here was supposed to ignite to make him remember additional details of that day’s events. While it was a gap of only a couple hours he couldn’t remember, Bell felt a hollowness he could not fill. He lacked trust in himself, his mind, his instincts. He could see yet felt like he was blindly groping, stumbling and lurching when he should be walking easily. Isaac Bell had never been defined by his memories but rather by his ability to recall them so readily. The chunk of missing time was a reminder that he was no longer himself.

He spent ten minutes scouting the area around where he’d left the road. Just beyond the grass verge, he did spot a twenty-foot-long log. He didn’t know its significance. Had it fallen off a lumber truck and forced him off the road? Had it been deliberately laid there as a roadblock? Given the attempts on his life, the latter seemed the more likely option.

Too much time had passed for any subtler clues to have remained. The rains here were so intense, they dissolved footprints and tire tracks in minutes.

Bell saw no point in clambering down the hillside to get a better look at his temporary prison. Not only did he not need to see the oversize and inky black claustrophobic tank, he had no idea if the ordnance disposal team had made certain there weren’t more undetonated charges littering the slope.

Rather than return to an uncertain future in Panama City, Bell continued to the company town of Gamboa. Sam Westbrook told Isaac about meeting with Courtney Talbot there, and Bell recalled a boat being involved. He also recalled the bronze oarlocks. However, driving into the drab town brought back no new memories. There were warehouses near a train station, and a few bunkhouses for workers, plus a handful of dilapidated railcars that had been pulled from the line and left in a field. They housed more workers, and one was a general store.

Bell parked the Renault in an alley between two warehouses. He leaned a pair of rotting cargo pallets against its grille, and, from even a few feet away, it looked like a pile of scrap left abandoned and out of sight.

He double-checked his .45 and crossed the tracks, heading away from the speeding Chagres River to a small field, where he found a makeshift restaurant. Outside, there were no chairs, and the tables were empty barrels set on end. Men stood as they ate. The ten or so watched Bell approach. He didn’t sense hostility, but rather a surprised curiosity. Gamboa was populated exclusively by West Indian islanders. Bell crossed under the awning and stepped into the restaurant proper. That was a misnomer. Inside was just a serving line that separated the entrance from a large commercial kitchen built inside a tin shanty.

“I think you lost, yes?” said a lady at the end of the counter. She was accepting paper scrip from the workers to pay for their meals. She had a heavily lined face, which told of a hard life, but laughing eyes. When she moved her plump arms, bracelets made of twisted copper wire tinkled faintly.

“Not if your food tastes as good as it smells,” Bell replied.

She liked his reply, and a smile creased her face even more. “It taste even better, love, but you ain’t a company man so I can’t feed you.” While her accent was thick, her grasp of English was good.

“Tell you what.” Bell pulled a dollar from his pocket. It was almost enough to get a filet mignon at Delmonico’s. “What say we pretend I’m a company man just for today.”

The bill vanished into a pocket of her voluminous apron. “Best if you eat out back.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Bell, but he thought it was probably a good idea.

“Go out and sit yourself down, and I’ll bring you a plate,” she told him. She motioned to one of the women tending the stove inside the kitchen. She came out and took over the till while Bell’s new friend went to get him lunch.

Behind the makeshift restaurant was a small garden with meticulously straight rows of lettuce, tomato plants, and all manner of herbs. Some chickens scratched at the ground, and in the distance was a rickety bamboo pen with two goats in it. They rushed the fence when they saw Bell, hopeful he was bringing food. When Bell sat on an overturned bucket next to a covered coal locker, the goats lost interest.

A moment later, the restaurant’s back screen door banged open, and the woman came out with a metal plate mounded with rice and chicken stew. She handed it to him, pulled a spoon from one apron pocket and a bottled beer from the other. “It’s either this or our water, and you don’t want our water.”

“Thank you. It’s fine. Can I ask you something?”

“Your dollar still buyin’, love.”

“Do you know Major Courtney Talbot? He left a few days ago in a boat.”

“We all know him,” she said guardedly. “What you want him for?”

Bell couldn’t get a read on her. He wasn’t sure if she was protecting Talbot or was suspicious of anyone associated with him. He said, “I met with him just before he left. I want to know if he’s come back.”

“You talk to Jimmer. Him run the store. He and Ojo Muerto are . . .” She meshed her fingers together to indicate the two were tight.

“Thanks.”

“You trouble, man?”

“Like, am I in trouble or do I cause trouble?”

“Both, I think,” she said cryptically and then returned to her job.

Bell was grateful for the beer because the stew was fiery hot but delicious. When he’d scraped the plate clean, he returned it to the kitchen, catching the woman’s eye when he set it and the empty bottle on a shelf just inside the door. He nodded his thanks.

He went to the town’s store in the abandoned railroad car. The wheel trucks had been removed, leaving the box portion of the car resting on the ground. Rot was slowly making its way up the walls because the wood wicked moisture from the ground. Inside, shelves fashioned from wood scraps had been built along all four walls and were stocked like this store was the jungle version of a five-and-dime. There were gallon cans of lamp fuel, bolts of cloth to make clothing, boots in several sizes, plus socks, and flour, cornmeal, and lentils in five-pound sacks. Bell saw pouches of tobacco, hand-forged tools, tins of condensed milk, fishing line and hooks. He didn’t see things like soap or shampoo, or any luxury items.

“Help you, sir?” the proprietor asked. He was about the same age as the woman at the commissary, but he was rail thin, and while his hair was silver, his face was smooth.

“I’m looking for Courtney Talbot.”

“He ain’t here.”

“I know that. I saw him off a few days ago. I was wondering if he’d come back.”

“He tell Gemma ’n’ I he comin’ back this afternoon.”

“Gemini?”

“Gemma and I,” he said slowly and pointed to where a woman—his wife, presumably—was coming in from the back storeroom carrying a big pot of yams.

Bell couldn’t believe his luck. Then he reconsidered. It was likely he did know of Talbot’s return but had forgotten it as a result of his amnesia. Yet on some deeper level the knowledge lingered as only a hunch, and that’s why he’d driven to Gamboa.

He wondered what else his lapsed memory was trying to recover. More than his conscious, for sure. Gemini? He admonished himself. The shopkeeper had clearly said “Gemma and I.”

Bell thanked the storeowner and returned to his car. The shadow from one of the warehouses fell across the passengers’ compartment in back. He stretched out as best he could, adjusted his hat so the straw brim better covered his eyes, and napped through the hottest part of the day.

He was awakened by a train chuffing into the Gamboa depot, steam boiling around its four drive wheels, its bell chiming merrily. He would have awoken in a few minutes, as the sun had swung enough to put its light and heat inches from where he lay. No one was waiting to board the train, and no one descended from any of its carriages. It didn’t need to take on coal or water, so no sooner had the wheels stopped than the locomotive began to pull away again, its schedule fulfilled.

Bell left the car and cut around the warehouse so he could stroll across the gravel expanse fronting the harbor. Men were standing at the edge of the pier. He picked up his pace. When he got close enough, he recognized Court Talbot’s silhouette. One of the Major’s men pointed past his shoulder and he turned. He froze for the moment it took to recognize his visitor.

“Bell, how are you?”

“Good. How was your hunting trip?”

“A disaster.”

They shook hands.

“Did you find the Viboras?”

“No. Instead, we discovered twenty or thirty different family groups living on rafts all along the lake’s shore. The first time we saw the cooking fires on one of them, I was certain we’d caught the Vipers—remember how I said that was how we were going to get them? It turned out to be a false alarm, just a family of fishermen, two brothers and their wives, an abuela and a handful of kids. And for the next few days, and the next twenty or so fires we spotted, it was false alarm after false alarm. Maddening. Wait. What’s with the lump on your head? What happened to you?”

“Long story involving an avalanche and me impersonating laundry inside a washing machine. Spent the night after our last meeting in the hospital, and people had to tell me the story because I remember nothing from that day.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing of any significance. The doctor calls it retrograde amnesia. He said it’s not uncommon for people with head injuries. I don’t even remember what you and I spoke about.”

“You had some questions for Rinaldo about his brother. You came to the conclusion that Raul was working for the Colombians. You left here wanting to talk to diplomats back in Panama City.” Talbot glanced over Bell’s shoulder. A group of workmen had opened a warehouse door to give them enough room to reorganize the jam-packed interior.

“There’s more to it than that,” Bell said.

“You suspected another player? A European connection, perhaps?”

“That’s what I’m working on now.”

“Do you have anyone in mind in particular?”

“At this point, I’d rather not say.”

Talbot just about begged. “You’ve got to tell me who. I just spent days chasing my own tail out there in malarial swamps with nothing to show for it. Can’t you give me something?”

Bell ignored his plea. “What are your plans?”

Talbot recognized it was prudent to drop the subject. “Refuel, restock, and return.”

“You’re going to keep hunting them?”

“What other option is there? Every day I don’t get them is less money in my pocket and that much closer to the Marines showing up and Colonel Goethals kicking us out. They have to be hiding on the lake.”

“When do you plan on leaving?”

“Few hours.”

“Enough time for me to get to Panama City and back?”

Talbot nodded. “We could wait for you, sure.”

“Okay. I need some place to lay low for a while, and malarial swamps sound perfect.”