25

Jude climbed back up the hill to Horizon House thinking it was classic—boy meets girl he has no business wanting and learns the hard way: Reach for the moon, you fall off the roof. He turned from the road and was halfway to the front door when someone whispered his name. He pulled up short—only then noticing the solitary figure lingering among the shadows of the short, broad-leafed marañón trees beside the porch.

“Don’t go in just yet. I’d like to talk with you alone for a moment.”

Axel stepped out into the moonlight. His face, deeply shadowed, seemed masklike, an effect intensified by the fixation in his eyes. And yet his shoulders sagged, he seemed weary. He reached for Jude’s arm.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d come back at all tonight.” His smile was listless but warm; he turned toward the road. “Let’s just head up the hill a ways. It’s a pleasant night. A walk might feel good before we turn in.”

It was a hopelessly transparent lie, but Jude left it alone. It hadn’t been said for his sake, but in case anyone inside, sitting in the dark just beyond the window screens, might be listening.

The two men returned to the road in silence, then walked together uphill. Axel set a restive pace, glancing behind or to either side every few steps. Houses sat dark in lush ravines off the road, nestled into gardens thick with orchids, flowering tulla, chichipince vines.

They rounded a bend at the crest of the hill and Axel gestured for Jude to stop. As though looking for some way to begin, he said, “Interesting, all the intrigue about your father. It sounds, if you’ll excuse my saying so, like he must have been a grandly imperfect man.”

It didn’t sound catty or insulting, Jude thought, just inquisitive. “My father was a lot of things, none of them much worth talking about.”

“I’m willing to accept that, particularly since it has nothing to do with your work for me. And that, by the way, is what I brought you up here to discuss.”

A sudden, stormy wind whipped the tree cover. Axel waited for the rustling to subside.

“You’ve always told me to let you know of anything I become aware of that might affect my safety. Or your ability to protect me. Well, in keeping with that spirit I think I have a few things to share with you.” His eyes darted down the road behind them, checking one last time to see if they’d been followed. “I’ve kept all this to myself so far. That Bauserman fellow, your replacement these past ten days—I wouldn’t tell him my shoe size unless someone got me drunk first. But even Fitz has been odd of late. You saw a little of that. I don’t know, perhaps I’m overreacting, but the only person I feel comfortable discussing this with is you.”

Axel was not a man of many moods, which made this one, with its odd mix of wounded loneliness and fear, all the more exceptional.

“I’ve been putting on the rakish façade for Fitz and the others whenever I discuss this woman I’ve met. Consuela, is her name. Consuela Rojas—daughter of an outcast colonel, a socialist, how’s that for drama?” He looked up into the sky at a flock of shimmering moonlit clouds. “I’m not sure exactly what I’ve gotten myself into.”

I’ve met someone, Jude thought, recalling Axel’s first mention of her. He’d said it like he was bowled over and proud of it. Jude hadn’t realized what a nifty liar the man could be.

“You know how I feel about my work down here,” Axel said. “For all the faults of the people who run things in this country—and those faults are insidious—I still believe it’s possible to get this economy kick-started with some wise investment and good, solid development. I’m not one to wring my hands overly much about how rough life can be or how corrupt its machinations are. When in doubt, build—with the caveat, yes, build wisely. The Salvadorans are nothing if not resilient and hardworking. Give them opportunities, they’ll deliver. The key is crafting the opportunities. That doesn’t come from mere good intentions. As for corruption, think of it as a cost of doing business and forge ahead. That’s how I’ve always seen it, at any rate.”

With his foot, Axel poked at a green coconut that had fallen to the ground, nudging it to the roadside.

“That said, I’ve been receiving e-mails the past few months from Consuela. That’s how we met, I guess you’d say. She started writing when she learned I’d been retained to look into the Estrella plant expansion. She was never entirely frank, afraid her messages might fall into the wrong hands. She wouldn’t say who, exactly, scared her. But I gathered soon enough from what she did say that she had a story to tell.

“She’s incensed by Estrella for a variety of reasons, not merely because of the water issues. She also thinks there’s some kind of shell game going on, to protect Torkland Overby from charges that they’re helping exploit children down here.”

Jude had heard before from Axel that Torkland Overby, the American conglomerate retaining him to review Estrella’s water usage, had reason to be skittish about public relations disasters. Slave labor charges linked to a maquila that Torkland partially controlled, operating in the capital’s free trade zone, had depressed the corporation’s stock nearly 16 percent over three quarters the year before. Then, for good measure, the factory shut down and the local owners vanished, stranding both workers and creditors to the tune of ten million dollars. News of that fiasco had barely died down before hints of a water problem in San Bartolo Oriente hit the Internet—by which time Torkland had already supplied not just working capital for the soft drink plant’s expansion but new assembly line conveyors, filler machines, mixing tanks and cap sealers, even a fleet of trucks. ODIC could insure the capital transfers but not stock value. If Estrella had any more skeletons in the closet, Torkland might have to fend off a shareholder revolt, especially from its institutional investors.

“Consuela says she has proof there are eight-year-olds working some of the cane fields that supply Estrella with its sugar. Say what you will about the harpies of feel-goodism, she has pictures of kids with these awful wounds from the machetes they use to cut the cane. She gave up getting Estrella to care long ago, so she’s moved on to Torkland, but they’ve given her nothing but double-talk. Everyone’s bound by their contracts, they say, and ‘by contract’ Estrella doesn’t purchase directly from suppliers who use anyone younger than fourteen in the fields. I mean, that’s bad enough, I suppose, but it could just mean Estrella slips in a local factor or some other kind of middleman so Torkland can claim ignorance about kids younger than that. Consuela was hoping I’d step up and say something, denounce the pussyfooting. I told her it wasn’t my area of expertise and I didn’t have enough hard evidence to say much of anything, regardless. But she pressed the issue so relentlessly I decided to meet her, at least.

“That was last week, while you were away. We got together for supper. It became obvious immediately that with Bauserman present she wouldn’t speak freely. I mean, it’s hard to describe how ghastly he was. He just sat there, eyeing her. It was beneath sexual. Like he’d already had his way with her just thinking about it. I told him to show some manners but he just ignored me. That’s when I invited her up to my room.”

Axel wandered over to the roadside. A morro tree lay just inside a low stone wall surrounding the nearest garden. He reached for a cluster of the tiny leaves, rubbed them together between his fingers and thumb, then smelled the nutty fragrance on his skin.

“I’m not saying it was a brilliant move. And I’m sure it had something to do with showing up Bauserman. I’m not proud of that. But there we were, Consuela and I, in my room, alone together.” He smiled winsomely. “Interesting turn of phrase. Alone. Together. You’re still quite young, Jude, I’m not sure I can make this intelligible to you. But I’m sixty-two. My wife divorced me when I was fifty—she was forty-five—because she feared the rest of her life would be as sexless as it had been for twenty years.” His blue eyes rose to meet Jude’s. They seemed ashamed. “I realize that’s overly personal, but I need you to understand. I’ve spent my life on the job, the kind of projects people crow about—many in the wrong place, most at the wrong time, and nearly all for the benefit of the wrong people. And whenever I felt dismayed by that, I just told myself that was life. ‘I mistook disenchantment for the truth,’ I think is how it’s said. And for ten years after my wife left I just went on working—like it was all that mattered. Life was an exercise in dealing with one’s bitterness and the rest was inane, self-involved rubbish. Then one day I woke up from a bad sleep and felt a terror like none I’ve ever known. I saw everything decaying before my eyes and thought if I put my feet to the floor, my skin would come away contaminated with rot. Sounds silly when I say it out loud. Believe me, it was quite real. So real that for three days I didn’t leave the bed.

“I didn’t overcome it or figure it out. I just decided to pretend it hadn’t happened. As you can imagine, that didn’t work. The dread was still there, always. In the background.” He waved vaguely toward the windblown palms, as though they were examples, the things we ignore. “And gradually I came to realize the terror had nothing to do with disease, it was because my wife had genuinely loved me and seen me for who I am, then left in disgust. Long-suffering woman, she was. In any event, I’ve reached that point in life when death seems to be getting nearer, faster. This pitiless blank slate coming at me, and what do I have to show for it? A revolted ex-wife, no children, and a life of dubious work—including this odious business with Estrella, for which I was hired only because three other hydrologists Torkland would have preferred were unavailable.

“Then suddenly this woman is with me in my room. She’s lovely, but more than that she’s simply, ineffably feminine—all that amplified by her intensity, this ferocious commitment to these children. That’s when she told me what was truly bothering her about Estrella. Not what so much, actually, as who. But I wasn’t listening, not yet. I was smelling her perfume and trying not to stare at her breasts the way Bauserman had. And either I sensed a return interest on her part or I invented it. In any event, I heard her out as best I could, paid just enough attention to be able to say honestly I’d do what I could, and then she sat there, not getting up, looking at me. She wanted something more. Something stronger. And I took that to mean what I wanted it to mean.”

Axel’s eyes clouded over. A dove cooed somewhere in a nearby garden.

“Looking back on it now, I realize she must have felt trapped. Maybe she wanted to trap me in return. Regardless, she stayed. Till morning. And I ignored everything except the way she made me feel young and worth something and unafraid for at least a little while.”

He looked straight into Jude’s eyes as though he might find forgiveness there. But all Jude could think of was that line of Waxman’s: Why is it so hard to believe we’re not wanted? Axel had gone one better: How hard we pretend we’re wanted regardless.

“This woman’s going to extort you.”

Axel recoiled a little. “I hadn’t considered it along those lines, to be honest.” He reached up absently to scratch behind his ear. An odd gesture, it made him look old. “I mean, what I figured might happen is she’d use our liaison as leverage, to get me to press her concerns.”

“Use it how?”

“Guilt, I suppose.”

“You mean, what, nag?”

Axel lifted his chin in defiance, but the rest of him sagged. “Basically. Yes.”

“And if that didn’t work, expose you.”

“Of what—having a libido at sixty-two? Welcome to Viagra. Besides, I’m a divorcé. Where’s the scandal?”

“Axel, the woman came to you for a sympathetic ear, not a revitalized dick. And she’ll get first shot at setting the scene as to what happened in your room.”

A sudden shadow darted along the moonlit wall behind Axel. Jude turned toward it just as the gorrobo, a small brown lizard, vanished up a low-hanging tree branch.

Axel let out a brooding sigh. “I’ve been foolish, I suppose.”

“There’s nothing here that can’t be handled. We keep her away from you.”

“That’s not possible.”

That caught Jude off guard. “Why not?”

“I’m quite fond of her.” The words came out with sapped strength, as though Axel were their victim. Then he added, even more abashed, “I’m in love with her, actually.”

Jude felt like he was talking to three different people. “You’re making this too hard.”

“I’m going to ask that you try to understand.”

“You realize what this exposes you to?”

Axel scoffed, “Now you’re sounding paranoid.”

“I get paid to be paranoid. Why drag me up here if there’s nothing—”

“Look, I’ve put all this in its worst light. Let’s get things back on track.” Axel closed his eyes to regain his focus, his hands scrubbing together worriedly—another aging, enfeebling gesture. “I told you, Consuela’s issues with Estrella go beyond what it’s doing, to who’s involved. Does the name Wenceslao Sola mean anything to you?”

Jude could put the name to a face but little more. “He’s on the Estrella board.”

“Hasn’t a whiff of business sense, let alone experience, but he’s connected by family to some influential people. I’m not sure there’s a scam going on, exactly, but it’s damn odd how miserly the well-to-do down here can be when it comes to investing in anything local. The money sails offshore to banks in Miami, the Caymans, Luxembourg, wherever. Nobody’s going to risk anything of his own to see this place improved. So development capital comes through loans—the World Bank or IMF or export-import banks like U.S. Ex-Im or export credit agencies like ODIC—and as often as not gets skimmed or paid out to cronies in kickback schemes, some quite clever, or just stolen outright. That’s what Consuela suspects is going on here. The bottling plant’s expansion is just an elaborate reward to Sola and his cronies for their continuing support of U.S. plans down here. That’s why ODIC’s involved. To ensure that Torkland Overby isn’t on the hook for plowing money and equipment into a white elephant being used principally for payoffs.”

“And again,” Jude said, “she knows this how?”

“She doesn’t know,” Axel said wearily. “She suspects.”

“Because?”

“Because of this Sola character!” Axel threw up his hands. “She was married to a cousin of his. A disaster of a marriage, apparently, but it gave her an inside glimpse at the clan. Wenceslao is the family scapegrace, spends money like a whore on holiday, is rumored to have a thing for little girls, and is generally just one of those louche, pampered little deviants who couldn’t make his own way in life, let alone earn an honest buck, if his soul hung in the balance.”

“Axel, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but that’s the way the sewer runs down here.”

“During the war, Sola joined a group called Los Patrióticos, a kind of bourgeois brotherhood cum weekend death squad—I know, I know, death squads, the great bogeyman of Latin America. But hear me out, all right? He also has ties to Judge Regalado, the owner of the sugar operation upstream from the bottling plant. He’s practically an institution when it comes to venality.” Axel scratched his head and sighed. “I’m sorry this is so complicated. I’m doing my best to crib it, believe me. Consuela, for all her virtues, can be a tad scrambled in her tale telling, and her delivery is, shall we say, a bit on the breathless side.”

Jude said, “Axel?”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming to the denouement. Despite all the disavowals Estrella tries to make, it’s unthinkable it doesn’t get at least some of its sugar from Judge Regalado’s plantations, given not just their proximity but the links between families, his and Sola’s. And it’s one of the worst-kept secrets in El Salvador, apparently, that the judge has no compunction about children working in his fields. Christ, he almost insists on it—builds character, helps support families, all that rot.” He let out a long, shuddering sigh, looking spent. “There. That’s what I was trying to get out.”

A cluster of golondrinas suddenly scattered in frantic wing bursts from among the swaying branches overhead. Another gorrobo, or maybe the same one, scurried down the stone wall and burrowed in the sand.

Jude locked his hands behind his neck. “Well, that’s quite a yarn.”

“Yes. And I’ve only told you half.”

“You’re joking.”

“My mention of death squads wasn’t for the sake of drama. Whenever Sola visits the bottling plant in San Bartolo Oriente, he stops for lunch at a restaurant owned by a man named Hector Torres. Consuela may have little kind to say about Sola, but he’s a mere pest compared to Torres. Consuela’s terrified of him.”

Jude considered that for a moment, taking full account of the gravity in Axel’s eyes and voice. Then he said, “Sola, he has lunch. At this guy’s restaurant.” He didn’t mean to spoil the party, but really. “That’s it?”

“Torres has long played the role of pivot man for the death squads operating in the eastern departments. Not just during the war but after. He’s the godfather of Los Soldados de San Miguel, and you’ve heard of them, I’m sure. They’re particularly fond of snatching uncooperative prostitutes, gutting or beheading them, leaving the bodies on the steps of local churches, to flaunt their impunity. He’s made all the right friends and people fear him. Consuela hears he runs a protection racket now, muscling theft rings, kidnap rings, drug dealers—prostitutes, naturally—even street vendors. He’s ruthless, has a little army of veteranos and mareros he uses for henchlings. People pay.”

Of course they do, Jude thought. He recalled what Strock had said. We taxed them, sure. And suddenly Torres the respectable gangster got conflated with the Candyman and Malvasio, the Laugh Masters. Jude’s father. Overhead, the golondrinas resettled in the palm branches.

“Axel, correct me if I’m wrong, but none of this involves you unless—”

“The day before you got back from the States—and shortly after the last time Wenceslao Sola paid his respects to Hector Torres—a woman named Marta Valdez disappeared from a tiny village outside San Bartolo Oriente. She’d complained to people—in particular, to Consuela, who works with a few citizen committees in the area—about the pozos, the wells, below her village. The wells, they’ve become brackish with mineral deposits because the water table’s dropped so low, partially because of the bottling plant—or so everyone suspects, including me, but I’ve still not been able to confirm it satisfactorily. Regardless, Consuela went up to the village when this woman, Marta, didn’t appear for a follow-up interview. No one there would so much as talk to her. Except, as she was leaving, a boy came up. His name is Oscar. He’s all of eight years old.

“He says he heard a car drive up the hill and park outside Marta’s house. Four men were in the car. Two went inside the house and stayed for a while. When they came back out, they were carrying what looked like a body wrapped in a blanket. Then they drove down the hill again. No one’s seen Marta since.”

A light came on in the window of a nearby house, then almost instantly went out again. Jude gestured for Axel to start walking with him downhill. Once they’d moved on a ways, Jude said, “This boy, he’s told all this to your friend Consuela. Anybody else?”

“He’s too terrified to tell the authorities. I don’t know, I can’t help wondering if this prostitute-to-be-named-later from Usulután, who’s now been found beheaded—”

“And you didn’t mention any of this to McGuire why?”

“Once I heard the way they were going at you, I didn’t trust them. You didn’t either, obviously. And then this Lazarek character. ODIC doesn’t have an ongoing presence at the embassy. People come and go, and beyond the pencil pushers it’s always a bit of a game, figuring out which consultants are spies and vice versa. But Lazarek was a different story altogether—a name people whispered. I was looking forward to meeting him face-to-face, actually, just to see if he really existed. Well, now I have. All that crap about stable government and gangs. Spare me. If the gangs were pro-ARENA, we’d pay for their weddings.”

“But if ODIC is Lazarek’s cover—”

“That could mean they’re not turning a blind eye just to Sola and the other trough-feeders on the Estrella board, but to this crooked judge and Torres and whoever killed this woman.” Axel sighed at the strangeness of it all. “As for the FBI, I haven’t a clue why they’re involved.”

“My guess is they’re not.” Jude wouldn’t be sending McGuire or Sanborn any valentines, but their contempt for Lazarek now seemed reassuring.

“One last thing,” Axel said. “Excuse me if this seems intrusive, but what might your father or this man you flew back with or the other one they were harping about—”

“Malvasio.”

“What have they to do with any of this?”

“Nothing.” Jude tried for nonchalance. “Cop tricks. Trying to put me off guard.” Nothing had changed his mind about that. Yet. And if anything, Malvasio now seemed less a menace than a seer: For all you know, the people involved in your hydrologist’s project could be the worst of the worst down here. “Back to Lazarek for a minute—any chance he or somebody else at ODIC would know about your thing with—”

“Consuela? Possibly.” Axel cringed. “Thing, please. God. But Bauserman knows, yes. Fitz knows. I’ve no idea whom they may have told in turn.”

“And the fact she knows that this Sola character, the judge, Torres are all connected?”

“I’ve shared that with no one but you.”