34

While Axel helped Consuela pack, Jude returned to his room. Eileen waited on the sunlit balcony, gazing out at the sprawling capital’s bustle and haze. Coming up behind her, he felt a momentary impulse to wrap her in his arms.

“Consuela wants to drive back with you to San Bartolo Oriente right away, if that’s all right.”

She turned her head at his voice, the sun bearing down on her face and arms, which were milky with sweat, the perfume on her skin fragrant from the heat. “That’s fine,” she said quietly.

His mind rattled through an inventory of untimely, inappropriate things to say—not that he would’ve had the wherewithal to put them into words even if they were timely or appropriate. He settled on, “I wish I could travel with you, to make sure you get there safe. But—”

“I understand.” She shook off her reflective mood and offered a gallant smile. Mimicking the prettiest girl in the wagon train, she drawled: “Your work is here, sheriff.”

It felt good, he thought, joking. “You’ll be careful?”

“I’ll do my best.” Her eyes betrayed a dozen emotions. “Cross my heart.”

Feeling a need to prolong the encounter, if only for a moment, he said, “I’m going to give you my cell number. I want you to put it on speed dial, in case anything happens. Your phone has a GPS, they can pinpoint where you’re at if—”

She reached up with her fingers to touch his lips, silence him. “I know.” Peeking over her glasses, she smiled. The warmth in her eyes helped disguise her fear. “And another thing I know? You wouldn’t have kept that damn poem if I didn’t mean something to you.”

Once Consuela and Eileen left for San Bartolo Oriente, Jude and Axel put their heads together to devise a strategy for arguing their change of plans to Fitz. Figuring simple was best, they kept the story lean: Consuela had invited Axel to stay at her home in San Bartolo Oriente rather than the hotel, and that was the kind of request a gentleman obliges—read between the lines, et cetera. They refined it a little, adding detail, shoring up the weak spots, then dialed the phone. Axel, it was decided, would take the lead. Harder to deny the man in love. Fitz, predictably, dug in his heels.

“There’s no time to work up a proper risk assessment, a thousand things I can’t predict.”

“In a neighborhood,” Axel sighed, “enclosed by a high wall with guards at the gate.”

“Do you have their names?”

“We’ll get them. Or perhaps the local police—”

“Don’t know dick. Sit around all day waiting for trouble to come to them.”

“Michael,” Axel said, dredging up Fitz’s given name, “really, I’m tired of flogging this.”

“Just a reminder, you’re the principal, Axel, not the client. I have to call back to Torkland to get this okayed. If they say no—”

“Then I’ll hire Jude myself, either through Trenton or, if that’s not acceptable to you or whomever, on an individual basis. I’m quite serious. And on that note, I’ll hand you over.”

He passed the receiver, looking just a little smug at his improvised ultimatum—now it was Jude’s turn to keep the ruse alive. Fitz launched on in the same vein, adding that he’d done some extra background on Señora Rojas. “I made a call. There’s some serious bad blood in the Sola family, meaning she could have an ax to grind. I didn’t get the sense she was dangerous, just a flake, but—”

“If she’s not a danger,” Jude said, “why are we discussing it?” Secretly, he felt glad Fitz had uncovered nothing more recent than the divorce—Consuela’s work on the local citizen committees, for instance, her contacts with Marta Valdez.

“All I’m saying is, I think it’s unwise, Axel spending so much time alone with that woman.”

Jude could only wonder at the lewd scenarios tripping through Fitz’s mind. “Honestly, I haven’t seen anything much to worry over. She’s a nice lady. They’re sweethearts. That’s it.”

“She could be filling his head with God knows what.”

“So? We’re here to protect Axel, not his ideas. Or his results, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s a professional. And an adult.”

Fitz wouldn’t let it go, and when Jude could take no more, he broke in and recited a list of extra weapons and equipment he wanted for his own peace of mind, figuring they’d mollify Fitz’s paranoia in the bargain. He ended with, “I think at that point we can say we’ve taken all necessary precautions and then some, don’t you?”

He understood the cost of this deceit. If the truth leaked out—as it almost certainly would if things went badly—the industry would shun him like bad luck. You can’t trust his word, they’d say, let alone his judgment. No one would care that Axel had made up his mind and intended to proceed with or without protection, which meant Jude’s commitment to stand by him showed real spine. And yet, he reminded himself, he’d been planning a change after all this was done, mixed with a little travel: Rio, Buenos Aires, Patagonia. The end of the earth.

Suddenly, Fitz threw in a trick pitch. “By the way, while we’re on the subject of extra background, I followed up with McGuire about the two guys he was asking you about—those friends of your father’s? He admitted he had nothing that wasn’t ten years old on the guy you flew back with, Strock. But the other guy, Malvasio—if you told me you’d had anything to do with him, I’d have you committed. Or arrested.”

Jude went cold—He’s doing background on me? “What’s this about, Fitz?”

“About two years ago the FBI sent a fugie unit down here to find the guy because of something he pulled in California. They couldn’t track him down, though. Nobody knows where he is, McGuire confirmed that. He would’ve brought all this up the day he paid his visit but he hadn’t had time to catch up on all the details. Then, when you said you hadn’t seen the guy in ten years, he just decided it was all a dead end and moved on.”

But you waved him back, Jude thought. “So why are we talking about it?”

“This Malvasio character, he’s slipped onto the back burner down here with al Qaeda and the maras to worry about, but I get the feeling the Feds would be thrilled if he turned up. McGuire didn’t get callbacks in time to bring this up when he was here, but an agent in California finally got in touch. Malvasio torched a whole neighborhood in this town north of San Francisco. About twenty people died, damage in the major millions. The weird thing? He confessed. Malvasio. After a fashion—called a cop by satellite phone, nobody knows from where, admitted the whole thing, just to get even with the guy who’d hired him because he only paid half the fee. The guy was some political honcho who couldn’t get the city council to move off the dime on eminent domain, so he just had Malvasio burn the place down. Emptied nine thousand gallons of gas from a tanker into the sewers, the fumes backed up into the houses. Boom. Nobody’s seen him since. But I get the sense he’s got a whole lot more hanging over his head back home. That’s where he does his dirty work—uses different aliases, then hides down here.”

Jude felt the walls of the room quivering from the heat. But it wasn’t the walls. Or the heat. “How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That he hides down here. How do you know that if nobody can find him?”

“Just a hunch, a theory. Whatever.”

“And this other stuff he’s supposedly part of, back in the States, how do you know that?”

“After McGuire told me about the thing in California, I made a few calls. Most came up dead ends, and the few guys who did get back to me had nothing solid, rumors chasing rumors. Still, when I called McGuire back to follow up, he got very cagey and quiet. That’s when I figured I was on to something.”

But there’s been no follow-up with me, Jude thought. They’re not interested in me. He felt craven and small, being worried about that, and yet it sprang to mind unbidden. “So why are we talking about this, Fitz? The guy’s a menace, okay, but that doesn’t change the fact I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

“I’m just trying to give you some good advice. This would be an excellent time to play things straight.”

“I’m doing that. It’s called my job.”

“Your job is keeping Axel safe, not agreeing to whatever he wants.”

“Christ, Fitz, the man wants to stay with his lover. This is hardly the first time the issue’s come up. And, yeah, I’ll keep him safe—no matter who pays the freight. Everybody can work out the money on the back end. But if you’re going to pull the plug, let me know so I can arrange for a driver and everything else I’ll need.”

After he hung up, Jude went out to his balcony to think. The sun had dipped toward the horizon. Soon the late-day heat would turn bearable, given the city’s altitude, but that was little solace. So, he thought, Malvasio hadn’t kept his nose clean the past ten years—Christ, his little game of pin the fork on the cowboy tipped you off to that much. Working for a prominent family? He has connections here, no doubt, but his employers are up north, it turns out. And apparently, for whatever bit of work he’s up to now, he needs a sniper. Strock. And I was just the rube to serve as go-between. Malvasio couldn’t risk tapping Strock himself. No, he needed a patsy. Me. The son of the man who saved the guy’s life—how could he refuse? And leaving a rifle for him at the rancho—it was genius, really. Making everybody feel safe, Strock all alone out there.

And yet none of that made sense. He couldn’t picture Strock falling back in with Malvasio, given the hate he still carried around. So maybe it was true, he thought, somebody down here really did want Strock’s services. For what? A little guard duty on the ol’ plantation seemed unlikely, given the kind of services Malvasio provided now. Strock was here to kill somebody. And as soon as that idea formed clearly, Jude felt his insides coil up.

He couldn’t tell his guilt from his fear—my God. Axel. Then: No, get a grip. Strock wouldn’t do it, not when he owes his life to the old man. What if they threaten him. Better yet, what if they threaten his little girl? They don’t know where to find her. You led them to her, idiot.

Jude rushed back inside, checked that Axel was packing in his room, then dialed down and asked the hotel operator to connect him to a number in the Chicago area that he recovered from his briefcase: the investigator’s report on where to find Peggy Check. A variety of clicks and hums and then a sheen of white noise, followed by the blurred ring of her phone: once, twice, three times. Four. The machine picked up. No, he thought, listening to that drawling familiar Appalachian twang: “Hey, it’s me. You know what to do—”

The message broke off. A voice came on. “Hello?” A child.

“Is this Chelsea?”

A long pause. “Yeah?”

“Is your mom home?”

Another pause, punctuated with a sigh. “She’s sleeping.” Jude checked his watch. Four o’clock. Chicago was in the same time zone. An afternoon nap. Maybe Peg was working again.

“Could you get her up, please? Tell her it’s real important.”

He heard the receiver drop, then the girl keened for her mother as she thumped away from the phone. Jude hadn’t even considered what he’d actually say, and was only halfway to something he thought might work when a new voice came on the line, murmuring groggily: “Real important? It damn well better be.”

“Peg? This is Jude. The guy you met last week, I was looking for Phil?”

A bleary, ragged moan, followed by a bottomless yawn: “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m down here. El Salvador.”

Another drawn-out silence. Finally, she said, “So what’s up? Anything wrong?”

“No. No. It’s just Phil asked me to check in, find out how you were. Nagged me half to death, actually. You know what a pill he can be.”

“How’d he find out you know how to reach me? You said you wouldn’t tell.”

“I didn’t.” It was the truth, buried inside lies. “He just assumed.”

Her voice turned cold: “He doesn’t know where I am, does he?”

“I promised you I wouldn’t do that. I’m good for my word. Just trying to be a nice guy, play the go-between.”

“There’s no ‘between’ to talk about, not with me and Phil.”

“I get that. He just wants to know you’re okay.”

“Little late for that. Besides, why shouldn’t I be?”

Jude wiped the sweat from his face with his hand. “Well, the thing at the club. He knows you got tapped around.”

“You told him that?”

“No, he just figured, given the trouble he caused and the kind of people we’re talking about, it was more likely than not you got roughed up.”

“Ah jeez, you kno-o-o-ow …” She drew the word out like taffy. “Look—my business ain’t his business, not anymore. It’s over.”

Let’s hope so, Jude thought. “Okay. But for my piece of mind, not his, anything suspicious going on? Anybody following you around?”

“Like who?”

“I dunno, the guys from the club. Maybe somebody working for them. Hassling you, whatever.”

“You serious? That sounds like work, and we’re talking Vince’s guys here. They called me into the office, slapped me around, called me names, told me to get the fuck out of Dodge. That’s enough strain for a month, those losers. Anyway, old story, boring boring. I’ve got a new job now—”

“That’s great,” Jude said. And it was, on more levels than she knew.

“Yeah, and I’m on tonight, so I could use a little shut-eye, okay?”

“No problem.” His body relaxed. Only then did he realize how hard he’d been gripping the phone. “You’re okay then. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Good as ever, which could be better, but hey.”

“Same all around, I suppose.”

“Listen, just so I’m real damn clear—there’s no more need for Phil or you or anyone else to know diddly about me or my girl, okay? I get you were just checking in, but I want you to listen to me now. I don’t hate Phil. I don’t spend my days putting everything that’s gone sour with my life on him, okay? I was young and stupid and full of pity and I’ve learned my lesson. Only good thing to come out of that whole sorry episode is Chelsea, and I’m gonna do right by her. I know I seem like a heartless bitch keeping Phil away from his own little girl, but I want her to grow up a little before she has to deal with him any more than she already has. If at all. Not the kind of lesson I want her to learn. Man who throws his own damn life away and blames it all on bad luck? No. She don’t need that. I don’t want her thinking who he is and what he’s let happen to himself is normal.”

This from a stripper, Jude thought. And yet he wondered what his life might have been like if his own mother had seen things like this, had the sense, the foresight, whatever, to recognize his father for who he was and act on it, rather than seal herself away in bitterness and blame, call it a marriage. But then again, no one else saw his father clearly either, not till it was too late. “I hear what you’re saying,” he told her.

“I mean, you seem like a reasonably okay guy, but I really, really, really don’t wanna hear from you again.”

“Understood.”

“Okay then. Well, take care of yourself.” She seemed to be hanging up, then: “By the way, what was so damn important about this call?”

“Honestly?” Jude had to mentally backtrack, fast. “I just, you know, wanted Phil off my case. I was sick of being pestered.”

She chuckled acidly. “Get in line.”

She hung up, and Jude sat there a few more seconds, bobbing the damp receiver in his hand. He felt light-headed. All right then, he thought, setting the phone down in its cradle. She’s okay. Nobody’s come around, threatened her, followed her that she knows of. And if anybody was planning to twist Strock around, that’s the leverage they’d have, and it would’ve happened by now. It doesn’t make it all better, he realized. It just means Axel’s most likely not the target. But somebody is. You may never know who—or even when or where it happens—but there’s a dead man on your conscience. Maybe it’s already done. Call McGuire, he thought. Call him, tell him, explain it any way you need to but make the call—and say what? I’m sorry? What information have you got that would save anybody? The name of the cop, Ovidio Morales. But if Malvasio lied about so much else, would he really tell the truth about that? And if he had, no doubt Morales had been contacted before when the fugitive units passed through. A dead end. I’ve got the name of a restaurant in San Marcelino, the location of a rancho on the beach near the Estero de Jaltepeque that’s most likely long deserted, a junk cell phone number that’s already worthless. I’ve got nothing.

He reminded himself he couldn’t get distracted by all this, he had enough to occupy his mind. Axel trusted no one else. He needed somebody keeping an eye out now more than ever, even if Strock and Malvasio weren’t the issue. And maybe it wasn’t Chelsea Check, but a little girl’s life was still at risk. You fail at all that, he thought, on top of everything else, what you’re feeling right now will seem like peace of mind.