36

The call came in while Malvasio sat perched on a wood folding chair at a tented café in San Bartolo Oriente’s mercado central, sipping guava nectar over ice. Across the street in the cathedral plaza, the faithful poured out of church and milled among the parishioners sculpting devil piñatas from papier-mâché for the upcoming celebrations of Semana Santa: Holy Week. Malvasio took out his cell, checked the number, saw it was Sleeper, and flipped open the phone.

“I got good news and I got bad news, Duende.” Sleeper’s voice was lilting, cautious. “Bad news is, Truco Valdez ain’t where we thought he was. You’re gonna have to drive a ways.”

Malvasio shot up straight in his chair. “You found him?”

“Damn. Beat me to the good news.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing you wouldn’t.” In the background, a voice broke in. Sleeper said, “Hold on.” The sound grew muffled, a hand pressed over the mouthpiece, as the background voice said something else, longer, more elaborate. Sleeper laughed. Back on the line, he said, “Chucho wants me to tell you don’t worry, no animals were harmed in the making of this movie.”

Smoke rose from the lip of Volcán Usulután as Malvasio turned south off the Coastal Highway. The road all but petered out in a shabby little town of dirt streets, crumbling stucco, and rampant weeds, with gang graffiti everywhere. Suddenly, on the south side of town, the pavement returned and Malvasio headed on to Puerto El Triunfo.

The tiny fishing village sat on the Bahía de Jiquilisco, which the government was pimping as the future site of tourist hotels, golf courses, a convention center—if they could just convince well-off emigrants living in the States to part with some money. The village houses were modest but well kept, the brick streets lined with shady maquilishuat trees. Malvasio drove all the way to the water and parked outside the terminal turística, a two-story open-air market built by Canadians. The vast blue bay spread west and south along heavily forested shores where out-of-work fishermen illegally scavenged for firewood. A sailor with an M16 slung from his shoulder lazily patrolled the dock, nudging a stray pig out of his way with his boot. Streams feeding the bay shimmered with pollution while tiny one-clawed crabs struggled in the tarry foul-smelling mud.

Malvasio searched the food stalls in the terminal turística till he found Sleeper in the farthest corner, drinking a cold champán, a sort of fruity cream soda. He was wearing long sleeves again, the shirt crisply pressed and buttoned to the neck.

“Gonna find you a pill,” Sleeper said, slipping off his stool, “take care of this bad case of late you got.” He gestured for Malvasio to tag along, then walked with his distinctive forward lean out to a battered brown Datsun. “Show you the way.”

Malvasio tailed Sleeper to an isolated road outside town, rimmed with bare fields, where a small clapboard church faced a funeral parlor that resembled a bunker, with a stamped-tin door and windows fortified with wrought iron grating, as though someone might come to rob the dead. Beyond it lay a rustic cemetery lined with tottering sun-bleached headstones. Malvasio pulled up behind the Datsun and parked, then followed Sleeper along an overgrown path past the church to a remote, isolated house of concrete block surrounded by a high, sagging tin fence.

“Is it just me,” Malvasio said, “or don’t you find it odd—an empty church on Palm Sunday?”

“There was a desfile this morning,” Sleeper replied. “Everybody in this church headed over to some other church back in town. They had a guy dressed like Jesus on a donkey and people wore robes and shit, everybody waving palms. It was freaky, specially with the party we were throwing inside here.”

He gestured Malvasio through a scrap wood gate in the listing fence. Inside, Chucho sat on the stoop, reading a comic titled Violencia en la Jungla, the front door open behind him. “Buenas, señor,” he said, getting up to let Malvasio by.

A third man waited just beyond the door, introduced by Sleeper as Magui. He rose from his perch on a tiny wood stool and just kept going, six-foot-four at least and three hundred pounds easy, most of it muscle, none of it hair. Well, eyebrows. He could have worked in the circus, the ink on his skin—face, neck, throat, arms, chest, back. He glowered till Malvasio shook his hand, at which point he broke into a sunny, job-hunting smile.

Meanwhile, the uptick in heat indoors was instantaneous, the stench of an abattoir. Something very bad had happened here. It took passage through only one room to find it.

A heavily tattooed but otherwise clean-cut Latino lay bound with duct tape on the floor, half his face burned away. Dead. To his right, another Latino sat bound to a chair, duct tape again. Naked, like his pal, burned too but alive. Truco, Malvasio guessed. Hoped.

Malvasio realized now why Sleeper wore a crisp clean shirt—to remove the taint, because he’d worn something else to work in. Malvasio wondered where it was, the laundry bag. Meanwhile: “Who’s the stiff?”

“His name’s Jaime Lacayo,” Sleeper said. “Bible-thumping boned-out motherfucker.”

The room was a shambles; they’d searched everywhere for the film. Among the debris lay Christ and his cross, prayer cards, a rosary, votive candles. A bible lay facedown on the floor. Malvasio stooped to pick it up. A passage from the Book of Ezekiel was marked with a paperclip: They shall loathe themselves because of their evil deeds.

“You said they had a procession today,” Malvasio said, dropping the book back where he’d found it. “I’m guessing this Jaime is the kind of guy they’ll miss?” Everybody looked at everybody else: a riddle. “My point is, somebody may come nosing around, wondering where he’s at.” He turned to Truco. “But maybe I should be asking you about all that.”

The bound man drifted in and out of a twitching stupor and his skin was crawling with flies. He’d been worked on, his face almost black from burns and bruising, cuts on both cheeks, and his arms were deeply scored from a razor or knife, the wounds gluey with blood. The skin was clean, though, and from the smell Malvasio guessed they’d used chicha, corn liquor, to wipe him down, knowing it would burn.

Malvasio waved the flies away and picked at the edge of the tape gagging Truco’s mouth, then ripped it away in one rough pull. Someone had forced a rag into his mouth too, and Malvasio pulled that out next. It stank of piss. He grimaced and wiped his hand on his pant leg as Truco gasped for breath, eyes rolling in their sockets.

Malvasio asked Sleeper, “What’s he told you so far?”

“Not much.” Sleeper cocked his head to the side and spat. “Puta jodido.”

Malvasio turned back to Truco and bowed down, till their faces all but touched. “I’m going to get you to a hospital,” he whispered. “You have my word. It should never have gone this far.” He touched Truco’s face, his fingers cool against the scalded skin. “All we want is the film. You know what I mean. I’m going to help you. I promise. Now, please, help me.”

Truco looked down at the body of his companion. Flies were gathering there as well, dotting the gray skin.

“Your friend doesn’t need help now. You do. I can help you. Look at him. You don’t have to end up like that.”

Truco shuddered and Malvasio thought for a moment he was ready to talk, but instead he merely reared back his head and let out a gasping howl. Blood gathered on his tongue and he spat, spraying more on himself than Malvasio.

Sleeper, standing nearby, shrank back. “¡Hijueputa pendejo!”

Stepping to the side, Malvasio gripped Truco by the hair. “I’ll try it this way, then. By the time thirty seconds is up, you will either tell me what I want to know,” he shoved Truco’s head down, “or you will be as dead as he is. Look at it. There’s nothing noble about it, nothing heavenly about it, no kind old man at the top of the big white stair telling you to come on home. Just that. Meat. A dead fucking fool.” He shook Truco’s head back and forth hard. “I can help you or kill you. Talk.”

Truco coughed, spattering a foam of saliva threaded with blood across his lap. Struggling hard against Malvasio’s grip, he managed to lift and turn his head till their eyes met. Drool lathered his chin, then a grimacing smile creased his lips as he worked himself up to hiss, “He was my friend.” He laughed miserably, closing his eyes. “Adios, chingados.” So long, fuckers.

Malvasio let go of Truco’s hair. The dampness left on his hand felt slimy so he wiped it on his pant leg. To Sleeper, he said, “Wrap this up.” Then he leaned down, whispered into Truco’s ear, “I don’t loathe myself,” and walked out.

Two hours later, Malvasio was back in San Bartolo Oriente, eyes lifted toward the blanching sky as Strock stood on the roof of the garage, dressed in nothing but his shorts, shiny with sweat and leaning on his cane. He looked tanner, more fit, healthier than when he’d first arrived. Not that he’ll thank me, Malvasio thought.

Strock shouted, “Where the fuck your little helpers run to? Been on my own up here all goddamn day.”

Malvasio shaded his eyes. “They were doing a favor, out of town, for me.”

“Then you owe me a favor, Buckwheat.”

Malvasio lifted the bag of tamalitos and beer he’d bought on the trip back. “I’m way ahead of you.”

He climbed up the tricky wood stairs to the roof. When he got there, Strock grabbed the bag, looked inside. “Smells good. Looks greasy. Let’s eat.”

“Help yourself. I’ll go down, spot the house for you so you can set your zero point.”

“I wouldn’t.” Strock unwrapped the oily napkin folded around one of the tamalitos. “They’re already there.”

“Who?”

“Jude. The guy he protects.”

“The hydrologist?”

“Him.”

Malvasio turned, looked out past the wire fence and beyond the scraggly treetops toward Villas de Miramonte as Strock stuffed half the tamalito into his mouth. Heat shimmered off the cul-de-sac’s blacktop till the air seemed to vibrate. “They weren’t due till later. A lot later.”

“Showed up about midnight. Mercedes dropped them off then left.”

“Dropped them off?”

“Yeah. They spent the night. Given the way they unpacked, I’d say they’re staying a couple days at least.”

Malvasio thought that through. It seemed an unwarranted stroke of luck and he didn’t want to make too much of it until he was sure it was true. Then he remembered the scene inside the house in Puerto El Triunfo, the chaos, the gagging smell of blood and chicha. No, he thought, don’t trust your luck just yet.

“The car came back again this morning,” Strock said. “Jude and his guy got in, drove off, then reappeared a little while ago. Would’ve told you all that already, but you said stay off the cell.”

“Smart.” Malvasio took out a handkerchief, wiped his neck.

“For a minute last night,” Strock said, “I thought Jude made me, or made the sniper hide. He stood there, staring this direction.” He lifted what was left of the tamalito and nibbled at the gooey edge. A slimy thread of cheese leaked out. “But then he turned away. I watched them unload the car, but it was too dark to see much. Think he brought along a shotgun, though.”

Malvasio stopped wiping his neck. “Oh, fuck me.”

“Yeah. Maybe he got wind of your gig, because he seems ready for some whoop-ass.”

Malvasio tried to think how that might have happened. The only weak link was Strock. “Wait. If it was dark, how did you see that, the shotgun I mean?”

“Caught him through the scope in the doorway.” Strock stuffed the rest of the tamalito into his mouth and wiped his fingers on the paper bag as he chewed. “The light in the door gave me my zero point. Two hundred thirty yards, in case you’re curious.”

Malvasio stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket. “That’s a chunk of real estate.”

“It’s nothing. Got a straight lane, hardly any wind. We were hitting targets at two hundred in the mangroves, needling shots through the trees. This is a duck shoot.” Strock rummaged in the bag for another tamalito. “They’ve got visitors now, by the way.”

This wasn’t getting better. “Who?”

“How the fuck should I know? Man and a woman.”

“Describe them for me.”

“Americans, I think. Guy’s chunky, reddish hair, glasses.” He started his second tamalito, unwrapping the napkin daintily, then digging in. “Girl’s tall, nice looking. Not great, but nice.”

Malvasio turned back toward Villas de Miramonte. From the description, the man sounded like the reporter everyone was moaning about. He couldn’t place the woman. “I almost put a bug in there. Now I wish I had.”

“Jude woulda made that. He’s not that dumb.”

“That’s why I didn’t do it.”

Strock twisted open one of the beers and drank, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he chugged it back. Malvasio settled against the ladder, using a rung for a seat. The sun was dipping beneath the tree line. The leaves of the ceiba, amate, and mariscargo trees hung limp in the heat.

Fed, Strock looked transformed, content. He leaned on his cane. “Checked in on Clara out at the beach since yesterday?”

Malvasio found the question odd. “No. Should I?”

“You tell me. I was just curious how her and little Constancia were doing.”

Inwardly, Malvasio cringed at the name, thinking it was bad luck. And it hinted again at something deeper between Strock and Clara. “What exactly went on between you two?”

That quick, Strock’s humor turned. “That some kind of crack?”

“Not at all. It just seemed like you two connected somehow.”

“I liked her,” Strock said. “She had a way with that little girl. That a problem?”

“No, Phil. Look, let’s drop it. I didn’t mean anything.”

Strock reached out with the cane and rapped the tip against the side of the ladder. “Don’t presume you know what’s going through my head.”

Oh for fuck’s sake, Malvasio thought. “I won’t, Phil. I’m sorry. Can we change the subject?”

Strock looked off for a moment, leaning on his cane again as he mulled something over. The whiteness of the sky beyond him looked infinite, empty. “I’m assuming the plan’s still the same.”

Malvasio wasn’t sure he liked where this was headed any better. “More or less. How do you mean?”

“You want me to pick off your own guys. When they pop out of their van, I take them down before they can so much as cross the street.”

A zanate cawed from somewhere in the nearby branches. “Something like that.”

“It’s risky.”

“I know. I’m not thrilled with it either, but I’m not the evil genius I used to be.”

Strock grinned. “I doubt that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea, the first way you figured this? I’d be the guy to take out the hydrologist. And Jude, well now. He kinda comes out looking like a sucker, don’t he?”

Malvasio wanted no part of this. “Phil—”

“I mean, all in all, it’s the perfect scheme. Jude never has to step in front of a bullet. He never sees it coming. Boom, his guy’s down. Your crew rushes up but they’re just for show, they shoot high, whatever, make it look good. Happens real fast, their weapons match mine, no one’s the wiser. And the sabot rounds? Impossible to prove where the kill shot comes from. Your guys are safe because Jude’s not going to fire back, it’s not his job, he’ll be focusing on his guy, who won’t be getting up.” Strock looked proud, the puzzle solved. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“That’s not—”

“I won’t go for it.”

Malvasio took out his handkerchief again, this time wiping his throat. “Yeah. I know.”

“Don’t get me wrong. You wanna waste Sleepy and Dumbo—”

“Sleeper and Chucho.”

“—I’ll whistle while I work. But I draw the line there.”

“Fine,” Malvasio said. “If it comes to that. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

Strock laughed. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Look, Phil, think what you want but a lot of this is academic at this point, okay? Like I said, the people I work for have done everything in their power to make it so this doesn’t have to happen. The company honcho flies in tomorrow, he’s due to meet with the hydrologist sometime early this week, and we’ve squirreled his work so bad he can’t say anything to hurt anybody. That makes my guys happy, no harm no foul, life goes on.”

“But if he kicks up a fuss?”

“If he launches into stuff he’s got no business talking about, yeah, absolutely, we may get the good-to-go.” That was the wild card, Malvasio thought. The woman.

Strock lifted his cane and planted the tip against Malvasio’s chest. “I won’t kill him.”

Malvasio chose to let the cane tip sit. “Even if it saves Ray’s kid’s life?”

“There’s another way.”

“It’s not foolproof.”

“We gotta make it foolproof. If it comes to that.”

“Okay. I’m with you.” Get this fucking thing off my chest, Malvasio thought. “Good.”

Strock worked up a satisfied smile, then pulled the cane away. “The guys who hired you, what’ll they say when your little troop of cat turds doesn’t come home?”

“I don’t know. Not sure I care.”

“They’ll just slip you the envelope, give you a shrug and a wink. Better luck next time.”

“What can they say? Trust me, the PNC’s not gonna waste time on a ballistics trace for a gunfight where all the bad guys go down.”

“Even if the shots come out of nowhere?”

“What difference will it make?”

“Ray’s kid’ll figure it out. He kinda knows I’m down here.”

“So what? His guy’s alive, the shooters are dead—you really think he’s gonna open that can of worms? He brought you down here. He’s screwed, he brings that up.”

“What about your end? Your target’s still standing.”

“Think about how it’ll look. He survives, then bad-mouths my people, who are gonna be the ones who crow loudest about the shooters. Trust me, my guys are gonna stomp and fume, demand a crackdown—and that old bird’s gonna crap in their faces? Let him. He’ll sound like a whiny flake, which is as good as shutting him up. I’m thinking, he reads between the lines, realizes what a lucky schmuck he is, and goes home, never to be heard from again.”

Strock frowned and shook his head. “Sounds like wishful thinking.”

“Yeah? What doesn’t.”

A scant breeze rustled the nearby branches. Strock lifted the beer bottle to his lips again, drained it, then tossed the empty onto a growing mess on the sandy ground, scattering a cluster of zanates picking through the trash. “Just so you know. Something goes wrong, Jude takes a bullet or I get the feeling the whole thing’s sliding sideways and I don’t like where I sit, I’m gonna make the call: 9-1-1 works the same here as back home. I know. I tried it.”

Malvasio suffered a sudden flood of wrath so intense he could feel it pricking his skin. “I hear you, Phil.”