Saffire (28 page)

Harry Franck had described it correctly. Here too, stepping from the American Zone at the train stop of Cristóbal and into Colón and the Panamanian republic was a simple matter of crossing the street.

Buildings behind me in Cristóbal were neatly framed, neatly painted, and well protected by mosquito screens at every window.

Ahead of me, in Colón, was the flatland of a former swamp. My first time through on the Sunday morning of my arrival had only given me a view from the train. On the street, I could see that, unlike the crooked streets of the hillside of Panama City, Colón was laid out in grids of square blocks. The buildings were shrouded by vines, and the whitewash tinged with the brown of mold.

Although I could have stayed in Cristóbal to be safe, I knew I hadn't been followed, and since my route was parallel to the invisible border, I decided to walk through Colón. I passed a merry-go-round of giant wooden horses, where silver-dollar men, obviously drunk, clung to the necks of the horses and rode with the giddiness of children.

Prostitutes wandered freely, as did beggars.

I had missed all of this on the Sunday of my arrival, going straight from steamship to train. It seemed a gloomy city, but maybe that was more a reflection of my state of heart.

I passed the boxcars that were used to house silver-dollar men, and after this sad detour, I turned back again to Cristóbal in the American Zone, where the new streets were wide and lined with mature palms, and the buildings were magnificent once more.

Because I was curious whether Franck had been exaggerating, I took a moment to meander through the Washington Hotel, where Theodore Roosevelt had stayed during his visit to the canal a few years earlier. Franck was right about the sign at the pool, restricting the area to gold employees. I glanced at the men and women lounging on beach chairs and saw only skin that would turn pink with too much sun.

That's why I wasn't surprised farther along at the cramped, breezeless wards in the hospital, where dark-skinned men groaned in rows of beds or sat in wheelchairs, showing amputations where once had been limbs.

Beyond that, at the wards built on stilts over the water to capture maximum wind, and after showing my letter from Goethals to the appropriate administrator, I was directed to the area of the hospital where isolation cages had been set up in a high-ceilinged room. There I was delivered to the man I sought, who lay on a bed in an isolation cage.

The cages were not much different from prison cells, with the exception that the support beams were designed to hold the stretches of fine meshed screens that would not permit any mosquitoes inside.

These cages held men who had contracted yellow fever. Most would recover, but some would die in agony. These patients were inside the mesh to prevent any adult mosquitoes from drawing their infected blood and passing it on to the general population.

The man I came to see would not be among the living beyond the next day or so. I had learned too well in Cuba the symptoms of the final stages. His name was Gerald Dawson, and he was the foreman able to answer my questions about the cut cable at the locks.

His mustache hung limp from sweat, and his narrow face was tight with the agony that came from the abdominal cramps caused by internal bleeding. His skin was the hideous yellow of a failed liver, and blood seeped from his nose and his eyes. He had curled his body in an attempt to fight off the shaking and chills that came from his fever.

A middle-aged nurse in starched white hovered behind me. I'd told her that I'd been sent by Colonel Goethals and needed to visit the man, and she'd accompanied me to ensure the cage door did not open.

I pulled a chair up to the side of the cage. The man turned his eyes toward me, dull with fever.

“I am James Holt.”

He did not speak.

“I need to ask questions about the day at the locks when the cable sheared and dropped a bucket of concrete.”

He groaned. I thought from pain, until he croaked out a plea.

“Pray for me.”

I frowned. “Pray?”

“I have sinned, and God has punished me.”

Each person travels his own journey to or away from God. My own belief came at a price that I was still not sure I would have paid if given a choice: the death of my wife, who in leaving this world had shown me the joy that comes with faith and how it strengthens us to endure all circumstances. Even then, I had never lost my disdain of the window dressings of religion—of public prayers and pious self-righteousness. Whatever had this man done to put himself in such spiritual anguish?

“Let me ask my questions first.” That might have seemed like a cruel reply, but I would not use a balm on his desperation as a means to obligate him to answer me.

“I'm guilty. What more is there to tell? Because of me, men died.”

“Was that your intent? To kill?”

He moaned. “No! Dear God, no. I accepted payment to hacksaw the cable. What was a day's worth of lost concrete in comparison to the entire dig?”

I pulled the newspaper photos from my shirt pocket and showed him Ezequiel Sandoval. “Was this the man who paid you?”

He shook his head.

I showed him a second photo. “This man then?”

“Yes,” he groaned. “Yes.”

I wasn't surprised.

I
reached Miskimon's office shortly before noon. It was located in a small separate building near the larger administrative building in Culebra.

I heard the clacking of a typewriter. The door was ajar, so I pushed it open.

The interior was as sparse as I had anticipated. Framed photos of various parts of the canal project hung on the walls. He had a shelf with a stack of paper, envelopes, typewriter ribbon, and dark blue carbon papers.

His desk was bare except for a small stack of papers on the right side, perfectly aligned with the near corner. No clutter anywhere.

What did surprise me was that he had positioned his desk so that he sat with his back to the door. He continued typing as I walked toward him.

He stopped typing and said without turning, “Mr. Holt.”

Interesting. I gave the interior another look. There it was, a small mirror on the underside of his desk angled to give him a view of the door.

“Tricky.” I met his eyes in the mirror. “Why not just face the door?”

“I'm always curious what people will do when they think no one is watching.”

I stepped close enough to see letters on the top half of the sheet of paper in the typewriter.

January 13, 1909

Col. Geo. W Goethals,

Chairman, I.C.C.

Culebra, Canal Zone

Memorandum to Col. Goethals:

Referring to the attached:

Early yesterday morning I caught Marian Octega at his room at #206 Central Avenue Panama, this building being a Spanish boarding house.

Representing myself to be a saloon keeper from the Zone, I told him I was in the

“And generally,” he said, “I prefer they mind their own business.”

He stood and moved to his shelf to retrieve a canvas cover for the typewriter.

Naturally, to irritate him, I kept reading.

market for Golofina and Panatella cigars at the reduced price he was offering them to his Spanish friends, closing stating I had been referred to him by some of these people. He had one box partly full of “Golfina” (not “Golofina”) and six other full and sealed boxes of the same brand. The Panatella's, he claimed, to be out of at present.

The cigar manufactured in Jamaica and called “Golofina” is the one sold in the

That was as far as I was able to read before Miskimon covered the typewriter.

“The cigar bandit that you and the colonel discussed yesterday?” I asked.

“You have many failings, Mr. Holt, but I never counted one of them the pettiness of being a busybody.”

“Well, Muskie, normally you would be correct in that assessment. So forgive me for this, will you?” I slid into his chair and faced his typewriter, curious about more than the letter.

“As you might also guess,” he said in a neutral tone, “I'm a proponent of personal boundaries. So I'll ask that you return that chair to its original position.”

I glanced at the mirror. I did not see the door in it, but only because I was slightly taller than Miskimon.

I felt underneath the desk and my fingers brushed an object clipped beneath it. Given Miskimon's role for Goethals, it seemed a wise precaution. If someone opened the door with bad intentions, seeing Miskimon's back would create the illusion of an easy target. The mirror would reveal those intentions, and Miskimon could swivel in his chair, holding a weapon in his hands.

“Yes,” he said in a tired tone, correctly guessing what I had searched for and found. “I find that a .38 caliber can be persuasive when necessary.”

I slid away from the desk, leaned back in the chair, and looked up at Miskimon. “I prefer the Peacemaker.” A six-shot, .45-caliber.

“A name I've always found ironic. Nobody should point a gun at anyone without the full intent to use it. State your business here so that I can return to my routine. Oh, and remove yourself from my chair.”

I locked my fingers behind my head and leaned back. “I thought your routine was following me around the isthmus in case you needed to thump someone on the side of the head with a wine bottle.”

“Not after the colonel sent you to ask follow-up questions to my investigations into the accidents. You've been on your own since then. Please remove yourself from my chair.”

“Except for the various spies on my trail since my arrival. One of them I've asked to meet with us. Waldschmidt. At noon at the administration building.”

That caught him. “Spies?”

“The woman at the dig on Sunday morning who wandered onto the slope, New York accent…she was one of Goethals's, right? Not a coincidence that she was on the same train and wandered down to the observation deck when I did?”

“It seemed prudent, and she was improvising. There was and is so little we know about you. We expected that given some time alone with you, she would be able to provide us with much information.” Miskimon blinked a few times. “It would be embarrassing for both of us if I were forced to try to physically remove you from my chair. Even knowing I might not succeed, I will put in the effort.”

Fun was fun, but I did like the man. I stood and moved away from his desk. However, I did move his stack of papers slightly out of alignment.

“There was a Chinese laborer,” I said, “on the 10:37 train out of Empire yesterday morning, with suspiciously clean fingernails for a laborer. At different times, there was a Panamanian with enough of a limp that he should have been using a cane, and his shoes did not match his working clothes. Two women tourists, early forties is my guess, who seemed little interested in the steam shovels yet used their Kodaks with great frequency. A petulant man in his late teens who was poorly dressed, which was at odds with the careful grooming of his hair. And a nondescript Spanish guy who slicked his hair to give him a different look from when he pretended to be a waiter at Cromwell's soiree.”

“You are more observant than I give you credit for.”

He eyed the stack of papers on his desk and hopped ever so slightly from one foot to the other.

“Years of keeping a careful eye out for rattlesnakes in the Badlands,” I said. “But I prefer rattlesnakes. They give warning and won't strike if you back away. I'm not sure I can say that about you and Colonel Goethals.”

“Sticks and stones, Mr. Holt. This project will change the course of history. It's more important than your feelings. Or mine. Now, if you wouldn't mind, why exactly do you want Mr. Waldschmidt to meet you shortly at the administration building?”

“Curiosity,” I said. “To see if he'll appear.”

Miskimon seemed to barely hear me.

“Oh for heaven's sake,” I said. “Go ahead.”

He pounced on the stack of papers and realigned them with the corner of the desk. I doubted he realized he'd given a sign of relief.

“Tell me again why you want Waldschmidt to appear?” he asked.

“If he appears, I think that will be significant. And I have questions for him.”

“He makes it obvious he is a German spy,” Miskimon said. If Miskimon knew this, it explained the lack of reaction Goethals had shown at the lock the day before when I mentioned Waldschmidt. “I doubt he'd answer any direct questions.”

“Will you?”

“Depends on the questions.”

I stood. “How about we sit in the shade on the veranda of this fine little building and watch for Waldschmidt's arrival. Then you choose which of my questions you want to answer.”

Neither of us spoke for about five minutes. Strangely, it was not an uncomfortable silence. Miskimon had his peculiarities, but I admired him for choosing not to hide them. Also, he had saved my life the night before.

Perhaps my body was getting accustomed to the humidity, but the heat was no longer uncomfortable. We sat in chairs a few feet apart, both watching the entrance to the administration building.

Noon passed with no sign of Waldschmidt.

Miskimon finally broke the silence. “What did you learn of interest at Gatún and Cristóbal?”

“Which you know about thanks to the petulant man in his late teens. I'm not sure you should keep him in that role. He was entirely too obvious as he followed me.”

“Now you are simply showing off.”

“As are you. Demonstrating your conclusion that I am here because of Gatún and Cristóbal.”

“I could simply be assuming that you are following up on questions that Colonel Goethals assigned you to ask.”

“Yet after visiting the lock and after visiting the dig,” I said, “I did not stop by your office.”

“Point made. What did you learn, then, at Gatún?”

“The amazing engineering that it took to tame the Chagres by building a dam site bigger than anything seen before.”

Miskimon gave me a deadpan sweep of his eyes. “Vulgarities are never humorous, Mr. Holt.”

It took me a second to think through what might have been a vulgarity. Of course.
A dam site bigger.
My pun had not been intentional, but not bad. I bit off a smile and stayed as deadpan as Miskimon.

“First thing a fish says when it smacks into a concrete wall?” I watched Miskimon. “Dam.”

“Juvenile vulgarities exhibit even less class. Besides, unlike most, the Gatún Dam is not built with concrete. So that doesn't apply here.”

“Still, wouldn't you agree that America is a dam nation? Blocking water everywhere Americans go.”

“It's a poor comedian who abuses a captive audience.”

“Do you understand the concept of fun? Did you ever play at anything when you were a boy?”

“I never was a boy. And this idle chitchat, I repeat, is a waste of time.”

I thought of a new pun, but it was going to need a buildup. “When the valley is filled, it will be the largest man-made lake in the world. What happened to the villagers who lived along the river?”

“They've been compensated,” Miskimon said.

“And they moved without protest?”

“They've been compensated.”