The Center of the World (19 page)

CHAPTER 30

 

W
ill shifted gears, and dust from the road curled up around him, leaving memories of dogs, the breath of skinny cows, dried dung, the leaves of the banana trees, and ground coconut shells. The smell of gas lingered on his fingers after he had filled the small tank. He shifted into low gear and bumped along the cobblestones through the center of Antigua.

He rode past the
mercado
where the dark essence of black beans rolled along the streets like a Chinese dragon, flipping its tail here and there. He didn't have time to stop; Emerson had promised to meet him. He rode up and out of the broad valley that was Antigua, pausing once at the top of the hill where the thickness of smoke thinned out.

Two active volcanoes spewed their own smoke on the outskirts of town. Will wondered if anyone would survive if either of the volcanoes erupted. Would it be like Mt. St. Helens, with everything buried in six feet of hot ash?

His former landlord, Jimenez, assured him that the daily spewing of a few sparks and a steady plume of smoke meant that the volcano was happy and healthy. It was only when the volcano went silent and let pressure build up that he should worry.

“It is like this,” Jimenez said while sipping a drink of hibiscus and fresh lime water. “We all need to let the pressure off every day. The pressure of love, anger, sadness. The volcano is the wise one. Take the advice of a wise volcano—don't let the bad vapors build up inside you.”

 

Emerson picked a bar in Zone 10, where tourists were most likely to congregate. It wouldn't be noteworthy to see two gringos having a drink on a patio.

“I didn't think I'd be hearing from you again. You're not recruiting for language school, are you? We determined that I was a lost cause with language,” said Emerson. He reminded Will of his old friend Cesar back in Brooklyn. He and Emerson had played a few games of basketball when he taught and they found an easy, joking camaraderie. “You still owe me one million quetzals from the last game.”

“I need your help,” said Will.

“Then that will make it two million Q. Sorry to hear that you got fired. I heard it got rough out there in the mountains. That was a bad mess.” Emerson tapped his beer bottle with the fingers of his right hand as if he was playing a flute.

Will didn't want to talk about Hector's village. “I need help with adoption papers for a friend. She needs to take a child out of Guatemala and back to the States. This is what you guys are good at, right?”

Will slid the envelope of identity papers and Sofia's photo across the table. Emerson smiled at Will and didn't look down. Instead he motioned to a waiter with his left arm, pulling the envelope to his lap with the right.

“If this is all you want, it could be the easiest part of my day. New Identities R Us. We are creative with official stamps.”

Will was taking a chance with him. He felt his body unclench with relief. “She's not just a friend. I'll be leaving with her for the States. I guess I had to come all the way to Guatemala to find the right woman. She's incredible. I wish you could meet her.”

“No, you don't. I'm far too impressive. She'd probably dump you for me,” said Emerson. The waiter brought two more beers. “Give me a full day to make sure the ink is dry.” Emerson pulled out a slip of paper and wrote an address on it. “Meet me here in two days. And buddy? You should watch your back with Jenkins. He's stinking pissed and he's not a nice man. Blackburn demoted him one notch and you'd think that his world had ended.”

Demoted. There was nothing equitable about being demoted for killing everyone in Hector's village. “In my world, we call people like him a gangster. But that's in Brooklyn and they die young. I can only hope the same for him,” said Will. He shook off the volcano that brewed inside him. “I'll be long gone and making a new life with my family,” he said, startled by the vision. His family. Kate and Sofia.

Emerson stood up. “Two million Q and counting, bro.”

Two more days, and they could make plans to leave.

“Are you in town for tonight? Stick around. I'd be willing to kick your ass in basketball again.”

Will had wanted to go back to Antigua if at all possible, but the thrill of Emerson helping him, a pickup game of basketball, mingled with the rocketing euphoria of new love, left him reckless. He'd return to Antigua with papers in hand.

“Prepare to lose to a superior player,” Will said.

CHAPTER 31

I
t was late afternoon when he pulled up to the cantina where Emerson said to meet him. It was the kind of place that operatives liked to meet for serious work, not a tourist in sight. Behind the building, a field lay dormant and dry. It would have been a good spot for kids to play soccer.

He opened the door and selected a seat where he could see the door. Jenkins walked in. Will froze.

“You were expecting someone else?” said Jenkins. Will didn't know the man's first name, didn't want to.

“Where's Emerson?” said Will, his back against the wall in the small restaurant, far outside the business district of Guatemala City.

Jenkins pulled a chair out, wiped down the seat with a handkerchief, and sat down. Chickens murmured outside, and Will was sure he smelled beans and cilantro. They were the only customers in the four-table room.

“Emerson has been reassigned, but not before he shared a few tidbits with me. It seems he was bringing you a birth certificate and adoption papers for a certain . . .” Jenkins extracted a manila envelope from inside his jacket and slapped it on the table. “Here we are. Sofia Malloy, age two, orphan, now the daughter of Katherine Malloy. He did excellent work on the adoption papers.”

The beer that Will downed while waiting turned sour in his stomach. He didn't want this guy anywhere near Kate or Sofia.

He allowed himself one glance at the envelope. “Where did Emerson get relocated?”

Jenkins smiled. “Did I say relocated? I meant that he's gone missing. Darndest thing. Assignments in Latin America are some of the most dangerous. Nuns and priests are gunned down. Terrible. This is a violent country.” He drummed his fingers along the envelope.

Emerson was dead. No one really went missing.

Jenkins pushed the envelope toward Will. “Everything is in order. Kate, lovely Kate, is listed as guardian. She'll have no trouble at the Mexican or the American border. They make a stunning mother and daughter, don't you agree? Kate's blond hair is so disarming when she piles it on top of her head, along with the child's jet-black hair.”

Will didn't take his eyes off the man. More was coming. Jenkins was only waiting for dramatic effect.

“You weren't thinking of going with them now, were you? Perhaps run home to Brooklyn and set up a little language school like your charming mother, with your new family?”

The marrow in his bones froze, starting at his pelvis and spreading out to his spine, arms, and legs.

“You'll find that your identity papers have become a bit messy. Let me speak candidly. You no longer have identity papers. You can't leave Guatemala.”

Will pictured getting across the Mexican border almost effortlessly as an American. But the U.S. border was another matter.

“Your name and your photo are posted at every American border. You will be arrested and turned over to the stateside CIA if you attempt to reenter the country. Those boys are a rough bunch. We couldn't protect you, Will, and there's no telling where you might end up.”

Will's muscles boiled with fear and rage, every cell preparing for battle, to reach across the table and destroy Jenkins, choke the life out of him, slit his throat with a cracked beer bottle.

Jenkins leaned back with luxury. “Tempting, isn't it? Bash my head in, leave the body behind this dump of a building? Find Kate and make a run for it. The owner of this fine establishment is on our payroll. If I am harmed, we have a fail-safe, sort of a bomb that's ready to go off in Brooklyn. Your mother teaches English at the Catholic church on Parkhurst, Mondays and Wednesdays I believe. She will get a new student, a Spanish-speaking immigrant from El Salvador. He will approach her after class and kidnap her, kill her (we give him free rein in his creativity), and dispose of her so that her body is never found.”

Will dropped from rage to terror. He had no way to stop this man, this monster that even Ron Blackburn couldn't control.

“Let's say you try to warn her about bad men trying to kidnap her. Let's say you leave with your charming Kate and the child. We have plans for the child. She is a lovely girl, suitable for international adoption after a grinding stay in an orphanage.” Jenkins paused. “Rather like a plot straight out of Dickens, don't you think?” He picked lint from his sleeve with languid attention.

“I didn't like being demoted as a result of your little fit in the office. You put him in a terrible place. He would have never known about your village of rebels—”

Will pounded the table with his fists. “You idiot! They weren't rebels.”

“No matter. In the envelope you'll find plane tickets for Kate and the Mayan brat. The flight leaves tonight so you'd best get on your way. If they don't make the flight, the child will be picked up. Kate would never see her again. No time to dawdle. In fact, they might not make it.” Jenkins looked at his watch, placing one finger under the metal band, stretching it out to let fresh air roll along his broad wrist.

“Why should I believe that you'd allow them to leave?”

“Because that's the beauty of this. Short-term suffering is nothing in my field. When I'm wronged, I go straight for long-term suffering, which is just what I've handed you.” Jenkins smiled.

Will wanted to grab him around the neck and crush his throat. Every cell in his body wanted to exterminate this man. The sound of a helicopter slid through his rage.

“That's my ride,” said Jenkins. He got up and walked out the back door of the cantina. A cloud of dust rose up and Jenkins ducked his head into his elbow, a handkerchief over his face. The helicopter door opened and Jenkins stepped in.

Will ran out to the miserably small bike. It would take him an hour to get back to Antigua. And he would need to make one stop before he went to Kate.

CHAPTER 32

 

W
ill knocked on Fernando's door after closing time. His entire drive from Guatemala City, racing around cars, swerving in and out of traffic, was spent formulating a way to get Kate and Sofia to the airport. If he was going to take a chance with this man, no one else could know. Kate had assured Will that she trusted Fernando with her heart and her life. Will had been tangled in her legs and her soft smell. It was dawn and they had slept little.

“But you've only known him for a few weeks,” he had pointed out, rolling a clump of her blond hair around his index finger. “Don't get me wrong, I think he's a straight-up guy. But I've been burned by believing the wrong people. How can you be sure of him?”

Kate ran the sole of her foot along his shinbone, cupping his leg with her foot. “Kirkland told me to find him and that I could trust him. Then I had to go with my gut.” She looked beyond his shoulder. “I had to let go of science and drop my brain into my stomach and when I did that, I knew that Fernando was about goodness. If my mother had been with me, she would have loved him.”

 

Fernando opened his door.

“I need your help. I can't leave with Kate,” he told him, “and I have to make sure that she leaves with Sofia.”

Fernando turned on a small lamp in the inner courtyard. What if Kate was wrong, what if Fernando was an informant? How does one drop the brain into the gut? Fernando was a slight man, compact, delicate by North American standards.

“What is it that you want me to do?” Fernando said, folding his hands on the table.

The air shifted between them from floating on the surface to a quick descent. Was it because the man was protecting Kate and the child? He needed Fernando if his plan was going to work. Will switched to Spanish.

“I have adoption papers for the child, but I can't leave Guatemala. My passport and all identity papers have been compromised. If Kate thinks that I'm staying here, I'm afraid she won't leave.” Will hoped that his Spanish would help.

“Your Spanish is impeccable. I understand you are proficient in the Mayan languages as well. There is no one left in Dos Erres to appreciate your linguistic skills.” Fernando kept his eyes on Will.

“So you know everything that happened. There was a boy, Hector . . .” Will hadn't been prepared to cry in front of Fernando. He turned his head to the side and fought for control of his lips, chin, and voice.

“I asked them about agriculture, where they sold their corn. I lived with them. When I left I promised Hector that I would bring him a new soccer ball. The kid was so fast with the crappy ball that he had.” He swallowed. “When I returned weeks later, I was stopped by the resistance fighters. The village had been gutted, burned, the people massacred. You know that part. They let me live because they wanted me to suffer with the knowledge that I had been responsible.”

Will felt time nipping at his heels. “I cannot let anything happen to Kate and Sofia. They have one chance to leave together.”

Fernando gave away little in facial expression. Will wouldn't want to play poker with him.

“What do you need?”

“Can you get us to the airport?”

“When?”

“Now. There's one flight and they have to get on it.”

Fernando stood up. “Get them ready. I'll pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Do you have a car?” Will was doubtful.

Fernando smiled. “No. But one can be had. Ten minutes.”