The Laughing Falcon (31 page)

Comfortably quartered in a sumptuous suite at the Cariari Hotel near San José, Chuck Walker, according to the latest polls, was now number two in the hearts and minds of registered Republicans, he had momentum. Only in America, it’s why Slack loved the good old U.S.A., it was Hollywood. The
civilized world would owe him a favour if he got those women freed fast, screwed up the senator’s campaign, eliminated the sympathy factor.

He realized he wasn’t focusing on Elmer’s words, the pot was a bad idea. Elmer was still making his pitch, a good salesman, though Slack wished he’d just drop the transparent pretence. He was probably in it with Halcón about fifty-fifty.

“The suits say, okay, we’re forced to go with this Slack guy, but how can we trust him? We’ll have to pay him off with some coin. You see, that’s a scenario these Cinco de Mayo guys have probably figured out. They want to make sure they look after you better. It’s like I say, a no-lose deal.”

“You mind standing up?”

“I’m clean.”

“Just want to check. There’s a few people who’d like to set me up.”

Slack went through a show of patting him down for recording devices. “Okay, thanks. I’m in for twenty per cent.”

Elmer seemed taken aback. “Maybe they’ll think that’s a little extreme.”

“You want a strong negotiator? Try me.”

“It’s not my call, man. I’m just, like, a courier of information.”

A long pause, Slack looked at his watch, almost midnight. Earth’s lonely boring moon was rolling behind a veil of thin cloud. This was going too well, Elmer wasn’t much of a deep thinker, easy to handle.

“They might double the six.”

“Twenty per cent. I don’t have an inch of wriggle room, Elmer.”

Elmer grinned. “Man, you’re too much. I’ll pass on the suggestion.”

“Stop the bullshit, you’re into this up to your ears.”

“Well, shit, I knew we had the right guy.”

Elmer extended the bottle. Slack gave it a careful study, no dead mice. Then, abruptly, he seized it and took a swig. It was
the dawn of a brave new year, goddammit, and he was about to pull off the perfect undercover scam. He’d get that albatross from around his neck, the label of all-round fuckup.

A distant din of celebration. Horns honking.

Slack raised the bottle again. “Happy new year, partner.” One last drink for auld lang syne.

Slack knew generally where he was, somewhere in the old section of San José, barrio Amón, in a saloon that brought anxious memories of a dungeon where he’d been tortured years ago, in the Arabian desert. In fact, this place
was
called the Dungeon, heavy architecture, stone walls, the cellar of a century-old building.

Elmer knew this town, he was a kind of San José boulevardier, and he called this joint one of his “stash” bars, places that don’t get mentioned in all those earnest guidebooks, off the main streets, barely legal.

It looked like lots of payola had passed under the counter to keep this one open, an all-nighter, full of grifters, a guy wandering around selling coke like he had a licence, numerous business-women. One of them was sitting on Elmer’s lap, dyed-blonde, skinny legs. Another was wedged beside Slack on his bench, reeking of perfume, her hand caressing his thigh, her purple nails playing with the frayed cuff of his shorts. Loretta, she called herself, a sultry black Tica from Limón. He really didn’t want to encourage her, he was unsure he could carry out his end of the contract, his nuts had been fried in that dungeon. Or maybe he was just finding excuses, a team of neurologists had examined him, couldn’t find anything disconnected down there.

Anyway, he was too drunk to perform, he’d split the Ron Abuelo with Elmer on the way up, a romp up the old Puriscal Road in Elmer’s beat-up Jeep, laughing, toking, debating the nature of stars and planets, and he’d been chain-drinking Haig and Haig since he got here. He was having trouble figuring out
how drunk he was, somewhere at a level below outright staggering, though he hadn’t tested himself on his feet for a while. Those fingertips tracing tiny circles on his skin were keeping him frozen to his seat.

Slack tried to rationalize. He needed the break, it seemed like eons since he had kicked back and shed life’s myriad worries. Let the planet save itself for one night, kidnapping and subterfuge, he’ll deal with that stuff when the sun comes up.

And it was important to stay tight with this Jericho character, vital to broaden this new and excellent friendship. Elmer was picking up the tab tonight, generous with the take from the Eco-Rico Lodge. The guy was smoking through a pack of Marlboros, talking non-stop, he had good Spanish. He also knew his drugs.

“Ecstasy, that’s just rabbit food for Yuppies scared to get high. Same with Dex and ludes and all that shit. Ergot’s still the only thing. Owsley, haze, flying A. Acid, man, LSD-25. No one’s come up with a better product. I must’ve done a thousand trips.” He turned to his companion, cooed something in her ear, she punched him playfully on his shoulder.

Slack started to drink more heavily as Elmer entered into negotiations with the whores, suggesting a package deal, extras included. Slack wasn’t keen on the project, you can’t fake an erection.

“So let’s find a couple of rooms, man. I’m paying.”

Slack tried to figure a way out of this. He knocked back a last desperate whisky straight. He had to focus hard, his eyes were seeing double Elmer, double Loretta, and, by the bar, the blurred outlines of the bartender, who was engaged with a burly, bald gentleman who looked like he was having his hand greased, maybe the local bylaw inspector.

Suddenly Loretta was burying herself behind his shoulder, and then he saw that the bald guy was approaching their table, looking pissed off.

Slack tried to make sense of what Loretta was whispering into his ear. “On the virgin’s name, I took only what was fair. He’s a cop, he thought he could get it for free.”

The policeman started swearing at Loretta. “You thieving nigger bitch, where is my money? Give me your purse!”

The fellow was being boorish and uncivil, an off-duty
guardia, a
cop on the pad, cheating the girls. This character really put Slack off, he would give him some words of advice. “Stick your head up your
culo
, you prick.”

At that, the whole bar went silent, everyone watching and listening, Elmer nervously shifting in his chair, Loretta still cringing behind his back.

When the cop made a grab for Loretta’s bag, Slack stood up, snatched his wrist, and cracked him in the shin with the toe of his boot. Then, as the policeman performed a one-legged hop, Slack kicked the other leg from under him, and with his hand to the back of his neck propelled him face down onto the table. He could hear the nasty crunch of brittle nose bone.

He stepped back, shocked at what he had done, he had overreacted, his judgment impaired. He saw blood begin to pool. The cop wasn’t moving.

“Let’s get out of here,” Elmer said.

Slack hesitated, checked for a pulse, it seemed to take forever to find it. The cop began to stir.

“C’mon!” Elmer was already on the move.

Loretta was still pasted all over Slack as he staggered out into the cool night air. He saw a glow in the eastern sky.

The view through the window was of fields and rolling hills under the shadow of Irazú volcano, so Slack knew he was in the mountains somewhere east of San José. He vaguely remembered
an ambulance hauling him out here yesterday, it was a private clinic, attendants prowling about in white garments.

The light from the window hurt his eyes, and so did the sight of Ham Bakerfield staring quietly down at his multi-hued body, an abstract canvas of blue and purple. Joe Borbón was off in a corner, looking dejected, Ham must have dealt him a tongue-lashing.

Slack remembered little of what happened after he left the Dungeon. Somewhere, in the distant reaches of his mind, resided a foggy scene in which he got pummelled, but alcoholic amnesia spared him the details.

He’d lost track of Elmer, though he had a sense of Loretta having been with him in a dingy hotel room. He couldn’t recall if he miraculously rose to the occasion. Nor did he remember being rolled by her, though that must have happened, because he’d lost six toucans from his wallet, close to a hundred bucks.

Ham lit a Churchill. “You able to talk now?”

Slack hadn’t been able to do that for two days, he’d got one in the throat, though most of the pain was coming from his two cracked ribs. The Demerol helped.

As best he could put it together, the cop whose nose he’d broken had gathered up a few of his cronies from the station, figured out where he was, or maybe Loretta squealed, and they barged into the room. Without even the courtesy of advising him of his rights, they proceeded to settle their dispute out of court.

“How did you find me?” he croaked.

“By the smell. Hurt much?”

“Only when I laugh.”

Slack assumed they’d done the rounds of the hospitals, he recalled stumbling into one before the ambulance took him out here.

“Almost predictable, the babysitter takes one night off, the trained agent goes on a tear, sneaks up to San José, gets rolled
by a hooker, and ends up on the floor of some flophouse smelling like a garbage truck and looking like it just rolled over him.” Ham blew out a cumulous cloud of smoke. This was a care facility, there had to be a rule against polluting the air, but Slack was too weak to complain.

“So give me the Purple Heart,” he rasped. “I’m in deep, I’m inside.”

“What we got here is a team player who keeps scoring in his own goal. You could have called in, hero.”

But Slack could see through puffy eyes that Bakerfield was smiling, trying to rein in his mirth.

“What the hell, looking at you, I got my sweet revenge. You sure this Jericho guy trusts you?”

“Like his mother.”

Yesterday, during one fairly lucid moment, Slack had been able to jot down Elmer Jericho’s name, along with the notation: “Inside job. Don’t touch him.” This morning he had managed to scribble out a fuller report.

“Didn’t think we were dealing with any gringos.”

“It’s a con game.” Despite the pain of the swollen larynx, Slack delighted in rubbing it in. “What I said from the start.”

“He checked into work this morning, the Eco–Rico office. We have eyes on him.”

“Stay away. I put a lot of work into this guy.”

“I got to admit the Einstein who had his file didn’t do a prize job of backgrounding him. Now we find out he was into some teak plantation scam a few years ago, selling ten-thousand-dollar shares for a square foot of dirt. Ex-Special Services, did you know that?”

“Said he was in ‘Nam.”

“We’re checking the land registry, see if he owns a house where the two women might be.”

“Good luck, registry’s a mess.” It had taken Slack a month to locate the title to his own property.

“When are you supposed to connect with him?”

“Ten days.”

“How about quicker?”

“Dying here, Ham.”

“You’ll die when I give the order, pansy. You got a few lumps, that’s all. I want you up and walking by the morning, we’ll brief you then.”

As Borbón followed him out, he gave Slack a hurt look, as if he’d been betrayed. Cozying up to the squatters, the windup Cuban got what he deserved, he missed a good fight.

Slack’s multiple swellings had subsided somewhat by the next morning, and since all his limbs seemed to be functioning he passed up the offer of a wheelchair and limped out to take some air on the back patio.

The small clinic specialized in tucks and lifts, he’d seen a few customers wandering around with face straps, men and women, vanity was gender neutral. The facility was in the hills above Tres Ríos, under the precarious shelter of Irazú and its hissing vents. Slack guessed they located it here because of the nearby hot springs, where they had guest cabins, you could hide out until your skin grew back. He wouldn’t mind doing a few facelifts of his own on those unsporting peace officers who jumped a drunk. But maybe he’d asked for it, let it go.

It bothered Slack that he couldn’t seem to get from point A to B in this rescue op without causing damage to himself, but his pain was dulled by the satisfaction he had pulled off a major coup. Not that Ham Bakerfield would ever openly applaud it, you could tie a ribbon around the entire Cinco de Mayo, present them on a platter, and he wouldn’t twitch an eyebrow.

He eased himself into a plastic lawn chair. Borbón was out here, pouting, refusing to acknowledge him. Otherwise the ambience was pleasant enough, flower-choked trellises, Mexican
tiles, the sun out, summer finally here. Down the hill, a pastoral scene, a herd of Holsteins being ushered from a farm gate, a Land Cruiser waiting to get by.

The vehicle finally worked its way through and pulled into the parking area, then Ham and Chuck Walker emerged and began trudging up the path. Slack had it all worked out, what he was going to propose to them. He would have to abide Walker and his many helpful hints because the senator would have to okay his plan.

He greeted his guests with a limp wave and sent Borbón off to fetch coffee. Walker insisted on grasping his hand, squeezing the bones. Maybe Slack had got in a punch or two the other night, his hand was sore.

“Excellent work, it looks like we recruited the right man.” But for some reason Chuck didn’t look happy, worry lines marking his face. Maybe he was disappointed that the show was nearing final curtain, he wouldn’t be crowding America’s front pages much longer. “You’re sure this character – Jericho, is it? — wasn’t just bullshitting?”

Ham answered for Slack. “I don’t think that’s likely, senator. This just came in.” He handed Slack a page of lined paper:
“Cinco de Mayo desinga Señor Slack Cardinal.”
The verb was misspelled.

Walker was playing devil’s advocate: “Is it genuine? Could it be a practical joke? No photograph, no proof it’s from them.”

“Elmer Jericho wrote this,” Slack said. “He’s the genuine article, senator.” It was painful to talk, because of the cracked ribs he dared not take a deep breath.

“He sounds somewhat lacking in the brain department.”