The Laughing Falcon (41 page)

“God help us.”

“He’s got a lock on New Hampshire, sending organizers streaming into Florida and Alabama. Huge in Texas and the sun belt. All he needs is for those loonies to rape his old lady, something like that, he’ll ride in on a tsunami of sympathy. He’s even better off if they snuff her.” He lowered his voice. “Nobody’s got the guts to publish this, but there’s been a grand jury leak out of Nevada, word is she used to hang with parties of dubious reputation, washed their money at the tables.”

When Woodrow and Beverley Schneider entered, Slack ushered them to the table he’d saved for them, a view across Manuel Antonio bay, lights flickering in the distance, the stars switching on at the last glimmer of sunset. He held Beverley’s chair, lit a candle, introduced himself.

“You’re the Bolshevist,” Beverley said, she had seen him on the TV. She was wider and shorter than her daughter, attractive if she weren’t scowling. She quickly butted her cigarette and rose. “We’re leaving.”

“Now, Bev, don’t get riled up.” Woodrow was a tall drink of water, all loose bones, the less aggressive of the two, obviously. Maggie inherited her spunk from her mom.

“He’s a damn communist.”

This was getting off to a bad start. “I’m totally on your side, Mrs. Schneider. Nobody understands my sense of humour. Really, it started off as a joke, I guess I’m the only one who gets it.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you cut off your nose despite your face,” Beverley said.

Slack continued apologizing, fulsome in his praise for their daughter, he really admired her, if there was a Nobel Prize for heroism she’d get it. Somewhat mollified, Beverley reclaimed her seat. Slack told them to order whatever pleased them most, dinner was on him, it was the least he could do.

He dared not hint that Halcón had reeled her in, that she was wiggling on his hook. Not naïveté but bold innocence, that was the crime of this seeker of romance from the wheat fields of Saskatchewan. A rare specimen, a caring person, worried about her parents, loyal to her buddy.

“Table number four,” he told the waitress, “bring them champagne, everything’s on my tab.”

Ed Creeley was well into his cups, building up his own hefty tab buying drinks for media pals. He was still going on about Chuck Walker, railing about his war against the godless Marxists of Nicaragua, about the Contras he’d trained in the violent arts.

“Half those fuckers are street muggers and bank robbers now. And after you take off the uniform and the silver eagle, Chuck’s just another pissass drug dealer. How do you think he financed mercenaries if it wasn’t dope? Remember the epidemic in the eighties? The streets of L.A. were paved with the crack cocaine his boys flew in.” The congressional witch-hunt, the senator liked to call it, had been about allegations he and his boys had helped the Contras run the pipeline from Colombia.

“Speak of the devil,” Creeley said. The senator himself had just come in, flanked by two Secret Service agents and trailed by Orvil Schumenbacker, his campaign manager, and Clay Boyer, official gas attendant, in charge of pumping out the press releases. Walker looked puzzled at seeing Slack behind the bar. More agents came in, fanning out.

As Walker pressed flesh with some American tourists, Schumenbacker bellied up to the bar, smiling and fat, you couldn’t tell where his chin left off and his jowls began. “Heard there’s some great food happening here. Table for three.”

“Sorry, they’re all reserved.”

Schumenbacker chuckled. “I guess you don’t recognize that gentleman over there.” Walker was now laughing with the four grizzled bruisers, there was some backslapping going on, a scene of camaraderie.

“I don’t care if he’s the king of Siam, we’re booked.”

“Maybe you can ask this fine fellow.” He gave Creeley a punch on the shoulder. “Ed, haven’t seen you since we got invaded by the body snatchers. Great story, you get my note?”

“Hey, Orvil,” Creeley said, “you’re looking kind of white. Just crawl out from under something?”

Schumenbacker’s smile didn’t dim. “Northern tan, Ed, northern tan. Be the first to know, Senator Greer’s coming on board with most of Kansas. Listen, why don’t you tell this gentleman who his special guest is?”

“Why don’t you tell us if Gloria-May Walker used to run errands for Vinnie the Monk DiLucchi?”

Schumenbacker finally lost his smile, his lips puckering like they’d sucked on a lemon. Walker wasn’t paying attention, he was still with those four gorillas, Slack guessed the hidden war, the so-called military advisers to the Contras, they called them Walker’s Rangers. Was he putting together his own team?

Now Walker was coming over to glad-hand some of the reporters, but his progress was halted by Schumenbacker. A quick briefing, and Chuck frowned, then went red and taut, and suddenly he was in Ed Creeley’s face.

“You print any shit like that I’ll kick your fucking ass from here to Honolulu.”

“Senator, let’s go.” Schumenbacker had him by the arm, pulling it, agents went on ready alert. The colonel’s aides made a try at recovering their good humour, a brave effort at laughter, Boyer telling the reporters it’s been a strain for Walker, how can you blame the guy.

Slack was called away to the phone. He listened to coins drop as he watched the senator’s party leave with an offering of
shrugs and smiles, the room now buzzing with conversation.

It was Elmer. “Hey, man.
Qué tal?

“Pura vida.”

“You cool?”

“I’m cool, what’s up?”

“You settle up with the, ah, trust fund yet?”

“They’ll give us four.”

“Out of sight.”

A reporter was tugging at him, another waiting, both wanting the phone, anxious to file the Walker temper tantrum item. Slack cupped his mouth into the receiver. “Let’s not fart around. Let’s do it.”

“Friday night okay?”

Three days from now. “Darkside?”

“Yeah, you remember how to get there.”

“Yep. You got my home number?”

“Hey, man, you said not to use it.”

“Disguise your voice. Just say, ‘Friday, usual place, usual time.’ ”

“Got it, that’s just to confuse –”

Slack cut him off.
“Hasta luego.”

The Swedes just ahead of Slack claimed to have had some river experience, but they were constantly in trouble. He had a full complement today, mostly Scandinavians, a couple of Yanks, an Australian. They were two to a duckee, the inflatables. Slack was in a hardshell, their sheep-dog, trying to keep them moving.

He churned back to the Swedes, they were hung up on a rock. “Back right!” he shouted. “Back paddle!” He came alongside and tugged, and their inflatable finally swung about, then shot the three-foot drop. The other duckees, waiting at an eddy, started to move downstream again.

He’d done a gentler tour yesterday, a paddle around the pretty beaches tucked behind Punta Quepos. That was for a private party of two, the Schneiders, who’d seemed puzzled at the attention paid them. Slack found out they were sharing if not a bed at least a hotel room, that was a good sign. Much of their conversation was about Maggie, of course, and he had to bite his tongue to avoid telling them he had met her, that she was well, was thinking of them.

Maggie, it turned out, lived in a suite overlooking the Saskatchewan River. Skating, bicycling, birding, an outdoors person, unattached. Beverley’s flow of words and imagery seemed inexhaustible. “She’s too choosy, she’s going to miss the boat if she waits until the cows come home for Mr. Right to gallop up the road.”

Slack had read Maggie’s novels, Mr. Right didn’t gallop, he wasn’t a cowboy, he was a clean-cut academic, cultivated, slightly mocking in manner, a virtuoso in bed. Slack had none of these faults.

He had to rescue the Australian, he’d spilled when his duckee took the wrong channel, a narrow sluice between two boulders. “Feet first, on your back!” he shouted as the man began to flail, the current carrying him, Slack pursuing, finally hoisting him aboard his boat. Thankfully, this was the end of the white water, all class one from here.

Tomorrow, in the morning, a copter would take him to San José, a final briefing at the resort where Walker’s entourage was staying. “Friday, usual place, usual time” – that’s what Ham’s tappers heard on the line. Everyone was convinced Elmer meant the Escazú Hills at dusk.

The river widened as it took a broad turn where a crescent of sand had been deposited, Slack’s staging area near the road. He shepherded his clients to shore. “Watch for the sand fleas, they bite like crazy. Stay out of the grass, there’s chiggers here, too, they lay eggs under your skin.”

Slack could see Frank Sierra sitting in his rented Suzuki four-wheel, reading a book. Slack catered to his customers, laying out sandwiches and beer and soft drinks, then joined him. He could tell Frank had something, he looked too pleased with himself, twirling an end of his moustache.

“The property in question,” he said, “extends from the Naranjo River into the mountains across the road, comprising eighty hectares. It was purchased four years ago as raw land for a hundred thousand dollars by one Abner Krock, who built the house. He is shown in government records also to have an address in Denver. His current address, however, and for the next twenty years, is San Quentin, California.”

Slack watched his kayakers slather on the bug repellent. “Drugs, I’ll bet.”

“Precisely. He was among three Americans, two Colombians, and a Puerto Rican who were arrested on an airstrip at a cattle ranch not far from here. The cargo of three hundred pounds of cocaine was destined for America, and this was a U.S. Drug Enforcement sting. All were extradited but one, a man who said he was present at the scene merely by happenstance.”

“Jericho.”

Frank nodded. “I thought it odd that although the others also claimed to be innocent bystanders, he alone escaped justice. One is prompted to surmise that some quiet intervention was undertaken.”

“In words of one syllable, Frank.”

“Friends in high places.”

“Maybe he just did a deal, rolled over for them.”

“He incriminated nobody. Any deal, perhaps, was for future favours.”

“Why wasn’t all this in Jericho’s file?”

Frank raised a speculative eyebrow. “The same friends in high places? It is indeed odd. The agent who did the initial check on Mr. Jericho felt constrained not to talk to me.”

“That’s bullshit – who gave that order?”

“He preferred not to say.”

Frank wasn’t in the loop. Slack wasn’t in the loop. Whose loop was it, anyway? Whose neck?

From the balconies of the senator’s adjoining suites at the Cariari Hotel, Slack could see the volcanic range that guarded the Central Valley, the foothills bare and brown. The golf course, though, was green, a sprinkler system. Walker was about to tackle it, he was practising on the carpet with a putter and a plastic cup. Ham and his tactical team were here, too, counting money, stuffing thick wads of U.S. hundreds into two duffle bags.

“You’ll be armed, I take it,” Walker said.

“No guns.” Slack had retrieved his Smith .38 but given it to Frank.

Walker missed a putt, gave him an exasperated look. “You’re just going to walk in there with our four million dollars and no protection?”

“I don’t want to see anyone with hardware. I’m going to give them the dough, I’m going to grab the women, and I’m getting out of there, then you guys ask them, nicely, please, to surrender.”

“I can’t see it being that easy.” Walker gruffly threw his putter into his golf bag. “I recall these characters as being somewhat gun-happy.”

Slack had let the senator down. “Where am I going to hide a piece? They did a good job feeling me up last time.”

“We’ll have a tag team behind him this time, senator,” Ham said. “And he’ll also have the little beeper.”

Slack had been confused when they asked him if he was circumcised, now he wished he had been. An indelicate hiding
place, but his objections had been overruled, the tiny capsule with the transmitter would be taped to his glans, his foreskin rolled over it.

“Think you can avoid getting a bone on?” Ham asked.

Slack didn’t think he would have that problem.

From the balcony, Slack watched Walker tee off, good form, a long, looping slice but still on the fairway. His companions took their turns, Schumenbacker, a couple of agents, plus the gorillas who were at Bar Balboa the other night.

Slack called Ham away from his tactical team. “Those four aren’t campaign workers.”

Ham squinted through his dense cigar fog. “The senator said he was bringing in some extra help. I told him we don’t need it, we don’t want it.”

“I think you better start thinking of putting a lid on the senator from the great state of Nicaragua.”

“He’s been warned.”

“I’d like to see those guys picked up and held.”

“You tell me what law they’re breaking.”

“Those are some mean mother-fuckers, Ham. They kill innocent people.” Including journalists, Chuck’s Rangers had engineered a bombing near the Costa Rica border, a political assassination gone awry. “Chuck doesn’t trust me to waste the bad guys, so he’s signed up psychopaths to do the job. You getting the picture, Ham?”

“I’m directing the fucking movie. On a warrant from the U.S. president. Walker ain’t calling any shots.”

Slack would just have to watch his back and do things differently. Plan A was to follow Bakerfield’s book. Plan B allowed personal initiative. “What about the Ticos?”

Minister Castillo had gone on air, outing Johnny Diego, despite Ham Bakerfield’s roundly stated objections. Now Castillo was licking his wounds, the White House had phoned
the Costa Rica president, told him to butt out or they’d buy no more bananas.

“They’ll get briefed when it’s over. One of the networks has been greasing Castillo’s people for advance tips, they’re liable to have the press swarming around us like fish flies. Your fan, the poetry lover, he’s not gonna know. Okay?”

“Sure.” Slack tried to look grave and innocent.

“A dozen people know, and they’re all in this room.”

Slack slouched onto a couch beside a member of the pursuit team, a young woman in bike leather, a Harley jacket, a cocky smirk.