The Laughing Falcon (46 page)

Unexpectedly – and never before seen – a smile appeared, crinkling the corners of his lips. Usually, he was sternly serious, almost funereal, frightening her with his vast collection of disasters befalling the planet.

“How does a spy become such an eco-freak?”

“One of my last jobs took me inside a group called the Green Commando. Eco-terrorists, that was the standard Interpol line. They opened my eyes; politicians were bickering as the earth was bleeding. I joined Greenpeace, tried to do my bit; it isn’t enough – it’s never enough.”

He held his bottle of Fanta to the light, as if inspecting it for foreign objects. He took a swallow, then stared glumly at the panorama below, at the clouds massing over the ocean. Mist had gathered in cotton clumps on mountainsides and in the valley below.

“There’s still beauty in the world,” she said.

As if to prove her point, a gaudy toucan perched nearby and began croaking like a raspy gate. It was soon joined by four companions; all began hopping around a liana bearing clusters of purple berries. “Keel-bills,” Slack said. “Fruit, nuts, lizards, and other birds’ eggs.”

The toucans took wing, soaring to a lower tree. “They look like toy airplanes,” she said.

“Your mother said you’re a nervous flyer. What’s that’s all about?”

“I can’t figure it out.”

“It doesn’t make sense; you’re too spunky.” Another smile: she wished he would do that more often. His eyes finally met hers. “I could take you to some of my spots. Maybe we could find the Buff-Breasted Blue Warbler.”

“Let’s do that. Birding, I’d love to.”

“I can show you what is left of beauty.”

He said that with soft intensity, and held eye contact. Neither spoke for a few moments, and her garrulous host’s sudden incapacity for words made her apprehensive: was she
being cautiously wooed? If so, and however warming it felt, she would be acting falsely if she encouraged him. One does not jump out of love as one jumps out of bed.

I’m not ready, she wanted to tell him; my emotions are a shambles. Abruptly she turned from him, not wanting him to see the welling tears.

“Johnny Falcon, right?”

“Yes. I’ll get over it.”

You scare me, he had said. No wonder.

They were moving at a snail-like pace as they neared the coast; a road crew was paving.
“Perdone, estamos trabajando,”
said their sign. Slack translated: “ ‘Sorry, we’re working.’ ” Again, she enjoyed the way his weathered face creased like an old suit when he smiled. She felt embarrassed by her admission she was still Halcón’s captive in heart, but Slack had made no attempt to probe further. Indeed, he had abandoned efforts to engage her more closely; perhaps she had been presumptuous, had misread his feelings.

The coastal plain was dotted with ramshackle homes, the climate hot and muggy, the people darker skinned, many of them New World African. From a rise, they glimpsed Limón, a large town laid out in a grid on a finger of land probing the sea. They didn’t want to be seen, and, according to Slack, the art of Tico thievery had reached a state of near perfection in this bustling port, so they decided to avoid the town until nightfall. He took them south, along the coastal highway; after several kilometres they found an access road to a stretch of deserted black-sand beach.

The clouds were still building; her skin had become slick with a sheen of sweat. A daytime darkness abruptly set in; the rain announced itself with thick splattering drops, then came with a clamour. As Slack rolled up the windows, Maggie crawled into the back of the car, where she lay down on the sacks of money, hoping to sleep.

She sensed a formality between them now, an altered, more practical relationship – they had important business to transact.

She awoke from an erotic dream feeling disoriented – where was the meadow on which she was lying with her dark-eyed lover? All was a blackness; it was raining, and she was in a vehicle — the sound of its engine had woken her. She climbed into the front seat as Slack pulled onto the road from their beachside rest stop. Her watch read half past eight.

“Sleep well?”

“I’m not sure.” Her dream had disturbed her: Halcón’s voice, but not his words – I
will be back for you
.

The rain slowed as they entered Limón, a town that looked damp and mildewed, a Somerset Maugham setting. People were strolling about with umbrellas, lining up for buses, gossiping in front of shops. The bars were bustling, the sounds of salsa and reggae spilling onto the streets. Halcón had said he would be waiting in the main square, under the leafy trees with their resident sloths.

Slack circled almost the entire perimeter of the square before nudging the Suzuki into a hole between cargo taxis. Maggie tugged down her cap and looked away from the two older men standing at the curb; but they were laughing and talking animatedly, and ignored her. Afro-Caribbean music came from speakers inside the bar across the street.

Slack handed her the keys. “I’m going to do a walkabout. I won’t be far.” As he strolled off into the square, she slid into the driver’s seat and locked the doors, leery about guarding a millionaire’s ransom in this city of thieves. A Guardia Rural officer stopped to talk with the two men standing by her vehicle. When she peeked from under her cap, she observed a bottle being passed to the policeman, who glanced about before drinking from it.

Maggie slid down in her seat, and turned again to the street. In a shadowed doorway near the bar, a man wearing sunglasses
was lighting a cigarette. He looked sinister, the only local not partaking in the general gaiety.

Several minutes passed, and she was becoming concerned that Slack had not returned. But he was likely waiting in the darkness with Halcón; they would not want to pique the interest of the Guardia officer.

The policeman continued his stroll, much to Maggie’s relief. Then the man across the street flicked his butt into the gutter and walked quickly toward her. She held her breath and suddenly exhaled as she recognized him. She rolled down her window, smiling but anxious.

“How do you come to be here, Maggie?” Halcón bent and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She unlocked the passenger door, then gripped the steering wheel to prevent her hands from shaking. “Get in.”

F
our persons were lined up behind Slack for the one working pay phone at this corner of Sloth Park, but having waited ten minutes he wasn’t going to give up and kept impatiently feeding the machine its diet of twenty-colon coins. For all Slack knew, the receptionist had flown to Baffin Island to fetch Bakerfield to the phone, or maybe the old man was taking the world’s longest crap. Or they were stalling, trying to do a trace, but they’d be at least an hour getting here, even by copter.

He couldn’t see the Suzuki from behind the bank of phones, Maggie would be fretting. Another coin plunked down the slot, he was fast running out. Get off the pot, Ham.

Finally, a human voice. “He’s coming now.”

“Where the fuck are you, Slack?” The gruff tones of the spymaster.

“This will be brief. Did you collar Elmer Jericho?”

“For what?”

“For … hell, didn’t you talk to Frank Sierra? Get ahold of him right away, he’s got the whole lowdown.”

Ham went off the line for a second. “He’s gone off somewhere. He dropped by when I was at the crime scene. What was your motorcycle doing at that joint?”

Frank was not following the amended rules of Plan B – where could he have vanished? Slack hoped Walker’s Rangers had not intercepted him.

“Where the blazes did you get to? Will somebody clue me in, goddammit?” Ham had started to shout, and Slack had to yell over him.

“Where’s the junior senator from South Dakota?”

“Listen hard, he’s claiming you ran off with his dough and you’re in league with the crooks who did the snatch. If you’ve screwed up again, I’ll personally take a scalpel to your hanging decorations -”

Slack cut through again.
“You
listen hard. I’ve got Maggie Schneider with me, and I’ll have Glo in probably a couple of hours. Elmer’s been shilling for Walker all along. It’s a scam, we’ve all been shucked by a megalomaniac and his hippie stooge. Don’t pull anyone in until you talk to Frank Sierra.
Find
him. Gotta go.” He hung up.

They’d probably got their trace, now he had to locate Halcón and boot it out of here to do the transfer. It was well after nine, where the hell was he? Slack had already strolled through the square once, this time he raced through it. No sign of him.

Hurrying back to the street, he was stunned to find the Suzuki Sidekick gone, a rusty Datsun pickup in its place. He made frantic inquiries of the two old-timers at the curb.

“The lady in the Jeep, she drive off, mon. With a man in sunglasses.”

The description they gave fit Halcón. Slack felt crushed by the weight of impending disaster. “A taxi follow them, mon.”

They had been careful observers – the Suzuki had headed not east toward the airport but west, perhaps to the seaport at Moín. Likely, the taxi bore one of Halcón’s confederates, maybe Gordo, playing tail-gunner, watching the rear.

Slack felt heavy with defeat. He had a choice, he could walk into the bar and get roaring drunk or he could act on the slimmest of theories: Halcón had a boat at Moín, or maybe a reserved berth on a freighter.

He couldn’t bear the thought of calling in again, braving the old man’s wrath. This was the final glorious fuckup, the one they’d remember him by.

He strode down the sidewalk to the taxi bank.
“El puerto,”
he told the first driver in line.
“Muy rápido.”

As they sped down streets lined with tin-roofed shacks toward the wasteland east of the waterfront, Slack tried to puzzle through what had happened. Halcón had probably been watching their car from the shadows, he’d seen his chance to grab the dough. Had Maggie gone willingly? What did she think she was doing – tripping off to fairyland to live with her prince? She wasn’t thinking clearly, still bonkers over him, she could have stumbled unwittingly into danger.

Slack tried to persuade himself he was overly concerned. Maybe this wasn’t such a catastrophe, Halcón’s venture had profited him well, he was an honourable man, he would free Glo Walker, and the deal would be signed off, all without Slack’s intervention. Maggie would escort Glo to freedom in the Suzuki Sidekick, they could be heading to the nearest phone right now.

That promising alternative boosted his hopes, maybe his ass wouldn’t be hung on the line to dry, he would explain the matter had been taken out of his hands, an impetuous act by Maggie Schneider. But how could she have been so rash and irresponsible?

Maybe she’d run off with Halcón with noble intentions, deciding on the fly to do the deal by herself, protecting Slack from the wrath of his handlers. Walker, already squirming, was going to look even more ridiculous with his slanders about Slack being in league with Halcón.

The
taxista, a
handsome greying mestizo, occasionally glanced at Slack in the rear view, frowning but saying nothing, obeying entreaties for speed, breaking minor traffic laws. The rain finally relented as they reached the port, its docks well lit, busy with commerce even at night, the crane working, containers of bananas being lifted aboard a small rusty freighter.

Slack told the driver to wait while he reconnoitred. The freighter didn’t have passenger cabins, and he saw no cruise vessels. Smaller launches would be tied up at the entrance to the canals that webbed through the Caribbean lowlands, longboats offering tours to Tortuguero, as far as Barra del Colorado, near the Nicaraguan border.

“To the canal,” Slack said.

The driver looked over his shoulder, got a good view of Slack in the light of a lamppost. “I have seen you on television, señor. You are the one who supports the man they call Halcón. I am cheering for your side. Halcón is for the people.” A friendly. “Why are you here, señor, if it is not impolite to ask?”

Slack leaned to his ear. “I am helping Halcón escape. We are looking for a rented Suzuki Sidekick.”

The canal’s dock was in a gated compound, fenced against thieves. A dozen long canopied boats were tied up at the wharf, along with several smaller craft.

His supportive
taxista
honked for the gatekeeper to let them in, then pulled into a parking area. “Maybe this is what you are looking for, señor.” Bingo, a stroke of luck, the target vehicle. Slack scrambled from the taxi, looked in the windows of the locked Suzuki, it was empty, no duffle bags.

Slack tried to pay his driver, but his money was refused, Slack was an ally of heroic Halcón. He sprinted to the dock and saw a short fellow busily jotting notes. Gordo, he thought at first, but a closer look revealed him to be, however unlikely, Frank Sierra.

“Excellent, you made the right guess. We have not much time. Do you see – in the distance?”

“Frank, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Look, that is their boat.”

A couple of hundred yards north, before the canal curved from sight, he made out a small craft, a light at the bow. Frank flipped through a couple of pages of his notebook. “Five-metre fibreglass cabin cruiser, yellow with green trim, a thirty-horse outboard. It will be slow, we must be faster.”