The Second Bat Guano War: a Hard-Boiled Spy Thriller (14 page)

“You’re trying to fatten me up,” I said. I scooped a glob of guacamole the size of an apple onto a shard of a chip, shoved it in my mouth.

“Can’t have you starve to death, now can we?” Ambo said.

“Worse ways to die,” I mumbled around the crashing of the chip disintegrating against my molars.

Pitt put the joint to his lips, lit it, and took a long drag. He held it out to me.

I shook my head. “Not my style.”

He exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “Uppers are good. But you’re on vacation. You need to relax.”

Then why did we bring a kilo of coke?
I was tempted to ask.

He nodded again, as though drumming the bass backbeat to an unheard song. He held the burning tip under my chin, the smoke tickling my nose. I took it.

It had been a while since I last toked. Better days, better times. The joint dangled between my fingertips. I could feel the heat. The wet seam hissed where Pitt had sealed it with his tongue. I put the joint to my lips, inhaled.

Burning marijuana filled my lungs. I held it in, feeling the particulate matter stick to my insides. The drug hit me, melting me, a puddle of contentment and hunger. I closed my eyes. I took another hit, and the puddle deepened, and I reclined in the mud bath of artificial happiness.

Opening my eyes, I stepped into the past. A black-and-white past. There I was in the back room of a frying pan factory, a shiny Chinese face bending over me as I rubbed cocaine on my gums. Thick bundles of black hair spewed sideways from his ears. A blue Cubs cap shaded the man’s priest-like smile. In my shirt pocket, a thick wad of money. I blinked. A glossy past, not matte. White edges surrounded the vision. My plate glistened in the sun around it.

I picked up the photo. Ambo sat forward in his chair, elbows on the table, a cigarette horn burning at his right temple. His eyelids drooped low, watching me. I turned to Pitt. He sat with his legs crossed, fingering his shark-tooth necklace. He looked at his lap.

“The fuck is this?” I asked.

“Hak Po.”

“I know who it is. What’s he doing on my plate?”

Ambo didn’t answer.

“Pitt?”

He shrugged. He didn’t look at me. “It wasn’t my idea. I swear.”

I flipped the photo across the table. It landed on top of Ambo’s
ceviche,
splattering fish juice on his lime-green polo shirt. I dropped the joint in my wineglass. It hissed and went out, a paper fish drowning in Chardonnay.

“We need your help,” Ambo said.

“You never thought to just ask?”

His eyelids didn’t flicker. “You’d say no.”

Pitt sighed. “Dad. Give him a chance.”

“A chance to what?” I asked.

Ambo lifted a basketball from under his chair, held it upside down with one large hand. “Help your country. Stay out of jail. Maybe make some money on the side.”

“Are you threatening me?” I said. I stood. “Fuck you, alright?”

Ambo raised his voice. “What about your country, Horace?”

“My country?” I said. “Do it for the red, white and blue, star-spangled banner and apple pie
à la mode
watching drones kill innocent women and children, the NSA spying on people, the concentration camp at Gitmo, and you assholes torturing and killing dissidents?” I panted for breath. Pitt’s mouth hung open. Ambo didn’t move. “Fuck my country,” I said. “I’ve got no country.”

Pitt touched my forearm. “Come on, bro. Just listen to him. What he’s got to say.”

“You part of this bullshit?”

“Honest to God, man. I swear.”

“Then what the fuck?”

“Just listen, OK?”

I sat down again. “So talk.”

Ambo held the basketball skyward. “Hak Po.”

“What about him.”

“You buy your coke from him.”

“Sure.”

Ambo turned suddenly, raised his eyebrows. “Nothing else?”

“Don’t need another frying pan.”

“Trust him with your life?”

I snorted. “Wouldn’t trust him with a glass of milk.”

Ambo stood and stretched, his wingspan a reminder of the pro basketball player he once was. He palmed a second ball, held them both out at his sides, a bald black statue, bright orange buoys to left and right.

“Tell him, son.”

Pitt swallowed a mouthful of guacamole. He looked at his plate. He cleared his throat.

“Hak Po. Born Lima, 1970. Parents fled Cultural Revolution in China. Moved to La Paz, Bolivia, as a child. Parents owned a corner store. Attended university, La Paz. This is when, we believe, he was recruited by the Chinese Secret Service. On their way to his graduation, his parents died when their bus went off a cliff.” He shrugged, not looking at me. “Happens a lot in Bolivia.”

The munchies hit me, a pile driver in my gut. Weeks and months of unsatisfied hunger had been unleashed by the unexpected marijuana hit. I pulled the guacamole bowl closer, began eating with both hands.

“So,” I said, spitting flecks of food as I spoke, “Hak Po’s a spy. So what?”

“He’s running agents in Peru,” Pitt said.

“I should give a shit, exactly why?” I shoved a mutant double corn chip in my mouth, loaded with pureed avocado.

“Horse, come on.” Pitt punched me in the shoulder. “Someone at the mine is selling secrets. Hak Po is the middle man. Production info, important stuff.”

“Fucking gooks.” Ambo dribbled a ball, let the second bounce free. He faked a jump shot at a nonexistent basket. His snakeskin boots scuffled against the brick patio deck.

Pitt said, “We need to find out who his contact is.”

“You got security at the mine, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Pitt sat back, scratched his hairless chest.

A bottle of single malt cozied up to Ambo’s plate. I cracked the seal and drank from the bottle. “So search all your employees when they leave. That’s what they do in diamonds, right?”

“That’s—”

“—classified.” Ambo crushed the ball between his hands. The ball echoed, a mournful ping.

Pitt grinned. “It has to be one of two people. Australian or Brazilian. Engineering exchange techs.”

“Fine,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with me?”

Pitt scooped a handful of ice from the wine bucket, crammed an empty highball glass full, put it in front of my plate. “Backwash, dude.”

“Sorry.” I poured liquor into the glass, put the bottle back on the table.

“Suffice it to say,” Ambo said, hustling around the empty half of the patio, the basketball in one hand, a cigarette dangling from his lips, “we did not make the same offer to the Chinese.”

“These exchange techs. Sort of legal spies, as it were,” I said.

Pitt filled another glass with ice. He covered the ice with Scotch. He didn’t look at me.

Ambo sat down again, breathing hard, puffing smoke. He rested the ball on his thigh, thick forearm dangling on top. “One of these guys is wearing out his welcome.”

I drained my glass. “I know the feeling,” I said. “So why don’t you just interrogate them both?”

“Because one of them is innocent, Horse,” Ambo explained patiently. “It would cause a diplomatic incident.”

“So what am I supposed to do about it?”

Pitt pulled a white envelope from the back pocket of his jeans. He opened it, extracted a small white button. He put it down on the table with a soft click.

“Sew this onto your shirt. One with long sleeves. Loose, so it hangs by a thread. Next time you visit Hak Po, let the button fall to the ground, against the wall or under a desk, somewhere dark and dusty. Fisheye lens. Sees everything. Doesn’t matter where you drop it.”

I picked it up. “Looks like an ordinary button to me.”

Pitt grinned. “That’s the idea.”

I put the button down. “And once you find the guy…this spy…he’s going to have an…accident, is that it?” I glanced at Pitt.

He fiddled with his drink. “Something like that, yeah.”

I considered this. Listening to Pitt’s murders was one thing. Participating was something else entirely. Was I really prepared to go there?

“So that’s it?” I said. “That’s all you want?”

Ambo scooped up a handful of chips. “That’s it, kiddo.”

I stood, picked the black-and-white photo out of his
ceviche.
“This picture.”

They looked at each other. “What about it?” Ambo said.

“This was taken in Hak Po’s office.”

Pitt frowned at his single malt.

“You’ve already got a bug in there,” I said. “What do you need me for?”

Ambo cleared his throat. Pitt held out a warning hand.

“Hak Po’s a clever guy,” Pitt said.

“That’s true.” I remembered the first time I’d bought coke from him. My first kilo ever. He’d overcharged me three hundred percent. The next time I harangued him for an hour, until he lowered the price for his “new special customer.”

Pitt pursed his lips. “He found the bug. The last one.”

“The camera that took this photo.”

“Yes.”

I narrowed my eyes, looked down at Pitt. He tapped a fingernail against his glass. Again he refused to meet my gaze.

“What happened to the guy who put it there?” I asked.

Pitt drained his Scotch, reached for the bottle. Ambo knocked his hand away.

Ambo said, “We need someone he knows. Who he trusts. Someone he would never suspect.”

I lifted the bottle of Scotch. Ambo took away his hand. I filled Pitt’s glass until it overflowed, then put the bottle to my lips and drank until it was half-empty, long gulps cascading down my throat. I came up for air, liquid fire churning inside me.

“You haven’t answered my question,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Why should I help you? Why should I care?”

Ambo fondled the basketball. He bounced it against his chin. “I got to spell it out for you?”

“I was never very good at spelling.”

“Alright.” Ambo tapped the photo in my hand. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want Hak Po to see this picture. Might think you were one of us.”

I shrugged. “So tell him.” I pushed my chair back from the table. It fell over. “That’s all you got, you better think again.”

Pitt touched my forearm, almost a caress. “I don’t think you understand.”

I jerked my arm away. “What’s to understand?”

“Hak Po and his people, they will hurt you. They will kill you.”

“Great,” I said. “Sounds like a plan. You got a phone here I can borrow?”

Ambo frowned. “What for?”

“Find me an undertaker.”

Pitt sat forward now, his face contorted in concern. Real or faked? It was impossible to tell. “You know what they did to the guy who planted that camera?”

“Pitt—”

“Shut up, Dad. They broke his kneecaps, is what.”

“Why didn’t they just kill him?”

“No,” Ambo said. “They don’t kill you. At least not right away. They understand suffering. They understand pain. Death is too easy. Too simple. They prefer to hurt you in ways you’ll never forget.”

Pitt took a big gulp of his Scotch. “They don’t like being double-crossed.”

I looked at him, searching for a sign, some confirmation of sincerity. “Neither do I.”

Pitt’s lips quivered. His eyes dropped to his lap. “Please, Horse.” Were those tears in his eyes? The big bad CIA assassin himself? “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“You forgot one thing,” I said.

Ambo dropped the basketball in his lap. He bridged his fingertips. “Oh? What’s that?”

“A man without his legs can always crawl.” I tore the photo in half and dropped it into the salsa. “Closer to the ground where he belongs.”

The two of them exchanged glances. Pitt stared at the ground.

“You know, Horse,” Ambo said casually, “you’re an illegal immigrant to Peru.”

Panic stabbed me in the gut. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Your ex-wife is badgering the State Department to get you home. Seems you owe back child support.”

Red spots filled my vision. “For a kid who isn’t even mine!”

He shrugged. “Whoever said life was fair?”

I tipped the table over. Wineglasses, half-eaten plates of
ceviche,
and two enormous bowls of guacamole and salsa smashed to the bricks. Ambo jumped out of the way. I staggered toward the house.

Pitt grabbed my elbow. “It’s not what you think.”

I threw my elbow back, hoping to connect with his face, but managed only to break his grip. “Then what the fuck is it? This your idea? Pretend to be my friend, then stab me in the back?”

I lurched drunkenly to the door. The maid blocked my path.

“Move your ass, bitch,” I said in Spanish.

She put her feet at shoulder width, her arms loose at her sides.

“Three-time Peruvian judo champion,” Ambo called out. “I wouldn’t fuck with her.”

“I told you not to do it this way.”

Ambo sighed. “Maybe you were right.”

“No fucking maybe, Dad.”

“Hey,” he said. “Watch the mouth.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

Ambo’s finger wagged enormous, the size of a carrot. “I mean it.”

“Let me out of here,” I said. “I’ll take the bus. You and your CIA bullshit can go screw.”

I looked around. Swaying. Drunk. Only way out was by the beach. I stumbled toward the brick steps that led to the water.

Something heavy hit me in the back, fell to the ground. “Think fast,” Ambo called out.

A manila envelope lay at my feet. I picked it up. “What’s this?”

They didn’t say anything. I opened it. Wads of US currency. Used bills.

“Benjamins, my friend,” Pitt said. “Big BFs.”

“How much is in here?”

Ambo leaned sideways on the overturned table. He looked bored. “Twenty thousand. Another twenty after.”

I took out the bundle of money. I unbound the packet of bills. It felt like a brick in my hand. I ran toward the edge of the patio, hurled the stack of bills into the air. They travelled a few feet before exploding in a shower of green and black. The sea breeze caught them, carried them fluttering across the beach.

“You think you can buy me?” I said. “Think you can threaten me? Fuck with my head? Send your son, tell him to be my friend? What kind of bullshit is that, man?”

I stumbled onto the beach, looked up at them on the patio. I shouted, “What kind of people are you?”

Time passed. I walked along the beach for ages, but it couldn’t have been that long, because when I sat down there were wet hundred-dollar bills on the sand. I picked one up. It was covered in vomit. Who would vomit on all that money? My mouth tasted sour. Furry. The sun blared down judgment from its noontime perch. The waves rolled out to sea, retreating from the earth. I clutched my shins with my hands, rested my chin on my knees.