Blood of Paradise (17 page)

Jude couldn't escape the impression that something, again, remained unsaid. Before he could even begin to probe what that might be, though, Strock added, “The other big reason I'm tagging along? Okay, I get it, you haven't seen Bill down there. But I'm telling you, some stroke of luck, he crosses my path? I'll kill him. Won't think about it, won't worry about it, won't lose a minute of sleep. He's a dead man, I get anywhere near him.”

16

As they waited to change planes in Los Angeles for the red-eye to El Salvador, Jude realized this might be his last decent chance to call the whole thing off. But how would he do that, exactly—tell Strock the truth? Then everybody walks away empty-handed, and for what? Besides, the man said it himself: The problem with the truth is it's never the truth.

He tried to think things through: So Malvasio lied. Okay. Ask yourself why. To get you to do what he wanted, same reason you've been lying to Strock if you're willing to be up front about it. Which means, on that score, Malvasio's no worse than you.

As for the Winters deal, the original plan was cold-blooded, true—assuming Strock wasn't lying as well—but it never panned out that way and you don't know for a fact how the guy died. Malvasio could still be telling the truth about that, even with all he left out. He didn't want to tell you about the hush money because it would show how bad the old man had screwed up—shooting off his mouth to his hooker squeeze for two years, stringing her along, then needing his pals to bail him out when she called in her marker. Maybe Bill went for one last meet, to say he was through paying—he and Winters got into it, words turned to blows, and then boom. It was possible. It made sense out of both versions. Strock hadn't said anything about other murders—important—and Winters was crooked, a shakedown artist, missed by no one. Be honest: Have you really learned anything about these guys you didn't already know?

Of course, there was no telling what other lies Malvasio might've snuck into the story. The whole premise for bringing Strock down—that there was work waiting for him, that Malvasio wanted to make things up to him, he would've done the same thing for his good buddy Ray—it could all be a hoax. And the sympathy, the regret, the humility—all bullshit.

And yet the opposite was equally possible. Malvasio had plenty of good reasons to make amends to Strock—though, sure, that didn't mean it was his real intention or his only motive. And just because Strock had a love affair with his own hate didn't mean he wouldn't be better off coming down, doing whatever work Malvasio secretly found for him.

That was the problem—there was no way to tell. You've got no real proof, Jude thought, that things won't end up perfectly fine.

He tried to imagine what Eileen would think of all this, besides calling him nuts for getting involved in the first place. He went back mentally to their exchange on the road to La Perla:
We're all terrible.… But only some of us are sorry
. He'd felt an accord gel between them in that moment, one he'd squandered almost instantly, but it was one of the chief reasons he couldn't get her off his mind. She understood the blame you're born with, the nagging sense of fuck-up that never seems to lift—and the equal and opposite need to forgive, turn a blind eye once in a while. And so she more than anyone might understand why, in weighing Malvasio's story against Strock's, he remembered all the talks at the restaurant in San Marcelino, the first one in particular, when Malvasio apologized for all the harm he'd caused. Bullshit? Maybe. But it hadn't felt that way, and sooner or later you've got to trust your instincts or go crazy. And though Strock had his own glimmerings of regret, he also slid back way too easily into rage and self-pity. Ask yourself, he thought, who's come through these past ten years with a clearer sense of who he is and what went wrong. Who's the better man? Let that tell you who to trust.

Something else was at play, though. Secretly, he felt proud. Nine tenths of EP work was planning and keeping your eyes open, the rest was babysitting. This had been different—tracking Strock down, coaxing him along, it'd been no picnic. And the job wasn't done. He squirmed at the thought of needing to prove himself, but what was the alternative? Convincing yourself you had nothing to prove was just one more thing to prove and there you were, chasing your tail, round and round. Besides, if he just walked away now he'd feel like a punk, as though these men played rougher than he could handle. That wasn't something he intended to live with.

Maybe he wouldn't have to. The voice in his head that normally took him apart was cutting him some slack. Every now and then, it actually gave him some credit. No surprise, the voice sounded a little like Malvasio. But it sounded like the old man, too. And with that, deep down, an old wound seemed finally to close up a little. Now if he could only convince himself it was meant to.

They began calling seat assignments. Jude watched as the other passengers, returning émigrés mostly, queued up to board. He noticed that the wealthier the woman, the shorter the hair. The poorer passengers carried shopping bags stuffed to the breaking point with gifts for family back home. A few tourists were flying down as well (precious few, Jude noticed), plus at least six young missionaries—cheap suits, scrubbed smiles, martyred hair.

The gate crew called the final boarding group and Strock stood up, collected his cane, and headed for the end of the straggling line. Jude would remember later that, in the end, he decided by not deciding. He just gathered his carry-on and got in line himself. Follow through on what you started, he thought, mind yourself, and hope for the best. What else can you do?

Like most restaurants outside the capital, El Arriero—despite its reputation as one of the best steak houses in the region—made little pretense of luxury: a bunker of whitewashed cinder block accented with brick and sheltered by giant
conacaste
trees, with a tar-paper roof coiled with barbed wire. The windows were small and dusty and blazoned with neon beer signs glowing blue and red in the sticky darkness.

Two burly guards in tan uniforms manned the brick archway, armed with MP5s. Through the entry, Malvasio spotted two more guards stationed in back beyond the large open-air courtyard. The customers were gone. The help ambled about busing tables, policing the gravel courtyard for cigarette butts, dousing the torches while
ranchera
music, the local equivalent of country-western, blared from tinny speakers.

At a table just inside the entrance, a young plump hostess with spit curls, her cleavage dotted with sweat, fanned herself with a menu, waiting for the others to finish their work so she could let them out and lock the doors. Malvasio ambled toward her and she smiled, revealing a gold tooth. Guessing his reason for being there, she pointed him toward the bar.

The metal door felt cool to the touch and swung open easily on its hinges. The room was empty and brightly lit and thick with the smells of spilled beer, fresh-cut pineapple, and ammonia, which the air-conditioning swirled around like soup. A cocktail waitress, barefoot now that they were closed, wiped down tables while Hector Torres, the owner, sat alone in the corner, tallying the night's receipts. He was a short man dressed in a
guayabera
and linen slacks, homely but strongly built, with a squarish, lumpy head and a boxy jaw. His hands and arms were matted in thick black hair, which set off his jewelry.

Malvasio pulled up a chair, glancing around the solemn wood-paneled room. Using Spanish, he said, “Feels nice, being out of the heat.”

Hector whistled for the waitress's attention, letting her know with a glance that he and Malvasio needed privacy. With a dutiful smile she dropped her damp rag and slipped on her heels, then soldiered out the door into the gravel courtyard.

Looking weary, Hector massaged his eyes, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. The air conditioner rattled in its window mooring and dripped moisture into a pan on the floor. “Am I free to assume the matter we discussed is taken care of?”

Two days before, Hector had contacted Malvasio with news that a woman from one of the villages near San Bartolo Oriente had been complaining about the local well water. There were foreign church groups in the area, doling out school supplies and water purification kits with their Bibles, and the woman had shot off her mouth to them and God only knew who else. Naturally, she blamed Estrella—the wells had been fine before the bottling plant was built—and so Hector had received a call from Wenceslao Sola, telling him to shut her up before anyone of real consequence paid her any mind. Make an example. And, as always in circumstances like this, Hector no sooner put down the phone than he picked it up again, dialing Malvasio.

Given the notoriety the woman had created for herself, and fearing he might stand out if spotted, Malvasio hired the job out. With the economy in its perpetual funk you had
veteranos
from the uprising, both sides, freelancing any way they could, the local version of the Merry Men. Normally they just roamed the countryside, banding together in makeshift units and armed with war-vintage weapons—AK-47s the guerrillas had used, as well as the big German G3s or American M16s the government troops had carried—and jacking travelers or robbing banks or
tiendas
or anyplace else with ready cash. You could hire them out like day labor if you knew where to ask—the cathedral plaza in Usulután, for example. That was where Malvasio connected with four ex-soldiers he'd used before from the infamous First Brigade. He paid them half up front and gave them the details.

Later that same night, the four
veteranos
drove a stolen Jetta up the unpaved road to the woman's house. It was one of five
champas
in a rural hamlet tucked into the hills, all of the inhabitants too desperately poor to interfere with what happened or to even dare look out at the men who arrived so late. While two of them stood guard outside, the other two went in, snatched the woman from her bed, stuffed a
tapado
into her mouth to stifle her screams, and strangled her with an old-school garrote, made of piano wire and jump rope handles. Then they drove all night, reaching the hills of Ahuachapán in the west before daylight, and dumped the woman's remains along an isolated stretch of wooded road. They toasted their success with
aguardiente
, then headed back to Usulután where they torched the Jetta and went their separate ways. Come noon they regrouped in the cathedral plaza and waited for Malvasio to appear with the rest of their pay.

Hector sat back and frowned as he listened, eyes impassive, as though he were hearing the delivery schedule for the coming week's ice. “Thank you for the colorful story,” he said finally, “but she was supposed to disappear.”

Malvasio was thirsty, and wondered why he hadn't been offered a drink. “She did disappear.”

“Dumping her by the side of the road?”

“My understanding is, they walked her back into the underbrush a good ways off the highway. And they cut off the head, the hands, and the feet, got rid of those elsewhere. I left that out, sorry. And you know how things work. Plenty of women missing at that end of the country. They'll think she's a runaway hooker from Acajutla, no one's going to link the body to here. Seriously, I don't see a problem.”

“If they're telling you the truth.”

“I've used them before. It worked out fine.”

“It's a common mistake, thinking what happened before guarantees what happens next.”

Malvasio rose from his chair. “If you're gonna start talking like that, I need a beer.”

Hector waved his acquiescence and Malvasio ducked behind the bar, opened the cooler, and dredged up a Pilsener. “One for you?” Hector shook his head. Malvasio twisted off the cap and ambled back around, downing half the bottle before he dropped back into his chair. The interruption served its purpose. Hector seemed mollified, if not exactly pleased.

He said, “What about this other thing you're arranging?”

He meant the situation with Jude. The fact Malvasio actually knew one of the men working the hydrologist's security detail had lustered his reputation a bit. But they'd wanted him to turn Jude, make him a mole if not a full-blown accomplice. Malvasio had convinced them that was foolish, and risked ruining everything. His way was better—subtler, sure, with risks of its own, but more in keeping with what he knew of Ray's boy. Not to mention Strock. No one had any idea he was angling it all so that Jude, at least, came out alive.

He said, “The man I told you about, he arrives tomorrow.”

“Your old companion.”

“I'll have everything in place the next day or two. After that, it's wait and see.”

“And this bodyguard has no idea what you're planning.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Is he stupid?”

Malvasio suffered a flash of protectiveness, which he hid with a shrug. “He's got a weakness, like we all do. I just happen to know what it is.”

Hector finally found his smile. “And what might your weakness be, my friend?”

Malvasio knocked back the last of his beer and placed the bottle on the table. A drool of foam slithered down the neck. “You haven't figured it out by now?”

“If I had, would I tell you?”

“If you were trying to play me. Maybe.”

Hector laughed unpleasantly. “How you love to complicate things. That's your weakness.”

No, Malvasio thought, that's my protection. “In any event, I'd say things are in order. My operation's moving along nicely. And this thing with the woman and the wells, looks like it got nipped in the bud. Unless there's something you're not telling me.” He waited a beat for Hector to respond, then pushed back his chair and got up to leave.

“As a matter of fact,” Hector said, “there is something else I need to discuss with you.”

Malvasio sagged. He wanted nothing more than bed. “It's not too difficult, I hope.”