Blood of Paradise (53 page)

“Lo siento, señor,”
she whispered. She came toward him and with the gentlest of hands patted him down, finding the Walther tucked into his waistband. She glanced up into his face, eyes pleading.
“Con permiso.”
Everything in her eyes let him know he'd lost the advantage long before he'd even shown up. He pulled out the gun and handed it to her. If it came down to a fight, he'd use his hands. She held the pistol awkwardly but with her fingers clear of the trigger. Turning back toward the door, she gestured for him to follow her inside.

Jude found Malvasio seated at the dining room table, cradling a little girl in his lap. Oscar's sister, Jude supposed. The child seemed alert, even startled, but not upset. Clara showed Malvasio the Walther and he nodded.

“I can understand why you brought it,” Malvasio said. “But you won't need it.” He nodded to Clara and she went to the doorway, stepped out onto the patio, and pitched the gun over the wall, onto the windy beach beyond. Jude considered asking Malvasio if he was armed but realized he wouldn't believe him if he said no.

“Have a seat. We've got a lot to talk over.”

Jude took a chair across the table from Malvasio. Clara found a spot against the wall and slid down to the floor, holding her skirt modestly so it didn't flare out, the whole time never once taking her eyes off the little girl.

“You look well,” Malvasio said. “All things considered.”

Jude mentally judged the rough-hewn table's weight, wondering what it would take to flip it. He didn't want to hurt the child, though. He nodded toward Clara. “What happened?”

Malvasio adjusted the infant on his lap. “I told her the little girl belongs to her mother. Clara, she's grown fond. Too fond.” He sighed. “It's a story.” He shot her a look that seemed both scolding and contrite. “Any event, she wouldn't let go.”

Jude leaned forward and reached across the table. “Why not hand her to me now?”

Malvasio responded with an oddly sunny smile. “Not yet. There's a few things to talk through. I'm going to need your help.”

Jude felt a sudden jolt of rage. Or guilt. “That's a lot to ask, all things considered.”

“You still think I had something to do with what happened. I didn't. I swear.”

“I get it. That's your story. Help you how?”

“It's not a story.”

“Help you how?”

“I want to come in.”

Jude sat back and cocked his head. “And you think—”

“You can help. I try to connect on my own, or, God forbid, show up at the embassy, I just end up in prison. That's not a place you want to be when you've been a cop.” He resettled the child in his lap again, clearly awkward holding her. “I've got information. I told you about the people I worked for. Well, you've figured out they may have had a hand in killing your guy—”

“Axel.”

“Okay. Axel. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if Strock got dragged into it somehow, and I suppose that's my fault but my point is I'm tired. I'm done. I want to make you a deal. I'll hand this little girl over so you can get her back where she belongs. In return you bring me in.”

“To who?”

“There's a guy, an American, on the edges of this. His name is Lazarek.”

Jude couldn't help it, he laughed. “You don't say.”

“You know him?”

“He works for ODIC. Or says he does.”

“He's got a lot to lose, word slips out what his people down here have been up to.”

“He knows?”

“I can't tell you that. I never met him. I just heard his name used. But I wouldn't be surprised. He knows but he doesn't know—understand what I'm saying?”

“What would he want from you?”

“I'm insurance. He has me in his pocket, he knows everybody's secrets. That's power. The upper hand.”

Jude leaned forward again. “Bill, I don't know how to say this—”

“Jude, you don't know how this end of the world works. I do. Guys like Sola, the judge, the colonel, even Hector, they're never gonna pay—not here. You want them to suffer, you've got to find a way to drag them into court in the States. Or at least have that hanging over them.”

“I thought you didn't know they were involved in Axel's murder.”

“I don't. Not for sure. But I know something else.”

“Like what?”

“No. Come on. That's Lazarek's deal to negotiate, not yours.”

Beggars can't be cheaters, Jude thought, one of the old man's favorite cracks. “You want me to front for you, but I have no clue what it is you've got to hand up. Or if it's even real.”

“Lazarek will know. He'll have an idea. And it's real.”

Jude realized he was right. It explained things. Lazarek had gone to bat for some dubious men and they'd fucked him. It happened all the time in the third world, but that didn't mean he wouldn't want to make an example: Ask Noriega. Ask Saddam. Today's amigo, tomorrow's abomination—one must remember who swings the bat. That kind of thing was as old as empire. Lazarek and the men he answered to would make it look like they cared about the rot at the top, intended to kick ass and assemble dossiers, but soon enough everything would fall back into place the way it had been. Normalcy. Order. Progress.

But what was all that to Jude?

“You said you were tired, Bill. Me too. I came out here thinking I could do a good thing. But that little girl's mother? She was half out of her mind before her boy was killed, and I'd be amazed if she could even function now. She's dirt-poor besides. Maybe the little girl's better off here, with Clara, after all. Regardless, it's not my problem. I'm with you, I'm done.” He rose from his chair. “Work out whatever you have to. But leave me out.”

Malvasio regarded him with his head cocked back. Smiling. “You're bluffing.”

Here we go again, Jude thought. “Suit yourself.”

He turned and walked through the kitchen, then down the narrow hallway to the door. He noticed the bullet holes in the wall this time, wondering why they hadn't registered on the way in, then remembering he'd been focused on Clara holding his weapon. He didn't see blood on the wall but, even so, he quickened his step to get out.

He was through the door and halfway to the gate when Malvasio called out from behind: “I can tie all these people to a child prostitution ring that leads to Houston and Phoenix. That means they can be indicted in the States. Understand what that means?”

Jude turned. Malvasio stood in the doorway, still clutching the child. She was writhing in his hold and whimpering but not crying. Not yet.

“How do you know this?”

“It's run from the judge's plantation. The colonel gets the kids across the borders, deals with the police and hands out bribes. He also manages the security with help from Hector. That's Hector's expertise, muscle. I know, I help collect his taxes. Sola's the one with connections in the States, plus he and a handful of other men in his circle run the brothels around the country. It's insanely easy to do here. Wiretaps are illegal so you're never going to convict anyone in a conspiracy case, it's a joke. And the PNC's supposed to handle alien smuggling, but the clowns over at the Municipal Guard have jurisdiction over child prostitution, and neither side's known to break much of a sweat trying to coordinate. Meanwhile, tricking itself isn't even illegal and, when it's kids, the government just considers it a social service problem and hands it off to the NGOs. Seriously, you could grow old, die, and spend some quality time in purgatory before anybody but the usual handwringers said so much as boo about it here.”

“Were you involved?”

Malvasio looked off, thinking that one through. “You know what's funny, Jude? You think I don't know what's going on in your head, but you're wrong. You're hoping this is some kind of test. Like a puzzle. If you can just frame the thing right, visualize the pieces, it'll all fall together and you'll see it. A way out. But you crossed a line, you did it that first day, when I said let's get together and you said sure. A whole lot of bridges went up in smoke that day. You can't go back. They won't let you. And you know that, you've felt it—you know what I'm saying. You may not want to admit it, you may hate yourself—and I'm sure you hate me—but you understand, deep down, this is right where you belong. You're going to help me. Don't bother with why, because why is a snake pit. I mean, you think it through and you realize all this work, this fucked-up misery, this trouble—Christ, I don't know what to call it—it's all about what: Kids? Water? Money? Why go there—it doesn't solve anything, knowing that answer. Just help me get to Lazarek so he can cover his own ass making these fat-cat fuckers pay to the extent they're ever going to, and be glad for that and stop trying to find someone or something to blame.”

Jude had trouble putting the voice, which he'd known most of his life, with the increasingly addled words he was hearing. “Sound a little loose on deck there, Bill.”

Malvasio chuckled drily. “Don't change the subject.”

“I'm serious, Bill. You sound like you could use some sleep.”

“Now that's observant. You should've been a cop—anybody ever tell you that?”

“Yeah,” Jude said, feeling tired himself suddenly. Everything around him seemed liquid in the hot, windy moonlight. “You did, among others. A long time ago.”

Malvasio switched the little girl from one arm to the other. “You wisely ignored me.”

“I saw what happened.”

“There you go, blaming again.”

“I just meant—”

“Nobody's who you think they are, Jude. Nobody. Not me, not your dad. Not you. And that's no great tragedy, either. The ones who don't get that, they're the real animals. Slit your throat on principle. Do it for your own good.”

The fatigue turned into a mild sort of vertigo, then Jude realized it wasn't fatigue at all. It was confusion, tinged with fear, and the fear had a rancid whiff of the very old to it. I should have a name for this, he thought. But where the name should be, he sensed an emptiness instead, and the bitchy voices of self-loathing he'd heard in his head for as long as he could remember echoed through that emptiness like crow caws. The effort of deafening himself to that sound, day after day, hour after hour, it was wearing him out. He resented it. He'd been doing it for years, it was no one's fault but his own, still …

“The thing that changed for me?” Malvasio's smile spoke of luck, his eyes of treachery. “I'll tell you what it was. I stopped pretending. I stopped fighting and just said, hey. This is it. People know they can't trust me, but that's exactly what makes me reliable. It's who I am. I'm the guy certain men turn to when they've run out of better options. And know what? So are you. Now.”

Jude supposed he should feel insulted or at least pissed off, but he couldn't muster the will. Instead he glanced past Malvasio toward the moonlit window just beyond him, and suffered a freakish illusion as he caught his own reflection in the flawed glass.
Stop worrying
, the reflection said.
Just one more favor, everybody wins. Who knows you better?

“I know who that is,” Jude murmured.

Malvasio ignored him. “The weird thing? It's not how I pictured ending up, and that's probably true for you, too, but in a funny kind of way it's gratifying. We're very good at what we do, you and me. Better than your father ever was at anything.” He turned to go back into the house.

Jude, as though drawn by something he couldn't see, followed him in. Given his state of mind, the hallway seemed twice as long this direction as it had coming out, Malvasio farther away than he really was. The trippy distortion held as they veered through the kitchen and Clara, a look of sudden panic on her face, leapt from her spot on the floor in the far room and scrambled toward the table. It puzzled Jude till he saw her pull the pistol out. He realized then Malvasio had set him up, might have meant to kill him all along, but then the rest happened faster than he could piece it together. Malvasio held the child tight to his body, shielding himself with her, shouting at Clara, telling her to give him the gun. But Clara just kept waving it at him, screaming for him to give her the child. It seemed to go on forever—their voices at a keening pitch, the little girl wailing now and the bare room echoing the sounds like a howl. Jude felt a painful dizziness even as, for the first time since arriving, he knew exactly what to do. It felt like sleepwalking. Stepping forward, he placed his weight on his left foot as he swung his right fist forward, turning his hip and shoulder into the blow, hitting Malvasio right where the spine and skull meet. He felt a vertebra crack beneath the punch and Malvasio's head snapped back. His knees crumbled, his arms flew out, and the child slipped free before he hit the floor. Clara scrambled forward to grab the girl as Jude stompkicked Malvasio in the kidneys then reached down, pulled him over, drove his knee hard into the solar plexus. He tightened his right fist and began to pound as fast and hard as he could, driving every punch from the shoulder, using his whole body for leverage and feeling the bones surrender as the room around him gradually dissolved into a grainy shimmer that filled up everything. By the time he heard Clara's voice again—she was screaming,
“¡Pare!”
Stop!—he was drenched in sweat and his lungs were heaving. He glanced up, saw her near the wall. She took form in pieces—gripping the child to her body, her face slack, her eyes hollow. She was staring at his hand.

PART VI

CLARA

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise?

—Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”

44

I have witnessed many wrongs in my life, suffered them myself like anyone, even when I was a little girl. But not until I watched the young American, the one named Jude, kill with his bare hands the older one, the one we called Duende, did I feel myself in the presence of a great sin. And by that I do not mean a terrible evil so much as an aching, endless sorrow—our exile from God.