Saffire (14 page)

“An hour ago, when the hotel called the administration office to confirm whether we would be responsible for the charges, I first assumed that your night had been much easier than mine. I was wrong.”

If that was true, the man didn't deserve my continued anger.

“I'm tired of this,” I said. “I'm just plain tired. I want to take a bath. Then sleep for a few hours. How about you go your way and I go mine? Later today, I'll find you in Culebra. We can have a civilized discussion then.”

“If I can believe you accept my apology. Had I known or guessed the lion was ready to spring so quickly, I wouldn't have been complacent. You fought a man with a knife to defend Odalis, and I am forced to admire that. Believe me that I am sincere in my apology. Not that I intend any kind of partnership with you.”

After a long silence of my own to evaluate Miskimon, I guessed that this admission and apology had not been easy for him.

“I was glad you were there when you were,” I conceded. “Best way to handle a man with a revolver is to hit him in the side of his head from behind.” I extended my hand.

Miskimon blinked.

I held out my hand for another few seconds, but Miskimon didn't take it to shake on the mutual apologies.

“We do come from different places.” I couldn't rekindle any anger at the snub. I was just tired and wanted to be alone. “I'd be fine if you left now.”

Miskimon blinked again and opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. He squared his shoulders once more. “I don't see that we'll need to meet again in Culebra. Colonel Goethals no longer requires anything of you. Stop at the administration office and ask for his secretary to give you your valise. I'll arrange a ticket for you on the steamer that leaves at noon tomorrow. Stay here tonight and check out in the morning.”

“Suddenly not so curious about the two men in the bar and who sent them?”

“It would be best if we went our separate ways.”

“Sure. Make sure the door doesn't hit you on the way out.”

That gave Miskimon some of his previous attitude. “First, I'll need the police badge.”

And his tone brought me back to a degree of irritation. “Let me guess. You couldn't find it in my room or my valise yesterday afternoon, after you put me on the train and searched all my items for yourself because you didn't trust the report of the detective on the steamer? And you didn't find it in here during your search while I was running water in the bathroom?”

“I am thorough. I have no choice.”

“I trust you did not open my journal in the valise.” I didn't want Miskimon to know anything of my personal life.

“I won't dignify that question with an answer. I'd like the police badge. I don't know why you'd take it out of the Zone. It's worthless metal here.”

“I lost it last night.” I was angry enough again to be petty. The badge was now in my boot beside the bathtub. “When you find the guys who started the fight in the bar, why don't you ask
them
if they know where it went?”

“I understand your irritation, but petulance doesn't become you.”

“Anything else before you go, Mr. Miskimon?” I enunciated the
mister
and the
Miskimon
with exact formality and caught enough of a flicker on Miskimon's face to know he understood the full use of his name had been meant as an insult.

“No.”

“Then I have hot water waiting for me. For some reason, I feel the need to be cleansed. Why don't you find your own way out.”

I didn't wait for an answer and walked the length of the suite to go into the bathroom.

When I came out to dress after a half hour in the bathwater, I found my cowboy hat on the bed.

I
had been promised I would find the
Panama Star & Herald
building only a few blocks away, between the hotel and the Pacific. And so I did. Easily. The walk from the hotel, directly into a sea breeze that cooled the sweat on my face, took a matter of minutes. The building looked squat, a square two-story with a second-floor balcony all the way around.

Even from the street, I heard the clatter of typewriters.
The Panama Star & Herald
was the only English newspaper in the city and did a wonderful business, I had been told.

Inside, it seemed as much a whirlwind of movement as I'd glimpsed of the dig at Culebra. I finally had to grab a man's elbow to stop him long enough to ask a question. The answer was to go to a street café, and it came with a point in the general direction.

I found Earl Harding there, at one of the three tables on the sidewalk, protected by an awning. He had a cup of coffee, an egg dish smeared with red spices, and a newspaper folded to keep it stiff enough to read with one hand.

“Cowboy,” he said as I sat across from him without an invitation. “Rough night?”

Who in Panama City didn't know I had been rough-handled by the National Police? “I've had worse.”

“You're buying breakfast.” He raised a hand and made a little circle with his index finger.

A waiter immediately delivered coffee. I took a grateful sip.

“Read the rag?” He tapped the folded paper on the edge of the table before setting it down. “Big week for Teddy.”

“The Great White Fleet,” I said.

Roosevelt believed that America's naval power was crucial to its future. That was how he'd sold the United States on the Panama Canal. In '98, during the Spanish-American War, the US Pacific Fleet had to travel around South America to reach Cuba, barely arriving in time for crucial military action. Roosevelt argued that the canal was for the navy to protect American interests, that in a future crisis, a canal would make for speedy travel. He was correct, of course. The navy that controlled the canal essentially controlled the western Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, up and down all the Americas.

The Great White Fleet was another bold Roosevelt action. He'd dispatched sixteen of the US Navy battleships from the Atlantic Fleet to go on what he called a goodwill tour of the world. No one was fooled. It was an open exhibition of American might, and with hulls painted white, with red, white, and blue banners on the bows, the ships had earned their nickname. Just last week, the Suez Canal had been closed to all traffic except the fleet, generating headlines and editorial opinions.

“Roosevelt.” Harding grimaced. “What a blow-hard. ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick'? He hasn't spoken a soft word in his life.”

He waited, probably to see if I would disagree with him. I just sipped my coffee.

“Anyway,” Harding said, “that's old news. Don't know how we ran this business before the telegraph. First, on Saturday, Colombia finally voted to recognize Panama's independence. That should make Teddy happy. Except the day before, back in the States, the House of Representatives just voted to have him censured. Win some, lose some.”

“Censured? I didn't read that in the paper today.”

“
The Star & Herald
tends not to be critical. At least when it comes to Roosevelt. They wouldn't dream of publishing the story. Without the canal, this place is just another backwater town.”

“Censured,” I repeated. “Roosevelt?”

“I find that so ironic. Apparently the fine elected men of the House are a tiny bit upset that in his annual address to Congress last year, Roosevelt stated that there were criminals in the legislative branch.”

Harding used the edge of his fork as a knife and cut into the egg. He took a bite that was delicate for a tall man, chewed slowly, swallowed, and chased it with coffee, then gave me a tight smile.

“It's what provides a living for me. All those elected criminals and their friends. As I explained last night, the
World
has sent me down here on an all-expense-paid vacation to dig into Cromwell's dealings on the isthmus. But I'm finding as little as I found in Paris. Cromwell's got too much influence. That's what you're buying me breakfast for, right? An angle on Cromwell?”

When I didn't respond, he pointed at my ears. “Odalis is a wonderful gossip. It's not a huge stretch to guess that when you indiscriminately asked about Ezequiel Sandoval, Cromwell would learn immediately and feel like you were asking about him. Last night's political lesson wasn't enough?”

“I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“Yet here you are, asking questions of the one person in Panama whom Cromwell is certain to be watching as closely as he watches every outgoing penny from his bank account.”

“Haven't asked you any questions,” I said.

“I expect them, though. Why else would you be here?”

“To poke a stick in the eye of whoever played with my ears last night.”

Harding looked at me for long moments, as if reevaluating me. “I like surprises, and this is a nice surprise. We don't have to talk about a single thing of value, and you've already used me and squeezed me dry because we'll have been seen together talking, and it will be assumed you have given me information that I can use. Or that you asked indiscreet questions. I have to admire that kind of sneakiness.”

“Buying you breakfast,” I said. “Not enough as payment?”

He laughed. “Hardly. I'm in the business of trading information. Leave me with a little pride. There has to be some kind of story behind your questions. Promise that if you ever speak to a reporter, I'll be the only one.”

“You have my word.”

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“The lay of the land.” I could ask that question of a dozen people and get a dozen subjective perspectives, all valuable to me.

“That's a general enough question to almost be worthless.”

“You mean worthless to you.”

He laughed again. “Then how about a general lecture? I've been working on it for an article on why the United States should settle with Colombia for stealing Panama, and I might as well give it a trial run with you as an audience.”

“Mind if I get more coffee first?”

He made another lazy circle of his finger, as though the waiter were a trained monkey. It gave me a sense of how the Panamanians might view us.

I sipped the coffee as Harding began.

“First, since the day Teddy gave the command to let the dirt fly, this canal has been our one great national enthusiasm, aside from baseball. The great unwashed public is so engrossed in the building of the canal that, until Cromwell's involvement came to light, few gave any thought to how we secured the right to build it. Newspaper editors have learned that the public can't seem to understand the difference between attacking the corruption behind our acquisition and attacking the patriotic act of building it. The official diplomatic version of the secession of the province of Panama from the mother country of Colombia has been commonly accepted. So humor me—what's that version?”

“I'm part of the great unwashed then?”

“Without a doubt.”

Fine. I would play along. “In 1903, we had a canal treaty in place with Colombia, where we would make a ten-million-dollar payment to extend the rights they gave to the French for the Canal Zone. They decided to blackmail us into paying more. So America helped Panama declare independence, and then Panama signed a treaty with us.”

Harding inclined his head. “I've just spent a month in Bogotá, and I searched the record of diplomatic correspondence with the United States Senate, the Spanish version of the same records, the annals of Colombian congress,
and
the files of local newspapers, and I found no vestige of justification—official, semiofficial, or unofficial—to support an accusation that Colombia attempted to blackmail the United States. What's of enormous interest, however, is where this accusation originated. In Washington, the paid American lobbyist for the French owners of the Panama Canal Company pointed out in writing that he foresaw the Colombians demanding ten million dollars to extend the right-of-way concession belonging to the PCC. And then he turned around and made a public outcry that Colombia was attempting to blackmail Congress.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “This lobbyist was paid two million for convincing the United States to purchase the PCC from France for forty million.”

Neither of us needed to state said lobbyist's name.
Cromwell.

“If Teddy hadn't sued the
World,
I wouldn't have been sent to Paris to find out where that money went. In a sense, I've accomplished that. We were told that details were in a sealed vault. It took lawyers to get us access, as the French company was publicly held, yet the records inside the vault were nonexistent. Let me quote to you what our paper's British counsel said about this, since it's fresh on my mind. ‘I have never known, in my lengthy experience in company matters, any public corporation, much less one of such vast importance, having so completely disappeared and removed all traces of its existence as the New Panama Canal Company.' Keep in mind, the United States needed to purchase the New Panama Canal Company to gain access rights to the canal.”

Harding was on a roll now. “The mystery extends to this side of the ocean. In Panama, all I've really discovered is that vital cable evidence has been destroyed and that the original Panamanian revolutionaries are good at keeping political secrets. They won't even admit to meeting Cromwell. Yet here he is, on his estate, effectively running the country. And that would include his command—without any shred of evidence that could prove this in court—of the National Police.”

He leaned forward. “You still okay with poking someone's eye with a stick? Great efforts have been taken to hide the money trail, and asking about Cromwell and Sandoval is like asking about the money. I'm safe because I work for the
World,
and with world attention on Roosevelt's lawsuit against my newspaper, they wouldn't dare risk anything happening to me. But you're a cowboy without friends.”

His expression chilled me. As did his final words: “Keep in mind, Mr. Holt, that there's a lot of jungle between here and Colón, and you aren't leaving until tomorrow.”