The Laughing Falcon (3 page)

She cinched her seat belt tighter, then blanched as the blast furnace outside ignited, and shut her eyes tightly as the aircraft rolled toward the runway. She felt it roar and shudder, race ahead, lift off. She delved into her bag for her notepad: writing was release; she would find deliverance in
The Torrid Zone
.

“Okay, folks, we’ll have a bumpy few minutes until we get on top of all this rough stuff, so I’d ask you to be comfortable but keep buckled up.”

The captain’s utterly bored tone brought some reassurance. The plane jounced a few more times, then suddenly she was aware of a southern sun pouring through her window. She peeked out; the plane was soaring sedately above the clouds, on top of all the rough stuff.

A smiling flight attendant was cruising down the aisle with a cart; a man across the aisle was frowning over a crossword puzzle. No one else seemed in distress or even curious as to why Maggie was clenched like a crab.

Fiona Wardell gazed pensively at the wind-tossed clouds below her window. She had hastened to the airport from her father’s funeral in a turmoil of sorrow, vowing she would triumph in the challenge of Professor Wardell’s last great ambition: to find the wintering home of the Buff-Breasted Blue Warbler, and save this forsaken songbird from extinction
.

That task might only be accomplished, however, with the aid of the man her father had mentored: Jacques Martin, who knew the upper reaches of the Río Perdido. But it was said this brilliant scholar had lost all ambition, become a recluse, and had sworn never to return to the valley of the Perdido, to the grave of the woman he had never stopped loving
.

She had met Jacques once, and remembered him as lithe and handsome in a way that turned women’s heads. He was thought still to be in Costa Rica; perhaps Fiona would discover this vanishing member
of her own species there – but she had long given up her fool’s fancy that she might one day find love. She was not interested in pandering to the weak egos of shallow men who feared strong women, which was why her intimate encounters had been few. Nor had many such experiences been satisfying; no man had ever …

Knocked her socks off? Found the keys to her heart?

… found the wintering home of her distant lonely heart
.

Losing herself in composition, Maggie no longer felt so unsettled. Fiona was not afraid to soar above the clouds, why should her author not be equally at ease? Fiona must face even graver menaces, both physical and of the heart, in her quest for the Buff-Breasted Blue Warbler. But what did the fates – or at least the muses of creativity – have in store for her?

She realized she did not have much of a plot in mind yet. Nor any real sense of M. Jacques Cliché.
As they listened to the warbler’s sweet evening song, he slipped off her glasses and looked into her buff-breasted blue eyes as if for the first time
. And you, Mr. Warbler, do you have the wings to stay aloft? Or has Fiona been saddled with too arcane a mission? An idea with more pizzazz ought to be devised …

I have already flown thousands of miles. I have landed safely at two airports. This is a wonderful way to travel. Maggie silently chanted these mantras as her aircraft grunted into the sky and levelled off for the final section of her journey: Miami to Costa Rica. Outside, the sun was going down like a rocket, setting the horizon briefly on fire.

In a few hours, God willing, she would be in San José, capital of the Republic of Costa Rica. She pictured the town – colonial churches and winding cobbled streets, the rippling notes of a guitar floating through the jasmine-scented air, women in colourful skirts, gallant Latin men, couples walking hand in hand around a square.

Maggie relaxed enough to take note of the person next to her: not a mad bomber but a stout gentleman in a bright tropical shirt working on a double rum-and-Coke. He was craning his head toward her, as if trying to peer down her shirt. To every rule – including Rajwani’s number three, engage your seatmate — there was an exception.

Maggie flicked a look in his direction; he was staring not at her bosom but her notepad. She covered it as he met her glance.

“You a writer?”

“Yes. I’m making some notes for a book.”

“Yeah? What sort of book?”

“I write novels.”

“Like what? Maybe I know some of them.”

“I would be flattered and surprised if you do.”

When Love Triumphs. No Time for Sorrow. Return to the House of Heartbreak. Strange Passion
. Unlikely to be his literary preference. She noticed the embossed promotional type on the cover of the paperback on his lap.
What they don’t want you to know about the lost civilizations!
She could ignore him or change the subject.

“Is this your first time in Costa Rica?” she asked.

The question served as a launching pad. Hell, no, he had been down there a dozen times. Owned a couple of lots at Flamingo Beach and a hundred shares in a teak plantation. Hadn’t made a profit yet, but wait. World’s wood supply was getting scarce, so his time would come. Nelson Weekes, from Fort Lauderdale, owns a mattress outlet.

“How about you — first time?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, you’ll like San José, it’s a swinging town. Where you staying?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She had compiled a list of modestly priced hotels; she was going where the tourists did not.

“I could show you around.”

“I’m meeting someone.”

She felt bad not about her lie but her abruptness; it produced a brief pall of silence. “I’m sorry if I seem unfriendly. I’m a little afraid of flying.”

“Well, it’ll be a thrill a minute coming down into that little airport in the valley. We go real close to the mountains.”

Though exhausted by the tension of landing during a thunderstorm and jittery with too much coffee, Maggie was feeling quite exuberant as she made her way up the aisle to the aircraft door. A whole new country awaited her.

Within minutes, she was proudly examining her first passport stamp. An energetic young woman at the Instituto de Turismo counter helped her change money and make a room reservation – at an inn half-heartedly recommended by her guidebook: “fair value for a short stay.”

Outside, it was like a night in July at home on this high plateau of the Central Valley. But Maggie was disappointed by what she saw during her long taxi ride into the city. San José, even at night, seemed bedraggled, bereft of interesting style or architecture. Where were the strolling musicians, the red-tile roofs, the colonial arcades?

Pensión Paraíso was an unassuming three-storey hostelry above a noisy bar. Upstairs, no one was at the desk to check her in, so she made her way into a sitting room, where five older men were watching television, their eyes glazed with boredom.

“If you’re looking for Louie,” one of them said, “he’s down getting beer.”

Louie finally came huffing up the stairs, laden with several cases of beer; Maggie followed him to a refrigerator down the hall. “You wanted one with a bath? Number twelve, it’s in the back. Beer’s a buck or three hundred colones, you gotta keep track of what you owe.”

“May I see the room?”

He turned to study her. “Oh, you’re a lady.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” It was the short hair.

The room was dreary, but it offered a small table at which she could scribble notes after her intended walk. A quick look revealed no cockroaches, and the linen was fresh. She could hear the thrum of music from below: the Lone Star Bar.

Eleven o’clock did not seem too late for a walkabout; San José was open for business on a Saturday night, and so were the women she had seen patrolling the street below. Maggie had not thought prostitution would be so overt. She threw her bags on the bed, and washed and touched her face up.

Once on the street, she paused to look in at the Western-style bar, full of middle-aged men exercising their elbows. These gringos did not seem typical tourists. Maybe there was a convention in town: the American Association of Mattress Vendors.

Next to the Lone Star was a noisy, smoky bistro also filled with men, but locals: Latins, rather short. The women, she assumed, were home with the children. She’d read they were called Ticos and Ticas, which made them sound like munchkins.

“Change dollars?” She avoided the sharp-eyed man who was riffling a fistful of notes at her.

Ungainly at the best of times, Maggie found the sidewalk an obstacle course, its unevenness camouflaged by litter. A diesel bus grunted past, spewing a toxic cloud. So this was Costa Rica, the fabled eco-tourist paradise — maybe her mother was right, maybe coming here was a mistake.

A soft rain had begun to fall. She returned to her hotel, and tried to write but felt stalled; Fiona’s quest seemed petty in comparison to …
What they don’t want you to know about the lost civilizations
… The vanished city of the Mayans? Dr. Fiona Wardell, the noted archaeologist, has come upon an ancient map of an unexplored vastness. There, bedecked in tangles of lianas, lay the lost pyramids of Itzmixtouan.

She mulled over the concept, but was distracted by grunts and squeaking bedsprings coming from the next room.

In the morning, Maggie found her way to the Eco-Rico offices. Taped to a locked glass door was a typed notice: “The orientation talk for Sunday, December 14, at two p.m., has been cancelled. Costa Rica Eco-Rico Tours S.A. regrets any inconvenience.”

“Oh, fart,” she said under her breath. If they had closed for the weekend, how was she to find her way to their wilderness camp tomorrow? She had vouchers; she had paid a thousand dollars for them.

She saw someone moving within, a secretary. She rapped on the door, and the woman, a young Tica, unlocked it.

“Excuse me, but I have a reservation for your lodge tomorrow.”

“I am so sorry, we have to cancel.”

“But you can’t. I paid for four days and three nights.”

The young woman beckoned Maggie inside and fetched her boss, a scrawny scraggly-haired American in his fifties, rings in both ears, possibly a late-blooming hippie. He introduced himself as Elmer Jericho. “This is a real hassle. How about we slot you in a week over Christmas for the same price?”

“I’ll be gone then. I’m afraid you’ll have to honour my reservation.”

“See, this here’s the problem. We had to cancel nine others. We had to make way for some heavies, VIPs.”

“I intend to report you to the tourist bureau.”

“You better take it up with the American Embassy, lady, because it’s the ambassador who’s coming, with his wife and a bunch of suits from Washington. And Senator Chuck Walker and his wife.”

Maggie recognized the name of the junior senator from South Dakota from CSKN newscasts: a conservative ex-marine colonel who had his eyes on the White House. But she wasn’t
about to be bumped by these Washington grandees. She needed this wilderness experience for her book.

Fiona Wardell wouldn’t be put aside so easily. “The
Geographic
is going to be very unhappy. Well … I guess there are other wilderness tours. Who would you recommend?”

Elmer Jericho retrieved a reservation slip from a file on the desk. There she was: “Margaret Schneider, Saskatoon, Sask., occupation, writer.”

He looked at the camera case slung over her shoulder. “That what you do – travel writing?”

“Everything. Freelance, travel.” She had in fact written a couple of pieces for a naturalist magazine: “Seeking the Burrowing Owl,” “Birds of the Drylands.” “Mostly novels, though. Here, I have one.” From her bag she produced a copy of
When Love Triumphs —
on the theory that anyone can blithely claim one’s a writer, she usually carried with her a selection of her paperbacks, along with written proof Nancy Ward was her pen name.

Jericho studied the cover copy: “A heart-searing tale of forbidden passion by the author of
No Time for Sorrow.”
Her feats of creativity seemed to impress him. “Hey, man, I’m gonna write a book some day. Interstellar travel.” His hand glided through the air, a swooping spaceship. “You got a letter from the
National Geographic?
They got to give us advance notice, don’t they?”

“I never thought to bring my contract. Phone them.” She was flirting with exposure; would he be able to reach their offices on a Sunday?

“Jeez … just a minute.”

He disappeared into his office, and Maggie could hear him on the phone. Her mask would soon be stripped away.

When he came out, he said, “Hey, lady, far out, the senator wants to know if you’ll include him in the article.”

“Sure, that would make an unusual sidebar.”

“With pictures and all.”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, I’ll have a driver pick you up for the airport.”

“The airport?”

“Yeah, to Quepos. Staging area, man.”

“I’d rather go by bus to see the countryside.”

“See it on the way back; it’ll still be there.”

“I’m not keen on flying.”

“How did you get down here from Saskatoon, by dog-sled? A travel writer who don’t fly?”

“No, I … I get tired of all the flying I have to do. Never mind, I’ll take the plane.”

“There’ll be a ticket waiting at the SANSA counter. The rest of the way is by four-wheel taxi, and here’s a map so your driver don’t get lost. The others are going in by Mixmaster.”

“By what?”

“A beater, a chopper. There’ll be Secret Service, too; hey, man, the colonel’s running for president. The lodge has got twenty staff up there with a combined forty left feet, it’s gonna be like a Mexican fire drill. I used to run tours for these guys; now they got me down here doing the orientation sessions, clicking slides, man.” Jericho had the rambling ways of a stoner. “Where you staying?”

He frowned when she mentioned the Pension Paraíso. His driver, he said, would pick her up at seven the following morning.

Back at the hotel, Maggie showered away the almost disastrous beginning to the day. She had brazened her way past Mr. Jericho, the interstellar traveller, but what were the ramifications if the U.S. Embassy started asking questions? If her ruse went undiscovered, though, she might find literary fodder in holidaying with a controversial senator.