The Laughing Falcon (34 page)

Halcón had been doing fine up to now, as far as Slack was concerned, but this one lost him points, a rain-forest scam.

“He eluded the FBI, returning to Costa Rica under an assumed name.”

“He ever get nailed?” Ham asked.

“Only one charge has held, for which he earned a year’s imprisonment. He has been skilful in the use of the courts, and has paid for the best lawyers. He happens to be one himself.”

Slack’s chest still hurt when he laughed. “A
lawyer?”

“With a degree from my alma mater, the University of Costa Rica. But why should you be surprised?” Sierra smiled politely. Slack got the point, Castillo was a member of that unloved profession.

Slack wondered why a law degree, a licence to steal money legally, wouldn’t be enough for Johnny Diego. But maybe bilking clients was too boring and easy, he held wider ambitions.

“What was his last hustle, before this?”

“Also kidnapping, but of expensive cars.”

“Good money in that one,” said Slack. Holding Cherokees and Audis for ransom, threatening to sell them for parts unless the owner dropped off a boodle somewhere. One of Slack’s friends had had to buy back his Range Rover for twenty thousand, it was worth eighty to replace. Slack felt a bout of laughter coming on. He failed to suppress it, and paid the price, had to hold his chest as he told the story.

His friend’s car had been stolen again by the same gang, the leader phoning to demand the standard fee. When the victim complained about unfair business practices, the thief promised to run a check on his computer. Afterwards, he apologized and said the vehicle would be returned. “It is our policy, señor, not to steal the same car twice.”

Sierra laughed, too. “Yes, I am sure that is our friend, Halcón. His sense of humour may be more warped than his sense of ethics. He is legendary, a national hero to some. To be ruefully honest, I am one of his keenest admirers. It strikes me as curious that the ministry didn’t come up with his name sooner.”

Castillo made an elaborate shrugging gesture. “He was not on our list – we didn’t expect this of him.”

“That is understandable,” Sierra said. “Johnny Diego has not used violent means before to attain his ends. I can only speculate as to how he infiltrated the Popular Vanguard. One assumes he observed how remunerative were several recent
kidnappings in Mexico and Colombia — these have enjoyed a statistically high rate of success.”

Slack nodded. “And he began looking for a big score. And for some idealistic dupes he could use to provide cover and free labour.”

“Very likely.”

Slack could see it: the quixotic followers of Benito Madrigal would be a rich field of talent, however naive. Johnny slicked his way into their ranks, laid it on with a shovel until he looked like the second coming of Che Guevara, and mobilized them into the local red guard.

When Slack asked if Halcón could be linked to Elmer Jericho, Sierra pulled out a government form.

“In records filed by Flamingo Teak Plantations, S.A., now bankrupt, Mr. Jericho is shown as a salesman. The president, chief executive officer, and sole shareholder ofthat business was Johnny Diego.”

Likely, Jericho had brought Halcón the play: major American politicos, a remote jungle retreat. He would have warned Johnny of the risks. I
don’t know, man, you got Secret Service guys, you got guns and all that shit, could be hairy
.

Slack figured that hairy was what Johnny liked. A fraud artist, but emphasize the artist, he was putting on a rave show, the perfect score, a headline-grabber featuring a reactionary senator – his little Marxist commando had almost been designed for such a task.

Ham seemed anxious to cut this short, Chuck Walker was due by with six hundred thousand friends. “Gentlemen, we will have to excuse you. Some, ah, delicate business to attend to.”

Castillo looked displeased to be so summarily evicted. “I am curious, what is the plan for this evening?”

“That’s what we’re working on right now,” Ham said.

Castillo asked to be kept informed. Ham promised he’d do that every inch of the way.

Frank Sierra agreed to drop by after Slack absorbed the files on Halcón, then rose and grasped his hand. “I am honoured to be associated with such a fine lyric poet.” To Slack’s astonishment, he produced from his jacket pocket a slim volume of poetry:
Various Views from the Edge of the Precipice
. “I found this while rummaging through a dusty bookstore.”

Slack had salted the book around a few outlets in San José, but had never heard of anyone buying a copy.

“I would be delighted if you would sign it.”

Slack muttered some feigned self-deprecations as he signed with a flourish:
to my esteemed new colleague
.

Walker arrived accompanied by a tall bespectacled technician and a Secret Service agent carrying a suitcase with the six hundred large. The tech was a chiphead from the Langley labs. They hadn’t heard Slack clearly? No transmitters.

“Did you propose it to him?” Walker asked Ham.

“Not yet.” Ham was fishing out another cigar.

“Please,” said the technician, “no smoking, the device is very sensitive.”

He held up a tiny bug on the end of his index finger, a silicon chip in a plastic capsule. “Transmits to a radius of eight miles. Sub-miniature battery, a faint signal, but a portable machine will be tuned to its exact frequency.”

“I said no hearing aids.”

“Here’s the thing, Slack.” For some reason, Ham was finding this awkward. “Okay, they’ll strip search you. But if you were to, ah, insert this in a place where they won’t be looking –”

“Up
yours.”

Ham shrugged. “Okay, save the idea for later.”

The electronics engineer, pouting, pressed ahead. “You could have Agent Cardinal simply swallow it.”

“Look, you twink, I’m not an agent, so I’m allowed to use
my own brains. I’m not putting some battery-powered piece of high-tech junk in my stomach.”

“The capsule -”

“Oh, fuck, get this guy out of here.”

“Okay, easy does it,” Walker said. “This is Slack’s call, he’s the first-string tackle here, the fellow whose ass is against the goal line. My only concern is that there’s a lot of money on the table.”

“I’ll try to protect your investment,” Slack said.

“The main thing is Gloria-May,” Walker said. “And the other woman, of course.”

He seemed edgy, maybe because the media back home were starting to hop on him. As he climbed higher in the polls, the spotlights had begun to cast a harsher glare. The press may also have found his soft underbelly — they were looking at Gloria–May, too, hints of unsavoury habits and low-life friends from her years in Vegas.

Slack opened the suitcase and did a riffle count through a couple of the banded bundles, all in hundreds. He checked others at random, making sure they hadn’t slipped in any smaller bills.

“I won’t be needing this.” He handed Ham his piece. “Remember to put some horse tranquilizer in Benito’s soup. Six o’clock?”

“He’ll be there,” Ham said. They would be bringing him to the U.S. Embassy compound in an unmarked vehicle. Slack would leave by another gate, with Benito in close embrace behind him on the Honda.

“Okay, if we’re all finished, I’d like to take a nap before Frank comes back. Long night ahead.”

“Who’s Frank?” Walker asked.

“Someone we’re going to check out,” said Ham, leading them out the door, then pausing, talking low to Slack. “I don’t like the way Sierra sucked up to you, crawling through a bunch
of bookstores looking for a surefire way to make an impression. These Keystone Cops must have blurted out your name to him. He’ll leak everything to Castillo, we’ll have Ticos in our hair, reporters everywhere.”

“Don’t be so damn paranoid.”

Frank Sierra’s knock at the door aroused Slack from a fleeting dream of being mired in futility and failure. As Frank pulled files from his briefcase, Slack ordered up some coffee, then went under a cold shower to wake up. He returned to find Frank reading his notepad, checking items off with a pencil.

“That voluntary exile thing – what’s that all about, Frank? Your gripe with Minister Castillo.”

“Some years ago, he abruptly moved me from the investigative service after I picked up an aroma of drug-dealing and bribery emanating from one of his fellow ministers. Exiled to the Siberia of a remote hamlet, I resigned. The bitterness has subsided.”

Over coffee, Slack shared a few of his own indignities at the hands of scheming higher-ups. Garrulous at the best of times, even when sober, Slack found it easy to talk with this erudite man.

“To business at hand.” Frank flipped through his notepad. “I have just spent a most useful hour with the wife of Herman Rebozo.”

He explained that some delicate prodding had opened her mouth, rancour at her husband finally spilling. He had abandoned her and six children “for his stupid revolution.” Gordo’s house had hosted meetings of the Popular Vanguard, regularly attended by a Nicaraguan couple whose names she did not remember, but they were Sandinistas, experienced in war.

“Of him, called Zorro, one must be especially careful, Señora Rebozo recalled him as hot-blooded. He is resentful of Americans — apparently he once sought refugee status in
Miami, claiming to be a Contra, but was deported.” Another of the regulars was a dispossessed farmer who constantly complained about Americans stealing land from Ticos. “Others drifted in and out, but these were the core.”

Inocentes
all, but it was Halcón who would be across the table, the lawyer. Frank had a few ideas about how to handle him, appeal subtly to his vanity, don’t play cat and mouse, be open and friendly.

Slack showed him the suitcase full of money. “The grand gesture,” Frank said. “Johnny will appreciate it.”

“I’m hoping to buy Margaret Schneider with it.”

“An excellent start.” Frank began to pace, deep in thought. “My friend Jacques, I must say there is something about this business that smells of overripe cheese. Have you also detected it?”

Slack had also had such thoughts. Frank’s musing made him wonder about cheese – it’s what you put in a rat trap. He’d been used before as a fall guy for the CIA, they weren’t above setting him up for another kick in the ass. But for what reason?

“I can’t locate the source of this niggling concern,” Frank said. “I am of a suspicious bent — it is too much in my nature.”

The sun was sitting low in the west as Slack was waved into the compound, his face masked by a bike helmet and goggles. A utility van with dark windows was waiting there, along with a couple of agents, Dr. Ignacio Bleyer, and Benito Madrigal, who was looking about in a vague, uncentred way.

“Regrettably, all this excitement has aggravated his condition,” Bleyer said. “He and reality have at least momentarily gone their separate ways. Medication has made him very groggy, however, and he may sleep through much of your journey.” He passed Slack a bottle of yellow pills. “Every four hours, two of these.”

Benito seemed not to recognize Slack until he took off his helmet and goggles, but then his face lit up. “Ah, it is Jacques Cardinal, it is you I have to thank.”

“You are a free man now.”

He held the door for the woozy Benito, who had difficulty getting out. He hugged Slack, who felt good about that, they would get along fine.

Benito whispered in his ear, “They said I have been pardoned. Can we believe them?” Slack showed the official pardon to Benito, who seemed unable to focus on the papers, maybe Bleyer had dosed him too heavily. “Where are we going?”

“To join your comrades.”

Benito frowned, seemed to be having trouble grasping his grant of freedom. Then he nodded.
“Sí, claro
. It is a prisoner exchange, is it not?”

Slack set a helmet on Benito’s head, secured him with harness and safety strap, then made sure the saddlebags were also buckled tight. He would be riding into the sunset with six hundred thousand dollars and a drugged schizophrenic, the commando could make of their saviour what they wished. On his return, he hoped to have a different passenger, she would feel remorse for her libellous depiction of him, but he would laugh it off.

Slack took the back roads, south into the hills, an area of scrappy farms that began to peter out amid clumps of trees and scrub. For a while, Benito gripped Slack tightly around his waist, then relaxed and fell asleep, missing out on the big sunset, the sky flaming out, painting the darkening fields.

Whence came that scent of overripe cheese that Frank Sierra had picked up? Slack would henceforth maintain a healthy distrust of Bakerfield and Walker. They
might
have sent followers, they would want fuckup insurance on Slack. They could call on the cream of FBI shaggers, they would have a big moon to light their way. But when he stopped his engine, he heard no sound of a distant motor, just the brisk
breeze soughing through the trees, a papagayo from the north.

He unhooked himself from Benito, dismounted, checked behind fenders and bumpers and wheel wells for hidden devices, went through the pockets of his slumbering passenger. Satisfied, he resumed his journey.

The land was cruelly eroded here, carved by paths of wandering cattle. Shanties clung to the hillsides between mansions of the rich. No planning, everything helter-skelter, it was painful to see his adopted country become a bourgeois wasteland.

Here, a remote outpost of civilization, the
pulpería
with the Kimby Chicken sign. He turned onto a poorly gravelled road that led to the lip of the vast crater of the Central Valley, San José spread out behind him, a carpet of lights. No one was tailing him, no sound of engines or rotor blades.

He almost missed the lookout, then his lights reflected on a vehicle parked beneath a balsam tree, a one-ton van with a square oversized box. Gordo’s truck was a nondescript clunker, grinders like these cluttered the nation’s highways. As he pulled up beside it, Elmer emerged from the cab, followed by Gordo.

“Hey, man,
como está?”
Elmer said.

“Pura vida,”
said Slack.

“Far out, you sprung Madrigal.”