The Laughing Falcon (52 page)

He took a bench in Cathedral Plaza and opened his
Herald-Tribune
, reading about Walker’s near-win in New Hampshire, then flipping through the pages until he found a story from Saskatoon headed,
“5,000 BRAVE FREEZING WEATHER.”
Here was Margaret Schneider, peeking from between the folds of a heavy parka, an unguarded expression, as if surprised at being
captured by a camera. Her immediate plans? “I intend to lock myself in a room with my computer and throw away the key.”

She was quoted as being pleased that Mr. Cardinal had been released, wished him well. That sounded sufficiently formal and distant.

A young man sat down beside him, shifty-eyed in the manner of one who plies illegal trades. He tried to strike up a conversation. “Is beautiful evening, señor, you visit first time in Panama?”

“What are you selling?”

The man put a finger to his nose and sniffed, a
cocanero
.

“Tiene hierba?”

No, but he had African hash. Slack bought a baby-fist-size chunk for forty bucks and continued his stroll, followed
calle cinco
west from the plaza and its ornate cathedral, the street narrowing as it approached a dead end at the compound walls.

Here was Pensión La Fortuna, a fussy building of French colonial style, iron balconies suspended over the street, tourist stickers on the door, major credit cards honoured.

He introduced himself to the clerk as Harry Wilder and asked if his room was ready. She found his reservation and gave him two keys.

“It is one with a balcony view?”

“Yes, señor. Cuarto 301, it is the room you wanted.”

He took the stairs to the third floor, his room was cozy, no cockroaches. The second key, an old-fashioned skeleton, gave access by a metal-braided door to the balcony. He opened it, gazed out at the narrow, metal-webbed balconies, kids below playing soccer with a rubber ball, a noisy saloon across the street. He stretched out on the bed and tried to work out the rest of his life, he was thinking of hanging up the kayak business, selling his property, too.

After grabbing a few hours of restless sleep, Slack forced himself awake in the small hours, close to three a.m. He lay still for a
while, meditating in the quiet and the darkness, a peace corrupted only by soft nasal snores from the adjoining room.

Finally, he buckled on his money belt, made his way out to the balcony in his bare feet. A distant glimmer of street lamp cast barred shadows down the narrow way, giving him a hazy light to see by. No life on the street, not many cars, an old Chrysler sedan parked below.

The climb across to the adjoining balcony involved a perilous straddle from railing to railing, Slack making the voyage safely but not soundlessly, the metal creaking under his weight, though not loud enough to wake anyone.

He didn’t need his pick-kit for the lock, his skeleton worked, one size fits all. Inside, he stepped around a supply of oranges, tinned ham, corn flakes, and chocolate bars. He crept to the bedside table, where a .38 Smith was sitting. He emptied the chamber, replaced it, then clicked on the light.

The snoring had stopped, and Slack could pick up bodily tension from under the sheets. He twirled a wooden chair, sat on it backwards and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. “I’m a friendly,” he said.

Elmer took a long time to move. An eye opened, bleary and raw, and finally fixed on Slack. “Hey, man.”

“How you doing, sport?”

“Top shelf.” The open eye flicked a sideways look at the .38. Gratified to find it still in reaching distance, Elmer assembled a sickly smile.

“You should be feeling like shit, Elmer. You should feel guilty. You never thanked me for saving you from that croc.”

“You kidding? You’ll always be first in my prayers, man.” He seemed straight enough, he must have run out of dope, looked a little edgy without it. There was an ashtray by his bed, rolling papers, but merely the remnants of a few smoked-out doobies.

“I admit I was hoping to split with the bread, but I wasn’t trying to blip you away, Slack, just warning you off.” Elmer struggled to a sitting position.

“And I know you feel real bad about that, Elmer. Heartsick.”

“How’d you get out of Costa Rica? Heard they laid a couple of heavy beefs on you.”

“It’s just the usual shit and bluster, I got a sharp lawyer.”

“I knew you was a crook first time my eyes lighted on you. Johnny give you your split yet?”

Slack didn’t feel the need to explain that his new wealth came from Gloria-May in thanks for saving her life from Elmer, or that three hundred thousand of it was owed him by Chuck Walker. He looked around: boxes of cookies on a shelf, a block of cheese. Elmer was in stoned semi-survivalist mode, his former friends could have snuffed him easily if they’d got here first. “Who does your grocery shopping, the maid?”

“Yeah, I haven’t been getting out much.”

“Good idea, never know when you’re going to be hit by a car. You’re lucky I found you first, Elmer, before they did.”

“I ain’t afraid of nobody. How
did
you find me?”

“The guy who knocked you into the canal? Frank Sierra, he’s an ace sleuth, he slogged around to every hotel in Panama. We figured your pilot dumped you at the local airport when you couldn’t show him any money.”

Elmer yawned and stretched, shifting position, a little closer to the gun. Slack would be disappointed if he went for it, he wanted to think better of Elmer, to give him a second chance, there was a side to him he liked.

“The colonel’s been telling everybody he never heard of you. Sounds like he’s written you off.”

That caused Elmer to flinch; devotion dies hard. “After all the shit you told them reporters, he probably wants my balls for his trophy case. I talked too much to you, I trusted you.” He reconsidered that, there was an inculpatory ring to it. “Anyway, I was whacked out, man, I was talking a lot of bullshit.”

When straight, Elmer was fairly slick and sly, but Slack preferred him stoned, when he was garrulous and incautious. “How’s your stash?”

“I’m on empty.”

Slack tossed him the small block of hashish. Elmer fondled it, looking at him, musing, calculating, then he seemed to relax. “You just saved my ass again, partner.”

He reached over to the bedside table, this was the test. Slack wasn’t let down, Elmer went for the rolling papers, not the .38.

“What brings you by, Slack?”

“Couple of things. Some private business. How much do you want for the Darkside?”

Elmer’s face showed surprise, then interest, which he quickly masked with a reluctant shake of his head, shifting into salesman mode. “That’s my grubstake, man, that’s all I got. Two hundred acres, never been logged, comes with the river and three all-year streams up the mountain.”

“You said you got it cheap.”

Elmer put a match to the hash, softening it. “This some of that African stuff that’s around? I owe a hundred and fifty, plus I already paid down thirty. I have to turn a profit.”

“I’ll give you two hundred and thirty thousand. You’ve had it for only a few months, you clear fifty grand.”

Elmer got out of bed, he was wearing Jockey shorts. He found a squished cigarette in a shirt pocket, mixed the hash with the tobacco, began rolling a spliff.

“Yeah, but look at the house, it’s not some Tico piece of shit, it’s got design features. Two-eighty.”

“Two-fifty, hard cash.”

“You got it on you?” Elmer had his eye on Slack’s bulging money belt.

“A starter, fifty grand, the rest when the lawyer draws up the papers.” He tossed a bundle of bills on the bed.

Elmer couldn’t restrain a smile. “You want to sign, like, a deal memo?”

“I’ll scribble it out.” Slack found a pen and some stationery, and began writing while Elmer got his lungs on the spliff. The guy had done the right thing not going for the gun.

“Wanna hit?” Elmer asked in a clenched voice, Slack shaking his head. Elmer finally let his breath go, smoke seemed to be seeping from him, the room was pungent with its odour. “I feel fucking human again.”

Slack handed him the informal deed of sale for the Darkside, his ex-partner was going to need this money.

“What was the colonel going to do, appoint you ambassador to India?”

“I ain’t with you.”

“If you eliminated Gloria-May so he could get elected.”

Elmer took his time, studying the deal memo, signing it, smoking, stalling, maybe wondering how candid he should be.

Slack prompted him. “My impression was your heart wasn’t in it.”

Elmer accepted that invitation, choosing the path of self-exoneration. “I couldn’t’ve done it. When you caught me there, I’d already decided not to. Hey, that would mean zapping the witnesses, too, real innocent people like that Schneider lady, and what was she doing there?”

Slack wanted something firmer. “Hard to believe you actually intended to kill anyone.”

“No way I would’ve.”

“I told the cops I didn’t stop you, you stopped yourself.”

“I’ve seen enough blood. I did tough time overseas for Uncle Sam.”

A jury of honest Americans might not be offended by that patriotic self-tribute, might even find sympathy for the emotionally wounded war vet who, before testifying against his former hero, won a struggle of conscience.

“Comes down to this, Walker finally gave you an order you couldn’t follow.”

“I told him the whole thing was nuts, I told him that right off the bat.”

“I’m also going to accept that you didn’t try to kill me. That’ll be on the official record.”

“Which side are you working here, Slack, you working for the man or just yourself?”

“I represent some interested parties.”

“So those were just more phony raps they laid on you. Try to fool that old freak Elmer, make me think it’s safe to talk to an outlaw. I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. You wired?”

“No, we don’t want this recorded, it gets into court, you know what lawyers are like, they misinterpret everything. Anyway, I’ve got a deal you can live with. Frankly, you can’t live without it, the colonel’s an old-fashioned soldier, deserters get shot.”

Elmer went to the balcony door and stared into the gloom outside. “Yeah, I guess he’s written me off. Saved my life over there, in Nam.”

“A man can’t pay a debt forever.”

Elmer nodded and turned to Slack with an expression that testified to a willingness to do business. Slack had tried to persuade Ham that all this subterfuge wasn’t necessary, the criminal charges, the two weeks of incarceration. Elmer and Slack had chemistry happening.

“What’s the deal? I cooperate?”

“State’s evidence against Walker.”

“I get a pass?”

“They wanted you to cop to a conspiracy. I said there’s no way you’d go for that. I told them you’d want full witness protection.”

“No time?”

“You’ll be booked, the charges held in abeyance. After it’s all over, pick the country of your choice.”

“I want to hear it from the man himself.”

Slack went to the balcony and called out, “It’s a go, Ham.”

Bakerfield climbed from the Chrysler sedan.

Slack paused from his labours, stared out his window of welded hearts, musing of herons and kingfishers, of a woman who had flown from him, and whose long silence from a great distance hurt and puzzled him. A Pollyanna and a pessimist, a romance writer and a lamenting poet, it might have been a perfect blend. But once again, Slack had fallen victim to his immeasurable ineptitude with that terrifying other sex. He could hardly bear to recall his donkey act, his stammering attempt to court her.

He had a life without Margaret Schneider, he had some scratch set aside. He’d sold his kayak business, unloaded his old property on a lottery winner from Milwaukee, lauding the native charm of the subdivision across the street, assuring him property values would increase with such burgeoning development. Comfortably endowed, the new squire of the Darkside could go terrestrial, an eco-venture, a
tableau vivant
in the virgin hills, a zip line over the canopy, tours by harness through the treetops. He’d make enough to get by, the main thing would be to educate, make environmental converts, urge them to spread the word.

At the sound of a car engine outside, he ripped his page from the typewriter and placed it in a sheaf with his collection of soon-to-be unpublished poems. Maybe he would find the courage down the road to mail it to Maggie, maybe not. Her
loss. He was well rid of her, she didn’t deserve poetry. She had not even had the graciousness to write him a note.

From the arched window of the downstairs bedroom, his office-in-home, he could see but a gleaming of blue between the clouds that tumbled past on a run from mountains to sea. The green season had arrived already, in April, it had been raining off and on. A Nissan emerged from the citrus trees and came to a stop by the patio, Ham Bakerfield’s driver at the wheel, Theodore. Ham was in the back, it looked like Frank Sierra was with him, too.

These three were the only beings on earth permitted to know Slack was here. He had been two months at the Darkside, sober and lonely. He needed solitude, he was drying out for the last time and forever, no phone, no radio, just an occasional newspaper that Theodore or Ham would bring with the mail.

The latest he knew, from a week-old
Herald-Tribune
, was that Elmer Jericho had been settled into an FBI safe house in Florida and that leaks from interrogation transcripts were fast sinking Walker’s ship. The foot soldiers of Cinco de Mayo had not only resurfaced in Havana, but been put on display, a holiday called in their honour, a lavish proletarian wedding planned for the two youngsters Slack had encouraged to head for Cuba.

Jorge Castillo, seizing an opportunity to enhance his presidential bid, had told a crowded press conference he would not be seeking extradition of the misdoers, in fact was urging the president that all be pardoned, including Halcón – a living legend now, a whispered word from him could doom Castillo’s chances for the Liberación nomination.