Thief (37 page)

The goons shifted uneasily, as if they wanted to go for their guns, but stopped when they saw Tatupu show them the pistol already trained their way.

“You won't have a chance,” Chavez warned. “He never misses at this range. Even if he does, the guy to his right two stools? Used to be a Navy SEAL. Small-arms expert.”

Tito's street smarts climbed up out of the cocaine haze. His nose twitched before he said to the girls, “Get lost.”

They started to protest, but he glared at them as if they were breakable. They grabbed their purses and threw hateful glances at Chavez as they exited. Tito nodded to the bench seats to either side of the mirrored table.

Claudio sat on the left and Chavez on the right. Tito looked past them to Tatupu, sighed, and gestured at the cocaine. “Tootskie?”

“Pass,” Claudio said.

Chavez shook her head.

“You seen Hector Vargas lately?” Claudio asked.

Tito hesitated, and then his brows did a dance and he laughed. “You're six years behind the curve, brother. Hector went up in flames out in Patagonia somewhere.”

“He faked that,” Claudio said.

Tito sat back. “News to me. I saw his ashes put in the ground.”

“At his funeral?” Chavez asked.

“That's usually how it works.”

“It was staged, too,” Claudio said. “The ashes of whoever burned in Hector's place were never claimed. We checked.”

Tito was either a strong actor or he seemed genuinely surprised by this news. “I don't know what to tell you. I thought he was dead. Alonzo thought he was dead.”

“How about his sister?” Chavez asked.

He squinted, said, “She was crying her guts out.”

“Know where we can find her?” Claudio asked. “Hector's sister?”

“Fuck should I know?” Tito said. “I met the bitch once. She was sorry Hector was dead. End of story.”

“Were they close?”

“Fuck no,” Tito said. “She was like twenty years younger than him. I didn't even know he had a sister until the funeral. I think she just liked to cry.”

“So she was Hector's father's daughter?” Chavez asked. “His half sister?”

“Something like that,” he said. He sat forward, picked up a rolled bill, and snorted some cocaine.

When Tito was done shivering, Claudio asked, “Who's Hector's father?”

“What do you think I am?” Tito said, exasperated. “Genealogy dot fucking com?”

“Hector never mentioned his father?” Chavez said.

“Other than to say he was a prick who never gave a shit about anyone but himself, no, he didn't.”

“So how did you know this woman was Hector's half sister?”

“It was how she introduced herself. You know, like ‘Hi, I'm Galena, Hector's little sister. Thank you for coming?'”

“No last name?”

“Not that I remember,” he said. “But she paid for the funeral, the party after. Why the fuck else would she do that if she wasn't his little sister?”

Claudio said, “Where was the funeral?”

“A chapel at some cemetery south of Villa Miserie?”

“Which cemetery?”

“Fuck, I don't remember. I was kind of wasted, you know?”

Claudio glanced at Chavez, who looked disappointed.

“That it?” Tito asked.

“You know an attorney named Esteban Reynard?” Claudio asked.

Tito seemed to take that question with surprise, and then wariness. “Yeah, sure, I know him. What about him?”

“We'd like to talk to him,” Chavez said.

“So call him up. Go to his office.”

“He's away on a family emergency.”

Tito threw up his hands. “Can't help you. I haven't seen him for three years anyway. Knock on wood, I won't see him ever again.”

Out in the club, the DJ was revving up the crowd, letting them know Leonora Bunda was about to make her entrance.

“We good?” Tito asked. “I wanna watch the show. I'm a big fanny fan.”

“Bet you are,” Chavez said, standing.

“You know it,” Tito said. “I'll be watching yours when you go.”

“Respect,” Claudio said.

“Just telling it like it is,” Tito said, amused.

Claudio felt like slugging him for old times' sake, but he let it slide. He wasn't into violence for the sake of violence.

He and Chavez left the VIP box, making sure Tatupu and Fowler still had a clear shot at Tito and his goons. The place burst into cheers as Leonora Bunda came out from their right, waving in the spotlight, an Amazon of a woman with a great big—

Chavez slapped Claudio on the behind, said, “You better get your ass and your eyes moving in another direction if you want to be in my bed tonight.”

The artist did as he was told, never took another look to verify the legend, and went outside.

As they were moving back through the parking lot toward the van, Chavez said, “So that's how you refer to me now? The woman you love?”

“That a problem?”

“No,” she said, fighting a smile. “Just new. Nice new.”

Claudio wanted to take her someplace nice right then, and ask her to marry him. But then Tatupu and Fowler exited the club, and Barnett said in their ear, “Hello? You're on camera and microphone love birds.”

“Buzzkill,” Claudio said, removed the glasses, and shut off the radio transceiver.

They all got into the van, with Fowler behind the wheel.

“Waste of time?” Tatupu asked as they pulled away.

“From my perspective,” Chavez said, nodding. “He either didn't know, or he was lying.”

“Wrong perspective, love-of-life,” Claudio said. “The best liars always bend the truth or give you only half the story. I think Tito was doing both, but he let slip enough facts to helps us.”

 

50

WHEN MONARCH CAME TO
,
even before he opened his eyes, he felt at peace, as if he'd lifted burdens from his shoulders and set the weight aside. Then he smelled something brewing, weaker than coffee, almost like chicory.

He opened his eyes lazily, understanding that he was lying on his side in the fetal position on a woven mat in the jungle clearing by the waterfall. It was early morning and mist hung in the trees. Santos appeared, crouching to look at him in concern.

“You good?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, realizing his tongue was swollen.

“Better than good?”

“Now that you mention it,” he said, and moved his shoulders as if he were shrugging blankets.

“It lasts a long time, that feeling,” the scientist said. “As if you've dealt with old demons and survived.”

The thief nodded. It did feel that way. “What happened to me?”

“You went on the same psychotropic trip I went on the first time I celebrated the full moon,” she replied. “You've been lying there a good six hours, babbling, talking to invisible beings, and generally getting things off your chest.”

Still lying there on his side in the fetal position, Monarch blinked, processing that, and then said, “What did I say?”

“Most of it was incomprehensible to us,” she replied. “You speak quite a few languages.”

“Nine,” he said.

“Well, we got enough to understand a
few things
about
you,
Mr. Monarch.”

“Such as?”

Her face went stony then, and her eyes harder. “You're desperate to have sex with me in as many positions as possible.”

Monarch arched an eyebrow and fought a smile. After a moment of silence, the thief snorted, and made to get up on his elbow and sit up. Only then did he realize his wrists and ankles were bound.

“Hey, what the hell,” he said. “You can't do this for saying I wanted to—”

“Course not,” she said. “You're tied up because you're a thief and a liar.”

“What? I said that?”

“Oh, definitely. You told the moon god numerous times in numerous languages. Funny thing was we got the feeling you like being a thief, no shame, no remorse. And you're here to steal something.”

“What am I supposedly here to steal?”

“What everyone wants,” Santos sneered. “The fountain of youth.”

Monarch laughed. “Those were the drugs speaking. You can't judge me on something I might or might not say when my mind has been altered like that.”

She sighed. “Rousseau's assistant, Edouard, overheard you speaking on your satellite phone yesterday. He clearly heard you were here to steal the secrets of the Ayafal, and that you planned to leave as soon as you did. It's a small miracle that I never told you what I figured out.”

Monarch hesitated for several moments, made a decision.

“Look, I was forced into this,” he began. “I must have told you in another language or something, but—”

She cut him off forcefully. “I don't care
what
your excuse is. I want you gone, Monarch. Now. You're a resourceful man. I'm sure you'll find your way back to one of the rafts.”

The scientist said something sharp in Ayafal.

“Dr. Santos, I did it for a missionary woman,” he tried. “A doctor.”

“Oh, please,” Santos said, turning from him. “You did it for money. It's always about money and greed and exploitation with guys like you.”

“No, really. Listen. Her name is—”

Monarch heard a hollow, puffing sound, and felt a paralyzing sting as the blowgun dart found the back of his neck.

*   *   *

The howling of monkeys and a familiar and terrible pounding in his skull woke Monarch from his stupor. He was lying on the ground, soaking wet near the stream where he'd been darted the first time. The sun rode high. The air was suffocating and hot after the relative coolness of the Canyon of the Moon. Though his head felt ready to split in two, he forced himself to the brook and drank until his belly was full. It helped, but he couldn't imagine doing a thing until the infernal throbbing stopped.

The thief rolled back from the stream and looked off through the trees toward the waterfall that was almost the mirror image of the one inside the box canyon, feeling mightily irritated, but with no deep malice toward Santos or Rousseau, or Carson, and their assistants. He'd have done the same thing if he'd found a traitor in his midst.

Mostly, he felt like an asshole for having deceived Estella Santos, and crushed that he'd failed to help Sister Rachel. He sat there, looking around, feeling shitty. He hung his head and wallowed in it, accepting the pounding in his head as his due until another perspective wormed into his brain.

Stealing the fountain of youth wasn't going to save Sister Rachel. That much was clear. So he'd have to find another way. Job one? Get out of the jungle.

Ingrained survival skills took over. He needed to take inventory.

Monarch patted the pockets of his cargo shorts, and to his relief found his passport, his wallet with credit cards and cash, and that folding pocketknife with the small compass in the handle. He saw his odds of surviving go up. Even with just a knife and compass, the thief felt confident he could find his way back to the river.

But when he scanned around him, he had no knapsack, no satellite phone, and definitely no gun, though it had to be somewhere nearby, thrown into the bushes no doubt. He was about to go look for it, when he spotted the carved and painted pipe he'd smoked the night before next to Getok's gourd canteen and a substantial pile of those lime-green serrated leaves the young Ayafal man had given him the first time he'd woken up in the Canyon of the Moon. As before, after eating the leaves, Monarch almost instantly felt better. The pounding eased, he felt less nauseated, and his brain sharpened considerably.

Find the gun.
The thief moved in a grid pattern, working a square forty yards in all directions, and then sixty yards, and eighty, but came up empty-handed.

Screw it, he thought. He was going to get the hell out of the jungle, make his way to one of the rafts. It would take days to reach Tefé, but once he was there, he'd contact Barnett. By then she'd have made headway figuring out who was behind the squeeze. And maybe Claudio had located Sister Rachel already.

Monarch used Getok's gourd to drink from the stream until he could drink no more. They'd had to rely on water filters on the trek into the jungle, and he had none to make the trek out. He knew he risked contracting god-knew-what disease or amoeba, and decided he'd have to do the journey with one gourd full of water. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

He put the pipe in the pocket with his passport, and began stuffing those serrated leaves in around the pipe, and then around his wallet in the other pocket, and completely filling both of his cargo pockets with them as well.

He stuffed the few leaves left into the side of his mouth. Juice from the leaves trickled down his throat, Monarch soon felt stronger, ready for anything. And his mind and perceptions seemed finely honed.

“Hang on, Sister,” he said. “The cavalry's coming.”

Checking the compass, Monarch set off directly against the bearing they'd walked in on. It was unbearably hot, but he got himself into a pace between a stiff walk and a slow jog, one eye on the compass, and one on the terrain ahead, his nimble feet bouncing through the roots and vines. To his surprise he remembered certain places in the forest, the way the canopy looked, the kind of roots that were exposed, and then that infernal rock and boulder field that he had to negotiate.

Without the weight of the pack, he covered ground much quicker than he'd anticipated and reached that cathedral-like opening in the rain forest just before dark. Somewhere above the canopy, he knew the full moon was rising, but for some reason he was glad he couldn't see it. Curling up into a ball in the exposed roots of a gigantic tree, he drank a mouthful of the water, and prayed to all who might hear him.