Blood of Paradise (23 page)

“No.” McGuire wiped at a shimmer of sweat pooling in the hollow of his temple. “But you do.”

Jude caught his reaction too late, which was unfortunate because McGuire was bluffing. The tip-off was the “No.”

“I haven't seen Bill Malvasio in ten years, at least. That was back in Chicago.”

McGuire leaned in a little bit more. “You sure about that?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jude's heart thumped. “Real sure.”

Sanborn said, “I wonder if Strock would back you up.”

“Oh, get serious. What, you think I dropped Strock off with Malvasio? Listen to me—Phil made it real clear, if he saw Malvasio down here or anywhere else, he'd kill him.”

Axel blanched at that, then traded glances with Fitz.

Sanborn said, “Some vacation. A little surf, a little sun, kill Bill.”

“Regardless,” Jude said, “it's got nothing to do with me.”

“Strock brought Malvasio up,” McGuire said. “That's interesting. What else did he say?”

“He told me my dad saved his life once, he's grateful.”

“Here's an idea,” Sanborn said. “Let's drive over to La Puntilla. Maybe this Strock guy's checked in somewhere and we can sit down with a beer and straighten all this out.”

“What's to straighten out?”

“If you don't mind …” Axel sat forward in his chair and stuck out his hand, as though venturing into a verbal cross fire. “I have to interject here that I was under the impression this was entirely routine. It's grown adversarial for reasons which escape me since this all seems like a lot of fret and fume—over what? A man's vacation. Or something that happened ages ago.” He turned to Jude. “Am I getting that right?”

Jude nodded. “Ten years.”

Axel turned to McGuire. “You told me this had to do with a woman found dead—today—along the Río Jiboa.”

In the corner of his eye, Jude caught Mr. Gray Eyes staring. Sensing a little more diversion might be wise, he said, “You know, I'm sorry, maybe you said your name, but I'm having trouble remembering it right now.”

The man said nothing. McGuire spoke for him. “This is Al Lazarek. He works at the embassy.” Like it was one of life's misfortunes. “Back to Malvasio—”

“Works at the embassy,” Jude said. “What, he's the astrologer?”

“He works for ODIC. How—”

“So you're the elusive Alan Lazarek.” Axel swung toward the man. “I was beginning to think you were a myth. Weren't you and I supposed to connect at some point?”

“He's not here to answer questions,” Sanborn said, trying to keep things on track.

“From appearances,” Axel sniffed, “he's not here to do much of anything.”

Jude felt, finally, enough smoke was in the air. “Look. Let's get this over with. I have no idea where Malvasio is. As for Strock, go to La Puntilla, track him down, be my guest. But don't be surprised if he's hard to find, because I get the sense he wants to get lost for a while.”

Sanborn wasn't having it. “Explain that.”

“He's crippled and out of work, lives in a hellhole and has a little girl he adores but can't see because the mother won't let him. Maybe there's more, I don't know—he didn't share, I didn't probe, but one glance tells you a vacation's long overdue. Anything else about him or Malvasio are secrets to me, and I hope they stay that way. I've done my good deed, I'm back on duty tomorrow, and my business is here.” Jude looked from face to face, checking in. “As for this other thing, the dead woman, I was on my way back from dropping Strock off when I saw Bert Waxman near the Río Jiboa bridge. I know him, Waxman, we've chatted now and again, nothing deep, and though I don't get along with the Guatemalan woman he hangs around with—”

“What about his photographer?” Sanborn was tugging at his ear again. “The ex-con.”

“More importantly,” McGuire said, “what about Truco Valdez?” From his shirt pocket he withdrew a sheet of paper folded into squares. He shook it open and handed it to Jude. “That face look familiar?”

It was an article under Waxman's byline, printed off the Internet, titled,
Double Bind: Salvadoran Gang Members Learn Leaving the Life Links Them to Terrorists
. A head shot of Truco led off the piece, with Abatangelo getting the photo attribution.

“I doubt I've said five words to either guy,” Jude said. “Him or the photographer, I mean.” He went to hand the article back.

Fitz said, “I'd like to see that,” and took it from Jude's hand.

“But you recognize him,” McGuire said to Jude.

“Sure.”

“He was the man who ran away with the camera at the Río Jiboa.”

“I think so. Yeah. The only thing I know about him is that he left the life behind. Or so I was told.”

McGuire steepled his hands. “We hear his group, La Tregua, is just a front. The
mareros
join so they can tell the judges they're dropping the flag, try to beat the two-to-five they're looking at under La Mano Dura. But they're banged up bad as ever.”

Jude vaguely remembered hearing something along those lines, but saw little point in sharing that with McGuire. “News to me.”

“You sure? What does Waxman say about it?”

“Ask him. Only person I've spoken with about this Truco guy is an anthropologist who meets up with that crowd from time to time. Her name's Eileen Browning. We didn't say much but, yeah, we talked.” Emphasis past tense, Jude thought. Because, you know, I'm a punk.

McGuire said, “How, exactly, did the discussion turn to Truco Valdez?”

“Night before I left, ten days ago, Truco and another
marero
named Jaime something-or-other—”

“Jaime Lacayo,” Fitz said. “He's mentioned here too.” His voice sounded vaguely relieved as he handed the article back. He refused to look at Jude, though. McGuire folded the paper up and put it back in his pocket.

“Those two,” Jude said, “Truco and Jaime, they were down at the beach with Waxman, his photographer, the Guatemalan woman, and this anthropologist I mentioned, Eileen. The religious guy, Jaime, was all Bible this and Jesus that but Truco wasn't buying. I seem to remember Truco bitching about how his group—what was the name again?”

“La Tregua,” McGuire said. It meant
truce
.

“About how the U.S. had designated La Tregua a terrorist front or some such, like that article says. They can't get money sent from the States to help with outreach down here.”

“Outreach.” Sanborn chuckled acidly. “That's poignant. I've got some vic pics on my laptop in the car, you wanna see some fucking outreach. What is it about these clowns and cutting off heads?”

“You think Truco Valdez had something to do with the woman they found under the bridge?”

“Why else run off with the camera?”

“Because he thought the soldiers were going to make off with it.”

“It's evidence. Why shouldn't they take it?”

Don't get sucked into this, Jude thought. “Look, whatever, my point is I barely spoke to the guy, okay? And if Eileen knows him any better, you'll have to ask her about it.” He waited, hoping someone might fill in the gap, mention where Eileen had gone to. Everybody just sat there, though, waiting him out. “Anyway, back to the Río Jiboa thing, I saw Waxman and the others by the road, the soldiers, the PNC. I stopped because I was curious.”

McGuire mindlessly fussed with his wedding band, a nervous tic. “Where's Truco Valdez now?”

“You tell me. My two cents? Getting some pictures developed.”

Finally, Lazarek said something: “You think this is funny?” His voice was flat but his neck muscles corded. “Terrorist gangs are a cancer down here. And these phony outreach groups, it's all a game. Like everybody's back in the school yard, as long as they're touching home base they can't get tagged. One gets a little sick of it, to be honest. Meanwhile money sails down here from the States, most of it dirty, some of it collected from dumb clucks who think these thugs are a charity. It buys guns, drugs, influence—”

Axel broke in: “And that, if I may, relates how, exactly, to your brief with ODIC?”

Lazarek shot him a look. “Business people say the key thing they consider before setting up shop down here is how stable the government is. And crime, especially gang crime, is destabilizing. You think I'm wrong, check out what's going on in Nicaragua, Honduras, Brazil. And the punks are getting help. Venezuela's just ordered three hundred thousand AK-47s from Russia—for an army of sixty-two thousand men.”

Axel waved that off. “Don't mistake this with support for Chávez, but only the whole world knows he thinks we're going to invade.”

“Because he's psychotic. Three guesses where those guns end up. And if that's not enough to get your attention, we've actionable intelligence that al Qaeda cells are linking up with the
salvatruchos
to sneak operatives across the border into the States.”

“I thought Interpol debunked that,” Axel said.

“Interpol doesn't know its ass from a handbag. The point is we've spent a long time and millions of dollars and spilled blood getting this country where it is today. We're not going to see that undone by the
mareros
or any of their ilk, including the political hacks who kiss up to them.”

He meant the FMLN but only Jude was listening: Axel's eyes had glazed over. McGuire shrank into his own world. Even Sanborn looked far away, despite the fact Lazarek had parroted his line. It was well known the bureau and the intelligence community despised each other, even when they shared goals, or especially then. And Lazarek could claim he worked with ODIC all night—he was a spook.

Jude turned back to McGuire. “I've got no clue where Truco Valdez ran off to. It happened real quick, the camera thing. I'd just walked up to see what was going on. Again, I was curious.” He scratched his arm. “Which reminds me—any idea who the murdered woman was?”

It seemed like a cue. McGuire and Sanborn traded glances, then rose to their feet. “What we're told,” McGuire said, “is she was a prostitute from Usulután, got reported missing a few days ago.”

He was too smart to lie so badly.
What we're told?
Then an explanation that came out like the world's most contrived anticlimax. Meanwhile both he and Sanborn avoided Lazarek's stare like it gave them hives. Jude wondered at all that but not to the point he intended to say anything. It looked like they were ready to go. Please, he thought, do.

Apparently, though, Fitz caught something off as well. “Who told you this? About the woman, I mean.”

Lazarek finally got up from his chair. “I'd say we're done here.” He strode past McGuire and Sanborn toward the door. McGuire said, “Thanks for your time,” then headed out too. Sanborn trailed after him, leaving behind a lingering whiff of his vinegary cologne.

Once the door closed behind them, Axel's eyes whipsawed between Fitz and Jude. “What did I just miss?”

22

Dillahunt, Pahlavi, and the other EPs were wrapping up their dinners as Jude, Axel, and Fitz finally sat down to theirs, Jolanda appearing promptly with her tureen of
gallo en chicha
to ladle out portions. Despite the almost hallucinatory aroma steaming up from the broth of corn brew, an uneasy silence lingered over the table, remaining even as the others peeled away to pursue their evenings. Axel tried once or twice to enliven the table with a little diversionary chat between spoonfuls, but Jude could muster little more than one-word responses and compulsory nods, at one point staring into his bowl with an eerie sense of comradery with his meal—he felt like he'd barely fended off something that thought he was food. Meanwhile, across the table, Fitz brooded, lost in thought.

In between his mindless assents to Axel's chatter, Jude tried to piece together the most likely sequence of events: his getting identified with Waxman and the others at the Río Jiboa; a call to the embassy, routed to McGuire, the on-site American whose brief was gangs; discussion of possible links between Jude and Truco Valdez; a little background, including a call to the Delegado de Inmigración; discovery of Jude's entry this morning with Strock; a little more background; discovery of the Laugh Master connection. Bingo. Something to pry Jude open—a bluff, basically—a wedge to get him to say all he knew about the
mareros
in his life. Which, of course, was next to nothing. And that meant if they'd known anything more about his contacts with Malvasio, up to and including today, the scene at the restaurant in San Marcelino, they would have brought it up. Why hold it back? Why hold back anything on that front—Malvasio's life here the past ten years, the people he was in with, the things he did for them? If there was anything damning in all that, they'd hardly keep it to themselves—they would have used it to impress him with their knowledge, embarrass him in front of Axel and Fitz, shame him into talking. But none of that happened. They had nothing more to say about Malvasio than I did about Truco, he thought, and that's why they bagged it up so quickly at the end. He told himself to relax. About everything.

Finally, Jolanda came to collect dishes. Getting up from the table, Fitz said, “I'd like both of you to join me in my room for a moment, if you would.”

Fitz's bedroom doubled as his office and epitomized order—his desktop a shrine, his bed a tomb. Even the ceiling fan hummed with unnerving perfection. Closing the door, he turned to Jude. “The thing McGuire brought up about your father—what was all that about?”

Jude had hoped they were done with this. “It's ancient history, Fitz.”

“There's nothing in your personnel file about it.”

“Why should there be? The man's dead. Has been for ten years.”

Fitz tucked his hands in his armpits—to hide their shaking, Jude supposed.