Blood of Paradise (35 page)

Sleeper had cut away a jagged hole in the outer wall, just this side of which lay a thin mattress. Must've been a clown act getting that thing up the ladder, Malvasio thought, especially with Mr. Jittery Sniffles involved. Candles and matches lay atop a makeshift table made from an upturned crate. A bucket sat in the corner of the other room—the toilet.

“Welcome to your sniper hide,” Malvasio said.

Strock looked bereft. “Bit of a switch from where I've been.”

“You'll only be up here through Wednesday. Friday at the latest. Good news is, there are things going on that may render this whole exercise pointless. If that's the case, we'll bag up quietly and go our merry way. But if that falls through, I want to be ready.”

Taking that as a cue, Strock flipped down the bipod legs on the AR-15 and lifted its scope caps front and back, then eased down into a prone position on the mattress, sighting the weapon through the hole in the wall. Malvasio knelt behind him, peering down the line of the rifle barrel beyond the feathery green crest of several
mariscargo
trees. A couple hundred yards away lay the wall surrounding Villas de Miramonte, and beyond that the cul-de-sac down which the hydrologist's woman lived. It was that sight line, from here to Consuela's door, that had crystallized the plan in Malvasio's mind. No need to rent a room across from the man's hotel, be seen, leave a paper trail. Sooner or later he'd come by to visit his lady friend. With patience, it would all fall together.

“I'll go down tomorrow,” he told Strock, “point out the target house. Nobody's around this weekend. Meanwhile, make yourself as comfortable as you can. I'll send Sleeper or Chucho back with some water and food, soap and towels. They'll check in every morning and night.”

“I'm gonna want a bag of kitty litter,” Strock said.

Malvasio took a second to process that. “Do I need to hear this?”

Strock slapped his left elbow with his right hand. “Prop it under my arm, brace my shot.”

Malvasio checked to make sure Sleeper caught that. The kid looked like he was ready to bust. “Duende, that other thing you had me working on. I got news.”

Malvasio assumed he meant Truco Valdez. “Tell me at the bottom.” He added a head nod to suggest he and his buddy start down now. “I'll be right there.”

Strock waited till Sleeper and Chucho were on the ground, then said, “Where'd you find the two grease spots?”

“Around. More just like them everywhere you look.”

“The tall one, guy who speaks English?”

“Sleeper.”

“Looks like the Crocodile Man, all those tats. But he's normal compared to this sidekick.”

“Chucho.”

“Kid acts like he eats Sterno.”

“Lot of crank and chemicals down here. He's not always that bad.”

“Keep him away from me. Can you do that?”

Now he's dictating, Malvasio thought. “Sure. I'll try. Him and Sleeper are like Cisco and Pancho lately, but I'll try.”

“I don't mean to second-guess your judgment. I'm just saying, given the way things might have to go down—”

“No problem. Consider it done. You'll only have to deal with Sleeper.”

Strock nodded absently, then yawned. “Appreciate it.”

“Just so you know—you'll be seeing more of him than me the next few days.”

“Oh, this just gets better.”

“I'll try to stop by at least once a day, but I've got a lot on my plate. So Sleeper's gonna be your main source of face time. He can get pretty buzzed himself and he's chatty when he is. Just so you know.”

Strock turned back to his weapon, closed one eye, and sighted through the scope again. “Let's hope that's the worst of my problems.”

When he reached the ground, Malvasio gestured for Sleeper to join him by the van. He counted out money for groceries. “Buy the stuff we talked about, plus the kitty litter if you can find it. And water, make sure he's got plenty. It's gonna get hot up there.” He handed the cash over. “Another thing—let's think about keeping your pal away from my pal the next few days.”

Sleeper counted the bills, then stuffed them in his pocket. “What's his hang-up?”

“It's a cultural thing. You said you had something to tell me?”

“Yeah. Me and Chucho, we went to one of those meetings, La Tregua? On the button, man, like you said, bunch of
putas chavos
just want their tats removed.”

“Fascinating. But Truco.”

“He's around.”

Malvasio waited. In the background, Chucho squatted in the shade, gripping his head. “That's it—he's around?”

“What do you want? I press too hard, I get made, then what?”

“You're going back.”

“Tonight, yeah—What's
with
you, man? Lighten the fuck up.”

“Tonight, what?”

“Me and Chucho, we got a bead on a guy who's in touch. Think so. We'll chat him up, tail him if we have to. By tomorrow—day after, tops—I'll have your guy.”

“There,” Malvasio said, grateful the prediction he'd given Hector wouldn't need revision. “Better.” He opened the van door and climbed behind the wheel.

Sleeper stepped away into the sun, glancing up at the sniper hide. “That's an evil piece your buddy's got. Chucho and me gonna get the same?”

“That what you want?” Malvasio already had identical weapons put aside, minus silencers and scopes. Part of the plan. “Let me see what I can work out.”

Sleeper liked that.
“Qué chivo.”
Awesome.

“Put your shirt on.”

Sleeper, clowning, mimicked
boo-hoo
. “Poor Duende. So much on his mind.” He undid the knot in his sleeves. “Give us a lift to town?”

“No. I just thought of something I forgot to tell my guy. I need to go back up.”

“We can wait.”

“It's gonna be a while.”

Malvasio waited for Sleeper and Chucho to sulk away, then retrieved from the back of the van a cell phone with an earpiece and a box of sabot rounds.

The cell phone was so he could communicate with Strock during the shooting if it came to that. He'd try to limit use before then so no one could trap the signal.

The sabot rounds were boattail bullets sheathed in a thin plastic shell that split and fell away after firing. The barrel's striations wouldn't appear on the round itself, just the plastic, which normally landed no more than ten yards away from the shooter's position, easy to pick up afterward. If Strock hit anyone, there'd be no way to trace the bullet to his weapon—or, given ballistics down here, no way to prove for sure it hadn't come from someone else's.

Like Sleeper's. Or Chucho's.

And so it goes, he thought, drawing no pleasure from how well things were falling into place. In fact, the more the plan crystallized, the more his mind turned ashen. He couldn't shake a forbidding sense of waste. God help me, he thought. Help me and Phil and Ray's unlucky kid.

33

Over a late, leisurely brunch on the Intercontinental's sun-washed restaurant patio, Axel clutched Consuela's hand in the shade of their tasseled umbrella and gamely tried to broaden the conversation to invite Jude in.

“I miss waking up to the parakeets,” he said with a sigh. “What do we get instead?
Chicharras
. Criminy, what a racket.”

He was referring to a variety of cicada that bred noisily and laid its eggs during March each year, then died off, like something from an insect opera. Their eerie trilling echoed down through the hillside canyons above the city and resembled wind through high-tension wires.

“I guess I tuned it out,” Jude said, unable to take it further. He'd risen early, checked his e-mails, and confirmed arrangements for the coming trip east to San Bartolo Oriente. Then he'd cleaned his weapons, checked the spring tensions on his magazines, practiced speed reloading and presentation—grip, clear, clasp, sight—from both his belt and his ankle holsters. Next he'd dry-fired two-shot hammers and split hammers at imaginary targets around the room, then worked up a good dense sweat with calisthenics, after which he'd taken his longest cold shower in memory as he waited out the lovers dallying in bed next door.
Andante amoroso
, was how Axel put it. They still had that sated afterglow.

“I'm beginning to think that everything I love about this country is getting overrun by bugs, blackbirds, and buzzards. Well, not quite everything.” Axel smiled at Consuela, who indulged him, rolling her eyes. “Imagine the wildlife you'd still have here, though, if they hadn't clear-cut ninety percent of the forests for the sake of plantations.”

Or the locals didn't need to eat everything they could lay their hands on just to survive, Jude thought. Then something caught his eye. Turning, he stared across the patio of sandstone pavers to the French doors leading into the restaurant. There, framed by two large urns overflowing with
mano de leon
, stood Eileen—dressed comfortably, seductively in a white camisole, denim skirt, and sandals. The sun reflected off her glasses, causing her lenses to flare. She clutched a manila envelope to her chest.

Sensing Jude's bewilderment and following his gaze, Axel said, “What in God's name is it?”

Before Jude could respond, Eileen started walking toward them, negotiating a path among the other tables, tapping people on the shoulder and murmuring,
“Con permiso,”
with a smile. If she'd been a jumpy, sweaty stranger—or brandishing a gun—he'd have known exactly what to do. As it was, he just sat there, watching her approach, his meal churning in his stomach and a vein thumping in his neck like a plucked string.

Reaching the table, she bent a little at the waist, so her face could be seen beneath the umbrella's tassels. “Hello, Jude.”

That voice, he thought. Axel and Consuela shot mindful glances back and forth. Eileen spared him further agony by extending her hand to Axel.

“I don't believe our paths have crossed. Eileen Browning. I'm an anthropologist who's been working down here for a year or so.”

Axel brightened. “Delighted. Axel Odelberg. This is Consuela Rojas.”

“I know. Actually, it's Señora Rojas I've come to see.”

Consuela blanched quizzically. Axel said, “You know each other?”

Jude, mastering his shock finally, looked about for a chair. “Let's find you a seat.”

“Actually, I was going to ask if there was someplace private we could talk. Señora Rojas, I've been working with a reporter named Bert Waxman the past week, ever since his former assistant was told to leave the country. I have some pictures here I would like to show you.”

On the brief ride up in the elevator, Eileen leaned toward Jude and whispered, “You look well.” It stunned him, all things considered.
Punk. Bruiser
. And her eyes conveyed a fond warmth, reminding him how much he'd missed her. Now here she was, like a conjurer's trick, but before he could process all that into an appropriate response, the doors slid open. Everyone filed into the hall.

He felt awkward making them wait outside Axel's room while he cleared it, as though Eileen might have lured them into a trap, but as he'd heard more than once, one can't sacrifice the client's safety on the altar of good manners. He'd explain later; for now, he ventured in himself and asked everyone to wait just beyond the open door.

Housekeeping had already tidied up, but the room felt close and hot, the maid having switched off the air-conditioning since no one was in the room. Jude opened the sliding glass door to let in a breeze, knowing Axel's preference for fresh air, and checked the balcony for anything out of the ordinary. He cast one quick glance down, onto the hotel grounds, then out toward the Boulevard de los Héroes and the gentle, smoggy hills of the European Zone, before returning inside.

The room was typical of the local hotels, spacious but bland as a box, and yet the drab decor had the advantage of making it easy to search. A pool of sweat formed in the small of his back as he went about things quickly to compensate for a little more thoroughness than usual, in case somebody who'd known of Eileen's coming, or who had followed her here, had somehow managed to sneak in while they were all downstairs. He checked the closet and behind the curtains and wall hangings, then inside every drawer, under the cabinets, the bed. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and earpiece on the phone, checking for transmitters, then did the same with the most accessible wall sockets, using a small screwdriver on his key chain to undo the faceplates. He even lifted the toilet lid to see if anything lay in the reservoir—a microphone, or a bomb sealed in plastic—but found only a pair of dead mosquitoes and a dissolving puck of chlorine. Last, he tried the TV remote to make sure all that happened was a program came on.

Satisfied the room was clean, he invited everyone inside with: “Sorry to make everyone wait.”