Heart of the World (23 page)

I swallowed and stared at my feet. How foolish I'd been to imagine that she'd stand out like a banner in the crowd. I understood the bafflement of my suburban clients, their disbelief that their child could stay hidden in Boston, as I'd never understood it before.

A teen lost in a big city is like a book lost in a library. I knew that, but I'd forgotten it, ignored it, because to me Paolina was an illuminated manuscript, totally and completely unique, unlike any other manuscript in the world. How amazing that no one else could see the bold colors, the jeweled gold binding. I felt tears start to squeeze beneath my eyelids and I thought: It must be the damned altitude.

I abandoned the bench and the pigeons and walked. As my heartbeat slowed, the blocks of buildings turned into individual shops, the individual shops became places with specific names, and I realized I was looking for a hotel, a cabstand in front of a hotel. A cab, that most familiar and comforting vehicle, smelling of unwashed upholstery and stale cigarette ash. I knew where I was in a cab.

I started piloting a hack part-time in college. Anything to avoid waiting tables, I told myself, but it was the independence, the solitude, the nighttime lure of the city that drew me. And Gloria and Sam, co-owners of the company for which I drove.

The cabs pulled up across the street from El Dorado Hotel alternated between the green-and-cream tourist cabs and the regular yellow cabs. A yellow was first in line, so I grabbed it. No required-by-Boston-law bulletproof-plastic shield divided the rear seat from the front, but the smoky interior welcomed me like an old friend.

“^Adonde vamos?”

Good question, I thought as I gave the driver the name of my hotel. Good question. Follow the leads, I thought. There's no one to help you here, no fellow cops, no team. Follow the leads, one at a time.
Don't panic
.

I watched his hands on the steering wheel because I like seeing a job well done; he steered skillfully through packed streets, whistling silently between his teeth.

“Is the traffic always like this?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“Crowded?
¿Loco?”

His flowered shirt, worn open over a ribbed white tee, was turquoise and black, and a silver cross dangled from a chain around his neck. He was young, maybe early twenties. Dark curly hair made a halo around his thin face and accented his brooding eyes.

He rested his right arm on the back of the seat. When he smiled any resemblance to saint or poet ended. He had a gap-toothed grin that looked more than a little
loco
to me.

“This is nothing,” he said. “Before the restrictions, then there was traffic.”

“Restrictions?”

“Rules about when private cars can be on the road. Like if your license plate ends in a five, you can't take your car out Mondays and Wednesdays.”

A law like that would go over big in Boston or New York, I thought. The politician who dared to sponsor it would be tossed out of office so fast you'd hear the wind at his back. We passed a bright red articulated giant of a bus, the word T
RANSMILENIO
written on its side, a cow tethered to a tree on the median strip, and a ‘59 Chevy, repainted and buffed, with shining chrome. At an intersection, a child of ten solemnly swallowed fire while two younger kids rode unicycles and tossed juggling pins.

At a traffic light, a man rapped on my window, palm extended for alms. Before I could respond, the light changed and the driver pulled away.

“You're not from Bogota, then?” the driver said.

“The States. Boston.”

“Aha,” he said. “The Red Sox. Very good team. Red Sox.”

His enthusiasm and backseat glances didn't adversely affect his driving. He changed gears smoothly, without a lot of show. He kept up with traffic, didn't press, slid through yellow lights as though he had them timed.

“Your meter doesn't show the fare,” I said.

“It's on the card. Meter gives the time, the distance, the waiting time. You add that to the basic fare, unless you hire by the hour.” He handed me a card with a grid of prices. His photo in the upper left-hand corner looked stiff and solemn as a choirboy. There was an identity number and a name, Guillermo Santos.

The basic fare was a dollar. To rent the cab by the hour cost eight bucks. The cabbie swerved around a slow truck, the movement as gentle as cradling a baby.

“You ever work the airport?” I asked.

“Sure. Most nights I do at least one run.”

“Can I show you a photo? I'm looking for a girl who flew into El Dorado three nights ago.”

At a red light I passed both shots of Paolina forward. He didn't ask whether they were the same girl, just studied each one intently.

“She steal something?”

“She's my sister.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Pretty girl. She run away?”

“Do you know a nightclub called the Zona Rosa?”

He made a quick right, then a left. “Place on the road to Chia?” he said slowly. “That's the only one I know. You ever been to Chia?”

“No. If I reserved your cab for the evening, would you pick me up here, at the hotel, at eight?”

His eyes lit up. “For the whole evening?”

“Four hours, minimum. You'd wait for me, bring me back. Could you do that? Would you have to okay it with your boss?”

“Zona Rosa, they'll barely be open at eight. Let's make it ten.”

“Fine,” I said. “Ten o'clock. You need a cash advance, to hold the cab?”

“I'll be here.”

“Thank you, Senor Santos.”

“And you, Senorita…?”

“Carlyle.”

I overtipped and watched as he seamlessly reentered the stream of traffic. Must be the altitude, I thought. Look at me, trusting a guy because he knows how to drive a cab.

CHAPTER 20

I opened the door to my room cautiously
, wishing I'd pasted a single red hair across the door jamb, like some old film-noir PI. As if that would work in a hotel. I flicked the light and discovered that the bed had been made and the carpet vacuumed. Dead giveaway: The maid had been and gone.

The message light on the phone flickered. I punched the button and listened to silence followed by the click of a receiver returning to the cradle. Someone had called and waited, then left no word on the tape. Luisa Cabrera? Her three hours were almost up.

I hauled my laptop out from under the bed and plugged it in. Gloria was on target; Roz had sent mail. I skimmed the details of Angel Navas's career. Damn. The rumors that he'd taken over Roldan's drug empire were as false as the tales of Roldan's death. Navas had been extradited to the U.S. around the same time El Martillo's plane had reportedly crashed. There were clips about his Florida trial. Guilty on eight counts of distribution, but it was the racketeering conviction that had gotten him transferred to the federal pen in Colorado where he died. No details on the cause of death. Prison brawl or heart attack, the result had been the same.

I'd asked Roz to check out the outfit named on Naylor's phone bill, MB Realty Trust. I scrolled quickly through her report. MB Realty Trust, title holder of the house in which Naylor lived, was a wholly owned subsidiary
of BrackenCorp, with a capital C. BrackenCorp was a Florida-based defense contractor, a billion-dollar outfit owned by one Mark Bracken.

Was Naylor filming a PR masterpiece for BrackenCorp? Was Naylor associated with BrackenCorp, or did the company simply own a lot of properties in the area? I typed the follow-up questions for Roz.

M.B. Mark Bracken. MB Realty Trust. I closed my eyes. I knew something about BrackenCorp, but what? Something to do with the war in Iraq, a no-bid contract scandal? Mark Bracken was definitely a presence, a somebody on the business pages of glossy magazines.

Roz's correspondence continued. Sam had phoned and given her the Ignacio number. Had I called it, she wanted to know? Gotten results?

I stretched and glanced at my watch. Cabrera's three hours were up. I checked her card, got an outside line, and punched the numbers.

“Hello?” She picked up her own line, sounding harried. No secretary.

I identified myself. There was a long silence, the kind a person might use to collect her thoughts.

“Ah, yes, Senora Carlyle. Sorry. I was expecting another call. Where are you?”

An interesting question. I ignored it and asked my own. “What have you decided?”

A pause. “That you were right. It isn't my sort of story.”

“Then I'll need to proceed on my own, with the authorities and with—”

“A moment, please.” Again, she hesitated a beat too long. “I have done some work on your behalf.”

I wondered whether that work might have involved an anonymous alert phoned in to the Gold Museum. She certainly sounded as though she were grasping at straws, as though she hadn't expected to hear from me.

“If you still wish to have this story televised—”

“I do, since you can't help me.”

“I have a friend. You have paper, pencil?”

I wrote while she spoke. She'd decided to pass on my story, but if I was determined to go public with Paolina's disappearance, she could recommend a broadcaster named Rivas who worked at Caracol, a local network. Unfortunately, Senor Rivas was away on location and couldn't
be reached until tomorrow in the late afternoon. Of course, I could contact someone else, but Rivas would be perfect. She sounded friendly and sincere, not like the sort of woman who'd set me up for a visit to a jail cell.

“So there's nothing else you can do?”

“Just direct you to Caracol. And the Gold Museum. You know, you definitely should go.”

“I did,” I said. “Very informative. I learned about the Cities of Stone, the Lost Cities.”

“Oh. Then you— I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for your call.” “By the way,” I said, “what can you tell me about Base Eighteen? Do you know where to find Base Eighteen?” A quick indrawn breath, silence.

“I'm so sorry,” she said abruptly, her voice almost cracking. “I have to run.” The receiver clicked firmly into the cradle.

I'm no human lie-detector, but either Base Eighteen meant something to Cabrera or I was no judge of vocal tension. Interesting.…In Boston, print journalists and TV reporters squabble. They don't share. They don't trade stories or help each other out. Possibly, what with journalists an endangered species, the game was played differently in Bogota. I phoned Caracol, the TV station. Yes, Rivas worked there, and no, he wasn't currently available. That much was on the level.

Dammit. I was more certain than ever that Cabrera knew something. Frustrated, I tried Ignacio. The same woman with the same soft voice told me to call later.

“It
is
later,” I said. “When will he be back?”

“Soon.”

“It's important.”

“Soon. Call back later.”

Another click. I glared at the silent receiver in my hand. A slow ache throbbed at my temples and I squeezed my eyes shut. Against the velvet blackness, images flashed: the showcase of martyred journalists, an array of rigid golden masks, child street-jugglers, museum guards.

I wondered what Santos, the cabbie, would say if I asked him where I could buy a gun.

CHAPTER 21

What does a woman wear to a bar?

Lord, what don't women wear to bars? Call me sensitive about issues of appropriate bar dress, but when I was a cop, I got so damned tired of hearing the guys say: “Well, what did she expect?”
Well, what did she expect wearing that mini-skirt? I've seen bikini bottoms with more coverage. Well, what did she expect, wearing that low-cut blouse, melons like those?

Well, truth be told, she probably expected admiration. Expected some guy to belly up to the bar and buy her a Margarita. Women, I would say, do not head in droves to bars hoping to get raped. Rape is not fun. It's painful and humiliating, has little to do with sex, and everything to do with anger and control. It's about the perp, not the victim. Normal guys don't rape, and rapists rape for reasons that go way beyond apparel.

Jeez, you broads have no sense of humor
.

At a street vendor's cart, I purchased a deep blue ruana, a wool shawl that could have been designed for the express purpose of blurring shape and height. At a drugstore, I debated home hair-dye kits. I didn't want to stand out like a beacon tonight, but I was planning to drop Naylor's name, and if someone called to check my bona fides, he'd remember me as a redhead. The
drogueria
had mirrors perched over the aisles to help the employees keep track of shoplifters.

I vetoed the dye, but since I was already in the hair aisle, decided I
might as well arm myself. From a shelf of hairspray, I selected a small cylinder, almost as good as Mace or pepper spray, and really, what kind of judge would send a woman to prison for squirting an assailant in the face with hairspray?

What does a woman wear to a bar?

Jeans, the equalizer of fashion. Rich, poor, old, young, you can always get away with a good pair of jeans, and I'd seen enough of them on the local streets to feel comfortable choosing them. Scoop-neck tee; show a little cleavage, make like you belong. Scarf, no jewelry. I didn't want to be the victim of a necklace grab-and-snatch. Thieves
do
pay attention to what you wear.

Shoes. Since I didn't want to be taken for a working girl, the spike-heeled sandals I'd bought in Miami were out, and my business heels were too businesslike. At the last minute I'd tossed a pair of low-heeled sandals into my duffel, figuring they'd double as bedroom slippers. Not perfect by a long shot, but okay. I topped the ensemble off with the ruana.

My backpack was not a great fashion choice, but I didn't have an alternative. I'm the same way at home. I don't know how some women manage to switch purses all the time, coordinating bags with shoes and mood and who knows what else. When I pick a bag, I'm looking for a place to park my keys and Kleenex.