Hot Ticket (37 page)

“That’s just great,” I snapped. “Seventeen years in the jungle and that’s the best you can do? No wonder you never won the
Nobel Prize.”

“Shhhh.” Fausto squeezed my hand. “What if I don’t take this?”

“Your seizures will continue. I could always operate, of course. Remove the appropriate brain tissue. But you know the risks
of that.”

Fausto looked at me. “In a gambling mood?” I didn’t answer so he had to refer to Louis. “What are my chances?”

“Fifty-fifty.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Again he looked at me. “It would be a shame not to drink the damn stuff after all that bother. Bottoms
up, doll. Thanks for letting me punch out at the top of my game.”

Fausto drank. We waited. Nothing happened.

“I think we’re over the hump,” the doctor finally announced. “You would have had counterindications by now.”

“How do you feel?” I asked. “Besides hot.”

“Fine.”

I stood up. “Great. Let’s go back to Washington.”

“That’s impossible,” Louis cried. “Fausto’s in no condition to go anywhere without medical supervision.”

“Then come back with us. You’ve got a nice lab in Virginia. You can make gallons of this swill up there.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve got to finish Tuna’s project. It was part of the deal.”

I looked imploringly at Fausto, who merely said, “He’s right.”

“Then I’m going to Belize City,” I said. “Back in two hours. Who’s got the keys to the chopper?” Dull stares. “Come on, boys!
I haven’t got all day!”

“What are you going to do there?” Louis asked suspiciously.

“Figure out who assassinated your brother. I hope you don’t mind. Can you come with me, Ek?”

A surplus Blackhawk waited on top of the hill: ah, money. Ten minutes later Ek and I were skimming over the jungle. On all
sides, as far as we could see, lay green dense and dark as broccoli, occasionally parted by a slim green river. I counted
five rainbows, eight clouds of smoke: deforestation already in high gear. “How have you been?” I shouted at Ek over the
whop whop
of rotor blades.

“Good.”

“You were right. Louis came back.”

No answer so I didn’t push it. We flew in silence to Belize City. The airport was deader than Jonestown. I parked next to
Fausto’s Piper and paid the landing fees. Inside the terminal I bought an expensive assortment of cheap toys. “Can you take
me to Dr. Tatal’s clinic?” I asked Ek.

We cabbed to a long building made of whatever construction materials had been available at the time that carpenters had felt
like working. Now everything was peeling or rotting. The front doors didn’t close: no problem since there was no air-conditioning
to conserve and bugs came and went at will through the inch-high gap at the floor. Next to the decayed front steps, perhaps
to cushion falls, an overflowing bin of medical waste blistered in the sun. “They fixed it up for the environmental conference,”
Ek said as we went inside.

Down a grimy corridor to the dengue ward. The smells were indescribably unpleasant. Behind the nurse’s desk hung a picture
of Paula Marvel and Dr. Tatal, who looked coolly professional in a white tunic. Couldn’t say the same for Paula’s fussy bows
and hat. Schoolgirls in pinafores clustered the two women. “The president’s wife visited us,” explained the nurse. “The girls
sang.”

“We’d like to visit Babette and Iris Auclair. We understand they came down with dengue after the conference.” Thank you, Tougaw.

“They’re in the children’s ward.” The victims lay in a cubbyhole painted fecal yellow. Poor things looked like voodoo dolls,
without the pins: bloodshot eyes, swollen joints … breakbone was the correct name for this plague, and they had only mild
cases. “Hi girls,” I said cheerfully. “My name’s Cosima. This is Ek. Which of you is Babette?” The bigger one tried to sit
up. I gave her a doll. “How’re you feeling?”

“Much better.” Ah, that singsong lilt: happy people. “My sister is coming along, too.” The little one smiled with the dignity
of a queen.

“I understand you two were at the big conference here.”

“Oh yes. We sang for the president’s wife.”

“I bet she loved it.” Paula’s best attribute was that beatific smile she wore when bored stiff.

“And I saw the vice president! He gave me a ball!” Babette showed me a hand-sewn mesh ball with ladybug emblems on the outside.
“I’ll keep it forever.”

“Where did he give this to you?”

“Here in the hotel. Iris and I had to wait a long time to get up to the banquet room because only one elevator was working.
Then the vice president came out.” Babette hugged herself. “I think he’s very handsome.”

Not anymore, kid. “Did you get a ball, too?” I asked little sister.

“Yes. But the lady took it away. She tried to take Babette’s ball too, but Babette wouldn’t give it to her.”

Something odd here. Vice presidents didn’t distribute toys to children only to have grown women snatch them back. “That’s
not very nice,” I said. “Who was this lady?”

“I don’t know. She said the balls belonged to her daughter.”

Oh God. I passed out the toys to everyone in the room. “Does anyone remember a girl playing the violin here?”

Silence. Maybe they had erased the memory. Or maybe they had all been sleeping, as Gretchen said. Ek and I returned to the
nurse, who was sharing a sandwich with two huge flies. “Did a girl visit the hospital a while back? Play the violin?”

“Very short concert,” the nurse informed me. “Thank the Lord.”

“Could you tell me where?”

“In the room at the end of the hall.”

Ek and I walked down an airless corridor. Too quiet here: death was an exhausting opponent. In every room lay two or three
demicorpses, mouths open, all exhaling that horrible stench. The gurneys looked like seconds from the Battle of the Somme.
I had yet to see one latex glove. Pulled Ek into the last room, which had more windows but no more cross-ventilation than
did the hallway. For a moment we stared at the occupants of a dozen beds. Too hot for sheets so their bodies, both wasted
and grotesquely swollen, lay in full view. They were all weeping blood from the eyes, nose, ears, fingernails … everywhere.
The fresh red glowed like nail polish; the old red looked like meat loaf gravy. Humans? Oozing protoplasm. Bendix had Gretchen
play
here?

A doctor entered. He seemed in no particular rush, but none of his patients were going anywhere. “I guess this is the hemorrhagic
dengue ward,” I said stupidly.

“That’s correct. Are you visiting someone?”

Just ghosts. “I think a girl played the violin here recently.”

“Just for a few minutes. She and her teacher brought some toys.” The doctor indicated a few more mesh balls on a bed table.
“The patients were not well enough to appreciate a concert. I told the girl to play for the children instead. But she was
not—agreeable to that.”

On the way out, I asked the nurse if Dr. Tanqueray Tougaw worked there. “I have never heard that name,” she answered.

I could only smile in defeat and leave. Quiet in the streets: sun had driven everyone inside. “Hungry?” I asked Ek.

We went to a café bigger but not tidier than Koko’s. Maybe detergents just didn’t work in the tropics. Hell, maybe people
up north were just too clean. “Glad to see Louis again?” I asked Ek.

His face barely moved as he ate. “I did not know he was working on a poison.”

“He was also working on a cure for Fausto. The world needs both.”

Ek swallowed a lot of beans before speaking again. “Are you sorry you killed Simon?”

Crap, not Simon again! Then I remembered that Ek wasn’t as civilized as the rest of us. “Do you think he was sorry to be killing
me? Sorry he succeeded in killing Dr. Tatal? We were just jobs. He was paid for his work.”

“What you are saying is someone else is also responsible for killing Dr. Tatal.”

“That’s right.”

Ek put twenty dollars on the table. “Would you kill that person for me? That’s all the money I have now but I will earn however
much you want.”

Ah, damn. “I don’t think you understand,” I sighed. “There’s a big difference between Simon and me.” Simon got paid more.

“But what about the person who killed Dr. Tatal? There is no punishment?”

In this life? Forget it. “I’ll find who did it. Whether or not I can even the score is beyond my control.”

We finished eating in silence. “Why were you asking about Dr. Tougaw?” Ek asked as we were leaving the café.

“You know him?”

“He sells medicines. He has a shop by the wharf.”

Ek took me there. Not even the fish were moving in that section of town. Tougaw’s place was shut tight. “What are you doing?”
Ek whispered, looking around anxiously.

“Opening the door. Just a second.” We went inside. The place smelled of roots and herbs and mostly mildew: Tougaw hadn’t been
here for a while. I turned on the lights. Behind the cash register was a huge picture of the medicine man with Paula Marvel
in her Dress of One Dozen Bows.
To Dr. Tougaw,
the inscription read.
With thanks. Paula Marvel.

“Guess he was at the conference, too,” I said, sniffing a few bottles. Gad, was there anyone in Belize who hadn’t cashed in
on the damn thing?

“He’s not a very good doctor,” Ek said. “He does not always find the best plants. And he puts spells on people.”

No wonder Paula had brought him to Washington. I uncorked a bottle and nearly gagged on the odor of burnt pineapple. “Let’s
get back to camp.”

We had a jagged ride through squalls and hidden thermals rippling over the hills. Fausto was in his tent reading
Macbeth,
borrowed from Barnard’s library in the cave. His face looked only slightly less gray than it had this morning. “She was an
extraordinary woman,” he said, closing the book.

“Lady Macbeth?”

“No, your friend Polly. Terrific botanist. Could have given Louis a real run for his money.”

I peeled a mango. “Did you perform any unnatural sex acts with her?”

“No, dear. I deferred to the president. With you I wasn’t quite as generous.”

“I have a video of her in a bathtub with Marvel.” Tiny fib: Fausto would be ripped if I told him Cecil had flouted his house
arrest. “It was made at Aurilla’s country place. Bobby was given the keys so he’d have a spare bedroom out of town. The upstairs
is crawling with cameras.” I dropped a piece of mango into Fausto’s mouth. “Have you seen the video?”

“No. But it sounds lovely.”

“Who would have watched it and then killed Polly? Aurilla and Bendix?”

“Careful. Why should they kill Polly just because she was bathing with Marvel? On the contrary, Aurilla would love to have
a tape like that. It would be a huge bargaining chip if the going ever got rough. No, whoever killed Polly was an ally of
Bobby’s.”

“Justine?” I thought a moment. “Forget it. She’s too small.”

“Size isn’t everything, dear. Desire is what counts. Justine’s still in love with him. She’s fearless after swallowing enough
pills.”

“Why’d you work with her if she’s so unstable?”

“She owes me from way back. The idea of pulling a fast one on Bobby fascinated her.”

“But you just said she loved him.”

“Hates him in equal measure. Love’s a complicated beast. She’s been terminally confused over Bobby since the day she laid
eyes on him.”

“I still can’t figure out what she’s doing with Duncan.”

“It began because she wanted to know about you. Then Duncan’s natural charm swept her off her feet. Relax. Duncan’s nearing
the end of his shelf life. Then he’ll be all yours again.”

“All right, forget Justine. Do you think Chickering could have killed Polly?”

“She’s no friend of Bobby’s. She’s seen too much since boarding that first bus in Kentucky.”

“Paula?”

Fausto paused. “If the First Lady were snuffing Bobby’s bimbos, she’d be the worst serial killer in history. But I wouldn’t
put it past her. Not if she saw a tape of Polly with her husband in a bathtub. Even if Marvel’s spin doctors managed to get
him off the hook for another relapse, Polly didn’t seem the discreet type. She could cost Marvel the election.”

Louis came in, covered with muck. He handed Fausto a gourd. “Drink.” He turned to me. “Productive trip?”

“I went to the hospital and spoke with two little girls who also came down with dengue after the conference. They ran into
Jojo near the hotel elevator.”

“Aedes aegypti
don’t breed in elevators,” Louis snorted.

“Couldn’t a mosquito have been flying around the elevator and bitten the girls after Jojo left?”

“That’s pushing it. Anyone else in the elevator would have been bitten as well. If only Jojo and the girls were hit, the mosquitoes
would have had to be contained. Controlled. How could that have happened? Did something come into contact with Jojo and the
girls alone?”

Ah, Doctor: brilliant questions. No wonder Polly fell for him. “He gave them a ball.”

Ek came to life. “It was made of fine mesh. Like the cage holding the fer-de-lance that killed Dr. Tatal.” He picked it up
from the floor. “See, Cosima.”

“He’s right.” I looked at Louis. “Could someone have put a few mosquitoes inside those balls?”

“Certainly. But in your scenario they would have to be carrying the dengue virus.”

“Is that so hard?”

Louis smiled triumphantly: riddle solved. “Xenodiagnosis. Done all the time. You put the female
Aedes aegypti
in a test tube and cover the top with a nylon stocking. Place it on the skin of a dengue victim and let the mosquito bite
through the nylon. Then you isolate the mosquito for a few days, feeding it only enough sugar water to stay alive. The virus
will move through its digestive system and become concentrated in the salivary glands. The mosquito’s now ready for action.
With the next bite, she’ll pump the dengue virus into her next victim.”

Silence in the tent. “Know anyone who’s been in a dengue ward lately?” Fausto asked no one in particular. “With nylon stockings
and a couple of test tubes?”

How about with mesh balls and a young violinist?
Ace plan, Bendix!
Gretchen distracts everyone with Bach and tantrums while Uncle B puts a few balls laced with mosquitoes on dengue victims
too exhausted to play with them. End of concert, Bendix palms a few balls back. Keeps the mosquitoes alive while the virus
migrates, then his pal Aurilla steps into an elevator with Jojo. She finds a pretext to hand over a couple of balls, careful
to keep her fingers on the decals so the mosquitoes won’t bite her. Jojo takes them, gets stung. Stepping out of the elevator,
he unwittingly hands toys to Babette and Iris. They’re stung, too. Aurilla gets only one ball back without looking like the
Wicked Witch. Takes the risk of her life and leaves the second ball behind. Her gamble pays off … for a while.