Missionary Stew (24 page)

“Maybe.”

Blaine cocked his head as he examined Haere. “You’re not a missionary, are you?”

Haere shook his head.

“When I first saw you, I thought you might be. You sort of look like what I think a missionary would look like. What line’re you in?”

“Direct mail,” Haere said.

“Well, that must be pretty interesting,” Blaine said and even managed to put some conviction into his tone. He yawned then, covered it with a hand, looked at his watch, and said, “I guess maybe I’d better try and get some sleep.” He rose. “Been nice talking to you.”

“And to you,” Haere said.

The plane landed one hour and thirty-five minutes later at Tucamondo International Airport. The Venezuelan woman was first off the plane. Next down the ramp went Dr. James Blaine, followed by Velveeta Keats, Morgan Citron, and Draper Haere.

When Dr. Blaine reached the bottom of the ramp he was confronted by four men in civilian clothes, questioned briefly, and led away in handcuffs.

CHAPTER 27

Because Draper Haere's Spanish was at best rudimentary, consisting of two or three hundred disjointed words that enabled him to rent a room, order food and drink, flatter a woman, and get a car repaired, he let Morgan Citron take over at the immigration and customs counter.

Citron collected the passports from Velveeta Keats and Haere, glanced through them, walked over to a window as if to examine them in a better light, and then moved up to the counter, where a sullen, baldheaded man in a green uniform eyed him with either boredom or contempt or both.

Citron tapped the three United States passports on the counter and shook his head regretfully. “I’m afraid there is a problem.”

The baldheaded man brightened and nearly beamed. “A problem, you say.”

“Yes. With our visas.” Citron turned to indicate Haere and Velveeta Keats.

“You are traveling together?”

Citron nodded. “The three of us.”

“What is the problem, may I ask?”

“As I said, it lies with our visas.”

“I see. Continue, please.”

“We obtained them, the visas, at your consulate in Los Angeles.”

“I know their work.”

“Is it sometimes inaccurate?”

The baldheaded man now stared at Citron with something akin to respect. “It happens,” he said slowly, “although not often.”

“My visa, for example,” Citron said and slid his passport across the counter to the baldheaded man, who picked it up, looked left, then right, peeked inside, glimpsed the folded-up $100 bill, placed the passport back on the counter, and covered it with the palm of his hand.

“Are the other two passports the same?” he said.

“Exactly the same.”

“Then there is, as you say, a problem,” the baldheaded man agreed. “But it may be only minor. I will have to confer with my chief.”

He picked up the three passports, turned, and disappeared through a door. Haere moved over to Citron. “See if you can find out about the guy who got arrested,” he said. “The doctor.”

“He's an M.D.?”

“Right.”

Citron nodded. “Okay.”

The baldheaded man came back through the door looking almost cheerful. He picked up a rubber stamp and opened the three passports. “It was a small problem,” he said as he banged the stamp down on them. “A mere clerical error.”

“I am relieved,” Citron said, gathering up the passports. “The other man traveling with us, the American doctor, the one who was led away. Did he also encounter a problem?”

The cheerful look went away, replaced by a stony gaze. “He was of your party?”

“We merely met on the plane.”

“You are not colleagues?”

“No.”

“Do you plan to meet him later?”

“We have no such plans.”

“Good. His papers were not in order. He is to be questioned.”

“By the police?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I have an unseemly curiosity. It is a failing, I fear.”

“Yes,” the baldheaded man said. “It could be.”

“I thank you for your courtesy.”

“Welcome to Tucamondo,” the baldheaded man said.

Citron led the way across the small room to the door that was marked as the exit. He opened the door and led them into a huge waiting room filled with fear. It was also filled with people who sat, stood, and leaned against walls, clutching suitcases and valises and shopping bags and cardboard boxes bound with rope or twine. Six men in black visored caps and ill-fitting dark-green uniforms moved among the people. Seemingly at random, an officer in a Sam Browne belt used his swagger stick to touch this person, then that, male and female, young and old, husband and wife, brother and sister, parents and grandparents. Those touched by the swagger stick were led away, leaving their possessions behind. No one watched them go. No one looked at the men in uniform. Instead, they gazed at the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and sometimes at each other, but never into each other's eyes. Many stared down at their own hands, and often seemed surprised to find that they were twisting themselves together.

Haere spotted the purser who had been on the flight from Houston. The purser was hurrying toward the street exit. He looked neither right nor left. As he went by, Haere touched him on the shoulder. The purser shuddered, stopped, and turned slowly. Relief spread across his face.

“What's going on?” Haere said, gesturing toward the packed-together people.

The purser didn’t look where Haere gestured. Instead, he looked up at the ceiling.

“How many people do you see?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Six or seven hundred, maybe.”

“And how many will fit aboard a DC-8?” the purser asked, still staring at the ceiling.

“Two hundred and fifty?”

“Two hundred and thirty-two.”

“What happens to the ones who don’t make it?”

“They wait,” the purser said. “Some have been waiting for four weeks.”

“What about the ones the police are leading off—what happens to them?”

The purser decided to examine the floor. “Each passenger is given a number,” he said. “Each number is called in precise order. A fair system, no?”

“Yes. Sure.”

“Those who are led away are led away because they supposedly have problems—tax problems, exit-visa problems, almost any kind will do. These problems are quickly cleared up. Then the persons are invited to contribute to the police welfare fund. If they contribute adequately, they are returned to their former place in line.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They go to the bottom of the list, if they are lucky. The less fortunate, those without money, well, no one is really quite sure what happens to them.” The purser looked at Haere for the first time. “I really must go, Mr. Haere.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“No, Mr. Haere. I’m afraid you don’t.” The purser turned and hurried toward the street doors. He looked neither right nor left, but only up at the green sign above the doors that read:
Salida
. Exit.

The airport was built on a narrow plateau that jutted out from the range of mountains that divided Tucamondo both geographically and economically. On the eastern slope, the mountains ran down into the broad marsh that fed into the Caribbean. The western slope
descended more abruptly, finally spreading out into low hills that formed a natural harbor around which Ciudad Tucamondo had been founded by the Spanish in 1519.

They made the eleven-mile run from the airport to the edge of the city in an eight-year-old Chevrolet Impala taxi. The first thing the young driver had tried to sell them was dope, either cocaine or marijuana. He was a poor salesman and knew it, and his pitch was at best half-hearted. He became only a bit more eloquent during his second proposal, which was for a guided tour of the city's fleshpots where he promised sights that defied imagination.

“These are not old crones, senor,” he said to Citron, who sat beside him in the front seat, “but young girls of no more than thirteen, some perhaps even twelve.”

“Virgins, of course,” Citron said.

“Only one, but her deflowerment by the large dog is the climax of the exhibition.”

“Where do they find so many virgins?”

“In a poor country like ours,” the driver said, “virgins are both cheap and plentiful.”

“How's business otherwise?” Citron asked.

“It is better here in the west than the east. There they are starving. Here we only go hungry.”

The road from the airport was a fairly new but already potholed four-lane highway, largely devoid of traffic, and lined with burned-out shells of trucks and buses and passenger cars.

“A fine road, true?” the driver said. “It was built with money from your country. Many of the President's relatives grew rich from it and now live in fine apartments in Miami. The President himself, of course, never lived to enjoy his share.”

“They shot him.”

“Yes. The generals. In front of the Presidential Palace against the wall. I will show you the exact spot when we go by. You may recall it was a public execution. People came from all over. It was like a feast
day almost. They led him out and put him against the wall and the generals themselves, thirty-two of them, formed the firing squad. They were not expert marksmen, but eleven bullets managed to hit him. I myself was there. When it was done, there was only silence. And then there was a long sigh—like this.” The driver sighed deeply. “It was almost like a gust of wind. Everyone was relieved.”

“And now?”

The driver shrugged. He was a young man, still in his twenties, with eyes that were too large and wrists that were too thin. Like the clerk in Houston, he wore a mustache with carefully tended, sharply pointed ends. Citron wondered if the mustaches were a badge of some kind, perhaps a sign, or just something that helped pass the time and cost nothing. He decided not to ask.

“The generals,” the driver said and again shrugged. “They cannot agree. So we have no government.” He paused. “Only soldiers and bandits.” Again he paused. “And much death.” With a nod he indicated a burned-out bus. “These wrecks. They were full of people fleeing to the airport after the President was executed. The people in these wrecks were also executed. And robbed.”

“By the bandits?” Citron said.

“Or the soldiers. There is really no difference.”

The driver turned down the Avenue of the Fifth of September and pointed out the Presidential Palace and the wall where the luckless President had been executed. Next came the large square which boasted both the cathedral, open, and the baroque national theater, boarded-up, and farther on the offices of
La Prensa, a
once much-respected newspaper, also boarded-up.

“We get our news from television now,” the driver said. “The television station still functions. There are many North American programs. There is the one about the attorney Perry Mason. It is a favorite. There is also the one called
Leave It to Beaver
. Did I pronounce it correctly?”

Citron replied that he did.

“That, too, is a great favorite.” He paused. “No harm ever comes to anyone in that program. It is very popular.”

The Inter-Continental Hotel was nine stories of steel and tinted glass built on a cliff above the sea. A drive curved up to it from the Avenue of the Nineteenth of January. The driver charged $15 for the trip in from the airport, and Citron gave him $20. The driver thanked him graciously and again mentioned the exhibition of the thirteen-year-old virgins, should the gentlemen change their minds. And the lady, too, of course. Citron said he would take it under advisement.

Their bags were carried into the lobby by a doorman who wore a chrome conquistador's helmet and a costume to match. Velveeta Keats and Citron decided to share a room. Haere was assigned one a few doors down. Both rooms were on the top floor with views of the ocean. The hotel seemed almost empty of guests. When Haere commented on this to the room clerk, the clerk replied that it was not yet the season. Haere asked when the season began. The clerk said next month—or the month after at the latest. When Haere was asked how he intended to pay, he said with his American Express credit card. The clerk said that would be acceptable. However, should the gentleman wish to pay cash in dollars, there would be a twenty percent discount. Haere said he would think about it.

Velveeta Keats was in the bathroom with the door closed when the telephone rang. Citron picked it up and said hello.

“Morgan Citron?” a man's voice said.

“Yes.”

“I think we should talk.” The man spoke in Spanish.

“What about?”

“A matter of mutual interest.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Mr. X,” the voice said, giving the X the Spanish pronunciation of either “equis” or “eckys.”

“I suppose we could meet in my room.”

“I prefer not to.”

“Where then?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten.”

“That's when. What about where?”

“I will let you know.”

The phone went dead, and Citron put it down just as Velveeta Keats came into the room from the bath.

“Who was that?”

“Mr. Eckys.”

“That's a funny name.”

“Yes,” Citron said. “Isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 28

The three of them entered the almost deserted restaurant in the InterContinental at nine that night. They were shown to a table by a bearded maitre-d’ who also provided them with menus. A busboy arrived and replaced the napkins, which did not seem to need replacing. Citron unfolded his on his lap and caught the folded piece of paper before it fell to the floor.

Citron looked around. The two other diners were a man and a woman who were seated across the room and interested only in what they were eating. Citron unfolded the piece of paper behind his menu, read it, and stuffed it into his pants pocket.

“Who's it from?” Haere asked, studying his menu.

“The guy who called.”

“Mr. Eckys?” Velveeta Keats said.

“Mr. Eckys.” Citron ran his eyes down the menu. “It's still set for ten tomorrow morning,” he said, “but it's out in the country. I’ll need a car.”

“We’ll rent one at the desk,” Haere said. “What’re you having?”

“Steak.”

“Velveeta?”

“I think I’ll have the fruit of the sea thing.”