The Candidate (29 page)

Hodges was not fooled for a moment. He ignored Murphy and fixed Dee with a stern glare.

“Push-polls?” he said. “I told you this campaign did not want to go down that route.”

Dee opened her mouth to speak. But Christine suddenly spoke up.

“What are push-polls?” she asked.

Hodges turned to her angrily. “That’s when you ring someone up to ask: would you still vote for Candidate X if you knew they were beating their wife? It does not matter that they haven’t been. Just asking the question suggests they might have.”

He turned to look at Dee again and ignored a blustery protestation from Murphy.

“Stanton deserves better than that,” he said.

“We would raise legitimate issues,” Dee said, repeating Murphy’s line. “We won’t take this into the gutter.”

Stanton continued to glare at her but he said nothing.

“Jack,” Dee said softly. “We’ve got one more week of campaigning in this state. If we beat Stanton here, it’s over. We have the party nomination. Then we can run for the White House. Then we can make you President. But we can’t get there by playing softball.”

Hodges drained his glass of wine as if possessed of a desperate thirst. Then he stood up and stalked out of the room. They watched his back disappear out of the room. To Dee’s surprise Christine remained seated. She ran a finger along the top of her own glass to create a distant buzzing sound.

“You think this will work?” Christine asked quietly.

Murphy nodded. “Ma’am,” he said. “I know my business.”

Christine looked at Dee.

Dee nodded in agreement. “It’s time to get a little dirty to get the job done. Do you think you can persuade him?” Dee said.

Christine took a deep breath and then let out a laugh. She was fully composed, in control. Her eyes sparked like icy wells in the middle of her face, hard and firm.

“Oh, Dee,” she said. “Did you hear Jack actually say no?”

Then she got up and followed her husband.

Dee watched her leave the room, her trim form sashaying in her tightly fitting dress. Dee could not stop herself from casting an admiring glance over her body. The door closed with a soft click.

Christine called it exactly right. Hodges gave them the green light without actually having to say anything. To Dee’s surprise, she felt a stab of disappointment. He was compromising his stance. He was doing what he needed to do to win, not just what he thought was right.

But Dee got what she wanted. Or at least she thought so. What did the CIA call Hodges’ tactic? Plausible deniability. Hodges did not explicitly say yes, but he got all the gain if it worked. Meanwhile, they took all the pain if it didn’t. She looked at Murphy and saw that he thought the same thing. His slack jaw broke out in a blubbery grin.

“Damn, he’s good,” Murphy said.

* * *

MIKE AND Lauren were in a slum about ten miles from the center of Guatemala City. They followed a handwritten set of directions from the hotel concierge to the mission of San Gabriel. Lauren read them and tried to direct Mike’s driving, but both of them were too distracted by the sights and sounds around them to be sure they were on the right route. The slum was like nothing they ever saw before. It was vast. It began on a flat plateau and then tumbled down the sides of a series of steep ravines that encircled the city. In some places shacks flowed down the slopes like a waterfall of buildings and there were people everywhere. Men and women walked to and fro or lounged outside little cafes and bars that were painted in garishly bright colors. Hordes of children seemed to spring up like a fertile crop from the ground itself, catching a glimpse of the two white people in the car driving by and giving them curious looks or a frantic little wave and broad grin. Eventually, after attracting a little crowd of urchins trailing behind their vehicle, Lauren threw down the directions and gave up.

“We’re lost,” she said. “Let’s just ask some of these kids.”

Mike stopped the car just as the path they were on headed for a dead-end. He wound down the window and a gaggle of young boys appeared and thrust their hands and giggling faces through the open space. Mike asked them in Spanish about finding the church but received nothing in reply apart from a burst of laughter and shouts. Then one of them who, despite his tiny size, seemed the leader of the gang, spoke more clearly.

“
Dinero!
” he said and put out a hand.

Mike pulled a few grubby Guatemalan notes from his wallet and handed them over. Then he repeated the name of the church. The boy nodded with an impish grin and gestured for him to reverse the car. Mike did so, afraid that some of the kids surrounding the vehicle laughing and running might fall under the wheels. But they skipped effortlessly out of the way, like a flock of birds, dipping and wheeling in the sky.

Mike backed out of the lane and the boy came to the window again. He rapped on it once and Mike wound it down.

“
Esta aqui
!” the boy said, and pointed to a low, dirty white brick building just twenty yards away. Mike now saw the rambling structure was a church with a squat bell tower that was almost hidden by a thicket of shacks around it. They drove right by it just two minutes earlier. The boy darted away, followed by the others as Mike and Lauren opened their doors and got out. Away from the air conditioning of the car they felt the sudden heat and warmth of the air hit them like an open oven. So did the sour stench of the area, a mix of cooking fires and rotting rubbish that gave the air an acrid tinge that they could taste. They walked side by side to the church. Its whitewashed walls were covered in cracked and faded plaster, exposing the mud bricks beneath. It looked several hundred years old at least, clearly founded as some sort of rural mission back when this whole area was open fields or thick forest. Now it was swallowed by a vast urban slum.

Mike and Lauren walked through an arched gateway and immediately it was like they stepped back in time. They were in a cobbled courtyard opposite the church building but the high walls kept out the sounds of the city. It was suddenly quiet and peaceful. Mike led the way through an open door into the church.

Inside the atmosphere was dark and lit only by a dozen or so flickering candles. It reminded Mike of the shrine of Maximón back in Santa Teresa; of stepping over a threshold into a different and much older world. The walls were festooned with golden statues and a huge figure of Christ crucified on the cross hung at one end. The figure’s skin was black in color with the trails of blood from his wrists and forehead painted a bright, thick, garish red. A group of young women kneeled in front of the Christ and prayed fervently with their heads bowed. Mike and Lauren tiptoed forward and one of the women looked up, cocking her head.

“We are looking for Father Gregorio Villatoro?” Mike whispered. The woman gestured in the direction of a door at the back of the church and resumed her quiet prayers. Mike walked over and gently pushed the door open to reveal a short corridor branching off into several rooms. From one they could hear the soft sounds of a male voice speak. Mike and Lauren walked forward and slowly pushed open the door. Inside a priest in a black robe talked to a group of young women and boys who lounged at a series of desks set up like a schoolroom. The priest stopped at the interruption and looked at the unexpected visitors. He was a short man, with a graying beard and hair that made him look around 60. But there was a sense of energy about him, a physical presence that dominated the room. He waved Mike and Lauren to sit down and then resumed his talk.

Mike thought it would be a religious sermon but as he listened it became clear the subject was anything but spiritual. Father Villatoro lectured the group on the health perils of drug use and how to practice safe sex as a prostitute or a user of prostitutes. He did not refrain from using blunt language but there was no sense of judgment. It was an honest talk and he cracked rough jokes to enliven the mood. Mike looked at the assembled group. None of them was much older than about 16. But the dead look behind their eyes and the grim lacing of crude gang tattoos on their bodies spoke of life in the slums. They listened to the priest without murmuring a word of complaint. In that way, at least, it was like a Sunday sermon. At the end, Villatoro led the group in a short prayer. Each of the kids bowed their head and clasped their hands in front of them, following the priest’s words and then chorusing: “Amen.” Only when they had all shuffled out did the priest turn to Mike and Lauren.

“We don’t get many aid workers here. Have we met before? Forgive me, usually I have such a good memory for faces,” he said in English that was only lightly accented.

“We’re not aid workers,” Lauren said. “We’ve come from America. We work for Senator Hodges. He is running for president. Have you heard of him?”

The priest said nothing, but the friendly smile on his face flickered for a moment, like a TV screen getting a burst of electrical static. “I am not sure that an American senator can have much interest in our humble church,” he said.

Mike decided to plunge in. He took out his picture of the shooter and showed it to the priest. “We have come from Santa Teresa. We were told that you will tell us who this woman is.”

The priest looked at the picture. He reached out to take it, and then, thinking better of it, he let his hand fall to his side. He sighed and suddenly seemed years older than he looked, in habiting fully each and every one of his six decades. He walked to one of the students’ desks and sat behind it, slumped down.

“Do you know her?” Mike asked.

The priest nodded.

“Do you know her name?”

The priest regarded them for a long time. Mike felt his heart quicken. This was the moment. He thought of the woman back in the Iowa jail, so full of mystery and dark silence. Now he was about to switch on a light in that chamber of secrets. He would finally understand what was unknown.

“Her name is Natalia Robles,” the priest said. “She was a member of my flock. I knew her when she was born and I was a young man…”

Suddenly there was a rap on the door to the room and the priest stopped talking. A young woman was there. She was probably in her mid-20s though she looked much older. She was rail thin with lank, dirty blonde hair that dripped over her eyes. Her wrist bore the blue ink marks of a series of gang tattoos and her skin was pimply and stretched taut over her frame.

“
Padre,
” she whispered, asking for ten minutes of his time.

Villatoro stood up and asked her to wait for him back in the church. The young girl turned around and looked confusingly at Mike and Lauren. She opened her mouth to speak but the priest hushed her and repeated his command. He then shut the door after she left. His expression had changed now. He was angry.

“Put that picture away,” he said. “I have more important things to do than talk about the past. People here have needs for the present that I must attend to.”

Mike folded the picture and put it back in his pocket. But he didn’t move. “We’ve come a long way, Father,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The priest looked at the pair of visitors. He shook his head slowly, but he seemed to soften. “Very well. Please speak to no one here,” he said. “Come back tomorrow. At noon. I will tell you more then.”

“Okay,” Mike said. “We do not mean to cause any trouble. We are just seeking out information.”

The priest opened the door and held it wide for them. There was no smile on his face. They walked silently past him and back into the church. The young blond girl waited there, kneeling at the altar of the black Christ, her head bowed and deep in prayer. She did not look up as they walked quietly by and out into the sunshine outside.

* * *

FEDERICO SAT in the café in the lobby of the Marriott hotel, and lurked furtively behind a newspaper. The General’s man had been there all afternoon, nursing the same tiny cup of bitter espresso, casting a quick eye at the sight of anyone white walking through the air-conditioned space or at the sound of a snatch of English. He felt like a spy in one of the Hollywood movies that he watched as a boy. He felt proud to remember the newspaper ruse from some long lost adventure film, ducking his pockmarked face behind the comforting newsprint. He was half tempted to cut tiny holes in the paper to peer through them but then decided against the idea.

But Federico’s stoicism in the service of his master wilted after such a prolonged wait. It was tiring in the extreme to sit for so long, especially at a place like the Marriott with its constant stream of foreign and wealthy businessman meeting their government contacts. Federico watched them laugh and joke together, shake hands and discuss deals, enjoy the riches that peace, prosperity and power brought them. He shook his head angrily and thought of the General’s exile on the coast amid the accursed Garifuna and their devilish culture. Then, at last, he saw his quarry. He recognized the red-headed American immediately and ducked behind his newspaper. Then, peering over the top, he saw a woman accompany him. He admired her figure for a moment, wondering who she was, and then positioned himself so he could watch the pair cross the lobby through one of the many mirrors on the wall.

“Got you!” he thought.

He saw them talk excitedly to each other and then head for the elevators. Behind them he caught the eye of the man at reception who had given him Sweeney’s room number. But he had not mentioned anything about a woman. He would pull the hotel records on her and get her name too. Maybe she was just some tourist the Yankee seduced at the bar. He watched them go, a dart of envy in his heart, and saw them get into the elevator. Federico waited a moment and walked over to reception.