Part 2 (1/2)
3.
I made the mistake of looking down the street. Down there, snakes were still writhing on a mound of treasures. I told myself it was only ropes and cords restraining a homeless woman's worldly possessions. I forced myself to look back at Vega. I forced myself to speak normally. ”There have been at least a hundred thousand unsolved murders in your country over the last three decades, and the drug cartels have taken up the killings where the military left off. It's become so bad, even the coffee and banana growers are getting out. Why should you care about one old kidnapping and murder in the USA?”
Comandante Valentin replied, ”You have perhaps heard of Dona Elena's second husband, Congressman Montes? Hector Montes, chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Central America? He has been building a career in the media over the last year, complaining about the war on drugs.”
I said, ”I've heard of him.”
Vega went on. ”Ever since URNG became a legitimate political party in our country, we have been a.s.sisting your Drug Enforcement Agency and standing for policies that make it difficult for the narcos. In return, we have been receiving dollars from your government. We need your money to win political campaigns and to influence public opinion. But your congressman Montes wants to reduce funding for the war on drugs. If he gets his way, there will be no more money sent to Guatemala.”
I said, ”You think the congressman is campaigning against more funding for Guatemala because he thinks his new wife was once kidnapped by the URNG?”
”We are certain of it.”
”And you think if you can prove the URNG wasn't involved, the congressman will stop opposing the funding?”
Vega shook his head. ”Who can say? But it is impossible to discuss the funding with him and his committee while he continues to believe we attacked his wife. That much I know for certain.”
I stared down the street. The schizophrenic woman had progressed to the middle of the next block west. She stood shouting at a couple of men who sat inside a black Suburban, which was parked at the curb. The snakes among the woman's things had disappeared, at least for the moment. I wished I knew why. Then maybe I could stop them from returning.
I thought maybe it was because I was distracted by the men in the Suburban. They interested me. Their vehicle was the one that had been behind us on the 405 when I swerved to avoid the leaking gravel from the dump truck. I had no doubt of it. After a few firefights, you develop instincts. And even if it was a coincidence that the their destination was so close to ours, considering my speed of travel while I had been preventing the apparently insane Fidel Castro from shooting me, it seemed strange that the Suburban had arrived so soon after us.
I said, ”A few minutes ago, your friend there wanted to put a bullet in me. You have a funny way of hiring people.”
”Mr. Cutter, I am truly sorry that he drew his weapon, but as I have explained, he is a patriot. He has been slightly damaged in his mind because of the sacrifices he made for his country. If you had fought beside such a man, would you not make allowances?”
”All right,” I said. ”So you keep him around for old times' sake. But why are you so gung ho on hiring me? I mean, why me in particular?”
”We have this problem which I have explained, and when I tried to think of who could help us, you were the first person who came to mind. You were the only person, actually, because I remembered what you did while you were in Guatemala.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Comandante Valentin held up a hand. ”Please, I am not asking you for confirmation. I only mention it as part of the answer to your question. I know no other sympathetic person in Los Angeles who might be able to provide this particular service. Or perhaps 'sympathetic' is the wrong word. You were not sympathetic to our cause, but you were fair. You listened. You believed your eyes. You opposed Rios Montt, even though you disagreed with our politics.
”A moment ago you were correct to say I know nothing of what really happened to you in Afghanistan, the reason for your court-martial, but I do know you behaved honorably in Guatemala. You spent enough time there to perhaps begin to understand us. Your Spanish is very good. I know you were attached to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for a while in some capacity, and now you investigate crimes privately in your country. I also know you have connections with the motion-picture industry, because you work mainly for people in the movie business. That could prove helpful in approaching Dona Elena Montes. You also know some people in your government, but you have no reason to trust them blindly. In all of this world, I think there is no one as well qualified as you to help us with our problem.”
I said, ”It's good to know you like my resume. But I still don't get it. Why now? Why wait seven years to prove the URNG's innocence?”
Vegas shrugged. ”That is simple. Congressman Montes did not become a problem until this year, when he married Dona Elena.”
”All right. So the congressman is outraged at what he thinks your people did to his brand-new wife. Why not go to the police instead of me?”
”We tried. But they have no interest in proving we are innocent. They say the case is... I believe the expression is 'cold,' yes? And they care only about capturing Alejandra Delarosa.”
”Call me crazy,” I said, ”but since Delarosa is the woman in the video, the one holding a gun to Dona Elena's head and wearing a URNG uniform, it kind of makes me think the police have their priorities in order.”
”Yes, of course she is guilty of the crime. We do not disagree. We only say she is not one of us, and she has never been one of us, so she did not kidnap Dona Elena or kill Toledo on our behalf.”
”Okay. If your reasons are so honorable, tell me why you're using this Mr. Brown alias.”
”It is said the war is over in my country, Mr. Cutter, but it has only slipped beneath the surface, as your cold war with the Soviets once did. As a leader of my party, I remain a target. There have been three attempts on my life in the past two years alone. And if our enemies among the military junta knew that I was here, they would stop at nothing to prevent me from succeeding in my mission. It is they who have provided asylum to the drug traffickers, you see. That is why we need that money from your war on drugs. We are still fighting for the life of Guatemala, and it is still a fight to the death. So I am forced to hide my presence here, as I am forced to hide most of the time in my own country.”
The poor sick woman down the street had stopped hara.s.sing the two men in the black Suburban and was now sifting through a trash can near their front b.u.mper.
Watching her I said, ”All right. I've been having a little trouble concentrating lately, so let me make sure I have this straight. The Delarosa woman kidnapped Dona Elena before she was a big movie star and murdered Dona Elena's first husband, Arturo Toledo, who was some kind of war criminal, in your opinion. You say Delarosa was only pretending to do it for the URNG. That didn't bother you much until Dona Elena married a congressman who got his feelings hurt because he thinks your group mistreated his new wife. Now he's threatening to withhold foreign aid to your political party in Guatemala. You think maybe you can get the congressman off your back by proving Alejandra Delarosa had nothing to do with the URNG. You tried to get the police to help, and when that didn't work, you thought of me.”
Vega drew himself up, or tried to draw himself up, to look down his nose at me. It wasn't easy, since he was quite short. He said, ”You make it all sound very trivial, Mr. Cutter, but this is a matter of justice. The Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca has been falsely implicated. We did nothing to Dona Elena, and we did not kill the criminal Toledo, although of course he did deserve to die.”
I flicked my fingers just a little, waving his statement away. ”Maybe so. Maybe not. Either way, I can't help you.”
Vega seemed to shrink as quickly as he had drawn himself up. ”Please, Mr. Cutter. Ours is a poor country, and our movement is a movement of the people. But we can offer you twenty thousand dollars.”
”You'd be wasting your money. There's nothing I could do that wasn't done already by the police seven years ago when the evidence was fresh.”
”But as I said, they were focused on capturing the kidnapper, Alejandra Delarosa. They were not interested in proving that she has no connection to the URNG. Your questions will be different.”
”I have other commitments.”
”Surely not, since you were just released from the hospital.” He c.o.c.ked his head slightly, looking at me as though the distance between us was much greater than it was. I looked back at him, not liking how much he seemed to know about me. He continued, ”There is also your last client to consider. Can you truly have so much business after making a mistake like that?”
I felt the swirling distance rise behind my eyelids. The numbing unreality. I tried to remember the sessions, the advice from the professionals in lab coats. Focus on the truth you know. Be in this world now. Find what's real and cling to it. I recalled something a marine chaplain had sent me on a get-well card, all the way from Afghanistan: ”Whatever is true, whatever is n.o.ble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” But the simple fact was that I had sat by doing nothing on the night Haley died.
Haley had been forty-nine. I was thirty-four. Because of the age difference between us, I had known that she would probably die before me. But I had never seriously considered that her life might be in danger. I would live the rest of my life regretting that. I had been her bodyguard as well as her husband. I should have been ready. It didn't matter that the same drugs that killed her had also driven me insane. It only mattered that I hadn't been there for her in the end.
I looked down the street at the men inside the parked Suburban, the two of them still sitting there, still facing us. They didn't seem to realize that the pile of junk in the shopping cart beside them was alive with serpents. Inside my head I fought back.
Vega said, ”Everybody makes mistakes, Mr. Cutter. We are not interested in yours. We believe in you. Surely you can spare us just a few days? Think of it as a way to... what is that excellent expression? Ride again the horse that dropped you?”
Over by the limousine, Vega's so-called bodyguard ground his cigarette b.u.t.t into the sidewalk with a slow rolling motion of his toe. Castro's yellow eyes were still hidden behind dark lenses, but his lips had curled into something ugly, which he probably thought of as a smile. I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking. What I didn't know was whether he was right. If it made me nervous just to drive, was I up to the rest of the job? The doctors didn't think so. I s.h.i.+vered at the possibility that the awful disconnectedness might still take me too far.
”I'm sorry,” I said, turning to walk back to the car.
Behind me, Vega said, ”It is possible you may reconsider. If you do, you have only to ask for Mr. Brown at the Renaissance Hotel. I will be there for some time, attending to other business.”
A minute later, as I rolled slowly past the two men in the Suburban down the street, neither of them turned to watch me pa.s.s. I stole glances at them in my rearview mirror until the traffic cut off my view. Their vehicle remained parked at the curb, so I figured they were Castro's problem. I had problems of my own. I turned left at Hollywood and Vine, heading for the 405 and Newport Beach, and the cool, dark comfort of my bed.
4.
In a northern African nation where our armed forces never did officially exist, I once led a squad of five good men into a village of mud-brick buildings. We'd been a.s.signed to extract a couple of marines who had been kidnapped the day before. Our primary mission was supposed to be peaceful. We were in country only to escort some diplomats who had come to negotiate with the commander of a rebel force that threatened oil fields in the region. The rebel commander had denied involvement in the kidnapping, blaming it on ”hooligans.” But he had also warned us not to enter the village to search for our marines. He had claimed such an action on our part would be offensive to his men.
This was unacceptable, of course. Our captain sent us into the village as soon as local informants told us where the marines were being held.
The intelligence had estimated a force of about twenty, but as we moved through narrow alleys, we soon realized there were at least one hundred hostiles firing on us from the rooftops. Two of my men were wounded in the first five minutes. One of them was still mobile, but we had to carry the other. Our extraction point was a sort of plaza several blocks away. By the time we understood our true situation, it was just as far back to the insertion point at the edge of the village. Since those were the only two locations where we could get the wounded men into a helicopter, we had nothing to gain by turning back. And besides, the building where the captured marines were being held was between us and the central plaza. In spite of the heavy resistance, we decided to proceed as planned.
As we made our way deeper into the village, the enemy fired from doors and windows. They fired quick bursts from around corners. They hurled Molotov c.o.c.ktails at us. We were outnumbered twenty to one, but they were amateurs and we were marines. We remained calm. We killed them by the dozens as we moved steadily on. We reached the objective, but when we entered the building without resistance, I knew it was too easy. We found the two marines. They were already dead. The condition of their bodies filled me with a quiet rage. It was obvious their deaths had been long and painful.