Part 30 (1/2)

On the floor near where I stood I saw a doc.u.ment in a simple black frame. The gla.s.s that once protected the doc.u.ment had been shattered. I took a step closer and saw it was a license to practice civil engineering in Guatemala.

”How long has it been since you saw Alejandra, Mr. Delarosa?”

Gazing out the window, he said, ”Seven years.”

”How long since you spoke with her?”

He drank again. He turned back toward me. ”Who are you?”

”My name is Cutter. I am trying to find your wife.”

”Everyone is trying to find her.”

There was a sudden burst of cheering from the football game in the street below. He didn't seem to hear it. He stared through the window as if the view went on for miles instead of being blocked by the raw concrete of the apartment across the street. He swallowed the last of the rum in his cup, bent over, picked up the bottle, and poured himself some more.

”Why do you say that, Mr. Delarosa? Has someone else come by?”

”I told those Communists to go to the devil.”

”Communists? You mean the URNG?”

”Of course. Are you a fool?”

”But the URNG must know where Alejandra is since she works for them.”

”Works for them? Works for them?” He laughed. It was a bitter sound. ”What are you, American? You must work for the government.” He shook his head and muttered, ”Fascists.”

”Your wife is not with the URNG?”

He turned to look back at me again with obvious disdain. ”You go back and tell your bosses she is innocent of everything. For the thousandth time, tell them we only wish to live our lives. We are not political. We are not Communists. We are not Fascists. I hate them all. My angel hates them all. We are not political. You go back and tell them that, Mr. American.”

Vega was right. Nothing the man said would stand up and court, but I did believe him. n.o.body could have faked so much contempt for the URNG, or the junta. He and his wife were not Communists and they weren't operatives for the government. Which meant they were just victims caught up in the conflict like a million others. But I needed proof, or a lead at the very least. Something I could take back with me to California.

I said, ”How are you paying your bills, Mr. Delarosa?”

”She sends me what I need.”

”Where does she live? Where does the money come from?”

”From Spain, obviously. She is in Spain, as you know very well.”

”Are you sure? I heard she was still in Los Angeles.”

”Spain, you fool.” He belched, then took another drink. He muttered, ”Everybody knows she is in Spain.”

Something about the word ”Spain” triggered the awareness of a missing memory. It should have been a simple thing to call to mind. I knew that, and it frightened me because it wasn't simple. The memory was someplace in my head, but I couldn't reach it. For all of my life, I had been able to remember what I needed to remember, then had come the night when I lost Haley, and now I was a man with mysteries inside his head.

I sensed fear arising just outside my perimeter. It was the worst possible moment, but I felt the floor beneath me start to vibrate. I heard the humming of machinery. Was it the refrigerator I could hear, or the vast metallic core at the earth's center? How had I missed it before? What else was I missing? How could I be sure that what I seemed to remember was actually a memory? I told myself to concentrate on what was true, to cling to what was excellent, but how could I be sure of where I stood? What I saw? What I heard?

The screams of children in the streets took on a terrifying connotation. I had only the past sense of experiencing a football game to explain them. The light through the window seemed to produce little flames around the edges of the things it touched. I told myself it wasn't true. I told myself the room was not on fire. I told myself to think of what is good. I knew it was only beams of light that formed impressions in my mind of solid things. I didn't see the things. I only saw reflections from the things. Did that mean the things themselves existed only as reflected light? What if the football game had merely been a vision? What if real children were in trouble, just outside, screaming as they fell apart in pieces, and I stood there doing nothing?

Everywhere I looked, the edges were alight. I needed a distraction. I began to move about the apartment, looking for something, anything to cling to. I saw very little that was excellent or n.o.ble.

The chair where Delarosa sat and one other were the only furniture in the apartment. In the kitchen was a concrete countertop with open concrete shelves below, a sink, a gas hob, and a small refrigerator. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Clothes lay piled in the corner, and books had been stacked haphazardly along the walls. Mostly they were pulp fiction novels. Spy stories and the like. Also, I saw some civil engineering magazines and a stack of newspapers. Nothing romantic. Nothing that seemed like it would interest a woman. Grime from the filthy air had drifted in through the window to settle on every horizontal surface. The apartment clearly had not been properly cleaned in months. Maybe years.

I said, ”May I use your bathroom?”

Emilio only stared through the open window.

I went into another room. It was dark, with thick curtains over the one window and a mattress on the floor and more clothing and paperbacks in piles along the walls. I saw no female clothing. I entered the bathroom and saw no cosmetics, no brushes or bath oil, or any other sign that a woman had been there. The toilet seat was up. There was a black ring around the inside of the tub. I saw the filth around me for what it was. I began to trust my mind again. The wave of insanity was ebbing.

I went back out to the front room. Emilio Delarosa's chin had dropped to his chest. He was snoring loudly.

I went through a stack of papers on the concrete counter by the sink. My hands seemed far away, as if I were watching through the wrong end of a telescope. I saw notices from the electricity company and the water company and the gas company. All of them wanted money.

I thought of Haley running out into thin air. Then I closed my eyes and thought of Haley on the flybridge of her yacht in Avalon Harbor. She was beautiful. I remembered her that way.

I found a statement from Banrural, a local bank. It appeared that Emilio Delarosa had a balance of just over three million nine hundred thousand quetzals. I did the math and figured it was around two hundred thousand dollars. I was pretty sure it was enough to buy the whole building where he lived, and maybe the rest of the block too. A king's ransom in Guatemala. A kidnapper's ransom in California.

I returned to the bedroom, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains. I looked down toward the street. The van was gone, if it had ever really been there.

I turned from the window and stood still, then looked around the room. On the floor beside the mattress was a small lamp, an electric clock, and a picture in a black metal frame. I bent and picked up the picture, and all in a flash I remembered why Spain was important.

Ah, sanity.

In the frame I saw an image of a happy family. I recognized Alejandro Delarosa from the photos I had seen in connection with the kidnapping, and I recognized the proud husband and father, Emilio Delarosa, even though the change in him since then was remarkable. For every year that had pa.s.sed, he had aged three.

In the photograph between Alejandra and Emilio was a laughing girl who must have been their teenaged daughter. I stared at the image and thought that even eight or nine years before, when the photograph was likely taken, even before she had learned how to wear her makeup properly and dress herself in ways that would blend in with the wealth and privilege of Beverly Hills, even before she had learned about engines from the only Formula One racing team in Spain, even then the Delarosa's daughter had shown every sign of growing up to be the stunning woman I knew as Olivia Soto.

39.

Emilio Delarosa was dead to the world. After shaking him and yelling in his ear, I gave up and left. Eight blocks away I finally saw a cab. I stepped from the curb to hail it. The driver had to lock his wheels to stop in time.

After I was in the backseat, he said. ”You must be crazy walking around this neighborhood.”

”Yes,” I said. ”I think I am.”

I told him to drive to the hotel. When we got there, I told him to wait for me at the curb, and went inside. I ignored the desk clerk and the desk clerk ignored me as I walked through the lobby. I climbed the stairs and followed the narrow hallway to my room. The door had not yet been replaced. I went in and knelt in front of the old washstand in the corner. I bent to reach underneath it, and found the envelope containing my cash, credit cards and pa.s.sports, still wedged tightly where I had hidden it the night before. I stood, raised my s.h.i.+rt tail and slipped the envelope under the waist band of my jeans. I dropped the s.h.i.+rt tail back in place to hide the envelope and left the room.

Outside the hotel, the taxi was still at the curb. I got in and told the driver to take me straight to the airport. It was almost dark when we arrived. The woman working the AeroMexico ticket counter was putting on her uniform jacket as I walked up. She stooped to get her purse. As I reached the counter, she straightened and slipped the strap over her shoulder.

”We are closed,” she said.

”Is there not an eight thirty flight to Tijuana?”

”No. Only on Wednesdays and Fridays.”