Now the Nicaraguan colonel and the Cuban Nicaraguan from Miami were again speaking in Spanish and drinking champagne but only picking at the shrimp. Dagoberto frowned at the television screen. He thought for a moment they were showing more home movies from the Malacanang Palace, but it was “Wheel of Fortune” that was on now.
Crispin said, “You think Franklin tells him things?”
“I think Wally made it up,” Dagoberto said, “so we’ll think the CIA is watching us. I should have told him it was an insult. I should have been offended, perhaps gone into a rage.”
“Forget it,” Crispin said. “Today in the newspaper a man writing about aid to the contras asked the question, will it go to anti-Communist patriots or to bank accounts in Miami? I say don’t protest, give them something to think about.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll tell him I was insulted.”
“You have only one thing to tell Wally tomorrow. ‘I’ve been robbed!’ With feeling. Practice it. ‘The son of a whore took all the money!’ Like that.”
Dagoberto was thinking, staring at the window that framed in faint evening light a balcony of the Royal Sonesta Hotel across the street. “Tomorrow, Nacio will pick up a ticket at the airport issued in the name of Franklin de Dios.” Thinking aloud now. “At 9:10 a.m. he boards the flight to Atlanta. There, he changes flights to go to Miami.”
“Nacio doesn’t resemble Franklin in the least.”
“It’s all right. Nacio calls us from Atlanta when he’s certain the Miami flight is leaving. Just before.”
“As long as you can trust him.”
“Nacio was in the Guard, my aide until 1979, when he came here. He asks no questions… All right. Franklin goes to the airport tomorrow at the same time to return the automobile…”
“He doesn’t know Nacio,” Crispin said, “if he were to see him?”
“There is no possibility they could know each other. Nacio is from Managua. All right. Franklin comes back to the hotel in a taxi and we leave in the new Mercedes. Yes,” Dagoberto said, “yes, before Franklin goes to the airport I could call Wally and tell him he insulted me.”
“You’re crazy if you don’t forget it,” Crispin said. He was relaxed, his leg over the arm of his chair. “Listen, the only thing you tell him, Franklin was in this room guarding the money during the time we went downstairs for breakfast. We came back and he was gone and the money was gone. And the automobile, the Chrysler.”
“I don’t tell him Franklin returned it to the rental company at the airport.”
“Mother of God,” Crispin said. “You don’t mention the airport, you say he took the money and the Chrysler, the trusted friend of the CIA man, it’s marvelous, and we’re going now to look for him.”
“Wally will ask me where.”
“You don’t know where-you’re frantic, man, excited. Now you’re in your rage. You tell Wally you’ll call him back.”
“What if he alerts the police?”
“Let them look, too, we don’t care. Then by the time you call him back, we will know your man Nacio has left Atlanta, uh? Almost to Miami. You tell Wally you called several airlines, but they wouldn’t give you information about a Franklin de Dios, so you demand that he finds out and you’ll call him later.”
“A third time.”
“Yes, you’re very anxious.”
“Where do I call from?”
“Wherever we are, I don’t know. We’ve left here. I suppose we’re in the state of Mississippi.”
“I call him after we kill the Indian.”
“Of course, after.”
“All right, I call Wally the third time…”
“And he tells you Franklin went to Miami.”
“What if he doesn’t know it yet?”
“He will, don’t worry. You say we’re going there immediately, and hang up the telephone. Simple? That’s all you have to do.”
“Yes, but go back. We’ve killed the Indian-where did we hide his body?”
“Something new for you,” Crispin said. “The way you do it, you leave the bodies.”
“I want to know where.”
“We’ll see the place. In Mississippi, in a forest.”
“I don’t want blood in the car.”
“If it becomes soiled, buy a new one.”
“Man, it cost almost sixty thousand.”
Crispin raised his glass, sipped champagne, letting a quiet settle.
“What is it about killing this one that sticks in your mind?”
“I don’t care about the Indian. He means nothing to me.”
“Then why are you annoyed?”
“I’m a soldier. This isn’t like fighting in a war.”
“Well, you won’t be a soldier for long,” Crispin said, and then smiled. “You can look at this as beginning to learn a new business.”
Dagoberto was silent for several moments.
“We’ll need a shovel.”
“For what?”
“To bury the Indian.”
“We bury only his hands and his head. We don’t need a shovel for that.”
“We’ll need an axe.”
“We’ll get one.”
“Or a machete.”
“I think the axe will be easier to find.”
“That fucking Indian, reporting on us.”
“You said you thought Wally made it up.”
“Some of it. But I know that fucking Indian has been reporting on us. It’s shameful, isn’t it, that we can’t trust anyone?”
Wally Scales came out of the hotel and walked straight across Bienville to Franklin de Dios, standing by the black Chrysler in his mod black suit, shirt buttoned but no tie: the Indian chauffeur, brought out of the wilds of the Rio Coco by way of Miami to a street in the French Quarter. Man, oh, man-and you’ll never know, Wally Scales thought, what’s in his head.
“Why don’t we have us a farewell drink, amigo?”
“I have to be here.”
“They may have company in, but I doubt they’ll be going out on the town, all that loot there.”
“They say I have to stay outside.”
“Use the back door, huh? And wipe your feet.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just talking. You suppose to stay here all night?”
“They say to keep watch, that’s all.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know what.”
“They don’t seem worried about anything, that I noticed. They seem worried to you?”
“They see only themselves.”
There, just for a second, the Indian starting to show himself.
“Anything you want to tell me, Franklin?”
Wally Scales noticed a slight hesitation before the Indian shook his head.
“No strange or unusual occurrences?… Where’d you go today?”
“Follow the woman’s car.”
“Yeah? Where’d she go, anyplace special?”
“Just around.”
“You can tell me anything you want, my friend, that might be bothering you.” Wally Scales gave him time to unburden, but got nothing for it. He said in a quiet, confessional tone, “I imagine it was you had to take out that guy in the restaurant. In the Men’s room.”
Franklin said nothing.
“I’m sorry you had to do that. You understand he was a very dangerous individual. He would’ve tried to steal your money, I’m confident of that, and kill anybody in his way. We know for a fact he was in Managua… Well, anyway… Okay, so you’re all set? Ready for your ride on the banana boat?”
“I think it’s time to go back now, yes. See my family.”
“And fight your war?”
Franklin moved his shoulders in what might be a shrug, the man back inside himself.
“You want to stay, I can fix it.”
“I want to go home.”
“If that’s what you want, Franklin, you can have it. You can have the goddamn bats flying in the window, the malaria, hepatitis, diarrhea-Somoza’s revenge, the son of a bitch-and the bugs. All the bugs known to man and some more. I never saw bugs like that anywhere in my life. They’re more like fucking animals than bugs. Two years I spent down there, my friend, and I ain’t ever going back. Not for pay or at gun point. I listen to those two freedom fighters upstairs saying they could be eating their last three-hundred-dollar meal, it breaks my heart. The colonel talking out of both sides of his mouth…”