He thought about calling Nikki, but someone was coming. Maybe to use the restroom, or perhaps the manager. Rook pinched the brick between his thumb and forefinger and pulled. The wall opened; its brickwork was just facing over a door. The air coming out was cool and smelled of must and stale beer. He slipped through the doorway and pushed the wall closed. In the murky light he could barely make out a flight of exposed wooden stairs. He tiptoed down, keeping his feet close to the side to minimize the chance of the steps creaking. At the bottom he paused to listen. Then his eyes were blinded by flashlights. He was grabbed by his jacket front and spun against a wall.
“You lost, buddy?” It was Martinez. And he could smell his mother’s Chloé on him.
“Totally.” Rook tried to laugh it off. “Were you looking for the men’s room, too?”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” came the voice of someone beside Martinez who Rook figured to be Guzman.
Rook squinted. “Think you could cool the high beams? They’re killing me.”
“Turn them off,” said a third voice. The flashlights lowered from his eyes. He heard a switch thrown and the overheads came on. Rook was still blinking to adjust when the third man came into view like an apparition. Rook recognized him from the news and from his books.
There before him, standing in the middle of a makeshift apartment in the secret basement, among old kegs and cartons, was the exiled Colombian author Faustino Velez Arango.
“You know who I am; I can tell by the way you look at me,” said Velez Arango.
“Nope, sorry. I’m just getting my vision back after your friends gave me the eye exam.” Then he started backing toward the stairs. “I’m obviously the buzz killer at your little party, so don’t let me intrude.”
Guzman braced him by the shoulders against an old refrigerator and frisked him. “No weapons,” he said.
Alejandro Martinez asked, “Who are you and why did you come here?”
“The truth? OK, at brunch this morning my mother gave you ten thousand dollars of my money in that black case over there and I want it back.”
“Alejandro, he followed you?” Pascual Guzman’s agitation manifested in scanning the basement as if their intruder had arrived with a platoon of ninjas.
It could have been a grave tactical error, but Rook gauged the author as the most powerful in the group and keyed off him for cues. He took a chance and said, “Relax. There’s nobody else, I came alone.”
Guzman took Rook’s wallet and opened it to his license. “Jameson A. Rook.”
“The A is for Alexander,” he said, eyeing Alejandro Martinez, hoping that would lend credibility to his story about following the money. “Nice name.” But Rook’s attention was drawn to Faustino Velez Arango, whose thick brow had lowered over a glare fixed on him. As he approached, working his jaw, Rook braced for a blow.
The exile stopped inches from him and said, “You are Jameson Rook, the writer?” Rook nodded tentatively. Faustino Velez Arango’s hands came up at him, both suddenly clutching his right hand and shaking it with delight. “I have read everything you ever wrote.” He turned to his companions and said, “This is one of the best living nonfiction writers in print today.” Then back to Rook, he said, “An honor.”
“Thanks. Coming from you, that’s — well, I especially like the part about ‘living’ because, I plan to do a bit more of it.”
There was an immediate sea change. Velez Arango gestured for Rook to sit in the easy chair, and he pulled up a wicker seat beside him. The other two were not yet aboard but seemed to relax a bit as they stood by. “I must say, Mr. Rook, that it takes courage not only to gain the access to a story as you do from all sides but then to overcome dangerous obstacles to get the hard truth into mainstream media.”
“You’re talking about my piece on Mick Jagger’s birthday, right?”
Velez Arango laughed and said, “I was thinking more of the ones on Chechnya and also the Appalachian coal miners, but yes, Mick in Portofino was brilliant. Excuse me one moment.” From the end table the novelist took a vial beside the white bag from the farmacia and shook out a pill. While he washed it back with some water, Rook noted the prescription label. Adefovir dipivoxil, the same drug unaccountably found in Father Graf’s medicine chest. So now it was accountable. Graf was bearding for Velez Arango’s meds. “Another bonus of being a guest of the government in prison,” he said as he screwed the cap back on the bottle. “An inmate cut me with a blade and I contracted hepatitis-B.”
“It must be hell to live the life of Salman Rushdie.”
“I hope to write as well and live so long,” he replied.
“How did you end up here?”
Pascual Guzman cleared his throat in an obvious manner. “Faustino, if he’s a reporter...”
“Mr. Rook is more than that. A journalist. Which means he can be trusted. May I trust you not to reveal my secrets if I tell you about them, how is it said, off the record?”
Rook thought it over. “Sure, not for publication.”
“Pascual and his heroic group at Justicia a Garda saved me from certain death. I was the target of a contract killer in prison — that was the man with the blade — and more were being recruited. As you know a rescue like mine was logistically complicated and quite expensive. Señor Martinez, who is a man of sincere reform, raised funds here in New York to mount human rights legal efforts in Colombia, as well as to gain safe passage for me here to my glorious exile.” He chuckled and gestured to the basement he was living in.
“When did you get here?”
“Three weeks ago. I arrived in New Jersey after departing in a wooden cargo crate on a ship from Buenaventura, you know the place?” Rook nodded and thought of his tip from T-Rex in Colombia about the secret shipment sent to Guzman from there. But the secret shipment wasn’t C4, after all — it was Faustino Velez Arango! “As confining and dismal as my basement life appears, it is a paradise compared to what I left. And I have been much helped by openhearted New Yorkers, especially the pastor and parishioners of one of your churches.”
He reached into his shirt collar and pulled out a large religious medal on a thin metal chain. “This is St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. Just last Monday a wonderful man, a priest who championed our cause, came here just to give this to me.” The author became drawn, creases appeared on his forehead. “I understand the poor man has since died, but what a kind gesture, don’t you think?”
“Father Graf gave that to you Monday?” Rook knew it had to be soon after the priest met Horst Meuller at his agent’s.
“Sí. The padre, he said to me, ‘It is the perfect medal for hiding.’ ”
Rook didn’t speak. He just repeated those words in his head as he watched the medal swing on its chain. His cell phone buzzed, startling him. It was Heat. “May I take this? It’s my girlfriend and I know it’s important.... Look, I won’t say where I am.”
Martinez and Guzman shook no, but Velez Arango overruled them. “All right, but use the speakerphone.”
Rook answered just before she dropped to voice mail. “Hi, you,” he said.
Nikki said, “Took you long enough. Where are you?”
Martinez moved a step closer. “You first,” said Rook, and Martinez backed off a hair.
“Back at Grand Central trying to get a cab. Ossining was big, Rook. Huge.” He was afraid to say the wrong thing in such a pressure situation, and as he thought, she said, “Rook, are you OK?”
“Yeah, just eager to talk to you. But let’s do it in person.”