“Mm.” Nettisto Vajino carried the map back to the Daimler, where he spread it on the large curved trunk and pursed his lips as he studied it. Vernon, standing beside him, was extremely aware of the woman in the car looking through the rear window at him. She was exotic looking, like Rita Hayworth in “Gilda,” but wilder. She never looked toward the Colonel at all.
Vernon was also acutely aware of the large Colt .45 in its holster on the Colonel’s right side. It had been his fear — one of his fears — since the beginning of this relationship, that the Colonel would some day pull that gun and simply shoot Vernon dead, as a way of ending the association. Once his usefulness was over.
Well, his usefulness wasn’t over yet. And when the time came, Vernon was determined that he would resign in his own way. He’d be very quick about it, too.
Nettisto Vajino tapped his knuckles on the map. “These are all new settlements?”
“Within the last six months,” Vernon assured him. “That’s what you asked for.”
The Colonel grunted, continuing to brood at the map, his mind working in some slow and labyrinthine way. Vernon wished he knew what the Colonel’s scheme was, but he didn’t dare ask about it directly. Out would come the Colt, no question.
What Vernon had brought the Colonel today was a large topographical map of Cayo District, one of Belize’s six districts, one of the three next to Guatemala. The new capital of Belmopan is in Cayo and so was all of Vernon’s trip today until he’d crossed the border. In recent years, refugees from Central American bloodshed, mostly from Guatemala and El Salvador, have made their way in the thousands to Belize, where they have been offered land free for the tilling and have started tiny new communities, mostly in the southern half of the country. The Department of Land Allocation, in which Innocent St. Michael was Deputy Director, was of course involved with this aspect of the immigration, so it hadn’t been hard for Vernon to collect the data on the most recent arrivals.
“Very good,” the Colonel said, though noncommittally, as though it were merely a polite kind of cough he’d learned. Folding the map, his hooded eyes unreadable behind the dark glasses, he said, “And the pictures?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.”
From a shirt pocket Vernon removed a roll of Kodacolor film, in its gray-capped black plastic canister, which he placed in Nettisto Vajino’s waiting palm without a word. Why the Colonel wanted photos of Gurkha soldiers and Gurkha patrols, with details of uniform and equipment, Vernon neither knew nor cared. Sufficient that the pay was good, and that by pretending to be a tourist he had received the amused cooperation of his subjects.
The fact was, Vernon, like most Belizeans, was convinced the Guatemalan claim was just nonsense, old history. The Belizeans wouldn’t permit Britain to give their land away, and the British wouldn’t permit the Guatemalans to just come in and grab it, so that was that. So if some crazy Guatemalan Colonel shows up with money in his hand, willing to pay for a lot of dumb things like maps and photographs, why not take his money? Vernon knew what was going on here was a simple con job, himself giving worthless trash for real cash, but he also realized that to an outsider it could possibly look like, give the impression of, even appear to be...
... well, treason.
Expressionless, the Colonel closed his hand around the film roll, making a casual fist. “Wait there,” he said, and turned away, returning to his car. When he opened the right rear door of the Daimler, Vernon caught a glimpse of long bare legs against the black plush. His heart ached in his breast. He wanted to live in a country where he could be a colonel. Maybe the crazy Guatemalans would pull this off after all, and he...
No. That wasn’t a future he could think about.
The driver’s door of the Daimler opened and the blank-faced soldier came around the rear of the car with a white envelope in his hand. He gave it to Vernon, turned about, and went back to his place in the car, while Vernon lifted the flap and looked at the sheaf of U.S. greenbacks inside. He couldn’t count it now, not with them still here. Lifting his eyes, he saw the woman looking at him again out the back window. She didn’t gaze with normal curiosity, as one human being looks at another, but with a flat and feral expression, as though she were an animal staring out of its cage. Or was he the animal, and she among the humans?
The Daimler backed in a half circle, then drove away. Vernon stuffed the envelope into the pocket that had contained the map, and started the long walk back. The sun was higher, the day hotter, the jungle smells stronger. The money was heavy in his pocket.
18
Winding Trails
Parking in the forecourt of the Fort George Hotel, Kirby stepped out of the pickup and nimbly dodged a peach-colored topless Land Rover with official license plates, which had rushed in the EXIT side of the hotel’s circular driveway and now slammed to a stop at the entrance. Its driver, a skinny black man, hopped out and strode briskly inside, and a moment later Kirby followed, strolling into the cool dim lobby and seeing the driver in converse with the desk clerk.
The house phones were around to the side. Kirby called Lemuel first, let it ring six times, and was about to give up when there was a click and Lemuel’s voice, hushed, suspicious, frightened, said in a half whisper, “Yes?”
Kirby was used to his customers being a little spooked, since they weren’t used to the criminal’s life, but Lemuel was overdoing it. His manner as soothing as possible, Kirby said, “It’s Kirby Galway, Mister Lemuel.”
“Galway!” Lemuel managed to sound both relieved and aggrieved. “Where are you?”
“In the lobby. I just have to take, um, those people... You know?”
“I certainly do.”
“To the airport. Then we’re done with them.”
“Good!”
“You might as well wait in the room until—”
“Believe me, I will!”
Smiling, pleasantly surprised at how well his drug-dealer yam had gone over with this one, Kirby said, “We’ll both breathe easier once they’re gone. I’ll give you a call when I get back, we’ll have lunch in the hotel before we go out to the site.”
“I’ll wait right here,” Lemuel promised.
Kirby broke the connection and was about to dial Witcher and Feldspan’s number when he was briefly distracted by seeing, out of the comer of his eye, the passage through the lobby of what appeared to be a good-looking woman. He turned his head, but she was already past, striding rapidly in the wake of the skinny black man from the Land Rover; so she was his passenger. There was only time to register that she was tall, with brown hair under a large floppy-brimmed hat, and that she was dressed for hiking, in khaki shirt and new blue jeans and tall lace-up boots. She carried a gray attache case in her left hand, and a large and apparently heavy canvas shoulder bag bumped along on her right haunch. Then she was gone, and Kirby dialed the other room number, and Witcher answered on the first ring: “Alan Witcher here.”
“And Kirby Galway here.”
“Oh, good! We’re all set, we’ll be right down.” There were mutters in the background; sounding annoyed, Witcher said, “Would you hold on, please? Just one second.”
“Sure,” said Kirby, and spent the next several seconds listening to muffled conversation and a repeated thumb-thumb. Oh, of course; Witcher had covered the mouthpiece by pressing it to his chest, and Kirby was listening to his heart.