“Padre Joseph and I both belong to Catholic orders, but no, we’ve never met. He’s a Maryknoll missionary. I’m with the Sisters of Charity.”
“What do you know about their kidnapping?”
“Almost nothing. I was talking by phone yesterday with our Mother Superior in Guatemala City. She once worked with Padre Joseph in Pactumal. She mentioned the news report about their abduction.” The nun shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s all I know.”
“Pactumal — is that a town?
“More like a small pueblo. When Padre Joseph’s not traveling among the Mayan villages, he lives there with another priest, Padre Thomas. That’s their parroquia, their parish.”
“Where is it?” Luke could feel his sketchy plan shifting from Santa Lucina to Pactumal.
“Southeast of here, but I’ve never been there. Your friend disappeared in an area that’s on the edge of civilization, you might say. It’s mostly unmapped territory.” The nun showed him a doubtful expression. “Are you here on your own?”
“Yes.”
“Pactumal is near the Belize border. It’s a good distance off the main highway, but if you’re willing to pay, we can probably find a bus driver who will take you there. You can leave in the morning.”
“I have to leave tonight.”
“It might be difficult finding a bus at this hour. And it’s really not safe to travel at night. The bandits prey on buses, especially those with tourists. In this area, there have been six killings in the last month alone.” She kissed her crucifix.
“I’m leaving now.”
She glanced at a clock on the wall. “Very well, then. I’ll send Frankie to the station with you. He can help you find a bus. He’s pretty resourceful.”
“I’ve noticed.” Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out Ari’s passport and wallet. “These belong to a friend. Would you mind returning them to him?” He gave her the name of the hotel as he handed the items to her.
She raked the corner of her lip with her teeth, studying Luke as if searching for a stray fact.
He changed the subject. “Frankie’s mother — she doesn’t have much longer to live, does she?”
The nun glanced back at the bed. “No, she doesn’t.”
“You have anything to give her, any medications?”
“We have very little. We rely on donations — surplus medicines from drug companies, that sort of thing. But we almost never have enough.”
Luke turned and looked again at the boy’s mother. “How old is Frankie?”
“He’s nine, going on twenty.”
Luke nodded. “What’ll happen to him when she dies?”
“I suppose he’ll stay here, if he wants to.” She sounded mildly surprised by the question. “Besides Frankie, there are only three of us here. He does a good deal of the chores. He’s a rascal, but he’s devoted to his mother. I’m afraid more than she ever was to him.”
A voice behind them said, “Perdóneme, Hermana.”
Luke turned.
Three uniformed police officers were standing in the doorway, staring at him.
40
Luke purchased a map at a newsstand while watching Frankie work a group of bus drivers who were milling at the station’s arched entrance. The boy used the same in-your-face bluster that had seemed to befuddle the cops.
The police, it turned out, had come to the hospice looking for Frankie. They were making the rounds, conducting what appeared to be a perfunctory murder investigation by talking with known associates of the dead thieves.
Suddenly, Frankie caught Luke’s eye. The boy lifted his arm and pointed at one of the bus drivers.
Twenty minutes later Luke was sitting in the back of a bus rumbling south on the Guatemala Highway. His mind replayed images of the boy standing alongside the bus until just before its departure, waving like a trained seal every time Luke had glanced out the window.
A large yellow moon bathed the grasslands on either side of the highway, and he struggled to stay awake. It was almost nine o’clock, which meant that it was coming up on seven o’clock in Los Angeles. He reached into his bag and turned on the satellite phone.
Just as he was wondering whether a satellite signal would find him inside a metal can traveling at fifty miles an hour, the phone chirped. He thumbed the green button marked ENCRYPT, then pressed SEND.
“Where are you?” Sammy asked without preamble.
“North of Guatemala City.” His response would have been judged unresponsive in a court of law, but this wasn’t a court of law and he was still a fugitive. He wasn’t going to tell anyone more than they needed to know. “What do you got?”
“That company Zenavax — they have an office in Río Dulce. You know where that is?”
“No, but I’ll find it.”
Sammy gave him a street address and phone number for the company’s Río Dulce office, then said, “I got nothing on your woman friend yet. How ‘bout you?”
Luke described his conversation with the nun and explained that he was en route to the missing priest’s parish. He didn’t give Sammy the name of the town, and the man didn’t ask.
“Seven o’clock tomorrow,” Sammy said. “I may have something to tell you.”
The line went dead before Luke could ask what that last statement meant.
Luke startled when the bus driver shook him awake.
“Estamos aquí. Pactumal.”
He looked at his watch. It was 10:17 P.M. He jumped from the seat and hefted his rucksack over his left shoulder. A searing pain from the knife wound shot down his arm as he walked down the aisle and disembarked.
When the bus pulled away, standing on the other side of the road, smoking a cigarette, was Frankie. Dressed in a bright yellow jacket, he looked like a smoldering Easter egg.
“Hey, boss. We here.”
Luke rubbed the sleep from his face while wondering at the urchin’s ability to board the bus unnoticed. Commingled with that thought was the recognition that fatigue was chipping away at his vigilance.
Frankie released two perfectly formed smoke rings. “I help you. You see.”
Luke launched into a blistering lecture about deception and trickery, then extracted Frankie’s promise to return to Santa Elena after they paid a visit to the missing priest’s parroquia.
“And put out that cigarette,” he said.
Frankie used an ear-splitting whistle to gain the attention of a few local residents who guided Luke and his diminutive companion toward a simple clapboard structure that was indistinguishable from nearby houses except for its larger size. A cross hung on the front door.
A group of tired-looking men sat along a bench on the wood-plank porch that fronted the parroquia. The men seemed to regard Luke with an equal mix of curiosity and unease. A tiny woman wrapped in an orange apron was passing out glasses of juice to the men. Frankie marched up to the group as if he were their longtime companion, took a glass from the woman’s tray, and started chatting with the men.
Eventually the boy turned back to Luke and said, “Padre Joseph supposed to come home three days ago. But no one see him.”
“How do you know about Padre Joseph?”
“I listen to you and Hermana Marta Ann.”
Luke wondered whether the boy had overheard their discussion about his mother. “Ask them where the priest was traveling to. Where was he going?”
Frankie repeated Luke’s question in Spanish.
An elderly man replied, waving his arm in a wide arc and taking in a broad sweep of the horizon as he talked. He went on for some time.
When he finished, Frankie said, “Padre Joseph not here most times.” He pointed in the distance. “He go to small villages. They not know where.”