You’re already dead, you bastard…
A narrow band of violet was pushing up against a black-domed sky when Rosalinda broke his reverie and announced, “Ahead. That’s Río Dulce.”
A mile ahead, the port town’s lights shimmered. Luke pulled off the road and cut the engine behind a cluster of trees. The truck’s diesel snorted a few times before dying.
Luke decided they should break up into smaller groups, and after some back-and-forth between Rosalinda and her workers — they were concerned about her staying with the gringo — she finally convinced the men to walk into town ahead of them and find buses to their homes. She waved them forward as if shooing reluctant children off to school.
Chaos had shattered the workers’ quiet and ordered lives. Luke understood the feeling.
Fifteen minutes later Luke and Rosalinda walked toward town along the same road. He carried his knapsack over one shoulder. Draped over the other shoulder was a large duffel bag filled with equipment and weapons he had scavenged before leaving the forest lab.
Frankie was several paces in front of them, his horseshoe-shaped legs bobbing back and forth.
“Can you remember anything else about CHEGAN?” Luke asked “Anything you haven’t told me?”
“Nothing that paints a picture of evil.” She shook her head slowly. “In fact, quite the opposite. They operate a hospital in Guatemala City, a hospital for children with genetic disorders. They do it without compensation, I am told.”
They came up on Frankie, who had stopped to light a cigarette.
“Put that thing out.” Luke grabbed the cigarette and crushed it under his shoe.
By the time they reached the edge of town, the sky was changing from black to muddy gray. Entrails of smoke swirled from stubby stone chimneys. Even at that hour there were men loitering in alleyways, the type of men who linger with stooped heads, glancing sidelong at the world and missing very few of the details that pass in front of them.
The smell of hot grease and burning wood wafted from an open doorway on the right side of the street. A primitive wooden sign hanging over it read COMIDA.
Luke saw that Rosalinda’s limp was becoming more pronounced. “Let’s eat,” he said.
They sat at a bench table, and Luke ate like a ravenous animal, washing down a mountain of corn tortillas with a brothy soup, in the bottom of which sat a single chicken claw.
Two ruddy-faced men with dull bloodshot eyes grinned at him from across the smoke-filled room, their heads bobbing up and down as if he was the most entertaining sight they’d seen in a long time.
Frankie said, “I be back,” and was out the door with a fresh cigarette in hand before Luke could clear his throat of food.
Luke wiped a sheet of sweat from his forehead, then said to Rosalinda, “I need a hotel room. Can you find one that caters to tourists, someplace where an Anglo won’t stand out?”
“I know of a few hotels like that.”
“Good. Do not use your real name when you register. Get two keys, and tell them you have a husband who’ll be joining you. After that, you should leave town.”
“What about the boy? He should not be with you.”
“Tell him that,” Luke said. “After you check me into a hotel, take Frankie to the bus station and put him on a bus back home.”
She nodded. “Where is his home?”
“Santa Elena.”
“He came with you all the way from Santa Elena?”
“He doesn’t follow instructions very well,” Luke said. “Stay with him until the bus leaves, and don’t blink or he’ll probably vanish on you.” He wrote down the names of several medicines on a napkin and handed it to her. “On your way to the bus station, stop by a pharmacy and see if you can buy any of these.”
The recognition showed in Rosalinda’s eyes. “These drugs are for HIV.”
Luke nodded. “I listed four medications, in order of preference. Try to buy the first one on the list; it’s a combination drug. If they don’t have it, try the second name on the list, and so on.” He pulled a thick stack of bills from his pocket and laid them in front of Rosalinda. “Buy as much as you can get with this.”
“The boy — he has HIV?”
“His mother. Give the drugs to Frankie and tell him what they’re for. It’ll make it easier to get him on the bus.”
Luke’s backpack started chirping. He pulled out Sammy’s phone.
“You in Río Dulce yet?” Sammy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t leave. Calderon just called me. By the way, how’d you know he was gonna call?”
“Like I said, I had a feeling.”
“Yeah, right,” Sammy said. “Anyway, you’re on for tonight. Someone’s gonna meet up with you at eight o’clock.”
“Who?”
“Flash, understand how this works. I don’t ask, and they don’t tell. I told Calderon some cock-’n’-bull story about you being one of the workers at the University Children’s clinic down there. What’s important is, this guy that Calderon dug up has some info on your lady friend. And Flash, he’s gonna wanna be paid. A thousand U.S.”
“Where’s this Samaritan going to meet me?”
“I don’t know yet. Keep the phone with you, and leave it on. I’ll call you as soon as I hear something.” A pause, then, “Luke?”
Luke couldn’t remember the last time that Sammy had called him by his real name. “What?”
“Sammy’s nose is picking up something here. Watch your six.”
Watch your back.
Sammy was sensing what Luke had already assumed. It was a setup.
49
Rosalinda shook her head at Luke as she walked up to the taxi in which he and Frankie were waiting.
“It seems that the address I had for CHEGAN is a private postal company,” she said while squeezing back into the cab’s rear seat with them.
Luke looked at the plain-looking tan stucco building at the end of the block. His precautions — giving their driver a fake street number and stopping a half block from their intended address — had turned out to be unnecessary.
“So CHEGAN gave you a phony address,” Luke said.
“Perhaps not. They may have what you would call a post office box there. Many businesses and organizations use these private postal services. The state-run postal service is unreliable.”
Luke wasn’t convinced. “An organization that uses medical supplies and trucks has got to have someplace to keep them. Why wouldn’t their mail go to the same place?”
“I would not know.”
She exchanged a few words in Spanish with their dusty-looking driver, who made a U-turn and reentered traffic. When they reached the other side of town, Rosalinda followed their prearranged plan and had the taxi drop them in front of a hotel that was a quarter mile past the one where she had reserved a room.
They backtracked to their hotel after watching the driver disappear around a corner. The place was away from the town’s bustling hub, in an area where foot traffic was less congested and overly attentive eyes were easier to spot.
Rosalinda registered them as a family of three, and as soon as they made their way to the second-floor room, Luke sent Frankie out to buy food and supplies. Leaving the room for a meal was a luxury he knew he couldn’t afford when killers were stalking him.
He sat on the edge of a bed that sagged in the middle while Rosalinda used the bathroom. He used the few minutes of silence to salve his battered psyche.
He was surprised at how well the woman was holding up. He’d seen the wheels fall off battle-hardened soldiers hours after a fierce fight, but so far Rosalinda’s emotional makeup seemed to have an epoxy-like quality.
When she came back out, she walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and took in the view, twice squeezing her atrophied thigh with a veiled grimace. She seemed the type of person who’d rather not have her leg or stamina become a topic of conversation, so he said nothing.