Had Harrington known?
Certainly. He was an expert on South America. He knew who was doing what and where they were doing it. And the two of them had been in contact, obviously sharing information. They’d been smart enough to wait until I was already in Colombia to finally formalize the assignment. The obligation was implied but understood: They’d helped me. Now I was expected to help them.
“Dear God…” I said softly.
My voice sounded unusually hoarse in the silence of the air-conditioned suite. I stood, looked out the window, and saw that Amelia was no longer by the pool.
I rushed to the briefcase and began to pack the weaponry. I’d just gotten the thing locked and under the bed when I heard the door open and she came into the bedroom. Her skin was the color of fresh cinnamon, and there was a bawdy smile on her face that quickly faded. “Hey… Doc? What’s wrong, you’re so pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
I said, “I think I’m just thirsty. Let’s go down to the bar and get a drink.”
21
That night, we showered together and dressed in our best clothes for dinner. Amelia wore a sleek beige dress that showed her body, made her look even taller, and left no doubt that she was braless, too. “When I’m outside the country,” she laughed, “I always take the opportunity to show what little I have.”
I wore khaki slacks, a Navy polo shirt, a light, silk sports coat I’d had tailored in Asia, and my old, soft jungle boots-which earned me a minor rebuke. “Just when I think you’re halfway civilized, you prove me wrong.”
I told her Colombia wasn’t a particularly civilized country, and she smiled as if I were joking.
We walked the cobblestone streets west toward the Hotel de Acension, Hassan’s hangout and sometime home. I didn’t tell Amelia why we were going there, just that I’d eaten in the restaurant and the food was very good. Nor did I tell her why I asked to have my new briefcase kept in the hotel safe.
It was a typical December night in Cartagena. A jungle breeze came off the water carrying aromatic little pockets of open sea, of jasmine and frangipani blossom, and of the city, too. It smelled of water on rock and diesel exhaust, of wood smoke and the shadowed musk of narrow alleys, and of cobblestone markets that hadn’t missed a night in three hundred years.
Once Amelia hugged herself close to me, and said, “I love it here. We’ll have to come back just to have fun. I feel so… relaxed.”
Already, it seemed very comfortable to speak of us as “we,” two people but one united couple.
I, however, did not feel relaxed. We were on our way-hopefully-to meet a man that I was now duty-bound to murder.
Earl Stallings was in the bar. I saw him when we walked through the great stone archway that was the entrance into the Hotel de Acension. The bar was to the left, elevated above the marble lobby. Wrought-iron tables were crowded, people drinking and laughing, ceiling fans above stirring slow mare’s-tails of smoke, while a very black man at a very black grand piano played and sang “Jamaica Farewell” in Spanish.
“My heart is down, my head is spinning around, I had to leave my little girl in Kingston town…”
Stallings stood beside the piano, dressed in white linen slacks and a white guyaberra shirt, smoking a cigar. Clinging to his waist was a woman wearing a purple blouse and a white Panama hat.
Shanay Money had been correct. Stallings made her giant of a father appear small. He dwarfed the piano and dominated the room. His head was huge, pumpkin-sized, and even from that distance I could see the yellow smoothness of a burn scar on the right side of his face. He appeared to be Polynesian, possibly Fijian or Samoan, and he had to weigh well over four hundred pounds.
“Doc, what’s wrong? What are you staring at?”
I realized that Amelia was pulling me by the hand toward the restaurant, while I stood there taking him in, memorizing his features.
I said, “It’s somebody I think I know. Let’s get a table, and I’ll come back and say hello to the guy.”
The restaurant was in a smaller courtyard separated from a larger courtyard by palms and hibiscus in red and yellow bloom. From our table, I could see the moon through the feathered leaves, above the stone gables of the hotel.
Amelia took my left hand in both her hands and said, “Hey pal, we haven’t known each other that long. I want to learn everything there is to know about you, all your moods, what makes you mad, everything, but I haven’t had time. I want to. I will. The point is, I get the feeling that something happened this afternoon, that there’s something wrong. Did I say something that offended you? Sometimes I talk before I think. You seem so distracted.”
I kissed her hands, smiling. “No, I think you’re wonderful. I mean that, Amelia. I’m a little preoccupied, thinking about how to get information on Janet and the others.”
“You said you might know some people who can help.”
“Maybe. That guy in the bar. I need to talk to him after we order. Alone.”
Earl Stallings blew smoke toward the ceiling fan before he looked down at me, and lied, “Kazan? Kazan… hmm. No, I’ve never heard of a man named Hassan Kazan. And if I had, why should I tell you?”
I’d introduced myself to him at the piano and endured his domineering handshake. Then I endured him saying, “I saw that redhead you’re with. Kind of attractive. I’ve never slept with a redhead. They any good?”
Now we were standing in a quiet corner of the bar, him with a tall brown drink in hand, me with a bottle of Aquila beer in a brown bottle.
I said, “I’m surprised you don’t know Hassan Kazan. He stays at this hotel regularly. That’s what my friends tell me, anyway.”
Stallings seemed to swell slightly. “You interrupt my evening, I don’t even know who the hell you are, and already you’re calling me a liar?”
His voice had a mellow, raspy quality that I associate with Hawaiians, but his English was occasionally clipped, guttural in a way that suggested Austronesian languages. I forced myself to smile congenially while my brain struggled to remember a few of the Samoan phrases I knew. Laega, laega -didn’t that mean “sorry”?
I couldn’t remember for certain, and then I decided, screw it, I wasn’t going to bother trying to charm him. I said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m calling you. A liar. I’ve got a business proposition for Kazan. Maybe for you, too. But I’m not going to stand here and let you waste my time.”
For a moment, I thought he was going to swing at me, smash the glass into my face, or maybe pull a knife. I watched his face blanch, then freeze masklike as he reconsidered. Stallings was used to bullying people, and bullies rarely have to use any force stronger than words. It was a struggle, but he got his temper under control. “If I’m included in your business, that might be different. Money. If there’s money involved, I’m interested. You have American cash with you? Here in Cartagena? How much are we talking?”
I had brought a sizeable bundle of cash-about $5,000-but I doubted if that were enough to tempt someone like Stallings. So I said, “All I could bring in legally, plus I have access to a little more, depending on how our negotiations go.”
“You’re going to need a lot more than that, but, okay, it’s a place to begin. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
A reasonable man-if cash were involved.
I said, “I wasn’t thinking, Earl. Sorry. So let me start all over again. I want to discuss something that could make you both a profit. Sizable money and very simple. So the question’s the same: Where’s Kazan?”
“No, no, no, Ford. The question is: What kind of business are we discussing?”
I said, “I think three friends of mine are being held captive somewhere in Colombia. I’m here to buy their freedom.”
“How would I know anything about that? Now you’re saying I’m a criminal, too.”
“I know because they were adrift in the water the morning you ran the shrimp boat Nan-Shan into the Ten Thousand Islands. I know you saw them and stopped.”