He doesn’t have one at the moment. Don’t give it to him until you have to. He might use it to travel in another direction. Tell him he can keep it, just a little gift from Carlos.” Jim held up the other envelope. “There are two passports here for Jinx, one in her own name, one in another; same photograph. If you find her, you’ll want to leave in a hurry, I expect.”
“I’m a little overwhelmed by all this,” Cat said.
“I wish I could do more,” Jim replied. “I wish I could tell you how to find your daughter. But I think this stuff will improve your chances of getting in and out alive.”
“I’m very grateful for your help, Jim,” Cat said.
“Don’t worry about it. Maybe one day you can do me a favor.”
“Just ask. Anytime. Is there some place I can reach you when I get back? I’d like to let you know how it all works out.”
“No.” He started to pack up his equipment. “Give Bluey Holland a few days to spring himself, then he’ll be in touch. Offer him fifty grand — ten now, and forty when you’re back in the States. That ought to do it.” Jim snapped a case shut. “You and I never met, of course.”
“Right.”
The two men shook hands. Cat opened the door.
“Listen, Catledge,” Jim said with some feeling. “You’re liable to be in some rough places. Watch your ass.” He closed the door.
8
“Can I speak with Mr. Catledge, please?” The accent was broad and flat. He might have been calling from downtown Sydney.
“Speaking.”
“This is Ronald Holland. I got a message to call you.”
“Have you got cab fare?”
“Yes.”
Cat gave him the address. “Tell the driver it’s off West Paces Ferry Road, west of 1-75.”
“Right. About an hour, I guess.”
Cat had somehow been expecting somebody on the scrawny, weasly side, but when he opened the front door he was confronted with a man of about six feet five, two hundred and fifty pounds. Cat, at six-three, didn’t look up at all to that many people, but he looked up at this one. The face was round, open, cheerful; the sandy hair was receding. Cat put him at about forty-five. Bluey Holland held a small canvas suitcase in one hand.
“Holland,” the man said.
“I’m Catledge; come on in.”
Cat showed him ahead toward the study. On the way Holland got an eyeful of the large, handsomely furnished living room of the contemporary house. In the study, Cat offered a chair and sat down at his desk. Even though this man was his only hope at the moment, this was an employment interview, and Cat didn’t want him to think he was going to automatically get the job.
“How do we know each other?” Holland asked.
“I understand you know your way around South America,” Cat said, ignoring the question.
“Afraid not,” Holland replied.
Cat felt a moment of panic. Had he got the wrong man?
“Just Colombia,” Holland continued. “I know more about that place than the bloody Colombian Tourist Board.”
“That’ll do,” Cat said, relieved. “How’s your Spanish?”
“Useless in the libraries and classrooms of the world, crackerjack in Colombian bars and whorehouses,” Holland said. “How’d you come by my name?”
“You available for a few weeks, maybe a few months?”
Holland slapped his hands down on the arms of the leather chair. “Listen, mate, I’ve asked you twice how we come to be introduced, and you haven’t answered me. I just did two years and seven months of a five-to-eight for doing business with people I didn’t know, so I’ll just push off...”
“A mutual acquaintance,” Cat said. “Carlos.”
Holland stopped talking, his mouth still open. “I know lots of blokes named Carlos,” he said, warily.
Cat tried to keep his face still. He hadn’t counted on this.
“Half the Latinos in the hemisphere—” Holland began.
“This Carlos isn’t a Latino,” Cat said quickly.
“The son of a bitch,” Holland grinned. “I thought he was dead.”
“Nope.”
“Well, now I know how I got paroled first time at bat. You and Carlos work together, do you?”
“Just acquaintances,” Cat said.
“Mr. Catledge,” Holland said, relaxing into the chair, “my time is your time. What can I do for you?”
“How about a drink?” Cat asked, rising.
“I wouldn’t spit up a scotch,” Holland replied.
Cat picked up an old copy of Time magazine from his desk and dropped it in Holland’s lap on the way out of the room. “Page sixty-one,” he said. “That’ll bring you up to date.”
In the bar, Cat took his time about mixing their drinks. When he came back into the room, Holland was still reading. Cat handed him his drink and sat down on the sofa across from the man. Holland looked up, his face sad.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a bloody rotten deal.”
“That’s about the most complete account of the event the press published,” Cat said, “but a lot has happened since then.” He told the Australian in some detail of his efforts to find the pirates, then finally of the phone call from Jinx. “I’m going down there after her,” he said. “I need help. Somebody who knows the territory; somebody to keep me out of trouble. Carlos says you’re the man. Want to go with me?”
“Be delighted,” Holland grinned.
“I’ll pay you fifty thousand — ten up front and forty when we get back alive.”
“That what Carlos told you to offer me?” Holland asked.
“Yep.”
“Well, that seems fair, but how long are you reckoning on?”
“As long as it takes.”
Holland made a sucking noise in his teeth. “That could be an awful long time,” he said.
“I see your point,” Cat agreed. “Tell you what; if it takes longer than a month, I’ll pay you five thousand a week for as long as it takes.”
“Done,” Holland said. “Now what?”
“Let’s go to Colombia.”
“Now, let me get this straight,” Holland said, holding up a hand. “You don’t have any information you haven’t told me about?”
“No. Now you know everything I know.”
Holland rubbed his chin briskly. “Well, then, I guess we start at Santa Marta, then, since that’s where this thing began, and since we haven’t got a clue in the bloody world where else to start.”
“Not a clue,” Cat said. “I know it’s a big country. Do you think we have any chance at all of finding her?”
Holland shrugged. “Listen, mate, Carlos thinks you’ve got a shot at finding her, or he wouldn’t have put you in touch. If he thinks so, that’s good enough for me. Sure, it’s a big country, but when you’re tracking down something as dirty as this, the geography shrinks. The people who do this sort of thing tend to congregate in certain parts of the country. We’ll start in Santa Marta, because that’s the beginning of the trail. I doubt if she’s there, but somebody knows something. I know a couple of people there; we’ll call on them. If I had to guess where she is, I’d say one of three places: The Guajira Peninsula, in the northeast; Cali, in the west; or in the Amazon country. If she’s alive.”
“She was alive a week ago,” Cat said.
“That’s your best hope,” Holland replied. “If they didn’t kill her when the boat went down, they want her for something.”
Cat didn’t want to think about why somebody might want Jinx. “Why those three places?” he asked.
“Because that’s where the drugs get made, and sold, and smuggled.”