“I’m impressed,” Cat said, “but you’d better either get into the shower or turn it off.”
She showered, returned. “Now tell me,” she said, “where the hell did you get nine hundred thousand dollars in cash?”
“At the bank,” he replied, “where else?”
“In Bogotá?”
“In Atlanta.”
“You mean you’ve been hauling nine hundred thousand dollars all over Colombia?”
“More than that,” Cat said. “I gave Vargas a hundred thousand in Bogotá.”
“Jesus, I’m glad you didn’t tell me. It would have made me nervous,” she said. “What now? What do we do next?”
“I guess we show up for cocktails at seven,” he said. “If Jinx is here, maybe she’ll be at the party.”
“And if she is?”
“Well, we’ve got to get the lay of the land before we can try to get her out of here — find out where she is.”
Meg laughed. “While you’re at it, how about finding out where we are.”
“I can tell you that, roughly,” Cat said. “We’re about a hundred and forty-five nautical miles northeast of Leticia.”
“Swell. What else is around here?”
“Not a goddamned thing,” Cat said. “Maybe a few Indians. Otherwise, just jungle — in every direction.”
“And if Jinx is here, and if you can get your hands on her, what then?”
“I’m still working on that,” Cat said.
“You want to take a look around the place before cocktails?”
“No. I haven’t seen a soul here since we landed, except for staff and Vargas. Let’s not attract attention to ourselves by snooping around.”
“Why do you think they didn’t search us when we arrived?”
“Why bother? They’ve got a million dollars of our money, so they know we’re not going to steal anything. And considering where we are, even if we’re armed, what could we possibly do to them in the middle of an armed camp?”
“Right,” Meg said. “What can we do?”
Cat walked to his bag and took out Hedger’s radio. “This is a directional beacon. When we’ve gotten hold of Jinx, we turn it on and hide until the cavalry arrives. Colombian army. They’ll be on the lookout for us.”
“Jesus,” said Meg. “I hope so.”
A little after seven o’clock, Cat and Meg left the cottage and started toward the main house. The sky above them was still bright, but in the shadows of the giant trees, it was nearly dark. They followed the path, and as they did a few others, all men, left the cottages and walked ahead of or behind them. The air was still hot and heavy, and Cat was perspiring, not entirely from the heat. He wanted to break out of the procession and start searching for his daughter. Meg took his arm, as if she knew what he was thinking.
They crossed the veranda and entered the house. The large entrance hall was now lit by an elaborate chandelier, and a group of twenty or thirty men were helping themselves at a bar and at a table filled with beautifully displayed food. Cat reckoned that their host had an ice house, because a large block held what he reckoned was a gallon of caviar nestled in the scooped-out block.
The crowd was well dressed and seemed a little subdued. As Cat and Meg approached the bar, a tall man, sweating in a finely tailored, heavy wool suit, was asking, in an upper-class British accent, for a gin and tonic with lots of ice. They got a drink and some food, then they stood to one side of the room and had a closer look at their new colleagues. Cat immediately began to see people he knew.
Across the room, at the center of a small knot of men, stood Stanton Michael Prince, all smiles and charm, the ponytail flicking as he turned from one member of the group to another. At the edge of the group, looking carefully not at Prince, but at the men around him, was Denny. Cat’s stomach knotted as Denny’s eyes fell on him. Never mind his loss of weight and absence of beard, Cat felt naked; now he would be recognized and the alarm raised. Then Denny’s eyes moved on; there had been no reaction. Cat started breathing again.
He had once met a President of the United States and had noticed that the Secret Service men guarding the President never looked at him. Instead, they watched the crowd, as Denny was doing now. Cat knew that Denny must be armed.
Then a movement on the broad staircase to the upper floor caught Cat’s eye. A group of eight or nine young women, all pretty, all beautifully dressed, descended the stairs. It was a moment before Cat realized that the last of them, a tall beauty in a tightly cut strapless dress, was Jinx.
He stood, transfixed, unable to take his eyes off her. Her hair had grown longer, and she was wearing much more sophisticated makeup than she usually did. Her appearance was not one she would have chosen for herself. Cat felt a peculiar combination of elation and illness. He had found her, but he could do nothing; she was still out of reach. There she was, thirty feet away, alive and, as far as he could tell, quite well, and he could do nothing.
Meg squeezed his arm. “Look at me,” she whispered.
Cat tore his eyes from Jinx and turned to Meg.
“Is the tall girl Jinx?” she asked.
“Yes. Everything about her is different — makeup, hair, clothes — but that’s Jinx.”
“Then, for Christ’s sake, stop staring at her,” Meg said.
Cat tried looking around more, not looking directly at Jinx, always at someone near her. As he looked around, the group reached the bottom of the stairs and dispersed into the growing crowd of men, chatting amiably with them. Jinx continued through the crowd until she reached Prince’s side. He put a proprietary hand on her bare shoulder and began to introduce her to the group.
Before Cat could think further about this, he was distracted by a shout and a movement at the front door. A group of men was entering the room, and one of them was greeting someone he knew. Cat glanced at the group, then froze. He turned slowly toward them and saw, staring at him from no more than ten feet away, his son, Dell.
28
Cat thought he had never seen such a look. Dell stood, his face contorted into a hatred of which Cat would never have thought him capable. Even before Dell moved, Cat knew it was over. Within seconds Prince would know who he was and why he was there. There would be no way to get to Jinx. His and Meg’s only hope would be to run for the jungle. Cat didn’t think they could even make the door.
A man standing next to Dell put a hand on his shoulder, obviously wondering what was wrong. Dell shook off the hand, turned, and started across the room toward where Prince stood. Cat took Meg’s arm and began to move her toward the front door of the house.
“Keep moving, and listen to me,” he said, steering her through the crowd. “Someone here knows me. We’ve got to run for it. As soon as we make the door, run for the airstrip, and don’t slow down for anything. Go straight across into the jungle, and stay with me. It’s the only chance we have.” He wished he were armed; he wished he had a map, food and water; he wished he had as much as a pocket knife; he wished he had a five-minute head start. He had none of these things.
Cat glanced back toward Dell and stopped. Dell was standing stock still in the middle of the room, looking toward Prince’s group, perhaps fifteen feet away from where he stood. Cat could not see his face, but he knew that Dell had seen Jinx, and for the first time. He could not have known his sister was here. Cat squeezed Meg’s hand. “Wait near the door. If a commotion breaks out, run for it.” He left her and started toward Dell, his eyes darting from him to Jinx and back. She had not yet seen him.
He picked his way through the crowd as quickly as he could without exciting attention, excusing himself as he pushed past people, fixing a smile on his face to hide his fear. Jinx seemed to be staring past Prince into the middle distance. Please, honey, don’t see Dell, don’t see me, he prayed to her.