Blood Lake (47 page)

But I get grabbed.

Three cops. I kick and claw and pull myself loose, but two more get in my way and it takes five riot police to drag me towards the tank.

I am
not
going in there.

They all have tear-gas grenades dangling from their cartridge belts. American-made. I recognize the model. I know how to work them.

I prepare myself with deep breaths, but the traces of gas make me cough. Let them think they've got me. Three of them shove me in, others follow. Deep breath. And—

I grab the handle and activate the nearest grenade with my eyes closed tight.

The whole tank fills with tear gas, and they're all fighting to get out. Loose hands, clawing, scraping, then a knee to the face makes me lose my air. Some left, still. Fight. Drag.

I stumble out and make it about three feet before the hard human walls close in, cutting off my air.

Air …

For all policemen were bright enough to know who they were working for, and they were not working, anywhere in the world, for the powerless.

—James Baldwin

“WHO
are you visiting?”

“My family.”

“Who else?”

“Who else? Old friends.”

“What are their names?”

“Whose names? My old friends?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I haven't had a chance yet, but I was going to look up Sarita Kuperman, Teresita León, Amelia Peñaherrera,
profesora
Luisa Ramera—”

“
Profesora
Ramera is dead.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hea—”

“She was murdered. Three years ago. Someone broke into her home and put a gun in her mouth and blew off the back of her head.”

Pause.

“Oh.”

“That doesn't mean anything to you?”

“Well, of course, it's horrible—!”

“Doesn't mean
anything
to you? Eh, La Sacerdotisa?”

I don't bat an eyelid.

It's not a bluff.

Sergeant Tenesaca has the round, sunny face of a true
ecuatoriano de la sierra
. He's the real thing—a
mestizo
Indian who has risen up by talent and skill alone, because this guy was born in a mud-and-cardboard shack in Zhud, and sure as hell didn't get here on family connections.

“All right, you know who I am,” I confess.

He's been waiting for that. It satisfies him deeply to hear me say it.

“Some ice for your face?” he asks, smiling.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He hands me some ice and a plain square of cloth to wrap it in. I hold the soothing bundle to my forehead with my left hand.

“Sorry. I don't know what gets into them sometimes,” he says.

“I gave them plenty of reason.”

“Uh, yes.”

I look outside his window. It's after visiting hours, so they've let the chickens loose in the courtyard.

“Okay,” I say. “You know who I am. Then you should also know I've been a civilian for fifteen years, including five years as a New York City cop.”

“Yes, I know. But what are we supposed to say when we find you with
this
?” He holds up a paper bag full of white powder.

“That's flour.”

He hesitates.

“You could bake a cake with it. Believe me, it's flour.”

He looks in the bag.

President Pajizo stares blankly at me from his spot on the wall behind the sergeant's left shoulder; the great seal of Ecuador peers out over his right, its iconography wishfully linking the coast and the mountains under the condor's spreading wings.

I take a leap and switch into Quichua. “
Ch'akiwashan. Imataq ukyaypak kan?
” I'm thirsty. What is there to drink?

“You say this is flour.
Allimi?
” Really?

“
Ari
.” Yes.

He seems to believe me, and sends for a cup of water.

“Getting back to to
profesora
Ramera,” he says, returning to Spanish. “That case is still unsolved.”

A minute nails itself into my brain. Tick. Tick. Tick. My water arrives in a plastic cup. I take a sip, and savor it.

Eventually he breaks the silence. “Look, we both know what Juanito did to professor Dos Caras. Then somebody goes and does the same thing to
profesora
Ramera?” Then he dutifully asks, “Do you know if Juanito's alive?”

“The resemblance between the two murders doesn't mean a thing. He probably trained a couple of comrades to carry on the tradition for him after his death. That would have been like him.”

Sergeant Tenesaca nods.

“But it
was
his special way,” he says. “And you really don't know where he is? You've had
no
contact with him?”

“No.”

“Sad, isn't it?”

That's not what I expected him to say.

“What's so sad about it?”

“Tell me, where'd you learn to take a beating like that?”

I shrug.

“It was your father, wasn't it?” he asks.

The leather-babe act rips open for a second, leaving me vulnerable, then slowly stitches back together, sealing and protecting me.

“You ran away from home at fourteen, is that right?” he says, glancing at the file at his elbow.

“Yes.”

“You see, I also know what it is to be a hungry child who has to fight for every ear of corn.”

I nod. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you're not the only one who hid from the police in the one place they'd never think of looking. Some of them lasted quite a bit longer than you did. Some of them even made sergeant.”

“I see.” It takes me about a week to say that.

“Yes, you see. So you really don't know if Juanito's still active?”

“No, I swear.”

“But you want to find out, don't you?”

“Yes.” I admit it, opening my chest and pouring it out like my final sin before the Supreme Judge.

“Hmm,” he grumbles, stroking his chin. “Well, please let us know if you do.”

And he gives me back my documents, including the real and the fake
cédulas
. I was still carrying both of them because I didn't figure on getting arrested.

“That was reckless of you,” he says, dipping his head towards the two ID cards.

“Well, I'm reckless sometimes.”

“The passport with the missing page was exceptionally interesting. I'd order up a couple of
canelasos
, but we're working right now.”

“Nice of you to offer. Some other time then?”

“Certainly. But you must stay in Cuenca. You can't travel with those documents.”

“Oh.”

“You were planning to travel?”

“Well, yes.”

“Where to?”

My gaze travels from the documents spread on the desk between us up his folded arms, past the Police Department insignias to his face, locks onto his eyes, probes.

“To Morona Santiago.”

“And how were you planning to get there?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, for one, the roads aren't always safe. There's been a rash of wildcat strikes aimed at the government's complicity in creating the shortages and hyperinflated prices that have kept basic food products from reaching the stores,” he says.

“I haven't heard about them.”

“Yeah, there are a lot of things you haven't heard about. Like the opposition's plan to renationalize oil production
that's gaining momentum in Congress, which is going to piss some powerful people off, or the book Gatillo's Centrist Coalition is planning to publish next month. It's going to be promoted as ‘the exposé they killed a man to suppress.'”

“What's the title?” I ask, a sickly feeling of foreboding creeping up and churning my insides.

“
The Bloody Trail
. By that Argentine muckraker—whatsisname—”

“You know his name.”

“All right. So I do.”

“Then you know that's got to be a bunch of crap. All he left behind were some scattered notes.” And I mean scattered. “Nothing like a completed manuscript.”

“The amazing thing is that Ecuador is a small enough country so that
one person
can have an effect,” he says, looking right at me.

I let the look linger awhile.

“You want me to find him for you, don't you?”

He looks at the pile of documents he's just given me.

“Nice play,” I say. “But don't you think they know I'm in here? And that if I walk out of here with you on my tail they'll ambush the freaking lot of us and tear us to shreds?”

“Not if we bring enough men.”

“In which case we wouldn't get within twenty miles of him, if he's even out there.” And my name would be shit forever and ever. “Besides, I
want
to be followed. Just not by you guys.”

“Hmm. So what do we do?”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“I guess I'll need an unmarked car with an interprovincial pass.”

I'm not sneaking into the jungle at night. Even my old buddies would kill me first and determine my identity later. I revise my list: “A driver's license, a registration, and a vehicle that can disappear from your impoundment lot without anybody noticing.”

“You want ice cream with that, too?” he asks.

“Come on. You've got a rattletrap no one will miss.”

He looks at his watch, then back to me.

“Do you know where he is?”

“For the last time, no. But I've got to find out one way or the other and be done with it.”

The proposition definitely interests him.

“I'll have the corporal type up the agreement.”

“
No
.” That stops him. “No documentation whatsoever. I walk out of here on foot, and twelve hours from now the corporal leaves a jeep with the papers and the keys near the ravine between the Avenida de la Independencia and the Milchichig Bridge. And don't follow me.”

He's a realist, but it still takes him a long time to make up his mind.

“You'll let us know what you find.”

“Of course.”

He's on his feet, hand extended. “
Ha sido un gran placer, señorita Buscarsela
.”

“Nice meeting you, too, Sergeant Tenesaca.”

He bows his head slightly, we shake hands, and he lets me go free.

I've got to send Stan away. He's slowing me down, making me more vulnerable.

“But you're part of my life now,” he says.

“Not
this
life, Stan. I have to take care of this on my own.”

“Why? So you can be with
him
?”

No. So he doesn't kill you.

“It's not like that,” I say.

“But—?”

God, does he know me.

“But … It's not like that.”

“No, it never is. I can't compete with a memory. That's a sucker's game.”

“It's
not
just memories, Stan,” I say, with a bit of an edge. “Some of my bruises are quite fresh.”

“I didn't mean that. Jesus, I just never know what I'm getting into with you. I mean, my old girlfriends were all Jewish and Italian-American princesses whose idea of an adventure is spending a month searching every mall in Queens and Nassau County looking for the perfect dress to wear to their best friend's baby shower. They sure as hell don't spend their time getting fingered by armed rebels.”

“You want out?”

“Is that what you want?”

“No. Definitely not. Stan, I want to be with
you
. Honey, you know you mean so much to me … And I hope that you'll be there to take me back.”

“When will that be?”

“I don't know. The election's only four days off.”

“You don't sound terribly sure of yourself.”

“I'm sure about you, Stan. Oh, come here, you big hunk of sugarcane.” I take his pouting face in my hands and bring it close to mine, rubbing the tips of our noses for a moment before I tilt my head and kiss him, warmly, deeply, passionately. His arms engulf me, hands suddenly at my shoulder blades pressing me to him closely, each finger transferring energy right through my clothes to my skin, to my oh-so-sensitive skin. It's a hug that feels like sex. But then it's time to draw back and say, “I'll call you when it's over.”

I hope.

I have to say it: “If I'm not back in two weeks, then I'm not coming back.”

“There's never enough time to be with you,” he says, not letting go. “It feels so damn frustrating. But it also feels great. All prickly, like the alternating current in a live wire.”

Ooh.

Wouldn't you know, I'm getting my period? But the passion is too intense for either of us to care. And the hotel's sheets are left so bloody it looks like there's been a murder in the bed.