Saffire (8 page)

He scratched an ear. A waiter misinterpreted the signal and glided over, but Harry waved him away.

“Been to Cristóbal and Colón?” Harry asked.

“Through. On the way here.”

“You get a chance, next time there stop at the Washington Hotel so you know I'm not lying. Look for the sign at the swimming pool. It says it's only for gold employees of the ICC or PRR and guests of the Washington Hotel. That makes the pool a whites-only pool. Then beyond the hotel are the great hospitals, where gold men stay in wards built out over the sea, and behind them the silvers have to be content with secondhand breezes. You'll notice it's white men in the wards built over the sea and not-so-white in the smaller, cramped wards.”

He put up his hands to stop any comment I might make. “Just stating facts, not making judgment about how Goethals runs all fifty-thousand employees. In fact, the way he has set it is akin to socialism, and in a way, maybe there's nothing better. But it takes a man like him, a benevolent dictator, sitting in judgment on his subjects in his castle office on Sunday mornings to keep it benevolent.”

This point I well understood.

“I think of the colonel as the three omnis,” Harry said.

“Uh-huh.” I added encouragement to my tone. I'd stopped at the office to learn anything I could about Goethals and Miskimon and Cromwell without looking like that was my intent, which limited any direct questions that might tip my hand.

“Omnipotent. Omniscient. Omnipresent. In the matter of omnipresence, it would be pretty hard to find a hole in the Canal Zone where you could pull off a stunt of any length or importance without the ICC having a weather eye on you. Omnipotent? You need to be careful around him. Those who cross him or his system have landed in the States a week later, much less joyous but far wiser. Omniscient? Goethals has spies everywhere. They have even Chinese secret-service men on the isthmus, and soldiers and marines not infrequently go out in civilian clothes, under sealed orders. There's not a reporter on the isthmus that works unobserved. Even women working for him. And that doesn't cover anything that might be said about the colonel's private gumshoe.”

Ah, so that's where this was going. Thank goodness.

“Miskimon,” I said. “I find him to be a curious man.”

“Well, you're going to end up curious for a while. Nobody knows anything about him. Not even me, and that's saying something. When you going to report for work? Tomorrow, I suppose.”

I nodded.

“And headed to Panama City tonight? Been there before?”

I shook my head. No point in wasting breath trying to talk around him.

“I was just describing that in my notebook yesterday, what it's like going from the Zone to Panama City. Our town, Ancón, is on one sidewalk of the Zone, with policemen like you and me in khaki on patrol, and across the other side of the street, their cops in dark blue and helmets marked the Republic of Panama, ruling their domain of Panama City. Not patrolling though, lounging. I mean, you step across the street you become a foreigner, and plenty try to take advantage of it. Your police badge is worthless tin in Panama, no protection at all. Want maybe that I go with you tonight? As a guide. Sunday nights in Panama City, they are crazy, what with no liquor sales in the Zone.”

“I'll be good.”

“You sure? Seems like you don't speak a lick of Spanish.”

“If I get lost, I'll find someone who speaks English.”

He gave me a doubtful look. “Well then, I hope I see you tomorrow.”

W
hen I stepped back onto the southbound train from Corozal, the passenger car was half-full, with a wide range of passengers, from men and women in near formal attire sitting with anticipation of a Sunday night at fine restaurants, to young men with slicked hair and hopes of impressing a single woman in the city, to the shabbily dressed with slumped shoulders of exhaustion at the end of a workday.

The rail car was clean enough to seem like it just left the factory. It had gleaming varnished seats, painted windowsills with no nicks or gouges, and freshly swept floors.

The ticket man took my paper coupon with no comment, and I moved to the back to find a place to sit. Better to observe than be observed. Hat in my lap, I looked out the window at the slow-moving background of ridges and jungle foliage. I did my best to ignore the sweat that rolled down the skin along the side of my ribs. While I had walk-around cash in a money belt, a roll of bank notes along my lower leg, inside the upper of my left boot, gave reassuring pressure. As did the police badge in the same position inside my right boot.

Thus, I completed the trip across the isthmus that I'd begun at the north terminal of the American Zone, Colón, in the morning. Yes, north. The isthmus was a gooseneck. North was the Atlantic side, and south the Pacific.

From Colón, the train window had shown me the assembly of the giant locks at Gatún. Tracks went past the slow-rising lake created by the dam just west of the locks, surrounded by rich jungle hills, with alligators drifting in the waters on each side of the tracks. The train had stopped at a series of towns, and I had checked each against the folded map I'd taken from the steamer. Bohío, Buena Vista, Frijoles, Tabernilla, Gorgona, and Empire, all north of Culebra. Now, south of Culebra, I was seeing the remaining stops before Ancón: Paraíso, Pedro Miguel, Miraflores, Corozal. All the towns fit into the ten-mile wide by fifty-mile long American Zone. Taking the train was like strolling from neighborhood to neighborhood.

I reached the final American-controlled stop before Panamanian territory: Ancón. Here, the mountains formed a giant half bowl that held Panama City and gave a magnificent view of the Pacific that lapped against the bowl.

It was an hour before sunset, and the sky was of such a blue that it was difficult to see where the ocean met the horizon. With the train slowing, most of the passengers began to make restive movements to jockey for the door.

I was in no hurry.

During my Buffalo Bill years, each new city and each new country would give me enough excitement to blot away the doubts I could never quite escape about my decision to abandon the life that had been carved out for me in the Dakotas and, in so doing, abandon my father. Now homesickness suffocated any curiosity about visiting a foreign city in a foreign land.

I was the last to leave the rail car. Ten steps away, moving with the tail end of the crowd through a turnstile and down a series of steps, I discovered how correct Harry Franck had been about the international boundary from the Zone into Panama, for it involved only the formality of a few paces across a village street.

No flags or border guards marked the transition, yet the crossing was a clear divide. On the uphill side of the streets were the new Zone buildings of the Americans, each window screened against mosquitoes, each building set on luxurious green lawns with sidewalks trimmed of any straggling vegetation. On the downhill side of the street was a blur of old stone buildings with haphazard, low-profile architecture and not a blade of grass in sight.

On the streets in the Zone above me, rules and quiet and orderliness. Below me, a cacophony of chaotic movement. Above me, the dullness of arrogant Americans. Below me, the swarms of Panamanians determined to profit from that arrogance.

Even as I took those first steps out of the Zone, I was assailed. First by an elderly man bellowing an offer for carriage transit and then by a half-dozen children in rags tugging at my shirt. I slapped my pants pocket and barely managed to catch the wrist of a boy the height of my waist who had explored my pocket for valuables.

I raised an eyebrow, and the boy merely shrugged. Since his hand was empty, he hadn't actually committed theft.

I gave the boy a rueful shake of the head, and he gave me a broad smile. That's when I heard a familiar voice speaking Spanish at a rapid pace and with impressive volume.

The rest of the children, including the boy, turned to the voice, and Saffire marched to them.

“I did my best to get to you as soon as I saw you,” Saffire said to me. “Have you lost any valuables? I will make them return anything stolen.”

Experience in places like this kept me from patting my money belt to reassure myself that it was still around my waist. I'd been in cities where pickpockets put up signs to warn of pickpockets, just to watch tourists give that kind of indication. It was no different from the hawks of the Badlands, with their piercing screams from the skies meant to force small animals below to flinch and give away their hiding spots.

“Thanks for your concern. My valuables are safe.”

“I have been waiting and watching for when you might arrive,” she said.

“You knew I would visit the city?”

She shrugged. “Of course.”

“Tonight?”

“That, not so much. But sooner or later.”

Before I could comment, Saffire said, “Give me a moment, please.”

She barked more rapid-fire Spanish at the children. They responded by looking at me, looking back at Saffire, then giving nods.

Saffire gave a wave of her hands, and the children scattered.

“They have been instructed,” Saffire said. “And they will spread the word that the tall cowboy is a friend and must be protected anywhere in the city.” She tugged at my right hand to lead me through the crowd. “You have no worries when you are with me.”

“You are very kind to offer such protection.” I hid my amusement at her earnestness. I'd spent enough time in London to understand that feral children formed their own invisible networks and allegiances. What impressed me was her apparent command of those children.

“I am but returning your kindness to me,” Saffire said. “Remember the book that was a gift for me and my tito?”

“Of course.” I gathered my thoughts and prepared for a slight deception. “I am curious. You mentioned that you want Colonel Goethals to help you with something and he refuses. Perhaps I can help instead.”

“I knew it. I just knew it. You are like the knights in the stories I read. Noble and in pursuit of justice. That's why I was waiting and watching the arrival of each train.”

This would have been the moment to make clear that Saffire's misconception would only disappoint her. I was no knight. I'd given myself forty-eight hours at a maximum to learn what I could to help before I left the isthmus.

But Saffire didn't give me the moment. “She must have been taken somewhere. My mother. Otherwise, she would find me. Wouldn't you say?”

“It would help if I knew more.”

“She left a letter with my tito. In it she wrote that she was going to America with a man and that she would send for me.”

“You don't believe the letter?”

“Of course not. She would never leave me.”

“Is it her handwriting?”

“What does that matter?” Saffire said. “She would never leave me. Nor would she steal from anyone. That is how I know the letter is a lie.”

“Steal?” It was dishonest to pretend I did not know. I felt small.

“There is a man that my tito knows, an American named Cromwell.” Saffire spit. “That man. To hear his servants speak of him—”

“You have spoken to his servants?”

“Of course. To ask about my mother. It was at his ranch where she was last seen, at a gathering of my tito's friends. And this man, Cromwell, he accuses my mother of stealing from him before she fled the country.”

“What do the servants say?”

“They have no answers. It is only the people of money who can tell me about that night. But look at me. Am I someone who can speak to them? Months now, and no one will look for her.”

“What about your father? Does he have questions?”

“My father worked in the early years of the canal. He died of yellow fever when I was a baby.”

Easy to assume that the color of his skin would have had a lot to do with that. Zone policeman number 88 Harry Franck had made that clear. White workers received the best medical attention. Darker workers did not.

“Your relatives?” I asked. “Can they help?”

She was silent.

“Saffire, where do you stay?”

“It is commonly known that I am under the protection of my tito. I stay where I please.”

Although all around me was noise and chaos, in my mind was a horrible vacuum of silence as I had a moment of comprehension.

She caught my mood and stuck out her chin. “It is something I prefer.”

I needed to treat her as an equal, or I would disappoint her. “I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad too that you were waiting for me. If you like, I can go with you to the police in Panama and ask about your mother.”

Again, she spat. “They have been told about the letter. They choose to believe the letter against my word.”

“Then how can I help? If the police won't do anything…”

“You are American. Talk to those who were at the party on the night she didn't return to me. The money people. I can give you their names, and you can ask questions on my behalf. Even tonight you could begin. I will take you to the National Hotel. There is no doubt that some will be there on a Sunday evening. Later in the evening, I can help you find any manner of things that you might want. When Americans leave the Zone, they are like men set free from prison. If you drink, I'll make sure you come to no harm.”

In another hemisphere, my own daughter would fall asleep to the yelps of coyotes. In the morning, she would wake to songs of meadowlarks. But Saffire…such lack of innocence. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hit something or weep. I hid my reaction from her.

“I am a man of solitude, but I would be glad to visit the National. I'm also told that's where I can find the reporter for the
Panama Star & Herald.
Miguel Vasquez.”

“Oh,” Saffire said dismissively. “Him.”

“Him?”

She snorted. “When he gets drunk, he roams the alleys to look for this big woman who will dress him in baby's clothes and cradle him in her arms and sing lullabies to him until he falls asleep.”

“Then it would be wise to spend time with him before he gets drunk.”