The Cain File (16 page)

“That’s your good news?” Kacha said, a little angry. “Now I just
know
I have to do something to help her.”

“Sit tight,” Maggie said. “Please.” She didn’t want Kacha getting her hopes up.

“No,” Kacha said bitterly. “I’m going to check all the prisons. I don’t care what happens. She’s my cousin. You sit there in your safe country, keep your secrets to yourself. I helped you!”

“Listen,” Maggie said. “I told you I’m going to straighten this out. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

There was a pause while a car honked somewhere in Quito. “How?” Kacha said, desperation creeping into her voice. “
How
?”

“Give me twenty-four hours,” Maggie said. By then she would be in South America. “I’ll call you. Is it safe to call you there—at the number you’re at now?”

“Yes, it’s on the Plaza . . .”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Maggie said, shutting her up, although anyone who traced the number could find out—eventually. “Be there tomorrow, this time. Does that work?”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, be there in forty-eight hours. If not forty-eight, then seventy-two. But I
will
call you at some point. Do you understand?”

There was a pause. “Are you coming here?”

“I can’t say. Got it now?”

Now there was a long pause. “Yes.”

“In the meantime, if you go down to the Western Union on Mariscal Sucre tomorrow, there’ll be a letter waiting for you from your
norteamericana
auntie Ofelia Ruiz. Bring proper ID, so you can collect it, hmm?”

“
Que weno!
” Kacha said, her voice breaking. “Please thank her.”

“There is a condition to your auntie’s generosity, however. No more extracurricular work for your sister. She raises her baby, while you find a proper place for you to live. No more quick dates with men in the bushes.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem. Not at all.”

“Things will be up in the air for a while. Stay tough,
chica
.
Añaychayki.”

“
Imamanta,
”
Kacha said.

Maggie said goodbye and clicked off the phone. She walked over to the trash bin overflowing with garbage and shoved the cell phone into a rancid milk carton sticking out.

She wondered what the normal people were doing, then looked over at the man in the sleeping bag.

What normal people?

You’re the one who told me to take some time off
, Maggie typed.

Ed’s response was quick.
A day. Or two.

She sat at the computer in her home office, poised over the keyboard, wearing her beat-up denim jacket over a red turtleneck sweater, faded bellbottom jeans, and Doc Marten shoes. Her scruffy Swiss Army rucksack, with its shock-absorbing laptop compartment, sat by the side of her chair, with a change of shirt, socks, and underwear, cosmetic bag, air sickness pills, all ready to go.
Back by the weekend. I need to take that vacation time stacked up anyway. I’m already at the max and losing it.

There was a pause while the chat window flickered.
Fair enough
, Ed typed.
But this better not be time off for job interviews. I need to be the first to know before you jump ship and snag a slot with some high-paying multi-national.

Going up to Lake Tahoe,
Maggie typed.
Decompress.
Go off the grid for a while.
As if she could ever do that. Even so, she didn’t feel good, lying to Ed.

Just be back at work by Monday
, Ed replied.

Plenty of time, she thought.

Maggie shut down her MacBook, stuffed it in the padded compartment, zipped up her bag, and stood up. Hands on her hips, she leaned back, cracking out her spine. She did a quick walk-through of her flat, making sure everything was turned off, thermostat down, windows shut. She cleared a few items in the sink, put them in the dishwasher, and set it to run. She walked over to the bay window in the living room and scanned Valencia Street. Early-morning San Francisco. Late-model luxury cars, the young and prosperous in hoodies, trendy clothes and flip-flops, heading to work at startups with laptop bags slung over their shoulders, sipping cups of Peet’s from the place on the corner.

In a few short hours she’d be close to the equator once more. Life was more immediate down there and people lived closer to the ground, struggling just to survive. Kacha. Maggie’s mother, bless her soul. Maggie thought again about Tica, in a prison outside Quito. A girl she’d never met, sixteen years old, already faced with the worst life had to offer. But a symbol for something bigger.

And then there was Beltran. And Comrade Cain of Cosecha Severa—Grim Harvest.

OK, so she was uneasy, too. But what was that phrase that kept coming up?

A milk run. That was it.

A yellow cab pulled up on Valencia outside her apartment building and double parked. A man in a turban hopped out and came jogging up to her front door in orange sneakers.

Maggie drew the blinds, grabbed her bag, locked the office, set the alarm, engaged the two deadbolts to her apartment. There hadn’t been time to get the lock changed. When she got back. Hopefully, Seb had truly lost the key. She’d been ignoring his texts. And would continue to do so. She was leaving her phone behind.

On the way downstairs she knocked on Señora Rosario’s door.

Slippered feet shuffled up on the other side of the door. “
Sí?
”

“It’s only me,” Maggie whispered in Spanish.

“Is that
pendejo
Sebastian bothering you again, Magdalena?”

“Not today,” Maggie said. “Just wanted to let you know I’ll be off for a few days again. So if you see any moving men leaving with all my possessions, you’ll know something is up.”

“Ai. Be careful.”

“I will. Thanks for keeping an eye out.”

“You know it. Go with God.”

“You too,” Maggie said.

In the cab the driver—the man posing as a cab driver—handed Maggie a sealed envelope over the seat without looking back as he negotiated the Mission’s already crowded streets and got onto 101 South. Inside the envelope, Maggie found a coach ticket to Bogotá, a U.S. passport under the alias of Alice Mendes, a Commerce Oil company badge for same, and a stack of used U.S. currency and a smaller one of Colombian pesos. Ecuador used U.S. currency, so she was fine if she wound up there.

The cabbie didn’t look at her in the rearview mirror, didn’t say a word, didn’t collect a fare. He dropped her off at SFO’s international terminal and left as quietly as he came.

“What do you mean you’re out of vodka, sweetheart?” Maggie heard John Rae say to the flight attendant a few rows up from her in the packed 777. “Isn’t this an international flight?”

She sat in the last row where she enjoyed the constant stream of passengers using the airplane lavatory. The middle-aged flight attendant behind the trolley cast a frown down at John Rae, sitting in an aisle seat. Her heavily sprayed blonde coif moved in one section when she did that. “An international flight
in coach
,” she said.

“Got
anything
with alcohol in it?” John Rae said.

“At nine in the morning?”

“Just give me what the pilots are drinking for breakfast.”

The attendant clanked bottles as she checked her supplies. “I have Jim Beam.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so, darlin’?” Maggie saw John Rae hold up two fingers. “Better make it a double. Might be my last chance until Bogotá.”

“Enjoy your deregulated breakfast in a bag, hotdog.” The flight attendant tossed a bag of peanuts at John Rae after setting him up with liquor. He caught the nuts on the fly and flipped them over to his other hand.  

John Rae was playing the good old boy again, pretending to be the kind of guy who chugged RC Cola and ate moon pies.  His hair was back under a black ball cap. He wore light-tinted sunglasses and needed a shave. All of this helped tone down his Anglo characteristics. Once through customs, the two of them would look like a couple of hipster vagabonds off on a South American adventure. Maggie found herself studying the line to John Rae’s jaw from her aisle seat. He looked like Brad Pitt in
Thelma and Louise
. And he knew it.

The toilet flushed through the wall behind her with a whoosh of suction. Ambience. But traveling coach was low profile. So much for Jayne Bond.

Out the oval window morning skies shimmered over the Gulf of Mexico.

A backup plan, she thought. Never leave home without it. Belt and suspenders. The heart of an accountant.

Maggie got up from her seat, worked her way up to John Rae’s row, where he was sipping his drink. He looked up at her, caught her sly smile.

She gave him a wicked wink, nodded imperceptibly back to where the bathrooms were. John Rae’s brief stare confirmed that he understood. Then he went back to his drinking.

Maggie headed back to one of the two toilets, let herself in. Locked the door. Waited. Leaning back against the sink. Picked a piece of lint off her jeans. Finally, she heard a light knock on the lavatory door.

“Avon calling,” John Rae whispered.

She reached over, unlatched the door.

John Rae let himself through the accordion-style door, squeezed in, shut it, locked it. Turned to face Maggie. He was wearing a beat-up pigskin jacket. “I never would have taken you for the Mile High Club, Maggie.”

“In your dreams.”

John Rae shrugged. “Story of my life.”

“Spare me.”

“I’m glad you made contact. I was planning on doing the same. I need to talk to you. Before we land.”

“OK,” she said. “What about?”

“That emergency contact number? Should have been in your little packet from Sinclair?”

She recited the number back to him.

“Not just a pretty face. But it’s too bad you wasted your time learning it.”

“Really? And why is that?”

“Because if something
does
go wrong, Maggie, on this op, which it won’t, but if it does, then you’re to hightail it out of town. Pure and simple. No heroics this time. Get out of Denver, baby, go. No looking back. Just get out anyway you can. No calling
anybody
, not even an emergency contact. Got that? Vamoose. That goat-truck thing you pulled in Ecuador? Gives me the confidence knowing you can do an encore. But you won’t. Just go to the airport, buy a ticket, come back. No fussing around. Do I make myself clear?”

She blinked in mild confusion. “Yes, but the instructions clearly say to call . . .”

John Rae shook his head. “This piddly little op, which amounts to paying off some
terruco
so a dirty Ecuadorian oil minister gets to live another day, isn’t worth worrying about if we hit a snag. Which we won’t. I already feel iffy about you coming along, but you insisted, so if anything does go wrong—which it won’t—you are to
promise
me that you’ll turn around, make like a banana, and split. OK?”

“No. Because the instructions are to call that 866 number.”

“Look, I’m a big fan of what I say goes. And it’s telling me this. So I’m telling you.”

Maggie nodded. “So
that’s
how you do it in the big leagues. Bail at the first snag.”

“Just promise me. I have my reasons.”

“Reasons that boil down to you treating me like your kid sister.”

“Doesn’t matter. Once the op starts, it’s Johnny’s way,” he said, pointing to his chest. “Am I in charge or not?”

“You know, I actually think Sinclair Michaels is.”

John Rae fanned that away. “Oh, sure. But Sincs is sitting on his derriere, sipping a few fingers of Kentucky mash right now. I’ve done a shipload of these payoff runs and it won’t be an issue. But if it is, I don’t want you risking your neck. I say we bail if things get funny in
any
way, any way
at all
. Cool with you,
chica
? Did I say that right? Without sounding like a sexist pig?”

“You’re being overprotective. Because I insisted on coming along. Because I’m a woman. You’re worried. That’s sweet. But that’s actually pretty sexist, too, you know.”

“Well, you know what I say to that? Johnny’s way.”

“
Johnny’s way
? Seriously? I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with a grown man in an airplane lav.”

“
Something funny—run like a bunny.
”

“Wow. Sesame Street for field operatives. Are you
expecting
something funny to happen,
Johnny
?”

“Jesus Christ in a hammock, Maggie, Haven’t you heard a word I’m saying? No. No, I’m not expecting anything but a clean payoff. But I don’t tell you how to move a zillion bucks around. You don’t tell me how to be a kick-ass field op.”

“You’re a cowboy.”

“Now you’re gettin’ it.”

A pretty sweet cowboy, she thought. But still. Never mind. Business. There were a number of body parts touching. She couldn’t help but feel the heat coming off of him.

John Rae raised his eyebrows. “I could have pushed back on you coming along, you know.”

“Maybe.”

“So just do it.”

“If you say so,” she said.

“Yeah, I do. I did. And now I feel better. When it all comes down to it, this is just government work, like delivering the mail. And there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist over something like that.”

“I actually think the mail is pretty important.”

“It is. But if the mail doesn’t show up today, it shows up tomorrow. Anyway, you promised me. So we’re good.”

“OK, now let me tell you how we do it
chez
Maggie.” She produced a folded-up piece of paper between her two fingers, proffered it. “It’s called belt and suspenders.”

John Rae gave a grin. “You’re wearing stockings and suspenders under those jeans?”

“So sad.” She shook her head. “No, it’s my contact info on a site called Frenesi. Take it.”

John Rae took the paper, opened it, read it.

Then he looked up. “IceLady69?”

“It’s a dating site,” she said. “A place to leave messages for each other as a last resort. You need to be a little creative with your handle, but I think you can actually do it. Pick a name. Sign up. Ping me. You got your phone with you, right?”