The Laughing Falcon (10 page)

The central area of the lodge was open, offering shelves of books, reading chairs, tables for pool and ping-pong, and maps and enlarged nature photographs on the walls. Ralph Johnson was seated by the partially open door of an adjoining room, from which issued a murmur of conversation. Soft squawks were sounding from a CB radio on a shelf.

Johnson pointed her to the dining hall, where, standing by a massive hand-hewed banquet table, a waiter was tending to its lone patron. A red hibiscus was in this woman’s hair, a cigarette in one hand, a half-full glass in the other, a bottle of tonic by it. She beckoned Maggie with a brisk, insistent wave. Maggie recognized her from the glossies: Gloria-May Walker.

“You come right over here, sweetie.”
Riot ovah heah
. “You are the sly one, you are, Maggie Schneider from Saskatoon.” Obviously, she knew about Maggie’s subterfuge. “I’m Glo Walker from the equally odd-named town of Tuscaloosa.” She clasped Maggie’s hand firmly, and drew her into a chair
beside her. “Miguel, don’t just stand there, fetch the lady a damn drink.”

Skinny Miguel looked nervous and confused. She addressed him loudly in pidgin Spanish: “Por favor, una gin and tonic for la señorita.”

“I get.”

Maggie would have preferred a coffee, but Mrs. Walker seemed not the kind of person with whom one argues.

“When I saw you pull in on the tractor, I just knew you were the kind of spunky gal I’d be able to team up with, Maggie. I am head-sore with boredom dealing with all the inflated male egos around here. It’s all dicks and jocks, except for that sweet little college girl – what’s her name, Celeste? – and I am not comfortable with pregnant women. I don’t know why — maybe it’s the unending palaver about the joy of being with child. The whole concept gives me the willies.”

Maggie was not prepared for a personality so forthright, so genially bumptious. She knew that Gloria-May had been raised on an impoverished farm, but it was a farm nonetheless, so she lacked city pretension. She had ambition and intelligence, too: she had earned a college degree after her marriage.

When Miguel brought Maggie’s drink, Gloria-May ordered another for herself. All Maggie could do was sip silently, barely able to breach the torrent of words. “Chester told me everything, about how they were fucking rude to y’all, a famous writer, cancelling your reservation. And how you cleverly outsmarted them.”

“I’m about as famous as a lump of cheese, Mrs. Walker.”

“Glo does fine. And please don’t be modest – that sounds so Canadian, honey. I truly admire what you do, writing romance novels. Serves a fundamental need, the way I look at it. Dick Do-nothing is glued to the couch watching the Rams and Bulls, so you either take a good book to bed or a vibrator.”

“For what it’s worth,
Romance Journal
said my last one started off too hot and went limp.”

“Been there, honey.”

“Can I ask what you and your husband are doing here? Or is that a state secret?”

“We’re
supposed
to be celebrating our seventh anniversary. I told Chester, bring in that writer, someone who works with her head, I’m surrounded by brainless political hacks. Thank the Lord, he’s sending most everyone away. Ever since he announced for president it’s been like a football team following us around. No wonder Chester can barely hoist the flag up the pole.”

Maggie was shocked that she could speak so blithely of her husband’s performance in the conjugal bed. She had always assumed a politician’s spouse would be coyly close-mouthed, but salty-tongued Gloria-May had once been a show dancer in freewheeling, fast-talking Las Vegas. Maggie had trouble envisioning her as the First Lady of the U.S.A.

Gloria-May’s flow of words continued unabated, and Maggie began to enjoy her candour. It was all gals and pals with her, winking and nudging, a continual touching of hands. According to Glo, this sudden budding friendship was predestined: “I know it’s bullshit, but the charts said I’d meet a wonderful new friend this week, and I’ve decided you’re it, so you don’t have a choice.”

“Okay, that’s a good deal; I need someone I can unload a bad night on. You’re going to laugh, and it’s okay.”

Over a lunch of fruit salad and fresh-baked bread, Maggie described her encounter with Pablo Esquivel. Gloria-May at first reacted with sympathy, then, having guessed the end, with a cynical, knowing smile. Warming to her account, Maggie began smiling, too, and played to Glo’s obvious bent for comedy with her imitations of Esquivel. She mimicked a husky male voice: “Friday is too long — too long to wait.”

Glo was inhaling from a cigarette as she started to laugh, and had to cough and wave the smoke away. With this telling, Maggie felt a lifting, a freeing; venting was curative.

“There’s a saying where I come from: When a good girl gets bad luck, good luck finds her. Give me that again, sweetie, when you asked to pay for the drinks.”

“He said, ‘I would not dream of it.’ ”

Glo laughed even more heartily. “ ‘It’s not safe for a woman alone’ – you have to like a guy with a sense of humour. Honey, I’ll tell you what would have most riled me – not getting laid for my eight hundred bucks.”

Maggie laughed — it felt good — but fell silent when a squad of mostly overweight men filed in, flanked by Ralph Johnson and the other Secret Service agent, a burly fellow applying a handkerchief to a runny nose. In the lead, and looking born to the position, was Senator Chester Walker. In his early sixties – older than his spouse by about thirty years – he had a face carved from the granite hills and a camera-ready smile. For one who had trouble hoisting up the flag, he looked virile enough to Maggie.

He gave Glo a gentle shoulder squeeze. “Having a good time, I like that.”

“I’m glad you approve, Chester.”

When Glo introduced Maggie, he said, “Canadian, eh?” Maggie laughed with him, dutifully. “A fine country, America’s best friend in a dangerous world. Been up your way several times — don’t want the folks of South Dakota to know, but you Canucks have some fantastic duck hunting. Well, you two gals seem to be getting on like a house on fire.”

He bent to Gloria-May’s cheek, kissed it, and whispered in her ear. Glo seemed not to care if anyone heard her response. “I’m
not
going to get sloshed.”

Walker’s face seemed to set in cement for a moment; then he turned to Maggie with a forced chuckle. “The bride and I have
a few plans tonight to celebrate our anniversary. I want her on her toes.” He winked. “So to speak.” He led his team to the bar, ordering refreshments from Miguel in excellent Spanish.

Just as the orientation slide show was about to begin, Maggie was drawn aside by a thickset, almost neckless man gripping a video camera, who introduced himself as Clayton Boyer, media relations: another Southerner. He was genially forgiving about Maggie having intruded upon this gathering.

“That’s what I call grit. Now, if the truth be known, Maggie, we’re more than happy to have you here. In fact, I have an offer I want you to ponder. I understand you’ve done some magazine writing, and I think we can arrange something with one of the better women’s magazines. A light piece, human interest. How a romance writer stumbled onto Chuck and Gloria-May’s seventh anniversary.”

There was no question: they were having a problem earning mileage from Walker’s Costa Rican pilgrimage. He had been keynote speaker at a conference on terrorism, after which most of the media deserted him. But there could be a hitch to this offer: they would want Walker’s buckles and badges to shine on the page.

“And when did the inspiration for this idea strike?”

“Your fortuitous — and may I say attractive — presence among us today brought it to mind.”

She was sure they had given the matter more thought than that. “I’m not going to write a three-thousand-word commercial – I’d expect a free hand.” Would they wish her to tone down his wife?

“Absolute integrity, that’s our aim, nothing censored. Not asking you to glamourize him, Chuck doesn’t work that way, he believes in telling it like it is – that’s the thrust of his whole damn campaign. Could net you six or seven thousand for a week’s work. Circulation five million.”

Across the room, Senator Walker was glancing at her while talking with his campaign manager, Orvil Schumenbacker. They seemed to be awaiting her reaction. Walker smiled at her, she smiled back; he gave her a snappy salute.

Boyer seemed insistent on writing the article for her. “You’re down here searching for a plot for your next romantic novel and stumble onto the Walkers’ romantic escape to paradise. Here’s a soldier going off to war for the presidency but thoughtful enough to first reward his wife with a tropical holiday.”

“You must have connections with this magazine.”

“Let’s say the publisher is not entirely in the camp of the enemy.”

Maggie found his war-like metaphors grating, but the magazine he named was in every supermarket. “Okay, it could be a good story; I’ll do it.”

“Excellent. We’ll have a chance to sit down together and work some ideas out.”

Despite Boyer’s keenness to orchestrate the desired spin, she was elated; she would actually turn a profit from her expensive holiday. When a good girl gets bad luck, good luck finds her.

The sound of rotor blades drowned further conversation. From the window, she watched the second helicopter lift off, bearing away more of the senator’s entourage. Only two Secret Service agents remained and two aides: Boyer and Schumenbacker, the walrus-sized campaign manager.

Suddenly, the entire building seemed to move; the roof was rattling — and then just as abruptly all was still. “Just a little
temblor
, folks,” said Jan Nieuwendoork. “Nothing to worry about.”

Jan’s orientation lecture previewed their midday hike to the waterfall – “I advise you to wear your bathing suits.” Maggie
was looking forward to it, already in her walking shoes, her camera and bird guide in hand, but Boyer and Schumenbacker seemed exhausted merely from watching the slides and begged off going.

The trail was well-kept but gruelling, three switchback kilometres up the Savegre valley; Maggie had readied herself for wilderness hiking – by bicycling until first snowfall and taking long Sunday treks with her fellow birders. Surprisingly, Gloria-May had little difficulty keeping pace despite having consumed four gins with her lunch. Chuck Walker was in excellent condition, too, though he seemed distracted, observing little around him and moving as if on a forced march to a new jungle base. His two Secret Service men were at his heels. An assistant tour guide was far behind with the AP reporter, Ed Creeley, a slow-walking heavy smoker.

With Jan’s help, Maggie was able to make several entries in the margins of her bird book, a Kiskadee, an Antshrike; she photographed a Long-Tailed Motmot from only three metres away.
Not timid, enjoys showing off its clothes
. She saw mammals, too: a pair of spider monkeys resting in a tree, a family of coatis – or
pizotes
, as they were called locally – scampering through the undergrowth. Jan pointed to several small pies on the road that looked like pigs’ droppings.

“White-collared peccaries,” Jan said. “But if they were near, we would smell them and we would be looking for trees to climb – they have sharp teeth, but can’t raise their heads very high.” Jan’s information was often not reassuring.

The trail ended at the waterfall, a scene that might have been lifted from a Disney cartoon: sun sparkling on a pool hollowed out by a twenty-metre cascade roaring down a sheer rock wall, Rough-Winged Swallows chasing white and yellow butterflies that spiralled and swooped above the mist.

“Isn’t this beautiful, Glo,” Walker said, his hand on her shoulder. She squeezed it, then stripped off her sweaty shirt.
Not much was hidden behind a string bikini top; the senator looked almost shocked at her choice of swimwear. “Pretty as a picture, and so are you, darling.”

“You sweet-talker, you.” She kissed him lingeringly on the lips. Maggie caught the moment with her camera: the magazine might pay a handsome bonus for such a cover shot. A discriminating reader would gag at the dialogue, however: Walker’s words had sounded forced, stagey. Now he was on his knees, helping Gloria-May untie a knot in her laces.

Maggie heard a whisper at her ear. “What a couple of ham actors.” It was Ed Creeley, the AP reporter, who had finally straggled in, puffing, his bristly face sheened with sweat. Maggie had gathered from earlier cynical comments that he disliked the Walkers.

All she desired right now was a swim in that natural pool. She was the first to jump in — with a flailing splash — and the first to the waterfall. She held on to a rock, exhilarated by the cold pour upon her head, and watched the colonel and his consort toe the water, then slip hand in hand into the pool.

After they had all emerged dripping to dry in the sun, Glo joined Maggie: “Look at the zucchini in that guy’s front pocket,” referring to a protrusion in a pair of Secret Service swimming trunks. Everyone else was striving not to stare at the former showgirl in her daring bikini. Maggie felt almost invisible beside her.

After dinner, Maggie was smearing aloe on her legs when Glo barged into the Jungle House with a bottle of tequila and a bag of sliced lemons. “It’s gals’ night out. I didn’t quite make it onto Chester’s busy agenda. He’s with his fellow athletes, huddling or scrimmaging or whatever they do at their circle jerks. Anyway, I’m so worn out I could fall asleep having an orgasm.”

Maggie accepted Glo’s kiss, then slipped her night dress on over her bra and briefs – growing up with three older brothers had instilled in her a lifelong modesty. “I could use something for the pain.” The backs of her thighs were so pink she could sit on them only delicately, and her knees were sore from the climbs.

They poured drinks; Maggie raised her glass. “To your seventh anniversary.”

“Its highlight was a rumble in a restaurant. I have a funny story, but don’t tell that poor critter working for Associated Press. It’s bad media for Chester.”

This was the episode Maggie had heard about in Quepos. She winced as Glo described a ridiculous set-to in which the strength of three Secret Service men had been called upon to subdue Jacques Cardinal.