The Laughing Falcon (53 page)

Slack went to the main room to greet Ham, who hadn’t bothered to knock. There was no front door, anyway, Slack hadn’t yet replaced the one Walker’s Rangers rocket-launched off its hinges.

“Wonders never cease, we caught him sober.”

Slack was miffed at that, the old man would choke on it before he would ever give him credit. Ham handed him a bundle of newspapers and letters, also a sealed document, a subpoena for Walker’s impeachment hearings.

Frank was still standing outside, helping Theodore unload the van. Frank had Tico manners, you don’t enter someone’s house until asked. Slack didn’t usher him in right away, drew him out of earshot of Theodore. Slack was curious about the sudden warming of the climate between Sierra and Minister Castillo, suspected their earlier iciness had been feigned.

“Did you get the job, Frank?”

“Minister Castillo will indeed be seeking a director of criminal investigations. I have been approached.”

“He’s a smart politician, I take off my hat.” Slack had insisted Frank was the true hero of the saga, all Costa Rica loved the polite private eye. “Tell me privately, Frank, as a pal — were you reporting all our little secrets to Castillo?”

“A brilliant deduction, my good friend. I’m afraid so, but I did so with discretion and my own firm advice.”

“What kind of advice?”

“For instance, insisting to the minister that I should be at your side in Limón.”

All along, the top Ticos knew what was going down, they had been content to stand by and watch the superpower fumble. Doubtless, they also ensured the press turned up at vital occasions. Whether Frank wanted a hug or not, he got one, then Slack led him in with an arm around his shoulders.

Slack wasn’t embarrassed by his house, the floors were shining, he had painted all the walls white, a labour of love, the garish colours had made him ill. Ham had found his way into a hammock, he was pulling out a Churchill. “The indictment came down. Conspiracy to kidnap and murder.” They’d have to kidnap Slack, or at least videotape him, he would not go willingly to Washington.

Slack looked through the papers Ham brought. The senator had turned himself in, got bailed in two hours, didn’t avoid the press. He was prepared to answer Elmer Jericho’s vicious perjuries, he would continue his campaign, he was a soldier.

Ham lit up, but Slack ignored him, another newspaper front page had caught his eye, a London tabloid, the
Mirror
, a front page photo, apparently bought for a considerable sum through an unnamed go-between – Gloria-May and Halcón embracing, she in a sarong, a straw hat set jauntily on Halcón’s head. Inside, more copyright photos, the couple dancing, enjoying a glass of wine. Negotiations were underway, through this same agent, for rights to an interview. Johnny Diego, ever the capitalist, knew fame turns a profit, he was not likely to be easily enticed from his lair by the lure of forgiveness.

“What’s the damn bird that’s making a racket?” said Theodore, who had just come in, hauling a freezer box, food supplies.

“Laughing Falcon. If you hear the full
guaco
they say it’s going to rain.” Slack didn’t mind the rain, he liked its sadness, it inspired him.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a beer hanging around here.”

“I’m staying on the straight, Ham.”

“Good for you.” He had to dig down to come up, finally, with a compliment. “You did a damn fine job, Jacques.”

His guests stayed too long, there was much to reminisce about, but Frank remembered he had a meeting in Quepos with an important client. It was four o’clock, Slack just had time for his planned trek into the hills to site zip line locations. It had rained hard in the afternoon, the
guaco’s
fulfilled promise, but the sky was clearing to the west. He pulled on boots and laced them, grabbed his machete, he would try to finish the trail he was cutting to the top of his wooded mountain.

Outside, he could hear the river’s hiss, the distant grumblings of howlers announcing the coming of evening. No squatter clamour jarred the ears, no
rancheras
, no barking dogs. He had bought peace. Why should he not find, here at the Darkside, at least a close counterfeit of happiness?

He unlatched the fence gate and swung it open, crossed the road, and began to trudge up his narrow switchback trail, under the canopy. An evening breeze blew the mists away and the sun broke free, sending spikes of light through the trees.

An hour and a half of sweaty climbing brought him to a rocky buttress hanging over a scree, an old slide, and almost without warning the view opened up before him. He saw the Río Naranjo slithering through the jungle, saw his little clearing, mist purling around his new home, his forest gleaming green and gold. Beyond, the trees thinned to farmland and town, he could see the hills of Manuel Antonio, the ocean glinting under the lowering sun. A convoy of egrets passed below, stark white against the darkening green forest.

Here was what was left of beauty, a glut of it, an extravagance he longed to share. But that would not be, and he felt empty and forsaken as he watched the sky flame out with a bright emerald spark, the green flash that only lovers see.

M
aggie was begrimed and sweaty from her long drive from San José, and the sun had set by the time she pulled up at the Darkside. She expected Jacques would hear her long before he saw her — the muffler of her rented Lada had loosened on the rocky road from Londres.

She was surprised to see the gate open – Frank Sierra had told her Slack was discouraging visitors. She was to have met Frank today in Quepos — an appointment hastily made long-distance from Saskatoon – but as chance would have it, bumped into him at a gas station, along with Hamilton Bakerfield and his driver. They were on their way back from seeing Jacques. Yes, they confessed, he is staying at the Darkside. Jacques had purchased it!

She had arrived in Costa Rica with no idea how to locate him; Frank Sierra had been reluctant to talk on the phone. Earlier, she had dialled Slack’s cell-phone number only to find he had sold his phone.

As she pulled into the grounds, she was welcomed by the rich aroma of angels’ trumpets, the flowers that bloom in the night. Memories came like shock waves: picking oranges while astride Halcón’s shoulders, Glo dancing on the patio to Buho’s sad strumming, the trail to the Naranjo and its scenes of love and tears and of bold flight down its rapids.

An old Land Rover was parked by the
pila
. Not a house light was on, and the door was wide open – then she remembered that Frank had told her Slack had yet to replace it. She was nervous about intruding unannounced: Frank had cautioned that Slack was thriving artistically in isolation. “He said he is repining. It is when he writes the best.”

She doubted he could be asleep, not with the throaty growling of engine outside his unshuttered windows. She turned off the ignition and lights and waited in the darkness – there came no sign of stirring from within. Nor was response elicited when she knocked over a chair on her way to the door, or when she called out, “Jacques, it’s me. Maggie.”

She clicked on the front light. The house was clean but cluttered. The walls were white;
Star Trek
posters had been traded for art, prints by Mamaya, an original oil by the same artist. She strolled about the living room, picking up newspapers, books, straightening papers. On a table were engineering designs, charts with figures, elevations, a sketch of a tower with guy wires.

The bed was gone from the downstairs bedroom, replaced by a wide desk featuring an old upright typewriter. She felt somehow dismayed at seeing the hill of balled-up foolscap overflowing from the wastebasket. She unfolded one, a single line: “Love is the flower that unfurls unseen in the tropical night.” She smoothed out another, a draft, words crossed out, pencilled interlinings. The breeze had tossed other, cleaner pages to the floor. She picked one up:

There was more than a tinge of loneliness to this, a surrendering to silence. He was repining, Frank said, depressed.
She had a horrible, though momentary, vision of him hanging from a ceiling fixture upstairs. That was laughable: he was a round-the-clock worrier, but he was hardly suicidal.

She rushed upstairs anyway. No body in either bedroom. His clothes were in the front-facing one; she wondered if she could persuade him to move — this was
her
room. Now that she was here, he might appreciate the other, with its bigger bed.

In the bathroom, on a stand by the toilet, was an open magazine, a Greenpeace publication: how to raise whole-earth consciousness. That did not fit with the notion of a man in complete despair, nor did the fact he was involved in complex outdoors project. He was probably out in the weather with a flashlight, or he had walked to town, visited a friend.

Maggie lugged in her two suitcases, flight bag, and laptop, then showered, wrapped herself in a robe, and nestled herself into the deep belly of her favourite hammock. She read for a while, the newspaper, a novel. It began to rain, a thrumming increasing in intensity, a powerful pour before it slackened and beat a gentle rhythm on the roof. Maggie’s book dropped open on her lap as her eyes closed.

It was about midnight when a bellowing voice awakened her: “Am I never to be left in peace?”

Maggie pulled the side of the hammock down, peered over it, saw the six-foot-five frame of Jacques Cardinal filling the doorway, scowling, water dripping from his face. Recognizing his guest, he gaped at her, lost for words.

“Loosen up, I’m a friendly. Where were you, Jacques? You’re soaked to the skin.”

“Forgot my … my flashlight.”

He was such a sorry sight that she could not suppress laughter. “Wait, I’ll bring some towels.”

When she returned with them, he was on the stoop hauling off his boots. “Sorry, Maggie, I had no idea – I saw the rented car; I thought it was a reporter.”

“What were you doing out there?”

“Catching a sunset. Thought for a while it was going to be my last – I went the wrong way down the mountain.” He was looking at her two suitcases and the laptop. “I thought you were locking yourself in a room and throwing away the key.”

“Writer’s block. I’ll make something hot.” Canned soup in a pinch.

They ate at the kitchen counter, sitting side by side on stools. Slack had showered and shaved, too hurriedly from the nick on his chin. She explained how she had tracked him down.

“I get it. You were Frank’s important client. He could have warned me.”

“I told him I wanted to talk to him first, find out how you were doing.”

“And what did he say?”

“Creative, gloomy, and sober.”

He seemed to relax; finally there came his face-puckering smile. “As it happens, I’m in the throes of composing something for you.”

“I’m honoured.” She did not want to tell him she had snooped.
She has made of life a silence
. She was prepared to argue that he was the one who had been silent, cutting himself off this way, not even a postcard.

But now both were silent, attacking their soup and tortillas. Slack finally laid down his spoon, turned to her. “What’s going on here, Maggie? Enlighten me.”

“You didn’t get my letter? It was a long one, some magazine articles and photos.”

“Fifty per cent of fat envelopes might make it through the post office.”

“Oh, God. That was my speech. You’re not prepared for me.”