Guardian of Lies

FIFTY-THREE

He stepped away for a moment.” The interpreter looked at Alim as he held the satellite phone away from his ear.

“Are you still in contact with the Mexican?” said Alim, talking about Liquida.

“Yes, by e-mail, to different addresses each time.”

“Good. Then send him an e-mail and tell him that if he wants his money, he’s going to have to meet us in Tijuana, just south of the American border. That’s his home. He should feel safe there. Tell him we are going to pay him in gold and narcotics, which will explain why we are not wiring the funds. Because it is not in cash, we will be giving him a significant increase over the market value of these commodities. Tell him you are surprised because we have never offered this to anyone before. Give him the location of the warehouse and say the meeting will be tomorrow afternoon. We are scheduled to arrive in the port about noon, so tell him we will meet at four o’clock sharp. Tell him not to be late.”

“He’s back.” The interpreter put the phone to his ear again. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said to the person at the other end. “We are sending a fax from the bridge in just a few minutes. We have the fax number for your cargo-container broker at Puntarenas. You have arranged everything with him, correct?” The interpreter waited.

“Good. Then in our fax we will give him the name of the ship, the registered number on the cargo container, and our estimated time of arrival at Ensenada. The contents of the container will be listed as machine parts. The broker will prepare the necessary customs documents and transmit them to Mexican customs at Ensenada. Here’s the information. Write it down. We want you to have it so you can follow up. And make sure he does it today. Immediately. It is critical.” The interpreter read the information over the phone and waited while it was read back to him.

“That’s correct.”

Alim whispered to the interpreter, “Tell him we are going to send him a separate copy of the fax, that way he will have a reminder. We can afford to take no chances on this.”

If the documents did not arrive on time, Mexican customs would throw a blanket over the cargo and do a thorough search of the container, including the shielded warhead case inside. If that happened, Alim’s mission would be over, and the gamma radiation shriveling the testicles of the customs officers would assure that they would have no more children.

“Listen, the extra service at this end, cleaning up your Mexican’s mess, is going to cost quite a bit more,” said Goudaz. He had already figured in the thirty-thousand-dollar kickback he would be getting from the cargo broker at Puntarenas.

“Since you’re stopping payment on his services, you should have no difficulty paying the surcharge on mine.” He quoted them an additional seventy-five thousand dollars. After all it was only money, and who knew when an opportunity like this would come again. What he got was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Tell you what, let’s round up and make it an even hundred thousand,” said Goudaz. “By the way, I thought you’d like to know, I heard the lawyer and his friend talking. They were wondering just how big your bomb is, how much radioactive fallout something like that might produce. Given that I’m going to have to keep the lid on this until you’re done, I would think my fee is worth it.”

Ordinarily the nature of the cargo would be beyond the purview of the mayor. His business was simply providing municipal services. But in this case, Maricela and the lawyer had given him some extra leverage, and Goudaz was never one to ignore a gift.

“I knew you’d understand,” said Goudaz. “Yes, yes, you can send it by wire transfer to the same numbered account. I wouldn’t wait. I’d do it now, this afternoon. That will give me something to think about so I don’t forget to follow up with the broker. Good. Excellent. Well, listen, good luck. And take care now.” He hung up the phone, clapped his hands, and laughed as he did a little jig around his desk chair.

He carried the dance into the kitchen where he punched the button on the electric hot water kettle on the countertop and got out the French press for a cup of coffee. Goudaz was turning toward the small pantry to grab the bottle of amaretto from the top shelf when he came face-to-face with a man he didn’t know.

Before the mayor could even think, Liquida went in through the stomach, piercing the diaphragm. He wiggled the needle-sharp point of the dagger up inside the right-lower chamber of Larry’s heart.

“So you cleaned up the Mexican’s mess,” whispered Liquida.

Goudaz stared back through bulging eyes.

“Wile E. Coyote, huh? Well, beep beep, asshole!” Liquida pushed hard on the handle of the knife and moved it around until he found what he wanted. Blood gushed from the severed aorta as the mayor flopped to the ground.

“The only mess I see is the one on your kitchen floor.” Liquida’s brain bristled with thoughts of revenge, a growing list that started with the Arab for his arrogance and ended with the lawyer who had interfered to save the woman from the fiery house. He remembered the black man, the big one at the door to the house, and the other one, the shadowy figure at the corner, the one he had tried to find on the street that night.

“So that’s who it was.” Liquida spoke out loud to himself.

He remembered sitting on the broad avenue outside the lawyer’s office and seeing his name in the papers-Madriani. He remembered it as something almost musical. But now emotions of fury consumed him, especially the thought that perhaps he had also meddled in the bus ambush to save the woman’s daughter.

Liquida leaned over and picked through Goudaz’s pockets until he found his apartment key. Then he stepped around the body, quickly washed the blood off his hands, and cleaned the dagger at the sink. He dried his hands before he picked up the note with the shipping information that the mayor had laid by the kettle on the countertop. Liquida was still reading the note when he heard the metal gate rattle downstairs.

Herman uses Goudaz’s spare key to let us in. We have decided to pack up, grab Maricela, and find other accommodations until we can decide where we’re going. With the new passports we can start staying in hotels again as long as we use cash. We climb the steps to the apartment. Herman uses the other key to open Goudaz’s door.

“It’s just us,” Herman shouts as I close the door behind us.

“We need to go up and get our stuff together,” I tell him.

“You think we ought to tell Maricela so she can get ready?” Herman and I are whispering in the entry area.

“We’ll tell her just before we go. I don’t want her talking to Goudaz about it. He may try and convince her not to go with us.”

Herman nods. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Probably in his study.” I head down the hall to tell the mayor that everything went well with the passports, but nobody is there.

“Paul! Get out here.” Herman’s voice from the other room tells me something is wrong.

By the time I get to the kitchen, all I see is Herman’s hulking frame standing there looking down at something on the floor. I don’t see the blood or Goudaz’s body until I come through the door.

“Ain’t no sense checking for a pulse,” says Herman. “Look at his eyes.” Herman slowly backs away from the body and edges over toward one of the drawers near the sink. He slides the drawer open and reaches in, his eyes constantly scanning the two doors leading into the kitchen. He takes a quick glance down at the open drawer and grabs a large butcher knife. He hands me another sharp blade.

“Let’s check the rooms,” he says. “Stay together. If he jumps me, use the knife, put it in him deep, as many times as you can-and don’t hesitate. Can you do it?”

I nod.

It takes us several minutes, moving cautiously from room to room, to clear the apartment. Whoever killed Goudaz is gone, and so is Maricela. There is no sign of her, and no note.

“You think he might have taken her?” says Herman.

“Why would he take her now if he tried to kill her before? It doesn’t make sense. He could have dumped her body someplace else.”

The thought hits us both at the same moment. We break for the door.

I stop to grab the key from the hook as Herman runs ahead of me up the steps to the other apartment. With blood and a dead body on the floor, I lock the door from the outside so no neighbors wander in.

I am hoping that Maricela is hiding upstairs in the other apartment, praying that whoever killed Goudaz didn’t find her and dump her body there.

By the time I get up the steps to the open apartment door, Herman has already used the key in his pocket and raced through the rooms. He is standing in the living room shaking his head. “She ain’t here,” he says.

“You checked every room?”

“I looked. She’s not here.”

We check again, this time carefully, opening every closet, looking under the bed. We even check the refrigerator, a thing macabre movies make you do. Nothing.

We close the door, lock up, and head back down.

“What time did she leave to go to the phone company?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I think it was probably a little after nine,” says Herman.

“She can’t still be there.”

Without a phone to reach her, there is no way of knowing.

“What do we do now?” he says. “We can’t stay here.”

“No. We need to pack up. But first we have to make sure we have everything out downstairs.”

“You think we oughta wipe the place down?” says Herman.

“You mean the body?”

“No. I mean our prints, anything we mighta’ touched.”

I think about this for a second. “No. If we do and the killer left any trace evidence, we’re likely to destroy it. Besides, two days in a confined area like the apartment and trace evidence of our presence would be everywhere. We’d never get it all.”

“Sure.” Still, Herman takes the knife out of my hand, wipes the handle and the blade with the tail of his shirt as I use the key to open Goudaz’s apartment door.

As I do, I hear the phone in the study ring. Herman and I look at each other, then I break and run toward the sound. I can’t tell how long it’s been ringing. Before I get there the automatic answering device picks up the call.

I wait and listen, hoping at least that I might hear the message. Instead there is a long beep as the fax machine on the desk kicks in. I wait a few seconds. The machine spits out a single sheet and then quits.

“Who was it?” Herman has put the knives back in the drawer and is now standing behind me.

“I don’t know, it’s a fax.” I grab the page and start to read, but it’s in Spanish. Herman studies it over my shoulder.

“Son of a bitch!” he says. “That answers your question, how Goudaz knew where the container was comin’ from. Look,” he says. Herman points with his finger. “The name of the ship, and it ain’t the Mariah. Vessel’s called the Amora. Its ETA, where it’s headed, even the container number. And the name at the bottom, ‘A. Afundi.’ First name Alim,” says Herman.

“But why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s a copy of a fax sent to a cargo broker. They wanted Goudaz to follow up on it. From what I’m readin’ he gave ’em the lead on the broker. Like you said, he was selling information.”

“So that’s how they knew about Pike and the fact that he had the pictures. It still doesn’t make any sense. If they needed his help, why did they kill him?”

“Who knows,” says Herman. “At least we know where we’re going.”

I look at my watch. “What’s the time difference between here and Ensenada?”

“Same as at home,” says Herman. “It’s one hour later here, I believe.”

I hear the gate clatter downstairs and a shrill voice. “Lorenzo! Lemme in.” It’s Maricela. I run to the little French windows leading to the tiny balcony, step out, and stick my head over the railing. “Stay there, we’ll be down in a minute.”

“Lorenzo was right. They couldn’t gimme my old phone number. So I don’t know what we do now,” she says.

“Just wait there.”

I don’t even bother to close the window. “Let’s grab our bags.” I see a phone book on a shelf in the kitchen. “Hold on a second. How do you say ‘charter air’ in Spanish?”

Herman thinks for a moment.

“Never mind.” I grab the book and take it. “Make sure Maricela’s got her purse.”

“Why?”

“Because her passport is in it.”