A King's ransom

40

Guillermo canceled on me. I didn’t get a specific reason, just a message at my hotel that he couldn’t take me out for the Flor de Cana rum and additional rounds of truth-telling that he’d promised. Somehow I wasn’t surprised.

I ate dinner in my room, alone, then called my mother to let her know that I hadn’t been eaten by cannibals, thrown into a raging volcano as a human sacrifice, or otherwise victimized in any of the horrible ways that she’d imagined were commonplace in Central America.

I didn’t tell her about Guillermo and Lindsey.

By nine o’clock I was bored out of my mind. I went to the balcony and checked out the street life three stories below. Pretty dead, except for the usual sights. Teams of kids in the intersection were still selling junk and begging for cordobas. I was pretty sure they were the same kids I’d seen almost eight hours ago. The boy with one leg I definitely remembered. Ditto for the girl with the baby face who already had two babies of her own, one in each arm. Farther up the street the strip club with the big red lips painted on the door seemed to be hopping. Groups of men would walk in drunk, get all steamed up, and then come out, one at a time, to cut a ten-dollar deal with one or more of the thirteen-year-old girls who walked the street in their fishnet stockings and five-inch heels.

What in the hell were my father and sister doing here?

I went back inside. I was feeling lonely, a little depressed, and definitely confused. I picked up the telephone and started to dial Alex’s number. I hung up on impulse and called Jenna instead.

“Hey, it’s Nick. You got a minute?”

“Um-okay.”

I suddenly realized it was Saturday night, almost 11:00 P.M. in Miami, and that she might be with someone. “I can call back.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s my fault for answering. Now you know I’m one of those lonely girls who sit at home Saturday nights watching reruns on Lifetime.”

Shame on me, but that made me feel good.

I talked a little about the legal case against the insurance company, but only as a pretext for having called her. She steered the conversation toward what she’d done all day, I brought it back to the amazing things I’d seen since landing in Managua, and the rest just flowed. It was easy, reminiscent of countless nights after midnight that we’d gone back to her place with a pint of ice cream and just talked, not really noticing how the time was passing until one of us would look at the clock and say, “My God, it’s four A.M.”

“You think you’ll find Lindsey?” she asked.

It was a hard question to answer without giving her the background. I hadn’t told my mother, but another perspective would have been helpful. Jenna’s point of view was one I’d always respected, so I told her.

“Wow,” she said. “Didn’t expect that out of your little sister.”

“Tell me about it. We didn’t expect Duncan Fitz to accuse her of masterminding my father’s kidnapping either.”

“I don’t want to give Duncan’s theory too much credence. But still, have you given any thought as to which way the affair with Guillermo cuts?”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Let me step into Duncan Fitz’s shoes for a second,” she said. “You start with the idea that your father wasn’t very happy about his twenty-four-year-old daughter having an affair with a married man twice her age. He forbids her to see Guillermo. It’s at least plausible that Lindsey arranged her father’s kidnapping as retaliation for his trying to control her life.”

“Pretty diabolical, don’t you think?”

“Or it could be collusion,” said Jenna. “Lindsey and Guillermo may have teamed up and gotten rid of your father because he disapproved of their winter-spring romance.”

“Now you’re thinking more like Duncan Fitz than Duncan Fitz does.”

“Are you saying that you’re not even considering those possibilities?”

“Are you saying I should?”

She didn’t answer. I tried to read her silence, but my thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. I checked the clock. After midnight. Even without two spoons and a pint of Oreos ‘n’ Cream, we’d lost track of time.

“Someone’s at the door. I better go.”

“Ditto. It’s two o’clock here.”

I hesitated, afraid to push the personal issues too far. “Jenna?” I said, as if testing the waters.

“Yeah?”

“All this Lindsey stuff aside, it was good talking to you. I mean, really talking. I miss that.”

I sensed a smile on the other end of the line. “Anytime.”

I smiled to myself.

“But, Nick?”

I winced. I hated those “But, Nick”s. “What?”

“Don’t ignore what I said about Lindsey. And be very careful down there.”

Her voice had a tone that I knew well. She really meant it.

“I will,” I said. “Good night.”

Her “good night” was followed almost immediately by another knock on my hotel door. I hung up the phone and walked to the peephole. The light in the hallway was burned out, however, and I saw only a silhouette in the darkness.

“Who is it?”

“Maria.”

“Maria who?”

“Portilla. From Rey’s Seafood. We met this afternoon, remember?”

I looked again through the peephole, and now the shape was familiar. It was the pretty young receptionist who’d said she’d been praying to the Blessed Virgin for my father. “Just a second.”

I was wearing only jogging shorts, since my “air-conditioned” room came with a noisy old window unit that was, frankly, more full of hot air than Guillermo was. I pulled on a T-shirt, then unchained the lock and opened the door. Maria stepped in without waiting for an invitation. She seemed a little nervous as I closed the door.

“I’m sorry to come by this late.”

From the expression on her face, I could tell this was important. “That’s okay. I was awake anyway.”

“I just came from dinner with some of the girls from the office. I didn’t know, but one of them said that she thought you were here looking for your sister.”

“I didn’t really want to announce that. But, yes, that’s one of the reasons I came here.”

She seated herself on the edge of the bed. I pulled up the desk chair and straddled it, my arms atop the backrest.

“I might be able to help you,” she said.

“How?”

“I was one of the few friends Lindsey made here. I was the only one she told about her and Guillermo.”

“So it’s true they were lovers?”

She made a face. I wasn’t sure if she was struggling for the right words in English or just struggling with the brutal truth. “Guillermo was in love. Lindsey was-I think the term is, ‘using him.’ ”

“Using him for what?”

“Information.”

“About what?”

She started to answer, then stopped. “I care very much about Lindsey. But my job is very important to me, to my whole family.”

“I can understand that. I’m not going to repeat anything, if that’s your concern.”

“The best thing is for me to show you. That way, if anyone ever asks who told you, you don’t have to say it was me.”

I assumed that by “anyone” she meant Guillermo. “Okay, show me.”

She rose and said, “In the morning. Pack your bags tonight. I’ll pick you up at six in front of the hotel.”

I stood silent, which she seemed to take as acceptance. She walked to the door and opened it herself.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

She hesitated, as if debating whether she should even tell me that much. “Puerto Cabezas” was all she said.

The door closed, and she was gone.