Twelve Mile Limit

22

The Plaza de Santa Domingo is a wide park and courtyard of brick, open to the sky but walled by ancient, ornate buildings, including a massive, dun-colored cathedral that was built in the 1500s. During the Inquisition, people were burned at the stake here.

On this night, though, the only fire was from torches burning around the courtyard. They threw a yellow, oscillating light on the faces of men and women gathered beneath the black sky. People were still dining at outdoor tables, served by waiters in formal dress, while jugglers, street merchants, guitarists, and magicians moved from table to table, working for tips.

I arrived at the plaza nearly half an hour early. I bought an Aguila at Paco’s, and bribed my way upstairs. There’s a balcony there, closed to the public, and it gave me a good view of the narrow streets that entered into the plaza.

If Stallings was bringing confederates, I wanted to know who they were before they had a chance to get a look at me.

He was forty minutes late, but he came alone. I let him sit for a while, watched him order another drink and light a fresh cigar. He checked his watch repeatedly.

Twice he touched the right pocket of his baggy, tent-sized slacks.

It’s a nervous mannerism. Something that people do when they’re carrying a gun.

When I came up behind Stallings and touched his shoulder, he jumped slightly. The reaction was unexpected but encouraging. It showed me he was on edge, not as confident as he wanted to appear to be.

As I seated myself, he looked at his watch and said, “You’re late. I’ve been waiting for nearly an hour.”

I said, “No, I was early -which is how I know you’re lying again. Where’s Kazan? The guy you call Puff. He’s the one I want to talk to.”

The big man fixed an expression of amusement on his face and gestured with his hands: slow down. “ Taupou, if you keep pushing me, you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to reach across the table and pinch your little head off.” He flashed his toothy smile. “I think I’d enjoy that.”

Taupou, I didn’t know what that meant, and I wasn’t going to ask.

I held up my empty beer, signaling the waiter as I said, “You’re not mad, Earl, you’re just hungry. A guy like you needs lots and lots of calories. Let me get a menu.”

He leaned toward me, his voice loud enough to cause people at nearby tables to turn and stare. “Motherfucker. You are really starting to piss me off!”

“I’m not here to please you, Earl. You need to lower your expectations. And your voice. I’m going to ask you again: Where’s Kazan?”

He sat back, his cask-sized chest moving beneath the white guyaberra as he breathed, his hands flat on the table. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make me mad, man, you want to get me pissed off. It’s like a business thing, one of those deals the big shots on TV tell you to do. To get an advantage. Well, guess what? It’s not going to work. Keep it up, I’m not going to help you find your friends.”

“Don’t help me find my friends, you won’t get paid.”

The grin was back on his massive face, the smooth skin of the burn scar wrinkling. “If I don’t get paid, you’re never going to see either one of those girls again. What was the white girl’s name?”

His grin broadened when he saw my attention vector at that specific, telling bit of information because he knew that he was now back in control.

I said, “Why don’t you tell me? Prove you’re not wasting my time.”

“I don’t got to prove nothing to you, man! You think I’d bother with the name of a girl ugly as that? Chubby white girl with brown hair and a pretty black girl, only Earl doesn’t do black girls.”

I said, “I can hardly blame them, Earl. You can’t fault their taste. So let’s get down to business. Okay?”

Stallings sat there puffing away on his cigar as he talked, trying to blow smoke rings, showing me how relaxed he was. I wanted to play tough? No problem. He could handle it, not a big deal. He said, “Let’s get something straight right off. I don’t know anything about any of this. I’m just telling you what I hear. Okay? I’m not guilty of nothing, I’m not admitting to anything. You savvy?

“When I go back to the States, I don’t want the feds grabbing me, carting my ass off to jail. Kidnapping’s illegal-even here in Colombia, though just about every shithead you name out there in the jungle does it. I mean, it’s a legitimate profession here. You got your lawyers, your plumbers, your fucking kidnappers, okay? So you and me, we’re just sitting here discussing things that might have happened, talking… what-do-you-call it-?”

“Hypothetically,” I said.

He swung his head up and down. “Exactly. We’re talking hypothetically. So you go first. Hypothetically, what makes you think I was on the boat that morning, sailing back to Florida?”

I said, “You had a lot of passengers, remember? The illegal variety. It was in the newspapers. I knew a fairly large boat had to be in that area at about the right time, so I went looking. I talked to a couple of the refugees before they got deported.”

“Those spics, the Haitian trash, they gave you my name? I don’t believe it. No way, not possible.”

“Not your name. Just your description.”

He said, “Those people are so fucking dumb, what we should’a done was dump them all about a mile offshore. Done the world a favor.”

It is an irony I’ve noticed before: It’s not unusual for members of minority groups to be unrepentant racists.

I said, “No, the refugees told me that you stopped when you saw the swimmers. Dexter Money told me your name, where to find you, everything. He was so drunk the night I talked to him, he didn’t even try to charge me for the information. Nice guy, Dexter. But he doesn’t speak so highly of you.”

I took a perverse joy in Stalling’s expression. “That white whale, what he maybe needs is for someone to cut his tongue out. He flaps his jaws too much. Now I’m kind of looking forward to seeing him again. I owed him money, but now I think my debt’s paid in full.”

I said, “Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone involved. So now it’s your turn, Earl. Where are my friends? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Why did he continue to check his watch? It seemed to make no sense.

I should have known why. The depth of my occasional stupidities continues to be a source of surprise.

Stallings said, “What could’a happened was that the guys running that shrimp boat stopped and picked up all three people. They ran into shore, dumped the refugees, then boarded a larger boat out in open sea-the mother ship. That ship brought all of them back here to Colombia except for one, the guy who ran the shrimp boat back to Cortez.”

I said, “That’s the way I figured it could’ve happened. I find it very hard to believe, though, that you picked them up but still don’t know their names. Or do you?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. If I was there, which I wasn’t, I didn’t take a personal interest. If the white girl had a body on her, yeah. They was just cargo to me.”

“Are they okay? Are they hurt?”

“My guess is, they’re happy as clams, but probably sick of living in a shack eating shit for food, wondering what’s going to happen. Which is why we need to talk money. How much are you willing to pay per person? If I can find them, that is.”

“I need some proof they’re alive before we do anything. Are they at a place where there’s a phone? We could call them.”

“Fuck you. I’m the only proof you’re going to get until we see some money. They’re your friends, not mine, so it’s a seller’s market. You know what you need to worry about? While you’re sitting here playing word games, the humps got your pals up for sale. They’re in touch with their hump friends back in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, you name it, talking price. How much will they pay for the white girl, how much for that pretty colored girl?”

I said, “Humps?”

His expression said: Are you stupid or what? “ Humps. You know, the sand niggers, the ragheads. Like in camels-humps. In Colombia, if you got a woman to sell, the humps always do the negotiating because they’re the only ones who have contact with the guys who have the real money. The oil sheiks, the big-time weapons dealers.”

“Which is why I should be talking to Kazan, correct? Not you.”

“That albino freak, he’s not my boss. This deal’s between you and me. But we’ve got to do it quick and clean. No more of your bullshit.”

When he reached for his right pocket, I tensed slightly, ready to throw myself back out of my chair. But instead of bringing out a weapon, he brought out a pen. He took a paper napkin, then paused. “How much money do you have on you? I’ll give you a big discount if we do a cash deal now.”

“I’m not stupid, Earl. The way it’s going to work is, I’ll hand the cash to my friends, and they’ll hand it to you.”

He began to scribble on the napkin. “In that case, it’s going to cost you this much per person. No questions, no more negotiations, that’s how much it’s going to be. You can buy one or all three. It’s no skin off my nose.”

I looked at the napkin and read, “$50K.”

“I don’t have that much.”

He stood up. “Then find a way to get it.” He tossed the pen on the table. “You may want to write this down. At the southern boundary of Colombia, there’s a little airstrip at a place called Mameluco. It’s not too far from Araracuara, where there’s a bigger strip, but don’t go there. Mameluco. That’s the place.”

I didn’t bother noting the name. I’d already seen it on a map. Mameluco was very near the village of Remanso, the name that Harrington said meant “still waters.”

He checked his watch yet again. “I’ll give you two days to get the dough. Today’s Tuesday… you’ve got to land at the airstrip before sunset on Thursday. Get off the plane and walk to the dirt road. We’ll know you’re there. Just you, alone, and the money in a briefcase. Cash. Bring anybody else, your friends are dead. Talk to anybody about this, your friends are dead. Have anybody follow you, we’ll know about it. Same thing. Dead. Savvy?”

I told him, “I’ll try my best to raise the money.”

I didn’t tell him I already had a briefcase.