White Cargo

11

A man waved them to a parking place alongside half a dozen other aircraft — a DC-3 and some light twins. They turned the airplane and pushed it backward under a camouflage net. Cat was surprised to find himself on pavement. The airstrip was evidently covered by a thin layer of dirt, and not by nature’s design. As Cat watched, a small house on a trailer was hauled into the middle of the runway, and brush was placed in other strategic places.

“Makes it hard to spot from the air,” Bluey said. “They don’t uncover unless they’re expecting you, and anybody else who tried to land would have to run right through the house.” He led the way to a low building under more camouflage netting. Inside, a man at a desk looked up. He was at least seventy, skinny with a thin, white beard.

“Bluey,” he said. He looked as if nothing could surprise him. “What do you need?”

“Hi, Mac.” Bluey flopped down in a rickety chair and gazed at the ceiling fan whirling above him. “Fuel, a car for a couple days, some stamps on my papers.”

“How much fuel?”

“Just the wing tanks. About eighty gallons, I guess.”

“A grand in advance, and five grand deposit on the car. You can make your own deal on the stamps.” He picked up a microphone and said something in Spanish. His voice boomed across the strip over loudspeakers. “There’s a capitán around somewhere.”

Bluey peeled off most of the rest of the money Cat had given him. “Right. What kind of car?”

Mac tossed him some keys. “There’s a newish Bronco outside. You bend it, you buy it, and it’s expensive.”

“Right.”

The door opened and a uniformed Colombian police officer came in. Cat tensed, but Bluey stood up, shook his hand, and held a brief conversation in Spanish. There was some bargaining, and Bluey turned to Cat. “Give me a couple thousand.”

Cat handed him another wad of bills. Bluey produced the airplane’s papers. The policeman opened a briefcase, stamped the documents in several places, then made out a lengthy form, occasionally asking Bluey questions. Cat thought he heard a reference to passports, and Bluey shook his head. Cat produced his Ellis passport and Bluey’s, and the man blithely stamped them, hardly looking at them before returning them to Cat. He had been paid, and he couldn’t care less whose passports they were. Bluey looked puzzled but paid the man without comment.

“Come on,” Bluey said when the policeman had gone, “let’s get our gear into the car and get out of here.”

Cat handed Bluey his passport. “A little present from Carlos.”

Bluey looked at it and laughed. “Oh, he’s wonderful, he is. I’ve been travelling in Europe these past couple of years, according to this. I’ll bet he told you not to give it to me until you had to.”

“He did.”

“Ever cautious, Carlos.” He looked at Cat quizzically. “Why now, then?”

Cat returned his gaze. “Because I think I can trust you.”

“Thanks, mate,” Bluey said. “Feels nice to be legal again. Now both our passports and the airplane have been cleared through Cartagena, all perfectly legal, thanks to that bloody bent copper back there. We can go anywhere in Colombia, and no sweat.” They walked back into the little office.

“How long you tying down, Bluey?” Mac asked.

“Just a couple days.”

“It’s a hundred a day. You can pay when you leave. You need any work done on the bird?”

“Nah, she’s fine. I’d like it if she was in one piece when I get back. Tell me, Mac, is Florio still working out of the Excelsior in Riohacha?”

Now Mac had found something to look surprised about. “You changing your habits, Bluey?”

“I wouldn’t be down here in a light single.”

“Yeah, he’s still there. Don’t show him any money, though, not until he’s showed you something.”

“Too right. Thanks.”

In the car, Bluey produced a road map. “We’re here, near the thumb of this mitten-shaped peninsula, about thirty miles inland. We’ll drive down to Riohacha, on the coast, and nose around a bit.”

“Why not just go on to Santa Marta?” Cat asked. “It’s early and it doesn’t seem all that far.” He pointed to the town and measured the distance against the scale. “About two hundred and fifty miles.”

“Before we start doing detective work down there, I want to feel around out here in the Guajira a bit, see what we can turn up,” Bluey answered. “I’ve been away a while, you know, and I want to get my feet on the ground again and see what’s happening before we charge into Santa Marta and start asking questions. Okay?”

Cat nodded. “Whatever you think best. What was that business between you and Mac, about you changing your habits?”

“Florio is a coke dealer. I’m known down here as a grass man. I’ve never run anything else. Shitty stuff, cocaine, screws people up. I’ve never wanted any part of that.”

“What do we want with a cocaine dealer?”

“Well, there ain’t any tourists in the Guajira,” Bluey said. “Out here, people make a pair of gringos as either buyers or narcs. People they think are narcs don’t live long, so we want to establish ourselves as buyers right off.”

“I see.” The idea of being thought of as a drug buyer didn’t rest easily with Cat, but the idea of being dead was worse.

They climbed into what seemed a brand-new Ford Bronco, a four-wheel-drive vehicle with a leather interior and air-conditioning, and were let out a gate in a chain-link fence. Shortly, they came to a ramshackle settlement, and Bluey stopped in the only street in front of a mud building.

“I just want to pop into the cantina here and pick up a cold beer. You want anything?”

Cat shook his head. “It’s early for me, but I’m going to be hungry pretty soon.”

“I’ll get some food, too. You stay with the car, okay?” He got out and went inside.

Cat looked around him. The settlement was nothing more than two rows of mud houses with tin roofs and shanties, made of almost anything, on either side of a dusty, rutted road. A pig was rooting in the road a few yards away, and a couple of dogs lay sleeping in the morning sun. A few minutes passed, and Cat saw a truck appear a hundred yards down the road, in a dusty haze of rising heat, driving slowly toward him. There were half a dozen men standing in the back, and they appeared to be armed. The truck came slowly on, weaving a bit, as if the driver was drunk. Suddenly, there was a popping noise, and the ground around the pig erupted. The animal screamed and went down. He struggled to his feet again and ran off the road, dragging a useless leg. Cat could see two bullet holes in his rump, pouring blood. There was more noise and mud flew from some buildings across the road.

Bluey came to the door of the cantina. “Get in here, quick!” he shouted.

Cat jumped out of the car and ran inside. He joined Bluey, pressed flat against the wall facing the street. “What the hell is going on?” he whispered to Bluey.

“Some of the locals had a little too much up the nose, I expect,” Bluey replied. There was another burst of automatic gunfire, and a large picture on the back wall of the cantina exploded, then fell from the wall. “They get paid what for them is fabulous amounts of money, then they snort up everything they can get their hands on. It’s a bit like the Old West out here.”

Cat heard the truck move on and more gunfire. After another minute, Bluey stuck his head out the door.

“All clear; let’s go.” They got into the car and drove on. Miraculously, it was unscathed. “What you’ve got to understand,” Bluey explained, “is that out here there’s too much money and cocaine, and no law at all. Even the army doesn’t poke into the Guajira very often.”

“Christ, is the whole country like this?”

“Oh no, no. It’s a lovely country, most of it; lovely people. It’s just the Guajira that’s wild. Mind you, you can get your pocket picked or your throat cut just about anywhere. You just have to exercise the same caution you would in, say, New York City.”

This, Cat thought, was the country to which he had brought two million dollars in a briefcase. And, he reflected, where somebody had taken his daughter from him for God knew what reasons.

They bounced along a dirt track, through scrub brush and cactus for some time, then broke onto the coast road at a place Bluey identified as Carrizal. The track became a road here, but not much of one. Bluey made the best time he could, and Cat gazed out drowsily at the blue Caribbean on his right. The sun was well up now, and the heat was bearing down. Cat rolled up his window and switched on the air-conditioning. They passed through a collection of ramshackle buildings known as Auyame, then came to a place called Manaure. Cat was contemplating the sameness of these places, when suddenly he jerked upright in his seat, pointing.

“Out there, Bluey, anchored just beyond the trawler.”

“The white one?”

“Right. The sportsfisherman.” Cat’s heart was pounding. “Jesus, I think that’s it.”

“What?”

“The Santa Maria, the boat the Pirate was on.”

Some buildings blocked their view for a moment, then Bluey turned down a side street toward the sea. After a moment, the water appeared again. They were facing a harbor, open to the east, but bound by a long point of land to the north. An assortment of boats rode at anchor, some of them looking very fast indeed.

“A lot of these are runners,” Bluey said, maneuvering the car to the side of the road and stopping. “They take bales of grass out to ships waiting offshore.” He pulled a new pair of binoculars from his luggage. “Have a look through these.”

Cat, trembling, put the binoculars to his eyes and focused. Could they have gotten lucky this fast? The boat came into sharp focus, and immediately, Cat saw a man sitting in the fisherman’s chair, aft, smoking a cigar. The man seemed Anglo, gray hair, in his fifties. Not familiar. He panned slowly the length of the boat. Something was wrong, he wasn’t sure what. He closed his eyes and ran the scene again in his head. The boat was approaching Catbird off her starboard quarter; the name, Santa Maria, was clearly visible on her bows. He opened his eyes again. There was no name on the bows of this boat, but that could have been changed. There was something else, though. The davits, aluminum arms for bringing a dinghy aboard. The Santa Maria had had no davits on her stem. They could have been added, though. Cat watched as the wind shifted, and the boat began to swing her stem toward them. As she came around, a name appeared on her stem, Mako, out of Guadeloupe. A stab of disappointment hit Cat, but it wasn’t the name that did it. He could see into the wheelhouse. The boat’s wheel was on the port side, and he had a clear memory of the Pirate steering the Santa Maria from the starboard side. As she had approached Catbird the man had stuck his head out over the gunwales while turning the wheel and throttling back.

“I’m wrong” Cat said. “This boat’s newer, too. The Santa Maria was seedier.”

“You’re sure?” Bluey asked.

“I’m sure. Sorry for the false alarm.”

“That’s okay. Shows you’re on your toes. You were half asleep when that boat hove into view.”

Cat lay his head back as Bluey drove away. He was tired from being up all night on the airplane, and now the adrenaline charge from seeing the boat was draining away, leaving him feeling washed out. He dozed.

Bluey woke him on the outskirts of Riohacha; he pulled over and shrugged out of his shoulder holster. “Time to put these under the jacket,” he said.

Cat sleepily followed his instructions, pulling a light bush jacket on, covering the pistol. He looked around Mm. The shacks on the outskirts of town gave way to real buildings of stucco with tile roofs. The shops were opening, and traffic, what passed for rush hour in Riohacha, was on the move.

Bluey drove into the center of town, which somehow combined being sleepy with being busy, and pulled up in front of the Excelsior Hotel, which did not live up to its name.

Cat was annoyed to see Bluey slip a hundred-dollar bill to the boy who took the car away, and another to the boy who brought in the bags.

“You’re going to have to trust me on this, sport,” Bluey said, noting his expression. “These people are not going to render a hell of a lot of service for the money, but unless we’re generous, we’ll come back and find the car stripped and the bellhop looking the other way.”

Shortly, they were ensconced in a large room at a corner of the hotel overlooking the sea. The place had a certain seedy elegance about it, and Cat did not doubt that it had once been grander. At least the hot water worked, and a soak in the tub cleansed away the Guajira dust and soothed his cramped muscles. They had been in the airplane and car for more than twelve hours. Totally drained, Cat made it to the bed before losing consciousness.

It was dark when Bluey shook him. “Come on, mate, it’s dinnertime.”

Cat got his feet onto the floor, but his head felt better in his hands. “What time is it?”

“Going on nine. Our table’s in five minutes.”

Cat struggled into some clothes. “Listen, I could have slept straight through until morning. I think I’ll pass on dinner.”

Bluey shook his head. “Dinner’s important. We’ll get our first look at Florio.”

Cat followed Bluey downstairs to the Excelsior dining room, which also carried hints of former glory. The head-waiter’s dinner jacket was a little small, but he was not short on dignity. Bluey ordered roast meats and a bottle of Chilean wine. The food was better than Cat had expected, and he ate hungrily.

In the middle of their dinner, Bluey nudged him under the table. Cat looked up to see a party of eight entering the dining room. At the obvious center of the group was a carefully barbered Latino in a cream-colored suit, wearing a great deal of gold jewelry.

“Florio,” Bluey said under his breath.

The party settled at a large table in the corner of the dining room and began looking at menus. Florio’s three male companions were lesser versions of him, and the women were dark and flashily dressed.

Cat tried not to stare, but he had never seen a big-time drug dealer before, if he didn’t count his son. The man was the center of attention and enjoying it, the headwaiter and his staff fawning over him.

“You finished?” Bluey asked.

Cat nodded. “I don’t think I could handle dessert.”

Bluey waved the headwaiter over. “You got some Dom Pérignon?”

“Of course, señor. Always.”

“Send two bottles over to Florio’s table with my compliments.”

The man scurried away.

“That’ll be our calling card,” Bluey said to Cat. “Now, let’s turn in.”

They were having breakfast in their room the next morning when there was a knock on the door. Bluey answered it, and there was a brief conversation in Spanish. He returned to the table. “We have an appointment with Florio in half an hour,” he said, buttering some toast. “Don’t wear a gun, and let me do the talking.”

They presented themselves at Florio’s suite at the appointed time and were thoroughly searched by a stone-faced man who had been at the table the evening before. When he was sure they were wearing no weapons, he ushered them into a sitting room and waved them to a chair. It was obvious that Florio had furnished the place himself. The furniture was heavy, overstuffed, and covered in various bright shades of synthetic velvet. One wall was dominated by a large and awful painting of a bullfighter, done in iridescent acrylics. Shortly, Florio entered the room, wearing a red silk dressing gown. He arranged himself on a sofa before them and stroked his thin Pancho Villa moustache. His face was puffy and paler than it had seemed the night before, and Cat wondered if he had been wearing makeup.

“Ah, Mr. Holland,” Florio said, smoothing the gown and not looking directly at them, “I had understood we were not in quite the same business.” His English was heavily accented but quite good.

“I’ve recently changed businesses,” Bluey replied.

“Oh?” Florio said, lifting his eyes to gaze languidly at the Australian. “How can I be of assistance?”

“I’m not at all sure that you can,” Bluey replied. “I’m in the market for two hundred kilos of the purest.”

All expression left Florio’s face, and Cat could not tell if he was stunned or if his mind were racing.

“The market price is twenty-one thousand a kilo these days,” Florio said finally.

Bluey shook his head. “I don’t expect to pay that for quantity,” he said. “I might go to thirteen thousand.”

Cat was calculating rapidly in his head. Two hundred kilos at thirteen thousand dollars a kilo was two million, six hundred thousand dollars, which they didn’t have. Was Bluey trying to get them killed?

Florio was silent for another long moment. “One assumes you have the money readily available.”

“Of course not,” Bluey said. “I can arrange it on forty-eight hours’ notice, though, to be exchanged for the merchandise in an agreed fashion.”

Florio was quiet again. A slight expression of distress crossed his face, and finally he shrugged. “Señor, I am afraid that I cannot be of assistance to you. The market is, well, difficult at the moment. I could manage only a small part of what you wish.”

Bluey nodded. “Thank you for being frank with me.”

“Is there any other way in which I might assist you?”

Bluey was about to rise, but stopped. “Perhaps,” he said, pausing on the edge of his seat. “I understand there are people from whom a beautiful young woman night be purchased.”

Cat resisted the impulse to lean forward. Instead, he watched Florio’s face carefully.

Florio laughed aloud. “But of course, señor, such people are on every street corner in Riohacha, or the bellman could assist you. But why do you ask this of me?”

Bluey shook his head. “I beg your pardon, I have not made myself clear. I am not interested in a local prostitute, but in a more permanent purchase. An Anglo, perhaps.”

Again, Cat watched the man’s face closely.

Florio looked at them blankly. “I am most sorry,” he shrugged, “but you ask me something of which I have no knowledge. I deal in quite a different commodity.”

“Of course,” Bluey said, rising, “I wished merely to ask your advice.”

Florio rose with him. “I am flattered that you would ask me, and I am sorry that I cannot help. I hope we might at some future date do business, when the market is better, but at the moment I am afraid you are talking about Anaconda Pure, something that does not come my way.”

Bluey had turned toward the door, but now he stopped. “Anaconda Pure?” he asked. “I am not familiar with that.”

“Ah, well, this is rumor,” Florio said. “One hears of large amounts of the finest merchandise being moved, but perhaps it is only rumor. Still, the last couple of years, one hears the name often. If the rumors are true, then surely the merchandise is shipped through the Guajira, but none of it stops here.”

“Where does it originate?” Bluey asked.

Florio spread his hands. “There are not even rumors about that,” he said.

They all shook hands, and the stone-faced bodyguard let them out of the suite.

“A very courtly fellow,” Cat said as they walked back to their own room.

“If he had thought we had that much money on us, he would have had our throats cut on the spot,” Bluey replied.

Cat gulped. “You gave me a start, there, when you were talking about two hundred kilos at thirteen thousand a kilo. I didn’t bring that much money.”

“Ah, that was all bluff,” Bluey said. “Florio never dealt more than ten kilos in his life. I blew him right out of his socks with talk of two hundred. I knew he wouldn’t even pretend to have access to that much; he’s strictly a small-timer. I just wanted to ask him about girls.”

“I was glad you told him we’d need forty-eight hours to get money, too,” Cat said.

“Well, you want to distance yourself from that much money, otherwise you might meet one of Florio’s blokes in a dark alley. Say, how much did you bring with you, anyway?”

“Two million dollars,” Cat said.

Bluey stopped and stared at him. “What?”

“Plus the hundred thousand pocket money you suggested,” Cat said.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Bluey whispered hoarsely. “Where is it?”

“In the room,” Cat said, surprised at his reaction, “in that aluminum case of mine. You did say to bring a lot of money, Bluey.”

“I meant two or three hundred thousand,” Bluey said, walking faster. “Jesus, now I’m not going to be able to relax for a minute.”

He opened the door to their room. “Good God, it’s just sitting there!” he said, pointing at the case.

“Well, it has a combination lock,” Cat said. “I thought it would probably be safer just sitting out than if I hid it under the mattress.”

Bluey sat down on the bed and mopped his brow. He jumped at a soft knock on the door.

Cat, who was nearer the door, opened it. The bodyguard from Florio’s suite stepped in and walked over to Bluey.

“Señor, you are interested in a girl?” he asked. “I hear you say this, yes?”

“Not a whore,” Bluey replied.

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I think you are looking for a girl... particular,” he said.

“Oh?” Bluey said, feigning indifference. “How do you mean?”

“I think you look for a girl you know. Just this one girl.”

Bluey said nothing.

“I know a man who has such a girl,” the man said.

Cat’s heart leapt.

“What girl?” Bluey asked, shooting Cat a cautionary glance.

“An Anglo girl. A beautiful one. I see her, myself.”

“Where is she?”

“Here, perhaps three kilometers from the town. In a very rich house.”

“What is this girl’s name?” Cat asked, taking care to keep his voice steady.

“Her name is Kathy, señor. This is Anglo, no?”

“Perhaps. What does she look like?”

“She is very beautiful, señor. Tall, like this.” He held a hand to his eyebrows. “Her hair is gold, but not at the bottom.” He placed a finger at the part in his own hair. “Here it is darker.”

“How old is she?”

The man shrugged. “She is young. Her skin is very smooth.”

Ignoring Bluey’s wary expression, Cat removed a photograph from his wallet, a year-old picture of Jinx in tennis clothes. It was the most recent one he had. “Is this the girl?” he asked, handing the snapshot to the man.

He regarded it for a moment, then nodded. “I think this is so,” he said. “The hair is gold, but I think it is this girl.”

Bluey stood up. “Will you take us there? There’s money in it for you.”

The man held up a hand. “Not now,” he said. “Too early. But there is party tonight. I can get you invitation. For one thousand dollars American?”

“I’ll give you five hundred when we get inside the party,” Bluey said, “and five hundred if the girl is what I want.”

The man nodded. “I come for you eleven o’clock tonight. You must wear suit, tie.”

Bluey nodded his agreement, and the man left. Bluey turned to Cat. “You’re rushing this,” he said. “I don’t like it. It’s too good to be true.”

“No, it’s not,” Cat replied.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Cat said. “Jinx is a nickname. When she was small she was always breaking things. Her name is Katharine, after her mother.”