White Cargo

12

Stoneface, as Cat had come to think of him, arrived on time, at eleven that evening. In front of the hotel, the man called for his car. “You drive your car,” he said. “When you are in the house, you give me five hundred, okay?”

Bluey nodded. “Okay.”

“When you see girl, you give me five hundred more.”

“If I want the girl,” Bluey said. “If it is the girl in the picture.”

The man nodded and held up a finger. “I leave when you see this girl,” he said. “I don’t help you take this girl.”

Bluey agreed.

“These hombres, they are quick,” he said, making trigger motions with his index finger. “It is dangerous, comprende?”

“Comprende,” Bluey said. The cars arrived.

They drove east for ten minutes or so. Neither Cat nor Bluey said anything. The houses thinned out, and they came to a large iron gate. A policeman stood guard. Stoneface stopped, exchanged words with the policeman, gestured at the car behind him, and both cars were waved through. The house was a couple of hundred yards from the street, behind an unruly growth of stunted trees. A wide area in front was filled with a jumble of vehicles, including a number of Cadillacs and Mercedeses. Bluey turned the Bronco around and parked it facing the gate, a little away from the rest of the cars. The house was a large, apparently old, stucco structure, in good repair. Lights flashed from the windows, and music with a heavy beat could be heard from inside. They met Stoneface at the steps.

“Now,” he said, rubbing his fingers together.

Bluey gave him five hundred dollars, and they walked into the house together.

A wall of noise and heat met them. There was music of more than one kind being played, and Cat was temporarily blinded by flashing strobe lights. He held up a hand to protect his eyes and tried to become accustomed to the light and sound. A large room ahead of them was filled with people dancing with abandon to rock music. Another room to their left had a live band playing something South American just as noisily. Bluey grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and gave one to Cat. “Take it,” he said. “We’ll look odd without a drink.” He turned to Stoneface. “Where’s the girl?” he shouted over the din.

Stoneface made a circular motion with his hand. “We must look,” he shouted back. He led the way into the room before them, skirting the dancers. Another waiter approached, this time with a tray bearing a crystal bowl containing a white powder. Stoneface took a tiny spoon from the tray, dipped it into the powder, and sucked it into his nose. He grinned widely at Bluey and Cat, exposing a set of badly stained teeth. He held up a thumb and motioned for them to help themselves.

Bluey and Cat shook their heads. Stoneface shrugged and moved on into the room, searching faces. He was beginning to move in time with the music. Cat and Bluey followed, bombarded by the volume. They circled the room twice, then moved into the room with the live band. The volume was more tolerable there, and the dancing slightly more restrained. They moved slowly through the crowd, Stoneface occasionally stopping to have a word with someone. Then, moving his head to the music, he led them into another large room beyond.

It was nearly unlit, and the music was different — still South American, but slower, though just as loud. Most of the light in the room came from a large projection TV at the far end, on which a pornographic movie was playing. There were a few tables, but more cushions and mattresses on which couples and groups were arrayed, most of them naked. Stoneface motioned them to a table.

Cat sat stiffly, watching the action around him, made nervous by what he saw. He was not a very good voyeur, he discovered. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he found the activity more embarrassing than erotic. Why did they have to sit through this? He leaned forward to speak to Stoneface, but Stoneface was already speaking.

“Close to the video,” he was saying. “That side.” He nodded toward a corner. “Here is Kathy.”

Cat and Bluey followed his gaze to a girl who seemed to be kneeling, some fifteen feet away. There was a large thump inside Cat’s chest as he recognized the familiar profile. His pulse quickened, then he flinched as he realized she was not kneeling but astride a man, moving rhythmically back and forth. Cat started to rise, but he felt Bluey’s restraining hand.

“First, let’s be sure,” he was saying. “Is it her?”

Cat stared at the girl. She turned her head, and she was illuminated sporadically by the light from the video screen. Her hair was blond and fairly short, but that could have been dyed and cut. Her figure startled Cat, though. Her shoulders and breasts were so familiar. Maddeningly, though, she was wearing a gash of thick red lipstick and very heavy eye makeup. It might as well have been a mask. “I can’t tell from here,” Cat said. “We’ve got to get closer.”

Stoneface shook his head. “No, not here. We wait.”

They sat at the table for some minutes longer while the sex act ground on. Bluey feigned interest elsewhere in the room, and Stoneface’s interest was not feigned, but Cat’s eyes remained riveted to the girl, willing her to see him, to show some sign of recognition. As if in answer, she turned her head and seemed to stare directly back at him. Suddenly, she smiled, and Bluey had to restrain Cat again.

It was Jinx. He knew it, and it was killing him, seeing her here in this place, this way. Her smile remained fixed as she looked away from Cat and down at her lover, whose motion seemed to be quickening. She was on some drug, she had to be. Then the man sat up and rested on his hands. He said a few words to her, and the smile faded. They got up and he began to lead her toward a door at the other end of the room. She looked back toward Cat again, smiling, and then they were gone.

Cat rose to follow, but Stoneface herded them back the way they had come. “This way,” he kept saying. He guided them back into the rock-music room, through another room where food was stacked on a long table, and out another door.

They found themselves in a garden, following Stoneface toward a hedge. Even though it was a hot evening, the air outside was cooler than that in the house. There was a glow of light through the thick growth, and Cat heard a splash. They reached the end of the hedge and came around it facing a large swimming pool, lighted underwater. She was standing on the edge of the pool, tall, slim, and naked, looking toward the man in the water, who was beckoning her to follow him in. She dived into the water and surfaced, scrubbing her face with her hands, rubbing the makeup away. She ducked under to sweep her hair back and, eluding her companion, made for the side of the pool and pulled herself out in one smooth, clean motion. Cat stepped into the open; she saw him and smiled. They were farther apart than when they had been inside, but the makeup was mostly gone, and the glow from the pool lit her face from below.

“It’s Jinx,” Cat said, with finality.

Bluey stopped him from moving toward her. “Not yet,” he said.

“My money, señor,” Stoneface whispered.

Bluey gave him the money, and Stoneface walked quickly away.

Bluey pulled Cat back behind the hedge. “We’ve got to do this clean,” he said. “We’re the strangers here; this guy is a guest, maybe even the host. I don’t think he’s armed, though,” he chuckled.

As Bluey spoke the naked man pulled himself up the ladder to poolside, grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her toward a reclining chair. She came reluctantly along, looking over her shoulder toward where Cat had been standing. The man pushed her roughly onto the chair and began to climb on top of her. She watched, wide-eyed, as Bluey emerged from behind the hedge, followed by Cat, and began to walk quickly, softly toward them.

Cat saw Bluey reach inside his coat as they approached the recliner.

She looked at Cat and smiled. “Well, hi there,” she said, sounding a little drunk, “what took you so long?”

Something is wrong, Cat thought. The man turned to see who she was speaking to.

“Evening,” Bluey said as he swung the heavy pistol. The barrel caught the man behind the ear, and he rolled sideways off the lounge.

Cat’s eyes went back to her as her expression began to change. The accent. Something had been odd about the accent.

“You bastard,” she said. Then she opened her mouth and screamed.

Bluey hit her with his open hand, rolling her off the lounge on top of her lover. He grabbed her wrist and snatched her to her feet, and she began screaming again.

Cat went to her and took her face in his hands. The remnants of the heavy makeup streaked her face. “Jinx,” he said, “be quiet, listen to me.”

Her mouth drew back into another scream, revealing a row of small yellow teeth. In the instant before the scream came, Cat was jerked back to reality. Her accent had been hard, Midwestern. Jinx’s was Southern. Jinx had large, very white teeth, not these teeth. Cat dropped his hands and stepped back from her in horror, blaming her for not being Jinx.

Bluey jerked Cat around to face him. “Isn’t it her? Isn’t it Jinx?”

Cat shook his head. She screamed again.

Bluey hit her, hard, with his fist. She stopped screaming. “Come on,” he said to Cat, “we’re getting out of here.” He ran back toward the hedge, back the way they had come.

Cat looked up to see people staring at them from the door to the orgy room. They began spilling out toward the pool. Someone was shouting in Spanish.

Instead of going back into the house, Bluey led the way around it. It was bigger than it had seemed. They pushed their way blindly through shrubbery, Bluey cursing all the way. Finally, they came to a corner of the house and Bluey stopped and peered toward the front door. All seemed quiet there. “Come on,” he said, and began to walk briskly across the graveled parking lot.

Cat followed, catching up and walking beside him.

“Not too fast,” Bluey said, holding out a restraining hand. They picked their way through the cars and made for the Bronco. Behind them there was a hubbub at the front door of the house.

“Don’t look back,” Bluey said, “just keep walking.”

They made the Bronco as the sound of running feet struck the gravel forty yards behind them. Bluey got the car started and into gear. He drove rapidly, but not wildly, down the drive, slowing as they approached the policeman at the gate. He smiled and waved to the man, who saluted. “Thank Christ they don’t have walkie-talkies,” Bluey said as he turned toward Riohacha and floored the accelerator.

Cat was limp beside him, reliving the moment when he knew the girl was not Jinx. She had not even looked that much like her. He had wanted too badly for her to be Jinx.

At the hotel, Bluey told the boy to keep the car ready. “Come on,” he said to Cat, “let’s get our gear together and get out of here.” Fifteen minutes later, they had paid their bill, thrown their hastily packed belongings into the back of the car, and were driving away.

“Where are we going?” Cat asked.

“Back to the airplane,” Bluey replied. “We were seen back there, and we don’t even know who that guy was, how much trouble we’re in, or how hard he’ll look for us. But they saw us and the car, and we’re getting out of the Guajira.”

Cat rested his head on the seat back. He didn’t much care what they did next. He’d been so sure, had had his hopes so high, and now he was weak with disappointment.

“Okay, so we blew it,” Bluey said, consolingly. “Hell, that’s okay, we might blow it again, even. But well keep on looking. Santa Marta’s next. That’s where this whole thing started, anyway. We only came to Riohacha because it was on the way. Now we’ll go on, and we’ll find something in Santa Marta.”