The Laughing Falcon (28 page)

It came as no great surprise to her that he admitted to a postgraduate degree in history. But he had rejected the soft life of an academic, becoming an adviser to the Zapatistas, a fugitive, hunted by the Mexican army, forever moving camps, hiding in the homes of poor peons. Chile, Guatemala, South Africa — where had he not been? Sometimes, though, he became confused about his dates — he had himself lying near death in a Bogotá hospital when, according to an earlier account, he was serving with Cuban soldiers in Angola.

Maggie could not bear to imagine how many women he had slept with; she had not coaxed his romantic history from him but would not have been surprised if he was on the run from a former partner. She found anomalous and strange that he continued to confide in her. He seemed to enjoy flirting with her, too. But however flattered she felt, she knew she must constantly check her feelings; there had been erotic fantasies, followed by self-rebuke.

She called to him: “Can I pick more fruit?” She had been allowed a guarded outing yesterday.

“Yes, but let me help.” Halcón rose and unclipped the keys from his belt.

Glo paused from her splits and stretches in the living room to call to Halcón: “When’s my turn?”

“Tomorrow, Señora Walker, I will give you a tour of the gardens.” He was invariably formal with Glo, and, like a dog once bitten, had steered clear of her after their wrestle beside the highway.

Glo’s comportment had been excellent since their arrival here: much teasing and suggestive banter but no unpleasant eruptions. Zorro had not managed to grow on her, but she hid her antipathy behind a condescending smile. He was awake now, staring slack-mouthed at Glo, braless in a faded cotton T-shirt. Yesterday, in his presence, she had complained: “Well, damn, I’ve worn out all my undies. I surely don’t enjoy going around without anything underneath.”

Maggie did not know why Glo insisted on playing this risky game, taunting the excitable Zorro. Especially right now while Tayra, with a plate of food for Coyote in the guardhouse, was standing at the front door waiting to be let out. She gave Zorro a look that could draw blood.

Halcón led Maggie across the patio into the orchard, under a spreading orange tree laden with fruit. A nearby lime tree was in white, sweet-scented bloom.

“I will be your ladder,” Halcón said as he knelt. Maggie hesitated, unsure of protocol. “Climb onto me,” he ordered. He lowered his head, and Maggie hoisted herself on top of his back, and, for whatever unlikely reason, underwent a reaction akin to that of fear of flying. He grasped her waist, ducked his head between her thighs, and bore her upwards on his shoulders, but staggered back a step. Trying to stay balanced, Maggie wrapped her hands under his chin. Her shirt rode up and a tuft of his jet-black hair tickled her bare skin.

Wordlessly, taking deep breaths to slow her heart, she straightened up, pulled down her shirt, passed the basket down, and began handing him the oranges she plucked. He had not shaved for two days, and his stubble prickled her thighs, but with his neck cradled tightly against her pelvis she was feeling other, warmer sensations.

She was forced to close her legs around him as he walked her to another bough, his hand gripping her above the knee. She was facing the house now, and could see Glo upright in her hammock, staring at them. Maggie wiggled her fingers and tried to smile.

The basket full, she slid from him with a leg-flailing lack of grace, landing on her behind. She refused his hand and hurriedly turned from him, began picking up a few stray oranges.

Together, they carried the filled basket to the concrete table, where he lit one of the cigarette butts he had saved on the trek. “What do you think about this Jacques Cardinal?” he asked. “It is like an omen that this character was plucked by you for
your novel and now appears to us again. This strange man with a kayak business, he is brave to speak so loudly on our behalf. But you say he is a drunkard.”

Maggie was in a dilemma: should she encourage Halcón to take the bait, or would she be endangering lives? She was not at all sure that she wanted someone with a history of causing diplomatic crises to barge his way into this already-risky situation.

“I think he could be a dangerous friend.”

“Why would you not trust him?”

“Someone called him a walking disaster.”

“I sense a rebel spirit in him – though perhaps he is not too bright.” He gazed thoughtfully at the distant mountains. “You have not yet been to the river.”

He led her toward an opening in the forest, where stone steps curled down a steep rocky knoll. The river was a hundred metres distant, sounding with unremitting thunder as they neared it. Then came into view a roaring cascade, water spouting over a two-metre ledge before seeking escape between giant boulders, its course widening in the shallows below. They sat together on the bank.

“In the summer, it is smaller, and there are places to bathe, but with the rains it is dangerous.”

“I’ll believe you. But it’s beautiful.”

“You add to it.”

He was looking intensely at her; she felt giddy.

“You are so
simpática
, Maggie. Your courage in these difficult times has helped raise my own spirits.”

Her mind did not quite go blank; she saw events clearly, but some external force was acting on her. She turned to him and kissed him on the mouth, and was then unable to pull away. He neither responded nor withdrew, and she disengaged and quickly rose.

Stunned at her audacity, she ran back up the steps, stumbling in her haste. He followed at a distance in silence.

Blushing crimson, she dared not look him in the face as she retrieved her basket of oranges and waited for him at the door. But he said nothing as he escorted her inside, lighting another butt.

Glo, who had returned to her stretches, made matters worse by saying, “And what have
you
two been up to?” Maggie responded with a stiff smile.

She fled to the bathroom feeling almost faint at the thought of the brash act she had committed. This was a wake-up call. Maggie was modern, mature; she was not about to succumb to those wild emotions she wrote about under the name of Nancy Ward. She took a few deep breaths and tried desperately to obliterate the kiss from her mind. It didn’t happen.

Tense with embarrassment, Maggie sat as far as she could from Halcón, unable to meet his eyes as they settled over dinner to watch the evening news: the odd family, four terrorists and two captive tourists, paying homage to the electronic Cyclops. St. Nicholas, according to a satellite tracker, had departed the North Pole and was on a bearing for Central America. The announcer traded a smile for a scowl as he turned to Operación Libertad and the hostage crisis. The search was now being concentrated in an area north of the Pan-American Highway. Buho interpreted: “It is believed the kidnappers spent the night in this dwelling.”

They watched footage of police examining the dilapidated structure in which they had waited out the night. Surely they must have found her note, but no mention was made of it, or of any injured man having been taken to hospital. Maggie wondered if Gordo and his young companions had slipped the net.

Suddenly, there was her mother – staring nervously at the camera, her dad next to her, shifting in his chair, uncomfortable, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Maggie began swallowing hard, too, as Beverley and Woodrow Schneider took turns pleading
for their daughter’s safety, beseeching the kidnappers to look within their souls for charity in this season of good-will.

Maggie burst into tears just as they cut away to commercials and stumbled up to her room, where she fell onto the bed and buried her face in a pillow. That had been taped on location, in Quepos.

Glo came to her a minute later, her eyes also wet. “The season of joy,” she said, carefully closing the door.

“I’m okay. I’ll get over it.”

“That had Buho wiping his eyes, too.” She sat on the bed and stroked Maggie’s hair.

Halcón announced himself outside the door.
“Upe. Con permiso.”

Glo let him in. He was holding the Polaroid camera. “I will prove to them that you have not been harmed.”

He sat them down, moved close, and aimed, and there came a click and a flash.

A growl of engine awoke Maggie in the night, her eyes blinking open to the play of light on her wall, a bright beam diffused by leafy branches. Then the headlights were switched off and the engine was cut. The glowing dials of her watch told her it was three-fifteen.

No lights came on in the house, but from the window she could make out the vehicle under the fattening moon: an old Jeep, Zorro walking toward it. He turned and looked in her direction, and she ducked but continued to peek over the sill.

When the driver opened his door, a cab light momentarily went on, and she could see he was blond, his ponytailed hair falling to mid-back. Here was a gringo confederate – might he also be the Pink Floyd fan?

It came to her suddenly who this man was: the ear-ringed manager of the Eco-Rico office in San José. I
used to run tours for these guys; now they got me down here clicking slides, man
. How had he introduced himself? Elmer Jericho, devotee of interstellar
travel. He was clearly a veteran of the sixties, perhaps of antiwar demonstrations. Had he helped plan the kidnapping?

Jericho and Zorro began unpacking sacks and boxes and propane tanks from the vehicle and lugged these to the house, taking eight trips. A light came on below: a yellow glow on the patio. She heard conversation, too low and distant to make out, but mostly between Halcón and Jericho. Relief supplies included cigarettes, she could smell them. Another odour wafted up: marijuana.

Twenty minutes later, their meeting concluded and Jericho left, shouldering a heavy packsack, which she guessed contained the goods ransacked from Eco-Rico; no doubt they would be sold on the San José black market. Thousands of dollars had been taken, too. With the guerrillas generously endowed and supplied, she and Glo could be in for a very long stay at the Darkside.

Solved now was the mystery of how Halcón knew she was staying at the Pensión Paraíso. Ruefully, Maggie recalled jauntily telling the history professor how she had bamboozled this late-life hippie into believing she was on assignment with the
Geographic
. The two of them had probably discussed her in some detail before Halcón put her innocence to the test at the restaurant in Escazú.

Maggie rose at dawn, anxious to confer with Glo. She waited until she heard Tayra descending, then slipped out and knocked softly. “
Upe.”
Maggie found much to admire about this Tico word, “oopay” — combining a warning of arrival, a greeting, and a request to enter.

She found Glo half-dressed, forlornly examining a threadbare pair of pants reduced to cut-offs. After they exchanged Christmas hugs, Glo asked, “Where did we put the needles and thread?”

“You might be able to junk those pants. Santa Claus came by last night.”

In the back room, where the river drowned other noise, Glo had slept undisturbed, so Maggie told her of the nocturnal visit of Elmer Jericho, the commando’s man in San José. Undoubtedly, Jericho had described to Halcón in detail the Eco-Rico layout, provided maps, even told him where the Secret Service men were quartered.

Glo finished dressing as she listened, and looked puzzled. “Jericho. Where did I hear that name?”

“Probably at the lodge.”

“Maybe I remember it from bible class. I don’t care if he’s Moses as long as he brought underwear. Look, sweetie, while we have this moment, do y’all mind if I say something personal?”

“About what?”

“El capitán
, the Throb. You have this yearning look in your eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re developing a damn thing about him.” Glo was a quick read; Maggie hid emotions poorly. She dared not mention her foolishness of yesterday, the kiss by the riverside.

“I’m just playing him along. Being crafty, staying on his good side.” She feigned a careless shrug.

“Just remember he could be your executioner. That’s a threat we both face if they don’t get paid.”

“He’d
never
do that.”

As Maggie descended the stairs, she glanced uneasily at Halcón, who was at the far end of the living room with Buho, pulling out clothes from boxes.

From outside came sounds of Tayra and Zorro quarrelling while they washed clothes at the
pila
. With the passing of days their bickering had become aural wallpaper.

In the bathroom, she observed a tall stack of toilet rolls, a massive resupplying that offered further proof their stay could be much extended. The prospect of several more months in
Halcón’s company was both tantalizing and discomfiting. She must be on closer guard; she had shocked herself to her senses yesterday. She had no doubt shocked him, too — but perhaps she was making more of the matter than it merited. And was the attraction so one-sided?
Simpática
, he had called her. She and Halcón were in a state of friendship, that was all; indeed, that was bizarre enough.

Halcón and Buho were engrossed in wrapping objects with coloured tissue. Before Maggie could approach, Halcón said, “Give me ten more minutes.”

In the kitchen she found a pot of brewed coffee: freshly ground and tasting of high-quality beans; Halcón, an aficionado of light roasts, had invested in an electric grinder. Sitting behind it were a bottle of brandy, several cartons of Derby cigarettes, piles of canned goods, dozens of bags of pasta. On the counter was a burlap sack with fresh vegetables, produce that needed to be kept cool – but the refrigerator was almost at overflow, three frozen chickens commanding much of the space. Here was wine chilling, here a quart of eggnog.

She watched Halcón and Buho working with scissors and ribbons, and when Glo joined her for coffee, she said, “I think they’re planning to give us something for Christmas.”

“How absurd is that?”

Halcón finally waved them over.
“Feliz Navidad.”

Buho offered similar greetings, and extended a small, prettily wrapped gift to Glo.