Boca Grande shall be.
11
LAND OF CONTRASTS.
Economic fulcrum of the Americas.
By the day in early September when Leonard Douglas finally arrived in Boca Grande it was clear that Victor was only playing for time. His couriers shuttled between Boca Grande and Geneva carrying heavy pouches. Military passes had been canceled. All day long Radio Boca Grande broadcast a single message, delivered by two voices, one male, one female, each threatening terrorists and saboteurs with death. It was clear that Victor would be leaving soon to convalesce in Bariloche. El Presidente had in fact already left to convalesce in Bariloche, omitting even the traditional move in which he first spends a week confined to the palace with a respiratory infection complicated by extreme exhaustion. Ardis Bradley had discovered a pressing need to take her children to Boston for school interviews. Tuck Bradley had stayed on but had twenty seats reserved on every flight leaving Boca Grande for any destination. I had two.
One for me.
One for Charlotte.
In other words.
All the markers were on the board.
“I’m Charlotte Douglas’s husband,” Leonard Douglas said to me.
“I know you are,” I said to Leonard Douglas.
I knew that he had arrived in Boca Grande on one of the two or three flights that had managed to land the day before. He had gone directly to the Caribe and after a while he and Charlotte had been observed walking on the Avenida del Mar. It had been assumed that they were walking to her apartment but instead they had turned onto Calle 11 and entered the birth control clinic.
Victor had told me that.
Tuck Bradley had also told me that.
Gerardo had told me that he had no interest in Charlotte Douglas’s former life.
“I wouldn’t call yesterday her ‘former life’ exactly,” I had said to Gerardo.
Gerardo had told me that I had too literal a mind.
Charlotte had told me nothing at all.
I got Leonard Douglas a drink.
He sat in my living room and drank it.
“I met your husband once,” he said finally.
“He’s dead now.”
“I know that.”
I got him another drink.
He put it on the table untouched.
“In Bogotá,” he said. “I met him in Bogotá.”
“When was that?”
“Before he died.”
“Not after, then.”
The acerbity in my voice went unnoticed.
“We had some business.”
Leonard Douglas seemed absorbed in some contemplation of either Bogotá or Edgar, I did not know which.
I recall being uneasy.
“Where’s Charlotte?” I said abruptly. “Did Charlotte send you to see me?”
“No.” Leonard Douglas picked up the drink and put it down again. “I liked him. Your husband. I think he liked me. He gave me an emerald. As I was leaving. He gave me an emerald to take to Charlotte.”
The square emerald.
The big square emerald Charlotte wore in place of a wedding ring.
The big square emerald Leonard had brought her from wherever he was when he met the man who financed the Tupamaros.
Bogotá.
Quito.
Charlotte had no idea whether it was Bogotá or Quito.
It was Bogotá.
I had no idea.
I prided myself on listening and seeing and I had never even heard or seen that Edgar played the same games Gerardo played.
Leonard Douglas was watching me.
“Why did you tell me that,” I said finally.
“I wanted you to know that I understand what’s going on here.”
“Why.”
“Because,” Leonard Douglas said, “I want you to get Charlotte out.”
“It could be smooth,” I said after a while. I did not believe that it would be smooth. “Sometimes it’s smooth.”
“It’s not going to be smooth,” Leonard Douglas said.
“How do you know.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m involved here.”
“Nobody said you were.”
“I want you to believe me.” Leonard Douglas seemed to tense as he spoke. “I have no interest here.”
“I believe you.”
As a matter of fact I did believe him.
I also believed him about Edgar.
I still do.
It still disturbs me and I still believe him.
“It’s not going to be smooth,” he repeated. “I’m not involved but I hear things.”
I said nothing.
“I hear there’s more outside hardware than there’s supposed to be. You know what I mean.”
I did know what he meant.
He meant that someone had outplayed Gerardo and Antonio.
He meant that the guerrilleros were not going to just serve their purpose and get gunned down on the fourth day by an insurgent army under Antonio’s command.
He meant that for a certain number of days or weeks no one at all could be certain of knowing the right people in Boca Grande.
“So get her out,” he said finally.
“Why don’t you take her out?”
“She won’t go with me.”
“Why not?”
Leonard Douglas sat for a while and ran his finger around the rim of his glass.
“She remembers everything,” he said after a while.
And then: “You met Warren Bogart.”
It was a question.
“Once. In New Orleans. He said he was dying.”
“Yes. Well.” Leonard Douglas looked suddenly exhausted. “He was right.”
12
“WHO WAS THERE,” CHARLOTTE HAD SAID WHEN LEONARD told her that Warren Bogart was dead.
As he sat in my living room and told me what she had said he kept repeating the words as if he could not believe them: who was there.
He remembered that she said it at the corner of Avenida del Mar and Calle 11.
He had come to Boca Grande to tell her three things.
He had come to tell her that certain of his former clients had put him in touch with someone in the underground who had put him in touch with Marin.
He had come to tell her to get out of Boca Grande.
He had come to tell her that he had buried Warren Bogart a few days before in New Orleans.
He told her none of these things until they were out of the Caribe and walking on the Avenida del Mar where they could not be heard.
He told her that Marin was living with six other people in a semi-detached house in the industrial section of Buffalo and she said nothing at all. She began to cry and she kept on walking and she said nothing at all. He told her to get out of Boca Grande and she said nothing at all. She folded and refolded the piece of paper he had given her with the number of the post-office box in Buffalo and she said nothing at all. He told her that he had buried Warren Bogart and she walked until they reached the corner of Avenida del Mar and Calle 11 and as they turned the corner onto Calle 11 she said something. He remembered that he had just realized that she was walking not idly but toward a specific destination and then she said something.
She said who was there.
“I told you. He was alone. He’d been in and out of Ochsner for a month and this time he just walked out without anybody knowing and he was alone on the street. And he collapsed. And they took him to Long Memorial and they put him on life-support but he never woke up.”
“Who was there.”
“Charlotte. No one was there. He had a letter in his coat with the number on California Street. Your number and Porter’s number. They tried to get Porter and they couldn’t. Porter was in New York. They tried to get you and they got me. He was on the machine for the rest of the day and he died before I got there.”