“Yes, we know this,” Gallegos said impatiently. “But what Otto failed to tell me was why he believes Graham came here. The man’s wanted for piracy. He couldn’t be planning on hijacking an oil tanker, unless he’s incredibly stupid. Vensport security is airtight.”
The Autopista 1 highway from the airport was in reasonable condition, although traffic was heavy, and trash seemed to be everywhere; garbage, the rusted-out hulks of old cars, a dead horse; and halfway into the sprawling city of more than one million people, a weed-choked field was covered with abandoned cargo ship containers. Windows had been cut into the sides of most of them, and half-naked children played in the muddy lanes between the rows. People were living here.
“Venezuela is in a depression,” McGarvey said. “The bolívar is down, oil exports are sagging, the World Bank is pressing for some of the hundred-billion-plus debt, and unemployment is right around thirty percent.”
Gallegos scowled, but he nodded. “Which makes the drug trade all the more appealing.” He looked at McGarvey. “And not just to poor fishermen and farmers along the border. What does that have to do with Graham?”
“Unemployment among sailors is just as high or higher than your national average. He might be here looking for crew.”
Gallegos shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. Caracas would give him a medal if it were true.”
“He works for bin Laden.”
“That’s not our fight,” Gallegos said sharply.
“It will be if al-Quaida uses a crew of Venezuelans for its next strike,” McGarvey said.
They were set up in adjoining rooms at the Hotel Del Lago right on the lake with a fantastic view of the oil derricks, loading platforms, and heavy shipping traffic that never ceased 24/7. Gallegos was heading off to an old boy meeting at the Girasol Restaurant in the Hotel El Paseo with the chief of federal police for Stato Zulia, to see if a quiet APB could be issued. Graham had violated no Venezuelan laws, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for him, in case he did something wrong.
“For the moment my government and yours are not on the most friendly terms,” Gallegos told McGarvey. They were in the hotel’s lobby bar. It was busy, but they were out of earshot of anyone. “I don’t suppose you’ll stay in the hotel until I get back later tonight.”
“I thought I might poke around,” McGarvey said. He knew exactly what he wanted to find out, and exactly where to find it. Having a Venezuelan CID officer tagging along wouldn’t help.
Gallegos nodded. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “But try to stay out of trouble, Mr. McGarvey. No gunfights, if you please.”
“When will you be back?”
It was already eight o’clock. “Not until late. We often don’t eat dinner out until midnight. So unless you need to speak to me tonight, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” McGarvey said.
Gallegos gave him a last look and then got up and left the bar.
A couple of minutes later, McGarvey finished his beer, signed for the tab, and went back up to his room to change into jeans and a dark short-sleeved pullover. He stuffed his pistol in the quick-draw holster under his shirt at the small of his back, and outside took a cab down to the commercial waterfront district.
If Graham had come to Maracaibo to raise a crew, he had a four-day head start, which meant he’d have made some waves, ripples in a pond into which a rock had been dropped. There’d be someone who had been interviewed but hadn’t been hired who’d be willing to talk to an American paying cash.
The cabbie dropped him off at the head of a seedy-looking district that stretched for several blocks two streets up from the main drag along the commercial wharves. The area was ablaze with colored lights, bars or chinganas with open doors, and half-naked prostitutes sitting in the open second-floor windows of their burdeles. It was early on a Saturday night but the district was already crammed. It reminded McGarvey of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.
He bought a cold beer from a street vendor and headed into the district, trying to think like an ex — British naval officer looking for a crew. Unless Graham spoke gutter Spanish he wouldn’t get along with the average seaman down here; only the whores would listen to him because he would have money. Another possibility was finding an out-of-work, disgruntled Venezuelan merchant marine officer. If Graham had been able to make contact with such a man, hiring a crew would be taken care of in one stroke.
McGarvey’s problem of picking up Graham’s trail was solved in the first chingana he walked into. The girls from the burdel upstairs worked the long marble bar and the tables in the tightly packed saloon for marks.
The instant he sat down at a free table near the door, a small, narrow-hipped woman, with a tiny, round face, large dark eyes, and short hair came over with a big smile, and sat on his lap. She was wearing a nearly transparent white blouse that showed her large, dark nipples, and a black miniskirt so short that the fact she wore no panties was obvious.
“Hey, gringo, what are you doing here?” she asked in English. “Do you want to fuck me?”
“I’m looking for someone,” McGarvey said.
“It’s your lucky day. Here I am!”
A scantily clad, horse-faced waitress came over. McGarvey held up the beer from the street vendor. “A pink champagne cocktail for your friend?” she asked.
McGarvey nodded and the waitress went back to the bar to get another beer for him and the ten-dollar cocktail made of a few drops of Angostura bitters in a glass of seltzer water with a paper umbrella.
“You a horny gringo?” the girl whispered in McGarvey’s ear. “Around the world, fifty dollars.” She parted her thighs a little wider.
The going rate for an AB would be around ten or fifteen dollars. But all Americans and Western Europeans had plenty of money.
“What would I get for a hundred dollars?” McGarvey asked.
The girl pulled back to look into his eyes to see if he was kidding around. Her face lit up in a broad grin, two of her teeth missing. “Anything you want, baby!”
McGarvey took out the picture of Graham and held it up so that she could see it in the dim light. For a moment or two she didn’t seem to comprehend what was going on, but suddenly her face contorted, and she snatched the photograph from McGarvey’s hand.
“¡Qué hijo de puta!” she screeched. What a son of a bitch!
The waitress with their drinks at the bar looked up.
“You’ve seen this man?” McGarvey asked.
The whore jumped off McGarvey’s lap and screeched something else in Spanish at the top of her lungs, while brandishing Graham’s photograph over her head.
Some of the other customers were beginning to take notice, and the waitress was saying something to a very large, bald-headed man behind the bar.
“Two days ago, puta!” the whore shouted in his face. “Are you his friend?”
“I came here to kill him,” McGarvey said, just loudly enough for the girl to hear. He took a one-hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Where is he?”
A crafty look came into the girl’s eyes, and she reached for the money, but McGarvey batted her hand away.
“What was he doing here?” McGarvey said. “If you’re lying, I’ll know.”
The bald-headed bouncer started across from the bar. He carried a baseball bat. Several of the patrons had gotten to their feet and blocked McGarvey’s path to the door.
“If there’s a fight, you won’t get the money,” McGarvey said.