She said, “What would you like to know?”
“This guy tries to kill Amelita and she says, well, he was angry, but he really wants her to be with him. She even calls him Bertie.”
Lucy’s head remained against the cushion. She said, “I know. Amelita’s a little screwed up. Bertie, I love it. He changed her life and she doesn’t want to believe he murders people. But she wasn’t at the hospital when he came. She was with her parents. That’s why I was able to get her out of there.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course not.”
“He killed them because they were lepers?”
“With machetes-he doesn’t need a reason. He shot Dr. Meza to death. He assassinated a priest while he was saying mass and formally executed six catechists in Estelí. They killed an agrarian reform worker with bayonets, shot his wife in the spine and left her for dead… She watched them strangle their year-old baby. Ask Bertie why he let his men do that. They slashed the throats of nine farmers near Paiwas, raped several of their daughters, raped and decapitated a fourteen-year-old girl in El Guayaba. Murdered five women, six men, and nine children in El Jorgito… Do you want a complete list? I’ll give you one. Do you want to see photos? I’ll show you those, too. Have you ever seen a little girl’s head on a stake?”
There was a silence in the room that seemed to Jack, for a moment, like a stage set: the backdrop of wallpapered banana trees as she told him about death in a tropical place.
“He did all that?”
“I haven’t counted the disappeared,” Lucy said, “or the ones who were only tortured. Or the ones who were killed with more sophisticated means. A priest in Jinotega opened the trunk of his car and was blown to bits. Bertie killed him. He found out it was the priest who drove us to León to buy the car, when we escaped. I have a letter from one of the sisters; I’d like to read it to you sometime.”
Jack felt awkward, not sure what to say.
“But what can you do? It’s a war.”
“Is that what you call it? Killing children, innocent people?”
“I mean you can’t have him arrested.”
“No, not even if he were still in Nicaragua. But now he’s here, raising money to buy more guns and pay his men. Three days ago in Lafayette my dad had Bertie to lunch, listened to the guy’s pitch, and gave him a check for sixty-five thousand dollars.”
“Your dad’s helping him? Why?”
“There are people, Jack, who believe that if you aren’t for Bertie you’re for communism. It’s much the same as saying, if you don’t like Dixie beer then you must like vodka.” She said it with that dry tone, the quiet look, her head resting against the cushion. “My dad and his friends are passing Bertie around, inviting him to their homes-he’s a celebrity. He has a letter from the President and that’s good for a check every time he shows it.”
“The president of what? You mean the president?”
“Of the United States of America. He calls the contras our brothers. ‘Freedom fighters.’ Quote. ‘The moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.’ And if you believe that you can join my dad’s club. But here’s the part you’re not going to believe.”
He watched Lucy lean out of the chair to stub her cigarette in the ashtray, the light touching her dark hair. He was glad she didn’t get the perm.
“At dinner my dad began telling me about the Nicaraguan former embassy attaché war hero he invited to lunch, a personal friend of several important people in the White House.” As she sat back, Lucy said, “And anyone affiliated with that club is more than welcome at my dad’s, no questions asked. My dad hadn’t told me the hero’s name, but I knew it was Bertie. First, my dad tells me how this guy is a guerrilla commander, leading a dedicated fight against the Communists. And then he puts on his nonchalant act and says, ‘Oh, by the way. The colonel mentioned that you two have met, or you know each other from somewhere.’ I haven’t said a word yet. But now I’m pretty sure that when I do I’m going to let him have it. I could feel it tightening up in me. My dad says, ‘Yeah, he’s looking for some girl up here, a friend of his or used to be his sweetheart, and wonders if you might be able to help him find her.’ “ Lucy paused. “You like it so far?”
Jack didn’t say a word, waiting.
“I said, ‘Did the colonel tell you where we met?’ My dad shook his head. ‘No, he didn’t.’ I asked if the colonel had told him why he wants to find the girl. My dad said, ‘No, I don’t believe he did.’ I said, ‘Do you want me to tell you why?’ He said sure. I said, ‘Because he wants to fucking kill her, that’s why.’ ”
There was a silence. Jack didn’t move. She kept looking at him and he said to her, “So you let him have it.”
“I gave him every murder and atrocity I could remember. My dad said, ‘You don’t believe that stuff, do you?’ I said, ‘Dad, I was there. I saw it happen.’ He didn’t like that. He said, ‘Yeah, but it’s a war, Sis. Awful things happen in a war.’ I said, ‘How would you know? You don’t fight wars, you finance them.’ “ She raised her sherry and took a sip. “So much for dinner with dad… I had softshell crabs.”
Jack said, “Lucy Nichols, you’ve come a long way from the nunnery.”
She said, “But not from Nicaragua. He’s brought it here.”
Jack said, “Bertie knew it was your dad, huh?”
“He’s given a list, rich guys in the oil business. He looks at the names, he knows Amelita and I flew to New Orleans, he finds out I live here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, I think the idea of using my dad has enormous appeal. He could be in Houston raising funds, but he’s not, he’s here. New Orleans is a contra shipping point; they have arms and supplies stored here waiting to go out.”
Jack felt an urge to get up, move. He reached for a cigarette instead. One more. If he ever started smoking again it wouldn’t be Kools. He sat back looking at her legs stretched out on the coffee table now, ankles crossed. One sandal was loose and he could see the curve of her instep. He wondered what she was like, when she was a girl, before she became a nun.
She said, “Sometime, within the next few days, I have to get Amelita on a flight to Los Angeles.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard.”
He wondered if she’d ever suddenly with somebody gone swimming in her underwear at night, in the Gulf of Mexico off Pass Christian.
She said, “I suppose not. If I’m careful.”
He watched her draw on her cigarette, turn her head slightly to exhale a slow stream.
“And somehow, before Bertie gets ready to leave with his funds, I have to think of a way to stop him.”
Jack waited a moment. He said, “And”-feeling himself alive but not wanting to move now, not wanting to ruin the mood-“you’re wondering if a person with my experience, not to mention the kind of people I know, might not be able to help you.”
Lucy’s eyes moved, her quiet gaze coming back to him. She said, “It crossed my mind.”
He wondered if she had ever made love on a beach. Or in bed. Or anywhere.
“What you’re saying,” Jack said, “you don’t care if Bertie leaves…”
“As long as the money stays here.”
Jack drew on his cigarette, taking his time. Shit, he could play this. This was his game.
“What does he do with the checks?”
“They’re made payable to, I think it’s the Committee to Free Nicaragua. Something like that.”
“He puts them in the bank?”
“I guess so.”
“Then what? Where would he buy the guns?”
“I suppose either here or in Honduras-that’s where their arms depots and training centers are. But I’m sure he’d take American dollars and exchange them for cordobas to pay his men.”
“How? By private plane?”
“Or in a boat.”