“Two thousand, two hundred, and fifteen days… give or take.”
“No wonder I’m ready.”
Close to him she said, “You sure are.” She said, “I’ve missed you, Jack. Boy, have I missed you.”
He shaved in a hot shower and washed his hair, turned the water off and came out to the sink, the steamy mirror. They’d have at least an hour. Taking the towel from the rack he opened the door half expecting to see Helene in bed or on it, waiting in some kind of put-on seductive pose, remembering her this morning-just this morning in her thin-strip panties doing her twist exercise, her breasts trying to keep up… She wasn’t in the room.
Rubbing his hair with the towel over his face he heard her voice and then heard it again. “Jack.” He brought the towel down and was held by her expression, her eyes, with no trace of flirty funny business in them now.
“Someone’s downstairs.”
“You’re sure?”
“I heard glass break.”
FRANKLIN HAD MADE UP his mind on the way here: don’t walk into something the way you walked into that bathroom. Don’t announce yourself, either. Go in quick and point the gun at the guy before he knows what’s happening.
But it didn’t work the way he wanted. He had thought the door would be open because people came in here to see the dead; a woman missing her husband after she’d gone to bed, sure, and would want to be with him again. But the door was locked. So he had to break one of the small panes with the grip of his pistol and then had to hurry, it made so much noise, get to the guy before he knew what was happening and had his own gun in his hand.
Franklin was on the stairs now.
He came to the landing where it turned, looked up, and there was the guy with his shirt hanging open at the top of the stairs, the light in the ceiling over him. The guy’s hair looked wet. Franklin raised his pistol and aimed it at the guy because the guy was holding something in front of him, shining in the light, that looked like a short metal spear. The guy lowered it slowly, seeing he couldn’t use it, and dropped it on the floor without being asked and stood with his hands at his side, not raising them.
Franklin said, “You suppose to put your fingers together behind your head.”
But the guy didn’t do it. The guy held his shirt open at the top of the stairs and said, “Look, I’m clean. I’m your prisoner, okay? But I’m not gonna put my hands behind my head or squat down or any of that shit. You want my shoes? I don’t have any on, but if that’s the custom I’ll give you a pair. Come on.” Now the guy was walking away and Franklin had to mount the stairs quick to catch up with him, the guy moving down the hall in front of him saying, “You still think you’re in the fucking war? I’m gonna have to straighten you out, Franklin, if I can find out where you’re coming from.” They were going into the guy’s room, where they first talked to each other five days ago. But now there was a woman here with red hair, her eyes open wide-the same woman who had been with the colonel last night at the hotel-and the guy was saying, “Helene, this’s Franklin. I think you know each other. Franklin, sit down. We’ll have a drink and get a few things straightened out here.” The guy opening his refrigerator, but then turning to look at him saying, “Hey, Franklin? But first you have to put away the gun. Okay?”
“They called it the dinner for the freedom fighters, or something like that. It was in Miami, Florida, at a big hotel. There was people at all the tables in the room and I was at the long table at the front,” Franklin said. “First we have the dinner that cost five hundred dollars for each person. I think it was chicken. It was pretty good. Then we listen to speeches. One guy made a talk, he said my name to everybody that I was Miskito Indian fighting for the freedom of my people and everybody there clapped their hands. Then they presented statues of eagles to people who gave a lot of money. Then some of the people, different ones, came and talked to me. One of them, an Indian from the States, said to me don’t believe it, is all a lot of shit what they tell you. Rich people came to shake my hand. You know what they said? ‘At a boy.’ What does that mean, at a boy?”
“It means,” Jack said, “what the Indian told you. They’re giving you a bunch of shuck with the chicken à la king.”
“One rich man said to me he gave twenty-five thousand dollars and wished he could join me in fighting for freedom, but his wife wouldn’t let him go. I said to him to bring his woman. She can work with my woman in the camp.”
“Atta boy,” Jack said.
Helene said, “I don’t believe this.”
Franklin squinted in a frown, looking from Helene, sitting at the other end of the sofa, to Jack, standing by the refrigerator. “She means it’s an amazing story,” Jack said. “Go on.”
“They had some people there a man said were refugees who escaped from Communist tyranny. He told them to raise their hands and everybody clapped.”
“Yeah? Who were they?”
“They were some of the waiters working there.”
“They give you a medal or anything?”
“They gave me a new fatigue uniform to wear at the dinner, the kind is different colors. They said it was okay to keep it. They gave me the chicken dinner, but I didn’t have to pay five hundred dollars. They gave us ice cream, too.”
“They brought you all the way from Nicaragua for a fund-raising dinner?”
“From Honduras. A man from the CIA brought me on the airline. I was suppose to go back, but I didn’t. I stayed there.” Franklin straightened. He pulled the Beretta out of the waist of his trousers saying, “It hurts, sticks in me when I sit down,” and laid the pistol on the sofa between him and Helene.
Jack watched Helene staring at the bluesteel automatic, either fascinated or afraid to move; it was hard to tell. He liked it there, out in the open, the guy getting comfortable. “Take your coat off if you want.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Guy from the CIA brought you. You mean Wally Scales?”
“No, a different guy.” Franklin’s eyes opened a little wider. “But you know Wally?”
Jack said, “I know him,” giving Franklin a little shitty kind of grin, and left him wondering about it while he went into the bedroom. Jack came back with an aluminum-plastic deck chair he’d bought three years ago for $9.95, poured Franklin another vodka, gave Helene a look as he sat down, and felt her watching him. Helene knew him. He crossed his legs and wiggled his bare toes. He’d bet if he looked over at Helene again she’d roll her eyes.
“So you stayed and went to work for Crispin.”
“He told me don’t go back, he could use a freedom fighter because there was plenty Sandinistas in Miami.”
“I heard one time you shot three guys. Or you were in on it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Wally Scales knew it, didn’t he?” He watched Franklin take a few moments, staring at him.
“Maybe he did. But I think you know more than Wally.”
Jack sipped his vodka and let him think it.
“Crispin told me those guys were Sandinistas. He said we have to kill them or they would kill us. But the police told me, no, those guys were from Colombia and were doing drug business with Crispin a long time. They said he was a criminal.”
“That’s what I heard, too,” Jack said. “But you were never in prison…”
“Never in my life.”
“You shoot people-but that’s what you do in war, huh, if you’re a soldier?”
“Yes, of course. I told you that before. I come here, I want to know why you didn’t kill me that time, but now I understand.”
“I’m not in the war.”
“Yes, like Wally. He can’t shoot nobody either.”
“No, they have you. They give you the shit detail and keep their hands clean. But why didn’t you tell on me? When you caught me in the colonel’s room?”
Franklin looked surprised. “Because you didn’t kill me. See, then I know you’re not Sandinista. If you aren’t, then maybe it’s not my business to think about it.”
“You tell Wally?”
“If it is his business, he would already know it. If it isn’t his business, why would I tell him? I see you more than I see him.”
“And what does that tell you, Franklin?”
“I didn’t know if you are a funeral guy or the police or what you are. But now, well, okay. You don’t work at the same place as Wally but… Well, it’s okay with me, I understand.” He glanced at Helene. “I see her with Colonel Godoy at the hotel I thought she was his friend. But now I see she works for you. Okay, you don’t have to tell me nothing.” Franklin leaned over to push up from the sofa. “I wonder if I can use your toilet.”
“It’s in there.”
Franklin stood up, walked into the bedroom.
Jack looked at the pistol lying on the sofa. Then at Helene as she said, “Jack? You’re scary. You should’ve been an actor.”
“I know it.”
“He trusts you.”
“I’ve got him confused, anyway, I know so much about him. He thinks I must be some kind of secret agent.”
“He even likes you.”
“You serious?”
“Jack, the way those guys treat him, those arrogant little assholes… You’re probably the only person he knows who even talks to him.”
“You think so?”
“They treat him awful.”
“He’s not a bad guy.”
“He seems nice.”
“Yeah, you get to know him.”
“They’re all short, aren’t they?”
“He’s tough though, you can tell.”
“His suit’s way too big for him.”
“They screw up, he takes the fall.”
“The poor guy.”
“They use him and then they’ll throw him away.”
“But you’re not, huh?”
“I’m trying to help him.”
“Hey, Jack…”
“I am.”
“He just flushed the john.”
“Good, I’m glad he knows how to do that.”
“Boy, if anybody should’ve been an actor.”
“You really think so?”
“All the years you wasted, it’s a shame.”
“I’m doing all right.”
When Franklin came back he stopped and looked at his gun lying on the sofa before he sat down. Then looked at Jack and seemed to smile. Jack got up and poured him another vodka.
“Are you a happy guy, Franklin?”
“I feel pretty good.”
“Going home tomorrow, huh?”
The way Franklin grinned Jack knew the vodka was working. Sitting down again Jack said, “Let me ask you something, Franklin. Do you understand what the war’s about, down in Nicaragua?”
“Sure, we fight Sandinistas.”
“Yeah, but do you have a good reason?”
“They the worst kind of people,” Franklin said. “They burn our homes, take our land, they kill some of us, and make us go live where we don’t want to.”
Jack said, “Oh.”
There was a silence, Franklin watching him.
Jack said, “Let me ask you something else. You think the colonel’s gonna get on that banana boat tomorrow? With those bank sacks full of money?”
It caught Franklin with his drink raised, about to take a sip.
“And with his brand-new cream-colored Mercedes? You think it’s possible?”
Franklin kept watching him, but didn’t answer.
“If he can’t take it on the boat, you think he’s gonna drive it all the way to Nicaragua? That sixty-thousand-dollar automobile. He isn’t gonna leave it. Shit, he just bought it yesterday.”
Franklin said, “I thought it might be Crispin’s.”
“You did, huh? Then how come it’s in the colonel’s name? He bought it, Franklin, that means he owns it… What’d Wally say about it?”
“Wally said only to call him if they leave me here.”
Jack had to give that some thought. He said, “Go on, take a drink and I’ll tell you something else.”
He watched Franklin swallow half the vodka in the glass, make a face, squeeze his eyes closed and open them, and wipe his hand across his mouth.
“Wally has your best interest at heart and I’m glad to know that,” Jack said. “You’re a good guy, Franklin. We don’t want to see you get in trouble. But I think it’s best if you don’t wait around.”
Franklin cleared his throat. He said, “Leave here?”
Jack bit on his lower lip. “Damn, I wish I could tell you exactly how I work. I ‘magine it’s confusing to you, all the ins and outs of this kind of game. Hey, I even get a little confused myself sometimes.” He sneaked a glance at Helene, his audience, watching him with her mouth slightly open, not moving a muscle. Jack bit on his lip again. “Franklin, if I tell you something I shouldn’t, will you promise not to repeat it to anybody, not even to Wally?… You’d have to promise me on your honor.”
Franklin was nodding his head.
“Say it.”
“Yes, I promise.”
“On your honor.”
“Yes, on my honor.”
“Okay. First, do you know where the money is?”
“Maybe in that hotel room.”
“You think so?”
“Maybe.”
“Where else could it be? I was thinking maybe the car, but that wouldn’t be as safe as having it in the room, would it?”
Franklin didn’t answer. He seemed to shrug and Jack wasn’t sure if he liked the way the guy was staring at him.
“It doesn’t matter. Here’s the deal, Franklin. It looks like the colonel and his buddy are gonna take off for Miami with the cash. We think tomorrow.” Jack gave him a sly grin. “You kind of suspected that too, huh? Talked it over with Wally? The possibility? But I’ll bet he didn’t tell you what’s gonna happen to those two assholes, did he? You understand I can’t give you the details, Franklin, they’re confidential. But I’ll tell you this much. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison, convicted of a serious crime, then you’ll make me another promise, right now. Will you do that, for your own good?”
Franklin seemed about to nod, ready to, but waited.
“I visited a state prison one time and I’ll tell you, they are no fun,” Jack said. “All I’m asking is that you promise me you’ll get on that banana boat tomorrow morning and go straight home to your family.”
Now he was nodding.
“Doesn’t that sound good? Get out of this mess and go back home? Man, it sure sounds good to me. I wish you a safe journey, Franklin…”
He was still nodding.
“And God bless you.”
Jack kept his reverent gaze squarely on the Miskito Indian. He didn’t dare look at Helene.