“What is it they think?”
“That you’re a very sharp renegade. That you’ve had a plan from the start. That you’re on your way to control of the whole East Coast, and then, maybe, beyond the East Coast. That the Italians and the Jamaicans and the Colombians and all the various Asian cartels are going to have to deal with you sooner or later. Basically, that you’re the top dog, so to speak.”
“And this you don’t believe?”
“No,” she says, a little nervous. “I don’t know why. I can’t even look at their paperwork. I can’t even hear about the documentation. Transcripts from a million informers. Something’s wrong about it.”
“You think,” he says, “I’m a puppet of some kind. You think there’s someone above me.”
“No offense intended.”
“But this is your suspicion.”
Lenore nods. Cortez bites his lower lip and gives a barely perceptible shrug.
“What I’d like to do,” he says, “is get all the suspicions out in the open before we confirm or destroy them. So here’s mine. Certainly, you’re a narcotics officer. There’s no question about this. For a time, the question was, were you filthy, or, perhaps, did you wish to be filthy? To the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t paying you. Mingo’s idea was that you were, in his words, a headcase. Le falta un tornillo. Your friend in the lobby, Jimmy, he thought you had the makings of a spectacular junkie, which, I must admit, I had to agree with. Tonight, I think something else, something beyond all these things. I suspect you are a woman without a sense of place. You don’t know where you belong. And you’re drawn to Bangkok Park because of its completely ambiguous nature. Because you think this might be the end of the road.”
Lenore wishes she’d taken him up on the drink offer. She gets out of the rocker and comes down to the floor, sitting in the same position as Cortez, almost mimicking him.
“Okay,” she says, “I’m a headcase. And I’ve got an appetite for speed that’s on the move. And I think I belong in the Park more than you do.” She pauses, turns more toward him, and says, “So, your turn.”
“As a younger man,” he says, so quietly she strains her eyes to watch his lips, “I was a seminarian, and then a medical student, and also a journeyman trumpet player. I grew bored with everything in time. And now I am a fine actor. Tremendous actor. There should be the Oscar, there, up on the mantel. But I’m bored to tears. I’m bored to the point of distraction.”
He uncrosses his legs, rises, and moves to the sheet-covered piece of furniture behind the rocker.
“Come here and see something,” he says, and Lenore stands and moves next to him.
He pulls the bed sheet free like a magician at a children’s party. Underneath is what looks like an antique traveling salesman’s product case, a big black wooden steamer trunk with fat leather straps for reinforcement. Cortez take a moment to open it and Lenore sees that it’s fitted with shelves for displaying the goods. The shelves here are crammed with old-fashioned books, leather-bound. Lenore leans forward a little to take in the wonderful smell. The titles written down the spines are all in Spanish.
“I thought you got rid of all your books,” Lenore says.
“I got rid of all those books,” Cortez says, gesturing toward the empty bookcases. “You have no idea what you’re seeing, my friend.”
“Old books.”
He shakes his head no. “There are one hundred books in this trunk. And not one of them has ever been seen by a northerner. Not a single one. Never been seen, let alone read. You want to talk about conspiracies? Here are novels, stories, poetry. From Argentina. And also from Peru, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador. From all the countries below.”
He pulls out a volume and holds it in his hand.
“Paraguay.” He reshelves it and pulls out another.
“Guyana.”
He reshelves the second volume and begins to point at spines.
“Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras.”
Then he folds his arms across his chest and says, “And, except for this trunk, Cortez’s own trunk, none of them have ever traveled north of Juárez. It’s our hidden library. The ghost library. The North knows nothing of it and never will.”
Lenore shrugs her shoulders. “So why are you telling me about it?”
“Because this is my future,” he says. “This is what I wish to do. I wish to go back home. Like you. For me, it’s possible. I want to just disappear. Into the Andes. Into a cave in the Andes. With my trunk. I want to vanish with my books.”
“Why don’t you?” Lenore asks.
“All things in time. The instinctual actor knows when to exit.”
“I’ll bet he also knows how to line his pockets one last time.”
“Which brings us to Lingo.”
“How much do you know?”
“Not as much as you think. It’s already out there. I’m sure you’re aware of that. I’ve been listening to the police radio all night. Such excitement. The city is humming. There was a sample batch. Every parasite in this hotel has dipped into that cookie jar, I’m sure. In another week, the blood will be rolling down the streets.”
“Do you know who’s selling? Do you know who smacked the Swarms, who you’re buying from?”
“No idea. I hope you believe me on this. I know it’s a new company. The sales rep is unusually elusive. Refers to himself as the Paraclete, which, I’m embarrassed to confess, appeals to my sense of the dramatic. But I can’t tell you where they come from or how big they are or how they got involved with the Swanns. You see, I’m more in the dark than you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Let’s try something else. Confirm a hunch for me. Do you know who the Swanns cooked it up for in the first place? I mean, was it CIA or NSA or some other circle of fuckers in mirror sunglasses and wash-and-wear suits?”
“Who knows these things? These kinds of questions are like little Zen koans, don’t you think? The answer is really moot. Inconsequential. It’s the process of pondering the question that counts. I personally believe in a unified field theory in these matters. Everything interconnected and as important as everything else. You know who I think dreamed up Lingo? I think it was some blind, deaf, dumb, illiterate, incontinent, unwashed streetperson selling pencils from a soup can for a nickel, standing in front of the White House gates. Good an answer as any.”
“Maybe for you. But I’ve hit bottom. And now I’ve got to ask questions that I didn’t even acknowledge a week ago. Like who is it on the other side of the fence, on my side of the fence, that’s been helping you out for a while now? Someone up near the top of the department? Someone up in City Hall?”
“How do you know it’s not both?”
“How high does it go? Does it get up to Welby? Does it go beyond him?”
“My guess would be it goes fairly high. But, like you, my friend, I’m just a cog, correct? I’m an errand boy of sorts, yes? A caretaker. That’s your theory, right? You have to have the courage to stand behind your theories, Detective.”
They smile at one another. She says, “I don’t think you’d last a week in a cave in the Andes.”
He shakes his head and says, “That’s where you’d be wrong.”
She shrugs. “You know what you want, I guess—”
“And you also.”
“So why can’t we both have what we want? Why can’t there be a way that you get the money and the distance? You get to run. All shots fired far over the head.”
“You want a time and a place?”
“You knew that when I came in the door.”
“You want everyone left over after I run?”
“I want the producer. And the broker. I’d say I want the Aliens too, but I’m betting you’d balk.”