"As of yesterday. Murdered."
"The Indios that took the kid?"
"I thought it was a possibility. But not now. He was murdered by someone around here. In Florida."
"For the son of a friend of yours, I guess I could help. I don't know what got into me. This mess down here just has me mean or something. What do you want me to do?"
Ford had Rafe's address book by the phone. "You have something to write with? I want you to check out three names for me. Ready? The names are Julio Zacul, Raul Arevalo, and Wendy Stafford. Find out where they are, what they're doing, if they know anything about the boy. I know the last two personally, but Zacul only by reputation."
"I know Zacul by reputation, too, man." Bernstein pronounced the name Zack-COOL, giving emphasis to the Mayan guttural, like a growl. "He's one of them that split away from Rivera; got his own band of guerrillas. Zacul got the boy, he's probably already dead. How the hell am I supposed to get in touch with him?"
"You can talk to people who know Zacul; people who've worked for him. Come on, Buck, there's nobody around better than you at that sort of thing." Ford wondered for a moment if that might be a little strong, too obvious, then decided not to bother qualifying it. Bernstein wouldn't recognize flattery. "Another angle is, whoever has the boy is smuggling something out of the country or into the country. My friend was flying for them."
"All the guerrillas smuggle stuff into the country and out of the country. They send out dope or refined coke, and bring in raw coca leaves from Peru. Or guns."
"It may have been arms, but my friend told me it wasn't drugs."
"Maybe he was lying."
"Maybe. Write this down, too: My friend's name was Rafe Hollins. He could have used an alias down there, I don't know. The boy's name is Jake Hollins. Brown hair, brown eyes, cleft chin."
"Looking for a brown-eyed, brown-haired boy in Masagua. That's just great. Aren't too many of those around. " The sarcasm returning as the submissive Bernstein began to fade; an asshole to the end. "And what do I do if I find him? You going to come down and get him out?"
"I had to sign papers saying I wouldn't return to Masagua for two years, you know that. Company rules. Besides, you say Balserio's men are after me. That I don't understand at all. They have no reason." Ford listened carefully, gauging Bernstein's tone.
"Ah, shit, I don't know. Maybe I said that cause I was mad at you; overreacting. They just keep asking, that's all. Maybe they think you can help them find whatever it was that was stolen." A little too airy; Balserio wanted him, all right. Then: "But why you need a visa, man? Just fly into Guatemala, sneak across the border. Get in touch with me. No one has to know you're here. Not even our own people."
Ford thought, Right, so you can have me arrested, put me in some Masaguan prison for twenty years. He said, "That's a good idea, Buck. Maybe the best idea. We can talk about it. But first you need to locate the boy."
"And what about that other matter—my first two weeks here? Man, that really was some shitty thing to do, I hope you know."
"What I'm going to do right now is type up a memo on my old stationery, in triplicate. I'll postdate it, make it a week before you arrived, and say I received word Rivera's people were considering plans to intercept you, give you a powerful narcotic, then photograph you in various compromising positions, all staged, all without your knowledge or cooperation—"
"Photos? You got fucking photos, too! You one sneaky . . . careful dude, man."
"I'll keep the pink sheet for my files, send you the blue and the white. You should put the white copy in an envelope, address it to D.C., then shove it down behind the desk or a crack or something, make sure it stays there—"
"Behind the desk?"
"If the matter ever comes up, the people in Washington are going to want to know where their copy went. Things get rough, you can have them help you look for it. They'll find it right behind the desk, a piece of lost mail. "
"Yeah—sneaky, sneaky. But what about the prints and the negatives? I want those, too."
"I'll send the memo tomorrow, and everything else I have as soon as I get it together. Things are kind of messy around my place."
"How long?"
Ford said, "About as long as it takes you to get that information I need."
He hung up wondering what Bernstein had done during his first two weeks in Masagua that had him so worried.
More improper channels: Ford got the home number of Sally Field, not the actress; the one who worked for the Operations Data Board of National Security Affairs. Sally was thirtyish, lush in a deceptive, secretarial sort of way, a dedicated government employee who had only one passion outside of her work: the bedroom. The bedroom was to her what golf or skiing were to her co-workers. She liked men, all kinds of men, but she was selective and discreet. She told Ford she'd kept a record of every man she had ever been with—in code, of course, because her men often held public office. In the diary, each man was graded in a variety of categories (Ford hadn't asked what categories) so she could look back and have fun remembering when she was old and single. "Because I'm always going to be single," she had told him. "No husband could put up with my hobby." When Ford met her, there were forty-three entries in her book. By the time she confided in him, he was already number forty-four. He had always avoided promiscuous women and probably would have avoided Sally had he known in advance. But the woman was a devotee, and Ford admired dedication wherever he happened to find it.
Sally answered—sounding sleepy, he thought. But no, she wasn't busy; he wasn't interrupting. She hoped he was calling because he was either in D.C. or on his way. "You are one of my favorites, Doc. One of my very, very favorites. I hope you know that."
Ford knew that. He also knew that each of the other forty-three were favorites, too. "I'm in Florida, Sally; calling to ask a favor. A professional favor."
Her tone changed, from sleepy to slightly severe. "Oh, Doc,
I hope you don't. I never mix business with pleasure. Never, ever. I'm very serious about my job, you know."
"I know that. I wouldn't ask under any other circumstances. But this is important." Ford told her about Hollins and the missing boy, adding "All I need you to do, Sally, is run a computer check on a few names for me. I need some background information, that's all. Anything you can come up with."
"That's all you need?" She was relaxed again; relieved. "I can do that on my coffee break; make it as thorough as I can, and that's as thorough as you can get. How many names?"
Ford gave her the spellings of the names and what little other information he had.
She said, "Okay, okay," her voice changing; her dictation voice. "Last name T-o-m-l-i-n-s-o-n; God, I can't even pronounce his first name."
Ford said, "Me neither."
"Jessica M-c capital-C-l-u-r-e; my competition, I suppose?"
"Just a friend."
"You know, Doc, sometimes you're just a little too calculating—running background checks on friends. I don't want to sound critical, but isn't that a little compulsive—"
"Didn't you run my name through the computer, Sal? When we first met?"
"Touche; you win. You're as careful as I am—which is why the files say you were so good at your job, I guess." Then she said, "The first man, Mario DeArmand, sounds familiar. Should he?"
"Maybe. He's from New Jersey. The eastern seaboard area. Now he's a county sheriff in south Florida."
"And the other names?"
"I don't know much about them. That's why I'm calling. It's possible there's something that connects them all. If there is, I need to know what. I also need to know if any of them work for our government—work for it on any level. "
"You're getting into a pretty touchy area there, Doc."