Evil’s Root
by Michael Segedy
Published by Michael Segedy on Smashwords
Copyright © 2012 by Michael Segedy
ISBN: 978-1-4659-7838-7
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.
This book is dedicated to my incredibly loving and giving wife, Ursula, and to our astute, talented, and beautiful daughter, Paloma. It is a small token of my appreciation to them for their hard work in editing the novel and their firm commitment to its success.
The old guys centuries ago had it right: radix malorum est cupiditas.
CHAPTER ONE
The lift off in the twin engine Cessna 340 was smooth and uneventful. It was a bright, cloudless day over Lima, Peru and the weather report that Senator David Kursten received from the U.S. embassy promised a pleasant flight. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Terrorism, the senator’s official purpose in Peru was to determine to what extent the Peruvian government had implemented measures to reduce coca production. What he’d gathered from State Department reports coming out of Lima convinced him Peru had done little to eradicate its coca fields and stem the flow of cocaine to the U.S.
Colonel Luis Antonio Vargas sat across the aisle from the senator, lecturing him on the Peruvian government’s vigorous anti-drug campaign. He boasted that Peru had destroyed in the last month over a hundred hectares of coca fields. In a sting operation, the national police had stopped a shipment to the U.S. of four hundred kilos of cocaine chlorhydrate, the crystal form of cocaine. This had been big news worldwide, and staunch, anti-drug senators on the committee back home had used the cocaine bust to illustrate the success of the War on Drugs abroad.
The senator, a tall man with a full head of gray hair and a large Teddy Bear like physique, listened politely, but he needed more than the colonel’s words to convince him of the Peruvian government’s efforts. He wanted to see the eradicated coca fields. The colonel had to convince him that the Peruvians were seriously complying. If not, then the senator was determined to defeat the bill in congress authorizing additional aid to Peru to fight the drug war. Kursten suspected that the CIA was using DEA money to combat the left wing insurgency in this poverty stricken nation, and that the drug eradication program was just a front. He had even dared to bring this up during one of the congressional hearings.
“What you see below Senator,” the colonel said, pointing to a large defoliated swath of jungle, “is one of the farms we decommissioned last week.” The colonel, a round faced, middle-aged man with thick glasses, opened his leather case, took out a pair of binoculars, and passed them to the congressman.
Senator Kursten adjusted the focus as he looked out the small oval window at the swath of defoliated jungle 5000 feet below. He was about to call out to Major Spanchek, the co-pilot and a U.S. Army horticulturist, to take a look at the area of defoliation, but decided to wait and hear the colonel out. Major Spanchek had come along for the purpose of indentifying coca fields and providing the senator with any technical advice pertaining to the cultivation of coca.
“As you can see Senator, this hacienda is large. It has around ten hectares of land that was dedicated solely to cultivating coca. No longer. Now the campesinos have agreed to plant coffee beans.” A smirk formed on the portly colonel’s face as he boasted of the serious actions taken by his government.
Before Congressman Kursten could respond, the curtain between the cabin and the cockpit slid open and Major Spanchek stepped into the narrow passage way wielding a Browning 19 mm semi-automatic. With a slight grin on his clean, shaven face, he stood over the two middle-aged gentlemen as they gazed up at him in total shock and disbelief.
The colonel blurted out,“Que te pasa!” while the gray haired congressman sat frozen in his seat, speechless, not knowing if what he was witnessing was for real or some bizarre joke.
“You’ll have to excuse me gentlemen for the interruption,” said the tall figure dressed in a freshly starched uniform. “I hope you don’t take any of this too personally. It’s just business. Nothing more.”
Then smiling ironically, he pulled the trigger. A bullet exploded from the gun striking the colonel in the chest right above his heart, thrusting him back in his seat.
The tall figure watched as the colonel’s body seemed to stiffen and then relax as his head fell back against the head rest and his vacant eyes stared up at the ceiling. His mouth hung agape, as though he were about to ask a question but was caught in mid-sentence.
In absolute panic, the senator let go of the documents resting in his lap as his hands shot up in front of him in a futile and somewhat comical gesture to protect himself.
The major fired another shot. This one went through the congressman’s outstretched hand and struck him between his eyes. His head bucked backwards for a split second before falling forward against his chest. As his large body tilted to the side and was about to tumble into the aisle, the major raised his leg and gave it a solid kick that sent it back in the seat.
Then, as if out of respect for the senator, he leaned over the colonel’s body and grabbed the crumpled senator by his lapels and lifted him upright in his seat. Removing the handkerchief from the senator’s suit pocket, he wiped away the tiny stream of blood trickling down his forehead where the bullet had entered. When he finished, he neatly folded the bloody handkerchief and placed it in the congressman’s pocket. Then cocking his head to the side, he admired his work, smiling wryly while musing over the frozen features of the senator’s face, his pale blue eyes staring up at him blankly and his mouth parted slightly as though in a speechless prayer.
The major returned to the cockpit. Slumped over on his side in the pilot’s seat was a young Peruvian captain, the front of his shirt soaked through in blood, the bright red liquid still oozing from the gaping slit in his throat. The major snatched a parachute from behind the seat and quickly strapped it on. Then reaching across the body to the control panel, he clicked a switch killing the left engine. Instantly the plane began to tilt to the side. He adjusted a wing flap to straighten the plane and then pushed in slightly on the control wheel to put the plane in a gradual descent.
Seconds later he returned to the cabin, pulled down sharply on the cabin door latch, and shoved the door open. A torrent of air rushed in ruffling his clothes and sending the blood soaked documents, which lay at the feet of the senator, flying to the back of the cabin.
Steadying himself against the blast of air ripping through the door opening, he turned to his two dead passengers and said, “Like I mentioned before. It’s nothing personal.”
He then jumped through the open door into the blue space of sky below.
CHAPTER TWO
Ambassador Wenton stood behind his large mahogany desk paging through a pile of documents he’d received from the DEA sector. He was a tall man in his early sixties, over six feet two, and still trim and fit. He’d been the U.S. Ambassador to Peru for nearly three years and had also served as ambassador to Nicaragua. He had been posted in Managua several years after the Contra affair had ended and the country was on its long arduous journey towards recovery. He had just spoken by phone with the President of Peru and earlier in the morning with the assistant Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. In the next few minutes, he expected to be briefed by Bill Henkly, the DEA chief.
He wasn’t looking forward to meeting with Henkly. He didn’t like him much, or spooks like Singler, Henkly’s pal. In his opinion, Henkly was dedicated more to serving his ego than he was to serving his country. Though the same couldn’t be said of Singler, he liked him even less. Singler’s cheerless bureaucratic demeanor completely turned him off. At least Henkly occasionally smiled. Apart from Carl Singler’s cheerlessness, he was an aloof prick with a cold, hard exterior that set one on edge. Maybe it came with being a spook. He’d probably worked hard on projecting the hard ass demeanor. Guys like him saw themselves as cool, tough guardians of democracy fighting the evil empires that threatened America’s existence. Which was fine, in some ways, since America had to protect itself from ruthless governments and deranged terrorists, Wenton reflected. Our intelligence services could use more refined agents, maybe with a touch of James Bond, and infused with a little humanity. Singler was definitely no James Bond. He was about as suave and charming as Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.
To the Henklys and Singlers, the difference between the enemy and us was as clear as polished crystal. They saw offered to the world, in two tightly closed fists, a choice: in one hand tiny black cyanide tablets and in the other large shiny pearls. Though he loved his country dearly, Wenton’s patriotism wasn’t so extreme, so black and white. He had not started as a career civil servant. For years he had been a history professor at the University of Virginia and had published extensively on Latin America. His father, an ardent Democrat, had helped Bill Clinton in his campaign for the presidency. Shortly after winning the election, Clinton offered Professor Wenton the post of Ambassador to Nicaragua. Then three years later, he became the Ambassador to Panama. After more than a decade serving in the diplomatic corps, he still had a hard time warming to the civil servants that surrounded him, the State Department career folks, many whose parents had served in the military. Perhaps his patriotism wasn’t pure enough. More likely, not fanatical enough. Recently he began to wonder why he had given up his academic career at the University of Virginia to become a diplomat. Or why he had remained one for so long. Especially when he never felt at home as a bureaucrat.
Henkly stepped into Ambassador Wenton’s office, greeted the ambassador and then sat down in a black leather chair across from his desk. He had a yellow legal pad and some papers on his lap. He looked more tense than usual sitting cross-legged, tapping his pen sporadically against his writing pad.
“Well, Mr. Henkly, what’s the latest?” Wenton asked peering over his glasses.
“Yesterday a rather large guerrilla contingency was reported eighty kilometers northeast of Tingo María,” Henkly began. “As you know, that’s where the plane carrying Congressman Kursten and Major Spanchek went down, Mr. Ambassador.
“It’s too early to determine what happened,” Wenton cut in, guessing where Henkly was going. “Nonetheless, Washington wants some answers. And soon. I was on the phone with the assistant Secretary of State earlier. He would like an update as soon as we have something solid. What do we have specifically, Mr. Henkly? I’m talking about hard facts that I can communicate to Washington.”
“We do have reason to believe that López’s extradition to the U.S. may have something to do with the downing of the plane,” Henkly offered, waiting to see if Wenton would take the bait.
“I would prefer not to use the expression ‘downing of the plane,’” Wenton rejoined, perturbed by Henkly’s less than subtle attempt at manipulation. “This whole business could escalate into something larger than we may wish it to. Right now, there’s no reason to make any direct connection between the crash and the terrorists.”
“There had been threats,” Henkly continued stubbornly, unabashed, “and the proximity of the guerilla contingency to the crash site shouldn’t be viewed necessarily as coincidental, Mr. Ambassador. Our intelligence reports confirm that the Shining Path has acquired Javelin LML shoulder fired surface to air missiles. They are perfect for shooting down planes flying at low altitudes. According to our reports, earlier in the year a half a dozen Javelins disappeared from a Peruvian arsenal. Crooked Peruvian security officials allegedly sold the missiles, along with hundreds of other weapons, to the Shining Path. ”
“But firing on a plane with a U.S. senator aboard? What would be the point in the terrorists risking U.S. military intervention? And as you know, Mr. Henkly, the senator was on a congressional mission to verify that the Peruvian government had taken steps to eradicate coca. This was a drug issue. As far as our intelligence can gather, the Shining Path has little involvement today with the narco-traffickers. They used to charge the narcos a fee for their services. But that was years ago, at the height of the Shining Path insurgency. Today we only have a small number of Senderistas operating in the Huallaga valley. And shooting down an American plane with a U.S. congressman aboard, and inviting a costly U.S. military reprisal, simply to please the drug lords, is not a sound tactic,” he continued, clearly agitated by Henkly’s sloppy argument implicating the terrorists in the plane crash.
“But we know for certain that the terrorists are active in the area where the plane crashed,” Henkly insisted, playing the only card he had.
“Proximity of a guerrilla base to the plane crash is not enough. You’ll need more than that. Anyway, as I said, the Upper Huallaga Valley is no longer swarming with terrorists. For Christ’s sake, this is not the 80s or 90s. The movement has pretty much been crushed. One base located…”
Ambassador Wenton noticed the intercom flashing. Frustrated, he tossed the documents he had been holding in his hand onto his desk and reached across and pressed the flashing red button.
“Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Brinton is here. Says it’s urgent,” announced the staticky voice from the intercom.
“Thank you. Send him in please.”
John Brinton, the DCM, opened the door and walked in. As the Deputy Chief of Mission, he was the second in command at the embassy. He was also an old friend of Wenton’s. They had worked together in Managua. He was a short, stodgy man, with a shiny pate, about the same age as Wenton, and also an ex-professor. He had a funny little mustache tweaked off bluntly on each side. Many of the embassy staff referred to them as Laurel and Hardy. This particular morning there was nothing remotely funny in his demeanor. The expression on his pudgy face was grave, and the way he gritted his teeth gave the impression he had a bad case of indigestion or heart burn.
“Good morning, Mr. Ambassador,” he said clearing his throat. And then glancing at Henkly sitting stiffly in the chair in front of the ambassador’s desk, nodded and said, “Good morning Mr. Henkly.”
“Is it, Mr. Brinton?” Wenton asked.
Rarely did Brinton’s small blue eyes display such emotion, and at the moment, the pained expression in them did not harbinger good news.
“Colonel Montero, the Peruvian colonel in charge in Tingo María, just called. He had been out at the crash site earlier this morning.”
“Does he have any idea what happened to the plane?” the ambassador asked.
“They found fragments of a missile lodged in one of the panels of the fuselage.”
“Shit! Anything else? That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Yes, the bodies of the four who were on board.” Brinton bit his lip and looked away.
“Anything more on the missile?” Wenton asked.
“Colonel Montero said he received a call from a Shining Path rebel. He said the Shining Path was claiming responsibility.”
Wenton looked at Henkly. Pasted across his face was this arrogant expression that said, “I told you so, assholes!” The ambassador felt like strangling the bastard.
“Did he have any witnesses? Any campesinos that might have seen what happened?” Wenton did not necessarily believe Colonel Montero’s report. After what he had read in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, concluded back in 2003, he detested the Peruvian military almost as much as he detested the rebels. And trusted them about as much.
“I asked him the same question. He said no. There was no one within miles of the crash site when they arrived.”
Brinton hung his head, staring at the floor. It looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. His pale face had turned the same color as the report he held in his hand.
“Well, if the Shining Path is behind this,” Wenton sighed, “the violence is about to escalate. This would be nothing less than an act of terror against the United States.” With an unsteady hand, he reached slowly across his desk and pressed down the intercom button.
Henkly had already sprung up from his chair, eager and ready.
“Yes, Mr. Ambassador?” his secretary’s voice answered.
He looked directly at Henkly standing in front of him with his arms crossed, as attentive as a pitbull waiting for a bone to be thrown his way.
“Please contact the assistant Secretary of State. Tell his office that at the assistant secretary’s earliest convenience I need to talk to him, that we have an important development on the plane crash. Thanks.”
“I’ll see what news I can get from our guy in Tingo, Mr. Ambassador,” Henkly said.
“Thanks, Mr. Henkly,” Wenton replied.
“Good day, gentlemen.” Henkly said, and then turned and scurried out of the ambassador’s office.
“Well, John. This is not what either of us wanted. And please accept my deepest condolences for Congressman Kursten. I know that he was a friend of yours and of your family.”
“Thanks Frank. I appreciate that. Martha and I had just visited him over Christmas,” he said, shaking his head. “He invited us over for dinner at his house in Arlington. We hadn’t seen each other in several years. I think I told you once that we’d grown up together right outside of Reno. We even attended the same schools, all the way through high school. Even played football together. The Garfield Tigers,” he said, breathing in deeply and then out, hoping to expel some of the pain he felt inside. “God, it seems like a century ago.”
Brinton’s eyes began to well up. He took his handkerchief out and dabbed at his eyes before any tears could escape.
“I’m very sorry,” Wenton said in a strained voice, barely audible. He felt his heart in his throat as he imagined the pain his friend must be feeling. He knew only too well what it was like to lose a dear friend or family member. His brother had just died of a stroke two months before.
He motioned to Brinton to take a seat as he leaned over his desk and pushed the intercom button. “Margaret, would you bring us a couple cups of coffee please? Both black. Thanks.”
“Sure thing Mr. Ambassador,” she replied, and then the intercom buzz went dead.
“You know Frank, David Kursten was a good man,” Brinton said, trying as hard as he could to control the rising tide of emotions damned up inside. “Yes, a real good man.” He let out a long sigh as he struggled to get a grip on himself. “And damn busy, though he always made time for his family and friends. When I met with him over Christmas, he was chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee on Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Terrorism. He was also active on a number of other congressional committees. He was one dedicated civil servant, Frank. As you know, he’d come to Peru because he suspected that a number of high level Peruvian officials are on the take. He insisted on seeing for himself how serious the Peruvian government was about their coca eradication program. That’s the only reason he was in that goddamn plane to begin with. To have the government show him evidence, show him the hundreds of hectares of eradicated coca fields they had highlighted in their reports.”
The ambassador’s secretary entered the office carrying two coffees on a silver tray. She was a woman in her early fifties with short gray hair cut to shoulder length. She had on a white silk shirt with a lace collar, and over it a light blue suit jacket. Careful not to interrupt them, she set the tray down lightly on the table and slipped out as quietly and quickly as she could.
“He also talked a lot about his efforts to defeat an amendment to the Free Trade Agreement with Peru, an amendment that would require the Peruvian government to ban generic drug dumping,” Brinton continued. “The international pharmaceutical companies were doing their most to see that the amendment was passed. As you know, this has been an issue of late here in the Peruvian congress.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the issue,” Wenton said. “I knew it was a big deal in Washington. If the amendment passes, Peru would have to prohibit the importation of any generic drugs their government deems harmful, or drugs that have not undergone sufficient testing.”
“Yes, that’s right. David said that it looked like the amendment might pass, despite the fact that he was doing all he could to help defeat it. He believed that over half of the senators on the committee had succumbed to pressure from the pharmaceutical giants.”
Wenton sipped his tepid coffee and then set his cup back down on his desk. The cups were too shallow to retain much heat.
“Look John, I’m going to ask the editor of the Lima Tribune, Samuel Polsky, to let us send Miss Strand along to Tingo María with his reporter. It would be a good idea to see what she comes up with. I’m not so ready to buy into the Shining Path story one hundred percent. I’ll arrange to get both of them up there. I’m sure Polsky wants to cover the story and this way he’ll have an exclusive. You have met her, right?”
“Yes, she’s the young woman that just arrived from Colombia. Henkly introduced me to her the other day. She writes for Reuters. A real cutie. Reminds me of my own daughter. Still young and full of optimism. Not like us old farts,” he laughed, relieved to take his thoughts off his friend David Kursten for a moment. “She mentioned that she’s in Peru writing a piece on the resurgence of the Shining Path. She also said she’s done some work on the FARC in Colombia and planned to write a long cover article about them for Newsweek. She strikes me as quite an ambitious young lady.”
“I’m sure then that she would jump at the opportunity to go up to the Upper Huallaga. She’s sure to pick up information on the Shining Path and gather related material for her article on the FARC.”
“I’d think that she’d appreciate the offer,” Brinton said, an edginess returning to his voice. He apparently realized he’d been treating the incident a bit too casually, like it wasn’t his dear friend who’d perished in the plane crash. Just some politician.
“Polsky’s reporter knows the area. It would be good to get both of their views, not just the Peruvian military’s.”
Wenton noticed how his friend had grown sullen. He’d been looking past him out the window, his weary eyes staring off into space.
“I’ll do all I can to get to the bottom of this, John. I know that Senator Kursten hated violence and extremism. It would be a shame if his death led to more bloodshed. Let’s see what comes up in the next few days. We’ll have more when Miss Strand returns. And Polsky’s guy. The State Department will also be sending a team down from Washington to investigate. It will all get sorted out eventually.” Wenton smiled weakly, hoping his optimism might lighten his friend’s mood some.
John Brinton returned the smile nodding his head in acknowledgment, though the distant look in his pain ridden eyes belied any genuine conviction.
CHAPTER THREE
Steve Collins sat at the kitchen bar blowing on his cup, trying to cool the hot, murky liquid. It was a Tuesday morning around 10:30 and he was due to pop into the office in half an hour. He had an understanding with his boss that he should not be expected to show up before 11:00, unless it was something really important, like an early morning interview that couldn’t be rescheduled, or couldn’t be turned over to the intern. Almost half the news Samuel Polsky’s paper published was downloaded directly from Reuters or the Associated Press. The Lima Tribune was an English language paper with a small circulation, perfect for the expats who eschewed learning Spanish, and perfect for a small time journalist like Steve with an equally small ambition.
He looked at the headlines on the front page of El Comercio, the largest Lima daily. Same old shit. Bunch of crap about some entertainers from Rio coming to town; an interview with Black-eyed Peas about a concert scheduled to take place in the Stadium Monumental; problems with garbage pickup; talks about a citywide bus drivers strike; and a confrontation between the police and some angry demonstrators in a small mining town in the Andes.
He picked up the TV remote control from the coffee table in the living room and switched on the TV to the local news. A news reporter, a sexy woman in a white, low cut baby alpaca sweater was going on excitedly about a plane crash. It was hard for Steve to focus on what she was saying and watch her boobs at the same time. She mentioned something about the Upper Huallaga Valley and then he froze as he heard her say, “The plane had aboard a United States senator and an air force major as well as a Peruvian colonel and captain. A military search team has been sent to the area. The latest report is that there are no survivors.”
He almost stumbled over his desk chair as he backed into the kitchen to get his coffee while keeping his eyes glued on the TV.
As he picked up his coffee cup, his cellular began ringing. He set his cup down, walked over to his desk, and snatched up his phone.
“Yes?”
“Steve?” It was Samuel Polsky, the editor-in-chief and owner of the Lima Tribune.
“Yeah, I saw it on the news! Unfucking believable!” Steve shot out. “Who was the senator?”
“David Kursten.”
“Holy shit, I remember seeing somewhere last week in the papers that he was arriving, something about a fact finding mission.”
“Did the TV reporter say anything about the Shining Path?”
“The Shining Path? No, I mean I don’t know. I just turned the TV on when you called. All I heard was something about no survivors. I have the TV on now, but the chick just went to a commercial.”
“Look, Ambassador Wenton called. Just got off the phone with him. He’s saying that it might not have been a mechanical failure or a pilot error. He has one report coming in from the Peruvian military that says the plane was shot down. His source is a Peruvian colonel in charge of investing the crash, for what that’s worth. The ambassador confided that he’s reserving his judgment, and that he’d like our help. That’s why I called you right away. He’s arranged to get you on an embassy flight to Tingo María first thing tomorrow morning. Apparently he has some personal interest in the matter.”
“Strange that the ambassador would ask you for help,” Steve said sipping his coffee.
“Well, we kind of know each other.”
“So you’ve been hob-knobbin’ with the royalty,” Steve teased.
“Not really. He’s invited me to a few get-togethers. Not a bad guy. I like his politics, better than a lot of the assholes that work at the embassy. Speaking of which, before he hung up, he put me through to the new DEA chief. His name’s Bill Henkly.”
Polsky’s words were coming in short of breaths like he had just run up a couple flights of steps.
“He said that Henkly will fill me in on who your embassy contact in Tingo María will be.”
The small grunts that accompanied Polsky’s forced breathing concerned Steve. Last year he’d suffered a minor heart attack. Steve had tried to get him to join Gold’s Gym, to trim his fat ass down some. He was at least forty pounds overweight. But Polsky just ignored him. Wouldn’t leave his desk and kept having the secretary bring him donuts in the morning, and for lunch fried empanadas dripping with grease.
“Do I really need an embassy contact in Tingo María?”
“Yeah, maybe to get you through to the crash site. Anyway, Henkly sounded more interested in giving me his opinion than anything else. Sounds like he has little doubt about what occurred. He pretty much came out and said that he thought the senator was the target. That the Shining Path was most likely fulfilling a personal request of the narcos.”
“The narcos?” Steve asked. “I don’t get it.”
“He mentioned that the DEA had assisted the Peruvian authorities in the arrest of Rafael López last week right before the senator arrived. Had passed information to them. So he suspects that Rafael paid the Shining Path handsomely to take care of business. López wanted to send a clear message that if you screw with the wrong people, U.S. senator or not, you’re goin’ down.”
“The Shining Path and the narcos? That sounds like warmed over soup. The same recipe our government served up in the 90’s.” The State Department was probably hoping to use the drug/terrorist argument to procure more funds to fight the insurgency. Similar bullshit had been coming out of Colombia about the FARC, how they were being financed by the drug lords. Sounded like standard U.S. propaganda to him.
“You there, Steve?”
“Sorry. I just don’t buy it. The Shining Path acting as hit men for the narcos? Comes off like a cheap fuckin’ political thriller.”
“Well, Bill Henkly sure doesn’t think it’s bullshit.”
As Steve saw it, this Henkly guy’s role was to keep the old propaganda machine greased and oiled. And to do whatever to fund his program. He didn’t feel like getting into a debate with his boss about the role of the DEA. He’d said enough already, so he’d do best to keep his trap shut.
“Okay, look, if the embassy really wants to help out, do you think they can arrange for a copter to transport me to the site? I doubt that there are any roads. Weren’t any when I was there years ago, and it would surprise the shit out of me if much has changed. The Huallaga Valley, that’s one big fucking jungle, man.”
He paused to catch his breath before firing off his final political salvo. “You know, the right wingers in Washington are going to have a heyday with this. They’d be happy to napalm all the coca fields and commies in Peru. And then start on Colombia and Bolivia.”
“Whatever,” Polsky sighed. Steve judged by the length of the sigh that Polsky wasn’t in the mood for flippant comments. “I asked about transportation for you. Henkly said the embassy doesn’t want to risk flying in after what happened. They’ll arrange for a jeep with a couple Peruvian escorts to get you there.”
“Great,” Steve replied sarcastically. “How royal of them.”
“Hey, look, if you don’t want to go, that’s alright with me. I can send Alfonso.”
“Alfonso doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. He might get information, but he’d have no idea what to do with it.”
“Go easy on the kid,” Polsky laughed. “He’s only an intern. And from your comments, I think sometimes you’re just a kid yourself.”
“Yeah, well, while I’m gone, have him cover the story on the TV celebrity with the big tits. What’s her name...? Yeah, Gisela, the one who might go to jail for libel. Tell him to give her a big squeeze for me.”
“Let me decide on the assignments, okay? That is my department, you know.”
Steve realized how he must annoy the old guy at times. He could generally pick and choose his assignments, so Polsky became irked whenever Steve passed off what he saw as shit assignments to the kid without even consulting him first.
“Whatever you say boss,” he said trying to mollify him. “You know what I need? I need a job like yours. Something real cushy. It would be wonderful just sittin’ around the office all day barkin’ out orders to my minions.”
“Yeah, right,” he chuckled. “Like I have a lot of minions to bark out orders to. Anyway, you couldn’t handle the stress, son. Staying caged up here all day would drive you crazy.”
“Tell me about it. I go stir crazy when I’m in the office more than an hour as it is. Maybe if you’d paint the goddamn place and redecorate it. And clean the frickin’ donut crumbs off your desk and floor, it would be a more pleasant work environment. Shit, man, you love those donuts so much you should’ve become a cop, or opened a Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“When you’re the boss, you can do all those things, okay?”
“Where should I go tomorrow morning?”
“Come to the office around 9:00. Hate to ask you to get up so early,” he ribbed, knowing Steve rarely came into the office before 11:00 a.m.
“Can’t we make it 10:00?” Steve whined, hoping to get his sympathy.
“Get out of here. If you’re late, you’re really going to piss me off.”
“I’ll be there at 9:00,” he said with an exaggerated moan.
“Look, Steve, I have to go. Get to bed early, okay. Forget the girl chasing and bar hopping, son,” he said in this paternal voice he often used with Steve. Steve didn’t mind really. There was never a paternal voice around when he was a kid. His father, a mechanic, had split when he was four years old. He was barely old enough to remember the tall, thin, chain-smoking figure that smelled of Lucky Strikes and car grease.
“Okay boss, early to bed it will be,” though he knew that wouldn’t happen. He had already planned to meet his buddy Luis that night. “See you tomorrow bright and early.”
“Remember 9:00, not 10:00,” Polsky warned again.
“Over and out boss,” he said, and then hung up the phone.
Steve touched his forehead and it was damp with sweat. His stomach felt a little queasy as well. Maybe it was the black coffee on an empty stomach, though he knew better.
He went to the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and reached in and pulled out a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. After giving it a good shake, he removed the cap and took a healthy swig of the pink gooey liquid. That usually did the trick.
The idea of returning to the Upper Huallaga after all these years had unsettled him. Though Polsky had been joking, maybe he should’ve sent the kid. Steve just didn’t feel ready to go back there.
When he passed through the living room to the kitchen, he noticed that the same sexy news lady was now interviewing a TV soap opera star, some young kid with greased back hair and a broad smile like you see in toothpaste commercials. He thought of his own teeth. Maybe he’d get them whitened like the soap opera kid. No, on second thought they were fine just like they were. He needed a drink. Perhaps that would knock the nervous edge off, though hard liquor this early in the day was probably not what the doctor prescribed. But what the hell. He needed to stop the blood from racing in his veins. He told himself that part of the uneasiness he felt had to be a reaction to the strong coffee.
He grabbed the Bacardi from the wall cabinet, went into the kitchen and took a bottle of coke from the refrigerator and a few ice cubes from the freezer. As he stirred the drink, he watched the ice cubes swirl round and round like old memories eddying in a black void, unwilling to attach themselves to the present moment. He had spent a good part of the last four years of his professional life, if you could call it that, writing pieces on cuisine or travel, or translating articles from the local papers into English for the Lima Tribune. Occasionally he interviewed a government minister, wrote a special on a Peruvian banker or politician, a textile merchant, or the CEO of a mining enterprise or international firm. That was about as close as he came to writing anything substantial.
Now his boss was asking him to return to the jungle and cover a blockbuster story about a dead U.S. senator and the Shining Path rebels. The idea of returning to the Huallaga Valley, to a place in his past he’d tried to forget, but deep inside knew he couldn’t, depressed him. He wanted to believe he’d paid his dues, but the guilt and shame were still there.
There are many ways to seek escape. He had sought it by removing himself in time and distance from the event. It had been over two decades since he’d visited the Huallaga Valley. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line. No, the shortest distance is memory, a psychic force that defies physics by dissolving time and distance, making distance and time irrelevant but the event itself starkly real.
Maybe now instead of feeling dread over returning, he needed to feel that fate was offering him a shot at atonement, a onetime deal that he would be a fool not to take advantage of. But how would he really know that? Nothing was certain. Except that feeling deep down inside him, the one that told him redemption did not come easily.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was almost midnight when Steve arrived at Rosita’s, a popular salsodromo in Rimac. The cab pulled up in front of a late 19th century colonial structure with a crumbling blue pastel facade. An old Spanish balcony with crisscrossing lattice, and in desperate need of paint, jutted out over the entrance. The left side of the balcony sagged so much that it threatened to detach itself from the building.
Inside, the salsodromo was immense. The interior walls of this enormous old mansion had been removed. The place was like a huge gutted whale, and about this time of night was beginning to smell like one. Before the salsodromo closed, the toilets would be plugged and unflushable. Already the place reeked of spilled beer and greasy chicken. For Steve, these were small drawbacks, more than compensated for by the vibrant atmosphere created by the extraordinary salsa bands that played here.
As soon as he walked in, he saw Luis sitting at one of the numerous oblong wooden tables arranged around a large, brightly lit dance floor.
“Hey how’s it goin’, buddy?” Steve asked while eyeing the two girls sitting on each side of Luis.
“Great, amigo. Happy to see you made it. I was beginning to think you’d drowned while crossing the Rimac.”
“You girls speak English?” Steve suddenly realized that he and Luis had been speaking English while the two cuties just sat their smiling while giving him the go over, and probably not understanding a word of what had just passed between him and Luis.
“Yes, I speak English. But not good English. Just a leetle English,” the small, darker girl said as she gave Steve this sexy smile while running her hand playfully through Luis’s thick black hair. Her companion, a light-skinned mestizo, about a head taller than her friend, wore a tight polyester blouse with a bright flower pattern straining to hold in her womanly treasures. She smiled politely at Steve and then quickly returned her gaze to a young man about her own age who’d been checking her out over the shoulder of his dance partner.
“You from Estados Unidos? I mean the United States?” Luis’s girl asked giggling, feeling silly and awkward trying to speak a language in which she possessed only a meager vocabulary. “I have uncle in Miami.”
“Miami? Great,” Steve replied, not the least bit interested. Whether in fact it was true, every Peruvian on the planet had a relative in Miami. And every one of them was eager to boast about it.
“Luis, Whaddaya say we get a round of drinks?” While he said this he ran his hand lightly underneath the chin of the taller girl. She had momentarily lost interest in the guy on the dance floor who’d been ogling her. She now had her eyes fixed intently on Steve.
“Flaco, tres cervezas, por favor!” he shouted to the waiter as he clapped his hands and moved his shoulders to the wave of music that crashed over them like a tsunami. The brass section of the band had just stepped it up. The trumpets threatened to blow the roof off the building. Steve loved it. The sheer power and majesty of the horns! As he bumped his shoulder against the girl’s shoulder, she bumped back. He then raised his hands above his head and began clapping. Everyone at the table followed Steve, either clapping in unison with him or smacking their hands down on the table to the feverish rhythm of the tightly strung congas.
“What’s your name?” She had bright obsidian eyes that trapped the light and sparkled.
“Carla.” She slid closer to him, pressing her leg against his.
“Te gusta la música?” he asked, resting his shoulder against her soft dark skin.
“I like,” she said.
As one of the trumpet players broke free from the rest of the horn section, they fell back and became the background and underpinning for his solo. His trumpet’s piercing golden notes soared so high that Steve could imagine them splitting heaven in two. In stratospheric reaches, Maynard Ferguson had nothing over him.
He was thinking about pulling Carla onto the dance floor when he was struck dumb by this lovely gringa. She was trying her best to keep in step with a short, stocky Latino going crazy on her, executing lightening quick passes and shaking his shoulders like he had a bad case of Saint Vitus Dance. The guy was definitely more energy than finesse, a cocky little show-off trying to impress this charming woman. Laughing crazily, she attempted to follow his exaggerated moves.
When the song ended, she looked totally spent. But not the salsa king. He was hot to trot. With sweat streaming down his forehead, and his shirt opened to his hairy belly button, he tried his best to persuade her to stay on the dance floor. As the band struck up a new song, she shook her head no while laughing, apparently not understanding much of his Spanish, or not hearing it clearly above the loud music. He finally gave up and they exchanged kisses on the cheek. His sweaty pecs hadn’t worked the magic he thought they would. As she left the dance floor, she walked past Steve’s table, made subtle eye contact with him, and then disappeared in the dimly lit space a few tables behind him.
“I’ll be right back,” he half mumbled to Carla. She had immediately noticed his fascination with the gringa, and when he said he’d be right back, she just turned her head away from him like she could care less.
“Hey, man, where you off to?” Luis asked.
“Give me a minute.”
“Sure. Don’t keep this hot thing waitin’.” Then turning back to the girl he’d been chatting up, he began playing with her long dark curls.
Steve had already set off trying to find his way in the dim lighting, pulled along in the wake of this classy woman who had just glided by his table. He glimpsed her two tables back and hurried towards her before she could sit down.
“Hey, you dance well, you know,” he said, lightly touching her arm. She turned around and then smiled as though she had just run into an old acquaintance. Her large dark eyes held Steve spellbound. She was even more beautiful up close.
“Yeah, sure,” she laughed. “I had to look real spastic out there.” Her voice had a soft music in it that reminded Steve of the light tinkle of wind chimes.
“You weren’t doing bad at all, not for a gringa.” His eyes took in her black satin dress that highlighted her sensuous curves. He had a difficult time keeping his eyes from going into roving mode.
“Gringa?” she burst out laughing. “And who are you Julio Iglesias?”
“No, but I can dance like him. Wanna see?”
“He’s a singer.”
“Yeah, well I can do that as well. Check this out.
“Abrazame, y no me digas nada. Solo abrazame. Me basta tu mirada para comprender!” He sang in the lowest tenor he could, leaning into her, his hand over his heart, with this comically exaggerated love struck look in his eyes. A real vaudeville act. It looked like any moment he might drop to one knee and go into singing Al Jolsen’s “Mamie.”
“Gee, I’m impressed.”
Steve waited, watching her purse her beautiful lips to keep from cracking up as she lightly applauded his performance.
“So will that get me a dance? I promise not to pull any hotshot movements on you, like that dude did you were dancing with.”
“That dude!” she burst out laughing. “Now aren’t you the hip one.”
“Well, come on now. Go easy on me. If you think saying ‘dude’ makes me sound hip, then okay. I accept. Nothing wrong with being hip.” He really enjoyed her spirited mood. “So how about that dance?”
His timing was perfect. At that exact moment the band decided to slow things down and play “Burbujas de Amor.”
She arched her eyebrow in the form of a question mark and looked straight into his pleading eyes.
He waited in anticipation while a coy smile played on her lips, totally disarming him.
“Well?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. Why not,” she said, holding her hand out to him.
Steve didn’t waste a second. He took her hand and gently pulled her out onto the crowded dance floor.
“I love this song,” he said.
God, she was beautiful. Looking at her lovely face made him think of some of his favorite lines from the Bard. “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night. Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear. Beauty too rich for use, for earth to dear.” Shit, now he finally understood what those lines really meant. He had a living proof that such a thing could be.
It pleased him when he pulled her closer to him and felt no resistance.
“Juan Luis Guerra, right? They used to play this song on the radio all the time in Colombia.”
“Colombia? So, what do we have here, a world traveler? How long you in Lima for?” He was hoping her answer would be “forever and a day.”
“A very short time, unfortunately. I wish I had more time to see the country,” she sighed and then smiled. “I’ve heard such wonderful things about Peru.”
“Yeah, well, how long’s a very short time?”
“Just a few more days.”
“So, have you been here long enough to have any impressions of Lima?” He was just stalling for time, wanting to keep her close to him, to feel her breasts nuzzled against his chest and smell the lovely fragrance of her hair.
“I like Lima, though the poverty is a bit disturbing. Reminds me a lot of Colombia.” She pushed back a little, letting him know that there were certain boundaries that needed to be respected.
“It has its attractions though.” He relaxed his hold, though it felt so wonderful to feel her soft body pressed against his. He hoped he hadn’t given her the wrong idea, whatever that meant.
“Attractions? I’ve never thought of poverty as being attractive.”
“Yeah, well, so much poverty can make some gringos feel like God’s chosen few. The privileged few. But more like Hitler’s Nazis than like John Calvin’s Elect.”
“Nazis? Get out of here. How did you come up with that crazy idea?”
“Well, the way I see it, some of the gringos down here must feel a bit like the Nazis felt, at the apex of Hitler’s glory, before his Aryan fiasco fell apart.”
“Like a Nazi? That’s a pretty weird thing to say. I don’t think that I would call living among so much poverty much of a privilege, or an attraction.”
By the look on her face, he could see that she wasn’t sure what to make of him. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what to make of him. He often surprised himself. Like right now. Why was he making himself so unattractive? So fucking retarded sounding. Maybe it was nerves. When he got nervous, he had this urge to run off at the mouth.
“I hope you aren’t a skinhead,” she laughed. “Is that a wig you have on?” She leaned back and pretended to examine his curly brown hair.
“No, that’s real hair,” he said, relieved that she hadn’t been too spooked by his rant. He felt that he needed to explain himself.
“I just meant that it’s easy for those who have much more than others to become less critical of economic realities and invent or embrace world views that justify privilege. If you stay around here long enough, you’ll see what I mean. So many gringos become just like their pituco friends, believing that success has to do with being special, and none of the poor folk have that special whatever it is.”
“Pituco?”
“Yeah, Peruvian slang for the spoiled, pretentious rich, and their wannabe friends.”
“Are you always so cheery?” she teased, as the waltz ended.
“Sorry if I sounded cynical. Whenever I wax political, I can sound a little weird. Most of the time I’m happy and frivolous, so don’t worry, it’s a passing thing.”
“Hey, how would you like to get some fresh air?” she asked, tugging playfully on his arm, pulling him in the direction of the front door.
“Yeah, I think that’s a jewel of an idea. Let me say goodbye to my friends first. By the way, if you really want to get some fresh air, my apartment has a beautiful balcony view of the ocean and the air couldn’t be fresher. Lots of fresh air there.”
She smiled and looked at her watch, which gave his eyes a split second to wander from hers down to her low cut dress. A few beads of sweat had formed at the bottom of her neck. One of the larger, heavier beads broke free and began coursing down the valley between the lovely slopes of her partially exposed breasts.
“Well…,” she said, and then paused for a mega-second as she looked into his eyes with this curious fascination and seduction that totally transfixed him. “Where is your apartment?”
“In Miraflores, on the boardwalk near the Marriott.”
“Why we’re neighbors. I’m staying at the Hotel Americas, just a few blocks from the Marriott. Okay buddy boy. I’ll accept your offer, as long as you promise to be a gentleman. And lay of that Nazis nonsense.”
“It’s a promise.” How could he not be a gentleman around this lovely thing? Was he awake or dreaming? Everything seemed to be happening too fast to be real.
“Say goodbye to your friends and meet me at the door then,” she said, taking her sweater from the bench.
“Will do!”
Back at the table, Luis looked like he was in bachelor heaven. Sitting between the two girls, his arms around both of them, positioned perfectly to cop a feel, he was filling their glasses as the three of them continued laughing and carrying on.
“Hey man! What’s happening?” he yelled out as he saw Steve approach. “Your chica was wondering where you disappeared,” he said gesturing to Carla who was now pretending to ignore Steve. “I’ve been takin’ up the slack for you, trying to keep your squeeze company.”
“Yeah, I can see. Sorry for making you suffer. Look, amigo, I have to run.” Steve reached into his pocket and took out a wrinkled wad of Peruvian soles. “Here buy yourself and the girls another round on me. Later, man.”
“Hey Steve, you can’t leave now,” Luis moaned, but he knew his protest was to no avail.
“Sorry. Got to go. I’ll call you later.” He leaned over and kissed Luis’s girl on the cheek and then turned to Carla. She smiled this big fake smile as he kissed her on the cheek and then her lips quickly formed into a pout.
Outside the salsodromo, Steve saw two taxis parked next to the curb directly across the street. The chilly night air was thick and damp. A heavy fog covered the old neighborhood casting a gauzy haze over everything and making it difficult to see farther than a few meters.
Two taxi drivers, laughing while leaning against the fender of one of the cabs, stopped suddenly when they saw two gringos step through the fog towards them. At the same time two ragged street kids emerged from nowhere and immediately approached Steve. They were young kids, maybe ten or eleven years old at tops.
“Por favor, mister, una propina,” the taller of the two said. His thick, black hair was matted down on the top of his head. Starched by urban street grime, the untrimmed hair over his ears stuck out to the sides like pigeon wings. When he looked up at Steve, the streetlight above cast a soft light on his round dark face, revealing a toothy, heartwarming smile.
Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple shiny soles and slapped them into his small hand. “Esto es para los dos,” he said in this paternal voice, making it clear that the money was for both of them.
Feigning a businesslike indifference, the two cabbies watched as Steve and the young woman approached them. They acted like they had all the time in the world, and that a sol here or there in their pockets was of little importance, especially to two prosperous guys like themselves who owned their own taxis.
“Buenas noches! What would you charge to take us to Miraflores?” Steve asked in a business-like tone, hoping to dispel the idea that he and the girl were just a couple of rich gringos.
“Buenas noches! To Miraflores? one of the taxi drivers asked, scratching his chin. That would cost fifty soles.”
“Hey, flaco,” Steve laughed, knowing full well the cabbie had asked twice the going fare. “I’m no tourist. I’ve live in Lima. I’m a resident. Twenty-five soles. Ok?”
“Ok Mister!”
“I can see you know your way around. I’m envious. How long did it take to acquire your level of street savvy?”
“With your beauty, mundane skills like mine are superfluous. All you have to do is smile that charming smile of yours and they’ll take you anywhere, free of charge.” He wasn’t bullshitting her either. Her charm had certainly worked a mojo on him.
The taxi driver opened the back door of the cab, and Steve waited for her to climb in before he scrunched in beside her. Sitting next to her, it suddenly struck him that he didn’t even know this lovely woman’s name.
“My name’s Steve, by the way. And yours?”
“Jennifer, and not Jenny please.”
“No, I like Jennifer. Jenny is a little girl’s name. And you’re no little girl,” he joked, “though you do have an innocent sweetness about you.”
“Don’t seek to gain anything by flattery, buddy-boy, though I guess it doesn’t hurt your chances either.”
There had been many nameless faces of women he’d known for a night and then had never seen again. It seemed to him a lot easier that way. He hadn’t been looking to get too involved. A single man’s life in Lima was pretty damn good. This woman next to him was different though. Everything about her. He couldn’t say what it was exactly. It wasn’t because she was an American. American women rarely set off any fireworks in him. But this one had. She was classier than most American women he had known, and wittier. Maybe it was her eyes that drew him to her. He was a sucker for beautiful eyes.
It took the taxi about twenty minutes to reach Steve’s apartment. At that time of night, there was little traffic, especially on week nights. Inside the tight confines of the taxi, he noticed how his clothes reeked of cigarette smoke. In Rimac smoking bans were never enforced. The police had bigger concerns. Across the river in Rimac, it wasn’t cancer that killed you. He couldn’t wait to jump in the shower and scrub the nasty smell out of his hair. After a few drinks and a little coaxing, maybe he could talk Jennifer into joining him. He was feeling like this could be his lucky night.
“Buenas noches, Ricardo!” Steve said to the doorman. Ricardo had seen the taxi pull up out front and was at the door rubbing the sleep out of his eyes before Steve could buzz him.
“Buenas noches, Mr. Collins,” he said smiling good-naturedly at both of them. He’d probably fallen asleep while watching a program on the tiny TV resting on the counter top. Steve could tell by the background music that it was one of those tacky late night soap operas.
As he walked over to the elevator, he paused and waited for Jennifer. She’d been studying some replicas of Pre-Incan pottery displayed in a glassed-in shelf near the front door.
“Ready to see that beautiful view?”
Jennifer was totally absorbed in the details of the pottery.
“Moche or Chimú?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know. You an archeologist?”
“No, just read about the two cultures in a travel book I picked up.” Then turning from the pottery and looking at Steve, “Okay, let’s go see that view you were bragging about.” Under the florescent lights in the lobby, her eyes seemed to glow even brighter.
As soon as he opened the door to his apartment, Jennifer’s eyes darted to the sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony.
“So, the acclaimed balcony’s out there?” she nodded. “Do you mind?”
“Be my guest.”
As she stepped across the living room and pushed open the sliding glass doors, Steve tactically walked towards the credenza in the dining room. He used the credenza mainly as his liquor cabinet.
“Wow! It is a beautiful view. What’s that huge lit up cross over there?”