Life Blood Part 29

G.o.d I loved this man. But the last thing on my mind at that moment was food.

"Honey, I don't know if I'm really--"

"Hey, don't wimp out on me. If we're going to do this place, at least we can do it in style. Besides, you can't live on smog alone. You gotta eat."

He had a point. Starving myself wasn't going to help find Sarah any sooner. And there were details I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to broadcast in the room. What if Colonel Ramos had long ears to match his long arm?

"Come on," he pressed. "Just put on the slinkiest thing

you've got and get ready to go native. It'll help you put this part of the world into perspective."

Alas, I had nothing particularly "slinky," though fortunately I'd packed a silk blouse I could loosen and tie with a scarf around the waist. Don't laugh, it worked. I even brushed on some serious eye shadow, which normally I don't bother with much.

I tried not to let him know how concerned I was as we walked down the driveway of the hotel and hailed a cab, while I furtively searched the shadows. Seeing the streets after dark made me sad all over again for Sarah. I still wanted to see and feel Guatemala the way she had, but when I got close to the realities of the place, it made me uneasy.

It turned out the marvel he'd discovered was called Siriaco's, a wonderful old place with a patio and garden in back--both roofed by glittering tropical stars--which were down a stone pathway from the main dining room and bar. It appeared to be where a lot of VIPs, the ruling oligarchy, dined. It was romantic and perfect.

When we arrived, his special anniversary surprise was already being laid out on a low stone table, attended by Mayan women all in traditional dress: the colorful _huipil _blouses of their villages, red and blue skirts, immense jade earrings.

"They've reconstructed a kingly feast from old doc.u.ments," he explained, beaming at my amazement. "Cuisine of the ancient rain forest. We're going to have a banquet of authentic _guatemalteco_ chow from eons ago."

And the meal was definitely fit for royalty. Soon we were working our way through a long-forgotten medley of piquant flavors that swept through my senses as though I were in another world. There was pit-roasted deer, steamed fish, baked wild turkey. One calabash bowl set forth coriander-flavored kidney beans; another had half a dozen varieties of green legumes all in a rich turtle broth; a third offered vanilla-seasoned sweet potatoes; others had various forest tubers steamed with chiles. We even had a delicious honey wine, like heavenly nectar, served in red clay bowls, that made me want to have s.e.x right on the table. There with Steve, the unexpected juxtaposition of spices and flavors made every bite, every aroma, a new sensual experience.

(Let me say right here he's a cooking fanatic, whereas I've been known to burn water. I think it's the new division of labor in post-feminist America.) Finally the Mayan waitresses brought out cups of a chocolate dessert drink from ancient times, cocoa beans roasted, ground, and boiled with sugarcane. The whole event was pure heaven.

Except for the occasional unwanted intrusions. Various dark-eyed low-cut Ladino divorcees, about half a dozen in all, hanging out at the bar with heavy perfume and too much jewelry, kept coming over purportedly to marvel over our private feast (or was it Steve's big brown eyes). He returned their attentions with his polite and perfect Spanish, but I despised them. In any case, they were shameless. Not remembering quite enough Espanol, however, the best I could do was just to put my hand on his and give them the evil eye. It seemed to work, though what I really wanted to do was hold up a cross the way you do to ward off vampires. . . .

"Hey, check out Orion," he said finally leaning back, an easy, delicious finger aimed at that sprawling constellation. I looked up at the canopy of stars, and sure enough, the hunter and his sword dominated the starry sky above like a stalwart centurion, guarding us.

"I always know I'm in the tropics when it's right overhead."

"Honey, this has been wonderful," I declared. "Thank you so much." I moved around and kissed him. "It's exactly the att.i.tude adjustment I needed."

"Well"--he smiled back--"now I guess we've got some

organizing to do. So tell me everything you left out back there at the hotel. I know you were holding off."

I was feeling increasingly hyper, probably from the high-octane chocolate, but I proceeded to recount all my findings about Alex G.o.ddard and Quetzal Manor. Then I moved on to Colonel Ramos and how he'd threatened Carly and me about my film. Finally, I told him my deep belief that Colonel Ramos and a couple of his goons were obviously the ones who'd roughed up Lou and taken Sarah.

"Bad scene," he said when I finally paused for breath. He was toying with his cup and running his fingers through his sandy hair, in that "deep thought" mode of his. "Way I see it, this just sounds like a cla.s.sic case of selling kids. To me, that's right up there with murder and grand larceny."

"Well, I also firmly believe it's all tied in with Alex G.o.ddard's clinic here, or whatever it is. The place Sarah called Ninos del Mundo on her landing card. I'll bet you anything that's where Ramos has taken her."

"You know," he said, his brow a perfect furrow, eyes narrowed, "about the babies you saw, there've been press stories over the last few years about Americans being attacked in Guatemala on suspicion of trying to kidnap Maya children out in the villages, to put up for adoption. But I've never seen any proof of it. I've always thought it just might have been dumb gringos who don't know the culture. They go poking around out in the countryside and stupidly say the wrong thing. Maybe using schoolbook Spanish n.o.body out there really understands. But now this makes me wonder if--"

"Love, those babies I saw up at Quetzal Manor are not kidnapped Indian children, trust me. They're Caucasian as vanilla snow cones. Try again."

"I get your point," he said quickly. "But let me relate the facts of life down here. When you've got some Guatemalan colonel behind something, you'd better think twice about how many rocks you turn over."

"Funny, but that's exactly what some guy at the emba.s.sy named Barry Morton said to me."

"And you'd better listen. This is the country that turned the word 'disappear' into a new kind of verb. People get 'disappeared.' I actually knew some of them, back in the late eighties. One dark night an Army truck rolls into a village, and when the torture and . . .

other things are over with, a few Maya are never heard from again." He looked at me. "You saw my pictures of that village in the Huehuetenango Department, Tzalala, where the Army mutilated and murdered half the--"

"I know all about that." It was chilling to recall his gruesome photos.

"But I'm going to track down Alex G.o.ddard's clinic, no matter what.

That's where they've taken Sarah, I'm sure of it. I just may need some help finding it."

He grimaced. "d.a.m.n, I've got to head back to Belize by noon tomorrow."

Then his look brightened. "But, hey, I finish my shoot Wednesday, so I can drive back here on Thursday. Then on Friday maybe we could--"

"Come on, love, I can't just sit around till the end of the week. What am I going to do till then?" The very thought made me itchy. "I need to find out if Ninos del Mundo, the place Sarah put on her original landing card is for real. Her card said it's somewhere in the Peten, the rain forest. If I could find somebody who--"

"Okay, look." He was thinking aloud. "How about this? There's a guy here in town who owes me a favor. A big one. He screwed me out of twenty grand in the U.S. We were going to start a travel magazine--I think I told you about that--but then he took my money and split the country. He ended up down here and went to work for the CIA--till they sacked him. After that he leased a helicopter and started some kind of bulls.h.i.+t tourist hustle. He sure as h.e.l.l knows what's going on. Name's Alan Dupre. The p.r.i.c.k. Maybe I could give him a call and we could get together for a late drink. He's got an easy number these days: 4-MAYAN."

"How's he going to help?"

"Trust me. He's our guy."

I leaned back and closed my eyes, my imagination drifting. In that brief moment, my mind floated back to yesterday afternoon at Lou's loft, and Sarah. Her hallucinations still haunted me. What had happened to her in the rain forest? And why would she say she wanted to go back?

Then I snapped back. "All right. Try and ring him if you think he can help. Right now I need all I can get."

He got up and worked his way to the phone, past the crowded bar, while I tried to contemplate the night sky. I looked up again, hoping to see Orion, but now a dark cloud had moved in, leaving nothing but deepening blackness. He'd said there was a storm brewing, part of an out-of-season hurricane developing in the Caribbean, so I guessed this was the first harbinger.

"Tonight's out, but tomorrow's okay." He was striding back. "Crack of dawn. Which for him is roughly about noon. We'll have a quick get-together and then I've got to run. Really. But if this guy doesn't know what's going on down here, n.o.body does. He's probably laid half those hot tomatillos there at the bar. The man has his sources, if you get my meaning."

"Then let's go back to the glorious Camino Real." I took his hand.

"We'll split the check. At the moment, even that seems romantic."

"I'm still thinking about--"

"Don't. Don't think." I touched his lips, soft and moist, then kissed him. An impulsive but deeply felt act. "We've all had enough thinking for one day."

Chapter Seventeen

Alan Dupre didn't ring till almost ten-thirty the next morning, and I had the feeling even that was a stretch. He then offered to meet us in the Parque Concordia, right downtown. As I watched him ambling toward our bench, my first impression was: Why'd we bother?

The man appeared to be in his early forties, puffy-eyed and pink-cheeked with discount aviator shades, looking like a glad-handing tourist just down to Central America for a weekend of unchaperoned baccha.n.a.ls. The flowered sport s.h.i.+rt, worn outside the belt, gave him the aura of a tout insufficiently attired without a can of Coors in hand.

How can this be progress? I'm down here hoping to find Sarah, and I end up in a trash-filled park meeting some expat operator.

Steve had explained that the main benefit of Alan Dupre's CIA gig was that he did learn how to fly a helicopter. With that skill he'd ended up starting a tourist agency in Guatemala City using an old Bell he leased: "Mayan Pyramids from the Air." Mainly, though, he was a self-styled bon vivant who knew people.

"Steve the brave." On came Dupre's mirthless smile as he approached a jaunty spring entering his step.