Chapter Five―Patricio lands
The corporate jet, its ownership written in a swirl of dubious identity, was about to dip from cruising altitude, commencing the 120 kilometer glide path that would bring it in under the coastal radar. Flight Control at Halifax liked to know what was about in their air. What with budget cuts, Air Canada preferred to lose planes by attrition rather than collision. The airplane was unregistered, although fixed with Velcro strips to the roof of the pilot's compartment was a waterproof packet with official papers, smug under an array of government seals and tax stamps, that said otherwise.
A chime sounded, and a light embedded near a circle of perforations in the fiberglass roof stowage flashed on. The alert signal was hard-wired to the pilot’s intercom button, inextricably bonded to the circuit. While the light was lit conversations in the cabin were not necessarily private and discretion was indicated. A design feature, a dedicated circuit, an acolyte of executive flight. "Does it not resemble an insect?" Patricio contemplated the patented passenger gangway folded at rest above the galley. In its stowed position it resembled a mantis riding a bicycle, cryogenically sectioned and mounted on a slide for study. "Surely this was never thought up by the minds of the norteamericanos. The Japanese, yes?"
Miguel’s voice came high and reedy through a plastic grill. "Allá ... eso es, patrón. It is recommended to secure yourselves for the approach."
His was a very expensive aircraft. When Patricio Adolfo Ruiz y Martinez had seen her, he had loved her. With its double fuselage and jaunty red striping the little airplane looked streamlined despite its shape. A bulbous cargo compartment made it look like a flying egg. With twin jet engines aft of the cabin to hold down the noise and a separate pilot's compartment with its own dedicated access hatch, it sorted out the classes. Patricio liked that. He was a subtle man, and understated authority was no less authority, ¿No es verdad?
"I like the airplane. Not any other, but this particular airplane."
The salesman had seemed confused. He had not heard. "A million five, sir, and you will have purchased an aircraft that will enhance your corporate image while giving years of safe, dependable service with the minimum of maintenance."
"I will buy her. Now, please." He had wanted the man to earn his commission. Patricio was satisfied; the amenities had been performed.
"A certified check and your pilot can fly you out of here today." Corporate financing was available, as was a leasing plan. "Very popular, keeps you liquid. Cash flow."
"I am already liquid, thank you." Patricio's attaché case had been placed on the desk and moved reverentially forward as Patricio moved deferentially back, distancing himself from it. "Cash. You should find sufficient here for my airplane, plus perhaps something extra for you. I find paperwork tedious." The leather case opened to reveal new thousand-dollar banknotes crisply wrappered in lots of fifty. His principals in Cartagena would display a feudal ferocity over the chastity of their funds. Thoughts of mutilation and revenge brought a stab of pain from his ulcer, making his eyes water. Patricio would make good the borrowed money.
The plane banked to execute a turn of inspection.
"¿Tío?" At the galley, a young man was preparing steamed milk for a cappuccino when the sudden and unannounced loss of altitude caused him to splash his flowered print silk shirt. "¡Maron!" exclaimed Oswaldo Patricio Melendez O'Rourke y Nuñez as Harry Pease threw up, the pig died and the Fata Morgana scratched her nose. He winced from the pain of the hot liquid and mopped at his front with a wad of paper napkins snatched from a serviette dispenser. His uncle, for whom the coffee was intended, was seated lost in thought, and if he had noticed the lurch and drop, chalked it up to turbulence. Oswaldo was uneasy over his adoptive uncle's increasing consumption of the drug, their stock in trade. He would become sloppy and irrational, as the norteamericanos.
As the Andean mountain swirls of Mama Coca dissolved into the mists of his morning coffee, the streaming tears of Patricio Adolfo Ruiz y Martinez were quenched by an icy draught from Source Perrier. "Perfidious Albion’s ice-bound colony. Moose, polar bear, savage aborigines, the Church of England has civilized them all, taken their teeth. They await Mama Coca for their four o’clock tea." Handing his empty cup to Oswaldo, Patricio leaned to the window as he fumbled for his lap harness. The eyebrows of Oswaldo Patricio Meléndez O'Rourke y Nuñez described a reddish-brown arch above his golden Inca eyes.
Below, a clear-cut through pine forest surrounded a slanting runic ‘t’ executed in asphalt on the forest floor, a back country airstrip and taxiway built to lure wealthy gringo fishermen to the wilderness. The t’s long leg had been recently lengthened. An additional quarter mile of raw flattened earth extended past the end of the asphalt to where a bulldozer was parked.
A gray Mercedes sedan waited beside the bulldozer.
"Oswaldo, you will kindly exit by the baggage hatch to cover our rear... just in case. You have the auxiliary funds?"
Oswaldo slapped a body pack reassuringly, "Claro. Sí, tío." He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective surfaces of the stainless steel galley. A monkey―Curious George from the picture books with which the little sisters had plied their young charges at his Swiss lycée. He looked like a monkey with a rucksack, but instead of jelly sandwiches, there were starched and ironed banknotes. There were weekly films at his boarding school―Ah, the Crimson Pirate!―shredded films with patches at torn sprocket holes, missing scenes disappeared in mid sentence, films of forgotten warriors and forgotten wars. There Oswaldo witnessed the many films of the redoubtable Errol Flynn; these were favored by the nuns: Dive Bomber, Dawn Patrol. Errol Flynn and bloodshed must have rung a responsive chord with them. At the lycée the little sisters, teaching tertiaries of the Order of St. Dominic, had been indulgent of celluloid scenes of rapine and plunder. The money of Tío Patricio made him their monkey.
Money and monkeys, thought Oswaldo. Money carried its magic just by being itself. Money asked no other being than its own. Sanctified by use, its passages through many hands colored it with the souls of its handlers, passively, as a flower accepts a grain of pollen from a butterfly. Oswaldo had seen Mama Coca's money in the street dealers' women, eyes big and bright, halogen cupcakes with sequined jeans, tank tops and stiletto heels. They bent over ironing boards singing to the radio as they pressed their crumpled currencies. They were the keepers of the secret of las nieves, the snows of Mama Coca. Whose monkeys were they? Mama Coca looked after her own. Whose monkey was he now? Mama Coca loved boiled confections of sugary guava jelly and coconut and great lacy cakes colored white, blue, yellow and pink. Gaudy materialism drove out sophisticated taste. Tío Patricio was the monkey of Mama Coca. Poor Miguel was himself the monkey of the monkey. Oswaldo Patricio Melendez O'Rourke y Nuñez was the monkey of Mama Coca.
"Bueno, let us then do business," said Tío Patricio. Cradling lightweight, boxy machine pistols fitted with combat shoulder braces, Patricio and Miguel undogged the latch on the compartment door and let down the forward gangway. Almost as an afterthought Patricio scooped up a Hartmann leather overnight case and, tucking it under his free arm, clambered down the telescoping stairs. Miguel scrambled back into the cockpit, to return with a silver foil-wrapped chocolate. So, the monkey wants more but will settle for a candy bar. Bueno. Monkeys come cheap, then, thought Oswaldo. The entrepreneur and his pilot stood at the foot of the gangway, smoking. Let the business come to them.
There was activity from the Mercedes. The driver’s door opened and a corduroy-suited man in his early 50’s got out. Another man was beside him in the front; the Mercedes’ polarized windows obscured who might be in the back. There was a flash of a fatigue blue sleeve from the passenger’s side as the gray-haired man said something to his companion, closed the door and, adjusting his suit, advanced smiling. He wore a neatly clipped mustache and was empty-handed.
There was a click as Miguel cocked his weapon.
"I agree, my friend," said Patricio. "Either the chauffeur has come into an inheritance or we are dealing with the provincial police who are unaware of the protocols of such exchanges."
"They have disbanded the provincial forces for budgetary reasons, patron."
Straight backed, supple, with a military bearing and a spring to his knees, the gray-haired man in the suit advanced, confident, smiling. An athlete, then, this Canadian policeman―he looks after himself. This was good and Patricio approved of the man. The police of Europe and the United States so often let themselves go to fat in their middle years. As the man got closer, Patricio noticed leather elbow patches.
"So then they are Guardia Civil―the Royal Canadian Mounted Police―surely these are what they are. This is a disappointment to me. Someone should talk to them about their choice of a tailor. Do they not watch CSI reruns here? Or Law & Order? A brown corduroy suit for the decoy, really. His wife probably ironed it fresh this morning. And they have worn their fatigue blouses, his friends―jumpsuits perhaps, mirabile dictu. They may as well have imitated the redoubtable Gene Hackman and have ‘POLICE’ stenciled across their team jackets."
Viewed through a petroleum jelly haze of lowered lashes, the hypothesized uniforms behind the polarized window glazing swam in an astigmatic Vaseline ocean. Seduction of a woman, suborning a corrupt official―these were the same. He found himself sizing up the possible conquest out of habit rather than from fire in the glands. The knowledge of wealth, ostentation as process: this was the portion of command. "The yellow-stripers, the Mounties, yes. I have enjoyed the reruns of Due South. Paul Gross as Constable Benton Fraser was incorruptible." His eyes became heavy-lidded with implication: a fine politesse, the fragile eternity of graft about to be offered.
The man seemed to want to shake hands―a social commonplace that Patricio obviated by having one hand full with the machine pistol while the other manipulated his snuffbox. "Shall we?" The man nodded. Glad to be free of the awkward moment, he let his arm drop to his side. He turned to the Mercedes. Patricio picked up his bag and signaled Miguel to follow.
The corduroy led Patricio and Miguel back toward the extended leg of the landing strip. As they approached the newly graded gravel, Patricio swung his overnighter like a bag of oranges. See what I can do! He was a carefree schoolboy, gone truant and off on an adventure. This was going to be an exemplary day. His arm described ever higher arcs. Thumbing a pinch of white powder into each nostril, he grew glassy-eyed in anticipation of the sudden rush. A moment of forgetfulness and confusion, then the soul-suffusing knowledge that he was in command. His nose was running, staining his beard.
Patricio set the leather overnighter on the Mercedes' roof. Dialing the combination release mechanism, he popped open two gold hasps and scooped out what appeared to be an amorphous lump of clay roughly the size of a bowling ball. This he slapped against the Mercedes' trunk compartment where it joined the opaque rear window. The clay deformed from the impact and resembled a child's mud pie, oversized and dejected. A glint of emerald from one oversized finger ring caught his eye. He held his hand before his face. Who am I?
Several hundred yards above and away, lying prone on a great boulder of pink granite, Oswaldo watched the tableau unfold below. He had observed Tío Patricio sample his own wares. Not an omen of good portent. Shitfuck. Slap! The norteamericano insects had discovered him. Madre de Dios, the accursed things were either up early or out late. He tried to concentrate on the Holy Family, then World Cup soccer players, a device for controlling untimely erections from his schooldays. But he was already limp and these were North American bugs raised on baseball and atheism. There was insect repellant on the plane.
Below Patricio assumed a character, the spent satyr: manicured fingers encrusted with gold and gaudy diamonds cut to resemble Fabergé eggs, the elegant aristocrat exhausted by the pursuit, and gratification, of pleasure. A tiny marble-topped table sprouted at his feet. A boulevard appeared with its linden trees, Grenadine and mineral water, absinthe, perhaps. He slumped elegantly inside his body. One hand lingered on the lump, tracing its convexity. He turned, penetrating a passing stream of faceless humanity, to single out against the uses of a used-up passion, the one, the perfect, subject. His perfumed hand reached forth its hidden prize. A distribution of gold to my people.
Oswaldo stood, massaging the stiffness out of his legs. He doubled up with pain as a cramp—called a charleyhorse, as he was later to learn—knotted his left leg. Putting his full weight on that side, he leaned against a tree. Another bite. Would they never be satisfied?
Patricio held his fingers to his nostrils―the neutral, clayey smell of plastique. He was irascible that he had forgotten what he was about to do. Disturbing―someone will surely suffer. An emeraude cabochon adorning his finger glinted a spark of green. He extended his tongue to touch the gem, smooth as the mons of a child. He was distracted. He had lost his place. Everyone waited as he played a finger delicately back and forth across his lower lip, ever so gently disturbing the hairs of his mustache.
The hand stayed. Pudgy fingers encrusted with gems thoughtfully caressed a perfumed beard. Buying loyalty from the fickle mob. That is not the way. Their love were better formed in the crucible of terror. The threat, then the money. Love me. Fear me. It were better they loved him as they died. They must desire above all else to serve me. This is the new revelation.
His nerve ends tingled with the heightened awareness of Mama Coca. Trolling for the corruptible―just one more time; a delightful game. Oh God, let me play it just one more time. A disappointment, that these men would come free of charge. They would be his without the money. In the far recesses of Patricio’s imaginings a reticule snapped shut.
"This is plastique," Patricio explained, as though lecturing a museum tour. "In it is a radio detonator controlled by my associate in our airplane. If your associates inside..." he tapped the Mercedes, "...have any transmitting equipment with them, I should caution them against using it. This is a finicky device."
The brown-corduroyed one’s hand was very still on the door handle.
"You are quite pale. This is a difficult time for both of us, I understand. Are you breathing? Yes, I see that you are. Let us understand one another, eh? We have each, this very second, had a deal go wrong. This is a tragedy. Let us not compound it. We shall reason together like adults, eh?"
The man nodded.
"Ah, your wonderful tan, it is returning. I had feared a heart attack."
Patricio allowed the muscles of his face to relax to what he trusted was an unconcerned, sleepy pose: careless, delinquent attention. He appeared a foolish pederast past his prime fishing for young boys on the lido. The Mountie shot him a surprised look. This was perhaps not the desired effect.
"Bueno. I am a humble South American and I would like to go home. I assume you have brought many packets of money to decorate your masquerade; I should like to have it, please. Where is your backup?"
"¿Qué, jefe?" Miguel looked about for a threat, sweeping the area with his machine pistol. One of the jump-suited Mounties had edged out of the Mercedes. Slowly, very slowly, he lay his hands flat on the surface of the car’s saloon roof. He wore a shoulder patch! GRC―a gendarmerie. Was he in the wrong country after all? Stranger things had happened.
Miguel backed off, his weapon commanding a larger arc as the men remaining in the car began to fidget. El jefe was deep with Mama Coca. These policemen would not understand. The corduroyed man was maintaining eye contact with Patricio and speaking softly, almost to himself, calming words of assurance.
"You are French? Qué se llaman―Français? Anglais?" Miguel felt his chocolate treat melting between his fingers and the trigger guard. He smelled hazelnuts and almonds. He tightened his grip.
The man with his hands on the car’s roof was motionless; the flow of calming words stopped and his eyes bulged with terror. The crisp corduroy with the trimmed mustache spoke. "He means your uniform patch, Steve." Turning to Patricio, "Gendarmerie Royale du Canada. GRC―Gravel Road Cop." The corduroy smiled. Patricio smiled―oh, a joke. Everyone relaxed.
"Your backup―I believe you have yet to answer me. Por favor, if we are to have more guests we should know how many places to set."
The crisp corduroy became grimly silent.
"Your stoic courage allows me only one conclusion. You are bluffing me with a brave façade. There is no backup." The man didn’t move a muscle but his healthy tan again disappeared.
Patricio grew intimate and consoling. "Ah, I sympathize. Budget cuts. Well, times are hard all over." Taking two paces backward, he gestured with his pistol. "Tell all your men to leave the automobile. Unarmed, if you please." He fondled the plastique as the three in the back lined up with their commanding officer. The explosive was warm. He felt it move ever so slightly, bulging under his hand.
Patricio threw himself to the ground, the sergeant and his constables following suit. Reacting to the motion, Miguel filled the air where they had stood with rapid fire semi-automatic bursts. When the explosion hit, Miguel was knocked flat, still firing.
The explosive was a garden-variety plastique cooked in German kitchens and distributed free-handedly by the Israeli secret services and the Palestinians both to their confederates in South American insurgencies. But sufficient to the task.
Slap! ¡Mierda!
Oswaldo's Indian blood should have brought with it an endurance. When his Quechua speaking ancestors first ventured down tortuous mountain paths to the thick, wet air of the jungle floor with its trypanosome fevers and swarming clouds of biting insects, they were impervious. They chewed the leaves of Mama Coca and what care they for the bugs? From the biting hordes of ill fortune Oswaldo turned to check on the clearing below.
The Mercedes’ rear end disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving not even an appreciable crater. Flying debris pitted the windscreen of the executive jet. Even at a distance, the explosion lifted the near wing of the egg-shaped airplane a few inches off the ground, knocking it sideways. Its far landing gear collapsed as it settled gracelessly on the tip of one wing. When the blast struck he was knocked sideways. There was a sharp pain in his arm. He pulled out a splinter of aluminum.
Slap! Another bite.
Viewed upside down and through a rising screen of dust, a machined aluminum espresso maker rattled down the telescoping steps of airplane's open cargo bay. The plane lurched, one side dropping at an angle like a camel kneeling at the children's zoo, and the steps deformed into a barricade.
Oswaldo scrambled down the rocks to the crippled plane. He reached into the pilot's glove box and rummaged through an excelsior of giraffes, swans and insect shapes. During the long flight from Cartagena Miguel had cut and folded an origami zoo from the maps of North America. The paper animals had been fastidiously pressed together and bound with a red elastic band. The leftover pieces of the former maps were a fever of blue and red lines wadded together and stuffed to one side. So be it, then. They were dead—the strangers, Patricio and Miguel likewise. He would endow novenas for the repose of their souls. A thrill of terrible joy suffused him. What, then, were these feelings? Patricio and Miguel were surely dead. Nothing in his proper Catholic education had prepared him for this release. Oswaldo mumbled a prayer to appease San Expedito lest he be held answerable at a later date.
Ah, there was the insect repellant. He fingered the swirl of his cowlick where an accumulation of blisters was festering from insect venom. A new frontier beckoned. He was free―a landsknecht among the moose and the polar bear. He patted the body pack full of cash and adjusted the sling of his automatic pistol. He saw himself living happily on roots and berries, an Eskimo wife and many round-faced children to gladden his declining years.
Oswaldo swung to the ground, scrambling through the collapsed wreckage of the telescoping stairs, and headed to the woods.
He had a bag of money, thousands upon
thousands of ironed, pressed, fresh flat dollars. Oswaldo felt the urge to tip
somebody. He laughed quietly and made an elaborate bow to a hackmatack tree.
"Change? Keep the change."
He hitched his pack and started walking. Miguel's origami project had destroyed the maps. He would be directionless and alone. He patted the body pack full of cash and adjusted the sling of his automatic pistol.
In the years to follow, none of the occupants of the Mercedes, not Patricio, not Miguel, could rightly recall just what happened. The directed energy released by the explosion of the satchel charge spared them all but obliterated the Mercedes sedan. One of those freaks of wartime, de verdad?―the survivors’ tales that leave grandchildren’s eyes wide with wonder. Survivors’ tales were marvelous and plenty by attrition―QED: non-survivors didn’t bring any stories home.
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