The Second Bat Guano War Part 19

The cab rolled forward, pulled free of the man's hand. He shouted after us, ran a few steps, arms gesticulating like some kind of a puppet. The last I saw of him, he was resting his palms on his knees, panting for breath. The driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror.

"You in hurry."

"Just drive."

When we started the slow crawl down Avenida Larco, I checked over my shoulder. No tail that I could see.

I draped an arm over the front seat. "Parque Munic.i.p.al, Barranco."

The driver held up the note I'd given him. "Don't expect no change, then."

"From you? It'd be counterfeit."

The cab dropped me off at the park.

"f.u.c.k you and your mother," he called after me.

I slapped the roof of the cab. "Please forget to use a condom."

He peeled off, the m.u.f.fler belching a cloud of dark gas in my face. I took a deep breath, held it, let it out in a long thin stream. Almost as good as a joint.

I strolled along the disco strip, past the wh.o.r.es and the p.u.s.s.y-collecting gringo tourists, until I came to the Rat's Nest. In the bas.e.m.e.nt bar I ordered a Cusquena Dark. I paid the bartender, surveyed the room. I had met Lynn here. The beer was cold and sweet. In a corner, a gringo slouched in a chair facing the television. A bullfight flickered on screen. The gringo wore a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. I walked over, sat down opposite.

"Didn't know you were a Pirates fan," I said. "They teach you that in spy school? Wear a baseball cap, no one's going to notice?"

Pitt sucked on his beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "So how'd it go?"

"You play this stupid game. Hurting people. Risking lives. Killing, raping, torturing. For what? The Lincoln Memorial and 'G.o.d Bless America'?"

He lifted his eyes to the bullfight. The banderilleros had done their job well. The bull bled from the hump, its head lowered. The matador reentered the ring, sword in hand.

"You never think that what you do is wrong?" I asked. "Oh wait. I forgot. You don't have a conscience. How convenient."

In the dark of the barroom, I almost thought I saw him blush. His eyes did not flinch from the screen.

"It went OK, then?" His voice was calm, resolute.

I finished my beer. I lifted my hand, snapped my fingers at the bartender. "Another one?"

"You're still alive. Guess Hak Po didn't catch you, huh?"

I held up two fingers, pointed at Pitt. The bartender nodded. He put two beers on the bar, cracked the lids with a bottle opener, brought them over. He stood at our table, looking down at us, an ominous presence, judgment day come early.

"Your turn, dude," I said.

Pitt frowned. He arched his pelvis, pulled a wallet from his front jeans pocket.

"No," I said. "I mean my f.u.c.king pa.s.sport. And the bank account you promised?" Enough to pay for sixteen years of child support.

Pitt fished out some play money, paid the bartender. "We need to talk about that."

My grip on the beer bottle tightened. The bartender glowered at us, as though charging us with centuries of crimes against his people. Finally he left.

"What's there to talk about?" I hissed. "You promised!" Panic bubbled inside of me like lava.

The matador lifted himself on tiptoe, sighting down the blade, the sword hilt held high, point low.

"First things first," he said. "Did you have any trouble?"

"I planted the f.u.c.king b.u.t.ton, if that's what you mean." I took a long swig of my beer. "He knows you're a spy, by the way. Almost cut my d.i.c.k off with a meat cleaver."

Pitt dipped his finger in the condensation on the table, doodled. "Yeah," he said. "I know." He added, "Sorry about that." Almost shyly.

"How do you know that?"

He held up a PDA he'd been watching under the table. It showed a b.u.t.ton's-eye view of Hak Po, cleaver in hand, singing to himself in Chinese, obliterating what remained of the tripe.

"You watched the whole thing?"

"You were awesome. 'Find guilty face.'" Pitt smiled, sipped his beer. "I nearly p.i.s.sed myself."

I aimed the bottom of my beer bottle at the ceiling, emptied it down my throat. I picked up my grocery bag, pushed back my chair.

I said, "I'll take what's owed me now."

He plucked at his lower lip. "Ambo wants to use you again, for another op."

"Is that how it is?"

A shrug. "Blackmail starts, it never ends."

"It ends with me." I pulled out a kilo bag of rice and flung it at his chest. White grains exploded across the table and the floor. "f.u.c.k you and Ambo both."

"C'mon, man. Don't be like that." His voice crooned, the insistent softness the best salesmen possess, the vocal tremolo that coaxes the wallet from your pocket and the panties off your girlfriend.

The bullfighter and bull came together in a sudden desperate act of l.u.s.t: the sword penetrated through the hump, deep into the beast's body, into its heart, two primal creatures united for a fleeting instant in an act of ferocious love.

I shook my head. "I told you on the beach. We're done. Goodbye."

The bull stumbled. It spun in a half circle, looked at the crowd in astonishment, and collapsed, hooves twitching. The matador held up his open palms in triumph. I pounded my way to the door, my flip-flops slapping against the wooden floor. Footsteps behind me. A hand on my elbow. I bent at the knees, turned and slammed my fist upward into his stomach.

Pitt doubled over. He opened his mouth. He took a breath.

"I deserved that," he said.

The bartender stood watching us, a tea towel in one hand, a half-dried beer mug in the other.

"Yes," I said. "You did."

TWELVE.

I woke screaming from my nightmare. The old lady next to me on the bus smacked me in the face with her handbag. It smelled like moldy cheese.

"Gracias," I said. "I needed that."

Withdrawal raged inside me, an empty hole demanding to be filled. I stared out the window at the gorges below, tried to remain calm. The bus crept its way along the side of the cliff. The television blared crash-bash-smash directly over head. In the window's reflection I could see the man, the beak of his red cap lifted in challenge.

This whole thing p.i.s.sed me off. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds let me go, why? Just so they could follow me? They think I knew where Pitt was? Was that it? Let Horse run. But keep him on a leash, see where he takes you.

I looked over my shoulder. There he was, the red cap perched on his head, flecks of hair sticking out over his ears. He stared back at me, unflinching. The man sitting next to him got up, went downstairs to the lavatory. I lurched from my chair, stepped across the old woman. The cheese smell lingered in my clothing. I walked three rows back and dropped into the empty seat.

"So you're a spook," I said.

"Sorry, what's that?" He removed an earplug.

"I said, you're CIA."

He looked puzzled. "You mean like a spy or something?"

I pointed ahead at my seat. "Following me. Watching me. Looking at me all the time."

He laughed. "You got the wrong man."

"I don't think so."

"Sounds to me like you're paranoid."

He reached up to put the earplug back in, but I knocked his wrist away.

"Then what are you-" I shouted, lowered my voice as heads turned. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing staring at me?"

A long arm pointed in the direction of my seat.

"Exactly," I said.

The arm didn't waver, finger extended. He pointed at the television over my seat. Some kind of shootout was in progress. Its relevance to the plot was tenuous.

I let go of his arm. "Then what are you going to Cuzco for?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm asking you."

"Take the train to Machu Picchu. h.e.l.lo?"

"Disculpe, amigo. Esta en mi puesto," said a voice from the aisle. A campesino in a green poncho tapped me on the shoulder.

I cleared my throat. Stood up. "Sorry," I said. "Don't know what to say."

Red Cap tapped the side of his nose, winked. "Go easy on the white stuff, eh?"

The road wound in hairpin turns through the mountains. The movement helped keep me awake. I maintained my vigil all day long and into the night, the curtains propped open with my foot, staring at the barren, ugly scenery of Peru, unchanging for hours on end. The front wheel of the bus crunched against the gravel verge, sending rocks tumbling over the cliff. If I was going to die here, the bus jumping off the highway into a brief pause before death came, I wanted to be awake to experience that momentless twitch of eternity.

Just when I thought I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, the bus pulled off the road at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Chickens clucked and scattered in the headlights as the bus came to a halt. My ears popped. The driver stood and announced a meal break. A concrete hovel squatted under the glare of a solitary streetlight. The old woman beside me got up, joined the stampede down the stairs and out the door into the dirt at the side of the road.

I waited. Now was my chance. Villega put me on the bus, but he sure as h.e.l.l couldn't keep me on it. I patted the volunteering office's brochure in my pocket. The police had confiscated my switchblade and fake pa.s.sport. Somehow I had to get to Puno and Lake t.i.ticaca. Cross the border into Bolivia somehow. It was the logical next step in my search for Pitt. But there was no reason I had to go through Cuzco to get there.

I stood. Red Cap was heading down the stairs. He took an earplug from his ear. He said in a voice louder than necessary, "Come grab a bite?"

"Do so at your own risk," I said.

"It's OK," he said, and laughed. "I got my dehydration salts with me." For diarrhea.

"Well that's a comfort," I said.

I followed him off the bus. The driver was waiting for me. He locked the door, pulled me aside.

"Don't go wandering off, friend," he said. "They asked me to keep an eye on you."

"Who did?" I said. "Who's they?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? Who cares? For that kind of money I'd f.u.c.k my own mother. Now eat something. It's another twelve hours to Cuzco."

"Twelve hours?" I said. "We've already been on the road for fourteen."

"You don't like it, complain to the bus company," he said, and walked off, chuckling under his breath.

I meandered into the small restaurant, past walls of dusty bags of potato chips. Cigarettes filled plastic display cases. I could kill for a smoke, but I only had fifteen soles left. The smell of charcoal meat filled the room from a grill just outside. There were no windows, just holes in the walls. It was cold at this alt.i.tude. Skewers of meat sizzled over the coals. Anticucho. Grilled beef heart. Tough as shoe leather, and less tasty. I dropped my last coins into the vendor's hand and he proudly held out two sticks of half-burnt, half-raw meat.

The pa.s.sengers milled around outside the restaurant, smoking, drinking beer, masticating their anticucho. The bus would be here for half an hour, at least. I wandered through the crowd, making a point of being seen, the sticks of anticucho in one hand, my jaws grinding away at the big ball of meat in my cheek. I could hear the people gossip about the shabbily dressed gringo who smelled bad.

When I was sure the bus driver had seen me, I clutched my stomach and rushed off to the side of the road, just beyond the glow of the light from the restaurant. I spat out the meat and stuck my fingers down my throat. Gagged loudly. Sounds of disgust. Another gringo with a delicate stomach.

I crept farther from the light. No one followed. I jogged off for a few hundred meters, fell back to a walk. Talk about not being in shape. Thought I'd have a heart attack. I rounded the bend in the highway until I was out of sight of the diner. A pair of headlights approached from where I'd just come. A car. Perfect. I stuck out my thumb. Maybe I'd get lucky.

The car got closer. White with stripes. Lights flashed on the roof. s.h.i.t. I dropped my thumb. The car rolled to a halt beside me. The cop shone a flashlight in my face, blinding me. He said, "Get in."

"What for?"

"Get in the f.u.c.king car, jacka.s.s."