44

He crouched on the floor by the through bolt, holding the cable, examining the parted end. At first he thought she must have cut it herself, but his forefinger came away with a smudging of lead.

Claudio stuck his head in. "Niño, it's Espinosa, on the scrambler." He picked up the phone on his desk. As he did, Arriaga appeared in the doorway.

"Hello, General," El Niño said. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, but I have something for you. I think you'll be very interested. Do you have your chart in front of you? Look at the river between Campanilla and El Valle. About five o'clock from El Valle, you see the mud island in the middle of the channel? You'll find there a large North American yacht, badly damaged, with an important gringo inside. Dead. I think it's best that way. His crew deserted during the fierce battle when you discovered them trying to leave the country with some valuable Inca artifacts on board, including an arm from the idol of Pachacamac. By the way, I'd like them back afterward… Yes. Yes. It's going to be a very big scandal. He's a significant gringo. He knows the President… Yes. Yes. A major embarrassment. You're going to be a hero. Make sure you have on your clean uniform when the TV people arrive… No, I'm-Angel, I'm just joking… All right. Fine, but not until after three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I need time to prepare. How's Mariela? And Juanito?… With the Jesuits? Oh, watch out, he'll grow up to be a Communist!" Arriaga scowled. "Well, don't worry, he'll be too busy screwing all the beautiful girls, just like his old man, eh? Hah! Bueno, un abrazo. I'll be watching you on television. Don't forget to smile."

Arriaga said, "How much do you pay this pwta?"

"Not half what I pay you."

Arriaga walked to the desk and leaned over so that his face was close. His breath was unpleasant. He had been eating fried pork. A real cholo, Arriaga. "Comrade," he said, "you confuse bribery with revolutionary taxes. You should not."

"Of course." El Niño managed to smile. "It's been a difficult day." Arriaga left.

El Niño crouched again over the parted wire, looked at the still-rumpled bed where… He rubbed the sharp wires against his thumb. Perhaps there was less holding him here than he had thought. His bank accounts in Geneva, Brussels, the Cayman Islands, were all brimming over. There was, really, no need to continue working. Though business was starting to get exciting. He loved the apartment on the Avenue Foch in Paris. The Manet would have to come with him. He couldn't leave that. Bendinck would contrive a way to get it back into the Continent. Rupert loved a challenge. The idol of Pachacamac would be his valedictory gift to his country. It was fitting.

A single bare bulb hung from a rafter. The walls and roof were corrugated tin, and though it was well after midnight, it was still hot inside and the cheep-cheep of cicadas and the grunting of frogs reverberated inside. Diatri kept putting his hand to his groin, where a few hours ago they had placed the jaws of a large set of bolt cutters. At first he had felt guilty. But he hadn't told them anything very useful, only who he was and who he worked for. He'd thrown in his Social Security number for good measure. He didn't know what was going to happen now, but he wished he had pressed the red button. So seldom does life offer such a clear-cut choice. Why didn't he press the damn button? Because Becker started snoring like Uncle Fabrizio?

He'd persuaded one of the two guards outside to bring a bowl of cool water and a rag. He dipped it in the bowl and squeezed it and laid it across the old man's head, which felt very hot. Once in Vietnam he'd-

The old man bolted up and looked at him and shouted, "Felix!"

Diatri jumped. The bowl clattered to the floor.

"No, sir. It's Frank Diatri. DEA."

"I thought you were dead. Felix!" The old guy was gripping him by the shoulder. He was strong. He peered deep into Diatri as if Diatri might be hiding Felix inside him. Finally, with a look of pain, he let go of Diatri and slumped back onto the pallet.

Diatri remembered from the photographs that he bore a resemblance, same build, hair, permanent tan, the old "olive" complexion.

"What happened to Mr. Velez, sir?"

The old man closed his eyes. Diatri looked and saw a tear roll out the corner of one eye, trickle sideways down along the ear and disappear.

There was a commotion at the door, unlocking, a sliding of bolts. El Niño entered, looked at Charley.

"How are we feeling tonight?"

"Fuck you," said Diatri. El Niño hit him in the face with the back of his hand. Diatri jumped up. El Niño put a pistol to his forehead. "Go ahead." Diatri sat down. El Niño said, "That was for letting the girl go." He looked at Charley.

"Billonario, are you well?"

Charley opened his eyes. Diatri had never seen such a look pass from one man to another. It seemed to unsettle El Niño, who said with apparent sincerity, "I'd give you some more morphine but they'll be doing an autopsy on you and I don't want… Well, I can give you some codeine if you want."

"You're a real prince," said Diatri.

El Niño gave a small laugh. "A count, more likely, if you worked it all out. Maybe a baron. But you'd need a team of genealogists and it would probably take them a month to establish it."

"What's the deal?"

"There's no deal. Well, actually, in your case, yes, there is a deal. Now that we know who you are. I assume you follow sports. You're being traded, to Medellin. It's more in the nature of a payment for a mistake one of my… incompetent associates committed. I just got off the phone with Reynaldo Cabrera. I'm sure you know of him. Certainly he seems to know about you. He's very eager to meet you. He wants you airmailed. You know that ranch he has outside the city, with a lake? He says to drop you in the lake. But not too hard. He has all sorts of things planned for you."

"What about him?"

"Oh," said El Niño, "that's all arranged. It's going to be on television. Ask Reynaldo to let you watch if you still have your eyes." He stood and went to the door. "Tell you what, as a personal favor I will ask Reynaldo to leave in your eyes until after it's been on. He can always amuse himself in the meantime with your other… parts. Good night."

A pair of eyes watched through the barred window opposite, then disappeared.

45

"Tearing open the door, Pizarro and his party entered. But instead of a hall blazing, as they had fondly imagined, with gold and precious stones, offerings of the worshippers of Pachacamac, they found themselves in a small and obscure apartment, or rather den, from the floor and sides of which steamed up the most offensive odors,-like those of a slaughterhouse. It was the place of sacrifice. A few pieces of gold and some emeralds were discovered on the ground, and, as their eyes became accommodated to the darkness, they discerned in the most retired corner of the room the figure of the deity. It was an uncouth monster, made of wood, with the head resembling that of a man. This was the god, through whose lips Satan had breathed for the far-famed oracles which had deluded his Indian votaries!"

"Tearing the idol from its recess, the indignant Spaniards dragged it into the open air, and there broke it into a hundred fragments."

And here, he thought, laying Prescott on the desk and picking up the dark brown arm beside it, the fingers angrily splayed in an attitude of noli me tangere, was the largest of those ancient fragments, passed down fourteen generations, father to son, father to son, to him, who, regrettably, had been forced to steal it rather than allow Papa to make a present of it to the National Museum so as to curry favor with the new leftist government so they'd leave his monopolies alone. He was only seventeen at the time, but he had staged it with precocious verisimilitude. The newspapers reported the theft.