The Crook Factory by Dan Simmons

Author:Dan Simmons [SIMMONS, DAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction / Thrillers
ISBN: 9780316213479
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2013-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

18

THESE REPORTS AREN’T WORTH SHIT, Lucas,” said Delgado, who was not oblivious to the fact that nothing much had been happening for weeks.

“Sorry,” was all I said. I could not—or would not—allow my sense that something big was about to occur to be expressed in my reports.

“I’m serious. It’s like reading about some goddamned Andy Hardy film. All that’s missing is Judy Garland.”

I shrugged. We were meeting at the end of the dead-end road just beyond San Francisco de Paula. Delgado had his motorcycle. I was on foot.

Delgado stuffed my two-page report into his leather satchel and straddled the motorcycle. “Where’s the writer today?”

“He’s out on the boat with his boys and a couple of friends,” I said. “Following the Southern Cross again.”

“And you haven’t picked up anything from the boat’s radio?” said Delgado.

“Nope. Nothing in the Abwehr code.”

“So why are you here if Hemingway’s at sea?”

I shrugged again. “He didn’t invite me along.”

Delgado sighed. “You’re a sorry excuse for an intelligence agent, Lucas.”

I said nothing. Delgado shook his head, fired up the motorcycle, and left me standing in a cloud of dust. I waited until he was out of sight and then I went into the thick bushes by the abandoned shed. Agent 22 was waiting there on a smaller motorbike… the one he frequently used to follow Lieutenant Maldonado.

“Move over, Santiago,” I said. The boy jumped off, waited for me to straddle the seat, and then clambered on behind me.

The boy put his arms around my waist. I turned to look down at his dark hair and dark eyes. “Santiago,” I said, “why are you doing this thing?”

“What thing, Señor Lucas?”

“Helping Señor Hemingway… risking injury… is this a game for you?”

“No game, Señor.” The boy’s voice was absolutely serious.

“Why then, Santiago?”

The boy looked away toward the shed, but I could see his dark eyes fill with tears that I knew he would never shed. “It is because of what they call Señor Hemingway… that is true for me. His is the name of that man I never had.”

For a moment I did not understand. Then I said, “Papa?”

“Sí, Señor Lucas,” said the boy and looked up at me, his thin arms tight around my waist. “When I do a good job for him, or when I play well with the baseball while he is watching, sometimes Papa looks at me and there is something in his eyes that is also there when he looks at his real sons. Sometimes then, I pretend—for just a moment—that I also may call him Papa and that it would be real and that he would hug me the way he hugs the boys who are truly his sons.”

I could think of nothing to say.

“Please be careful driving this, Señor Lucas,” said the ten-year-old. “I need it to follow Caballo Loco tonight and someday I must return it to the gentleman from whom I borrowed it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I haven’t bent it yet, have I? Hang on, my friend.” The small engine

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