Unfinished Business by Cary Lucas

Author:Cary Lucas [Lucas, Cary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gate Way Publishers
Published: 2010-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

FROM NOWHERE TO NOWHERE

"Any one of those things would have killed him," Evans summed up. "But my guess is he was clubbed first; then somebody went to a lot of extra trouble with a machete; then he was thrown into the bay in the hope that the fish would dispose of him. I could use some more coffee, Miss Rafferty."

They were sitting around the table in the Consul's kitchen, a thoroughly modern room whose white porcelain and tile made the eyes ache. The fluorescent tubes in the ceiling had their usual effect of making them all look like corpses themselves, Marsh thought.

"Thanks," Evans said. He sipped the coffee and set it down with a wry face. "Gosh, but that's hot. Any ideas, anybody?"

"Not Indian work," Sevillano remarked. His dark skin coped with the bluish glare of the lights better than the paler coloring of the Americans, but there were pouches of exhaustion under his eyes.

"Course I think you're right, but why?"

"The extra trouble you mention." He shook his head. "The Indian would lose interest when he had killed."

Evans nodded. "Seems that way to me too."

"What was he doing here?" Marsh asked. "Have you found out?"

"Got a few facts," Ward replied, "and a lot of guesses. He had a receipt in his pocket for passage on the Perla de Fonseca, a little coastal tramp; she sails Monday; he was going to Corinto, in Nicaragua. Any idea what for?"

Marsh looked at Barbara. She shook her head. "Our territory is only Mexico. Nicaragua would come under the San Jose office—San Jose, Costa Rica."

"He ever go to Corinto before?"

"Not since I've been in the office. He went to San Jose last year, but he flew. He always used planes when he could."

"I see. He was staying at a cheap hotel near Caleta, the Genevieve. Checked in there Wednesday night, late."

Marsh nodded. "It was Wednesday morning I saw him in the office."

"Don't know for sure how he came down from Mexico, didn't fly, that we know; didn't have a car. I should say," Ward qualified, "he didn't come down on the commercial plane. Might have been a private plane or somebody else's private car. More likely the bus, though. The time works out, if he left on the noon bus. He arrived at the hotel in a cab."

"To take the bus," Sevillano pointed out, "he must have wanted to get to Acapulco very badly."

Evans agreed. "A rugged trip. Or it could have been because no one he knew would see him on the bus."

"He was sure as hell running away," Ward said thoughtfully. "But from what?"

"Haven't found anybody who'd talked to him," Evans went on. "Except the man who sold him his passage and the clerk who checked him into the hotel. Seems he kept out of sight. Went to the Perlu's agents first thing Thursday morning; last anybody saw of him. Never did get back to the hotel."

"This is Friday night. Saturday morning, God save the mark," Ward said with feeling. "But he was found Friday afternoon.

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