it should have been there by now. That means that either Nitikin is traveling by other means, or the information in his handwritten note to Maricela is wrong, in which case he may not be in Panama at all.
“Like Goudaz said, it’s possible the
Our first hope was to find Katia’s camera with the photos from Colombia. We could prop them up in court, identify whatever was in them, and explain the significance to the jury as the reason Pike was murdered. Failing that, our backup was to locate Katia’s mother in hopes that she could either provide leads to solid evidence or testify as to what her father was doing in Colombia. The fact that she doesn’t know anything means we’re batting zero for two.
“I’m troubled by one thing,” I say.
“Only one? That’s not bad,” says Herman.
“How did Goudaz know the container would be shipping out of southwest Colombia?”
“Huh?” Herman looks at me.
“Remember when he came into the room after the phone call to his man in Puntarenas? He showered us with all kinds of information. But the first thing he said was, any container coming out of southwest Colombia would most likely ship from the place he called Tumaco. How did he know the container would be coming out of southwest Colombia?”
Herman thinks about it for a second. “Easy. He knew Maricela flew in and out of Medellin.”
“That’s what I thought, until I looked at a Google map of Colombia on Goudaz’s computer. Medellin’s not in southwest Colombia. It’s more or less in the center of the country. Maricela said she took a bus from Medellin to some small village where they picked her up in a truck and drove her to where her father was. She didn’t say how long the bus ride took, but she said the ride in the truck took most of a day and that she couldn’t remember much of it, which I don’t buy.”
“You think she’s lying?” says Herman.
“Let’s just say she’s protecting her dad. Which still leaves us with the question, how did Goudaz know?”
“If he’s wrong,” says Herman, “then everything he’s told us is out the window.”
“I’m not saying he’s wrong. Maricela didn’t correct him when he said it. And you can bet she didn’t tell him.”
“Good question,” says Herman. “Maybe we should ask him when we get back.”
I nod. “Which reminds me. Where is Maricela?”
“She took off early this morning,” says Herman. “She went up to the house to see if she could salvage anything. She was hoping to find her phone. She came back an hour later, said there was nothing but ashes. So she took a taxi over to the phone company-I think she said it was called EESAY. Said she was gonna try to buy a new phone and see if she could get her old cell number back. She’s still hoping to snag her father’s phone call.”
“She’s a good daughter.”
“According to Goudaz, she’s wasting her time. Her old phone was GSM. It ran off a chip. Larry told her there’s no way they can assign the old number to a new chip. Apparently he’s tried it before. He says the assigned phone numbers are already embedded in the chips when the local phone company buys them from the manufacturer. So if you lose the chip, the number’s gone.”
“We better keep an eye on her. She’s wandering all over town alone. Remember what Rhytag said about Katia in the hospital after the bloodbath on the bus? It was better if whoever had tried to kill her thought she was dead.”
“So what’s Maricela gonna do when we leave?”
“Fortunately you saved her passport when you snatched her purse from the fire. She doesn’t know it yet, but depending on where we go, she may be coming with us.”
As I say it, the door in this little back office opens. I turn, half expecting to see the police. Instead the man with the mustache is carrying a shoe box with the lid on and a label on the side that reads CANADA.
He puts the box on the table and lifts the lid. It is filled with passports, each one with a black cover, the word CANADA printed above the coat of arms, with the word PASSPORT in both English and French printed below it. All of the lettering and design is in gold ink.
“First you pay, then you pick out a name, any name you want as long as it’s in the box,” says the mustache. “We will take your pictures, put in the necessary descriptions, and provide the entry stamp for Costa Rica and the temporary entry document. That’s the base package.
“For five hundred dollars more you get the professional upgrade. That includes entry and exit stamps for four other countries of your own choosing, assorted artistic stains, and a press job.”
“What the hell’s a press job?” says Herman.
“We put the passport through a steam press. That bends the binding so it looks like it’s had many trips in your hip pocket. I would recommend that you get the professional package since it makes the passport look much more authentic.”
“Lemme see if I got this straight,” says Herman. “We can pay twenty-five hundred dollars and get your base unit, which is probably good for a stint in a Costa Rican jail, or we can pay three thousand and get a passport that might get us out of Costa Rica and into another country. Is that pretty much it?”
“Up to you.”
As Herman is haggling with the man, I turn my back and start fishing in the cash in the money belt under my shirt. When I turn around I’m holding fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. I lay them all out on the counter. He looks at them, the green reality being much better than talk.
In my other hand I’m holding three more one-hundred-dollar bills. “You can keep the press job and the stains. You give us the four extra entry and exit stamps on each passport, you get three hundred more. Otherwise we’re walking.”
Ordinarily I might not have pressed him. But given the fact that we can no longer use credit or debit cards without leaving a trail like bread crumbs, cash is now king.
“The stains and the bending are very important,” he tells us.
“I can spill my own coffee,” says Herman. “And I bet you if I sit on it, my ass will bend the binding. You want me to try one and see?”
“Take it or leave it,” I tell him. “You can always tell the mayor we went for the base package. He’ll never know, in which case you just made three hundred bucks.”
He looks me in the eyes, tries to read my resolve. When he can’t be sure, he glances back down at the money.
I start to pick up the bills from the counter.
“Okay. You got a deal,” he says.
FIFTY-ONE
Liquida spent almost forty minutes trolling the San Jose neighborhood in his car, never drifting more than three or four blocks from the burned-out house. He wore the oversize shades and the baseball cap.
He pulled up in front of a boutique hotel, rolled down the passenger window, and told the guard out front he was looking for a man named Lorenzo who lived in the area. Perhaps he knew him as the mayor of Gringo
