With Wendy Stafford, Ford decided, it was drugs. Or maybe all of the above.
In Spanish, she said, 'May I take your order?' then looked at him, pretending to focus, pretending to be surprised, and said in English, 'Marion? Marion Ford? My God, it's you, isn't it!'
'Hello, Wendy.'
'It
'You're looking well.'
'Oh, no flattery, please. I'm a mess. I've been over on the Caribbean coast all week, working with the Miskito Indians, and you know what the conditions there are like. Then one of the poor girls who works here called me just as I got back to San Jose and asked me to fill in for her. What was I going to say?' Talking way too fast; a girl who had become very good with the quick lie; the blue eyes still darting, refusing to lock onto Ford's.
'I need to talk with you, Wendy. Privately.'
'Now, you mean?
'Tonight, yes.'
She picked up the order pad again, giving it meaning. 'But that girl I told you about. I have to work for her. If it was just me, I'd leave right now.' She laughed. 'I mean, I'd have never even been here. But I don't want to get her into trouble.'
Ford took a bill from his pocket, a fifty, which was more than twice what the girls charged, and slid it onto the table. 'Maybe if you gave the floor manager this, he'd understand.'
The woman stared at the money for a second, pretending to be slow on the uptake. 'You mean . . . like I'm really one of the girls? Like you're paying for me?' The nervous laughter again. 'Well, it might work. Like I'm one of the whores. Wait until I write Daddy about this. He'll be furious.' A thirty-year-old woman still talking about her daddy as she took the money from the table, then stopped, thinking. 'Do you just want to talk for a short time, Marion? I mean, if you want to pay for the whole evening, I think the girls charge more. From the way I've heard them talk, anyway.' Lying smoothly as Ford took out another fifty, she said, 'It'll go to my friend, of course. I just don't want to get her into any trouble.'
'Still thinking about everyone but yourself, Wendy.'
Ford watched as she crossed the deck and tried to hide herself in the shadows of the trees, giving the money to the floor manager then quickly stuffing her cut into the pocket of her jeans. Then she was back, pushing her hair from her shoulders as if she'd just gotten out of a fast boat, saying 'Well, he fell for it. I've been bought and paid for. It's something my grandchildren will laugh about.'
Outside, the air was balmy and the woman paused to light a cigarette, inhaling deeply, then said she didn't want to go anywhere for a drink, maybe her apartment would be better since it was so close, and Ford knew it was because the management would be checking up on her, making sure she wasn't doing a party for the price of one man.
The apartment was only two blocks away, a one bedroom walk-up above a butcher shop. He expected the place to be a mess, and it was: bed unmade, clothes thrown on chairs, and a cat meowing for food as they came in. The cat gave him a quick mental picture, a surge of Jessica, but he pushed it from his mind. There were posters on the walls, political posters calling for equality and to save the wildlife, and the air conditioner spackled into the wall had a condensation problem, peeling the paint away with rust streaks. The place smelled of the bad air conditioner and of the butcher shop below.
'Drink?' She was at the refrigerator, looking in, her face appearing somehow younger in the bleak light.
'No thanks, I'm fine.'
'You won't mind if I do. God, the way they work us down there. Even on a slow night. ' Then looked at Ford quickly as she took out soda water and let the door swing shut. 'The way they work the girls, I mean. I don't see how they stand it.' After tapping out another cigarette as she poured a tumbler half full of rum and added the soda, she took the chair across from him.
Ford said, 'Three years ago I gave a friend of mine your name. He was a pilot and looking for work down here. His name was Rafe Hollins. He may have called himself Rafferty.'
The abruptness of that made her take a drink, and she gave it some time, calculating, as if trying to remember. 'I don't know, Marion. The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure.'
'Your name was in his address book. This address, so it had been updated. He said you told him why the Department of Immigration didn't have me listed as a temporary resident.'
She smiled, leaning back with her cigarette. 'Marion Ford, secret agent man. So how are things going at the ol' CIA? Invaded any small countries lately?'
'You were wrong then and you're wrong now, Wendy. I never worked for the CIA. Now I don't work for the government at all.'
'Then why the detective routine? Why so free with the big bills if you just wanted to talk to me? Some people might consider that offensive, ol' buddy.'
'Not if the questions are strictly business. Rafe Hollins was a friend of mine. He was flying Mayan artifacts into the States and making one hell of a lot of money at it. But he's dead now and it leaves a nice little void. I'd like to pick up where he left off, only I don't know who his contacts were. I thought you might be able to help—for a price, of course.'
'Rafe's dead?' She reached for her drink again, not hurt by the news but surprised.
'Then you did know him?'
'He came to see me. It was interesting, having someone come to me using your name as a reference. At first I thought you might be trying to sneak in one of your CIA buddies on me. But then I figured he would have never used your name if he was. Besides, he just wasn't bright enough—not that your organization only takes sparkling intellects.'
'Rafe was no genius.' Playing along with Hollins's hick routine, finding it useful. 'But even if I was involved with the CIA, why would I send an agent to court you?'
'Oh, come on, Marion. Don't play dumb. I've always been involved with the cause—' 'Cause' said as if it should be capitalized; swirling her drink as she peered over it, starting to feel important and letting her guard drop just a little as the rum began to take hold. 'You had to know that. You knew I was trying to get information for my people, that's why you told me so little.
Why do you think I slept with you those times? Like a game.' This said with a nasty edge that she seemed to enjoy.
Ford shrugged. What he remembered about it was Wendy getting sloppy drunk, groping his leg under the table while fighting not to slide out of her seat, that's how ready she was. He said, 'No, I didn't know. But it doesn't matter now.'
'The cause still matters, Marion. The revolution. It matters to me.' But the mechanical tone in her voice told him that it didn't; not really.
'And money doesn't?'
'My family's wealthy, don't you remember?'
Ford did a stage survey of the apartment with his eyes. 'It looks to me like your family cut you off a long time ago, Wendy. And I'm here to make you a fair business proposition. If you provide me with names and locations of Rafe's contacts, the people who were providing him with the artifacts, I'll give you five percent of the net for the first year, two percent for the next two years. That should come to something like a hundred thousand over the three-year period, cash. Just for information. Tonight.'
The blue eyes weren't darting now. 'This doesn't sound like the Marion Ford I remember.'
'We all change, Wendy. I got real tired of being one of the have-nots. Of taking orders from other people, cleaning up their messes while they cashed in. Idealism starts to seem a little childish if you get kicked around enough.'
She said, 'Whew, you don't have to tell me, buster,' and Ford knew that he had hit the mark; watching her as she stood, stretched with the weariness of it all, then crossed the room toward the bottle. 'A hundred thousand just for telling you Rafe's contacts?'
'And where I can find them. The information has to be good. It has to be accurate. Later on I may ask you
