Bell ignored his plea. “What are your plans?”
Talbot recognized it was prudent to drop the subject. “Refuel, restock, and return.”
“You’re going to keep hunting them?”
“What other option is there? Every day I don’t get them is less money in my pocket and that much closer to the Marines showing up and Colonel Goethals kicking us out. They have to be hiding on the lake.”
“When do you plan on leaving?”
“Few hours.”
“Enough time for me to get to Panama City and back?”
Talbot nodded. “We could wait for you, sure.”
“Okay. I need some place to lay low for a while, and malarial swamps sound perfect.”
27
Bell parked three blocks from the Hotel Central. He approached slowly and cautiously, watching windows and doorways, alleys and idling cars. He saw nothing suspicious. The street had its normal amount of hustle.
He wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks. He avoided the main lobby door and sidled around the block to a loading dock at the rear of the hotel. Its big door was up. Inside was a platform for workers to stand on to unload directly from the back of trucks or horse-drawn wagons. A couple young men in bellhop uniforms sat with their feet dangling while sharing a cigarette.
They spoke to him in Spanish as he approached. He knew the context of their phrases, if not the actual words. This was a restricted area, and he shouldn’t be here.
“Señor Ramirez is mi amigo. It’s okay.”
He brushed past them without giving them time to react further. That was the other key, he knew. Act like you belong, and people generally accept you being there. He climbed the steps up to the loading dock and went through the double doors into the hotel. He found himself in a utilitarian space used for the storage of dry goods as well as a place where the housekeepers parked their cleaning carts when they weren’t making their rounds.
Bell took the service elevator up to his floor and dashed down the hall to his room. The brass key slid into the lock and turned smoothly. He held his .45 low and inconspicuous. He let himself in and closed the door behind him. That’s when he realized he wasn’t alone. A man in a suit jacket, but without a tie, was sitting on his bed. Another had been behind the door, while a third was close to the window. These two men wore the blue uniforms of the Panama City police department. Bell guessed the man in civilian attire was the lead detective. He saw this in the first fraction of a second and it was enough to tell him he didn’t stand a chance of escaping. He released his grip on the pistol and let it dangle from his index finger.
“Isaac Bell?”
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if I was someone else here to rob his room?”
The officer behind the door had come up behind him with a pair of heavy handcuffs. His partner stepped closer and pulled a wooden baton from his belt as an unsubtle threat. The cop took the Colt from Bell’s finger and handed it to the detective before slapping on the cuffs. At the last second, Bell bent his wrists backward, as the manacles were cinched, to enlarge the circumference of his wrists. The metal dug into his flesh until he relaxed his hands, then the cuffs were loose enough to no longer be painful. One of the many tricks he’d learned from the cons he’d arrested over the years.
“Droll, Señor Bell. You have wasted a great deal of my time.” The man’s English was good. He was older, in his fifties, with a veteran cop’s wariness and weariness. He had more Spanish blood than native, his skin being on the lighter side, and his hair was brown and wavy with a few strands of silver in it. “After our first hour waiting in the lobby, Señor Ramirez insisted we leave and that he would call us when you returned. I trust him less than I trust you, so we came to this compromise. I knew you would come back sooner or later.”
“Am I allowed to know your name and what I’m being charged with?”
“I am Detective Ortega, and you are charged with trespassing and attempted burglary.”
“Where and when did this supposedly take place?”
“Otto Dreissen is an important man here in Panama, Señor Bell. We take his complaints seriously. He caught you in his home last night, attempting what he called”—Ortega read from a small notebook he pulled from a pocket—“‘industrial espionage on behalf of his American masters.’ Those were his exact words.”
Bell knew his only chance was to get ahead of this thing now before it got worse. “I am here on behalf of the Canal Authority to help them stop the attacks by Viboras Rojas. This can be confirmed with Colonel Goethals and Courtney Talbot. In fact, he’s waiting for me in Gamboa right now.”
“Do you deny being in Dreissen’s house last night?” Ortega asked archly. “Before you answer, know that he gave a very accurate description of you and noted that you ran through manchineel trees and likely got burned. I can see the red marks on your hands and face, just as he predicted.”
“I think maybe I shouldn’t answer that question at this time,” Bell said.
Ortega got off the bed and moved so his face was inches from Bell’s. His breath smelled of the rum he’d had at lunch. “But you will answer it.”
He nodded to the officer behind Bell, and the man rammed a fist so deeply into Isaac’s right kidney that the pain dropped him to his knees. That put him in the perfect position for Ortega to drive a fist into Isaac’s cheekbone and collapse him to the floor. He wasn’t out completely, but his brain misfired for a few seconds.
Orders were given
