Ross Thomas - Missionary Stew

“Thank you.”

“Your friend, Mr. Haere,” he said, pronouncing Haere “Ha-air-ray,”“his Spanish is not quite so good.”

“No, I suppose not.”

There was another silence, which lasted a full minute. “That is why I telephoned you.”

“Because of my Spanish.”

“Yes. My English is poor.”

“For what other reason did you telephone?”

“You do not know?”

“Not exactly.”

Mr. Eckys smiled without displaying any teeth. It was a slight smile, almost wan. “Suppose I said I was a bandit and that we intend to hold you for ransom.”

“Good luck.”

“You mean there is no one who would pay for your safe return.”

“No one.”

“You are a poor man yourself?”

“Very poor.”

“Yet you wear a fine watch.”

“A gift.”

“From a rich friend perhaps?”

“My mother.”

“Then your mother is surely rich and would pay well for the return of her son.”

“I fear that you do not know my mother.”

Mr. Eckys twisted slightly in his seat and raised the pistol so that it now was aimed at Citron. “I will take the watch.”

Citron shrugged. “It is yours,” he said and started to slip it from his wrist.

“Keep it,” Mr. Eckys said. “It was a test. A rich man would hesitate. A poor man would not.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

Mr. Eckys frowned as he considered the question. “I am not sure,” he said finally, “but it is true. Perhaps it is because the poor have nothing to lose but their lives.”

“I can see you are a deep thinker,” Citron said.

“I think from here,” Mr. Eckys said, tapping himself on the heart with the muzzle of the pistol. “You may start the engine.”

Citron nodded and turned the key. “Where do we go?”

“Another two kilometers.”

“And then?”

“I will show you where it took place.”

“What?”

Mr. Eckys smiled, this time displaying a set of large white teeth. “The betrayal. That is why you are here, isn’t it? To learn the details of the betrayal.”

“Yes,” Citron said, putting the Fiesta into drive. “That is exactly why I’m here.”

They drove the two kilometers in silence until Mr. Eckys said, “Stop here.”

Citron stopped. Mr. Eckys used the pistol to point to a low mound, no more than a foot high, which was covered by weeds. The mound was perhaps seven feet wide and nine feet long. “We buried them there, all of them,” Mr. Eckys said.

“Who?”

“Myself and my comrades. We watched from over there.” He pointed to a stand of trees.

“I mean, who was buried?”

“The gringos. All nine of them. They killed each other. Later they were dug up and taken away.”

“When?”

Mr. Eckys thought about it. “It was six months ago — in June.” He opened the car door. “I will show you where it took place.”

Citron didn’t move. “I must ask a question.”

Mr. Eckys, almost half out of the car, turned to look back. “I will try to answer it.”

“How did you learn about me and Mr. Haere?” He paused. “That is my question.”

“Ah. I see. You are puzzled.”

“Yes.”

“The answer is simple. We learned of you from your embassy.”

“My embassy?”

“The embassy of the United States. You are a citizen of that country.”

“Yes.”

“That is where we learned of you.”

“They told you?”

“Told us?” Mr. Eckys looked surprised. “Us? We are the Committee of a Thousand Years.”

“I must apologize. I am not familiar with it.”

A gleam flared in Mr. Eckys’s eyes. A patriot’s gleam. A look of fervor crossed his face. “If it takes a thousand years, we will win back our land and free our people.”

Citron, finding himself in familiar territory, relaxed even more. He often had heard such talk in other hot countries. It was not only familiar, but also reassuring, even soothing. It somehow made him feel at home. “You are of the insurgents then,” he said.

“Of course.”

“And the struggle goes well?”

Mr. Eckys’s face darkened. “Not well enough.”

“But yet you were able to learn my name and that of Mr. Haere.”

“We have our people in the embassy. Pot scrubbers, floor sweepers, and such. A file was left untended. The Xerox machine was handy. It took only a minute. The woman who accomplished this pushes the coffee cart through the embassy. She pretends ignorance, but has a degree in economics from the University of Mexico.”

“And what did the file on Mr. Haere and myself say?”

“That Haere will use the information we have to topple the repressive government in Washington.”

“It said that?”

Mr. Eckys shrugged. “Words to that effect. I read only the translation, of course.” A thought came to him that caused his hand to stray back to the pistol. “Is it not true?”

Citron answered carefully. “It is true enough. Mr. Haere has had wide experience in toppling governments. An expert. I am merely the... propagandist.”

Mr. Eckys nodded his approval. “A vital role.” He turned again to leave the car. “Come, I will show you where the betrayal took place.”

Citron got out of the car and followed the one-armed man to the thick stand of trees. “What do you see?”

“Only trees,” Citron said.

“Come.”

Mr. Eckys led the way through the trees. There were stunted pines and a type of laurel and others that Citron didn’t recognize. They formed a thick, almost impenetrable screen that Mr. Eckys twisted through, Citron behind him. Then the trees ended.

“Look,” Mr. Eckys said. “They brought in a bulldozer to create it.”

It looked something like a meadow that the trees were now trying to reclaim. It was at least fifteen hundred feet long and perhaps seventy-five feet wide. Citron nodded. “A landing strip,” he said.

“Exactly.” Mr. Eckys indicated the trees. “My people were concealed here. The gringos’ truck was over there.” He pointed to the far end of the landing strip.

“The truck?”

“The cocaine truck.”

“I see.”

“The plane came in like this.” Mr. Eckys used his one hand to show how the plane landed. “It was an old plane with two engines. Of the Douglas company manufacture.”

“A DC-3.”

“Yes. I believe so. It taxied to the cocaine truck. A dozen gringos, all armed, emerged from the plane carrying suitcases. The suitcases contained the money. The cocaine was packed in drums.”

“Drums?”

“Oil drums.”

“How much was there?”

“Of the cocaine? A ton, I believe. At least a ton. Perhaps two.”

“Go on.”

“While the drums were being loaded onto the old plane, the money was being counted. There was so much money that they weighed it on a special scale. Then the gringos who flew in with the plane and the money tried to arrest the gringos with the cocaine.”

“Arrest?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“The gringos who had supplied the cocaine refused to be arrested. So the shooting began. Four of the drug buyers were slain, as were five of the drug sellers. It was glorious. The pilot of the old plane panicked. He started the engines. The gringo drug buyers who still lived ran for the plane and scrambled aboard. The drug sellers continued to fire at the plane as it rose into the air. It was a splendid sight. Dead gringos everywhere.”

“What happened to the money?”

“Ah. That. It was loaded into the truck. The gringos left, leaving the dead behind. Some of my people followed the truck, of course. It went directly to the Presidential Palace, which was even then occupied not by a President, but by the repressor Carrasco-Cortes. Meanwhile, we buried the dead gringos, but first we photographed them, and then turned to our Cuban comrades.”