T. Parker - The Jaguar

“I’m glad to deliver it to you.”

“What’s Owens doing with Armenta?”

“They’ve known each other for years.”

“You smuggled her a homing pigeon?”

“Three of them. Actually, I had them smuggled to her by an underpaid Quintana Roo propane delivery man. I’ll certainly introduce you to him, but to be truthful I was never confident that he’d complete his mission.”

“You never told me you kept pigeons.”

Mike gave him a boy’s grin. “Oh, forever.”

A possibility hit him, and Bradley wiped the tears with his hand and flicked them onto the tavern table. “The propane guy also brought three of Armenta’s birds out for you. Because we need some that will fly back to the Castle. Right?”

“Yes,” said Mike, his eyes sparkling with glee. “I am so proud of me sometimes.”

“Then we have a way to contact her.”

“Well, three ways. Would you like to see them?”

Bradley slipped the leather map folder between his belt and the small of his back, then pulled on his rain jacket. Mike stashed the newly arrived bottle of rum in one of his book bags then snugged the folded plastic lawn bags against the rain. He looked up at Bradley and gestured at the door like a butler, palm up, scar not visible to Bradley in the poor tavern light.

Mike’s apartment was on an alley several blocks north and east, off of M. Doblado. It was in the zona historico, the oldest part of a very old city. Bradley had trouble keeping up with the little man as he barreled along the narrow streets and by the time they were climbing the stone steps to the front door the rain had slackened and the wind died down.

Inside the apartment smelled of seawater and ancient rock. “Built in eighteen-forty-eight,” said Mike. “For Veracruz, practically brand- new. One hundred and one years before Woodrow Wilson’s attack. Downstairs was a livery and upstairs the residence. Retrofitted for running water and electricity. Later a hostel.”

As the lights fluttered on in the foyer Bradley saw that the main room had a high ceiling and there was a balcony that faced east toward the Gulf of Mexico. The windows had been left open and the wind and rain easily blew in past the grates and swayed what looked like very old drapes.

Finnegan unslung the book bags and pulled the windows closed and motioned Bradley to follow. They passed a small kitchen lit by a very weak bulb. The hallway was long and made of hardwood that creaked under Bradley’s boots. They passed a bedroom on the right and another to the left, then they climbed a narrow wooden stairway and Mike was talking as he headed up.

“Yoo-hoo, my fine feathered friends. It’s just me again, your favorite creature, bringing someone very special here to meet you.”

He turned and drew Bradley by his arm into the room.

“My flock, meet the son of Murrieta!”

Bradley stepped into a half-story, smelled the green stink of caged birds, saw the head-high coop that stretched from wall to wall, saw the bursts of feathers and seed as the animals flapped and dodged. Their alarm spread quickly through the enclosure, then just as quickly it was gone and the birds, Bradley guessed maybe twenty in all, settled on their nests and perches and peered out at the men with the curiosity of pigeons everywhere.

Mike was smiling. First at the birds and then at Bradley, then at the birds again.

“I’ll bet each one has a name,” said Bradley.

“Well, that’s Jason in the corner there, and beautiful Ambrosia on her nest.”

“It’s a hobby?”

“It’s one more way to see the world.”

Bradley looked around the spacious room. The floor was more brick-red tile and the ceiling paint was peeling. The walls were lined with bookcases to a height of about six feet, and the cases were full. Bradley recognized some of the languages on the spines. Above the shelves the walls were festooned with weapons and devices apparently made for torture, all very old. There was a leather recliner with a colorful serape flung across the back, and a reading lamp beside it. There was a long wooden table in the middle of the room and a wheeled chair. The table was cluttered with books and magazines and sketchbooks and large graph-paper blotters strangled by doodles and notations. A laptop computer sat closed on the blotter. Beside it was a small earthen dish containing a handful of message containers for the pigeons. Some looked well used and others nearly new. There was a short stack of fabric squares similar to the one that Erin had written on.

“You communicate with other fanciers?”

“Do I ever! Of the twenty-four birds in there right now, only six are actually my own. Released from anywhere, within reason, they’ll fly right back to me bearing the messages of my friends and associates. The other eighteen belong to friends I’ve made over time. We exchange a few here and there when we meet, so we always have an adequate flock.”

“What do you write to each other about?”

“The Earth and everything upon it.”

“For about the same cost as a cell phone, I’d guess. Once you figure in the food and grit and vitamins and vet bills and-”

“Quite a bit cheaper, actually, and of course they breed for free, just like people. But it’s not about cost. It’s not even really about communication. It’s about the medium itself. The medium is the message, as we’ve been taught, so it follows that a slow method of communication will reveal different meanings than a fast one. You get very different rewards when you compose longhand and deliver your brief notes on the wings of birds! You get shorter, more compact thoughts and ideas. You get ideas that are, well, smaller but larger. And this relative slowness with which they are delivered really does nothing to impede the flow of conversation about Earth’s important events because, as you know, important events almost never happen quickly. Earthquakes and spectacular accidents aside.”

“You’re talking like, geology and history.”

“Not like them. They themselves. I’m quite drunk. Shall we have another? Listen to that rain coming down out there. The lovely Ivana is most assuredly on her way now.”

“She’s aimed at the Yucatan,” said Bradley. “At Erin.”

Mike looked into the coop and pointed at a white-and-tan bird studying him from its perch. “He is one of Armenta’s birds. I have named him Samson. I will bet that Samson here can fly back home through any hurricane.”

“We have to beat the storm.”

Mike went to the desk and took a square of fabric from the top of the stack and cleared the books away and set it down on the blotter. From the middle drawer he brought a pen box and opened it and set it beside the fabric.

“It’s up to you, Bradley.”

“This is going to take a while.”

“I would think so. You have only twenty-five square inches on each side, so you must clear your thoughts, condense your language, and solicit specific information that will allow you to form a plan. A plan that cannot fail.”

“Would you make me a pot of coffee?”

“The best and strongest in all of Veracruz.”

“The rum will keep.”

“It always does.”

“We’re going to get her back, Mike.”

“I could see in the tavern that you were giving it some serious thought.”

Bradley set the maps on the desk, then sat and took the pen and flattened the fabric so it would take the ink evenly. He pored over the drawings of the Castle and the compound and the surrounding land and lagoon and sea. “The maps help. The maps show us the way. But they can’t give us the way.”

“No. You must conjure that with words on silk.”

“She has to meet me outside the Castle. It’s either that or a gun battle. I can’t take that chance. I need to know where to find her, that’s the main thing. Outside the Castle. I can be there if I only know where there is.”