John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

But the stew was great. He ate like the starving young man he was, slurping spoonful after spoonful down his gullet, barely pausing to chew the vegetables and the occasional hunk of meat that tasted different than anything he’d had in the past. It wasn’t till he’d emptied his bowl that he realized that the others were all way behind him. They were watching him, and whatever expression crossed his face made them all laugh. He felt his ears turning red, and then they laughed some more.

But it was friendly laughter. He smiled along with them and even got the feeling that he probably would have been laughing with them if only he’d known what was so funny.

The lady who’d brought him in leaned close and said something he couldn’t understand. It sounded like blahn key roho. When he shrugged to tell her that he didn’t understand, she repeated it. He still didn’t get it.

She held out her hand palm up, and he gave her his, palm down. She gently lifted his arm and ran her fingers down its length. She fingered his long blond hair. “Wheat,” she said. “ Blanco. ” Then she brushed his cheek and ear. “Roho.” She paused as she searched for a word. “Red?”

Then he got it. She hadn’t been saying wheat all this time. She’d been trying to say white. White boy. White arm, white hair, red face. Evan smiled. He rubbed his own cheeks with his other hand and said, “Blushing. White skin and red face means ‘blushing.’”

She repeated the word, and he didn’t correct her when it sounded more like blooshing. Then they all tried it, and they all laughed. There was some more small talk and laughter, and then the faces of the people across from his turned suddenly fearful.

Evan felt Oscar’s presence before he heard anything. “Kid!” he boomed. “You ready?”

The boy felt his shoulders sag, and the instant it happened, he knew that he’d just telegraphed weakness. “No,” he said. “I like it here.”

Oscar laughed. “Two minutes,” he said. “ Dos minutos. Don’t make me drag you out of here. It’s tough to walk on a broken leg.” Two seconds later, he was gone.

The mood in the hut turned black. His hostess stood, and the others followed. She hooked her arm in his armpit and gently lifted him. When he got to his feet she cupped his chin in her palm and said something to that he couldn’t understand, but the tone of her voice clued him in that it was important.

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re saying.” Fear rose in his throat.

The woman looked to the others for help, but there was none to be found. Her eyes brightened, and she held up her forefinger as an idea struck her. She hooked her arm around Evan’s shoulder and moved quickly across the room to a primitive set of shelves that was packed with all kinds of crap. Talking a mile a minute, she tore a small piece from a sheet of paper and then shaped into a rough oval. She held it up for him to see, nearly pantomiming Father Dom’s pose when he offered up the Host during Holy Communion.

Whatever she was trying to tell him, it was all about the slip of paper. Apparently it was a very important piece of paper.

“I don’t understand,” Evan said with a full-body shrug.

The woman shook her head emphatically and tapped his lips with her fingers. She wanted him to be quiet and listen.

That’d be great if only he knew what the hell he was listening to.

“Evan!” Oscar boomed.

The sound of the man’s voice made the woman double her pace. Still yammering about whatever, she gestured one more time with the piece of paper, put it in her mouth, then violently spit it out.

Evan reflexively jumped back, but the old woman grabbed his hand to keep his attention and spat again, three times for added effect.

“I’m supposed to spit?” he asked.

She nodded enthusiastically. “ Si, si. Speet.”

So he spat. No wad of goo; just, you know, spit.

“No, no, no, no.” She let him have it with another long string of Spanish. Or maybe Martian. He didn’t understand one any better than the other.

“Evan!” Oscar reappeared in the doorway. “Right now. Ahora. ”

All of the animation drained from the woman. She exhaled heavily, then gave Evan a quick hug. “ Vaya con Dios,” she said.

Evan knew what that one meant, though he wasn’t sure why. She’d said, Go with God. He smiled even though he inexplicably wanted to cry. “Thank you,” he said. “ Gracias. ”

The woman smiled, then turned him around and swatted him on the ass. “Bye-bye, blooshing boy.”

He turned to smile at them, but they seemed to not want eye contact.

“Come, kid,” Oscar said. “The boys are refreshed, and we’ve got a long walk.”

The little parade reformed outside, and Evan fell in line. He looked away as they passed the hut the girl had been dragged into. He might have been imagining it, but he’d have sworn that he could hear crying from inside.

Navarro seemed incapable of sitting. He walked to the rear of the house, to the kitchen, inviting Gail to join him. “Would you like some tea?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she replied with a smile. She hated tea. It reminded her of childhood sickness, when her mother used hyper-sweetened tea to mask the flavor of whatever foul home remedy she might have concocted. Still, an affirmative answer seemed like the best way to keep Navarro talking.

He filled the copper teakettle from the spigot over the stove and settled it on a front burner. He turned the knob and bent at the waist to verify that the blue flame was exactly right; then he turned to face Gail.

“I was their attorney,” he said, getting right to it. “I dealt mostly with a man named Arthur Guinn, but I did meet Mr. Bell a time or two. They were surprisingly nice people. Very cordial, always dignified. Not at all what you’d expect from people in their line of work. If you didn’t know they were mobsters, you’d have thought they were Ivy League country clubbers.”

“So you knew they were mobsters when you went to work for them?” Gail pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and helped herself to it.

Navarro turned on the sink spigot and pushed the lever all the way to hot. “Of course I knew. The whole world knew. But when I started, I just did corporate work for their legitimate covers.” He filled the teapot with hot tap water and set it aside. “Preheating the pot is very important,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“When making tea. Too many people make the mistake of pouring the heated water directly into a cold pot. Ruins the tea.”

“I’ve always just put a tea bag in a cup of hot water,” Gail said.

Navarro shivered. “Might as well drink from a mud puddle.” He withdrew two cups and saucers from a cupboard over the stove and started preheating those, as well. “Tea drinking and pipe smoking are both as much about the fuss-budgetry as they are about the final reward.”

Gail didn’t care. But she didn’t want to push too hard.

Navarro leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms and legs. “I remember when I was in law school a professor told us how fragile one’s ethics can be. He was an absolutist. His favorite expression was, ‘You can’t be just a little bit dirty.’ It made sense in the classroom, but in practice it’s a hard lesson. Rationalization is a tricky thing. You know you’re working for a criminal, but you justify it by telling yourself that even criminals need legal counsel. It’s the way our system of justice is built. I was working just for the legal side of what they do. After a dozen years or so, the blurry line gets fuzzier and fuzzier. Before you know it, you’re seeing the line for exactly what it is, but you look the other way. In the end, you’re in so deep that it doesn’t matter anymore where the line is.”