Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

In less than two strides, he slowed to a walk and then came to an abrupt stop, planting himself between the stairwell and the study. The confident, thin smile spread across Emerson’s face. He took a deep breath, regained some composure, drew the bathrobe around himself, retying it with the belt, and walked calmly into the study. “Where’s the money from my wallet?”

The last syllable had barely rattled from his larynx as the mind-numbing agony fired the cells of Emerson’s brain. The needle-sharp point of the chef’s knife penetrated half of its length, into Emerson’s left kidney. With a quick twist the blade sliced the organ open, paralyzing him in a paroxysm of pain. An arm came around at the level of his throat, too tall for Katia. But by then his brain was filled with other things.

The shock enflamed every nerve in his body. The involuntary contraction of his own muscles arched his back as he heard the sound of his own snapped vertebrae. More excruciating than any pain the human brain could imagine, it made it impossible for Emerson Pike to suck in a thimbleful of air, enough to emit even a single sound. It seemed to last forever. He stood suspended in that place where the tortured mind pleads for death. Relief from the agony came only as the darkening empty void of death rolled over and enveloped him.

Sometimes it’s how you back into things in life that is most unsettling. It was how I met her, over the bananas in the produce section of a small market on the main drag up in Del Mar, not far from the racetrack. It was a Saturday morning and I was headed to the races to hook up with some friends. A cup of coffee in one hand and a bag with a muffin trapped under my arm, I was busy trying to separate a single banana from three others when she caught me in the act.

“Could you help me, seńor? Por favor? ” She stood there looking at me, maybe five foot six in heels, shimmering dark hair past her shoulders, dimples, and a smile that could start a war.

“Ahhh…” She looked down for a moment, collecting her thoughts, translating in her head. “Do you know…umm…do they have plantains? You know plantains?”

I must have given her a kind of dull look. It wasn’t because I didn’t understand the question.

“Plantains.” The way she emphasized the word with the fingers of each hand at the corners of her mouth, full lips, a dark-eyed beauty, visions of Catherine Zeta-Jones descending from the big screen to haggle with me over bunches of bananas. She could read the stupidity of it all in my face, and she laughed.

“Ahh. I don’t know.”

I wasn’t sure if I had a clue as to what a plantain was, but if I could have invented one in that moment I would have done it.

She had that shiny, well-scrubbed look, the girl you dreamed about when you were twenty, the one you didn’t even try and date because you knew it was all a vaporous wet dream. The only place you could truly hold her was in your delusions. She would vanish the moment you touched her, tapped to go to Hollywood or hustled off on a modeling contract somewhere. Why bother to break your own heart?

She picked up one of the bananas and held it up. “Similar but larger.” She spread her hands about eighteen inches apart.

Habla espańol?

Un poco . Only enough to get in trouble,” I told her.

She laughed. There was something magical in it. I sensed by the way she smiled and instantly sized me up that it was not the first time she had seen this kind of confusion from men. It was in the air, surrounding her, atoms of volatile ether. It should have been a warning. To her, it was nothing unique, just part of nature, another fly in the trap.

“I need plantains to practice some recipes for a dinner party in two weeks. I am cooking for friends,” she said.

“Am I invited?”

She looked at me, a kind of twinkle in her eyes. “Nooo. Well, maybe. But only if you can help me find plantains.”

We talked about what she was cooking.

She called it a typical Costa Rican dinner. She asked me if I understood, but I didn’t.

“You know, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any of those-plantains-here in such a small market. You might find them in one of the larger grocery stores in San Diego.”

“Oh, no, es too far.” Her face fell but only for an instant, a momentary and put-on pout, until her facile mind seized on another thought. She sniffed a little toward the large paper cup in my hand. “Café? Umm, smells good. What is your name?”

“Paul. Paul Madriani.”

“Ah, very nice name. Madriani.” The d and the r tripped off her Latin tongue with a musical quality I had not heard in a while. “ Italiano, no? ”

“ Sí . And this Italian is about to have breakfast.” I held up the banana and grabbed the bag from under my arm. “Would you like to join me?”

She looked over her shoulder, toward the door. “My friend is doing business at an office down the street. He will be a while. And your coffee smells very good. I suppose it would be okay.”

“If you’re sure he won’t mind.” Looking at her, I was suddenly getting visions of a jealous guy holding a loaded pistol to my face.

“Who cares?” She gave me a kind of indifferent smile and grabbed a banana.

Breakfast it was. She picked out a muffin and we headed for the checkout. Outside at the kiosk, I bought her coffee and we planted ourselves at one of the umbrella-shaded tables.

“You know es difficult to find good coffee here. My friend. Sometimes I think he is loco. He has only instant coffee in his house. Es poison.” The seriousness with which she said this made me laugh.

“Es true. I tell him. No good. He has casa grande , a big house, and a cook. Mexican.” She glanced over and rolled her eyes a little. “And instant coffee. I tol him it’s going to make me sick. I ask the cook about plantains. She looked at me like I’m crazy. She says ‘bananas on steroids.’ She will not cook them. Doesn’t know how, she says. Very stubborn woman. I doan think she likes me.”

I gave her the name of two or three larger grocery stores in the area and told her she might not have to go all the way to San Diego to find them. She didn’t have anything to write on.

I found one of my business cards in my wallet.

Then she couldn’t find a pen in her purse.

I reached into the inside pocket of my sports coat and pulled out a pen. I handed it to her and she wrote the names of the markets in tiny script on the back of the card.

“So you’re not from Mexico?” I’m making small talk. The answer is obvious if she’s making a typical Costa Rican meal.

“Oh, no. Costa Rica. San José. Before that, Puriscal. In the mountains. Have you ever been to Costa Rica?” She took her eyes off her writing for a second to look at me.

“No, but I’ve heard good things. It’s supposed to be very beautiful.”

“Oh, sí. Es beautiful. I love my country,” she said. “I cannot wait to go back.”

“How long are you here?”

“I don’t know. I thought thirty days. But now it looks like it’s going to be longer.”

She finished writing, picked the business card up, and turned it over. “What is this Madriani and Heens?”

“Hinds. Madriani and Hinds is a law firm.”

“You?” she said.

“I’m Paul Madriani,” I told her.

“You’re abogado ?”

“If abogado is a lawyer the answer is yes. I’m one of the partners.”

“I am impressed. Very good.” She looked at the card and thanked me for it. “Ah, and I see your name is on the pen as well.”

“We have the pens printed with the firm name and address for clients.”