Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

"Anything? And from the man who has everything."

"Including me. You can keep me."

" Billonario , for someone who's made so much money, you're a terrible negotiator."

"You want the painting?"

"But you destroyed the painting."

"I told you, it was a copy. I can have the real one here by tomorrow. By tonight."

"Delivered by the United States Air Force."

"No, no tricks. My own plane. I'm your collateral. Whatever happens, you keep me."

El Niño whispered, "You see that man over there? Do you know what he thinks of my Manet? He thinks the soldiers look like penguins. He's the number three Sendero cadre. So I told him, 'Yes, they look just like penguins.' What can you do with people like that? I ask you."

"I have a lot of paintings. Fine paintings."

"It's tempting."

"Do it, Antonio."

He turned toward Charley. "Antonio is dead," he whispered.

"I killed him." He grinned. "I tell you what, we'll put it to the men. We're a democracy here. Comrades, Señor Becker proposes to give us a painting in exchange for his friend there. What do you say?"

Charley shouted, "And gold."

"That's not going to work, billonario . My men don't care for gold. They're politically conscious." He said, "When I was a student in the States, there was this game show on television where you had to choose between the curtain and the box. America's contribution to world culture. So, comrades, do you want the painting, or Señor Velez?"

The men laughed. "Señor Velez!"

El Niño turned to Charley. " Vox populi, vox dicit. That's Latin, the real stuff." He nodded.

"The Amazon possesses the richest aquaculture in the world," El Niño said in the tones of a Marineland tour guide. "And among the many species we have, the candiru is one of the most interesting." The men laughed. "Technically a catfish, the candiru is very small, like a toothpick." The men laughed as if they had heard this before. "It has a great fondness for-how shall we call them?-mammalian orifices." Laughter. "And when the candiru finds one that it likes, it swims up it, like a salmon. Once it has arrived at its destination, it puts out little spines to hold itself there. People who have experienced this unique sensation say it is, well, very unpleasant. The pain of a single candiru can drive a man to chop off his penis with a machete." The men roared. "I wonder what the sensation caused by a hundred would be."

"No," said Charley. "Please."

"Let's find out." The men heaved Felix into the tank. He came to the surface gasping and tried to hold on to the edge with his mangled hands. A man standing by the tub brought the butt of his rifle down on them. Felix moaned.

"Felix!"

Felix's face began to contort. He gasped. The closed eye opened. He looked at Charley. "Boss."

One of El Niño's men began unwrapping the bandage of Charley's right hand. El Niño pressed a gun into it. It was Charley's own.45. Charley felt the muzzle of a gun at the back of his neck. El Niño leaned over and whispered, "Put him out of his misery, billonario . But I warn you, if you point that gun at anyone but Felix, you will die before you can pull the trigger, and I will keep your Felix alive for a week ."

Felix saw what was happening. He gasped, "Boss, please."

"No!" Charley shook his head. "No!"

"Please, boss."

El Niño said, "You both have very good manners, I'll give you that. Everything is please ."

"Stop this!" Charley shouted.

"You have the power to stop it, billonario ."

"Boss," Felix shouted, "I slept with her."

"It's, it's all right, Felix. It doesn't matter."

"I slept with her, in the clearing, on the island. Please."

"It's all right."

El Niño said, "He slept with-the granddaughter? Oh, that's not good, billonario . But you know what they say about finding good help."

Charley aimed the gun at El Niño. The gun in the back of his neck dug in.

"Please…"

"Do it, billonario . Look how he suffers."

Charley pointed the gun at Felix. Felix smiled, nodded. Charley fired.

The compound appeared deserted except for one man with an AK in front of the white house that dominated the large open field. The place reeked of stale smoke. Diatri recognized another smell. He followed it until his eyes started to sting. It took his breath away, literally. The fumes made him gag. There were NO FUMAR signs all over.

He had seen pozos before, but none this size. It must be almost a hectare, he thought, two and a half acres of coca leaves macerating in kerosene and sulfuric acid and-something else, maybe ammonia or carbolic acid. Working his way around the perimeter, he found four more pits of nearly equal size. It was impressive; this was refining like they did in New Jersey.

He made his way back to the edge of the compound and put his binoculars on the white house. Where the hell was everyone?

He heard a shot in the distance.

He saw them. It was a procession, twenty or more, walking across the field to the white house. He focused on a man near the front with white hair and a bandage wrapped around his head. They were carrying him. His head was down. They carried him into the white house.

He waited until dark, until the crickets had a good heavy thrum going. He set the selector switch on the det box to the number-one position, disarmed the six safeties. He burrowed down and pressed the red button.

Nothing.

"You son of a bitch bastard piece of garbage," he hissed at the det box. He turned the selector to the number two position and pressed the button. This time, the earth moved.

A geyser of fire lifted into the sky from the second pit. Diatri watched, amazed at his own pyrotechnical creation. It was a volcano, Fourth of July and sunspot all at once. It was great.

Suddenly everyone was shouting and running out of the white house and a building along the field that looked like a barracks. A man appeared on the veranda and began shouting orders. He ran down the steps. Everyone followed in the direction of the pit.

Diatri crept to the back of the white house, then to the front. He peered around the corner and saw the sentry. "Psst, asshole." The sentry swung around and Diatri killed him with a short burst from his Uzi. He went inside. There were stairs. He went up them. He heard a voice coming from the head of the stairs. "Luis?"

" Si ," said Diatri.

"What's going on?"

"This," Diatri said, killing him. He opened a door and saw her. She was lying on the bed, looking at him without fear, as if he might be room service with the iced tea and sandwich. There was a bruise on the left side of her face. She had on a man's shirt that came down just below the point of modesty. She had Indian features. She couldn't be more than… fifteen? A thin steel cable was fastened to a through bolt in the center of the floor; the other end was pressure-swaged around her wrist. Diatri sighed. There was always some bad sexual weirdness behind the doors he had been kicking in for so long, some naked guy with his dick all coated with cocaine and a terrified lock-jawed teenager underneath him.

"It's okay," he said. He held the cable to the muzzle of his Uzi and shot it off. He took her by the hand. They ran down the stairs. He opened the door cautiously, looked in both directions.

"Go," he said.

She looked at him.

"Go," he said. "It'll be all right."

She was fast. He had never seen someone run like that. He watched her until she reached the edge of the forest. She turned and looked back at him. She took off the white shirt and let it fall to the ground. Then she disappeared into the jungle and was gone.

Diatri went back inside. He found a door that led downstairs. He went down. There were several heavy steel doors. He opened one, and found the room empty except for a painting of-figured-a firing squad. The second room was full of weapons. The third door was locked.