I’m not sure at this point.”
“How long has my friend been gone?”
“That, I don’t know. All I do know is that he didn’t turn up for work yesterday or today. I may learn more within the next hour. If I do, Cousin Rosario will tell you when you see her.”
They said their goodbyes, Meredith’s concern rising over this latest turn of events. Where in the hell was Haden? Had he gone back to the States? For half a second, she thought of calling Reynolds to see what he knew, but in the end, she decided to stick with her original plan.
A little after eleven, she headed back to the business district. The bar was easy to find, its blaring techno pop competing with the even louder salsa music coming from the place next door. She sat down near the door and waited. Five minutes later Cousin Rosario slipped into the empty seat across the table. Her skimpy yellow blouse and cheap black skirt advertised her work, her hard face and made-up eyes, further confirmation. They chatted in Spanish and acted as if they’d known each other forever, checking on nonexistent relatives and verifying their identities in the process. After sharing a plate of tapas they got up and left together, heading down a busy side street to a small parque.
They made their way to a bench under a huge mahogany tree. It was late and getting later but the parque was still fairly full, a family with five children sitting in the grass nearby, their innocent laughter totally incongruent with the conversation the two women were about to have.
Meredith spoke first. “So what do you know?”
The woman was accustomed to people in a hurry. She took no notice of Meredith’s rush.
“Cipri told me you’re looking for someone. A gringo… I came because I have a friend who works up north. By Lake Ati. She goes to this place once a week. It’s like a prison but it isn’t.”
“What do you mean it’s ‘like’ a prison?”
The woman shrugged. “It’s not an official place, you know? The men, they’re locked up, okay? But the guards, they let the women in easy, no hassle like the policia would give them. All they want is some thing in return. They get la mordida—just a little money, not big like the police—then the women, they do their jobs and leave. No problems.” She explained the layout of the compound, her hands moving gracefully.
“Who puts the men there?” Meredith asked when she finished. “Who runs the place?”
The woman looked at her blankly. If she knew, she wasn’t telling.
“All right,” Meredith said impatiently. “So there’s two gringos there, correct? What do they look like—”
“No.” The hooker interrupted. “Not two. My friend, she say nothing about two. There was only one. One man. Cipri, he asked me that, too, but hay sólo uno.”
The uneasiness that had started during Meredith’s conversation with Barrisito raised another notch. Just as he’d pointed out, situations like this were always changing, but Meredith had come down here believing Prescott was the only MIA. Then Barrisito had told her Haden was gone, too.
Now she was back to one man?
“Does this gringo have a name?” she asked.
“They call him Árabe.”
“The Arab?” Meredith frowned in confusion. She’d always thought of Haden as a younger version of Nick Nolte in his good days. Bright blue eyes, white-blond hair, broad shoulders, a gravelly voice. There was no way anyone would confuse him with an Arab. If the man in prison was called the Arab, he couldn’t be Haden. At the same time, the picture Dean had given her of Brad Prescott had shown a fairly young man with light hair and green eyes. His features hadn’t been dark enough to give the impression of a Middle Eastern heritage, but maybe his skin could have burnished under the Mayan sun. “Is he Arab?” she asked.
The woman shrugged again, this time with a casualness that tried Meredith’s patience. “I don’t know.”
“What does he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he speak English?”
“I don’t know. Look, are you gonna pay me now? I have to get my money—”
Meredith waited a beat, then she leaned closer, her voice a fraction lower, her face expressionless. “I want you to try real hard to remember what your friend told you,” she said quietly. “So far, I haven’t heard anything that’s worth a single quetzal, much less the hundred dollars you demanded.”
The woman inched backward on the bench as a soft drizzle began. The rain hit the leaves on the tree that sheltered them. “I—I don’t know what else to tell you. That’s all she said.”
“Try harder,” Meredith pressed. “What color is his hair? What color are his eyes? Which cell was he in?”
“I—I don’t know—” She stopped abruptly, her hand going to the base of her neck. “No, no…she did say something about his eyes, I remember now.”
Meredith waited.
“My friend, she say they were vacíe.”
“Empty?”
“Sí, sí. That’s right. Emtie, yes.” She stood and held her hands up, palms out. “That’s all I know, señorita. There’s nothing more, I promise.” A second later, she was gone.
For another ten minutes, Meredith sat under the tree in the falling rain and considered her options. Then she got up and started walking.
Her feet didn’t head the direction she ordered them to, though. They started down Calle 6b and fifteen minutes later, she found herself outside Jack Haden’s home.
CHAPTER THREE
STANDING IN THE SHADOWS across the street, Meredith stared at the house then closed her eyes for half a second. She could envision Haden inside, tracing the patterns on tiled floors with his toes, trailing his fingers over the polished wood banisters, leaning against the stuccoed wall. Haden was the kind of guy who liked to touch things he was familiar with—it gave him a sense of comfort, she’d decided after watching him one day. He liked to reassure himself that he was where he thought he was and the things around him were his own. He’d touched her that way, too.
She opened her eyes and studied the home a little closer. Built like the others around it, nothing about the building stood out, which was probably one of the reasons it appealed to him. Two stories with a red tiled roof, the place was surrounded by a painted wall that looked to be about ten feet tall. The top of it was decorated with bits of colored broken glass, the jagged edges pointing straight up. Anyone trying to boost themselves over would end up with a bloody gash across the palm.
A black iron gate was set in the stucco and through the bars, she could see a small garden. The front door opened to the patio. There was no garage and reminding her of her own home, all the windows faced the interior courtyard. A dim reflection ricocheted off the glass of the nearest one but there were no lights on inside.
She glanced down the street. Haden could have afforded a better colonia, but he’d obviously chosen this one for a reason. She wondered if his selection had had anything to do with the lack of vehicles parked outside. If your neighbors were too poor to have cars, then you heard one when it came down the street in the middle of the night. Here, in times past, the sound of a car drawing near after dark was one people dreaded. They’d lock their doors and hide, praying no one would knock. In the morning, they’d get up and surreptitiously check their neighbors to see who had been taken away.
Things were supposed to better now, but who could say for sure? Haden would have been cautious regardless.
She edged down the calle toward a patch of darkness that spread all the way across the street, then she crossed, the smell of fried tortillas filling the air, the sound of a distant radio coming with it. She’d planned on walking by