Hummingbird Salamander(28)

“After, I never see you again,” Fusk said.

“Sure.” Easy enough to say.

“Okay. But I’m taking a break. You like coffee?”

He put the closed sign up, led me through the back and up some stairs and into a second-floor living room with a wrought iron balcony looking out on a closed-in courtyard full of unexpected fruit trees. Somewhere beyond the living room was a little bedroom and a bathroom. I realized later I had followed him like “private eye” was some kind of armor against calamity.

He brought two lawn chairs onto the balcony. There was no coffee.

I held out the photos again. “So, what can you tell me?”

But Fusk didn’t answer. He’d taken a gun out from under an overturned pot next to his chair. So casual. Like he’d done it a lot over the years. And yet beatific in its purpose, that action. I saw a light in his eyes that showed me how he’d been much younger.

The adrenaline left me, and I felt so ancient and so weary. My mind didn’t want to focus. All I saw was the gun. Heavy and dangerous-looking, with six chambers. Old, but clean and well-maintained.

He could have shot me. I would have done nothing. That’s how helpless I was back then.

“Listen to me and really hear me,” Fusk said. “Understand this: I don’t know who you think you are, but if I ever see you again, I will use this thing. Get out of here and never come back. Don’t ask questions. Don’t show people these photographs. I’d say take another case, except you’re not a private eye.”

I didn’t argue, like a switch had clicked off.

Stumbled out of my seat and stumbled back into the living room and stumbled down the stairs and stumbled out into the shop and then through the front door, out into the light of the street.

I didn’t stop until I had walked another four blocks and had no real idea where I was, caught my breath, tried to slow everything down.

A coffee shop looked like a kind of haven. I sat down heavy in a seat, ignoring the frown of the barista cleaning tables.

I kept picking up my regular phone to call the police. Putting it back down again on the table. I ordered a Red Eye. I drank it quick, even though it scalded my throat. Should I call the police? And tell them what? That Fusk had threatened me after I impersonated a detective? What kind of offense was that in this state? How would this tip my hand to people who might be watching? To whoever had tracked my search on Larry’s computer.

Had I given my real name? I couldn’t remember. Had I done anything that Fusk could trace back to me? Didn’t think so. Couldn’t be sure.

I was still clutching the book about fur. Even though the words were meaningless now.





[34]


A layover in Chicago on the way back, because of bad weather in our path. The kind you can’t fly through. Also, once we landed, some mechanical issue. So we would have to change planes. Another delay. Well, that was the way of it with miracles like flight. The magic had become tawdry, tattered, excruciating.

By the time I had had a couple drinks in an airport bar, my panic had faded and the encounter with Fusk taken on an almost daring, swashbuckling tinge. Memory fucks with you when it tries to protect you. A third bourbon and Coke, and part of me thought I’d been calm when Fusk pulled the gun. That I’d expected something like that. That I could’ve subdued him in close quarters if I’d needed to, with an MMA or wrestling move. Cheers—have another drink.

Fusk, I decided, had been the kind of encounter I’d been seeking at the hotel bar. The purest distillation of it. The kind that’s dangerous but not dangerous. The gun probably hadn’t even been loaded. I’d tell my grandchildren about it someday. How foolish their grandmother had been.

Which made guilt well up, and I texted my daughter. Direct, not through my husband.

>>Headed home, kumquat. How’re you? School good? Dad picking you up on time?

Nothing for several minutes. Then:

>>Not much. It’s all cool. Dad’s out in the yard a lot. Patrolling. See you soon.

Smiley emoticon back. I knew not to push it. Didn’t think to ask why my husband was out in the yard. “Patrolling.” He hated yardwork. We had someone for that.

Two hours to kill and I felt brave enough for risk again. Time to analyze Vilcapampa property holdings. Had to get ahead of this thing. Had to carve a path forward.

Didn’t I?



* * *



The Vilcapampa “umbrella,” or “octopus,” looked straightforward because it was so crude at times. A classic autocratic, top-down, family-run company that happened to produce net revenues of just under one trillion dollars a year. Blunt, in how organized, at least from public records. The senior Vilcapampa served not just as the founder and owner but also as CEO. The CFO was his younger brother. The ruling board was riddled through with other relatives. Anywhere Vilcapampa could promote from within the family, he did. This had clearly hurt them in some areas, as the expertise of those appointed didn’t match up with the responsibilities.

Wince-inducing: there was even a Vilcapampa Institute in Peru that traded off the faux indigenous connection to “help” traditionally oppressed Indian groups in the mountains, near ancient Incan ruins. Just enough distance from Argentina that the institute could, with apparent impunity, help launder monies from the less savory of their side businesses, as far as I could tell.