Hummingbird Salamander(79)

17 52.

The only explanation I could think of: when Hillman had found the salamander and pried out its eyes, he’d found the address of the place I’d left behind so long ago. He’d known it was important. He just didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t know it was about my past. But knew enough to hide it. For Ronnie’s sake?

I tried to imagine their conversations as their paths took them farther and farther apart: Ronnie working for Silvina, Roger the heavy for Vilcapampa. Had they been talking the whole time? How had this looked at family reunions? Arguments? Or had they worked out a truce? Closer, yet no closer. Silvina’s secret like stolen Nazi gold: everyone was after it.

It struck me that maybe “Roger” had been playing both sides. Had Vilcapampa sent him down the coast to kill me or had he come on his own mission, spurred on by Ronnie?

There was nothing in the Hillman-Jane interrogation that I could recall that knocked loose an answer. He had probably just come to kill me, no matter what he owed his sister.

I couldn’t lose myself in the wilderness. Because Silvina didn’t want that. So I couldn’t want that.

Silvina wanted me to go home.

A place I hadn’t been in more than twenty years.



* * *



The next hour felt like panic because it was panic. A threat gathering amorphous, and I didn’t quite know from where. I just knew I was late. Struck me in my gut, irrational. I was late. Silvina would’ve expected me to receive this information much earlier, not five months later. Instead, Hillman had hijacked it. And where was Ronnie? Close by or not a part of this?

I packed the way someone does when they don’t care: dumping clothes and toiletries and any old random thing in my suitcase. Just shoving it all in and making it fit. Followed by an inventory of weapons, ammo, food, water, emergency supplies. Gathering what made sense to gather by the door. I could leave right away. Drive through the night. Be at the farm by midmorning or noon. I was manic by then, suffused, ecstatic, talking to myself. Perhaps in my frantic daydreams, too, I dared to imagine that this was the end of the nightmare. I would have the answers. Clever of Silvina to put them somewhere familiar to me. Considerate, not considerate.

In some other world, I do none of these things.

In some other world, I analyze the odds like I was taught to do. Calmly, with a coldness born of distance. That person turns their back on Hillman’s revelations. That person goes off into the wilderness anyway, knowing it’s the best move for their survival. Their sanity.

But I was stuck in this world.





[83]


If I could, I would’ve rigged this confession with traps and protocols. Things you have to get through to get through, if you know what I mean. Hack your way through a jungle on your way to Quito. Make it so you can’t see everything. Until it’s almost too late.

Are you here now? Can I count on you being here? That you made it through. That someone made it through.

Or will I always just be writing this to myself?





[84]


At some point, the rain lessening, the temperature plunging yet again, I picked up Hillman’s atlas. It was more detailed than my fold-out map, and I’d decided against any online searches for the best route. Any online activity, even from a phone I considered secure.

I flipped through to the right quadrant. Which is when I noticed the torn-out pages, by the ragged paper shreds left behind in the spiral binding. I checked the pages to either side, looked at the table of contents.

The missing page showed the river. Somewhere in the middle of that torn-out page lay my houseboat. I was willing to bet Hillman had marked the spot.

I just stared at the rip. Tried to control my traitor hands.

It didn’t have to mean anything. There were a lot of reasons it could’ve meant nothing. So few.

I could see my landlord through the front window. He’d emerged onto his deck in his familiar lumberjack jacket/shirt combination.

The need to talk to him came at me sharp, insistent, even if just to reassure me he hadn’t seen anyone on the property. That all I had to worry about was him.

So I stepped out onto my deck and waved to him.

But it wasn’t my neighbor.

It was Langer.





[85]


Did Langer expect me to step out at that moment? No, his automatic rifle was pointed down. Apparently, he didn’t trust a handgun with a silencer would be enough.

At least he knew enough not to raise the rifle. Not with my hand in my jacket pocket.

We could see each other clear in the faded light, with the river slowing again but loud. It would take a miracle to hear each other unless we shouted. So we shouted. To the water and the birds and to each other. Two absurd, deranged apes hooting and posturing. Infusing even small, unimportant words with violence.

“Slowly take your hand out of your pocket and lie down on the deck,” he shouted.

“No!” I shouted.

“No? What’ve you got in your pocket?” he shouted.

“We’ll talk like this and then you’ll leave,” I shouted.

“How do you know I want to talk?” he shouted.

“How do you think?”

I saw him consider that a moment. Run-down, shadow embellishing his cheekbones.

“All right. I’ll play along for now.”