"Come here," he said.
Whoosh. There he was. He strode through the door, tan safari shirt, smelling like a man who'd just driven hundreds of miles through Central America in an open Jeep. I wanted to undress him with my teeth and lick off the sweat. Brown eyes, skin tan as leather, he threw his arms around me and I felt the weight of the world slip away. He was here. I was wearing a robe, fresh from the tub, but it was gone in a second. Steve, I gotta say, knew a thing or two about the bedroom.
As we wound ourselves together for the next two hours, I had a refresher course in how much Id missed him, soul and body. His taste, his skin, his touch. Finally, we were both so exhausted we just lay there bathed in sweat, spooned together on the sagging bed. I hadn't felt so good in years. It was like another world.
"God I've missed you," I said again, holding him closer. The air-conditioning was beginning to lose ground against the late sun, but I didn't care. After my solo nightmare of the last two days, I was remembering what it was like to be a couple again.
The Camino Real, by the way, turned out to be an American-style hideaway with budget shag carpeting and flaking blue walls. In a way, though, the downtrodden decor actually made it more romantic, like we'd sneaked off to a garish hot-sheet motel for a twilight rendezvous.
I finally dragged myself up and got us a bottle of water. Then, leaning against the rickety headboard, I recounted an abbreviated version of what had happened yesterday after we'd first talked-the theft of my film, and then Lou being assaulted and Sarah taken, apparently willingly, to be brought (I strongly suspected) back here. What I held out on were the details about a certain Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos, my belief that he was behind the crimes and in league with Alex Goddard and stalking me. I was afraid our room was bugged.
"Morgy, we'll get through this," he said, reaching over to stroke my hair. "If somebody brought her back down here, we'll find her. And I apologize for being such a shit on the phone, about the baby. I'd just had a local lab lose three rolls of high-speed Kodachrome and I was seriously frosted at the world. We can keep trying if you want to."
"Just hold me." I put down my glass and I reached around and ran my finger across his chest. It was so lovely to be this close to somebody you wanted so much. I loved his earnest brown eyes and his soft skin. I loved him. Just having him with me made such a difference.
The unexpected part was, I'd asked him to come and help me, but now that he was here, I was starting to feel uneasy about luring him into my personal nightmare. Was that really fair?
Also, I was getting hints he had problems of his own. The photo book, I gathered, was not coming together the way he'd hoped. He'd mumbled something about finding himself torn between a heartstrings essay about the children (his specialty; you've probably seen his work, whether you know it or not), a devastating portrayal of the latest crop of sleazy politicos, or a nature valentine to the vanishing rain forest. But whenever he agonized about his work, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and just listen. He didn't want bright ideas; he just wanted me to clam up and be there for him.
Anyway, I knew he'd think his way through the problem. He had a deceptive air of vulnerability that always disappeared in a crunch. He was the master of ad hoc solutions…
At that moment, he reached for his watch, studied it, and abruptly bolted straight up. "Hey, I almost forgot my surprise. I hope you're still up for it. Did you know this is our anniversary? It was on this very day I first watched you dive into that grungy swimming pool at the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince."
"My God you're right. I'm humiliated." I hugged him contritely, feeling like a self-centered twit. I guess I was too focused on Sarah. (I screw up a lot on birthdays too, always with an excuse.) "I don't even have a present for you. I've been so-"
"That's okay." He grinned then stood up and headed for the shower. "Not the first time. But I've got one for both of us. We'll make it a gift to each other. It'll help start you thinking like a guatemalteco insider."
"What? You sneak. What did you get?"
"A trip back into the void of prehistoric time," he yelled over his shoulder. "I am the possessor of a little-known secret about this town. I called from Belize City this morning and made dinner reservations for us downtown. You'll see."
God I loved this man. But the last thing on my mind at that moment was food.
"Honey, I don't know if I'm really-"
"Hey, don't wimp out on me. If we're going to do this place, at least we can do it in style. Besides, you can't live on smog alone. You gotta eat."
He had a point. Starving myself wasn't going to help find Sarah any sooner. And there were details I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to broadcast in the room. What if Colonel Ramos had long ears to match his long arm?
"Come on," he pressed. "Just put on the slinkiest thing you've got and get ready to go native. It'll help you put this part of the world into perspective."
Alas, I had nothing particularly "slinky," though fortunately I'd packed a silk blouse I could loosen and tie with a scarf around the waist. Don't laugh, it worked. I even brushed on some serious eye shadow, which normally I don't bother with much.
I tried not to let him know how concerned I was as we walked down the driveway of the hotel and hailed a cab, while I furtively searched the shadows. Seeing the streets after dark made me sad all over again for Sarah. I still wanted to see and feel Guatemala the way she had, but when I got close to the realities of the place, it made me uneasy.
It turned out the marvel he'd discovered was called Siriaco's, a wonderful old place with a patio and garden in back-both roofed by glittering tropical stars-which were down a stone pathway from the main dining room and bar. It appeared to be where a lot of VIPs, the ruling oligarchy, dined. It was romantic and perfect.
When we arrived, his special anniversary surprise was already being laid out on a low stone table, attended by Mayan women all in traditional dress: the colorful huipil blouses of their villages, red and blue skirts, immense jade earrings.
"They've reconstructed a kingly feast from old documents," he explained, beaming at my amazement. "Cuisine of the ancient rain forest. We're going to have a banquet of authentic guatemalteco chow from eons ago."
And the meal was definitely fit for royalty. Soon we were working our way through a long-forgotten medley of piquant flavors that swept through my senses as though I were in another world. There was pit-roasted deer, steamed fish, baked wild turkey. One calabash bowl set forth coriander-flavored kidney beans; another had half a dozen varieties of green legumes all in a rich turtle broth; a third offered vanilla-seasoned sweet potatoes; others had various forest tubers steamed with chiles. We even had a delicious honey wine, like heavenly nectar, served in red clay bowls, that made me want to have sex right on the table. There with Steve, the unexpected juxtaposition of spices and flavors made every bite, every aroma, a new sensual experience. (Let me say right here he's a cooking fanatic, whereas I've been known to burn water. I think it's the new division of labor in post-feminist America.) Finally the Mayan waitresses brought out cups of a chocolate dessert drink from ancient times, cocoa beans roasted, ground, and boiled with sugarcane. The whole event was pure heaven.
Except for the occasional unwanted intrusions. Various dark-eyed low-cut Ladino divorcees, about half a dozen in all, hanging out at the bar with heavy perfume and too much jewelry, kept coming over purportedly to marvel over our private feast (or was it Steve's big brown eyes). He returned their attentions with his polite and perfect Spanish, but I despised them. In any case, they were shameless. Not remembering quite enough Espanol, however, the best I could do was just to put my hand on his and give them the evil eye. It seemed to work, though what I really wanted to do was hold up a cross the way you do to ward off vampires…
"Hey, check out Orion," he said finally leaning back, an easy, delicious finger aimed at that sprawling constellation. I looked up at the canopy of stars, and sure enough, the hunter and his sword dominated the starry sky above like a stalwart centurion, guarding us. "I always know I'm in the tropics when it's right overhead."
"Honey, this has been wonderful," I declared. "Thank you so much." I moved around and kissed him. "It's exactly the attitude adjustment I needed."
"Well"-he smiled back-"now I guess we've got some organizing to do. So tell me everything you left out back there at the hotel. I know you were holding off."
I was feeling increasingly hyper, probably from the high- octane chocolate, but I proceeded to recount all my findings about Alex Goddard and Quetzal Manor. Then I moved on to Colonel Ramos and how he'd threatened Carly and me about my film. Finally, I told him my deep belief that Colonel Ramos and a couple of his goons were obviously the ones who'd roughed up Lou and taken Sarah.
"Bad scene," he said when I finally paused for breath. He was toying with his cup and running his fingers through his sandy hair, in that "deep thought" mode of his. "Way I see it, this just sounds like a classic case of selling kids. To me, that's right up there with murder and grand larceny."
"Well, I also firmly believe it's all tied in with Alex Goddard's clinic here, or whatever it is. The place Sarah called Ninos del Mundo on her landing card. I'll bet you anything that's where Ramos has taken her."
"You know," he said, his brow a perfect furrow, eyes narrowed, "about the babies you saw, there've been press stories over the last few years about Americans being attacked in Guatemala on suspicion of trying to kidnap Maya children out in the villages, to put up for adoption. But I've never seen any proof of it. I've always thought it just might have been dumb gringos who don't know the culture. They go poking around out in the countryside and stupidly say the wrong thing. Maybe using schoolbook Spanish nobody out there really understands. But now this makes me wonder if-"
"Love, those babies I saw up at Quetzal Manor are not kidnapped Indian children, trust me. They're Caucasian as vanilla snow cones. Try again."
"I get your point," he said quickly. "But let me relate the facts of life down here. When you've got some Guatemalan colonel behind something, you'd better think twice about how many rocks you turn over."
"Funny, but that's exactly what some guy at the embassy named Barry Morton said to me."
"And you'd better listen. This is the country that turned the word 'disappear' into a new kind of verb. People get 'disappeared.' I actually knew some of them, back in the late eighties. One dark night an Army truck rolls into a village, and when the torture and… other things are over with, a few Maya are never heard from again." He looked at me. "You saw my pictures of that village in the Huehuetenango Department, Tzalala, where the Army mutilated and murdered half the-"
"I know all about that." It was chilling to recall his gruesome photos. "But I'm going to track down Alex Goddard's clinic, no matter what. That's where they've taken Sarah, I'm sure of it. I just may need some help finding it."
He grimaced. "Damn, I've got to head back to Belize by noon tomorrow." Then his look brightened. "But, hey, I finish my shoot Wednesday, so I can drive back here on Thursday. Then on Friday maybe we could-"
"Come on, love, I can't just sit around till the end of the week. What am I going to do till then?" The very thought made me itchy. "I need to find out if Ninos del Mundo, the place Sarah put on her original landing card is for real. Her card said it's somewhere in the Peten, the rain forest. If I could find somebody who-"
"Okay, look." He was thinking aloud. "How about this? There's a guy here in town who owes me a favor. A big one. He screwed me out of twenty grand in the U.S. We were going to start a travel magazine-I think I told you about that-but then he took my money and split the country. He ended up down here and went to work for the CIA-till they sacked him. After that he leased a helicopter and started some kind of bullshit tourist hustle. He sure as hell knows what's going on. Name's Alan Dupre. The prick. Maybe I could give him a call and we could get together for a late drink. He's got an easy number these days: 4-MAYAN."
"How's he going to help?"
"Trust me. He's our guy."
I leaned back and closed my eyes, my imagination drifting. In that brief moment, my mind floated back to yesterday afternoon at Lou's loft, and Sarah. Her hallucinations still haunted me. What had happened to her in the rain forest? And why would she say she wanted to go back?
Then I snapped back. "All right. Try and ring him if you think he can help. Right now I need all I can get."
He got up and worked his way to the phone, past the crowded bar, while I tried to contemplate the night sky. I looked up again, hoping to see Orion, but now a dark cloud had moved in, leaving nothing but deepening blackness. He'd said there was a storm brewing, part of an out-of-season hurricane developing in the Caribbean, so I guessed this was the first harbinger.
"Tonight's out, but tomorrow's okay." He was striding back. "Crack of dawn. Which for him is roughly about noon. We'll have a quick get-together and then I've got to run. Really. But if this guy doesn't know what's going on down here, nobody does. He's probably laid half those hot tomatillos there at the bar. The man has his sources, if you get my meaning."
"Then let's go back to the glorious Camino Real." I took his hand. "We'll split the check. At the moment, even that seems romantic."
"I'm still thinking about-"
"Don't. Don't think." I touched his lips, soft and moist, then kissed him. An impulsive but deeply felt act. "We've all had enough thinking for one day."