“I think we should go,” he said, shocked. “I think you’ve had enough to drink.”

“No!” she said. “No, I don’t think we should go. I think you should explain why I have to fall in love with a worthless shit like you. Can you?” She started to cry.

Russell almost didn’t see the green Suburban stop and discharge a short Indian man, very young and natty-looking, wearing a gunman’s vest. The man walked toward them, then past them and into the bar, his right hand holding a pistol.

Russell watched as he approached one of the men at the bar. He put the pistol right to the back of the man’s head and fired. The man’s skull seemed to come apart. And then the gunman turned and jogged past them, not looking at them.

Katherine had stopped crying and stared, as Russell had, as the Suburban pulled away from the curb. All they heard then was the screaming behind them in the bar. Just one woman, framed in the window, screaming at the top of her lungs.

They got a cab down the street in front of the Camino Real before the police came. Katherine hadn’t spoken since the moment the shot was fired. Even in the cab, when he was asking her the exact address of her place, she didn’t answer him. So they’d gone to his place instead.

He’d put her in the guest bedroom, but in the middle of the night she came into his room and asked if she could get in bed with him, because she was scared. He said that she could.

She slipped into his bed and put her arms around him. He liked it. He liked her, and he wondered why he couldn’t let Beatrice go. Was it, he wondered as he held Katherine, the fact that Beatrice was so beautiful? Was that all it was? Or was it that he was stealing Beatrice from someone else, someone he’d been jealous of? He wasn’t sure anymore. Or had he simply come back to this country to die? Why else had he come back here after all those years?

He’d never really asked himself that question before. What possible reason had he to come back? He felt Katherine’s arms around him, and she kissed the side of his neck, touched his stomach. She tried to kiss his mouth. He didn’t let her at first, not wanting any more trouble. And then he did, because he wanted to, and she wanted to. They made love tenderly, like young kids, but he didn’t love her. He knew that.

EIGHTEEN

Carl hasn’t sent me the money,” Russell said. “He will,” Mahler said. “It takes time to sell these things.” “I’m quitting the newspaper. I’m going to work for De La Madrid’s campaign full-time,” Russell said. “Why would you do that?” Mahler said. “He’s going to lose. Any fool can see that.”

There was heavy static on the line. Russell could barely hear Mahler, who’d called from Tres Rios to ask for more money.

“Why the fuck should you care? You told me you don’t give a shit about politics,” Russell said.

“I don’t,” Mahler said. “That’s true.”

The fact was, Russell was going to be fired. His boss, having discovered that Russell had lied about giving up Beatrice, had told London about their affair. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before he would be either sent back to New York or London or fired altogether. He didn’t intend to leave Guatemala without Beatrice. He was in love, and it was impossible to think of leaving without her.

He knew that in order to have her he would need a great deal of money. He had to be able to offer her something better than what she had here. He had to be able to offer her a fine place for her children and a future worth having. If he had money, he could ask her to leave Carlos; without it, how could he? He was counting on finding the Red Jaguar now, not for the thrill of the search, but as a way of having Beatrice.

“Tell that little motherfucker I need ten thousand dollars, and soon,” Russell said. “I owe that Frenchman another payment.”

“All right,” Mahler said. “I’ll tell him.”

“I’m not joking, Gustav.” He felt a new urgency, a violent need for money. He had never felt like this before. He knew he was capable of anything. He felt himself going over the edge.

“All right, I’ll tell him,” Mahler said again.

“He’s got the fucking snake; I want my money.”

Mahler didn’t answer him this time. There was just the static of their phone connection.

“We need food, and I have to pay these men I’ve hired,” Mahler said after a moment.

“How much more have you cleared?” Russell asked.

“Another two hundred square meters. Maybe a little bit more. It’s been raining so hard, it makes it difficult.”

Russell calculated that they’d cleared almost a football field now, and they’d found nothing. He’d tapped out his credit cards and had no idea where he was going to get more cash to live on, much less give to Mahler.

“Do we have anything but a hole in the jungle? Have you any more reason to believe the fucking thing is actually in there?”

“You have to have faith,” Mahler said.

“Faith costs money, amigo. So far, we’re working on a very expensive soccer field.”

“The American girl has come with her students. They’re building houses,” Mahler said.

“I know that. I said she could come,” Russell said.

“The students are a nuisance. They ask a lot of questions,” Mahler said. “About what we’re doing out there, why I come and go.”

“Tough shit. She’s my friend and I own the place.”

“Someone might talk. That would be very bad if others were to start looking, too. . . . If. . . .”

They lost their cell connection. Russell held the phone for a moment and then angrily threw it down on the car seat next to him.

“Talk about what? Our soccer field?” he said aloud to himself. He was angry because he had to make the Frenchman a payment the following week, and he didn’t have it. He was angry because Carlos was undoubtedly going to win the election and take the country further down a financial rat hole. He was angry because he was sure that right-thinking people could, at the very least, prop the country up and keep it from becoming another Argentina.

He parked his car in front of Jake’s, one of Guatemala City’s trendy new restaurants. A white-jacketed valet gave him a ticket, then jumped into the driver’s seat and pulled away. The restaurant had been built in one of General Ubico’s palatial homes—in his day, Ubico had been the United Fruit Company’s man. The United Fruit Company’s lawyers happened to be Allen and John Foster Dulles, who also just happened to head the CIA and the State Department at that time. The line between the United Fruit Company and the government of the United States of America became very blurred.

The house was all green marble and high ceilings; Russell remembered the house from childhood. He remembered coming here for parties with his mother.

He walked through the restaurant’s garden and looked for Carlos. Selva had called him at the paper and said that he thought they should meet. He told Russell he wanted to outline his economic plan for the country. Afraid not to, Russell had agreed to have lunch with him. What else could he have done, he’d thought when he’d put down the phone.

Carlos was sitting in a beautiful room off the garden. A waiter led Russell to the table. Unlike in the States, the smoking section had the best tables, as everyone here smoked. The windows onto the garden were wide open, offering a view of the considerable rose garden, from which the country had been ruled during Ubico’s time.

The sky was parched blue, no clouds yet. It was hard to believe it was raining at Tres Rios, Russell thought. It was very hot. Several ceiling fans turned the hot air, not doing much good.

Carlos, in uniform, stood up. They shook hands. There was a white table cloth and flowers. It was all very civilized, Russell thought as he sat down. Did he know? Was this meeting about Beatrice? Did Carlos invite him here to tell him he was a dead man?