Beneath a Panamanian Moon Read online

  “You can’t park here,” he said.

  “I’m waiting for my boss.” I reached into my jacket, slowly, not wanting to spook him, and pulled out my White House credentials. They were phony, of course, but there wasn’t a cop in the city that could tell them from the real thing, even side by side.

  The cop looked at the ID, and then my face, matching the photo to the flesh. “Who’s your boss?”

  “I’m sorry, Officer, but that’s classified.”

  Right away I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Some cops actually get off on that secret stuff. They want to think they’re strapping on a firearm every morning and stepping into a city peopled with Sidney Greenstreets and Mata Haris. But a lot of cops resent it, too, because it makes them feel locked out of the big game, and it’s tough to figure which ones will play along and which ones won’t until you pull it on them.

  This one had never heard of Sidney Greenstreet. “Sir, if you don’t move your vehicle I’m going to have it towed.”

  I didn’t want him calling me in. This particular identity was good but, like congressional integrity, it was a mile wide and an inch deep. So I thanked him, rolled around the block, cursing the traffic. Once back in range I heard Smith say, “What happens if things get rough?”

  “Can your boy handle himself?”

  Smith snorted. “In a roomful of chicas, maybe.”

  It was suddenly very hot inside the car. I cracked a window.

  “Listen, we’ll expedite whatever needs to be done,” Snelling said. “The administration is committed to democracy in Latin America, but if the president sees anything even remotely resembling a wild-hair freelance militia, even if most of them are all-American, he’ll send in the marines to cut some heads.”

  “Déjà vu, huh, Snelling?”

  Snelling muttered something I couldn’t make out. Then he said, “I appreciate this, Jim, I do.”

  “Yeah. Can I go back to work now?”

  “Why don’t you take a few days, go see Mildred. It’s Christmas, Jim.”

  “I can’t, Mack. I don’t have time.”

  “At least let me buy you dinner.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got plans.”

  After a short silence, Snelling said, “Okay. But keep in touch, Jim, and let me know. I’ve got one of my own on the ground who can watch your boy’s back, just in case. He’s not so good at intel, but there’s nobody better if things break ugly.”

  “You think it’ll get rough?”

  Snelling sighed, long and hard. “That depends on your boy.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A resort hotel in Panama is looking for an employee with a military background and special skills. My guess is they don’t mean busboys who can sew, or chambermaids who can yodel. When Smith got back into the car he said, “So, did you hear?”

  I said I did.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what? Lunch?” I pulled into traffic, heading east.

  “To go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Where do you think?”

  A cab nearly sideswiped us as I pulled up to the light. “I don’t know,” I said. “Where?”

  “I thought you said you heard?” Smith was starting to get irritated, but not the entertaining kind of irritated.

  “I did hear,” I said, “just not everything.” I told him about the cop, and the time it took to circle the block.

  “Well, you missed some important stuff, son.”

  “I guess I did.”

  “A PMC is looking for a former soldier, possibly one with special ops training, who also plays the piano well enough to entertain very important people. Do you have any idea how rare a bird you are, Harper?”

  I didn’t say anything. I could see where this was going. First he’d appeal to my patriotism. Then he’d haul out that mentor bullshit. Then he’d threaten me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were recruited by a PMC?”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, sir, I’m retired. I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

  “You still should have told me. But all that’s beside the point. You’ll contact the PMC today and tell them you’ve reconsidered.”

  “But I haven’t reconsidered.”

  “Look, this is no time to be coy. Your country needs you.”

  I got stuck behind another SUV, which sat through most of a green light before I tapped the horn. “Like before? You mean like when they needed me so much they left me treading water in the Mediterranean?”

  “That’s water over the bridge,” Smith said. “It was a different situation. No boats this time. This time you’re going to Panama.”

  I shook my head, certain I was hearing things. “You’re kidding, right, sir? I heard Snelling say he needed someone with special skills. Now, I may have, at one time, had special skills, but I’ve let them fall away, sir, to the point where I no longer have those skills. In fact, if the truth were known, I am stunningly unskilled.”

  “You play the piano,” Smith said.

  “Okay, yes, I play the piano. That is my one skill.”

  “Lucky for you, that’s the one we need.”

  “Who needs?” I turned onto Massachusetts and dodged a dump truck pulling out of the convention center site.

  “The hotel in Panama. They are suddenly in need of a piano player. Their last one was…” Smith glanced out his window, mumbling something.

  “What?”

  Smith sighed, and looked me straight in the mirror. “I said their last piano player was eaten by a shark.”

  I swerved around two lobbyists.

  “Why don’t you pull over somewhere, son. I don’t want you to run over anyone influential.”

  I ignored a cab honking behind me and pulled to the curb next to more construction. Gray dust settled over the car. Hard hats stared for a moment, but soon returned to standing around a slab that had been freshly poured over historical dirt.

  I turned around so I could see Smith straight on, and said, “It’s funny how a mirror can distort things. I thought you said their last piano player was eaten by a shark.”

  “I did.”

  “You’re not talking metaphorically, as in ‘his critics were vicious.’”

  “No.”

  “You’re talking about an actual shark, with fins and teeth and the title role in a popular film.”

  “Yes, a real shark,” Smith said. He was exceedingly calm, considering the topic.

  “Oh,” I said. “Was this an accident?”

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And they have a party planned for New Year’s Eve so, of course, they need a piano player. Because the old one was, well—”

  “Eaten,” I said.

  “Yes. That’s where you come in. You have the proper combat arms credentials plus you play piano. Apparently, that is a rare combination.”

  “We’ve established that,” I said. In all the years I’ve known Smith, I’ve never heard him dance around an assignment like this, so I started to sweat a bit, and that made me cranky. “Okay,” I said, “I play piano. Yes. But not in Panama. Gracias, but no gracias, Mr. Smith. I’m quite happy here. And, as you may have heard, I’m retired. Now, if you have something in Paris, or New York, that would be different. But Panama, no.”

  “It’s only for a few days,” Smith said. “Everything goes right, you do your job, you’ll be home in two weeks. It’ll be more like a vacation, Harper, a Christmas vacation. Panama is very warm this time of year.”

  “It’s the heat that I’m worried about.” I put the car into gear and pulled back into traffic.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking you to your hotel. Then I’m getting ready for a gig.”

  “So you refuse to help your country in a time of need, to work at the pleasure of the president?”

  “It’ll be a disappointment,” I said, “but he’ll get over it.”

  “Consider your future, son, before you make a
decision.”

  “Are you saying I can’t say no?”

  “Not at all,” Smith said. His voice rose half an octave, telling me he was angry. “It’s not like we’re the mob. We’re the goddamn government, boy.”

  “I’m allergic to sharks, sir. Unless they’re broiled and served with lemon butter.”

  “So you’re saying you won’t go?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Fine,” he said, in a tone that told me it was anything but fine. He sat back in the seat, looked out the window, and muttered, “Goddamn sunshine patriot. Let a little thing like a shark come between him and his duty.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me, Harper, who was it helped you become the man you are today? Who believed in you when no one else did?”

  “Mr. Rogers, sir.”

  Smith leaned forward and held on to the front seat, getting as close as he could, his voice in my ear all joshing and pal-like. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need twenty-four hours.”

  “Just in case you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  He sat back and smiled. “Just in case,” he said, “something happens.”

  The threat just steeled my resolve. There comes a time when a man has to break from his mentor and stand on his own two pedal extremities. Sure, Smith had recruited me and trained me, but he’d also sent me into some very bad places, and after a few years of that, I’d quit. Retired. Turned in my time card.

  Since I’d left Smith’s service, I’d set myself up in the capital and made all the right connections, a point that just made it all the more ridiculous for me to leave D.C. to poke around some Panamanian banana ranch. I had a life here. In Panama, I could barely order a Cuba libre. With my mind set firmly against the tropics, I went home, showered, and dressed for the only job I was interested in: playing the piano.

  I made nine hundred dollars a night playing for parties, dinners, and government get-togethers. I was in so much demand that I owned three tuxedoes—two Versaces and an Armani. Very nice. Not that you have to be wealthy to dress well. Every four years, Washington’s pawnshops are packed with formal wear, dry-cleaned to remove the stink of failure.

  Smith had not taken my retirement well, and every three or four months he would ask me to freelance, which I usually agreed to do if it was something that didn’t take me too far from Washington. But this time I wanted a complete break. I wanted to be free from memorizing party chatter and free from entertaining women whose husbands talked too much.

  I took a cab over to State and when I got out I had the feeling someone was watching me, but the hedges looked clear of skulking hit men, and my step soon regained the bounce of the newly liberated. I assumed a little paranoia was natural in someone who’d just stepped in from the cold.

  The American ambassador to Honduras was throwing a party and several hundred people were invited, enough to fill the Franklin dining room. I knew Mariposa would be there along with her husband, the Major, and that, if my luck held, I’d be able to deliver on one last assignment. It would be my parting gift to Smith, a consolation prize for his losing a part-time spy.

  I liked Mariposa. She was a sweet girl, blinded by romance and trapped in a horrid marriage to a man twenty years her senior. The Major sported a thin mustache, no lips, and a pistol he probably wore with his pajamas. I’d met him twice, didn’t like him either time, and I got the feeling he didn’t like me much, either.

  The glass, black marble, and chrome lobby of the State Department is large enough to hold groups of tourists until they are checked, rechecked, patted down, and passed through metal detectors to their tour guides. But I was a regular, so I stepped into the express lane.

  Jameson, the guard, said, “Hell of a shindig tonight, Mr. Harper. Word is, even the president might drop by.” I showed him my ID and he checked it against his computer screen and, as he’d done a dozen times before, he asked for my Social Security number. I gave it to him, he nodded, handed back my ID, and waved me through the metal detector. On the other side, Shaneequa wanded me, asked me about my father’s health, and then escorted me to the elevator and waited until the doors closed. God help me if I punched the button for any floor other than the one I’d been cleared for. A visitor did that once and half a dozen men with bad attitudes were waiting for him when the doors slid open.

  The elevator dropped me off in the hallway that ran from the men’s lounge down to the Jefferson reception hall. The men’s lounge, for some reason, is decorated in the cowboy decor of Teddy Roosevelt and has been for some time. I passed through displays of pistoleros, chaps, and ten-gallon hats on my way to the lavatory, which was empty, so I bounced a Bob Wills tune off the white tile as I relieved myself.

  Still flying high on my newfound freedom, I walked into the Jefferson reception hall, an exceptionally great room in a city full of great rooms. It’s a hushed place, even in daylight, with ceilings as high as the National Gallery. A statue of Jefferson dominates one end of the room and the walls are lined with historic paintings, including the original Spirit of ’76.

  One painting in particular always caught my eye and, if I could have, I would have tucked it under my jacket and taken it home. In it, the Capitol Building stands high up on a grass-covered hill. In the foreground a boy is pulling a cow through a gate. It’s such a quiet picture of such an easier time that I like to think of myself as that boy, herding bovines in the shadow of the Capitol, as aware of world events as the cow.

  The reception hall led to the Franklin dining room where waiters were arranging silver and putting a final polish on the stemware. A string quartet tuned up in the corner as nervous young interns from Protocol scurried about the room double-checking place cards.

  The windows from the top floors of the State Department offer a view few citizens get to see, and it is a pity, because it stirs a patriotism in my heart that is genuine and jingo-free. Looking out across the treetops to the Lincoln Memorial, as white as a wedding cake in the spotlights, I felt privileged to be an American.

  I loved this city, and it was my love for Washington that made me turn down Smith’s assignment. Washington had spoiled me. I was no longer capable of wading through a shark-infested backwater just to play “Auld Lang Syne” in a bug-infested jungle hotel where the guests most likely ate with their hands.

  And if I kept rationalizing like this, I’d be free of guilt by New Year’s.

  Behind me, people began to drift into the reception hall. It was showtime.

  I was set up in a cozier room opposite the dining room, where the light from half a dozen fireplaces refracted into rainbows in the low-hanging crystal chandeliers. A Baldwin baby grand was set up next to the Christmas tree in the corner. I sat down and began to play. By the time I was into my Irving Berlin medley, the room was crowded and buzzing with happy holiday conversation. The men wore black tie, and the women wore variations of red, accented with green, or green accented with red. Everyone except Mariposa, who wore an off-white gown, a scandal in tradition-bound Washington, where white after Labor Day was considered a social faux pas on par with dissing Texas. But this ivory-colored gown was the perfect foil for Mariposa’s dark skin and black hair. We made eye contact twice. Once, when I played the Honduran national anthem and all other eyes were on the flag, and once when her husband, the Major, left the room with his boss, an overweight general who managed to live extremely well on an army officer’s salary.

  By nine the crowd was having one last glass of wine before hurrying off to be seen at midnight services. The women of Washington knew how stunning they looked by candlelight and they didn’t want to waste an opportunity to be seen twice in the same night in such a pious glow.

  Mariposa greeted me and said, “You play so beautifully, Mr. Harper. Thank you.”

  I gave her a small bow and said, “Feliz Navidad, Mrs. Cruz. How are you this evening?”

  “I have
a slight headache,” she said, pressing the back of her wrist to her forehead to demonstrate to everyone, even those at the far end of the room, just how much she was suffering.

  “I am so sorry.”

  “You are too kind,” she said. She leaned over the keyboard and whispered, “Meet me in the cloakroom. Five minutes.”

  I nodded and covered our conversation with a blizzard of high notes that drifted into “Here Comes Santa Claus.” She smiled and the lights on the tree sparkled in her eyes.

  I looked past her and saw the Major watching us as an army officer in dress blues, his back to us, whispered in his ear. The Major did not look happy. He stared at me and I saw suspicion march across his face and set up camp on his forehead. His mouth quivered and I could guess by the look in his eye that his Christmas wishes involved me, and it wasn’t something I’d see on a Hallmark card.

  The officer turned, and for the first time I saw his face. It was Smith, and he was filling the Major’s ear with news meant to ruin a festive mood.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I think the Major suspects something.”

  “How could he?” Mariposa said. “With his nose buried so deeply in the General’s culo.”

  “Where’s the coat-check girl?”

  “She went away for a smoke. So we must hurry.” Mariposa pulled up the hem of her dress, revealing stockings, a flash of naked thigh, and a pair of jade-green panties.

  “Mariposa, please, we’ve talked about this.”

  She looked up from her work and in the close darkness her eyes danced. “You know, John, if you said the word, I would kill him, you know that.”

  I swallowed and shook my head. “Mariposa, I’m flattered, but…”

  She straightened and smoothed her dress with her hands. “I am a Catholic, John, and I take my vows seriously, so our love must remain tragic and unfulfilled, like your songs, so sad, you know? That is, unless something terrible happened that left me a widow.” She held up a small piece of paper and smiled.