Adios Muchachos Page 14

  Dressing the body in the kind of attire people at the company were used to seeing him in was hard enough, but the fun really began when it was time to arrange him into a believable position for the photo session.

  Sitting him in a chair was easy. With a rope tied around his lower stomach and around the back of the chair, they were able to prevent him from sliding onto the floor. The rope under his armpits was a bit more difficult, since it couldn’t appear in the picture; they had to cut holes in the shirt and jacket just behind the arms so that they could run the rope through the clothing and tie the ends around the back of the chair.

  Although they now had the corpse in a seated position, the head still flopped forward onto the chest. Victor taped a broomstick to the back of the chair and was able to tie a lock of Rieks’s hair to the stick.

  “There! We have it,” Victor exclaimed, victorious.

  “Yeah,” added Alicia, “now all we have to do is give him a different expression.”

  “Different like what?”

  “Different like he is alive, that’s what.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to apply a little make-up and then I’ll tape his eyes open,” Victor said, solving the problem with no apparent difficulty.

  Of course, things are never that easy. The pieces of tape made Rieks look like a dead ringer for Ari Onassis, and every few seconds the corpse would direct a mischievous wink at them. They finally wound up using cyanoacrylate super glue. That didn’t solve the problem of the eyeballs, but, hey, you can’t win them all.

  Victor took the first Polaroid and waited for the image to emerge. And there it was … a perfect picture of a corpse tied to a chair.

  “Let’s try putting his elbows up on the table. That’s more natural,” Alicia suggested.

  “Great. You get under the table and hold his arms by the elbows. I’ll loosen the rope so he can lean forward a little. No, wait!” Victor ordered, running into the kitchen and returning with two pieces of a broken mop stick. “I’m going to put these sticks through the sleeves so you can shift his forearms into different positions.”

  When everything was ready, Victor stepped back to gain perspective. “Yes, that looks almost natural.” And then to Alicia: “Hold on down there. I’m going to hang a sheet as a backdrop to hide anything identifiable.” Victor put up the sheet, grabbed the Nikon, and started shooting. “OK, now see if you can get his right arm up a little … That’s fine … Hold it … Now the left …”

  Under the table, Alicia was sweating buckets and was disgusted with handling the corpse, but imagining Rieks like a muppet with a nodding head also had her on the verge of hysterical laughter.

  “That’s great … Now some profile shots …”

  Victor had gotten off about sixty of the seventy-two split-frame pictures when the weight of the leaning corpse began to push against the table, and the whole package—body, newspaper, broom sticks, and all—landed in a heap on top of Alicia, who stopped laughing barely long enough to scream, “Get him off me! Get him off me!”

  “All right, all right,” Victor said, trying not to laugh, “I think we got it.”

  “You’d better hope so, because there isn’t going to be another take.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Five

  The following day, Karl Bos’s secretary found a manila envelope on the floor in front of the office door. She set it aside, and as soon as Mr. Bos was settled in for the day’s work, she brought it to him. Bos opened the envelope, stared hard at the picture of Rieks, and, wiping a tear from his eye, said, “Ms. Sanchez, please have Mr. van Dongen and Mr. King come to my office.”

  “Look at our poor Rieks,” he said, showing the picture to Victor and van Dongen and hardening his face to avoid another tear in the presence of his business associates.

  Jan van Dongen took the photograph in his hands and immediately began to shake his head. He pursed his lips and continued shaking his head. “Why didn’t they take a front view? This really scares me,” he said, continuing to shake his head.

  Bos took the picture again and asked, “What’s wrong, Jan?”

  When Victor came in a second later, Bos handed him the photo and asked him what he thought.

  “You can’t see his eyeballs,” van Dongen insisted. “This might very well be a picture of a corpse.”

  “I don’t think so, Jan,” Victor said. “After so many days … I don’t know how they could possibly—”

  “That’s what I think,” Bos interrupted. “Don’t ask me how; I don’t know how. What I do know is that there is nothing in this photograph that tells me that Rieks is still alive, and that terrifies me.”

  “They could have drugged him,” Victor suggested.

  “Or they might have beat him in the face,” Bos added.

  “Or they might have killed him,” van Dongen insisted.

  Victor looked over van Dongen’s shoulder at Bos, shrugging his shoulders and arching his eyebrows to suggest that Jan’s suspicions were paranoid exaggerations.

  In the pantry beside the suite of offices occupied by the company, Hendryck Groote’s uniformed waitress set three cups of coffee on a tray and started for the door to the main office. On the way she heard Bos’s boisterous laugh and smiled. Seeing the smile on the face of the receptionist, she winked in friendly complicity and walked on. When she heard the second and third laughs, she could resist no longer and started laughing herself, along with the receptionist.

  You could not blame them. When Karl Bos laughed, everyone heard. His laughter would reverberate through walls and down hallways, sparing no one from its joyous contagion. When the boss was happy, everyone laughed, because the redheaded, fiftyish giant had a naïve and childish laugh that no one could listen to without reacting.

  As the waitress entered the office, she also heard the quieter laugh of Victor King, the good-looking one, and saw that Mr. van Dongen was standing before the other two, telling them some story she could not understand.

  “Smoked eels with mango sauce? You’re shitting us, Jan; no one could eat that.”

  “What did you say the aunt’s name was?”

  “Cornelia,” van Dongen replied, straight-faced. She’s Rieks’s father’s elder sister and she’s completely mad. She delights in torturing her guests with her culinary atrocities.”

  “And the Tropical Baltic was her invention?”

  “Of course; who else? And she always tells her guests the story about how one of the chefs at the Waldorf Astoria was so impressed that he asked her to give him the recipe and sign a release so he could add it to his repertoire.”

  “Ha ha ha! The guy has to be the biggest ball-breaker in New York City.”

  “Nah, never happened; the old lady’s a psychopathic liar.”

  “Ha ha ha, oh, oh.” The giant gasped for a breath of air to go on laughing.

  The maid left with the tray as discreetly as she could. The receptionist, dying to know what was going on, looked at her imploringly.

  “They were speaking English and you know I don’t understand a word …”

  Back in the office, Victor was asking van Dongen, “Do you think Rieks remembers the name of the concoction?”

  “Naturally, Vic,” van Dongen assured him. “You know how Rieks loves to pull pranks. Whenever he was in one of his sadistic moods, he would take guests out to aunt Cornelia’s for some Tropical Baltic.”

  Bos’s guffaws again reverberated off the walls of the office, his face redder than usual and a rebellious lock of hair jiggling on his forehead.

  “So, what’s your idea, Jan?” he asked, still laughing and wiping his fogged glasses.

  “Simple, Karl: When the kidnappers call tomorrow, we ask them to have Rieks tell them the name and ingredients of Aunt Cornelia’s greatest creation. They can easily ask him and then tell us.”

  Victor agreed with emphatic nods. “Great! If we get the right answer, we’ll know for sure that Rieks is still alive and well.”

  “A brilliant idea,
” Bos seconded, letting out another guffaw.

  That evening, as he was driving into his garage, Jan realized that he had made a mistake. The eel and mango dish Aunt Cornelia had invented was not called the Tropical Baltic, but the Tropical Boreas. He recalled that Cornelia had also invented a cold codfish soup with akee, rum, and chile peppers that she had christened Caribbean Baltic. In her twenty-year retirement in Curaçao after the death of her cherished husband, Cornelia found pleasure in concocting culinary fantasies that had something of her homeland and something of her beloved Caribbean.

  Rieks had sprung the Caribbean Baltic on his guests several times. “If you stayed away from the akee and chile peppers,” the guests always said, “the soup itself was quite edible.”

  If nothing else, that probably said a lot about Dutch cuisine.

  In Jan’s mind, the confusion between Baltic and Boreas was a logical terminological mistake. He considered calling Bosand Victor to rectify the error, but thought it would not be worth the trouble. Rieks would give them the right name.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Six

  The dark man with the moustache looked around to make sure that no one was watching as he stopped to put on his latex gloves. He then walked to the end of the long hall in the Triton Hotel where he already knew room No. 306 was ready and waiting. Inside the room, he took off his light jacket, hung it neatly in the closet across from the bathroom door, and walked over to the dressing table.

  Looking into the mirror, he carefully took off the wig and the moustache and placed them in the top drawer, alongside the stationery, ballpoint, and tissue paper. Satisfied that everything was in order, he reached for the cell phone on his hip and pressed the redial button. A second later he said, “I’m here. The door is unlocked.”

  Victor turned off the phone without waiting for a reply and walked into the bathroom to wash his face. Refreshed and dry, he returned to the room and looked around for the minibar, found it inside the closet, and took a serving of whiskey, a bottle of mineral water, and an ice tray. He freed one of the glasses from its antiseptic wrapper and made himself a “refresher” drink, as he called them, with just enough whiskey to blot out the taste of the water.

  Lighting a cigarette, he walked to the window, pulled the curtains open just a slit, and checked in all directions. Satisfied that no one could see him, he pulled the curtains open all the way and sat back to look out at the sea.

  When masses of cold air move in on Havana from the Gulf of Mexico, they momentarily create what people in Havana call “winter conditions.” If you look out over the ocean, you can literally see the steel-gray cold front moving forward, and long trains of waves smashing against the rocky coast, shooting clouds of spray several stories into the air.

  This November 16 was just such a day, and Victor found soothing solace in the endless majesty of the sea. It was the day before the scheduled delivery of the ransom money; his nerves had been taut all day. He had already gone through several sessions of the “silent breathing” exercises learned from a Chinese cellmate in Mexico, and now the infinite sea was mellowing him down to a soft purr.

  When he was about to reach for his second “refresher,” the door opened and Alicia strode in with her hands in the air in the fashion of a surgeon awaiting his gloves.

  Victor rose, gave her a peck on the forehead, and slipped the latex gloves on her hands. He sat her in front of the window, removed her wig, and put it in the same drawer with his. Ready for work now, they spent the next half hour going over every detail of the last tasks they were to perform that day and the ones that had to be executed on the following day. Victor showed Alicia exactly how the operation was going to be carried out and had her study the room to learn everything by heart. When they were both satisfied that the other had everything down pat, Victor donned his Spaniard persona again and sat behind Alicia to stroke the front of her thighs while nibbling at her butt.

  “Don’t you start, now. Let’s leave that for tomorrow so we can see how rich people feel when they make love. And by the way, you haven’t told me what your plans are for us when we’re millionaires.”

  “I’ve got the most amazing plans for you …”

  “For me… or for us?”

  “Us, mi niña. With us working together and a million-dollar stake, there is nothing we can’t do,” Victor rambled, putting on his dark glasses.

  A minute later, Alicia was laughing at Aunt Cornelia’s culinary mischief as she and Victor stopped by the door to check their watches.

  “I’ll be in the office in about fifteen minutes. You wait twenty before calling. I want to make sure I’m there when the call comes in.”

  “Aunt Cornelia’s creation was smoked eel with mango sauce, and she called it Tropical Baltic. Do you have everything ready for tomorrow morning? You’ll be hearing from us between 10 and 11 am,” Alicia announced, hanging up immediately.

  Bos also hung up and threw his hands into the air, making the sign of victory. “Cornelia, smoked eel with mango sauce, Tropical Baltic, everything exact.”

  Victor whistled and applauded. “He’s alive; that’s wonderful!”

  “Thank God,” Bos exclaimed, hitting the intercom to call Jan in and put an end to his worrying.

  But just then, Jan van Dongen walked in. When he heard the news, he did not cheer or applaud, but stood there, pensive. “Are you absolutely certain, Karl, that those were their exact words?”

  “Yes, man: Cornelia, smoked eel with mango sauce, Tropical Baltic. What more do you need?”

  “Are you satisfied, now, Jan?” Victor asked, throwing his arm around van Dongen’s shoulders.

  “Yes, there are no more doubts in my mind,” he muttered, avoiding the others’ eyes. “Excuse me, please; there’s something I must do now.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Seven

  Jan van Dongen knew that the one thing he had to do at that moment was to hide from all of them, especially Victor, so that his nerves would not give him away. He needed time to think. His secret hope that he would be wrong in his suspicions had exploded in his face; he had to settle down before doing anything else. He walked into the public bathroom at the end of the hall, locked himself into one of the stalls, and sat on the toilet seat.

  That murderous little snake! How could he? The sonovabitch knows I’m on to him about his past. How could he be so stupid? Well, maybe he isn’t so stupid. Maybe he didn’t murder Rieks.

  He felt the knot in his solar plexus begin to loosen, and his breathing returned to something closer to normal. Yes, the situation was not clear-cut. There were dark corners that needed light before he could make any decision. Stay calm!

  Ten minutes later, Jan van Dongen was driving slowly through the tunnel leading to Miramar. He turned off immediately on Second Street and parked in the premature darkness of the huge banyan trees. The trip from the office had taken just a few minutes, but his travels through his own soul had taken him far afield in his quest for guidance and answers.

  The initial impact of imagining Rieks foully murdered by Victor had driven all semblance of logic from his mind. For the first fifteen minutes on that fateful toilet, all he could think about were schemes for revenge: turn him in to the Cuban police—that would serve him right; shoot the guy himself—too fast and dangerous; turn him over to Vincent to reap a little reward for himself—after all, it was his idea that put the noose around Victor’s neck. And on and on he schemed, but something in the back of his mind insisted that whatever he did had to be done after careful consideration.

  It was only after he analyzed Victor with fairness and justice that he came to the conclusion that the man was too much of a slippery, conniving prick. He would never do something so stupid. At last, he could think clearly. Whatever! If he had murdered Rieks, there would be time enough for revenge. Right now, a hot bath and his Carmen were what the doctor ordered.

  He got home a few minutes after seven and night had already settled in. Finding the house completely dar
k and empty, he remembered with a sigh that Carmen had told him that she had night duty at the hospital. OK, so it would be a hot bath and a bit of the ice-cold jenever he kept in the freezer.

  Drinking jenever always had a sobering effect on him. Only the Dutch could drink that horrible stuff, and he was definitely Dutch. Being Dutch meant order and discipline, and that was exactly what the situation called for.

  At 7:45 he was squeaky clean, blood pressure at onetwenty over eighty, pulse at seventy-six, and flat on his back, in what might be called a heuristic trance, reviewing every possible variant and discarding those that were improbable. At 8:20 he saw clearly that Victor King could not have murdered Rieks. Impossible! Rieks was his protector in the company; Rieks was his ticket to fifteen million dollars over ten years; Rieks was his cover for the Victor King alias; Rieks would keep him exploring the ocean floor, which was his passion; and Rieks was in love with him. In a situation where there was nothing to gain and everything to lose, Victor King could be trusted to do the right thing, and Rieks’s death was not the right thing. Vincent would have him in prison or on the street in no time, and love it.

  Of course, to be absolutely thorough, van Dongen considered that Bos knew the story about Aunt Cornelia, too. But van Dongen knew him too well to even consider the possibility that the jolly red giant could be involved in anything that might hurt Rieks.

  The only logical explanation was that Victor had killed Rieks involuntarily, or was present when Rieks had an accident, or something of the sort. Rieks could have died from any number of causes: an overdose of barbiturates, alcohol poisoning, an allergic reaction (like that time in London when he almost died from stuffing himself with seafood), or he might just have had one of those freak accidents you hear about.