Wild Country

Chapter Sixteen

Any striking latina woman who shows up alone in the North Kaycee slums with an off-purple Ocelot and a half-million dollars' worth of poppy concentrate is a woman well worth watching, if you can catch her. The syndicate's contact man passed up the noon meeting on Tuesday, warned that the woman's plum-colored racer contained a police ID unit. Later he lost her on Vivion Road, unwilling to match her speed on public highways. But the syndicate boasted a good comm grid, and they located the Ocelot at the new Ringcity Motel before dark. After that, every move and telephone conversation by Marianne Placidas was monitored until she left Kansas Ringcity.

Wednesday she tried again. By then they understood, and envied, her use of that ID unit; their channels were that good. This time she placed the overnight bag in full view in the little Italian restaurant. She felt a tidal flush of relief as a little man left the Chianti he was nursing and walked with tiny precise steps to her table. His face was the color of pasta; his suit was expensive, playing down the paunch under his belt; his manner was very courteous. He whisked the bag under the table while sitting down, and something in his face told her not to complain.

He knew the pass phrase and advised her that the lasagna was good. She ordered it even though she was far too nervous to eat much of it. Marianne needed several minutes of cautious small talk to realize that he was nervous, too.

He had good reasons for a case of nerves. She was an amateur, though a courageous one; she could still be a plant from the Department of Justice. He had taken a very special commission from another group to pass an offer to Sorel's "man," who'd turned out to be a woman, and a real hotsy at that. Okay, this was soldiering time. This was what his sources paid him for.

He was wholly unaware of his own fidgets but. watching him, Marianne found her own anxiety dying. Eventually she found herself wolfing lasagna. While he talked he unzipped his beltpouch. He scratched his blue chin. He tapped his forefingers together; cleaned under his nails with his opposite thumb; patted his knees, interlaced the fingers of both hands, scratched his little potbelly, rezipped his beltpouch. Then he did it all again in different order. Marianne was positively at ease by the time he took her bag to the men's room.

When he returned he was smiling, and his was the kind of smile to unsettle a tummyful of lasagna: the smile of a well-fed rat. He suggested that she repeat what he had told her and paid close attention while she did it. He corrected her several times, too scornfully to suit a Placidas. Then he gave her a thin envelope, told her fair exchange was no robbery, and left with the bag.

While scanning the single sheet of polypaper, Marianne realized that there must be some trust among really big thieves, for the man had paid for that heroin with only a code for a numbered account in a Sao Paulo bank. She knew the advantages of Brazilian banks well enough. Idly, she wondered what Felix Sorel would do if she used that code for her own purposes — and then she shuddered and sought the waiter's eye.

An amateur, yes; but Marianne was not stupid. She did not write down the little man's instructions until she was locked in the ladies' room, and she tucked those instructions where only a lover, or a ravisher, would find them. Then she took a sightseeing tour of Kansas Ringcity and. again without realizing it. ditched the man tailing her.

On the other hand: while not stupid, Marianne was an amateur. She returned to her motel room for a nap before placing her call, and of course the Ocelot bore a tracer bug behind its Texas license plate by the time she awoke that evening. A professional would have made that call from a row of booths at a busy bus station. Marianne had the brains to avoid her car phone. She found a quiet booth off North Broadway and paid no attention to the kid — actually he was twenty-seven years old — who skated his old surfer into the alley a half block away and then did odd things with the cardboard box he carried.

Felix Sorel was nothing if not a pro. He could have had her call relayed through La Mariposa, but then two of his own people would have heard him talking in clear uncoded speech with an amateur. Risky business, that. He could have told the woman to call him at Nuevo Laredo, but too many American undercover spooks maintained watch in that known border conduit. Instead, he had given her a number in Monclova; the number of a well-protected place where one could disport with male prostitutes without any hassle from the Mexican police.

Sorel enjoyed his sport on Tuesday evening, having nothing better to do. On Wednesday he was listening to a youth with a twelve-string guitar and a lovely clear castrate voice when the phone buzzed. A young woman calling herself Quiet Mary needed to speak to someone named Caballo, the horse. Sorel took the call.

Thanks to the "kid" in the alley near Marianne's phone booth, an excellent typed transcript was made from the monitor on the cardboard box. The syndicate made no immediate move against Sorel or his latina. But a pasty-faced little man with nervous mannerisms soon got concrete galoshes and a resting place on the bottom of the Missouri River for guiding Sorel to what could be considered as a rival syndicate. They already knew Marianne from her license plates. Voiceprints told them she was talking with Sorel himself.

The transcript read as follows:

: A su servicio…

P: Buenos tardes, senor. Soy Quiet Mary, y quiero hablar con el caballo.

:Uno momenta, por favor.

S: This is the horse, Quiet Mary. You have been quiet a day too long.

P: I did as you said, but nobody showed up yesterday. It went okay today, only… well, do you want me to give you a set of letters and numbers I got in return?

S: No. There is no hurry. Memorize it and destroy the paper. But you said "only." Only what?

P: Uh… this funny nervous little man told me you might be interested in a, um, farming venture in Oregon territory.

S: I cannot imagine what he has in mind.

P: Well… I gave him a bag of corn chips; got it?

S: Continue.

P: He told me that a group of scientists have developed a strain of corn that could be grown in poor land. And that it does not look like corn at all. Still following me?

S: Yes. I wonder who else may be following you.

P: I've taken care of that.

S: Are these… scientists the same people who took your corn chips?

P: I don't think so. I'm sure of it, unless my man was lying.

S: What do the scientists want from me?

P: They think Oregon is a fine place for crops. Horse. They think you may want to expand as a grower. A very big grower. (LONG PAUSE.) Are you there. Horse?

S: This is completely… I do not want to hear more details over the phone, Mary. Did your man tell you how one might contact these geniuses of farm management?

P: Yes, he said I can—

S: Don't tell me! Set up a meeting for me, and inform me through your usual channel.

P: You mean Sa—

S: Yes! I mean that is satisfactory, Mary. You have not been trained for some parts of this work, but you must learn quickly. Can you follow instructions and use good judgment?

P. I found your damned com chips and delivered them, didn't I?

S: (LAUGHTER). That you did. Now, before you do anything else, draw out enough cash to operate. You can do that on your own?

P: Yes. Did you know my father was—

S: I know your father, Mary. Please attend to business. Do you have a car there?

P: My roadster.

S: Dios mio! Why not carry a banner? Garage your car, go to some store with many exits, dress plainly, change everything about yourself that you can, as soon as you can. You must disappear. Change your appearance often. You may think you are alone, but the chance is very great that others are studying you. You must lose yourself. When you change clothes, change everything and leave the ones you wore. I am sure you can imagine ways to move around without using credit cards. And you must. Are you getting all this?

P: Yes. Are you sure?

S: I am sure I do not want to lose you, Mary. When you. are certain you are not followed, go to another town, smaller but large enough for bus, rail, and air terminals. Change appearance again and go to another large city, making sure you are not followed. Only then, Mary, only then are you to contact these scientists. Make an appointment, change appearances yet again, and tell me the arrangements by our usual channel. Can you do all that?

P: I think so. Can you hear my knees knocking?

S: Your knees do not knock; but they beckon, Mary.

P: Now I feel better. Uh… Horse?

S: A sus or denes.

P: This is the big time, isn't it?

S: Very. You must be paranoid. If I thought it would not endanger you, I would suggest you carry a weapon.

P: You know about me and weapons, don't you?

S: I do, Mary. I also know this phone may not be as secure as you think. Now, do everything I told you, as fast as you possibly can, and pretend that you are pursued. Do not underestimate others; let them underestimate you. And do not hesitate to act in self-defense.

P: I'll do it.

S: Do it now. This instant, Mary.

(TRANSMISSION ENDS.)