Life Blood ---XV---Page No--50

making sure I noticed, I found myself wanting to yell at the guy. "I mean it's been two years since this woman you're looking for filled out a landing card. We might have something in the files, but. . . would it be possible for you to come back tomorrow?"

"No, it will not be possible," I lied. "I've got a plane back to New York tomorrow." I felt my frustration rising. I wanted to just grab him and shake him.

My first thought was to tell him I make documentary films and
maybe he'd like to end up in one about how my country's
Guatemala City embassy didn't care about its citizens. But then I
decided to go in a different, probably more productive, direction.
        "Just for five minutes," I declared, reaching for feigned
helplessness.

"Well, let me call upstairs," he muttered, realizing, I suppose,
that the best way to get rid of me was to kick me up the chain of
command, "and see if Mr. Morton can take a moment to meet with
you."

It worked. The next thing I knew, I was in the office of a goodlooking diplomat named Barry Morton—gray temples, tailored suit, rugged face of a sixty-year-old soap-opera heartthrob who plays tennis and keeps a mistress. Chief Information Officer.

"Actually, I do remember her, vaguely," Morton declared,

flashing me his professional smile. "The Crenshaw girl was an

unfortunate case. To begin with, anybody who overstays their visa that long gets us in a lot of hot water with the locals. They always tend to blame us, Ms. . . ."

"James. My name's Morgan James."

"Ms. James." Another of those smiles. "Frankly, I don't know what to tell you, though." He shrugged, exuding helplessness. "It's hard to keep track of every American tourist who comes and goes through this country. Some of the hippie types end up in a
mountain village somewhere, gone native. In this instance, as I recall, we got her out on a medevac."

"Her landing card gave her destination as someplace called

'Ninos del Mundo,' up to the Peten. That ring a bell? Any idea how I could find it?"

"Niiios del Mundo?" He glanced up quickly. "That's a new one
on me." He'd been fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk,
giving me only half his attention, but he abruptly stopped. "You try
the phone book?"

"Like I said, it's in the Peten." I was getting the definite sense
he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. The whole scene

was feeling tense and off. "My understanding is that's mostly rain forest. Do they even have phones up there?"

"Not many," he said, his tone starting to definitely acquire an "I have better things to do" edge.

That was when he focused in on me, his look turning protective.

"Let me speak candidly, Ms. James, strictly off the record.

Down here people have been known to 'disappear' just for asking
too many questions. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Between
us, this place is still a police state in many regards. You want my
advice, let sleeping dogs lie. Just forget about this Crenshaw girl.
She's out of the country now, so . . . Let me put it like this: People
who go poking around here are just asking for trouble."

I felt a ring of sincerity in his voice. Maybe a little too much sincerity. Why was he so worried for me?

"That may be true, but I'm still going to see what I can find

out. My heart is pure. Why should anybody care?"

"Do what you think best," he said with a sigh, "but I've told you
everything we know. Which, I'm afraid, is actually very little."
        "By the way." Try one more thing on him, I thought, see what
he'll say. "Since you're so concerned about Sarah, you'll be
relieved to know she's regained consciousness and started to
talk." There seemed no point in telling him any more. The rest
was all still speculation.

That stopped him cold. "What . . . what has she said?" His
eyes appeared startled in the glaring light of the office
fluorescents. At long last I had his undivided attention.
        "You're busy." I smiled at him. "I don't want to bore you with
details. But it's just going to be a matter of time before she
remembers exactly what happened down here."
        "She hasn't talked about it yet?" He was fiddling with an
ornate letter opener, an onyx jaguar head on the handle.
        "She's getting there." I stared back at him, trying to read his
mood. "We may soon find out who was behind whatever
happened to her." Then I tried a long shot. "Maybe officialdom
here had something to do with it."

"Let me tell you something." He sighed again, seeming to

regain his composure. "The sovereign state of Guatemala

definitely plays by its own rules. Whenever foreigners down here
meet with foul play, lower-level officials have developed a
consensus over the years that sometimes it's better not be too

industrious. Nobody's ever sure of what, or who, they might turn
up."

The meeting was definitely ending, and once again I had

more questions than answers. Something about Barry Morton felt
wrong, but I couldn't quite get a grip on what it was. One thing I
was certain of: He knew more than he was telling me. Why was
that?

As I was exiting through his outer office, headed for the

swarming streets below, I waved good-bye to his secretary, a

stout, fiftyish Ladino matron with defiantly black-dyed hair, a hard
look mitigated somewhat by the Zircon trim on her thick glasses
and a small silver pendant nestled on her ample, low-cut sweater.
It was the pendant that caught my eye, being the silver face of a
cat, most likely the local jaguar. Looked just like the ones I'd seen
you-know-where. I was staring so hard I almost stumbled over a
chair. Yes. It was definitely like those I remembered from Kevin
and Rachel.

The only difference was, when she bent over to reach for her stapler, the medallion twisted around and the back, I could see, flashed blank silver, no engraving of lines and dots.

So where did she get it? I started to ask her, but decided I'd
just get more BS runaround. Then I had another thought: Maybe
she handled a lot of things that never made it to Barry Morton's
desk, the "don't waste the boss's valuable time" kind of secretary.
Maybe she s the one I really should have been talking to, the kind
of woman who takes care of everything while the high-paid senior
supervisor is at long lunches.

She looked at me, and our eyes met and held for a second. Had she been listening in on my chat with Morton? Did she know something I ought to know?

By then, however, thoughts of Steve were weighing in. I
hadn't seen him in three and a half months and I was realizing that was about my limit. I wanted to recapture the lost time. Our being together was going to make everything turn out right.
        Clinging to that thought, I grabbed a cab and headed for my
hotel and a much-overdue hot bath.