Life Blood ---XVI---Page No--53

"Bad scene," he said when I finally paused for breath. He was toying with his cup and running his fingers through his sandy hair, in that "deep thought" mode of his. "Way I see it, this just sounds like a classic case of selling kids. To me, that's right up there with murder and grand larceny."

"Well, I also firmly believe it's all tied in with Alex Goddard's clinic here, or whatever it is. The place Sarah called Ninos del Mundo on her landing card. I'll bet you anything that's where
Ramos has taken her."

"You know," he said, his brow a perfect furrow, eyes nar-
rowed, "about the babies you saw, there've been press stories
over the last few years about Americans being attacked in
Guatemala on suspicion of trying to kidnap Maya children out in
the villages, to put up for adoption. But I've never seen any proof
of it. I've always thought it just might have been dumb gringos
who don't know the culture. They go poking around out in the
countryside and stupidly say the wrong thing. Maybe using
schoolbook Spanish nobody out there really understands. But
now this makes me wonder if—"

"Love, those babies I saw up at Quetzal Manor are not

kidnapped Indian children, trust me. They're Caucasian as vanilla snow cones. Try again."

"I get your point," he said quickly. "But let me relate the facts
of life down here. When you've got some Guatemalan colonel
behind something, you'd better think twice about how many rocks
you turn over."

"Funny, but that's exactly what some guy at the embassy named Barry Morton said to me."

"And you'd better listen. This is the country that turned the

word 'disappear' into a new kind of verb. People get 'disappeared.' I actually knew some of them, back in the late eighties. One dark night an Army truck rolls into a village, and when the torture and . . . other things are over with, a few Maya are never heard from
again." He looked at me. "You saw my pictures of that village in
the Huehuetenango Department, Tzalala, where the Army
mutilated and murdered half the—"

"I know all about that." It was chilling to recall his gruesome photos. "But I'm going to track down Alex Goddard's clinic, no matter what. That's where they've taken Sarah, I'm sure of it. I just may need some help finding it."

He grimaced. "Damn, I've got to head back to Belize by noon
tomorrow." Then his look brightened. "But, hey, I finish my shoot

Wednesday, so I can drive back here on Thursday. Then on Friday maybe we could—"

"Come on, love, I can't just sit around till the end of the week.
What am I going to do till then?" The very thought made me itchy.
"I need to find out if Ninos del Mundo, the place Sarah put on her
original landing card is for real. Her card said it's somewhere in
the Peten, the rain forest. If I could find somebody who—"

"Okay, look." He was thinking aloud. "How about this? There's
a guy here in town who owes me a favor. A big one. He screwed
me out of twenty grand in the U.S. We were going to start a travel
magazine—I think I told you about that—but then he took my money
and split the country. He ended up down here and went to work
for the CIA—till they sacked him. After that he leased a helicopter
and started some kind of bullshit tourist hustle. He sure as hell

knows what's going on. Name's Alan Dupre. The prick. Maybe I could give him a call and we could get together for a late drink. He's got an easy number these days: 4-MAYAN."

"How's he going to help?"

"Trust me. He's our guy."

I leaned back and closed my eyes, my imagination drifting. In that brief moment, my mind floated back to yesterday afternoon at Lou's loft, and Sarah. Her hallucinations still haunted me. What
had happened to her in the rain forest? And why would she say
she wanted to go back?

Then I snapped back. "All right. Try and ring him if you think he can help. Right now I need all I can get."

He got up and worked his way to the phone, past the crowded
bar, while I tried to contemplate the night sky. I looked up again,
hoping to see Orion, but now a dark cloud had moved in, leaving
nothing but deepening blackness. He'd said there was a storm
brewing, part of an out-of-season hurricane developing in the
Caribbean, so I guessed this was the first harbinger.
        "Tonight's out, but tomorrow's okay." He was striding back.
"Crack of dawn. Which for him is roughly about noon. We'll have a
quick get-together and then I've got to run. Really. But if this guy
doesn't know what's going on down here, nobody does. He's
probably laid half those hot tomatillos there at the bar. The man
has his sources, if you get my meaning."

"Then let's go back to the glorious Camino Real." I took his
hand. "We'll split the check. At the moment, even that seems
romantic."

"I'm still thinking about—"

"Don't. Don't think." I touched his lips, soft and moist, then kissed him. An impulsive but deeply felt act. "We've all had enough thinking for one day."