Powder Burn by Carl Hiaasen Read Free Book Online

almost see the manicured fingers ruffling the pages of a parchment diary. The man would be in his study at the desk of eighteenth-century teak. Under the Goya a fire would be burning, for in Bogotá it is always damp and the man was old.
    “Ignacio,” the man in Bogotá said finally, “there is no way I can leave the country anytime soon. The Senate is in session; my coffee is almost ready for picking; there is a speech I must give; my favorite horse is running. One thing after another. You know how it is.”
    “Ignacio” relit the Churchill and pulled deeply, letting the smoke pour into his mouth and tickle his gums. He tried to blow a smoke ring. He never could make them round. But he was good at negotiation.
    “Yes, of course, I know how it is. My new boat is nearly finished, and I cannot wait. I am like a little boy. You must see her: long and white and sleek and new—like my friend in Panama.”
    “Cartagena!” said the man in Bogotá. “In a couple of weeks I must go to Cartagena for a conference. We can meet there.”
    Cartagena. Ancient, ribald, lawless Cartagena, a city for adventure. A great Caribbean port where less than half of what left and less of what came in ever appeared on anybody’s manifest. Every smuggler in the hemisphere loved Cartagena, and most of them had been swindled there. He could go to Cartagena inside a Patton tank and still be dead in six hours. The old man was teasing him.
    “But of course, Cartagena is very hot at this time of the year, isn’t it?” said the man in Bogotá. “I’ll tell you what. Come here as my guest. My granddaughter is getting married. I’ll send you an invitation.”
    “Well…” He let the word drag out until it was an acceptance and a refusal.
    “Come here and come alone. I guarantee your safety,” said the man in Bogotá.
    “Done,” he said.
    “Vaya con Dios, Ignacio.”
    “Igualmente ,” he said, and hung up.
    IT WAS AN IMPORTANT DAY , a day of great events, Jesús could tell.
    The man had gone into the office hunched and worried. When he emerged now, he seemed relaxed, almost expansive. He complimented Raúl on the Churchill and asked after Pedro’s family. He told Jesús sales were good and urged him to find another tabaquero to fill Pepín’s empty seat at the tambol.
    The tabaqueros waited. Would he give them some news of the cause, something to warm their bony chests and scarred hearts? They needed to know that the cause was advancing, that little by little, the way a good cigar accumulates ash, the circle was tightening on the killer in Havana.
    “La lucha sigue,” the man said at last, gently banging a fist against the old wooden table. The fight goes on.
    The tabaqueros understood.
    “Hasta mañana, Don José,” the old men chorused. It was indeed an important day.

Chapter 4
    THE EARLY-MORNING light is Florida’s freshest face, flawless as crystal, fleeting as tropical twilight. Chris Meadows savored the morning solitude. He made coffee and sat on the porch, half reading the paper but engaged more by the dancing shadows that announced dawn’s eclipse by day.
    Early rising was a legacy of the hospital, he supposed. He had been home a week now, and his leg had subsided into a manageable ache. He looked appraisingly through the line of royal palms at the pool. No swimming, the doctor had said, until the bandages were off.
    Truth be told, Meadows didn’t want to swim. He didn’t feel like working either. It had been a lost week, a week of nothingness—two weeks if you counted the hospital time. Apathy was a stranger to Meadows, but he felt trapped in its cobwebs now and too mushy-headed to resist.
    The day before, in a listless walk through the tropical acre that shielded his house from the road, Meadows had halfheartedly examined himself. Diagnosis: sorrow, anger and shock in about equal measure. So he was feeling sorry for himself. So what? He was entitled to it, wasn’t he?
    It was not as though anybody else gave a damn.