Legends

Crystal Quest, dressed in one of her signature pantsuits with wide lapels and a dress shirt with frills down the chest, scraped back her chair and stood up. Taking their cue from her, the wallahs from the DDO jumped to their feet. “Get it into your head that Triple Border isn’t the Club Med,” Quest reminded Lincoln. “The group we know least about—the group which interests us the most—is this al-Qa’ida entity. Bring home the bacon on the Saudi and al-Qa’ida, Lincoln, and I’ll personally see to it you get one of the Company’s jockstrap medals.” She added with a leer: “Pin it on you myself.” The DDO contingent all laughed. As Quest headed for the door, Kiick offered his hand across the table and Lincoln, half rising from his chair, shook it. “Our cutout will make herself known to you by saying something about Giovanni da Varrazano and the bridge named after him.” Kiick added, “Holy mackerel, watch your ass when you get to Triple Border. You’ll be rubbing shoulders with mighty ornery folks.”

Crystal Quest’s voice, suffused with satisfaction at her own morbid sense of humor, came drifting back over her shoulder: “Whatever you do, Lincoln, stay away from swimming pools.”

Hanging out with Leroy Streeter in a booth at the rear of the Kit Kat Klub on the main drag of Foz do Iguaçú for the second night running, polishing off the last of the sirloin steak and French fries, washing it down with cheap Scotch in a shot glass and lukewarm beer chasers drunk straight from the bottle, Lincoln watched the hookers slotting coins into the jukebox and swaying in each other’s arms to the strains of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which, judging from the fact that it was played over and over, night after night, was either number one on the Brazilian hit parade or the only 45-rpm record in the machine still functioning. Leroy had just come down the narrow stairs leading to a dark hallway with two bedrooms off of it, having gotten his ashes hauled (as he put it) for the second time that night. The skinny teenage girl with the red-dyed hair worked into a chignon on the top of her head to add height and age came down behind him, ironing the folds of a thin shift with her palms as she tottered back to the bar on spiked high heels. “I prefer jailbait,” Leroy informed his new found friend as he signalled for another bottle of beer. “They got theirselves tight snatches and do whichever you tell ’em to without raising a fuss or renegotiating the price. Can’t figure what you got ’gainst getting laid, Lincoln. Like I told you, the girls here is all clean as whistles.”

“They’re only clean as the last whistle they blew,” Lincoln said. “Last thing I need to come down with is gonorrhea. Wind up costing me two hundred fifty grand to get screwed.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Leroy said. He looked over at the dancers padding around on the broad pine planks of the floor in front of the jukebox; one young man, whom Leroy had identified as a Pakistani he’d seen at Daoud’s boondock training camp, was hugging Leroy’s skinny friend with the red-dyed hair and dancing in place, shifting his weight from foot to foot in time to the music. “I don’t hold with females dancing with females,” the Texan told Lincoln, aiming his chin in the direction of the hookers who hung limply in each other’s arms, their backs slightly arched, their painted lids closed, their heads falling off to one side as if their necks weren’t strong enough to support the weight of their elaborate hairdos. “It ain’t normal, is my view, in the sense that lesbian love ain’t normal. If God meant women to fuck women he would have given some of them dicks. The hell kind of music is that anyway? Don’t worry, be happy is how I aim to pass the rest of my days on earth once all this is over with.”

Lincoln decided the moment had come to see whether his efforts at bonding with the Texan had paid off. Bending over the table, lowering his voice so the two Brazilians in the next booth couldn’t make out what he was saying, he asked, “Once all what is over with? It’s got to do with the ammonium nitrate, right? Tell me something, Leroy—what the fuck would anyone do with a moving van stuffed with ammonium nitrate?” He managed to ask the question very casually, as if he were only trying to hold up his end of the conversation; as if he couldn’t care less about the answer.

Leroy, a little man who wanted people to think of him as big, couldn’t resist bragging. “Between you and me and the fly on the wall over there, I’m gonna go and personally drive it through the Holland Tunnel,” he replied, leaning forward until their foreheads were almost touching. “Gonna set the fuse and blow it up in downtown Manhattan and flatten a square mile of Wall Street real estate, is what I’m gonna do with it.”

Sinking back, Lincoln whistled through his teeth. “You guys aren’t fucking around—you’re going straight for the jugular.”

“Fucking A we’re not fucking around,” Leroy said, squirming gleefully on his banquette.