Rook squinted. “Think you could cool the high beams? They’re killing me.”
“Turn them off,” said a third voice. The flashlights lowered from his eyes. He heard a switch thrown and the overheads came on. Rook was still blinking to adjust when the third man came into view like an apparition. Rook recognized him from the news and from his books.
There before him, standing in the middle of a makeshift apartment in the secret basement, among old kegs and cartons, was the exiled Colombian author Faustino Velez Arango.
“You know who I am; I can tell by the way you look at me,” said Velez Arango.
“Nope, sorry. I’m just getting my vision back after your friends gave me the eye exam.” Then he started backing toward the stairs. “I’m obviously the buzz killer at your little party, so don’t let me intrude.”
Guzman braced him by the shoulders against an old refrigerator and frisked him. “No weapons,” he said.
Alejandro Martinez asked, “Who are you and why did you come here?”
“The truth? OK, at brunch this morning my mother gave you ten thousand dollars of my money in that black case over there and I want it back.”
“Alejandro, he followed you?” Pascual Guzman’s agitation manifested in scanning the basement as if their intruder had arrived with a platoon of ninjas.
It could have been a grave tactical error, but Rook gauged the author as the most powerful in the group and keyed off him for cues. He took a chance and said, “Relax. There’s nobody else, I came alone.”
Guzman took Rook’s wallet and opened it to his license. “Jameson A. Rook.”
“The A is for Alexander,” he said, eyeing Alejandro Martinez, hoping that would lend credibility to his story about following the money. “Nice name.” But Rook’s attention was drawn to Faustino Velez Arango, whose thick brow had lowered over a glare fixed on him. As he approached, working his jaw, Rook braced for a blow.
The exile stopped inches from him and said, “You are Jameson Rook, the writer?” Rook nodded tentatively. Faustino Velez Arango’s hands came up at him, both suddenly clutching his right hand and shaking it with delight. “I have read everything you ever wrote.” He turned to his companions and said, “This is one of the best living nonfiction writers in print today.” Then back to Rook, he said, “An honor.”
“Thanks. Coming from you, that’s—well, I especially like the part about ‘living’ because, I plan to do a bit more of it.”
There was an immediate sea change. Velez Arango gestured for Rook to sit in the easy chair, and he pulled up a wicker seat beside him. The other two were not yet aboard but seemed to relax a bit as they stood by. “I must say, Mr. Rook, that it takes courage not only to gain the access to a story as you do from all sides but then to overcome dangerous obstacles to get the hard truth into mainstream media.”
“You’re talking about my piece on Mick Jagger’s birthday, right?”
Velez Arango laughed and said, “I was thinking more of the ones on Chechnya and also the Appalachian coal miners, but yes, Mick in Portofino was brilliant. Excuse me one moment.” From the end table the novelist took a vial beside the white bag from the farmacia and shook out a pill. While he washed it back with some water, Rook noted the prescription label. Adefovir dipivoxil, the same drug unaccountably found in Father Graf’s medicine chest. So now it was accountable. Graf was bearding for Velez Arango’s meds. “Another bonus of being a guest of the government in prison,” he said as he screwed the cap back on the bottle. “An inmate cut me with a blade and I contracted hepatitis-B.”
“It must be hell to live the life of Salman Rushdie.”
“I hope to write as well and live so long,” he replied.
“How did you end up here?”