The Devil to Pay Read online

  “She is Mr. Chow’s niece.”

  I sighed. “Wonderful. Now, am I going to be murdered?”

  “Should you be?” He giggled again and spoke to Chow. Both men had a good laugh.

  “There’s a suitcase everyone is looking for—”

  Mr. Feng shook his head. “There is no such suitcase.”

  “But I—”

  He shook his head some more. I got the hint through my dull brain. There was no such suitcase—anymore. The concierge must have taken care of it. That’s why the police never found it.

  I gave them a dopey smile. “Well, this has been a wonderful trip. I came to Shanghai to make my fortune. Instead, I have been arrested, spent the night in jail, narrowly escaped being murdered—and the death penalty—and now…”

  “Now you will return to your own country and ensure that your coffee shipments start coming to me.”

  “Mr. Feng, do you mean that? You’ll buy my coffee?”

  “After I spoke to you last night, I asked my son what he thinks of coffee. He was very excited. He will be in charge of it.” He grinned, with pride. “He is a Shanghai yuppie.”

  I could see there was another loose end. Most pieces fitted nicely: Mr. Feng and Mr. Chow, whoever he was, knew from the concierge niece that I had been arrested and the police were searching for drugs. They would also know from her I had checked my bag.

  Mr. Chow was obviously head of some sort of gang, triad, or whatever they called it. And knew from the concierge niece that I had contacted Mr. Feng.

  But how did Mr. Feng fit into a scenario in which people were being gunned down on a street in Shanghai?

  “Are you triad?” I asked him.

  “No.” He smiled and gave me a little bow of his head. “I am tong. Much older than triad.”

  He gave another one of his little giggle-laughs.

  “Old dogs have much more bite than young ones.”

  MEDELLÍN

  DEPARTMENT OF STATE

  U.S. CONSULAR INFORMATION SHEET

  REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA

  Criminals sometimes use the drug “scopolamine” to incapacitate tourists in order to rob them.

  The drug is administered in drinks (in bars), through cigarettes and gum (in taxis), and in powder form (tourists are approached by someone asking directions, with the drug concealed in a piece of paper, and the perpetrator blows the powder into the victim’s face).

  The drug renders the person disoriented and can cause prolonged unconsciousness and serious medical problems.

  Because it blocks memory and causes submissive behavior, the drug has been used as a date-rape drug and by prostitutes to rob their clients.

  Scopolamine’s effect on the central nervous system also makes it useful as “truth serum,” by means of which uncooperative persons may be forced to answer questions. Because of its side effects, it cannot be used in the United States.

  The form of scopolamine used as a street drug is called burundanga. It is a favored method of assault by Colombian criminals. Smuggled into the United States, it has been characterized by the DEA as the most dangerous drug to surface in decades.

  41

  How do I get back to the plantation without getting murdered?

  That was the question running through my mind and shivering up my spine as I boarded a plane in Shanghai that would take me to Hong Kong. I intentionally hadn’t booked passage beyond the British colony for two reasons—I hadn’t made up my mind what route I would take, and I didn’t want to leave bread crumbs in advance for anyone to follow.

  From Hong Kong, the first available transatlantic flight went to Lima, Peru. Colombia was in South America and I was sure Peru was somewhere there, too. I never claimed to be good with geography. After confirming the fact that Peru was in South America, I bought a ticket for Lima.

  When I arrived in Lima, I bought a ticket for Quito, the capital of Ecuador, which is also conveniently located in South America. From a large map in the terminal, Quito looked like a convenient stepping-stone to Colombia. In Quito, I hesitated. There were flights to Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali.

  Hmmm. Cali. Two things immediately struck me about Cali. It was almost as notorious as Medellín for its own drug cartel—and it wasn’t Medellín or Bogotá. I feared finding a reception committee of thugs hired by Cesar or Escobar if I stepped off a plane in Medellín, where I might be expected—and murdered.

  I bought a ticket for Cali. From the Cali airport I took a taxi into town and had the driver stop at a package wrap-and-ship store that advertised fax service. I sent three faxes, then caught another taxi to the train station. I purchased a ticket on a train bound for Medellín and points north. I didn’t get off the train in Medellín—I stayed aboard and got off in the small town that Cesar had waited for me to arrive at but didn’t.

  I hired a taxi at the station to take me to the plantation. I sat back in the taxi for the hour drive and thought about my plans.

  When I arrived at the plantation after nearly three days of travel, I was tired, but in one piece. The house and yard were strangely quiet as I got out of the taxi. Stepping inside the cool living room, I immediately felt at home.

  I stopped by the stairway and smiled and shook my head at the portrait of Carlos. “You have no idea of what I’ve been through,” I told his painted figure.

  Juana came out of a room on the second level, stopped at the top of the stairs, and stared down at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “I’m home.”

  She crossed herself and muttered a prayer.

  42

  We had lemonade at the kitchen table, as we did the first time we met. She gave me a tearful hug when she came down the stairs.

  “I was worried when we didn’t hear from you. Cesar heard that you had been arrested in Shanghai.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He went to Medellín on business, for the plantation. He will not be back until late tonight.”

  “Are you sure he’s not meeting with Pablo Escobar?”

  Juana appeared ready to cry. “One does not make an appointment to meet with Don Pablo; it might be a police trap. He comes to you or has you picked up without warning and brought to him. The motor on one of the machines broke; Cesar went to get a replacement.”

  “I’m sorry; I’m paranoid about everything.”

  “I don’t blame you. You must not stay here; it’s not safe. You should return to your home in Seattle.”

  “I can’t go back. I made a deal for our coffee, at premium prices, all the coffee that the plantation and the colonos can produce. We can operate at a profit, a good one; we just have to provide green beans on time. There isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t be able to do it.”

  “There is a reason and it’s that this is Colombia, not a civilized country. You can’t ship coffee to China if you are dead. For some reason, Don Pablo has taken an interest in the work of the two chemists. He must believe that they will succeed in creating a decaffeinated coffee plant. If he wants the plantation, he will take it. Cesar claims that Don Pablo will pay if he takes the plantation, but sometimes he pays with bullets.”

  I stared at her, wondering if she could be so naïve as to believe they were really working on a new type of coffee plant—and decided that she was. She had spent her entire life in a rural area, far from the machinations of the world. It was time she knew the truth, for her own safety, if nothing else.

  “Juana, they’re not working on a coffee plant.”

  She wrung a dish towel with her hands. “I feared that. Cesar said they were, but I wondered if he was lying to me.”

  “He was—and is. I don’t know exactly what they’re making, something to do with cocaine probably, processing it or something, I’m not sure. But it’s not coffee beans. Whatever it is, some of it was hidden in the coffee samples I took to China; it got me arrested.”

  Juana’s features were dark and sad. “This is all so different from when Carlos was here; he would not have let these thin
gs happen. There were always problems, even in those days, toward the end of his life, money problems, illness, but criminals were not part of our lives.” Juana stared down at the table. “I’m sorry, Nash. You do not deserve the terrible things that have happened to you. You do not deserve to come here and claim your inheritance and find that there are criminals threatening your life.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Juana, I need to know the truth about things, about Carlos, my mother, my inheritance, about you and Cesar. How did you first come to the plantation?”

  “I was born here; my father was a colono. I came to the casa when I was fourteen. My aunt was the housekeeper for Carlos and his wife, Maria. I was brought in to help care for the house and Maria.” Juana smiled and shook her head. “Maria was very beautiful, but fragile. A weak heart, something perhaps that they repair today but was a death sentence a couple decades ago. Carlos loved her very much. I was seventeen when Maria died. And I was hopelessly in love with Carlos from the first moment I saw him.

  “Of course, he did not know of my love for him, not for many years. I was just a young girl who idolized him, as did all the women who knew him. Some men love things; others love women. A woman recognizes that in a man; she can sense where a man’s heart truly is.”

  “Wasn’t he devoted to the plantation?”

  “Yes, but Carlos loved the plantation not as a physical possession, but a living environment that included all the people in it. He never saw the plantation in terms of the money and power it could bring him. He believed running the plantation was a duty assigned to him by God, to preserve the land for the people who were dependent on it.”

  “You and Carlos became lovers?”

  “A day came when he saw me as a woman rather than just a young girl helping around the house, but that was years after Maria died. The light went out in him when she died. He went into a deep mourning, hardly spoke, just worked. When it was too dark to work, he sat on the veranda and thought about her. They had no children to soften the loss.”

  She sighed. “And before he would notice me, another woman entered his life. Three or four years after Maria died, a young norteamericana woman came to the plantation to speak with Carlos.”

  “My mother.”

  “Sí, your mother. She was very pretty … but more than that, she had a love for life. She was inquisitive about everything, asked many questions, laughed a great deal. And she was very outspoken. Within minutes of meeting Carlos, she was accusing him of being an old-fashioned dictator who kept hundreds of colonos in slavery. He stared at her for a moment in complete amazement. I thought for a moment he was going to order her off the plantation. But he broke out laughing.”

  “That was my mother; she said what she thought, even if she was completely wrong.”

  “If a man had insulted him as your mother did, he would have struck him, but your mother was a woman and he was very gallant. And she was not just any woman, but one who immediately lightened his heart and made his eyes smile. It was the first time I had seen him laugh since Maria died.”

  “So they became lovers.”

  Juana stared down at the table. “Yes, your mother stole the heart of the man I loved.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s nothing to be sorry about; it is just life. And Carlos was not ready to notice me; I was just part of the furniture of the house.”

  She stood up. “Just a moment.” She left the room and returned a moment later with an envelope. She opened the envelope and sorted through pictures. “Here.”

  She handed me a picture. It showed my mother sitting on the hood of the Nash. She was laughing, her head thrown back. My emotions swelled. She was beautiful, full of life. I missed her so much.

  “That day they went for a picnic; I packed their lunch. They did not return until the next morning.”

  I now knew for certain why my name was Nash. I had been conceived in that car. A backseat conception. In a heat of almost adolescent passion by them. It wasn’t something I could share with Juana, but I felt a sense of pride at that, too.

  “But she wasn’t willing to spend her life on the plantation,” I told Juana.

  “No, she wasn’t. She had too much…”

  I helped her as she searched for the word. “Energy; she was constantly on the move.”

  “Yes, energy; she never stood still. To Carlos, the plantation was his whole world. To your mother, it was a prison.”

  “She returned home, pregnant with me. Did she ever see Carlos again?”

  Juana shook her head. “No. She left; he mourned his loss again, but devoted himself to work to forget.”

  “How did he find out about me? Did my mother contact him?”

  “No, for whatever reason, and I didn’t know your mother well enough to judge her, she chose not to tell him that she had had his child.”

  “My mother didn’t need a reason; she acted on her emotions, regardless of the consequences. She was extremely independent, self-reliant. She probably never told him because she would think he’d interpret the news as a request for money.”

  “But she let her daughter grow up without knowing who her father was. A mother should not do that, no matter how she felt about the man,” she said.

  “My mother was wrong. But she did what she thought was right. It’s hard for me to go back and judge her; she’s gone and can’t defend herself. I wish she had told me about my father, but it didn’t happen—and she was a good mother. She just wasn’t a perfect person.”

  Juana handed me another picture.

  I gawked at it, a picture of me, coming down the steps outside a building at college. It wasn’t a posed shot.

  “I must have been a freshman or sophomore. This picture must have been taken without me knowing it. I don’t remember it, at all.”

  “Carlos had it taken.”

  “My mother told him I was in college?”

  She shook her head. “He learned about you by chance. One of the Peace Corps volunteers who had worked with your mother twenty years before returned for a visit. He had kept in contact with your mother and mentioned to Carlos that she had a nineteen-year-old daughter. I don’t know if the man guessed that it was Carlos’s child and was dropping a hint, or if it just came out during small talk, but it caused Carlos to wonder.

  “He hired a detective in Santa Barbara, where you and your mother lived at the time. The man discovered your birth date, which confirmed that you were probably Carlos’s child. And the detective took a picture that confirmed it. Anyone who knew Carlos could see some of him in your features.”

  “By this time you were Carlos’s lover?”

  “Yes, we became lovers, many years before, soon after your mother returned to her own country.”

  “Why didn’t he contact me?”

  “He wasn’t sure what to do. The detective reported that your mother lived with a man. Carlos thought that you had been raised to believe the man was your father. If that was the case, it would harm—”

  I shook my head. “No, my mother had many men in her life; she changed them like seasonal clothing.”

  “He didn’t know and he feared upsetting your life. We talked about contacting you. One of the reasons he didn’t was because of my feelings. I was jealous once again of your mother. That she had borne Carlos a child opened the wounds I had felt twenty years before.”

  “But you also had Carlos’s child.”

  “Yes, Cesar is his son. But I thought he was Carlos’s only child.”

  “How did I end up as his sole heir? Cesar was disinherited, wasn’t he?”

  “Carlos had always intended to leave you something; not the plantation, that was to go to his son, but he had valuable jewelry that had been in his family for generations, and it was to be yours. He ultimately had to sell the jewelry to keep the plantation running, but he would have left you something else of value.”

  “Why did I end up with the plantation?”

  “Toward the end, when Carlos was ill and
the plantation was suffering from the drop in coffee prices, Cesar played an active role in running it. It brought father and son into conflict. Cesar is a good businessman, in some ways, I think he is better at business than Carlos was, but to Carlos, the plantation and the colonos were a family, not just a business enterprise.

  “During an argument, Cesar told Carlos that when Carlos died, he would sell the plantation to one of the big coffee growers that would remove the canopy of trees and drive out the colonos.”

  “Turn it into a mechanized sun farm. That would have ripped out Carlos’s heart.”

  “Yes, I think it quickened him to his grave. I don’t know if Cesar really meant it; sometimes he talks with more machismo than good sense. He really is a kind person. But he said it, the worst thing Carlos could have heard, especially when he was so sick. But Carlos was not a man who would permit someone to kick him—he had a good heart, but was a fighter.

  “He hired a detective again, found out you were a success at business and even ran a coffee business. I can’t tell you how that excited him. And you called the business Café de Oro.”

  She squeezed my arm. “Nash, he cried when he heard that, from both joy and guilt.”

  “I got the name from my mother—”

  “It didn’t matter; to Carlos it came from God, a miracle. We talked again about contacting you and he decided that he would do it. But he was in pain for some time before he died. Time was short when he made his decision to leave you the plantation.”

  “Did he disinherit you, too?”

  “No. When I had his son, Carlos set up a trust fund for me so that no matter what happened, I would have an income.”

  “But he disinherited your son.”

  “I encouraged him to make you his sole heir.”

  “That’s incredible. Why?”

  She was near tears. “You must understand, I was Carlos’s woman—and I was a colono. I had spent my entire life on the plantation. To permit my son to destroy it, and the lives of so many people, would have been a great crime. It is not all Cesar’s fault; it is my fault, too. I loved Carlos more than he loved me. Carlos remained loyal to me as the mother of his son, but he never married me. He never loved me with the passion with which he loved Maria or your mother. But it was enough for me just to be his woman, even if he never made me his wife. In your country, it is not as great a matter to a child that his parents were not married. Here, it is.