THE COLLECTOR AND THE BLIND GIRL
                                by Geoff Hargreaves
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Chapter 1
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âAnderson is dead.â I told them the plain truth plainly. But it wasnât my fault he was dead. No, not really, no way. Iâd done my very best to keep him alive. I had, I had, honestly. Believe me, guys. I was explaining this for the umpteenth time to the members of the agency, in the lean hope that theyâd stop blaming me, when a sharp clangor interrupted my gush of words and woke me.
My cell phone was ringing with the first bars of âHappy Days Are Here Again.â. The numbers on the clock beside my bed glowed bright green: 6:05. Daylight hadnât yet started to whiten the windows.
It was Tompkins calling. Or has he put it: Primrose (his cryptonym) for Pinocchio (my cryptonym, assigned by Primrose). âWhat is it now?â I said, with the sweaty bed sheets and tee shirt clinging to me. âIâm sick, real sick.â (I was still loyally wearing a Seattle Mariners tee shirt instead of a pajama top, though I hadnât seen a game for over two years.)
All night Iâd been convinced, as I tossed and shivered, that some bug Iâd picked up on the mission to MichoacĂĄn had regained the strength to persecute me. Iâd had vivid flashbacks of waiting for daylight in the jungle, propped against a fallen tree that had re-sprouted from suckers. I dreamed that I was observing Anderson, my colleague, moan and tremble beside me. In the distance lay a green lake, half-swathed in thin mist. I could hear my pursuers getting closer and closer, crashing triumphantly through the dense vegetation. My legs had turned to jelly.
Tompkins was not at all convinced about the bug eating at my body. He reminded me that the tests conducted at the American British Medical Center in Mexico City on my return from the jungle had all proved negative. If there was anything wrong with me, it was my own doing. âOverburdened liver, thatâs all,â he snapped. âYouâve been pigging out on all that spicy junk. So out of bed, you layabout, and get on with the job you were sent to do!â
I might have resented the clipped brutality of his remarks, if I hadnât had stronger reasons to resent him.
He wanted results, he said. I needed to get moving, he said. Fast. I mustnât lose momentum. Make contact with Bombyx (meaning my target, Felipe Ataf). I must remember that my watchword was: Can do. âWeâre relying on you, Pinocchio,â he continued in his military jargon, âfor superhigh-resolution situational awareness, and all weâve got so far is what our friend Bombyx eats for breakfast. And not even a best-guess estimate on his favorite dessert!â
âWell, I canât do much right now,â I told him. âThis fever has kept me in bed since yesterday afternoon, sweating my butt off.â
âYour job is to locate, combine, and digest mission-critical information prior to the operation, and how do you think you can you do that, if youâre playing dog in the blanket? How many times do you need to be told that our first line of attack and defense is knowledge, hard facts?â
âGive me a break, will you?â I pleaded. âIâm not doing this intentionally. If I could get onto my feet, I would. Iâd be more than happy to get out of this sweaty hell.â
âFrankly, Pinocchio, youâve never convinced me,â he ranted on. âI think youâre in love with playing the part of an agent without being the part. In other words, youâve been faking it, and now the truth is starting to show.â
âHey, Iâll be as glad as you to be out of here . . . I want to nail the bastard as fast as I can . . . As soon as I stop shivering and can take a full breath, I will do it to your satisfaction. Now let me go back to sleep. For Godâs sake, Primrose!â
His usual insistent self, he went on banging down on nails already driven home. âYou canât take your eye off the ball! If you lose it, youâll have a hard-assed time getting it back. Weâve got to be alert at all times. Weâre not dealing with a small-timer here. We always need to see whatâs coming at us. You lounging in bed, farting in the sheets, gets us nowhere.â
âYouâre acting like I have a magic wand,â I protested.
âGood God, man, Nancy Drew would have gotten farther than you by this time!â he barked, as he finished with me. âLetâs win this one!â
I felt Iâd lost five pounds in the last eighteen hours. In the worst of the fever, I woke up, half-hanging out of the bed and seemed to slip outside of my body and observe myself from above, a sweating, writhing animal, snagged in the twisted sheets. To my own surprise, I had observed myself with a curious indifference, without pity, without concern, even without much interest.
When I sank back to sleep, I found myself at home, in downtown Port Townsend, not far from the harbor. There I encountered a water buffalo with a severe wound just above the wide splay of its left rear hoof. Leaving a trail of dark blood behind it, it came hobbling toward me, its head lowered by the weight of its massive curving horns. An unidentified voice told me it was my job to tend to the animalâs injured foot, but I was too terrified of the horns to approach it. I stood there uselessly, doing nothing. Then a woman, featureless enough to be any woman, showed up at my side and whispered, âTreat it just like any other animal.â
âYou betcha, maâam!â I replied skeptically. Unable to face the gaze of the suffering, terrifying animal, I shifted my eyes away from it and outwards to the sea. There the colorless rim of the horizon started to quiver, as though sky and sea were threatening to split apart and endless floods of darkness were impatient to pour into the gap. My screams at the impending danger tossed me into wakefulness.
Sweatier than ever, I decided I must look like a ghost. In the bathroom mirror I saw dark rings under my eyes and my color was greenish-white under a glaze of perspiration.
Then Tutupe the maid, a plump, elderly woman, arrived at the house, calling out, âBuen dĂa, señor,â as she let herself in. Wrapped in my dressing gown, I went down into the living room and forced myself to eat a mango, an oatmeal cracker, and half an overripe, sickly sweet, black-bruised banana.
From somewhere close on the semicircle of hills behind the house, votive firecrackers started exploding like rapid gunfire. Each echoing bang, explained Tutupe, was a kiss for a local saint. âSweet!â I said.
Finished with my breakfast, I suggested she wash the bed sheets.
Then I bathed and dressed. In the meantime, Tutupe had turned on the radio and it was playing pop music from northern Mexico, a percussion-dominated sound that, to my gringo ears, resembled a cutlery drawer being repeatedly wrenched open and slammed shut.
Still shivering now and then, I forced myself to go outside to the street. The sun was warm on my back. Woozily I strolled along the narrow, dusty sidewalk, dodging little heaps of fresh dog shit, and crossed into the park, descending a sloping path between lofty trees.
A group of seven or eight gringos sat in a ring near a dry fountain, taking a Spanish lesson from a tiny Mexican woman with a frail birdlike skull. Near the childrenâs playground a loudspeaker was playing âStayinâ Aliveâ by the Bee Gees. Under the gaze of watchful mothers, kids were sliding down a chute and digging in sand. Past them came a tall, skinny kid, hurtled along by three frisky beagles on leads, while he babbled into his cell phone. A woman in a gray overall was sweeping up fallen leaves with a twig broom. Crouched beside the sand pit, a young woman was gazing into a small hand mirror and plucking her eyebrows.
Life was apparently proceeding as normal, at least for others.
In the centre of the town I passed, with leaden feet, the house of Ignacio Allende, who had made an exemplary attempt, Iâd learned from a guidebook, to wrest colonial Mexico from Spanish control. âBorn here, famous everywhere,â declared the inscription over the arched doorway with its massive wooden door reinforced by iron studs. Everywhere? Okay, have it your way. Iâd never heard of him before I came to this town on the high plateau of Mexico, but I was in no condition to argue with anyone.
By now it was way too late to find my target Ataf at the restaurant where he regularly ate breakfast. So I went down a side street into a second-hand store. The air was muggy and musty, and my delicate lungs reacted against it, but, like a dedicated collector, I stayed and browsed among the busts of ecclesiastics, fractured cartwheels, old stoves, armless wooden statues, tall, unsteady cupboards, and crude votive paintings thanking this saint or that for miraculous favors gratefully received.
A short, ill-shaven man, with his head far in advance of his hunched shoulders, emerged from the malodorous gloom, holding a half-eaten taco, and asked if he could help me.
âYes,â I said. âIâm looking for old esposas.âÂ
He laughed. âI prefer them young.â
The joke was a ritual Iâd come to expect since the first time I looked for handcuffs in Mexico.
âManillas,â I added with a patient smile, using a synonym.
âOh, that kind of esposas!â
In Spanish, the word means both âwivesâ and âhandcuffs.â
He shook his thick head of hair. âNothing like that here, señor.â
âWhere could I find them? Any ideas?â
âMaybe in Irapuato. Try Irapuato.â It was a city about an hour away.
âThanks a bunch.â
âNothing to thank me for, señor.â
I went back up the street. Bells were ringing between the pointed towers of the parish church. A gruff, black-bearded, barrel-chested man was hawking newspapers on the low wall that framed the gardens of the main square. Green-and-white taxis with big red numbers on their sides picked up fares. Pigeons and sparrows pecked at crumbs fallen from the tables of the outdoor cafes. A rich aroma of fried steak and garlic wafted by me. A shoeshine man asked me if I wanted my shoes polished, and I said, âNot today.â A group of pale-faced vacationers had gathered for a guided tour. A disarmingly young cop, his collar two sizes too large, was uncertainly clutching a rifle, as he surveyed the street from the corner of the portico. He carried handcuffs in the back pocket of his trousers. I stood behind him to check them out. By the look of them, Smith and Wesson. The cop swung around nervously. I smiled at him and wished him a good day. Yes, life was normal. The only thing that was abnormal was the way I felt.
Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the house, where Tutupe had changed the sheets. I sent her away early and got back into the bed.
At seven-fifteen that evening, feeling more like my old self, I strolled, in the gathering darkness, past a gigantic, almost empty parking lot, and entered a church annex, large enough to accommodate four rows of folding chairs under its vaulted brick roof. I paid twenty pesos to watch actors read from scripts on a slightly raised platform. I sat next to a tall guy with blue, ox-like eyes, flabby cheeks, and full, blubbery lips.
At the end of the first act, he turned to me and said in a dry tone, âDid you hear a strange noise during the performance?â
I said I hadnât noticed anything.
âI did. It was the author turning over in his grave.â
âIs he dead?â I asked innocently.
âIf he isnât, heâs wishing he was.â
During the intermission we went outside onto the lawn. Insects were chirping abrasively in the bushes.
 âJacob, Jake,â he said by way of introduction.
âMichael, Mike,â I said.
We shook hands.
Over the rooftops the floodlit spires and domes of churches gleamed in the darkness. A solitary church bell clanged challengingly through the sultry air.
âYouâve got strong opinions, Jake,â I said. âYou a critic or something?â
âUsed to be at UCLA,â he said sourly, his eyes darting now to my left, now to my right. âNot now. Lifeâs too short to be squandered on, wellâa chancy vocation like that.â
âYou didnât like the academic life?â
âI hated the eternal need to find something different to say! All those cheap promises you have to make to deliver a unique and timely revaluation of a key work that has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and woefully neglected by your rivals in the field.â
 âNot a heap of fun, eh?â
âHow about you?â
 âOh, real estate, mostly,â I said, letting my voice tail off, to suggest I didnât want to pursue the topic.
Inside the hall, lights flashed on and off to signal the approach of the second act.
âWell,â he said. âI must be getting back to my wife and warn her not toâtell her to stay home tomorrow night.â
âYouâre married, are you?â Something in his manner had suggested to me that he was gay.
He gave me a challenging look. âYes, as a matter of fact, I am. People tend to thinkâthey assume Iâm homosexual. But Iâm not. Not a bit. Quite the opposite.â
I started to apologize. âI wasnât assumingââ Though, really, I had been.
âThatâs okay. I was making a general point. Believe me, itâs a hurdle I have to overcome constantly. With men I donât want to know and with women I do.â
I thought he was leaving but he said, âLook, I belong to a menâs group. We meet on Thursdays for breakfast, ten oâclockâat the cafĂ© just down from the Parish Churchâtalk about all sorts of things. Serious things. Not just brothels and baseball and horse-shit. Itâsâweâre discussing Mexican history right now.â
âThanks a lot, but Iâm not much of a joiner, Jake.â
âGive it a try. You never know.â His eyes still refused to settle on me.
âLike I said, Iâm not much of a joiner.â
âSorry about that. But we havenât introduced ourselves properly. Jake Plumley.â
We shook hands for a second time.
âMichael Benhumea.â
âThink about coming to breakfast, Michael Benhumea. Itâsâyouâll find itâthree doors down from the square, on your left.â
Then, switching on a flashlight, he took off down the sloping pathway and disappeared into the darkness. I went back into the hall to watch the second half of the show. I wanted to see how the storyline worked itself out.
Everybody died, it turned out, all except the protagonistâs solipsistic granny, half-crazy from the start, who was left occupying center-stage, alone and starry-eyed. Still in a pink nightdress, though it was supposedly mid-afternoon, she sang in a croaky voice a chorus of âAlice Blue Gownâ, with her palms turned upwards before her stomach, the left hand resting on the right. Often breaking her words in the middle, she directed herself to an invisible and more appreciative audience than the one fidgeting in front of her, staring upwards to a row of mystical admirers floating weightlessly about ten feet off the ground.
âOh, the feelings of pain and desolation!â said one man, as we left, picking our way out through the tangle of chairs.
âA simply unbearable experience,â added a woman ambiguously.
âThatâs the whole point,â said another woman to another man. âThe impossibility of articulating desire in its fullest dimension.â
âRight. Iâd situate it in the apophatic tradition,â said a third, tiny, man to a third woman across the chest of the second. âWe can only know what it isnât. What it is, we canât ever really say. And even then, only provisionally.â
A fourth man said, âMy bum went to sleep and wonât wake up. But at least it didnât snore. Those chairs are damn hard. Next time remind me to bring a cushion.â
Through the soft night air I retraced my steps back toward the house. Scattered flashes of lightning from a distant storm lit up the sky over the high hills. A cracked church bell emitted a sour peal.
At the exit of the parking lot stood a black Lincoln Town Car, its engine running. The driver was paying for the ticket. In the rear sat Ataf. We exchanged sudden, brief glances. His blade-cold eyes betrayed nothing. Iâd met dozens of men like him before, when I was buying and selling property. They were both reserved and outgoing. While I was working on the deal, their easy-going chatter gave me the impression that I was learning things about their opinions and past, but, once the deal was done, I realized I knew nothing at all about them.
Immediately the car sped away, fast out of reach, inaccessible. With a sense of the imminent failure of my mission, I felt despondent and purposeless. I feared that Tompkins was hoping Iâd fail. He wanted revenge, it was whispered. He wanted me dismissed from the agency for the loss of his best friend Anderson. Strictly speaking, my mission to bring Anderson back to safety had been a failure, but then again . . . Gossip said that Tompkins was going around claiming that Anderson had been a survivor from a heroic age living on into a later, smaller world. And, by inference, that smaller world meant me, crappy, little, peewee leaguer, Mike Benhumea, who couldnât appreciate anybody as ample and grand as Anderson, let alone protect him when he needed it most.
In my head jingled the silly words of the song, chopped into deformed syllables, as sung by the mad grandmother in the play: âTill i-twilted, I wore it. I ll-alway s-adore it, my swee- tlittle Alice blue-g own.â Without the missions, my life was in danger of being reduced once again to a similar mawkish, misstated claptrap.
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