“I must have misjudged him. I took him for a deluded fool. But you make him sound like some kind of saint.”

“Every man finds his redemption where and when he can. One day, perhaps, when you’re where I am now, you’ll remember that.”

Chapter 23

23

I DROVE ALFREDO LÓPEZ BACK TO FINCA VIGÍA. He was in bad shape, but I didn’t know where the nearest hospital was, and neither did he.

“I owe you my life, Gunther,” he said. “And a great deal of thanks.”

“Forget it. You don’t owe me anything. But please don’t ask me why. I’m through explaining myself for one day. That bastard Quevedo has an annoying habit of asking questions you’d rather not answer.”

López smiled. “Don’t I know it?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. It was nothing compared to what you must have been through.”

“I could use a cigarette.”

I kept a pack of Luckies in the glove box. At the junction of the road north into San Francisco de Paula I pulled up and put one in his mouth.

“Here,” I said, finding a match and lighting it.

He puffed for a moment and nodded his thanks.

“Let me do that for you.” I fetched the cigarette from his lips. “Just don’t expect me to come into the bathroom with you.”

I put the cigarette back in his mouth and drove on.

We reached the house. There had been a strong wind the previous night, and some of the ceiba tree’s leaves and branches were strewn across the steps in front of the house. A tall Negro was picking them up and putting them in a wheelbarrow, but he might just as easily have been putting them on the ground, as if someone had ordered the man to honor López’s return with a carpet of palms. Either way, he was making slow work of it. Like he’d just got two numbers on the bolita.

“Who’s that?” asked López.

“The gardener,” I said. I pulled up next to the Pontiac and switched off the engine.

“Yes, of course. For a moment—” He grunted. “The previous gardener committed suicide, you know. Drowned himself in the well.”

“I guess that explains why no one here seems to drink water very much.”

“Noreen thinks there’s a ghost.”

“No, that would be me.” I looked at him and frowned. “Can you make it up the steps?”

“I might need a bit of help.”

“You should be in a hospital.”

“That’s what I kept on telling Quevedo. But by then he’d stopped listening to me. That was after he gave me the free manicure.”