The Man in the Cage

Fiction - Espionage

Timothy G Davis

Elia was an asset who had provided good information.  Now she was missing.  I left to find out where, if possible.  I knew the odds were astronomical, but still, I had to try.  Authorized or not. 

I didn’t blend in very well, being a couple of inches over six feet.  My black-dyed hair didn’t fool anyone, especially not a local who was born in the neighborhood.  I had excellent Spanish skills, but the word gringo was written all over my face.     

“Señor, I couldn’t help but notice that you are looking for someone,” a man said from the hood of a car.

I stared at the man.  His black lifeless eyes reflected no light.  He was dirty and unkempt, as were thousands that lived on the streets in Panamá City, trying any way possible to earn a balboa.  It was possible he knew something and would sell that information, for a price.

“You speak excellent English.”

“I should.  I’m from New Hampshire.”

“Is that where you were you born?”

“I was born in Costa Rica.  We moved when I was five.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“They say I burned down a building and they put me in jail.  I escaped and went back to Costa Rica.  They’re worse off there than here.  At least here I can make a few dollars.”

I knew what that meant.  The opportunity for getting in with the Colombians and selling drugs was better in Panamá.

“I’m looking for a woman, straight dark hair, mid-twenties—”

“Spaghetti without sauce.”

I wrinkled the muscles in my forehead.

“That’s what we call her.  Never lets the sun touch her face.  She had an apartment here.  I know who you’re talking about, señor.”

            “It would seem you do.  Have you seen her recently?  No one can tell me where she is.”

            “Yes, señor, she moved.  I know where.  I’ll take you.  I want fifty dollars up front.”

“What’s your name?”

“Roberto.”

“Roberto, I’ll pay you the asking price on the street, five dollars, when you show me where she lives.”

            Roberto shrugged.  “All right.  We can walk.  It’s not far.”

I thought it was odd that Roberto didn’t come back with a counter-offer.  It’s how business was done in Panamá.  Maybe he was too destitute to care.  Besides, I thought, he knows these streets better than I do.

            It was a fifteen-minute walk through a perplexing series of back streets and alleys.  Roberto knew the way by heart.  I wasn’t familiar with the area although I had heard rumors about it.  It wasn’t a place to be wandering around alone after dark. 

            “Roberto, the woman I’m looking for would never come to this section of town.”

            “I agree, señor.  She is far too beautiful.  The men here, well, I think you know what they would do.  A black BMW pulled up outside her apartment and two men escorted her away.  Later, I found out where.  It’s not much farther.”

            “If you’re lying to me, it’s not going to be very pleasant for either of us.”

            Roberto grinned as if saying, “I wouldn’t expect it any other way.”  It was his eyes that bothered me.  I had never seen eyes, except in death, that were so cold.  If Elia was in trouble and Roberto knew where she was, I had to keep looking.

            We passed a series of bars and stopped on the corner outside a four-story building.

            “She’s up there,” Roberto said, pointing.  I stepped under the archway.  The steps were narrow.  It would be difficult for more than one person to go up or down at a time.  I started and looked behind me.  Roberto was following.  In the jungle I could never explain why, just like I couldn’t now, but something didn’t feel right.  Roberto had purposely let me go first. 

            “What’s up there?” I asked.

            “The woman.”

            “You go first.”

            “There’s not enough room.”

            I grabbed Roberto by the front of his ragged shirt and pulled him past him.

            “Go on.”

            Roberto turned and started up the dark stairwell.  I turned sideways and looked up and down the stairs with each step.

            “If you want me to go first, no problem,” Roberto said in a loud voice.  “It’s your woman, not mine.”  His voice bounced off the confined walls.  At the top of the stairs was a landing.  To the left about ten meters away was a steel cage partially covered over with wood paneling.  Standing inside the cage was a Creole.  The reason for the cage may have been previous robberies.  It was a gangster’s neighborhood.  Tonight, it was murder.  In the man’s hand was a shotgun.  I held Roberto in front of him.

            “I’m looking for someone.  A woman.  A Nicaraguan.  Roberto says you might know where she is.”

“She’s out.”

            “Where?”

“I don’t know.  It’s not my business to ask.  She comes and goes with two men.  They normally come back about this time.  You can sign in and wait for her.”

He’s lying, I thought.

“That’s okay.  I’ll wait downstairs.” 

Roberto bent his right arm ninety degrees.  A blade sliced through the back of his shirtsleeve.  He jabbed his arm back as if trying to punch me in the stomach with his elbow, except the elbow was now a seven inch long double-edged knife. I dived down the stairs and somersaulted to the bottom.  Roberto dropped to the floor at the same instant the man in the cage jerked the trigger.  The slug smashed a hole the size of his fist through the wall where he had been standing.  Roberto jumped on my back, clawing and screaming.  He was frantic.  I threw him over my shoulder on to the concrete.  I raised my right hand in the air, poised to smash Roberto’s exposed windpipe. 

            “Alto.” Two police officers ran across the street, pistols drawn.  I turned and sprinted away in the opposite direction.  Later that night I crawled over the fence to Quarry Heights and climbed the hill to my room.

            Liquor wasn’t authorized but I had a bottle Ron Cortez anyway.  I sat down in a plain wooden chair and poured a drink.  And then one more.  I turned off the light and fell face down on the bunk.  Elia’s face waved in front of me.  It hurt too much; I tried not to think about her.  That only made it worse.  I couldn’t be in love with an asset, I just couldn’t be.  My thoughts went to Fort Bragg, HALO school, and the last night jump when best my friend’s chute malfunctioned.  At last the ghosts came, the faces of the men I had killed.  A cadence of a song started running through my head:

            “I’m a jungle fightin’ man, I can kill most any man.

            Put a rifle in my hand, kill the enemy is my plan.

            Panamá was once my home, from that place I had to roam.

            Lovin’ women, drinkin’ rum, never too far from my gun.

            Up and down the Mandingo-in, I sure killed a lot of men.

            Would have killed so many more, then they stopped that fuckin’ war . . .”

            When the song ended, the nightmares began.