Free Adios Muchachos by Daniel Chavarría

everything he could about the owner of those prints. He wasn’t even told that the person worked for the company. The official position was that the prints belonged to a prospective client and that the company wanted to make certain that he had no criminal record. Polanco understood what was expected of him; he accepted the retainer and asked no further questions.
    That very morning Polanco had reported to van Dongen over the telephone: “The glass you gave me was a perfect match with a set they have in the Paris office—”
    “Please come over as soon as you can,” van Dongen interrupted, not wanting to say anything more on an open telephone line. “Yes, I’ll be here all morning.”
    That was bad news. Van Dongen’s icy exterior betrayed nothing, but his mind was racing. If this man was really a dangerous criminal, the King Project could be seriously compromised. It would be a terrible blow to Rieks’s grand plans to build a Caribbean empire and, in the worst-case scenario, would shoot the bottom out of Rieks’s position in the company—which did not bode well for anyone who had supported him against Vincent.
    “I lifted the prints off the glass you gave me,” Polanco explained when he was face-to-face with van Dongen, “and sent them to a friend of mine who had no trouble putting a name on them. The man has an interesting record of which you will find a synopsis in my written report.”
    Polanco removed a Manila envelope from his briefcase and handed a single typewritten sheet over to van Dongen:
    “Do you read French?”
    Van Dongen nodded, took the sheet, and read:
    The prints you sent me in file, N§ 3324/Cu belong to a Henry A. Moore, Canadian, born in 1952. On December 18, 1974, at the age of twenty-two, Henry Moore single-handedly held up the National City Bank of New York office in Vera Cruz, Mexico, getting away with the equivalent of $87,000 US, which he invested in an underwater prospecting venture that fell through. On August 12, 1976, he robbed the National City Bank office in Cancún, taking $200,000, but was apprehended two weeks later. He was tried in April of 1977 and sentenced to seven years, of which he served sixty-two months in a local prison. For further information, see the complete microfiche file. Photograph attached.
    Jan van Dongen looked at the picture. There could be no doubt. That was Victor King. The police haircut did not suit him and he was twenty years younger, but it was certainly King.
    When Polanco left with his neatly folded fee and a considerable bonus for confidentiality, van Dongen sat back to analyze the situation and consider what dangers or opportunities it might pose.
    He fixed his gaze on a charcoal of Carmen he had recently framed, and mumbled to himself as he often did: “So now you tell me the man’s name is really Henry Moore, that he’s an impostor and a bank robber. Who would have thought? Our own little Dillinger.”
    “Shit!” he exclaimed.
    And yet van Dongen did not accompany that expletive with a corresponding gesture of displeasure, fear, disgust. Quite the contrary. He pushed his chair back, slapped his knee, and smiled in utter satisfaction.

Chapter
Seventeen

    Alicia’s white convertible pulled into the parking area of a fancy open-air café. Victor was watching her from the terrace, smoking a cigar and toying with the ice in his Chivas. Alicia had already asked him to order her a mammey apple shake, which was ready and served in a tall “tulip” beer glass.
    Alicia stepped out of the car and approached the table. She looked great, and she knew it. Her stride was confident and proud. She greeted Victor with a conventional peck, seated herself, picked up the shake, and took a long draught.
    “Mmmm, thanks. I needed that. I have a slight hangover.”
    Victor studied her, enjoying her beauty.
    “I imagined you might. Last night was really something.”
    As Alicia crossed her legs to the side of her seat and stirred the shake with the tip of