The Mordida Man by Ross Thomas Page A

you’re gonna have to have somebody you can depend on who can fix things—just like I can sometimes fix things. You following me?”
    â€œIt’s not hard.”
    â€œThat’s why I want you to meet this guy now—get to know him. He can fix things.”
    â€œBut not for free?”
    â€œNo, he charges pretty good.”
    â€œHave we used him before?”
    â€œYou really want to know?”
    Jerome McKay slowly shook his head. “But he’s good, you say?”
    â€œHe’s good.”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œPaul Grimes.”
    The second meeting ever between Paul Grimes and President McKay didn’t take place in the Oval Office. They met instead in a small denlike room on the third floor of the old Executive Office Building. Between them on the desk, still in its Gucci box, lay the severed ear of Bingo McKay, which the President hadn’t yet decided what to do with. Later he would wrap it up in a Baggie and place it in a White House freezer.
    The meeting took place forty-four minutes after the President had met with the Director of Central Intelligence. Paul Grimes studied the severed ear for a moment, sighed, read the Libyan letter, read it once again, and looked up at McKay.
    â€œWell, sir, I’d say old Bingo’s gone and got himself into just one hell of a fix.”
    â€œI want him back,” the President said. “I want them both back.”
    Grimes was silent for several moments. Then he sighed again. “It’ll cost.”
    â€œCan it be done?”
    â€œI didn’t say that. All I said was that it’s going to cost.”
    â€œHow much?”
    Grimes shrugged. “A couple of hundred thousand up front right off the bat. More later. Probably a whole hell of a lot more.”
    The President picked up the phone and Grimes noted with appreciation that it was answered immediately. McKay looked at Grimes. “Where do you want it?”
    Grimes thought for a moment. “London,” he said. “Barclays.”
    â€œYour name?”
    Grimes shook his head. “Crosspatch Limited.”
    Into the phone the President said, “Call Wheeler down in Oke City and tell him to transfer two hundred thousand out of that Doremi contingency account in Liberty National to Cross-patch Limited, Barclays, London.”
    As the President hung up the phone without saying either thank you or goodbye, Grimes found himself staring again at the still open Gucci box. “They really cut it off, didn’t they?”
    â€œThey cut it off.”
    â€œHow much time have I got?”
    â€œNot much. Ten days maybe. No more.”
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œNo.”
    Once again Grimes sighed. “Well, if I can get hold of this one guy I’m thinking of, I can—”
    The President interrupted. “I don’t really want to know.”
    Grimes nodded thoughtfully. “No, sir, it’s probably better if you don’t.”
    â€œI just want them back. Both of them.”
    Grimes rose abruptly, smoothly, the way some very fat people do. “Well, I’ll sure see what I can do, Mr. President.”

7
    Seven hours after the body of the man called Felix fell a little more than a mile into the sea, the Boeing 727 he had been shoved out of landed rather bumpily on the private potholed runway at the northern tip of the Caribbean island that for 204 years had been a British possession and was now a self-proclaimed Democratic People’s Republic.
    The island was twenty-seven miles long and a mile wide at its widest point. Down its spine ran a chain of mountains whose highest peak lacked just two feet of being a mile high. On the island lived 28,047 citizens, according to the last census, which had been taken in 1974 by the British just six months prior to independence. The census had neglected to count some four or five thousand citizens who lived up in the mountains where there were no roads.
    Most of