City once, and even when I won, I hated it.” He pantomimed dealing cards. “Just watching the cards, I hated it. I know how to play. My dad taught me. But we never played for money like they do there.”
“What are you going to do when we land?”
He had no idea.
I told him how to get a reliable taxi from the La Paz airport and recommended a safe, cheap hotel near the Plaza Murillo. I even made him repeat the name and address, and when he couldn’t, I wrote it down for him on the back of one of my business cards.
Chapter 6
You don’t taxi up to a gate in La Paz; you stop short in the middle of the tarmac and unload yourself and your hand baggage down the stairs. Then you follow the yellow lines to the entrance at the terminal, while uniformed airport officials stand watch to make sure you don’t get lost or make a break for it. It’s a good fifty-yard stroll in the fresh (if distressingly thin) air, so there’s room to stretch your legs and run if you want to catch up to someone who was sitting well in front of you on the plane and therefore got a good head start disembarking, and that’s what Kenny wanted.
He slowed when he caught up, and matched my pace without looking at me, as if he just happened to remember he wasn’t in such a hurry after all.
“We’re at thirteen thousand feet, Kenny,” I said. “If you do that again, you’re going to faint.”
He was light-headed and short of breath; his head was aching and his vision was graffiti-tagged with black squiggles. I knew exactly what he was feeling because I was feeling the same way, but at least I’d been expecting it. He must have thought he was terrified, when in fact he was only nervous and maybe a bit surprised to find himself where he was: in the gray asphalt sea of luggage trucks, taxiing planes, and passengers following the yellow line like Dorothy and the Munchkins, while all around us, red-headed in the twilight, loomed the snow-peaked mountains of the Cordillera Real, just north of La Paz. He was too self-conscious to stop and twirl his head about at the sights, but between extended, pain-fighting blinks and grimaces, his eyes darted up and around, again and again, like a fly trapped in a car.
Once inside the terminal, I surveyed the immigration lines and chose the one farthest to the left, hoping that clueless people with line-clogging immigration problems would be too lazy to walk that far. A dozen people were in front of us, more than half in business suits: a good choice. I thought of my illiterate plane neighbor and turned to the gathering crowd behind me, but I couldn’t see her.
I told Kenny to get his passport ready, but he smirked and waved it in my face, to prove that I had underestimated him yet again. His smirk drooped immediately.
“Take slow, deep breaths,” I advised. He looked carsick.
He nodded. “Whoa,” he said, and pointed with his passport.
Scotch-taped to the wall beside us was a flyer with Hilary’s picture and the following text, in both English and Spanish:
Missing $20,000 Reward
Since June 4, Hilary Pearson, a young journalist, has been missing. She is 29 years old, white-skinned, slim, brunette, and 165 centimeters tall. She was last seen at the Hotel Matamoros, near Yolosa in Los Yungas. If you have any information, please communicate it to the Bolivian National Police or the Embassy of the United States at the telephone numbers 430251 or 433145.
“Maybe they have some leads,” said Kenny.
“I’m sure they do,” I said. “You should shoot down to the embassy first thing in the morning. I’ll tell you which
trufi
to catch.”
He didn’t respond; he was concentrating on his breathing.
The immigration agent stamped both our passports without as much as a
Buenos días
. At the baggage claim I saw the four Americans from first class. They had regrouped well behind the perimeter of luggage hunters ringing the belt and were chatting merrily, relieved to be free of the scrutinizing gazes of
“What are you going to do when we land?”
He had no idea.
I told him how to get a reliable taxi from the La Paz airport and recommended a safe, cheap hotel near the Plaza Murillo. I even made him repeat the name and address, and when he couldn’t, I wrote it down for him on the back of one of my business cards.
Chapter 6
You don’t taxi up to a gate in La Paz; you stop short in the middle of the tarmac and unload yourself and your hand baggage down the stairs. Then you follow the yellow lines to the entrance at the terminal, while uniformed airport officials stand watch to make sure you don’t get lost or make a break for it. It’s a good fifty-yard stroll in the fresh (if distressingly thin) air, so there’s room to stretch your legs and run if you want to catch up to someone who was sitting well in front of you on the plane and therefore got a good head start disembarking, and that’s what Kenny wanted.
He slowed when he caught up, and matched my pace without looking at me, as if he just happened to remember he wasn’t in such a hurry after all.
“We’re at thirteen thousand feet, Kenny,” I said. “If you do that again, you’re going to faint.”
He was light-headed and short of breath; his head was aching and his vision was graffiti-tagged with black squiggles. I knew exactly what he was feeling because I was feeling the same way, but at least I’d been expecting it. He must have thought he was terrified, when in fact he was only nervous and maybe a bit surprised to find himself where he was: in the gray asphalt sea of luggage trucks, taxiing planes, and passengers following the yellow line like Dorothy and the Munchkins, while all around us, red-headed in the twilight, loomed the snow-peaked mountains of the Cordillera Real, just north of La Paz. He was too self-conscious to stop and twirl his head about at the sights, but between extended, pain-fighting blinks and grimaces, his eyes darted up and around, again and again, like a fly trapped in a car.
Once inside the terminal, I surveyed the immigration lines and chose the one farthest to the left, hoping that clueless people with line-clogging immigration problems would be too lazy to walk that far. A dozen people were in front of us, more than half in business suits: a good choice. I thought of my illiterate plane neighbor and turned to the gathering crowd behind me, but I couldn’t see her.
I told Kenny to get his passport ready, but he smirked and waved it in my face, to prove that I had underestimated him yet again. His smirk drooped immediately.
“Take slow, deep breaths,” I advised. He looked carsick.
He nodded. “Whoa,” he said, and pointed with his passport.
Scotch-taped to the wall beside us was a flyer with Hilary’s picture and the following text, in both English and Spanish:
Missing $20,000 Reward
Since June 4, Hilary Pearson, a young journalist, has been missing. She is 29 years old, white-skinned, slim, brunette, and 165 centimeters tall. She was last seen at the Hotel Matamoros, near Yolosa in Los Yungas. If you have any information, please communicate it to the Bolivian National Police or the Embassy of the United States at the telephone numbers 430251 or 433145.
“Maybe they have some leads,” said Kenny.
“I’m sure they do,” I said. “You should shoot down to the embassy first thing in the morning. I’ll tell you which
trufi
to catch.”
He didn’t respond; he was concentrating on his breathing.
The immigration agent stamped both our passports without as much as a
Buenos días
. At the baggage claim I saw the four Americans from first class. They had regrouped well behind the perimeter of luggage hunters ringing the belt and were chatting merrily, relieved to be free of the scrutinizing gazes of
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