Mercenary Page 22

  In January 1918, while casting around for a salary, he received a telegram from one of his Guatemalan contacts. The president himself was requesting Lee’s assistance. On Christmas Day, Guatemala City had been leveled by a powerful earthquake; a second, in January, had finished off the remaining buildings. Lee was needed to head up part of the relief effort. Delighted to make himself useful once more, he left on the first boat to Puerto Barrios, which happened to be a steamer from New Orleans, whose route first took it to Puerto Cortés.

  Aboard the vessel, Lee got chatting to the occupants, as was his way. He met a fellow called Mr. McDonnell—an architect with a New York lumber company that specialized in building the mobile barracks being deployed in war-torn France. The discussion put Lee in sour form, but his mood brightened when the fellow asked him to spill some war stories. When Lee mentioned he was heading to Guatemala City to help with relief efforts, McDonnell explained his own situation.

  “My employers, J.H. Burton & Co., have already been contracted by the Guatemalan government.”

  Lee’s nose twitched, sensing an opportunity. “Is that right?”

  “That line of mobile buildings I was telling you about … we landed a contract to build several thousand portable homes.”

  “Makes sense.” He nodded. “I haven’t seen the devastation for myself yet, but reports indicate it’s going to be months, at the very least, before they re-house all the families made homeless.”

  “Say, how did you get involved with the relief effort anyway?”

  Lee tapped his nose. “I know plenty of people in town.” He leaned in and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Cabrera requested me personally.”

  “That so?” McDonnell thought for a moment. “So you know the lay of the land fairly well?”

  Lee filled him in on the various spells he had spent in the country over the past twenty years, and gave him a rundown on President Cabrera and the finer points of doing business in Guatemala City. Seemingly impressed with Lee’s grasp of local affairs, McDonnell excused himself momentarily. When he returned, he asked Lee to accompany him, pointing to a gentleman smoking a pipe at the rear of the ship.

  McDonnell introduced him to his boss, Mr. Burton, the founder and owner of the firm.

  Burton offered his hand. “Good day to you, sir,” he said between clenched teeth, before pocketing his pipe. “I’ll get right to the point, if you don’t mind. We’re in need of an interpreter, Mr. Christmas, preferably someone who is persona grata with the government, if you will. Mr. McDonnell here has informed me that you know the place well, and I would be terribly grateful if you could recommend somebody you could trust. Preferably an American.”

  Lee thought for a moment; then he smiled. “I know just the guy.”

  They agreed a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month. Lee would represent the company during negotiations and oversee things in Guatemala City when Mr. Burton and his staff had departed. After reaching the capital by railroad, Lee saw the full extent of nature’s devastation. Only a handful of buildings remained intact. Those that hadn’t been completely demolished were clearly unsafe for habitation, and the only accommodation Mr. Burton and his party could find was a temporary camp in a park—a row of army cots surrounded by boxes of dry goods.

  Lee was able to arrange a meeting with President Cabrera right away, impressing Mr. Burton. However, after numerous meetings, it became clear Cabrera would not be able to establish credit to their satisfaction. Ten days after their arrival, J.H. Burton & Co., Inc., finished constructing what would be the only temporary home they would build in Guatemala City—for themselves. Determined not to let the trip be wasted, Mr. Burton surveyed numerous plots, investigating the possibility of opening a lumberyard in the country. Once a suitable site was identified, Lee was appointed manager, and Mr. Burton and his staff returned to America.

  Free of the watchful eyes of Mr. Burton, Lee set about seeking new investors for his shark-oil project. The consortium in New Orleans had inspected the samples and summarily pulled out, failing to see the value in the scheme. To get over his disappointment, and now that a regular salary would keep him in Guatemala City for some time, he telegrammed his wife. Happily, Ida had recovered and was eager to join him. She arrived two weeks later with Dominicio and moved into the portable home.

  84

  Lee’s role in the lumberyard wasn’t particularly demanding. While waiting to hear back from potential investors in his shark-oil empire, he toyed with a new project. With too much time on his hands, he found himself recollecting his life, considering all of the choices he’d made—for good or ill—and the curious path his life had taken. He was still reminiscing when he left the lumberyard and headed home to Ida, the train wreck outside LaPlace, more than twenty years ago now, weighing heavy on his mind.

  Ida, having seen his brow crease with worry, greeted him at the door and reached up to press her thumb against his forehead. “You’ll dig a hole right down to your brain, if you keep that up.”

  Lee couldn’t help smiling. He took her in his arms. “I’m so lucky to have you,” he said, kissing her cheeks.

  “Take your boots off and get comfortable.” She took his hand and led him inside. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

  “Thanks, Mamie,” he said, before realizing his error. He stared up at his wife in horror. “I meant … sorry, Ida.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll let Mamie fix you that drink.”

  Lee hung his head, until he felt Ida’s finger under his chin, lifting his eyes to hers. “I was kidding. Now are you gonna tell me what’s up, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  Lee smiled, putting his arms around her. “Like to see you try.”

  “You’re lucky you’re still getting that drink.” She wriggled out of his grasp. “But don’t get any ideas.”

  He flopped into a chair. “Been thinking a lot about that train wreck.” He looked at his hands. “Must have been why I called you Mamie.”

  Ida handed him his drink. “Why would you waste your time thinking about that?”

  “Keeps coming back to me. Wondering if there was some way it could have been prevented.”

  Ida poured herself a smaller measure. “I can think of one or two,” she said, raising her glass and smiling.

  “Sure.” Lee chuckled. “But the other day I heard about a guy who had a heart attack and keeled over on the throttle. Two died in that crash. Seems like there should be a button or switch.” He took a sip of his drink and watched a smile play across his wife’s lips. “What?” he asked.

  She smirked. “Pretty hard to flick a switch when you’re dead.”

  “That’s it!” said Lee, slapping his hands together with such force that Ida almost dropped her tumbler. He jumped up from his chair and strode over to Ida to kiss her full on the lips. “I’ve got it.”

  “I don’t—”

  Lee held up a finger while he paced the room. “One second,” he said. “Need to get this straight in my head.” After a full minute of pacing, he stopped. “I know you’ve never been at the throttle of a locomotive, not a real one, but you saw that toy train in Puerto Cortés. Principles are the same.”

  Ida nodded.

  “Now, to engage the throttle, you gotta push it forward.” He indicated with his hand. “Like this.”

  “Okay.”

  “And what happens when you die?”

  “Huh?”

  Lee chuckled. “Sorry, let me try again. What if the throttle would cut out if you weren’t pressing on it?” He watched Ida think through the implications.

  “What if the driver scratches his nose? You can’t have the train skidding to a halt.”

  “Right,” he said. “But I’m not talking about the brakes. Without the throttle engaged, the train just slowly comes to a halt.”

  “So if someone passes out…”

  “Or has a heart attack…”

  They both fell silent. Ida finally spoke first. “Could it work?
”

  “Sure,” he said. “Bunch of ways you could do it.”

  She smiled. “Hot damn.”

  “This could make me a millionaire.”

  “Really?”

  “Think about it,” he said. “As soon as those newspapermen get wind of this, they’ll whip up a panic until this device is the law. Installed on every train in America.” He smiled. “Then the world.”

  “How much do you know about making this … thing?”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” said Lee. “You don’t need to know anything.”

  Ida raised an eyebrow.

  “Just the basic concept.”

  “You sure?”

  “What I mean is, I don’t need to know nothing about factories or any of that. There’s a firm of patent attorneys in Washington. Once I send them the sketches, they register the patent and then no one can steal the idea. Then I can shop it around.”

  Ida thought for a moment, sipping her drink. “Well, you better get to it.”

  “Only one question left to resolve.” He kissed her cheek again.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “How we’ll spend all those riches.”

  Ida gave him a playful shove. “You know I don’t care about that. I’m just glad to see you happy. That’s all I need.”

  Lee sent the sketches off to Washington, only to receive disappointing news from New York. Mr. Burton informed him that their Guatemalan lumberyard wasn’t as profitable as he had anticipated. It was to be liquidated. But Lee’s indomitable spirit shrugged it off. He toyed with one far-fetched scheme after another until one idea came to him clear and fully formed.

  Oil.

  After learning the ropes prospecting for a season with W.M. Bancroft, another New York outfit, Lee had the bug. Gone were his schemes to earn millions. Now, he could dream in billions. But for today, he had to content himself with becoming a cattle-buyer, just to get himself through until his investors came on board. If only he had the capital! He had the ear of two presidents, both of whom presided over countries sitting on oceans of oil. Lee knew he could finagle and browbeat his way to concessions and land grants and anything else he needed. He sailed down to Puerto Cortés to call in some favors, en route to New Orleans, where he would begin beating the bushes for rich investors. Ida had gone a couple of days ahead of him, eager to spend a time with her family before they moved to America.

  On the voyage to Puerto Cortés, Lee mingled as much as he could. Much had changed in Honduras in his absence, he learned. Dr. Bertrand had attempted to cling to power by appointing his brother-in-law at the end of his term, invoking powers derived from the martial law that his declaration of war against Germany had enabled. The inevitable revolution had sent him out of office, and into exile. Lee didn’t even recognize the new president’s name, but one thing was for sure: he’d have no pull with the new guy. He mulled this over as the steamer pulled into Puerto Cortés. The first thing he noticed was a bunch of soldiers hanging around the banana wharf; that in itself wasn’t unusual, but these guys were alert. And armed.

  Passengers began disembarking, and the soldiers formed a phalanx, forcing people through them in pairs. Lee made his way toward the exit. When he reached the front, the soldiers became animated, signaling their tiente. It wasn’t simply that Lee had no pull over the new leader; he wasn’t even allowed to enter the country.

  Lee refused to re-board the steamer, and the tiente ordered his men aboard the boat to force the captain to wait. It took the intervention of the local consul to diffuse the situation and grant Lee temporary permission to enter Honduras, gather his family, pack up his belongings, and leave the country for the final time. On the boat to Puerto Barrios, Lee Christmas watched his adopted homeland disappear over the horizon, and he despaired.

  He only remained in Guatemala long enough to catch the next steamer to New Orleans, barely speaking to Ida on the journey back.

  What a hare-brained fool I must look, he thought. When we first met, I was the hero of La Ceiba. The whole damn country even. A man of means. Prospects. But now?

  The shark-oil business was dead. His patent was going nowhere. His military career was finished. And, of course, he was flat broke.

  Despite his brooding, he hadn’t given up hope. Once he financed the oil exploration, he would be swimming in it. And he was looking forward to seeing his old friend Molony. Lee smiled at the thought: Guy Molony, chief of police in New Orleans. He shook his head. How things change.

  85

  Lee went over the sketch one more time. “Come on, Guy. I know policemen are supposed to be dumb, but pay attention. When the rat steps on this panel here, the arm of the contraption fires down.” He slammed the desk. “Crushing him.”

  Molony considered this for a moment, examining the trap in detail. “And what’s this on the side?”

  “When the arm is deployed, that triggers the release of the poison, which kills all the fleas before they get a chance to infest anything else. I’m telling you, every ship in America will buy hundreds of ’em. Ports will order them by the thousand.”

  Molony raised an eyebrow.

  “You might be skeptical, but listen to this. I know someone who’s close with the surgeon general. If I can mock up a model, he’s going to take a look. And if he likes it? Well, then he’ll recommend the Public Health Service adopts it, and that will be an order of a million traps—at least. I’m giving them a great deal. I only want fifty cents a trap. They can keep the rest of whatever they decide to charge.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” said Molony, smiling.

  “But once the foreign governments get wind of this, I’ll have orders coming in from all over the world. And then I can finance my own oil exploration.”

  “That’s some plan.” Molony nodded to himself. “What’s the next step?”

  “I sent the drawings to my patent attorneys in Washington yesterday,” said Lee. “I expect to hear back in a couple of weeks.”

  “And what happened with that device for cutting the throttle?”

  He waved his hand. “Aw, don’t ask.”

  Lee left Molony’s office and headed back to the little house he had rented with Ida on Chestnut Street—by happenstance, the very same street where he’d proposed to Mamie all those years ago. He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of envy at how well Guy had done. As the man had said, there was a lot of luck involved. He had come home a war hero just at the time that reform-minded politicians were back in fashion, promising to clean up the city. Anyone with a link to the past was tainted.

  Lee tilted his head back as he walked, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He felt the sun warm his face, and he reached into his pocket for a puro. Puffing away happily, Lee increased his pace. I wouldn’t like to be trapped behind a desk anyhow.

  * * *

  Lee was waiting to hear back from his patent lawyers about the poison-spraying rattrap, but was never one to let the grass grow under his feet. He pressed every contact he could, telling them all about the richest oil lands in the world, and how he was the key to unimaginable wealth. One of his friends, Forrest Pendleton, the old head of the New Orleans Federal Bureau of Investigation, offered to put him in touch with a friend in New York. “His name is Bruce Bielaski.”

  “What’s he doing in New York?” asked Lee.

  “President of the Richmond Levering Company.”

  Lee whistled. “Sounds fancy.”

  “Let me put it this way,” said Forrest. “If you make a good impression, you’ll have all the money you need.” He stood Lee a hundred dollars to see him to New York.

  When Lee got there, Bielaski saw a lot of potential in his plan. He forwarded Lee a cash advance, promising a lucrative contract with Richmond Levering if Lee could secure the necessary concessions. On his return to New Orleans, Lee barely had time to inform Ida and the kids of his plans before he left behind once more and sailed for Guatemala.

  He got a meeting with Cabrera right away. The president agre
ed to everything Lee wanted: land concessions, and, crucially, the enactment of legislation that would allow drilling and waive taxes. He cabled New York immediately to tell them the good news.

  There was only one problem. Lee was so desperate for the plan to work that he failed to spot something rather obvious: President Cabrera, after twenty-two years as the leader of Guatemala, was losing his mind. On April 8, 1920, Congress declared him unfit to govern the country and appointed a replacement, someone with whom Lee Christmas had no influence whatsoever. Unable to face telling Ida that his dream was dead, he decided to remain in Guatemala City, in case some opportunity came his way.

  And it did.

  86

  Cabrera had been officially deposed, but he wasn’t shuffling off the political stage without a fight. He took shelter in the imposing fortress of Las Palmas, overlooking Guatemala City, and army commanders still loyal to him flocked to his position, bringing their men and munitions. Lee assumed Cabrera was just flexing his muscles, hoping to win safe passage out of the country, perhaps seeking guarantees regarding his commercial interests … until Cabrera’s artillery began shelling the city below.

  For five long days, the mad bombardment continued. Nowhere in the city was safe from indiscriminate attack, the sole exception being the American Legation. Even a half-crazed Cabrera wasn’t foolish enough to risk a US invasion. Once word spread, most Americans in the city headed for the Legation, Lee among them—more out of the hope he could make himself useful than any fear for his safety.

  One of the people he met there was a young lawyer from New Orleans, called Max Shaumberger. They had plenty in common and struck up an instant rapport. Shaumberger had worked for pretty much all of the fruit companies at some point, and had also been a member of the clandestine network of State Department spies, reporting on potential German activity in the region during the Great War. He didn’t say so straight out, but Lee could read between the lines. “If there’s anything I can do,” Lee told him, “I’m ready.”