Angels in Heaven

conceivable, if they wanted to go to the trouble, that they could find
one of mine or Benny’s or Sara’s fingerprints, despite the cleanup we’ll do
before we leave and also despite the care Benny and I took— because we talked
about it before—in places like Febrero Segundo and our hotel rooms. I mean, we
did go to cafés and took taxis and steam baths and all, so it is possible.
Sara’s no problem because she told me she’s never had her prints taken. Mine
obviously are on file as a registered private detective and an ex-soldier boy
and an ex-couple of other things I won’t mention right now, so are Benny’s. Say
they got a print. Let’s even admit they might have sufficient liaison with the
appropriate law enforcement agencies back home too. Let’s even admit they have
the technology to link up their computers with U.S. ones and eventually get an
ID on us. Señor, we’d be long home by then, and the Mexican authorities would
have a hell of a job trying to extradite us bona fide American citizens back
down here for anything less than wholesale manslaughter, and even then they’d
have problems.
    “Also,” I said, “we have a little
surprise up our commodious sleeves that should take the heat off us, if there
is any, immediately and put it somewhere else that I assure you is guaranteed
heatproof.”
    “We hope,” said Dan. He took a small
penknife out of his pocket and began to trim off a jagged splinter he’d found
on the pier by his bare feet. “All right,” he said again. “Let’s say you can
get him out and can get down here and you are clean when you get here. And let
us say you and me make a deal and we sail away into the setting sun, and let us
further say I get you to Belize Island and you catch the morning ferry and then
a taxi to the airport. Let us say all that. You all got passports?”
    Sara looked offended. “Only for
years,” she said.
    “Me too,” said Benny. “Several, if
needs be.”
    “Well…” I began. They all looked at
me as if I was the Thing from Outer Space.
    “I don’t believe it,” Doris said, shaking her (actually my) wig. “Mastermind here hasn’t even got a simple,
ordinary, everyday item like a plain old passport.”
    “Oh, shut up,” I said. “How was I
going to know I’d need one?”
    “You could have figured it out
without booking too much computer time,” she said. “I mean it was obvious from
the start we couldn’t go back to the States directly from Mexico.” “Oh, it was, was it?” I said. “And what about Billy? Where’s his passport supposed to be? I
know it’s not under his mattress because he hasn’t even got a mattress.”
    “Calm down,” said Dan, without
looking up from his whittling. “Where there’s a will. Are any of you wanted
right now in the States, for anything serious, I mean?”
    “My mother probably seriously wants
me,” I said. “But that’s it as far as I know.”
    “Bear with me,” he said. “And none of
you is on any FBI list prohibiting you from reentering the States for serious
offenses in the past?”
    We all shook our heads, even Benny.
    “No sweat, then,” said Dan. “You hit
the U.S. consulate in Belize as soon as it opens—as I remember, it opens for a
couple of hours Saturday mornings. You tell them you got mugged in a bar Friday
night and lost some money and all your ID and you naturally didn’t want to go to
the cops because your money and IDs were long gone anyway and you couldn’t pick
out the two muggers if they were in a two-man lineup, and besides, there was no
way you all wanted to hang around Belize for a couple of weeks while the cops
got nowhere, and besides, your mother is sick and you’ve got to get back for
business reasons and you get the picture.”
    We all agreed we got the picture.
    “What they do in cases like yours is
make one check by telex to the FBI to see that you’re clean as far as they are
concerned, and that is usually it,” Dan said. “I hope so for your sake. We do
not want them checking to see if you all had passports issued to you at some
time, passports that were still valid, meaning you had entered Belize legally.”
    “No, we certainly do not,” I said.
    “And we do not want them phoning your
home addresses to check that people with the names you give them actually live
at those addresses but are presently on holiday in Mexico because who knows if
Billy even has an address after all this time and if he gives his parents’, who
knows what