The Laughing Falcon Read Online Free PDF

car was in the garage. She told him she was happy to take a taxi.
    All afternoon, Maggie was in a turmoil of anticipation. Strolling through the streets, she suddenly found San José much more appealing. The stores were crammed with Christmas knick-knacks: a Santa Claus or a Rudolph in almost every window, cheek by jowl with a crèche, three wise men beneath a star.
    From a tourist shop she bought a postcard, and wrote a note to her mother, hinting of developments to come with “the world’s most gorgeous man — he could charm the nose off your face.” She posted it, then walked past the public market to the wide commercial artery of Paseo Colón, and tramped many blocks west, into Sabana Park, where children played boisterously and young couples strolled hand in hand.
    I am alone, too
. Those four little words had been tinged with melancholy, making her wonder if he had recently emerged from some deep, wounding affair. Though she had seen no wedding ring, she could not quell the fear that he was another in the long list of the unfaithful, and that she would learn the wife and children were off on a beach holiday.
    How could such an attractive man escape matrimony? Was he divorced? She could not bear the thought he was a married hypocrite and resolved to put him through some verbal tests. Decisions must be made now, in the cold light of day, before reason becomes corrupted in the night. She must not present herself as either loose or tightly laced. She would set limits on this first date. Later, perhaps, after her week in the jungle, a return engagement … But these were such implausible plots.
    Yet she had felt a genuine interest emanating from Professor Esquivel; perhaps he was seeking beauty beneath the surface. It was her mind that drew him, her sense of humour. He was tired of empty-headed women — though she could not remember, in her nervousness, having said anything so clever as to entirely remove herself from that category.
    She was no longer slouching, but walking tall, and, sensing eyes on her, she glanced around to see two young men gazing at her. Maybe she did look ravaging: the remarkable bustless Maggie. Thank goodness the supermodel had packed the hugging green low-cut sheath that she occasionally dared to wear braless; not tonight, though: that would be too bold.
    She whirled, performed a dance step, almost stumbled over a wayward soccer ball with which some boys were playing, then gaily kicked it back.
– 4 –
    Clambering from her small taxi, Maggie saw Pablo Esquivel in a crisp grey suit, no tie, seated at a table for two on an upper terrace of La Linda Vista. As he rose to greet her, he plucked a hibiscus from a vase, and with a bow presented it to her, then smiled and brushed back the strands of long hair that had fallen over his eyes.
    She pantomimed surprise at his generosity. As he laughed, she noticed he undertook a quick tour of her body. She hoped the effect of the tight sheath was not too much marred by the fanny pack; she must not slouch.
    He held her chair as she sat. “You are in time for the sunset. Later, you would not see the view.”
    The restaurant afforded a grand panorama of the Central Valley: rolling fertile plains encircled by cloud-draped volcanoes, the lights of the city below blinking on at dusk.
    Their conversation was tentative at first, literary, a shared successful search for authors they respected: Marquez, Allende, Neruda. These bookish intimacies were interrupted by a loud, raucous bird call from a shrubby glade: “Haw, haw.” It sounded of derisive laughter.
    “That has to be the Laughing Falcon,” she said.
Exceptionally vocal raptor
, said her bird guide,
feeds almost entirely on snakes, including venomous ones.”
    “Ah, you are a bird fancier. The
guaco
, we call this
halcón;
it is the masked bandit of the skies. Maybe we will hear the full
guaco.”
    “What is that?”
    “Allow me to try. The bird goes ‘wah-wah-wah,’ ever faster and louder. Then it