The Ancient Rain by Domenic Stansberry

has come after us yet … we are still operating.”
    Though Sprague helped fund the troupe, Jan and Annette did not see much of each other anymore, Owens guessed. There was, at any rate, a certain tension between them. He and the two women had been involved with the SLA at about the same time, and they knew things about one another that it was better perhaps not to know. Even so, Jan Sprague was still a handsome woman. Her honey brown hair had gone white, but in a glamorous way. Even when she was younger—dressed in denim, a man’s work shirt rolled up at the sleeves—she’d had an air of sophistication, of breeding and money. She looked down into her cup now, and her husband put his hand on her shoulder.
    â€œBah,” Annette said again.
    Though Walter Sprague was a powerful man, and very wealthy—and outspoken in his support of liberal causes—he had one weakness. That weakness was Jan. He was in his midseventies now, and she was twenty-five years his junior.
    â€œI have to thank you, Walter,” said Owens. “I would like to say again how grateful I am.”
    Jan’s glance acknowledged nothing. The Sandinista, on the other hand, looked at Owens wryly, smirking, as if he understood it all. Rumor was that he had been a foot soldier in the street wars of Managua and had gone door to door, rooting the wealthy out of their beds. The Sandinista made Owens uncomfortable. Today he and Annette had been among the first to arrive, bringing with them a man from a restaurant in the Mission who carried in several trays of Honduran tamales wrapped in banana leaves. The other man was gone now, but Owens remembered him lingering out by the bamboo.
    The Sandinista held one of the tamales.
    â€œHave you tried these?”
    â€œYes. They are quite good.”
    Supposedly the Sandinista had, for a while, held a high post in the party back home. Owens supposed it was possible. The man had rakish good looks and political assuredness. But since the Sandinistas had fallen out of power, he was here in the States, living with Annette Ricci.
    Persona non grata back home. A romantic figure among the aging politicos of San Francisco.
    Blood on his hands, maybe. But who could talk?
    *   *   *
    Owens spotted Dante then, lingering by the back door. He had brought Marilyn, who was talking real estate, something about Europe, as she helped Jill at the counter. They talked, too, about the Honduran tamales, the banana leaves, the unusual texture of the corn. Meanwhile, Jill was exhausted, Owens could see that. He could see the strain in her face.
    â€œWe are working on a play, for Columbus Day,” said the Sandinista.
    â€œShouldn’t we be moving people outside?” asked Annette. “We are going to do a little preview—for the kids.”
    Dante approached and Owens introduced him all around. Annette Ricci regarded the man carefully, holding her chin a little higher, putting her head in profile the way she did, waiting to be admired. The Sandinista, on the other hand, went on talking as before: “This game your president is playing in the Middle East—cowboys and Indians all over again.”
    â€œThey’ll never get out,” said Annette. “They will create what they fear.”
    â€œIt’s an excuse, this war on terror. To bury the political opposition. If the American people had any gumption, they would fight back.”
    Owens didn’t necessarily think otherwise, but the Sandinista puffed his chest out disagreeably. Though the man did not look at Dante, the remarks seemed to be directed at him, testing him, perhaps. Jan and Walter Sprague had the look of tremulous relatives at a family party they intended to leave at the first opportunity. Walter Sprague leaned forward.
    â€œYou are right,” he said. “We must fight, in the ways that we can.”
    They are afraid, Owens thought. All of them.
    Even Annette, brassy and