by Todd Merer
As my taxi inched forward, I saw ahead a perfect example of the way I viewed Panama City: a wildly modernistic glass tower whose twisting façade had earned it the nickname El Tornillo, The Screw, which was fitting in more ways than one. Its exterior design was incompatible with its interior workings, making the elevators inoperable. The structure was literally screwed, but no one seemed to mind. The Screw fit in a town where appearance was as important as substance.
The taxi dropped me at an upscale mall, where I strolled the luxury shops. When I was certain no one was following me, I left the mall by a different exit than I’d entered, hailed another taxi, and crossed town to Casco Viejo, the original colonial section of PC. I loitered until the taxi was gone. Then started walking.
There are two parts of Casco. The gentrifying part was cool at night and hip by day. The old part was a jumble of tenements and ruins between mosquito-breeding puddles. That’s where I walked. The storefronts were shuttered for siesta. I squared a block, saw no one behind me, then ambled along a quiet street that meandered between faded pastel buildings and a seawall, beyond which the blue-gray Pacific shimmered in the waves of heat.
I had no Bond-like pretensions. I was known in certain circles and didn’t want to chance anyone observing me with the man I was meeting on Fercho’s behalf.
Helmer Quezada was an ex-CTI—Colombian Judicial Police officer—who was still plugged in to a good-old-boy network of corrupt cops and politicos running a protection racket in which the victims were criminals. The traffickers who paid fortunes in protection money were unaware that their contracts had expiration dates: Helmer and his pals sold information on these traffickers deemed newly expendable to former traffickers who—like Fercho—were jailed and cooperating in the States.
My job was in the middle of the merry-go-round: passing info on new targets to the feds. Of course, the law required cooperation to be from the cooperator’s own knowledge. Purchased cooperation was not only unrewarded; it was illegal. Did I know the cooperation was purchased? Stack your Bibles, and I’ll swear I know nothing from nothing. I wasn’t the only prevaricator: if and when it suited them, federal prosecutors and agents turned a blind eye to sources of important information.
Bottom line: everyone lied.
The windows of the old houses were black rectangles in the pale walls, but from the darkness within, I sensed eyes on the unlikely sight of a mad gringo out in the noonday sun. Past the seawall, through the heat haze, was the distant outline of a gray ship I knew was an American Coast Guard cutter on Canal Zone patrol.
I envisioned its dark radar rooms, where green lines moved across black screens: the zigzag routes of go-fast boats ferrying cocaine from mangrove swamps on the Colombian Pacific coast to Central American coves. There, the loads would be transferred onto trucks for the voyage north to Mexico and divided into shipments bound for the States.
I sensed someone behind me, turned, and saw the cropped gray hair and seamed face of Helmer Quezada, an unlit cigarette between his blunt fingers.
“A light, please, señor?”
I’d glommed a hotel matchbook. I struck a match. As he cupped his hands around it, he murmured, “Parasitic torpedoes.”
I didn’t reply. Parasitic torpedoes were cylindrical containers filled with cocaine, ballasted to stay submerged just below the surface while being towed by a fishing boat. If the fishermen ran into law enforcement, they cut the torpedoes loose; equipped with automatic buoys and location transmitters, they could be easily reacquired when the cops were gone.
“Good day,” Helmer said, walking on.
It wasn’t until I was chilling in a cab that I unfolded the wadded paper he had palmed me. It was a map of Colombia’s Departmento de Chocó Pacific shoreline showing the coordinates of an inlet where the torpedoes were assembled.
When I got to my hotel, I photographed the note and warehoused the photo in my cloud. Then I tore up the original and flushed it away. Then I took a long shower, followed by a short nap. I wanted to be ready for the night.
I was going to Foto’s place.
CHAPTER 5
People who knew Foto by reputation thought him a fashion photographer and notorious pussy hound. People who knew Foto casually thought him a pimp for narco-traffickers. People who knew Foto well thought him an informer. The real Foto was all of the above, as well as a world-class hustler.
His penthouse resembled a club: bass-thumping music, mirrored bar, polished dance floor, potted palms between private couches, great-looking young women, and extremely rich older guys.
I wasn’t interested in the couch people. The buzz between them was champagne, Cialis, and coke.
The buzz that interested me was cold cash.
I saw Foto talking with a short, fair-haired man whose arm candy was a tall blonde with a perfect, round ass. Foto cut his eyes to me and winked, then went on listening to whatever the guy was saying.
I became interested in the blonde. Very interested.
There were plenty of knockout females about, but she was special. No implants or veneers or lifts. Maybe she hadn’t been born blonde, but neither had Ms. Monroe. Actually, she reminded me a little of Marilyn, projecting the kind of vulnerability that is catnip for men. Her body left little to the imagination in a clingy raw-silk dress above long legs, smooth as heavy cream.
Now, I like all types of female flesh—white or dark meat, necks, thighs, breasts—but come down to it, I’m a leg man. Hers were off the chart. When I looked up from them, she was looking at me with hazel eyes easy to read.
Hello, they said.
Before I could reply, the fair-haired man shook hands with Foto and cupped the blonde’s elbow. As they turned, I saw the man’s face: Botox-smooth, pale eyes, thin lips. For a moment, I thought he glanced at me. As they walked away, Foto love-tapped my arm.
“Who is she?” I asked, staring after her.
Foto motioned me to follow, and we went out to the terrace. Quiet there. The city lights bled into a starry sky; the black sea was salted with shipping lights. We were alone.
“She,” Foto said, “is with a man you don’t want to annoy. Pussy aside? Jilly can’t meet with you just yet.”
“Jilly?”
“Your new case, amigo. But not to worry. Thanks to my efforts, consider yourself already hired. Your fee is one million. To start.”
“One million,” I repeated. “To start.”
“The case is an extradition to New York. They’ll pay you there. In regard to my end, will that be a problem?”
I kept cash in Miami, where Foto often visited. After I got the mil in New York, I’d give Foto his 20 percent referral from that stash. “No problem.”
“Most excellent,” Foto said.
“¿Qué?” a woman asked.
She had appeared silently, a petite brunette. Her nose was strong; her mouth wide. She wore a white dress that hugged her body. All in all, a very attractive woman.
“Ah, Laura,” Foto said. “I was just saying life is excellent to my dear friend, the eminent doctor Bennjamin T. Bluestone . . .” Foto’s brow knit. “I always meant to ask, Benn. What does the bloody fucking T stand for, anyway?”
“The T doesn’t stand for anything at all,” I said.
Laura cocked her head as if conversing with herself, then spoke in Colombian-accented Spanish. “Is that true, Mr. Bluestone?”
“Benn. The naked truth.”
Foto giggled, but Laura just nodded. “I get it,” she said, switching to unaccented English. “T, like the S in Harry S. Truman.”
I raised a brow. I figured Laura was about thirty. Remarkable that a Latina of her generation knew such arcane trivia as Truman’s middle initial, let alone who Truman was.
She grinned. “I think maybe you have a middle name.”
I smiled. “That’s the trouble with Harry.”
Foto asked, “Who’s Harry S. Truman?”
“Who the buck stops with,” Laura said.
“I’m from Missouri, t
oo,” I said.
“No,” Laura said, “you’re not.”
“Correct,” I said, “I’m not.”
Foto’s head swiveled between us as if watching a tennis match. I was thinking it had just begun, and the score was love-love.
“Not eminent, either,” she said.
“But definitely prominent,” I said.
“So long as you’re continent,” she said.
I laughed. I couldn’t recall a woman so perfectly tuned to my weird wavelength. Foto didn’t get any of it, but it was obvious that Laura and I had connected. “Praise be to God,” he said. “A match made in heaven by his faithful servant, Foto. Benn? Laura? Name your first son for me. I’ll leave you now.”
“Stay, Foto,” Laura said. “I’m the one who must be leaving. Work tomorrow and all. But I have a wonderful idea. Invite the doctor to your New Year’s party.”
“He’s invited,” Foto said.
“I accept.” I was thinking Laura was the type who made love with her eyes wide open: look at me looking at you; intellectual mind-fucking, that kind of thing. Tomorrow I needed to be in the city among the three volcanoes, but afterward, I could hop on a flight back to Panama City. As my client in Miami had observed, it was in the neighborhood, after all.
“Good night,” Laura said. She stood on her toes and pecked Foto on the cheek. Then gave me a smile and a business card while coming close enough for me to inhale her herbal scent, sort of a cross between orange blossom and gardenia.
We watched her cross the room, her small butt swaying sexily.
“I’m thinking,” Foto said, “it must be very nice.”
“What must be?” I said.
“Fucking a woman it’s actually interesting to talk to. Of course, the things we talk about are best left unsaid. Let’s have a drink.”
At the bar, Foto drank Scotch. I kept to Bison Grass vodka and got a mild buzz on. People drifted by. A lot of women. I paid them no mind. Any other night, Laura qualified as one of my ten most wanted, but tonight I was riding the crest of a blonde tsunami. Not sure how to put it, but the blonde was one of those rare girl-women that gets into your head and, like heroin, forever remains a yearning.
I drank some more. Picked up on people. A Mexican-telenovela leading man. An ex-DEA gone PI who hustled cases for an unsavory Miami lawyer. A man with an altered face whom I took five seconds to recognize as a notorious informant. A graft-tainted Colombian politician. A Venezuelan opposition journalist. A tableful of loud guys I knew were pilots, all of them wearing platinum Rolexes. Not surprising. In this part of the world, pilots made out like bandits.
Actually, they were bandits.
Foto went off to hit on a woman. I finished my drink and ordered another. I was feeling pretty good. Good old Foto had just added eight hundred large to my retirement fund. One new case in the bag, and two to go . . .
Funny how sometimes you drink and don’t feel it, then there’s a little click, and things connect. Like—click!—and all at once, I was totally tuned in to the music, a rapper telling a chickadee to forget about her boyfriend and be with him.
Exactly the sentiment I wanted to convey to the blonde: that it should be me plumbing her depths. I finished my drink and got a refill. The rap music pounded louder about the girl being a healthy type. I pictured the blonde in silk and lace . . .
Man, I was feeling it. Shaken and stirred.
Somehow, I’d become a corner of a square of people humping to the beat: me, two women who either were twins or used the same plastic surgeon, and a guy my age with inky hair, white suit, and gold chains who danced like an escapee from Saturday Night Fever. One of the women put her hip against mine.
The rapper told his girl what he planned to do to her. The beauty next to me seemed to like the idea. The gold-chained man opened a vial and tapped powder atop his knuckles. The women tooted.
The rapper said something about enjoying a gushy twosome.
A white-topped knuckle appeared beneath my nose.
Blow. Good, glittery, prime, fish-scale blow . . .
The rapper wanted to freak. I did, too—
But I froze, forcing myself to remember the bad days that followed the good nights, back when I used to disappear up my own nose . . . And then . . .
I turned and ran away as fast as I could.
Forget the elevator, I took the steps.
On a landing, a girl was giving a man head. I brushed past them. At the street door, a security guard turned, alarm on his face, reaching for a holstered weapon. I couldn’t have cared less.
I burst through the door—
Outside was heavy, wet heat, but I was trembling. I’d been inches away from starting back down the too-familiar road that always ended at the same washed-out bridge. I leaned against a palm and vomited green: Bison Grass and bile.
I returned to my hotel, still spooked.
I needed to calm down. Alcohol was a relatively controllable problem, so I had a nightcap from the minibar. Sweet, dark Panama rum. I had another and got mellower. A third, and it was sleepy time. Tomorrow was another travel day. When I put my wallet on the dresser, I noticed a business card sticking out of it. Laura’s card. It said:
RADIO FREE BOGOTÁ
LAURA ASTORQUIZA
I laughed long and loud. My wise friend Foto had put it exactly right:
It must be nice, sleeping with a woman who was interesting to talk to.
CHAPTER 6
The next day I flew to Guatemala City. My taxi’s AC was broken, and the city flooded in through its opened windows. Music, blaring horns, hot air blue with exhaust. But half an hour later, Guaty was gone behind, and we drove between low mountains. Cool here. Another hour later, we came around a bend, and ahead lay a town whose grid was lined with low buildings, a thousand little pastel sticks in rows below three cone-shaped peaks.
This was the city among the three volcanoes: Antigua, the colonial capital of Guatemala until it had been destroyed by the earthquake and eruptions of 1740.
A plume of smoke, or perhaps a small cloud, hung over one of the volcanoes: Volcán de Fuego, the Volcano of Fire. The volcano loomed taller as we neared Antigua. As it did, I had a growing apprehension that suddenly appeared like an uncharted asteroid. I visualized an explosive eruption. Felt the earth beneath my feet tremble. Saw and felt superheated gas rushing downhill like a tsunami—
Amid chaos, I heard a voice, commanding as a prophet:
Save yourself, fool. Leave the business. Get out. Now.
I thought weakly: I will, I will . . . soon . . .
On my hotel’s shadowed patio, an ice-skimmed vodka calmed me. Then I went for a stroll. I’d been to Antigua before. A once-upon-a-time capital city of avenues lined with magnificent facades. Cathedrals and monasteries and convents. On a warm evening in the eighteenth century, suddenly collapsing to rubble behind the still-standing facades. The quake had educated the locals—build low—and present-day Antigua consisted of low, modest buildings within walled compounds whose gardens were fragrant with tropical plants.
Nowadays, Antigua was a small town centered around a square block of park, the placita, where I sat on a bench across from the cathedral. I set my device atop a knee and pretended absorption in it. I wore wraparound shades that hid my sideways glance so I could check the scene unobserved.
I saw Lonely Planet types, Indians peddling junk to tourists, hippies of the species found in Ibiza or Marrakesh, and a very big middle-aged guy who wore a spotless white suit. When I looked his way, he averted his eyes.
I picked up on another guy hiding behind a newspaper. Extremely small fellow, a couple of centimeters above midget-size, wearing a pale guayabera. Something else strange about him, too . . . the way he held the paper? No, his fingers caught my eye. They made his hands resemble paws, having been chopped off at the uppermost joint. The Colombians referred to these as permanent manicures, and the kind of guys that receive them never work alone.
A little distance away, another
guy was wearing a similar guayabera. Then I spotted another; altogether a foursome whose opening game plan was working hard at not looking at me. No doubt they were here on behalf of my putative client—who only wanted to talk surrendering, meaning he was far from committed—to make sure I wasn’t a decoy for law enforcement.
I stretched and unkinked my neck, lingering a moment on each of their ugly mugs. Come on, caballeros, check me out to your black hearts’ content.
It was hot. My watchband slid on my damp wrist. An hour and five minutes had passed. I run my watch five minutes fast. It reminds me to be on time. The people I meet rarely are themselves. Except for hit men like Los Guayaberas, early risers, hoping to catch a worm.
I recrossed my legs. I might be here all day. Maybe all day tomorrow or until some moron paid attention to business. A too-big chunk of my life was spent waiting for my Godots. The trick to dealing with them was to think of something else. Or someone.
I thought about the blonde. Where her long legs joined her butt entwined with me and my junk. Wet, slick saltiness and—
Heels clacked. I looked up as a young woman on platforms teetered by. Pretty face, improbably large bust, impossibly enormous butt. She paused at the edge of the park, gave me a come-hither look—or so I thought—then crossed the street, went up the cathedral steps, and entered.
Silent as a snake, a man sat on my bench and read a newspaper that blocked his face. All I could see of him were cuffed trousers and square-toed shoes, but I knew he was the same big man I’d spotted a few minutes ago. Felipe Mondragon, Esq. He spoke from behind the newspaper, and from the sound of his voice alone—too smooth, too ingratiating—I didn’t like him at all.
“Good morning, Doctor,” he said. “The client is running late. To be expected. He’s cautious. Doesn’t even trust me. But he will appear, of that I’m sure.”
I grunted affirmatively. We waited. The young woman appeared in the cathedral doorway. She looked at me, then withdrew.