He looked at me with those sled-dog eyes and, for a moment, a crazed moment, I think he came close to punching me. In barely a whisper, he said, “Let me tell you somethin’, boy. Don’t fuck with a falcon unless you can fly.” That was supposed to make sense? I said, “O-o-o-kay.”
“There’s never been a day in my life I couldn’t carry my own weight. And I was kickin’ ass in these shithole taco towns back when the big news was that you’d taken a dump that wasn’t in your diapers.”
“Um-huh.”
“I’ve put in the miles. There are worse men to do the river with.”
“If you’re saying you’re not a young man anymore, Tucker, I agree.”
“You ain’t listenin’, ‘cause that ain’t what I’m sayin’.”
“But it’s what I’m saying. So get on a plane and go home. I’m starting to lose my patience.”
I watched him visibly compose himself, but then he was mad again within seconds. “You don’t think I know the story as well as you? Amanda’s mama’s gone off with some lard-assed Yankee that’s diddlin’ her and takin’ her money at the same time. You come down here to fetch her home, but you’re too damn stubborn to admit you might need some help if lard-ass won’t let her go. Goddamn it… quit bein’ so goddamn stubborn!” His face, which was as wrinkled as parchment, had turned a Navaho red. For the first time, I realized something: This really was an old man. What if I kept at it, made him so furious that he had a heart attack right here at the airport? That’s all I needed, dealing with Tuck and mounds of idiotic paperwork at some Colombian hospital.
I said, “Okay, okay, calm down, Tucker. There’s no need to get so upset. People are looking.”
“I don’t give a hoot in hell who’s looking. They can kiss my ass on the county fucking square for all I care! And you, too, Mister-been-all-over-the-world-know-it-all! ‘Cause here’s something you don’t know: When things go bad in a place like Cartagena, the shit comes down so fast, you’d better have wings to stay above it or a shovel to dig your way out. And you’d better by God have someone you can trust watching your back.”
I nearly said, yeah, like I’m supposed to trust you? Would’ve but veins were sticking out in his neck and he’d gotten redder.
“Take a deep breath, just relax.” I was shushing him with my hands. “Get in the cab and we’ll talk about it. No need to get upset.”
“I ain’t exactly inexperienced at this business, you know! I’ve been in plenty of tough spots. Shit” — his voice softened-“I hate to admit it, but I’ve done the worst thing a Christian white man can do. Yes sir, I done killed me a human being. A Mexican. Great big fat one, but he was quick and them bastards ain’t exactly easy targets.” He paused for a moment; let his eyes blur at the horizon. “Duke, that greasy beaner haunts me to this day.”
The man was insane. He hadn’t killed anyone-Tuck’s old partner, Joseph Egret, had told me the truth. One more example that Tucker was the creator of his own sloppy reality.
I opened the door of the cab and slid inside as the old man said, “I won’t get in the way. I promise. And I might help.”
I was shaking my head. Why had Amanda told him my travel plans?
Now he was in the car beside me, hat on his lap because the car was so small. “I hate to admit this, Duke, but I been kinda lowly lately. This ain’t been the best month for me.”
Trying to keep peace, hoping he would calm down, I said, “Amanda told me about Roscoe. I’m sorry. You two had been together a long time.” Tuck and his big appaloosa gelding.
The expression on Tucker’s face demonstrated surprise, then indifference. “Huh? I ain’t talking about my damn horse dying. That worthless bastard? Roscoe, I ain’t… hell, he’d been so damn contrary lately I was half tempted to put a bullet in him myself. Good riddance, that’s what I say. No, what I was talkin’ about, Duke, is my health.”
The man was maddening. I refused to ask.
Didn’t have to.
As the cab sped us west along a rolling seacoast, I listened to him say, “The last four or five weeks, something’s gone wrong with this old body of mine. Hard to believe for as good as I look. I won’t argue that But the problem is… well, shit, I’ll just come out and say it. For more than a month, I’ve had me a permanent case of Whiskey Dick. It’s about to worry me sick. Understand that what I’m saying is just between you, me and the fence post. If Joe ever got wind of it, he wouldn’t let me forget-”
Tucker stopped abruptly. He’d apparently forgotten that his old roundup and poaching partner was dead.
He began again. “What I mean is, if anybody as black-hearted as Joe found out, I’d never hear the end of it. It wouldn’t do me no good with the tourist ladies around Marco and Naples, neither. So I’m hopin’ this little trip to the tropics works me some good. The senoritas, they’ve always liked me just fine, Duke. Just fine.”
I was rubbing my forehead with my fingers. I said, “I’m not going to tell you again, Tucker: Don’t call me Duke.”
Club Nautico was located on Cartagena Bay just a few hundred yards from the Spanish stone garrison that was now an upscale restaurant called Club Pesca… one of the nicer sections of Cartagena.
I recognized the fort from previous trips as well as the postcard that Amanda had received from her mother. One being so close to the other, I interpreted as a good sign. Maybe someone would know something about a fat American on a sailboat.
The little marina took its security seriously. A bright pink stone wall screened and protected it from the street. At the wrought-iron gate, a man in a blue guayabera shirt stood guard. He did a quick assessment as I paid off the taxi, then nodded a greeting as he swung the gate open. Gringos with money are welcome almost anywhere, anytime.
Club Nautico could have served as the prototype for every expatriate waterfront bar from Hong Kong to Bombay: palm-thatched roof strung with fishnet and seashells, ceiling fans, bamboo framing and supports, red tile floor, L-shaped mahogany bar near a pool table and laundry room, an elevated dining area with white tablecloths, everything outdoors and open to the water except for the wall that sealed off the street.
This was the tropics, right? All you need is shelter from the sun, protection from thunderstorms, plus some ice, rum and a place to sit.
The rafters above the bar were draped with international flags. An atlas of sailors who had made landfall here from far-flung places-Britain, Japan, Cuba, Vietnam, New Zealand, plus a huge green burgee that read “Nostromos.” Tacked to the raw wood pole supports were yacht club pennants from around the world. The rest I knew without having to look: There would be showers and good food and the bulletin board would be layered with uncollected airmail and For Sale notices posted by wanderers trying to scrape together enough money to get home and handwritten notes offering deckhand service for passage to the next port of call by those stranded and desperate for transportation.
Club Nautico was neat, well maintained and protected. Whoever had set up the place knew what he was doing. It was like most small marinas run by expats: it was an adjunct to the country that housed it; a tiny and precise international crossroads that had many of the characteristics and advantages of a foreign embassy, but none of the stuffy drawbacks.
As Tuck and I straddled stools at the bar, I could look through the fronds of palm trees growing up through the decking and see a couple of dozen ocean-going sailboats moored stem-first to the marina’s high wooden docks. They were probably owned by voyagers who’d settled in Cartagena for an extended stay. Beyond the docks in a broad mooring area were a dozen or so more sailboats anchored randomly. Their hull colors-mostly fiberglass white but a few painted red or blue-looked brighter for the marl-blue water. The marina seemed to have a pretty good business going.
Across the bay was a Colombian Navy Amphibian base where I had once billeted for three interesting weeks. I could picture the way it would be beyond the sentry gates: massive grounds, trimmed golf-course, neat barracks and buildings and Quonset hut
s freshly whitewashed, a military park with ships tied along the cement quay.
“You like a drink, senor? Cold beer perhaps? Perhaps menus?” The bartender was a tall man, very black, with a heavy Spanish accent. A putty-colored scar, razor-thin, ran from his ear to his neck. First look at the man’s face, I thought: Maybe knife fight. Second look: Undoubtedly a knife fight.
Improbable adventure movies aside, it is hard to imagine two men drunk enough or crazed enough to fight with knives.
I told the bartender in Spanish that we would, indeed, like menus plus a couple of bottles of Polar or Aquila. We would try both. Plus glasses with ice, for that is the way beer is sometimes drunk in the tropics. And, by the way, was the owner around? The Australian man. What was his name?
“Garret,” the bartender said, choosing to continue in broken English. “Are you a friend of his?”
“I think we have mutual Mends, but I’m not certain.”
“He go to the Magali Paris for the kitchen.”
After we’d ordered, Tucker tapped the bar and made a noise of frustration. “I’ll be damn, that’s too bad. The man you wanted to see, he’s off in damn France.”
I said, “France?”
“Didn’t you hear the bartender? Gone to Paris. Even back in World War Two, I hated those bastards. The French, I’m talkin’ about. Stinkin’ wine-drinking sons-a-bitches. Down there in the South Pacific when we was fightin’ the Japs so they could have their damn country back. Run around pissin’ in the streets, what’a they care?”
The Magali Paris is a supermarket chain popular throughout South America. I shook my head slowly; said nothing.
We were drinking our beers from the tall glasses filled with ice. Tuck gulped his half down, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “You know what we got in common, Duke? The both of us, we’re nothin’ but tramp steamers on two legs. Tropical junkies. In my heart, I feel like I’m about half-beaner. I really do. Can’t count the times I’ve come this close to growing me one of them skinny Ricky Ricardo mustaches. Know what I mean?”
Get some drinks in him, Tucker loved to talk. When he asked a question, though, it wasn’t because he wanted an answer. He asked questions because they required pauses that added pace and timing to the stories he told. I said, “Yeah, that would fit your whole act. Perfect, pencil-thin mustache.”
“Exactly the way I see it! ‘Cause that’s the way I feel in my heart, understand? It’s like this craving I get. It’s like a craving for the sea, but, at the same time, it’s for the jungle.” Gave a little shrug: Can’t explain it. “I want them both close enough to step outside and know they’re there when I take a breath. You’re the same, that’s my guess. I bet we ever set down and talked, really talked, we’d have a shit pot full of stuff in common, you and me.”
I was drinking a Polar. Ten-ouncer in a lime green bottle. Good beer. “Yep, I’m just a chip off the old block.”
“Now… there’s somethin’ I never told you about my life, ‘cause I didn’t want you to think bad of me. Thing is… as you know, I spent a lot of my time down here in these little banana republics. Me and Joe Egret, we went about everywhere a man can go without needin’ an airboat or a ladder. Know what we was doin’? Pot haulin’. Yep, run a seventy-, eighty-foot crab boat over here, have the colored boys fill’er up with bales of pot, haul ‘er back.”
When I didn’t react to that, Tuck added, “It’s illegal, you know. Pot-haulin’.”
I said, “Uh-huh, I think I read somewhere that bringing tons of marijuana into the United States is something that, yeah, they can arrest you for.”
“But we never got caught. Nope. Trouble was figuring out what to do with all that money we made. Joe and me? What we was scared of was the IRS net-worthing us. A man can’t outrun the multiplication table no matter what kinda horse he’s riding. A calculator can stick your ass in Raiford just as fast as a. 38. At one time we had close to three million in cash between us.”
Didn’t want to react, but I couldn’t help myself. Three million cash? Or… maybe it was just another one of his lies.
Tuck said, “Hell, countin’ all that money, we’d get pissed off if we came to a bill smaller than a twenty. I once used a stack of tens to wipe my business after takin’ a good ’un. Just too much damn trouble to bother with, know what I mean?” Tucker glanced at me for a moment, returned his attention to his beer. “Now… a great big chunk of that money I got hidden away. Not in the U.S., that’s all I’m gonna say. When the time’s right and the coast is clear, I’ll go get her. Maybe ask you to go along, ride shotgun. But know what Joe and me did with the rest of it?”
“Nope. Don’t have a clue.”
“Invested it like smart businessmen. Sure did. We opened us a string of seven tanning parlors. This was back before tanning parlors got to be real popular. Like we was pioneering that particular business.”
“Where?”
“Panama City.”
“Panama City, Florida?”
“Nope. Panama the country. All right downtown, too. Good locations. Couldn’t risk bringin’ the money into the states.”
I wondered if I should even bother. Yeah, I had to. Couldn’t pass it up. I cleared my throat. “You know, Tucker, Panama’s only, what? a couple of hundred miles off the equator? And Panamanians, a lot of them are pretty dark to begin with. I wouldn’t think tanning parlors would be such a good investment.”
Tucker was nodding, way ahead of me. “Gawldamn it, when you’re right, you’re right! I wish I’da talked to you first, ‘cause every one of them bastards went bust. Joe and me, we lost us close to a million dollars cash. But you know me, I always try to look on the bright side. You want to talk about a good tan? I had me the best tan you ever seen in your life. No shirt marks or nothin’.”
Tucker was wagging his fingers at the tall bartender. “Hey there, amigo! We’ll sail again here.” He clumped his glass down on the bar. “Bring me a shot’a that white rum on the side, too.”
Tucker said, “Since the owner’s not here, what you bet I can get that bartender to talk?”
He had finished the rum, was still working on his second beer.
I said, “Talk? Talk about what?”
“About that guy Amanda hates. Merlot. If Merlot was here with his sailboat, I guarantee you I can get the bartender to tell me. You got those pictures?”
“Yeah, I have the pictures. But I’ll do the talking. You just sit there and drink your beer.”
“I don’t think the man’ll talk to you. That scar, a man with a scar like that, you got to figure he knows the price of admission. He’s not gonna go runnin’ off at the mouth just ‘cause you ask.”
I said, “But he’ll talk to you?”
“That’s what I’m bettin’.”
“I guess we’ll just find out, won’t we?”
I placed the photograph of Merlot and Gail on the bar. Looking at the glossy print-the way the man’s fat thumb strained to touch her breast-irritated me, so I took pains not to allow my eyes to linger. The bartender, however, stared at the picture intently. As he did, I watched his eyes. They focused, then they appeared to refocus from the general to the particular. His expression struggled to remain relaxed, unreadable.
Yeah, he knew who he was looking at… I was convinced that the bartender had seen Gail and Merlot before.
He said, “This woman, she is beautiful, very beautiful, no?” Still speaking English… probably because he didn’t want the rest of the staff to know what we said.
“Beautiful, yeah, I guess so. I’ve never seen her in person before.”
“That is verdad? Then why do you carry her photograph?”
You have to play these things by instinct. The bartender, whose name was Fernando, was smart, savvy and necessarily tricky. Serving drinks to foreigners in a wide-open town like Cartagena required the rare combination of diplomacy and cold-blooded indifference. In any circumstance, the most convincing approach is the one that sticks closest to the truth, parti
cularly with someone used to listening to drunken lies. So that’s the approach I tried. The truth. “I’m carrying her picture because I’m looking for her.” When Fernando glanced at Tuck-now done with his second beer-I added, “ We’re looking for her. My uncle and I. We flew down this morning from Miami to find this woman, because hear ex-husband just died and we have to tell her.”
Tucker’s head swiveled toward me. “You’re shittin’ me! Her husband, that asshole Frank what’s-his-name, he really is dead?”
I felt like knocking the old bastard right off his stool.
I was chuckling. Letting the bartender know it was a big joke. “My uncle knows the man’s dead. My uncle’s a drunk. A troublemaker. He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time.”
Fernando had been following along, accepting my story until Tuck interrupted, but now his thin smile told me he didn’t believe a word I was saying. “I wish I could help you,” he said with a shrug. “But I’m afraid I don’t know these people.”
I had a $20 bill folded in my hand-a week’s salary to restaurant help. I slid the bill under the photograph so that just the comer was showing. “It’s very important. What I told you’s the truth. The woman’s ex-husband is dead. There will be legal complications. We need to find her and take her home.”
Fernando, I could tell, wasn’t going to budge. “At the Club Nautico, senor, a man’s business is his own. We do our jobs. We give the good service, the good food, and that is all. If you have other questions, you maybe ask Mr. Garret. But I warn you as a humble person” — he eyed the $20-“I would not use your money in such a way with Mr. Garret. He is the owner of this place and not a man to insult.”
Fernando wheeled away, reappearing a few moments later with our food: platters of fried snapper and black beans with wedges of lime.
“Damn almighty, Fernando! That smells even better than the grub I had on the plane and, by God, that’s sayin’ something!” As an aside to me, Tuck added softly, “That son-of-a-bitch really is dead?”
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