“Mr. Ford. Do you not find them very beautiful?”
I had signed a one-page form, printed in English and Spanish, acknowledging that Jamael Hasakah had introduced me to the glories of Club Gamboa, thereby confirming his legal right to a finder’s fee as well as elevating me to the status of a man who deserves a respectful prefix.
Tucker had dozed off on the couch. Had his cowboy hat tilted down over his eyes, boots up on the coffee table. He’d had six or seven small beers plus the dope. He was out.
I said, “Yes, the women are gorgeous.”
“But a trifle old, perhaps?” The Turk’s words were saying one thing, but his tone was saying something else. Maybe asking me a delicate question. What?
So I played along. “Sure, maybe a bit too old.” I glanced at the screen. The two girls soaping each other beneath a waterfall couldn’t have been more than, what? fifteen, sixteen? They were cold, had goosebumps, but were toughing it out for the camera. A third woman, performing oral sex on an Asian man, looked to be about the same age.
“The girls you see here, they all work as housemaids at Gamboa. You will meet them. Very nice. I selected them myself. From Bogota!”
The Turk’s professional pride showing.
“But if you’re feeling adventurous, let’s go to Mr. Merlot’s personal room. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure. I want to see it all.”
“Then you shall!”
Click.
I looked at the screen, then looked away quickly, as the Turk said, “Mr. Merlot’s tastes are not as unusual as many people think. Perhaps you agree? Mr. Merlot enjoys and appreciates children. It was a preference that he says he learned in China when he himself was a child.
“Here… in this photograph, you are introduced to a man you will come to know if you become a member. His name is Akibar, but everyone calls him Acky. Not only is Acky” — I noted the meaningful chuckle-“quite a man, as you can see, but he is the reason why Gamboa is guaranteed to be a peaceful place. Acky looks quite terrifying, but that is not a bad thing. There will be no obnoxious drunks or uninvited guests, you may be certain of that. Who needs policemen with Acky around!”
I looked just long enough to commit to memory the face of a man who appeared to be Afro-Asian; half Vietnamese, perhaps, or half Chinese. His face reminded me of the face of an ant but in human form. Big cheekbones like mandibles, skin tight over the bones, black piercing eyes. Big man, probably well over six feet tall, though his height was difficult to gauge.
He was standing before a teenage boy…
But a very powerful man; with the body of a steroid-user, a weightlifter. I remember Amanda telling me about the showdown with Merlot. How Merlot’s roommate was there, pissed off at her and Frank, ready to fight.
So say hello to Akibar, the giant ant. That’s the way I thought of him. Merlot’s enforcer and roommate… and who knew what else…
I had to ask: “Merlot and his friends-they don’t find it embarrassing being part of a show like this?”
“Not at all. Mr. Merlot feels it’s important to set an example. In any healthy culture, my own country, for instance, what you are seeing is perfectly acceptable behavior as long as it is done… quietly. I myself occasionally enjoy a child who is utterly pure and without experience. Men loving children. Where is the harm in that? If the adult is kind and thoughtful and not abusive? Something else is, Gamboa Country Club will be a clothing-optional village. The pool, the beach they’re building on the canal, the spa.”
The smell of the salon, plus the heat, was getting to me. How much longer could I stand to be in the same room with this man? I said, “What do you mean, ‘Gamboa will be clothing-optional’? The place isn’t open yet?”
“On a very active but limited-only slightly limited- basis. There are still a few Zonians who live in that part of the village-a section called The Ridge. Still a few occupied houses. They run the tugboats until the transfer’s complete, but they won’t interfere, don’t worry. And they’ll be gone soon. All of them, all gone. And we’ll have the pleasures of Gamboa all to ourselves.”
The Turk wasn’t done with it. “But the point is, why shouldn’t the club’s founder appear nude on his own Web page? Besides-” Laughter… sniff! “I think Mr. Merlot enjoys being what some might consider a porno star. He doesn’t exactly fit the mold, does he? Such a big man but not what many would consider to be attractive. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed-and I would never mention it to him-but he is always
… well… he’s never aroused in all these many photographs. Quite the opposite! So… let’s just accept this as part of his sexual fantasy. Nothing wrong with that. Not a thing! It’s what Gamboa is all about. Truly, it’s a dream come true for a certain type of man. The type of man who often has to travel the world to find what he needs. I think Mr. Merlot and his closest friends fit that description. Perhaps you do, too, Mr. Ford!” Laughter… sniff! “Let’s look at his personal collection, and I will show you what I mean-”
My head swiveled automatically; the screen came into quick focus.
Just as quickly, I turned away… but too late.
It is unfortunate that I was unprepared… no… make that too damn dull to realize in advance what the subject matter would be. Had I stopped to think even for a moment, the general content would have been obvious… which is why I would have been spared the specific vision of something I did not want to see.
But I have a maddening gift for being inept or just plain dumb at precisely the worst possible time.
True to form, I charged ahead without consideration. I looked at the screen. Of course I looked! And what I saw will forever haunt me…
For a photograph that was nearly twenty years old, the resolution was excellent. It contained an Easter egg-bright fluorescence that was painfully, painfully familiar. It possessed the bright colors common to Polaroids of that period… the kind of Polaroid that a devoted wife and young mother might have had laminated to send to the man who was the love of her life… if the love of her life happened to be stationed somewhere in the monsoon jungles of the Back of Beyond.
But a loving wife and mother would have never taken or sent this picture.
No…
Probably couldn’t have even imagined such a nightmarish vision.
Nor could I.
But I didn’t need to imagine it because there it was in front of me.
“Mr. Ford. Mr. Ford? Are you all right?”
The cigarette-butt stench of marijuana, plus the heat and the diesel fumes, now seemed nearly overpowering. I had to take shallow, careful breaths to keep from vomiting.
To the Turk, I said, “I’m fine. Feel great, but I could use a beer. So… I’m going to head back to the bar. You can shut down the computer-I don’t need to see any more.”
“You like? What you’ve seen pleases you?”
I could feel sweat pressing through the pores of my forehead. Could feel the blood vessels throbbing beneath my skin, as beads of sweat traced their way down my cheek.
“This picture…? It’s great.” I had to ask: “Who do you think Merlot got to… to take a picture like this? Of him and the little girl?”
The Turk considered the screen with professional objectivity. “Such cameras, even the older ones, I think, have those little timer buttons for self portraits. Press the trigger, then hurry to get into the shot. He probably took it himself. That is normally the way with such pictures.” He was still considering the photo. “An unusual-looking child, is she not? The eyes are very interesting.”
I was forcing myself to read and reread the piece of paper I’d signed; concentrating on it. “Oh yes, lovely. This Gamboa project, the entire presentation… I’m very impressed by what Gamboa has to offer. If the housing’s nice, I’ll buy. You’ve made yourself a commission. Might as well call the head guy-Merlot’s his name? — might as well call him and let him know I’ll need a tour. A personal tour, if he doesn’t mind. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
/>
“Tomorrow?”
“He can count on it.”
“No… I’m afraid I can’t arrange to fly you to Gamboa for at least two days. Maybe three. Our company plane is busy-”
“I don’t remember asking for your help. I’ll find my own transportation.”
I paused. Had I spoken too sharply? Tomlinson once told me that the truly insane fear only that their madness is transparent to the world. That’s how I felt at that moment. Transparent, out of control. How could the Turk have missed the fury that was cauldroning in me?
I added amiably, “I mean, it’s no big deal, I’m happy to book my own flight. I’ve got nothing better to do” — made myself smile-“and I can’t wait to get to Panama.”
“Your friend will visit Gamboa with you… I say ‘friend,’ but perhaps he is a relative.”
“The old man? He’s a pain in the ass is exactly what he is. You don’t mind, I think I’ll leave him here, let him sleep it off.” I was still fighting the nausea. “I don’t know if you heard me or not, but you can shut down your computer. I’ve seen enough.”
Finally, he did. But the nightmare image lingered: the grotesque lard-white nudity of a much younger Jackie Merlot, his sausage hands violating the innocence of a pretty, copper-haired child… the surprise of what was happening and the pain of it showing on the child’s face and in the depths of her wise and lovely eyes; eyes that I liked, had always liked; one of them slightly off center, a wandering brown eye.
The shock of seeing her with the fat man was like a whiff of ether
… and with that came the realization of another stupidity: Tomlinson had immediately realized what I refused to consider. Amanda’s childhood photos hadn’t been misplaced, they’d been stolen. By Merlot, on the chance that those boxes contained innocent photos of the two of them together, the cross-eyed child and the deliberate stranger. All photographs almost certainly taken with the same camera.
I wondered what kind of ruse Merlot had used to send the young mother off on an errand while he “baby-sat” her child. Or maybe he had sufficiently charmed Gail so that, for a time, he was little Amanda’s regular baby-sitter. A nauseating thought. So get the child alone, use the mother’s instant-print camera, hide the prints. What fun!
Merlot had been lucky enough to discover that Amanda’s memory of him had scarred shut. The proof was when she’d surprised Merlot at her mom’s house. Amanda genuinely believed that she’d never seen the fat man before. Even so, he couldn’t risk further association between himself and the daughter… or allow a chance encounter with an old photograph to key the memory electrodes…
17
The man behind the bar said, “Hello there, mate, you must be the Yank that Fernando was tellin’ me about.” I’d taken the bar stool in the far comer, the one nearest the door. Wasn’t feeling very talkative. I listened to him say, “You got a face like Iowa, so it’s not much of a guess… and from that expression, I’d say you either just screwed the pooch or the Turk’s been showing you some of his video toys.”
It was a little before 7:00 P.M. and a jungle breeze came off the water carrying aromatic little pockets of open sea, of jasmine and frangipani blossom… and of the city, too. The Old Walled City was just across the bridge. Narrow alleys of cobblestone, little markets that hadn’t missed a morning in three hundred years.
Even this far away, there was a hint of mangos plus crushed pineapple in the wind… and the odor of water on worn stone.
After my time aboard Moon of Kiz Kulesi, the breeze smelled pure, wonderfully uncontaminated. Can there be virtue in the fragrance of moving air?
“You’re name’s Ford, right, mate? Turns out we’ve got several mutual friends. Here-have a beer on me.”
That was a surprise. Apparently, some of my former associates had been on the telephone.
He’d wrapped the ten ounce bottle of Aquila in a brown napkin to keep it cool. I took it, drank it half down, paused to look at the condensation dripping down the bottleneck, then finished it.
“Must be thirsty.”
“Yeah.”
“Another?”
“Make this one a Polar.”
He used a church key to pop the top. No twist offs down here.
“After an hour or so with the Turk, it’s too bad a man can’t drink soap. Or get his soul pressure-washed. There’s just no quick way to get clean.”
“No. No, there’s not.”
“He try to sell you a membership to their freaky-deeky club?”
“That’s not the way he put it, but, yeah. Sounds pretty nice. I’m going to buy. Sounds like a great place.”
“Bullshit. You don’t need to lie to me. Like I said, we’ve got mutual friends. If the beer’s free, the least you can do is tell me the truth.” The man winked. “Hell, I’d tell the bloody truth all night long for free beer!”
I looked at him a moment and thought, yes, more than likely… he had that look… he’d been some places, seen some things, so we probably did have a lot in common. Maybe it was the same thing when Tucker and Fernando saw each other, members of the same secret club.
The man wore fishing shorts and a white T-shirt. The breast pocket of the shirt read: Walker Wilderness Tours- Northern Territory-Australia.
His hair was cropped short; looked to be in his late thirties maybe early forties. He had a flat, Irish face, a brown push-broom mustache and a nose that had done some traveling. Currently, it was pushed over to the right, just beneath his eye.
When he put the beer in front of me, I said, “Thanks.”
“Not a problem. Get five or six of those down you, I’ll start charging you triple, you won’t even notice.”
“You’re Garret, the guy who owns the place. I’ve heard about you, too.”
He had a good, strong laugh. Actually, it was more like a roar. “Hah! From the bloody Turk, I bet! What’d that nasty little sand nigger say about me? It was a lie, whatever it was. The man wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the arse!” In Colombia it is always the cocktail hour. It was now also the dinner hour, so I was not alone in this open room with its ceiling fans and decorative flags hanging from the palm thatching.
Garret didn’t care. He didn’t care who heard.
“The Turk? Fuckin’ Turk, I don’t know if he wants me to put him in jail or adopt him!”
“He says you let him stay here because you want his vessel.”
“Hah! That’s a bloody good’un! The only thing worth a shit on that piece of garbage is the two or three hundred kilos of hashish he thinks the federales don’t know about. Which is why I won’t touch his boat, because I refuse to deal with the poisonous shit. Not everyone in Colombia runs drugs, you know. But I’ll auction his tub off fast enough when the courts put his ass in jail!” Garret slapped the bar: Hah hah hah!
Down the bar was Raymond, a sixty-some-year-old Irishman I’d met earlier. He was a merchant seaman who’d missed his ship and was now stranded in Cartagena. Used his accent and his stories to charm drinks. Always had a cigarette and glass in his hand, a rummy. There were three or four tables of men and women eating dinner. A table of Brits and a table of Italians, judging from conversations. Nearby was also a German couple, men. They wore T-shirts over their jock-sized bathing suits. Homosexuals sailing the coast, nice people not bothering anybody. Also at the bar were a couple of American men, one middle-aged, the other in his twenties. Regular-looking, but they had some money. They belonged to an absolutely stunning forty-two-foot Hinkley moored just down from the Turk’s ghost freighter. I’d met them earlier, too. Jim and Chris aboard the Windelblo. From New England, the kind of men you trust right away, the two of them in a customized million-dollar work of art but like it was no big deal.
Garret said, “So I’ll ask you again: tell me you didn’t buy into their freaky sex club.”
I leaned forward. “I need to get to Panama. Right away. Tonight, if I can.”
“Tonight? It’ll be dark. Nothing’ll be open, and you won’t
be able to see a damn thing.”
“That’s why I want to get there when it’s still dark.”
The man nodded. “You’re goin’ after the woman. The woman the fat man kept down here on his boat.”
I leaned back and thought about it for a moment. Then I used my index finger to signal him closer. Into his ear I said a single word that implied the accomplishments of two men. Then I asked Garret to fill in the blanks, supply the missing names.
The men I described were two good Australians I’d worked with, both SAS, one from Perth, the other Darwin. If Garret could be trusted, he’d know exactly who I was speaking of.
He knew the names.
Good. It was a good connection to have. I relaxed a little. “That’s right, I’m going after the lady. Damn right I’m going after the lady. How’d you know?”
“Simple. A woman like her throws a big wake. Class and style, it’s worth… well, with a woman like that, let’s just say men don’t give love, they invest it. And there she is running around loose?” Garret’s expression said he knew the ideal comparison. “You see that Hinkley sailboat out there? Finding the lady in this bar was like finding that Hinkley abandoned on the high seas. It just ain’t gonna happen. The only mystery was how she got mixed up with the fat man. After I ran him outta here, I told my wife, ‘Somebody’s gonna show up looking for that woman. And they’d better hurry, before she’s dead.’”
I didn’t like the sound of that, nor the way he said it: Very matter-of-fact, not joking around. “You think he plans to kill her?”
“Naw. Someone doesn’t get her soon, though, she’ll probably do the job herself. Suicide, I mean. You can see it in her eyes. She’s got these sad, sick eyes, but very bright. Beautiful eyes. You’ve met the lady. Or were you hired?”
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