The pendulum had swung. I was no longer delivering pizzas, but I was back doing something I was good at. “When would I start?”
He pointed below us at a sleek black Intrepid that looked to be about forty-five feet long and powered by four outboard engines. Each engine had 350 horsepower. That meant the boat had 1,400. “I need that in the Abacos by tomorrow evening.”
I slid the cell phone into my pocket and shook his hand. “I’ve been wanting to see the Abacos.”
It was the beginning of a beautiful and profitable relationship. Colin made me an employee of Specter Import Nationale. He said the acronym didn’t occur to him until after he’d filed the corporation papers, but he never changed it. From a certain perspective, it fit.
Before we left the crow’s nest, he whispered, “One thing you need to know from the beginning. This business has a definite life span. There is a ticking clock for every guy like me—and now like you—who steps into this. The trick is pushing the envelope just far enough—enjoying the life and making all the money we can—and then getting out before the clock strikes twelve.” He stared out across the canals and the neighborhood filled with $10 million and $20 million homes. “There will come a day, and it will come in a flash, when this will end. When this ride is over. When the only business that remains is legitimate. When the pool deck is empty. And when that day comes, you have to be willing to walk away. Period. We are simply riding a wave.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I slept in a hammock hanging on the balcony of the master bedroom. The breeze was cool and the sound of the ocean reminded me of my hurricane shack on Bimini. I thought of Hack; his laughter; his love of boats, bonefish, cigarettes, and women—all women. From there I wandered to Shelly and the pain etched across her face when she’d met me on the beach. It was the same look of pain worn by Amanda the last time I’d seen her standing in the snow outside her parents’ house. What was it with me and women standing in some form of water, experiencing pain of my doing? I left and wondered what sick scheme Marshall was up to and just how miserable Brendan had become now that he was waiting for the old man to die so he could get his money. I ended, as I did most nights, staring into the emptiness that had become my life. At the series of disconnected events that marked moments of direction in my life. I often tried to connect these dots. To see one event through the meaning of another. I could not. They shared no relation. They did not connect.
I woke at daylight desperately craving a good cup of coffee. Rummaging through the kitchen, I found some frozen beans in the fridge and managed a cup. Staring across the mug, I decided to leave the Bertram at anchor and set out across land. I needed to get to León, then Corinto, and while she could certainly get me up to Corinto, she’d be no good to me once there. Colin’s home had a well-protected and safe berth. I just needed transportation.
Standing in the kitchen, I pulled down a framed picture of Zaul where, undoubtedly, Marguerite could look at it while washing dishes. I removed the picture and put it in my wallet.
The garage was empty, but there was a single room next to it that looked like it might house the lawn equipment. I tried the handle, but several locks barred the door. Evidently, the partygoers had not bothered to open these. I found Colin’s keys, unlocked the doors, and smiled at Colin’s good taste. “Bingo.”
Colin’s house bordered a Costa Rican national park. Mostly dunes, it contained miles of sandy roads and was an ATVers paradise. Obviously, Colin and his family had bought the truck to chase waves and the ATVs to ride the dunes. This room was where he kept all these toys. Complete with three four-wheelers and two motorcycles, one of which was a KTM 600 with a few modifications. Essentially, an Enduro dirt bike bred for long stretches on the desert or back roads on which someone had slapped a tag and two turn signals thereby making it street legal.
Perfect.
I grabbed what I needed from the boat, stuffed it in a backpack, and hid a key for Colin’s workmen who would arrive throughout the next week and begin repairing the house. Then I hopped on the back of the motorcycle, pulled down my Costas, and turned north.
Six hours later, I was circling the cathedral in León, searching for both a hotel and a really good cup of coffee.
I stepped off the bike, blanketed by humidity and a sweltering mirage of heat. Hotel Cardinal promised air-conditioning, hot water, and Wi-Fi. I paid cash for my room, and the tall skinny guy at the counter led me through a lounge, down a long hall, around what looked like a communal kitchen, out into an open area filled with enormous trees, and finally to one of two rooms in the rear of the property. It was large and did in fact contain AC. I dropped my bag, set the air control on “snow,” and set out on foot in search of a café.
León has sixteen churches, but the largest single structure in León, and most of Central America for that matter, is the cathedral. Rumor holds that when the Spanish landed here almost five hundred years prior, they thought they were in North America. Wanting to stake their claim to the land and establish the new national religion, they set out to build the largest cathedral in the Americas. To their credit, they succeeded. Problem was they did it in the wrong Americas.
I walked the sidewalk next to the cathedral and spotted a café kitty-corner to the entrance. The café offered umbrella shade and oscillating fans, which served to move the heat from one table to the next. I chose a table with a good view of the front of the flowing fountains.
Once seated, I began to detect a smell that did not agree with me. I first blamed the sweaty guy next to me, but then the fan oscillated in my direction and pushed it back at me. I checked my shoes. Nothing. I checked the table. Under the table. Still nothing. Finally, my nose convinced me that I was what I was smelling. I was ripe. And I was in desperate need of a shower and some deodorant.
The kid waiter stood in front of me and tapped a pencil to a pad of paper. While I didn’t speak Spanish, I knew enough to say, “Café.”
He smiled and said, “Con leche?”
I knew what that meant and had heard it before, but the words weren’t taking shape in my mind. I shrugged and shook my head. He began making hand motions like he was milking a cow. “Vaca. Leche.”
I smiled. “Milk would be great.”
He returned in a few minutes with a very hot and very good cup of coffee.
I didn’t know where to start, but I had a feeling that if I waited until dark, I could find the party by the sound. My experience with folks in Central America was that they loved music. But more than that, they loved it loud. I finished my coffee, ordered a second cup, and watched the city unfold around me.
The fountains fed out from the front steps of the church and serpentined through an open park for the better part of a city block. In terms of volume of water, they certainly contained more than an Olympic-size pool.
Sipping my coffee, I noticed that several cars had pulled up to my left and parked with an advantageous view of the park. The drivers had exited and were now sitting on top of the hoods of their cars. Next to them, several police cars did likewise. The officers were now standing, tapping their hands with their billy clubs and making light laughter as they waited for something to occur in the park.
The police didn’t look like cops in the States. Their clothes were disheveled, unkempt, shirts untucked, no pistols on their belts. A few rested shotguns on their shoulders, but they didn’t look all that ready to use them. One of them had a radio, but it looked as if the three of them were sharing it or the other two didn’t care enough to carry it. Their vehicles looked much like they did. Dirty. Hadn’t been washed in a while. Little tread on the tires. Numbers and emblems faded. The manner in which they held a conversation with the guys in the cars next to them gave me the impression they had not so much accepted their task to “enforce or keep the peace,” but rather to “observe the festivities until they got out of hand, at which time they could either join in or quietly disperse.” Their friendly, just-one-of-the-guys banter gave me the impression that they w
ere friendly with whom they wanted to be friendly.
While I observed them, one of the guys started snapping his fingers and pointing in an attempt to get the attention of all the rest, which he promptly got. Before me, something of a loose crowd, maybe fifty or sixty people, had gathered at the park. All eyes were trained on the far end of the fountain where a young lady, probably early twenties, was standing on the edge of the fountain wearing a trench coat.
She had dark hair to her shoulders, no shoes, and her hands were perched on the belt of her coat. She twirled once, then a second time, and began what can only be described as a ballet on the edge of the fountain. This continued for a moment or two while the jeering and catcalls increased. Judging from her appearance, something was a little “off” in her expression. She neither heard them nor cared. She wasn’t performing for them.
With little notice, she unbuckled her coat, slipped it off her shoulders, and continued her dance.
Completely naked.
The boys around me watched in marked fascination, but there was nothing seductive about it. The more I watched her movements, the more it became obvious that she was not mentally functioning on the same level as everyone else. Dancing for an audience of one, her ballet continued. Her spins were not fluid, turns not complete, not beautiful, nor was she or her figure. She would have never graced the cover of a women’s fashion magazine. None of which mattered to her.
She continued spinning and turning like a top out of balance. While I say she wasn’t beautiful, she was very much a woman and—despite her deficiencies at dance—that was what the crowd had come to see. Spinning her way toward the middle of the park and the fountain, she dove into the water and frolicked about like a dolphin, baring every side and end of herself. People stared through binoculars, long camera lenses, and inched closer for a better look.
While this was occupying center stage of the park, some seventy-five yards away, several hundred husbands, wives, and children were climbing the steps into the cathedral for Friday evening Mass where the organ was ushering the call to worship.
With the organ music filling the air, offering auditory bookends to the verbal calls for more jumps and movements where she threw one leg high into the air, the ballerina climbed back up onto the ledge of the fountain and pirouetted her way closer to the steps. The closer she danced to the doors, the more obvious it became that she was listening to music that none of the rest of us heard and dancing to a beat we couldn’t follow.
A short distance from the entrance to the fountain, she dove back into the water, spun on the surface, and then performed handstand after handstand, which worked the crowd in a foaming frenzy. As more and more churchgoers walked up the steps, I began to notice that the entirety of her dance was serving to move her closer to the front of the cathedral and something about her timing was, either purposefully or not, structured to land her on the front steps about the time the Mass started.
Which begged the question, What were the priests going to do when that naked woman walked into their church?
I didn’t have the answer but I was going to find out. My waiter returned with my check and didn’t seem too interested in the dance, suggesting that he’d either seen it before or he’d been sufficiently warned by his mother not to let his eyes wander. Either way, unlike half the police force of León, he went about his business, busing tables. I paid my tab and stood as the ballerina danced herself out of the fountain and onto the first step. She then performed a rather awkward approach toward the door. Had anyone in their right mind attempted her movements, it would have been described as “erotic,” but when added to the disconnected look on her face and her disjointed movements, my overriding emotion was not excitement or titillation, but sadness.
She danced herself up the stairs to the front door. We heard singing and prompted recitation echoing from the inside. She continued to dance between the doors, kicking her legs here, throwing her arms there. Then, just as quickly as she’d appeared, she disappeared through the front door of the cathedral. Disappointed that the show had come to a close, the crowd began to disperse. I crossed the street, went up the steps, and through the giant wooden doors some twenty-plus feet tall. Inside, I found that most of the congregation had already filed down the center aisle for Communion. Many knelt or prayed, both at the altar or back at their pews. The priest stood center stage, bread and wine in his hands. Offering to all takers.
Including the ballerina.
I arrived in time to witness her finish her dance down the center aisle directly in front of the priest who, to his credit, was staring into her eyes. I leaned against a column wanting to see how this would play out. Just how would “the church” deal with someone like her?
Standing at an angle to the priest, she genuflected and stuck out her tongue. He dipped the bread in the wine and placed it on her tongue, prompting a second genuflection. About this time, two more priests appeared from the left with a long red robe, which they quietly wrapped around her shoulders as she moved to the altar. While she knelt, eyes closed, lips moving, they stood silently by her side, offering prayers of their own.
Standing there scratching my head, a priest tapped me on the shoulder and ushered me forward in his best broken English. “You?” He motioned toward the railing. “Go.”
I shook my head. “No.”
He smiled. “You welcome. We welcome you.”
Another shake. “You don’t have enough bread.”
“You hungry?” He smiled, but his eyes told me that the question he asked wasn’t the question he was asking.
I shook my head.
He pointed toward the altar and nodded excitedly. “Redención.”
I stepped aside; he smiled, nodded, and walked around me toward some other folks standing in the rear of the church.
Dark had fallen outside as I returned to the hotel. I stood in the shower, smelling of clean soap and thinking back to that bread. The woman in the church was naked. That’s all. I was dirty. The water turned cold as I listened to the echo of the priest’s voice.
I had my doubts.
For whatever reason, I hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours so I stepped out into the streets and followed my nose to a roadside café. The owner was round; wiping her head with a towel, she smiled and handed me a menu printed in both English and Spanish. When I worked for Marshall, I’d learned to order only cooked food and not drink anything that doesn’t come in a can, which you see opened, and never anything with ice. I pointed at items on the menu. Beans, rice, and some cooked meat. She nodded, punched numbers into the cash register, and motioned to a table where I sat waiting, sipping from a water bottle. The food appeared a few minutes later. The smell was intoxicating, and the meal hot and delicious. I ordered a second plate and ate until I was thoroughly stuffed.
The young guy working the desk at the hotel didn’t know of any parties of note, but he told me that the nightlife of León occurred about seven blocks “da’ way.”
I had parked the bike behind the hotel in a locked area where guests kept their cars. The area was very small and crowded bumper to bumper with cars. In order to get my bike, which was jammed into the far corner, my young friend would have had to move the five cars in its way. When I saw what was required, I waved him off. “I’ll walk.”
* * *
I had walked three blocks away when the first wave hit me. The nausea came, followed with little warning by projectile. I had enough time to turn my face toward the street before the contents of my stomach exited my mouth. This occurred several times, dropping me to my knees. Once my stomach was empty, the urge reversed course and hit my bowels with the impact of a train. Had I been in my own home, I would not have had time to get to the bathroom. This expulsion was also projectile, and I was powerless to control it.
Seconds later, I found myself kneeling in the road, both hurling and soiling myself. I don’t know how long this lasted, but my guess is several hours. The result left me exhausted and teetering on deliriu
m next to the curb. I do know that several people walked around me, holding their noses and speaking in hushed tones. I held out as long as I could but finally collapsed next to an old building, a trail behind me. I could control no aspect of my bodily functions and curled up in complete weakness and a foggy semiconsciousness.
Some time later, a man with a broom poked me and said something in Spanish. I had no idea what he said, but his tone told me it was not positive. With his broom in my ribs, I crawled a block and up next to an even dirtier old building. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I felt a hand tugging on my arm and another rifling through my pocket. I grabbed it and tried to hold on but was unable.
Daylight bore through my eyelids and warmed the air around me, stimulating the unbearable smell of myself. I was weak. Could not stand. Could barely open my eyes and the cramping pain in my stomach was excruciating. The only relief came in those moments when my body relinquished control of itself. I was aware that people were walking around me and probably talking about me, but I did not care.
The only thing I knew for certain was that I was unable to help myself.
I passed out again. Above me, church bells rang and woke me. When I opened my eyes, my vision was blurry, but I could detect two people walking from my left to my right. One was smaller than the other. I think they were holding hands.
I reached out my hand and they circled around me. From one of the figures, I heard a small, quiet voice. The voice spoke in Spanish. I heard the word “borracho.” Then a pause. Then another voice responded in Spanish. I don’t know what they said and I didn’t know if they spoke English, but I’d been around enough to know what borracho meant. As the voices and the feet that moved them shuffled by me, I extended my hand and said, “I’m not drunk.” They slowed but didn’t stop. I whispered again, “I’m not drunk.”