My voice quivered. “What…happened?”
Paulo paused, crossed his hands, and then spoke, almost in reverence. “American company.” Paulo made a fist as if he were crushing a cracker. “They squeeze us…require us to pay back loan. Have no way to pay. But after Carlos, we has nothing. All gone. So, when we no pay, American company take.”
Something about my complexion must have startled Paulina because she put her hand on my forearm. “You okay? You’re doing that thing again.” Her index finger rolled around the underside of my wrist and landed on my pulse where she held it.
“No, I’m good.” I wiped the cold sweat off my face. “What’d you do?”
He shrugged. “Many empty homes in Valle Cruces. We move in. I return to sugarcane.”
“Do you rent?”
He shook his head. “No one to pay rent.”
“Who owns it?”
“My cousin.” He said the name proudly. As if he were honoring it. “Saulicio Mares Estevez.”
“Where is he?”
“Beneath the mud.”
“I’m sorry?”
Paulina spoke. “His family in Managua lets us live in it.”
The pieces of this puzzle were floating around my brain, and I was having a tough time putting them together. I scratched my head. “Where were you living?”
He looked at me, surprise covering his face. He pointed at Paulina. “El casa.”
I turned to Paulina. “Whose house?”
She brushed the hair out of Isabella’s face. “My father’s.” She turned to me, and for the first time, she fingered a polished stone hanging around her neck. She said his name slowly and with great affection. The words swam around my head, finally settling on the memories attached to them: “Alejandro Santiago Martinez.”
I swallowed hard.
“He, along with four other men, started Cinco Padres.” She pointed across the table at Paulo. “Paulo married my father’s sister. So while he wasn’t one of his brothers, they trusted him. My father was the businessman. Dealt with the banks. The buyers. Paulo was the people’s man.” She smiled at Paulo. “He kept everybody happy. And”—she laughed—“he kept everything working. Tractors. Trucks. Conveyor belts. Even delivered babies. Didn’t you?”
He laughed as if the memory were pleasant.
When the food arrived, steam lifted off the overfilled plates, and everyone ate and savored it with great delight. My meal looked like steak fajitas with everything in the kitchen thrown on top. And while it tasted and smelled wonderful, I didn’t so much eat it as push it around the plate. Halfway through his dinner, Paulo said something to Paulina in a hushed tone, which she acknowledged quietly. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I asked if he was okay. She said, “He asked if you liked your food, because you’re not eating.”
Following her dinner, Isabella eyed the offering of ice cream listed on the wall. Paulina quietly scolded her in Spanish. I had a feeling she was telling her that we weren’t ordering dessert. When the waitress returned, I asked Paulina, “Would it be okay if I ordered her some ice cream? Really, it’d be my pleasure.” She turned to Isabella, who nodded excitedly. Isabella held up three fingers and said, “Cho-co-la-tay.”
The image of Zaul entered my mind and the ticking clock I’d been hearing since I sat in the hospital room beside Maria’s bed returned. I needed help yesterday, so when everyone had finished, I spoke to both of them. “I’d like to make you a proposition—if you’ll allow.”
Paulo nodded. “Of course. Please.”
“I’d like to hire you. Both of you.” Paulina stared at me with a growing suspicion.
Paulo shook his head. “No need to hire. You ask. We help.”
“What I’m about to ask is no small thing. I’d feel better if you’d let me pay you.”
Paulo shook his head, and for the first time, I saw a shadow of pride I’d not seen before. He waved his hand across the table, palm down, slicing through the air. “No pay. We will glad help.”
The job for which I wanted to hire them would mean he’d not be working in the sugarcane fields. Which meant a loss of income. Which meant their meager existence was about to get worse. I said, “I am here looking for someone. A sixteen-year-old kid. He’s sort of like my nephew. He got mixed up in some bad stuff, ran away from home, and came here. His name’s Zaul, and his parents asked me to bring him home before he gets himself hurt or disappears forever. He’s hotheaded, tempestuous, and as much as he would deny it, he’s a bit naive as to people and their intentions. He thinks he can read people, but he can’t. I know he came to León, and he’s a surfer, so I know he intended to chase big waves along the coast, but I have a feeling his fortunes have reversed since arriving because the foreman at Cinco Padres Café is now driving his truck.”
Paulina looked surprised. “That new truck?”
I nodded. “My business partner, Colin, bought it last year. Zaul’s his son, and he hoped it’d bring them closer as they chased waves up and down the coast.”
“That’s an expensive truck.”
“My partner inherited a business from his father. They started poor, then struck gold when his father realized how to import rum. He picked up where his father left off and has done very well since.”
Paulina raised an eyebrow. “And you?”
“I work for him.” I emphasized the word “for.” “I handle deliveries.” It wasn’t a complete lie.
Paulo lit. “Management?”
“No. I’m a solo act. Work alone. It’s just the nature of my business.”
Paulo nodded. “No matter. We will help.”
“I’m afraid it will require a lot of your time. At least half the day. Sometimes all day. I’d be keeping you from your work.”
Paulo asked, “How long?”
“I’m trying to find a kid who doesn’t want to be found. A week? Two? Maybe a month.”
Paulo paused. I could see him calculating the cost. “I work la caña in the morning, and we go with you after lunch.”
I shook my head. “From what I know about him, he surfs in the mornings and they travel or sleep in the afternoons. Our chance of seeing him in any one place would be the time until noon. If we wait until after lunch to get started, our chances will be slim.” I pointed at him. “I need a driver who speaks the language, and I’ll pay for all your gas.” Paulo calculated again. Paulina sat uncomfortably quiet. I offered, “Whatever you miss in income, I’ll pay.”
Paulina spoke up. “If he doesn’t work, if he misses a day, he loses his seniority. That means when he returns, he won’t be guaranteed work.”
I began to see how I was upsetting the balance of their lives. How one missed day, one cold, one sickness, one injury, one missed bus or just oversleeping by ten minutes could alter the fortune of their lives for a long time.
She leaned forward on the table, trying not to be unkind but wanting to make sure she got her point across. “Seniority in this part of the world is a commodity. Worth more than the money we make.”
She had found me on the street. Naked except for my underwear. In her experience, I was not a solid bet.
“How will you pay?”
“With money?”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
“Why do you want to hire me, too?”
“To translate and, no offense, to be a woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my experience, sometimes a woman can get information that a man cannot.”
That common sense seemed to satisfy her, yet she still looked incredulous. She sat back. “And you can afford to pay us?”
In her eyes, I was nearly as poor as she, so I wanted to be careful here. “Yes.”
She crossed her arms. “If Paulo misses a single day of work, what we call ‘getting out of line,’ he loses his place of seniority, which has taken him years to build. That means that like all the other men now waiting for a chance to work, he has to get back in line. Wait his turn. It could tak
e him weeks to get a single day of work. It’s how things work around here.”
“I’ll pay for those days as well.”
More disbelief. “Until he can get work again?”
“Yes.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
I placed a single twenty-dollar bill on the table. “I’ll pay in advance.” That got both their attention. “I need you to drive me up and down the coast, looking for Zaul. We may have to drive a long way. I’ll pay you this in advance, I’ll pay your daily work rate, plus all your gas, plus any wear and tear on your vehicle, plus every day that you have to wait in line.”
I set another twenty-dollar bill on the table and turned to Paulina. “I’ll pay you the same.”
She pursed her lips as her mind wrestled with whether or not to believe me. They spoke in muffled tones to each other. Isabella looked like a kid sitting next to a Ping-Pong table keeping her eyes on the ball. Hoping to sway Isabella, I set a single dollar bill in front of her. Her small hand crept up over the top of the table and was reaching to retrieve it when her mother put her hand on hers and shook her head. Forty-one dollars sat on the table uncollected.
I set another twenty-dollar bill on the table. Paulo was now paying closer attention. That was more money than he’d make in a month, and depending upon work, maybe two months. I knew I needed to be careful. I wanted to buy their time, not shame them, and I had a feeling that there was a point at which too much money meant shame. “And I’d like to rent the chicken coop.” I licked my thumb and counted out another twenty. “And pay for all my food in advance.”
Eighty-one dollars sat uncollected. I looked at Paulo and held a finger in the air. “And if we find him, I’ll pay a hundred-dollar bonus.” Paulo was listening now. “That’s nearly as much money as he can make in a year.”
Paulina’s voice turned edgy. Almost cold. “You always buy what you want?”
“No. But I can’t do this on my own. I need to hire someone. I’d prefer it be you three.”
Paulo spoke a few harsh words to Paulina, which had the effect of quieting her and preventing her from asking me any more questions. He pointed at the money as if he didn’t need any more reason. He folded his hands. “I help you? You help me.” I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I knew I needed their help. He pointed at my watch. “I help you to lunch. You help me to dinner.”
Sounded fair. “Okay.”
Paulo stood, folded the money, and slid the wad into his pocket. He extended his hand. “We are very happy to help.”
Paulina stood as Paulo led us to the door. His body language told me he wanted to get us moving before I changed my mind—or before someone spotted all that money and robbed us. He pointed to the street. “Sí. Muy bueno. Vamos.”
Out in the street, Isabella slid her hand in mine and looked up at me—a chocolate mustache dripping off the edges of her upper lip. Content to be, she said nothing. When I looked down, she was cradling my heart in her hands.
* * *
It was late when we returned to Hotel Cardinal, so I rented them the rooms adjacent to mine, for which they were thankful. Isabella had never spent the night in a hotel, and the cold air blowing out of the two square holes in the wall was an amazement beyond words. As was the little box with blue numbers that makes the air colder or hotter. Followed closely by hot water and the idea that someone other than her mother had washed and dried the towels and sheets. Further, the fact that that same someone had then hung the towels on a bar in the bathroom and made the bed with clean sheets and left free soap in the bathroom and that the water coming out of the faucet was clean enough to drink was just more than she could wrap her mind around. When her mother tucked her in, she said, “Mami, I feel like a princess.”
I was sitting on the porch outside my room when Paulina turned out Isabella’s light and sat beside me. “This kid you’re going to find, he’s not a good kid, is he?”
I shook my head. “No. He’s not.”
“Why does he matter?”
“By his own admission, his dad is something of a nerd. Good at counting beans and entertaining the wealthy. Me? Not so much. So, I picked up where his dad left off and taught him a few things his dad had neglected.”
“Like?”
“How to ride a bike, tie double knots in his shoes, brush both his teeth and his gums, drive a boat, then a stick shift.”
She pointed to my lips. “When you speak about him, there’s a tenderness in your voice.”
It was a question posed as a statement. “When he was young and his folks would host a party, he was often overlooked. I have some experience with that, so we’d fish off the dock.” A shrug. “I’d bait his hook. Taught him how to throw a cast net, the difference between deodorant and antiperspirant.” A chuckle. “Why girls say one thing when they mean another.”
She was quiet several minutes. Before she spoke, she pushed her hair out of her eyes that the wind had loosed. “I need to say something to you and I don’t know you very well and you’re being very kind to us, so it may come across as hard or ungrateful. I don’t intend that.”
I waited.
She waved her hand across the air in front of us. “There is a thing in this country called ‘the Gringo Effect.’ It’s when white people like you—no offense—come in and wave a little money around people like me and my uncle who live on two to three dollars a day, and we jump like circus monkeys doing whatever you want us to do because we’ve never seen that much money. My country is dotted with gringos; many like you cash in their 401(k)s, buy a little place, and live out their days in relative ease, thinking that their money buys them the right to live or act however they want or that they can own us because we need what they have. I’m not a rich woman, but I was educated in the States. I’ve not always been poor. There was a time when I could afford groceries with enough left over for ice cream. Maybe even a movie ticket. Or a new razor when the old one pulled out the hair on my legs rather than shaved it.” A pause. “I don’t have a lot of experience with men who so easily buy the services of others, but I’ve lived enough to know it’s not common.”
Her statements were leading, but I wasn’t sure where. “So—”
“So, I can’t figure out why you just hired us to do for you something you could very well do on your own.”
I threw an answer out there, doubting it would satisfy her. It was more of a question than a statement. “Because I need help.”
She shook her head. “I doubt you’ve needed help in a long time.” She pursed her lips. “Just curious, but how much would you have paid?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to answer her.
“Five hundred?”
I nodded, hoping it would satisfy her and end this line of questioning. It did not.
“A thousand.”
Another nod. Same hope. Same result.
She sat back and crossed her arms. “Five thousand?”
My eyes met hers. “Yes.”
She considered this. “I don’t know you well enough to say, but I can’t figure something.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t figure if you’re a good man—the likes of which we seldom see around here.” She paused.
“Or—?”
She never hesitated. “Guilty.”
An uncomfortable silence settled. She turned her chair toward me, inched forward into my personal space, spread her legs like a man, and rested her elbows on her knees—an athlete on a bench. I was not totally unprepared for this. I’d just bought them, and I had a pretty good idea that didn’t set well with her. “Charlie?”
I made eye contact but said nothing.
“I need to know…” She reached in her pocket, pulled out the wad of cash I’d just given them, and held it before me. “If we take this, are you putting us in danger? Of any kind?” She glanced at Isabella’s window, shook her head, and proffered the money. “Because if you are…”
I held out my hand like a stop sign. “I
owe you more than that for taking care of me while I was sick. It’s the least I can do.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“To my knowledge, I am not putting you in any danger, but there is the possibility that Zaul is messed up with the wrong people. If in helping me, you ever get the slightest hint that I’ve put you in danger, you’re free to walk with no explanation.”
She sat back and returned the money to her pocket. Our rooms were on the second story, as was the porch. This gave us a limited aerial view of the lights of the city. She stood, dusted off her skirt, and waited several seconds. “The bakery opens at six, and that’s when everything is hot and the little chunks of chocolate are still soft. You don’t want to miss that. Almost a religious experience. Paulo will get on the phone early and make some inquiries. We’ll get moving after that.” She put her hand on my shoulder. The first time she’d touched me in tenderness. “If he’s within a hundred or so miles, Paulo will find him. We’ll do what we can.” She turned and walked to her room, stopping at the door. She weighed her head side to side and said, “For the record, we’d have done it for nothing. All you had to do is ask.”
“I figured that.”
“And yet you offered anyway?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Which you still don’t care to explain.”
“You won’t like me when I do.”
She leaned against the doorframe and nodded, finally turning and partially closing the door. “There’s a seasoned old man and an innocent little girl, both asleep in here, who find that hard to believe.”
“And you?”
“I think that may be the most revealing and truthful statement you’ve made since I met you.” With that, she shut the door and turned out the light.
And she was right. It was.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Colin moved his family home after that summer in Costa Rica while keeping the house, swearing that he and his family would return there for all eternity. That he and Marguerite would retire there. Colin had found a home. As had his family. Life was good.