“Are you sure they have lesbians in Bismarck?” he asked.
She giggled again. “I guess I’ll find out,” she said.
They spoke for a few more minutes, until the scratchiness and the echoes of the connection became bad enough they could hardly understand each other. They then bid each other a good night and told each other “I love you”. They did not promise to call tomorrow. They never did.
Jake hung up the phone and then went to the window and looked out into the rainy night. It was still early, and their flight did not leave until just before noon the next day. He picked up the phone again, this time dialing direct to room 1812.
“This is Travis,” a voice said.
“T, it’s Jake,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Travis said. “There is nothing to do. I can’t even watch TV. It’s all in Spanish.”
“There is something to do,” Jake said. “Let’s go down to the bar and drink.”
“Well ... I guess I could do that if you want.”
“Way to show enthusiasm,” Jake told him. “I’ll meet you down there.”
He hung up the phone, picked up his wallet (which he had refilled with sixty thousand pesos on the way back from the airport) and his room key and headed out the door. Five minutes later, he was down in the bar on the second floor of the hotel. He grabbed two seats near the end.
The bartender did not speak English, but she did not have to. Jake had learned the proper phrasing the night before. “Dos guaro en las rocas,” he told her, holding up two fingers in case she did not know what Dos meant.
“Si,” she said with a brazen smile. “En seguida, Señor.” It was obvious that she knew who he was. And Jake instinctively knew that if he were to suggest a little study session on international relations up in his hotel room, she would jump at the chance. And if this had happened five years ago, before he became involved with Laura, he might very well have suggested such a thing. She was quite attractive, with dark hair, a curvy body, full lips, and a healthy set of chichis. But alas, his international relations days were behind him now. A pity.
Travis arrived just as she was putting the drinks down. Jake gave her a wad of pesos from his wallet and let her figure out how much to take. It was possible that she could be ripping him off, but he did not really care. To him the Colombian money did not even seem real. It was like he was paying for his drinks with Monopoly money.
“Thanks for coming on this trip with me, T,” Jake told the mechanic as they hefted their first drinks.
“I’m glad I did,” he said, looking around the room at the crowd. “This has been a very remarkable experience.”
“For me too,” Jake said. “For one, I discovered a new kind of booze. For two, I’ll probably be getting a new airplane soon. Life is good.”
“You do seem to have an interesting life,” Travis allowed. “That man, Eddie ... the one you’re buying the plane from ... is he really ... you know ... a cocaine dealer?”
Jake shrugged. “He says he makes his money from exporting coffee and importing consumer electronics.”
“Enough money to buy a Cessna Citation?”
“Lots of people drink coffee,” Jake said.
“His security guards were packing guns,” Travis said. “And they had those earpiece thingies.”
“Yeah ... I noticed that.”
“Does that seem like the sort of thing a coffee exporter would require?”
“Well ... maybe not in the states, but here in Colombia? Who knows?”
“I suppose,” Travis said. “Anyway, it’s a beautiful country. Did you see all the mountains and the rivers and the lakes when we were flying in?”
“I saw them,” Jake said.
“Nice place to visit, but I don’t think I’d want to live here.”
“True,” Jake agreed. “But the drinks are cheap.” He turned to the bartender and got her attention. “Señorita! Dos mas, por favor!”
They drank and munched on spicy peanuts from little bowls on the bar. They did not talk all that much. Once he was done talking about engines and compression ratios and torque, Travis did not have all the much to say. And he did not seem all that interested in hearing any of Jake’s anecdotes from his life as a traveling musician. Jake was just about ready to call it a night—he had a pretty respectable drunk going on by this point—when a familiar looking man entered the bar from the direction of the lobby elevator. It was Sebastian, Eddie Gomez’s pilot.
He walked right up to the bar next to where Jake and Travis were seated, not noticing their presence.
“Sebastian?” Jake said, startling him a bit. He looked over and then his face relaxed when he saw who was addressing him.
“Jake,” he said. “It’s you.”
“It’s me,” Jake confirmed. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s okay,” the pilot said. “I thought it might be los tombos again.”
“Who?” Jake asked. He was unfamiliar with that expression.
“Never mind,” Sebastian said dismissively. “It’s nice to see you again, Jake.”
“Yeah ... it’s been hours, right? What are you doing here?”
“Uh ... well ... I was ... you know ... visiting someone here in the hotel. Thought I would stop in for a quick one before I headed back home.”
Jake suddenly understood what this was all about. “Holy shit,” he said in wonder. “Did you bone Jill?”
Sebastian’s face gave all the answer he needed. “Uh ... well ... the fact of the matter is...”
“You did,” Jake said, laughing. “Jesus fucking Christ. I didn’t know she did that sort of thing.”
“Ohhh ... well ... wow. This is kind of awkward.”
“It is?” Jake asked. “How come?”
“Well ... she is with you.”
“She’s my accountant,” Jake said. “I’ve never boned her. We don’t have that kind of a relationship.”
“You don’t?”
“No,” he said. “I mean, I used to have a crush on her back in fifth grade. Did she tell you we went to school together all the way from kindergarten to high school graduation?”
“Uh ... no, that never came up in conversation,” he said.
“Hmm,” Jake said, pondering. “What made you think that Jill and I were bumping uglies? You know I’m married, right?”
“Well, yes,” he said. “But in our culture, when a man travels with an attractive woman like Jill, it is generally just assumed that the two of them are ... you know?”
“I see,” Jake said, nodding. “You think she’s attractive then?”
“She is very exotic,” he said. “I have never had a Japanese woman before. She intrigued me.”
“She’s third generation American,” Jake pointed out.
“Oh ... I didn’t know that.”
“She doesn’t even speak Japanese.”
“I didn’t know that either.”
“Oh well ... to each their own.” He then gave a glare to the pilot. “But hold on a second. You thought that she and I were getting it on, but you came here and did her anyway?”
“Uh ... well ... again, in our culture, when a woman is not the official partner of a man, she is considered fair game for other men to pursue.”
“Really?” Jake asked.
“Si,” Sebastian said.
“You’re making this shit up as you go along, aren’t you?” Jake asked.
Reluctantly, Sebastian nodded. “Si,” he said.
Jake chuckled and patted the pilot on the shoulder. “How about I buy you that drink?”
“Uh ... sure,” Sebastian said. He ordered a vodka and tonic.
“Tell me something,” Jake said as the bartender prepared his drink for him.
“What’s that?”
“How was she?”
Sebastian smiled. “She was very passionate. It was almost like she had never been thoroughly possessed by a man before.”