“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 huts 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.