Improbable adventure movies aside, it is hard to imagine two men drunk enough or crazed enough to fight with knives.
I told the bartender in Spanish that we would, indeed, like menus plus a couple of bottles of Polar or Aquila. We would try both. Plus glasses with ice, for that is the way beer is sometimes drunk in the tropics. And, by the way, was the owner around? The Australian man. What was his name?
“Garret,” the bartender said, choosing to continue in broken English. “Are you a friend of his?”
“I think we have mutual Mends, but I’m not certain.”
“He go to the Magali Paris for the kitchen.”
After we’d ordered, Tucker tapped the bar and made a noise of frustration. “I’ll be damn, that’s too bad. The man you wanted to see, he’s off in damn France.”
I said, “France?”
“Didn’t you hear the bartender? Gone to Paris. Even back in World War Two, I hated those bastards. The French, I’m talkin’ about. Stinkin’ wine-drinking sons-a-bitches. Down there in the South Pacific when we was fightin’ the Japs so they could have their damn country back. Run around pissin’ in the streets, what’a they care?”
The Magali Paris is a supermarket chain popular throughout South America. I shook my head slowly; said nothing.
We were drinking our beers from the tall glasses filled with ice. Tuck gulped his half down, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “You know what we got in common, Duke? The both of us, we’re nothin’ but tramp steamers on two legs. Tropical junkies. In my heart, I feel like I’m about half-beaner. I really do. Can’t count the times I’ve come this close to growing me one of them skinny Ricky Ricardo mustaches. Know what I mean?”
Get some drinks in him, Tucker loved to talk. When he asked a question, though, it wasn’t because he wanted an answer. He asked questions because they required pauses that added pace and timing to the stories he told. I said, “Yeah, that would fit your whole act. Perfect, pencil-thin mustache.”
“Exactly the way I see it! ‘Cause that’s the way I feel in my heart, understand? It’s like this craving I get. It’s like a craving for the sea, but, at the same time, it’s for the jungle.” Gave a little shrug: Can’t explain it. “I want them both close enough to step outside and know they’re there when I take a breath. You’re the same, that’s my guess. I bet we ever set down and talked, really talked, we’d have a shit pot full of stuff in common, you and me.”
I was drinking a Polar. Ten-ouncer in a lime green bottle. Good beer. “Yep, I’m just a chip off the old block.”
“Now… there’s somethin’ I never told you about my life, ‘cause I didn’t want you to think bad of me. Thing is… as you know, I spent a lot of my time down here in these little banana republics. Me and Joe Egret, we went about everywhere a man can go without needin’ an airboat or a ladder. Know what we was doin’? Pot haulin’. Yep, run a seventy-, eighty-foot crab boat over here, have the colored boys fill’er up with bales of pot, haul ‘er back.”
When I didn’t react to that, Tuck added, “It’s illegal, you know. Pot-haulin’.”
I said, “Uh-huh, I think I read somewhere that bringing tons of marijuana into the United States is something that, yeah, they can arrest you for.”
“But we never got caught. Nope. Trouble was figuring out what to do with all that money we made. Joe and me? What we was scared of was the IRS net-worthing us. A man can’t outrun the multiplication table no matter what kinda horse he’s riding. A calculator can stick your ass in Raiford just as fast as a. 38. At one time we had close to three million in cash between us.”
Didn’t want to react, but I couldn’t help myself. Three million cash? Or… maybe it was just another one of his lies.
Tuck said, “Hell, countin’ all that money, we’d get pissed off if we came to a bill smaller than a twenty. I once used a stack of tens to wipe my business after takin’ a good ’un. Just too much damn trouble to bother with, know what I mean?” Tucker glanced at me for a moment, returned his attention to his beer. “Now… a great big chunk of that money I got hidden away. Not in the U.S., that’s all I’m gonna say. When the time’s right and the coast is clear, I’ll go get her. Maybe ask you to go along, ride shotgun. But know what Joe and me did with the rest of it?”
“Nope. Don’t have a clue.”
“Invested it like smart businessmen. Sure did. We opened us a string of seven tanning parlors. This was back before tanning parlors got to be real popular. Like we was pioneering that particular business.”
“Where?”
“Panama City.”
“Panama City, Florida?”
“Nope. Panama the country. All right downtown, too. Good locations. Couldn’t risk bringin’ the money into the states.”
I wondered if I should even bother. Yeah, I had to. Couldn’t pass it up. I cleared my throat. “You know, Tucker, Panama’s only, what? a couple of hundred miles off the equator? And Panamanians, a lot of them are pretty dark to begin with. I wouldn’t think tanning parlors would be such a good investment.”
Tucker was nodding, way ahead of me. “Gawldamn it, when you’re right, you’re right! I wish I’da talked to you first, ‘cause every one of them bastards went bust. Joe and me, we lost us close to a million dollars cash. But you know me, I always try to look on the bright side. You want to talk about a good tan? I had me the best tan you ever seen in your life. No shirt marks or nothin’.”
Tucker was wagging his fingers at the tall bartender. “Hey there, amigo! We’ll sail again here.” He clumped his glass down on the bar. “Bring me a shot’a that white rum on the side, too.”
Tucker said, “Since the owner’s not here, what you bet I can get that bartender to talk?”
He had finished the rum, was still working on his second beer.
I said, “Talk? Talk about what?”
“About that guy Amanda hates. Merlot. If Merlot was here with his sailboat, I guarantee you I can get the bartender to tell me. You got those pictures?”
“Yeah, I have the pictures. But I’ll do the talking. You just sit there and drink your beer.”
“I don’t think the man’ll talk to you. That scar, a man with a scar like that, you got to figure he knows the price of admission. He’s not gonna go runnin’ off at the mouth just ‘cause you ask.”
I said, “But he’ll talk to you?”
“That’s what I’m bettin’.”
“I guess we’ll just find out, won’t we?”
I placed the photograph of Merlot and Gail on the bar. Looking at the glossy print-the way the man’s fat thumb strained to touch her breast-irritated me, so I took pains not to allow my eyes to linger. The bartender, however, stared at the picture intently. As he did, I watched his eyes. They focused, then they appeared to refocus from the general to the particular. His expression struggled to remain relaxed, unreadable.
Yeah, he knew who he was looking at… I was convinced that the bartender had seen Gail and Merlot before.
He said, “This woman, she is beautiful, very beautiful, no?” Still speaking English… probably because he didn’t want the rest of the staff to know what we said.
“Beautiful, yeah, I guess so. I’ve never seen her in person before.”
“That is verdad? Then why do you carry her photograph?”
You have to play these things by instinct. The bartender, whose name was Fernando, was smart, savvy and necessarily tricky. Serving drinks to foreigners in a wide-open town like Cartagena required the rare combination of diplomacy and cold-blooded indifference. In any circumstance, the most convincing approach is the one that sticks closest to the truth, particularly with someone used to listening to drunken lies. So that’s the approach I tried. The truth. “I’m carrying her picture because I’m looking for her.” When Fernando glanced at Tuck-now done with his second beer-I added, “ We’re looking for her. My uncle and I. We flew down this morning from Miami to find this woman, because hear ex-husband just died and we have to tell her.”