Merlot was grinning into the camera, as he said, “I spent my early years living with my mother in Taiwan, and I have known the fine people at Tainan all my life. They have my eternal respect… as do all the companies that are working hard to make the Panama Canal bigger and better than ever. In their free time?” His smile broadened. “I hope the honored workers of these fine companies will join us at Club Gamboa and let their fondest dreams come true. Just as I hope you will do the same. Our club motto is simple: Anything you want… because you’ve earned it.”
There it was: Merlot was telling potential buyers that he had the political blessing of a major Taiwanese company. That was all the guarantee anyone needed. He had connections with Tainan, a corporation that was investing millions in Panama. Which was probably why he’d been awarded the Gamboa concession. Choose a reason: maybe he was old school buddies with a member of that powerful family… or maybe he had some kind of blackmail leverage… or maybe, just maybe, Amanda had been right when she guessed Merlot had a touch of Asiatic blood.
It didn’t matter. He had this village and he apparently had the political juice to make it work.
I placed my hand in front of the screen. “Look, you’re kind of wasting my time, Turk. I’m not here to listen to history and crap about the Chinese. All I want to know is exactly what Gamboa’s offering me and how much is it going to cost? You got something interesting to show me, show me now or I’m going back to the bar.”
The Turk looked up at me and shrugged-Okay, tired of this screen? Let’s try something else. He was closing windows again, moving the show along as he said to me, “Some Yankees… forgive me, Americans, are easily offended. They have a very narrow view of what is improper or immoral when it comes to a man’s pleasure. Our chairman, Mr. Merlot, put it very well when he said that Americans are… what’s the word…?” The Turk was thinking hard, eyes wrinkled shut.
“Prudes?”
“Exactly! Prudes. That’s precisely the word. Are you and your old friend like most Americans? Or do you agree that we all have different
… needs?”
Tucker was now sitting on the couch, staring into the hookah’s smoky glass globe. He was still wearing his gray rodeo hat, white sports coat, ankles crossed showing his fancy boots. He stirred, looked around, finally found the Turk with his eyes. Said, “Old? Fuck you.”
“A generous offer, but no thanks,” smiled the Turk. “Well… who the hell you callin’ old, boy? How’d you like to go home and tell your mama that some boy just spanked your… your… spanked your…” Tuck’s voice flattened and disappeared. He’d lost the thread… but he’d found the hookah again, something easy to look at, not loud, not penetrating.
He sighed; folded his hands in his lap.
I watched his head fall before I said, “I’ll look at anything you’ve got to show me. I’m wide open.”
“Open to anything?”
“You think I came to Colombia for the fishing?”
The Turk’s laughter said okay, he was convinced. Sounded very enthusiastic as he said, “Then you will love Gamboa. Because in Gamboa, you can have anything you want.”
“I know, the motto. Because I deserve it.” Like it was bullshit.
“No, when I say anything, that’s exactly what I mean. The Chinese, the Japanese, they know how to relax. Gamboa is being created for them
… and for Mr. Merlot’s own personal interests.”
On the screen now, new images were appearing. I stepped back a little, watched.
Felt that chill again. A swelling nausea…
The Web page had a very complete catalogue of pornography, most of it shot at Gamboa, I was told, but a few things from Mr. Merlot’s own personal collection.
The stuff from Merlot’s collection, I didn’t see till the very end…
The way it worked, the Turk told me, was that he recruited “help” to work in Gamboa. In return, Mr. Merlot paid him a small finder’s fee, promised him a prime vacation time-share on the canal, plus allowed him to be Gamboa’s sole agent in Colombia. He got 10 percent of anything he could prove that he moved.
“If I can sell a few of these time-shares,” he said, “I can pay Mr. Garret enough to get the case out of the courts. I can save my yacht in this way.”
I said, “So convince me. Make a good case for your project, and I’ll buy.”
The shrug, the hands, the facial expression, all said no problem. “First thing, Colombia has the most beautiful women in the Americas, perhaps the world,” the Turk said. “If you sign the contract, purchase a time-share with us, what you do then is tell Mr. Merlot what you, want while you’re in Gamboa on vacation. Anything you want, I can find it for you. A beautiful Negro housemaid? A young Latina cook? Or perhaps… perhaps a teenage boy.” He held his palms up-whoa, he wasn’t judging, just giving an example. “You want all three at once… or five at once, you can have that, too. If we get your order in advance, I find what you want in Bogota or here, in the slums of Cartagena.” The palms again. “Poor, yes, but very clean and beautiful. You pay a small fee for each and they will do anything you wish them to do. Truly, Gamboa is the place to make your fondest dreams come true.”
“So what happens if I happen to be visiting Panama, I’ve got some clients with me, but the time-share I bought is for a different time of the year?”
“As a member of Club Gamboa, you may rent by the night, by the week, whatever you want. True… on such short notice, we may not be able to provide precisely what you want. But the club’s entire staff will be made up of very beautiful women and very willing boys and they are always at the members’ disposal. But here-let me show you the kind of pleasure we have to offer.” As the screen changed, he said, “Are you sure you would not like to smoke a bit while you watch?” A. minute or so later, he said, “You don’t mind if I do?”
I wasn’t looking at the screen. Had long since turned my eyes away
… not out of disgust, but out of… sadness? No, but an emotion that was close to it. More like a… hollowness.
I did not look at the computer screen for the same reason that I do not go to topless bars or strip shows or watch pornographic films. Sex? Yeah, I love sex. Love the tender anything-to-bring-her-pleasure kind and the sweaty belly-slapping variety and anything, absolutely anything else, that will make me or my like-minded partner happy. But when the debasement of an individual is viewed as entertainment, we are all diminished… plus I am always, always perplexed by a very basic question: How does it come to pass that the lives of otherwise-healthy men and women are so tragically compromised?
“Mr. Ford. Do you not find them very beautiful?”
I had signed a one-page form, printed in English and Spanish, acknowledging that Jamael Hasakah had introduced me to the glories of Club Gamboa, thereby confirming his legal right to a finder’s fee as well as elevating me to the status of a man who deserves a respectful prefix.
Tucker had dozed off on the couch. Had his cowboy hat tilted down over his eyes, boots up on the coffee table. He’d had six or seven small beers plus the dope. He was out.
I said, “Yes, the women are gorgeous.”
“But a trifle old, perhaps?” The Turk’s words were saying one thing, but his tone was saying something else. Maybe asking me a delicate question. What?
So I played along. “Sure, maybe a bit too old.” I glanced at the screen. The two girls soaping each other beneath a waterfall couldn’t have been more than, what? fifteen, sixteen? They were cold, had goosebumps, but were toughing it out for the camera. A third woman, performing oral sex on an Asian man, looked to be about the same age.
“The girls you see here, they all work as housemaids at Gamboa. You will meet them. Very nice. I selected them myself. From Bogota!”
The Turk’s professional pride showing.
“But if you’re feeling adventurous, let’s go to Mr. Merlot’s personal room. Is that all right with you?”