Beneath a Panamanian Moon (15 page)

It was nothing. No one had bothered to change the lock since the hotel was built and a child could have opened the office door with skills picked up from Scooby-Doo. The file cabinets were harder, but yielded. Pop, and I was in. When I looked through the files, I saw why the security was so casual: There was absolutely nothing of interest. Everything was as boring as the hotel laundry list. I know because I read the hotel laundry list.

So I left a high-gain listening device attached to the underside of Kelly's desk. I made sure the outer office was clear and moved through the dark to the Colonel's door.

This door was dead-bolted, which gave me hope and about sixty seconds of difficulty. The files inside were locked by a steel bar that ran through metal hasps and was secured, top and bottom, with combination locks. I didn't even try. They were way beyond my skill level.

The computer, like the one in Kelly's office, would glow too brightly and attract moths and armed men to the windows, so I let it sleep, knowing I'd be stymied by the password anyway. I'm always disgusted when a movie geek types away for a few seconds, machine-gun quick, and then announces, “I'm in.” Yeah, right.

For the Colonel I left my best device, a crystal-controlled telephone transmitter the size of a matchbook. It runs on a single AA battery that will last for two weeks, which I hoped was thirteen days longer than I'd need. That transmitter would pick up both ends of a phone conversation and all conversations in the room. I love technology.

As I was locking up the Colonel's office, headlights swept the lobby. After I was sure I hadn't soiled myself, I crept through the dark dining room, eased out of the rear door and out onto the patio. I found a spot behind a potted gardenia for cover, just above the side entrance. Below me, a three-quarter-ton truck, its bed covered in canvas, pulled up to the drive, cut its headlights, and two men got out.

One man was the Colonel. He was talking to the other man. “We'll get air cover,” he was saying, “but the ground initiative is ours.”

“The men will do their duty,” the other man said. “It is an honor to be chosen to right the wrong of a hundred years.”

The new guest's face sported a horizontal white strip across the bridge of his nose. He paused, lit a cigarette, and in the firelight I recognized him as the Gorilla I'd swatted with the hardback on Christmas Eve. He was one of the men the Major had sent to skewer me for talking to Mariposa, and he was a man I'd traveled nearly a thousand miles to avoid.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The chapel was a six-pew, white-steepled church that looked as though it had been helicoptered whole out of the Virginia hills and dropped into the rain forest with all its hymnals intact. The Colonel bullied a dozen waiters, landscapers, and busboys into carrying the piano out onto the patio, loading it into the three-quarter-ton truck, and then wrestling it through the narrow chapel doors. In the process, the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Virgin Mother were invoked often enough to fill a month of Sundays.

The piano took a few discordant knocks but its soul seemed to be in good shape as I chunked out a few left-hand triads. I stuck to solid majors, minors, and sevenths, no jazz extensions and certainly none of those flatted blue notes that would make the miracle of the wine sound more like last call.

I worried about meeting the Gorilla in the pews but soon realized that all of the Latino guests were either worshiping their inner eyelids from the horizontal prayer position, or had driven into town for mass with the locals. The only people in chapel this morning were Kelly, the Colonel, the Anglo trainers, and Kris, whose shoulders, as revealed by a pale blue sundress, reminded me that there was indeed a kind and generous Creator.

Meat even wore a tie around his keg-sized neck.

I struggled through “A Soldier of the Cross,” “At Anchor Laid,” “Remote from Home,” “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” and several other martial tunes before the Colonel stepped to the pulpit and talked for an hour about God's army and how we should smite our enemies in His name. Kris sent me holy messages with her eyes while her father gave me looks of damnation and I felt chastised as a sinner, and risen as the redeemed, all in one service. We closed with “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The hymn didn't say whether those arms were supplied by Colt or Smith & Wesson.

The rest of the afternoon passed like any other day with the guests lazing about the beach, knocking long putts toward the cup, or playing doubles on the courts. Twice the men ducked inside or under shelter, and just as they spent their days avoiding the overhead satellites, I spent my day hiding from the Gorilla. At five, the men gathered in the bar with the Colonel and Mr. Kelly, for what I assumed was not an evening Bible study, and I cursed my stupidity for not planting a bug in the one private place where all of the men could congregate.

I went outside and around to the rear of the hotel. I tried to look nonchalant beneath the windows of the bar, standing by the blooming hibiscus, pretending to look out over the water, my hands in my pockets, as if I had nothing on my mind besides my spiritual connection to the flora and fauna. Still as a painting, a lone iguana watched me watch him. He opened his mouth and poked his tongue out. As someone said, I get no respect.

Most of the conversation was in Spanish, of course, and between the rush of the breakers, and the roar of my ignorance, I heard nothing of value until one man paused and translated for the Colonel. He said “monkey trap” several times and I moved closer to the window.

“Hey, you, what are you doing there?”

It was Helizondo, one of the many men in Panama who didn't care for me. He had a pistol in his hand, one of his ivory-gripped Colts, and behind him was another Latino security trainee. He was carrying an Uzi. They both aimed their weapons at me.

“I was just watching the waves,” I said.

“Then go down to the beach,” Helizondo said. “Go away from here.” He thrust his pistol like maybe he could throw the bullets at me and save a few pesos on gunpowder.

Taking the hint, and the opportunity, I went into the hotel, up the stairs, and knocked on Kris's door. There was no answer. I was on my way to my room when Eubanks said, “Hey, Monkeyman, you got a call.”

It was Marilyn, asking me to dinner. “You wait there and I'll pick you up. Wear something nice.”

“How nice?”

“Panama nice.”

Which is an oxymoron.

*   *   *

The restaurant was part of the local yacht club and we ate at a table next to the dock. Sailboats and stinkpots rocked easily on the black water as night smothered the Isthmus in humid darkness. The waiter brought us lobster, shrimp, and crab. We ate with our hands, the garlic butter making our fingers slick and fragrant. We smeared our wine glasses and called for more and Marilyn talked of places she'd never seen, and things she would do if she won the lottery, and songs that made her cry.

I asked about her family and she told me her parents had been killed in the Panama invasion.

I made all the awkward apologies that seem so inadequate, and are, when tragedies like this are revealed. I asked how old she was when Operation Just Cause made her an orphan overnight.

“I was five. The sisters at the convent school took me in.” Marilyn shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

I did the math in my head and said, “Do you mean you're nineteen?”

“Yes, John, why?”

“You seem older than that, more mature.”

Marilyn giggled and said, “So, now I am an old woman, is that what you mean?”

“No, no, I'm surprised, that's all.”

Marilyn bit a shrimp in two. “We grow up fast here. It's necessary.”

After hosing the butter off our hands and faces, we had a very decent flan and another glass of wine. I must have gotten lost for a moment because Marilyn said, “You seem unhappy. Is there something wrong?”

“I'm sorry, no.” I tried a joke—“I was just thinking about the bill for this dinner”—but my delivery wasn't convincing.

Marilyn touched my bruised jaw with her fingertips. “What happened here?”

“A lack of communication,” I said. “I should learn to speak the language.”

“Panama City is a very dangerous place.”

“So I'm finding out.”

“In Colón you cannot even walk the streets in the daytime because men will rob you, maybe kill you, for nothing.”

“There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

Marilyn's fingertips traced my lip. “What can I do to make my piano man happy?”

“You're doing fine.” I changed the subject. “Have you ever heard of a monkey trap?”

“Yes.” Marilyn shook her head. “But I think it's a fairy tale, you know? Just a story people tell. Why?”

“I heard some people talk about it. I was just curious.”

“A monkey trap is this: You hollow out a coconut, fill it with rice or nuts, and bury it in the ground leaving just a small hole exposed, about this big,” she said, and formed a small circle with her hands. “Now, you be the monkey.”

“Okay.”

“You come to the coconut, sniff the treats inside, and you reach into the hole. Go ahead, reach in, little monkey.”

I stuck my hand through the circle. “Now what?”

“You grab the treats. Go ahead, make a fist.”

I made a fist.

“Now try to pull your hand out.”

I couldn't. Marilyn held me tightly by the wrist. “So what, the monkey could just let go,” I said, “and get away.”

“He could,” she said, “but he won't. He wants the treats too much to save himself, even if it means his life.” She released my hand.

I rubbed my wrist, surprised by the strength of her grip.

“Who have you heard talking about a monkey trap?”

“Some men around the hotel,” I said. “That's all.”

Marilyn's face went from serious, to worried, to a forced cheer as quickly as wind moves across water. She said, “Hey! I know what we can do.”

“What?”

“We can go see a
bruja
.”

“A bruja?”

“Yes, a witch, a psychic, where you get your fortune told. It will be fun.”

We drove out of the city, north, beyond the jungles of the Isthmus and into a higher elevation, cooler, and with rolling expanses of grassland cleared for cattle. We were stopped by two bored La Guardia at a military checkpoint, and after they looked over our identification, and I had given each one five dollars, they waved us on. A few miles farther on, Marilyn pulled off the highway and onto a dusty road that ran back through stunted scrub forest. A few hundred yards into the forest we stopped in front of a small adobe house, its front porch strung in Christmas lights and its yard a patch of dust that had been raked at precise right angles. We climbed the steps. Marilyn's hair captured the colors of the Christmas lights. We knocked on the door.

I don't know what I expected. I hadn't pictured a crone, but I hadn't pictured the woman who answered, either.

Marilyn's bruja was an attractive woman in her forties, darker than Marilyn, with curly hair and green eyes that were magnified behind tortoiseshell glasses. She wore a long white dress, open at the collar and cinched at the waist with a black leather belt. A white cat curled around my leg and purred.

“Marilyn, it is a surprise and a pleasure.” The woman bent at the waist, hugged Marilyn, and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. “I see you brought an American friend to visit. How nice for both of you. Please, come in.” She led us into a tiny living room lit by a single paper-shaded lamp. The bruja settled into a wicker wing chair. Marilyn and I sat next to each other on the sofa.

A toucan, high on a perch, turned his head and sized me up with one marble eye. He was unimpressed with what he saw.

Marilyn introduced me to Miss Turando. “A very wise woman who knows all things.”

“Con mucho gusto.” Miss Turando let me take her hand. It was cool and dry.

“And why have you and your young friend come to see me, Marilyn?”

“He wants his fortune told. To know about his future.”

Miss Turando laughed, her long fingers held against her bosom like a matinee actress in a sham swoon of humility. She leaned forward and placed those fingers on my knee and said, “It is all for fun, Mr. Harper. I am really a nurse at the hospital, but the girls like to pretend I am a
bruja,
so I let them.”

“That's kind of you,” I said. “And how much do you charge the girls to pretend?”

The smile didn't change, but behind those thick lenses her eyes widened. “I charge only what they think my advice is worth, Mr. Harper, and no more. Now, would you like some tea?”

“I'll be happy to help,” Marilyn said, and started to get up.

“No, please, I'll be right back.” Miss Turando disappeared into the back of the house. I could hear the tinkle of cups against saucers and she soon returned with a tray. She placed it on the coffee table and poured each of us a cup.

There was also a single glass of water and a white candle.

“Since you both seem to be in a hurry, maybe we should begin.” She lit the candle and set it behind the glass so that the flame illuminated the water and flickering shadows danced across the tabletop.

“Have you ever had your fortune told before, Mr. Harper?”

“No, ma'am. This is a first.”

Miss Turando smiled and it was oddly comforting. “Just relax, Mr. Harper, and let your thoughts wander where they want to go. Have you been in Panama long, Mr. Harper?”

“Just a few days.”

She studied the water and scowled, unhappy with something she saw. Perhaps it was a bad review.

“And are you planning a trip, say, to another part of the country?”

“No, ma'am, I'm not.”

She raised her eyebrows, surprised by my answer. “Not even to the far side of the Canal? For a party of some sort? A New Year's Eve party, perhaps?”