Casco Viejo: The Second Season

2010-12-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Fifteen

Inspector Gomez sat stiff and upright behind a large teak desk. Beni, “a rather smart up-and-coming lawyer,” as Mitch had pointed out to Barb, was not so sure the meeting was a good idea. However, Barb insisted, even though the main problem was that she didn’t have enough proof to implicate anyone in relation to poor Beth Page’s murder. In fact, while most of her suspicions had been well founded, with a list of at least a half a dozen suspects, she had no real evidence, like witnesses or inadvertent confessions, to actually point at one particular person.

“So what do you want to accomplish?” was Beni’s question.

“I thought maybe we could compare notes,” Barb said. “Okay, I don’t really know much after sticking my nose in everywhere I could. And it’s not as obvious as I first thought. I realize that; but now they don’t even have a suspect in custody. Frankly, I’m afraid that the authorities might not be as aggressive as maybe they should be—oh I don’t know—possibly because the victim is a gringa.”

“Whatever you do, please don’t even imply that,” Beni said, with both hands out in a double stop sign.

“I want to light a fire under their butts,” Barb said, actually pounding one tiny fist into her other tiny palm.

Beni laughed. Maybe he thought she looked cute. “All right,” he said, “but let’s go slow on the confrontation and encourage rather than demand. Okay?”

“Sure,” Barb said. “I’m new at this—I’m an amateur…”

“Exactly,” Beni said, never losing his polite smile with this elderly woman, he and his wife had taken under their wing, and who he genuinely liked.

“…but I’m trying to be a concerned citizen here,” Barb continued, “in my adopted country, to see to it that justice is done. That a fellow expat can’t just be bumped off, you know, without consequences. To be honest, I would feel much safer, not only knowing that Beth’s killer was behind bars; but that people like Beth and me and others would matter to the police as much as any other victim.”

“Well then we don’t have to go,” Beni grinned, “because I can assure you that we third-world Panamanians value life almost as much as you Americans.”

“Oh, I am sorry, dear. That did sound awfully condescending. Of course, they’re doing everything they can; and I’m sure I’ll be reassured. You’re such a dear to indulge me so. And you do speak English.”

At that they both shared a laugh and Beni put his arm around the petite woman’s shoulder.

So there they sat in two straight-backed institutional metal chairs facing an unsmiling police detective, who had told Beni on the phone, beforehand, that he would have the meeting as a favor to the young lawyer, but that he suspected it would be a waste of time for everybody involved. The office was small and bare, with the wide desk almost cutting the room in half. Centered on the white-washed cinderblock wall behind him in a virtual halo effect was the coat of arms of Panama with a very American looking eagle perched on a shield. Inspector Gomez’s head blocked the pictures on the crest, and Barb had to look later to see the rifle and crossed sword; the shovel and pick axe; the panorama of the isthmus; the cornucopia and the flying wheel—all draped by the red, white and blue Panamanian flag.

After very formal handshakes, and before he sat down Barb noticed that even though he seemed somehow grand and imposing, that Gomez was not a big man, stocky but no more than 5’10”. He looked across at the little lady detective with stern dark brown eyes, under heavy level eyebrows. His hair was black and short cropped. He was not in a uniform, but rather a plain-clothed outfit of a white shirt, with a thin black tie and gray slacks, which meant that he still looked like a cop to Barb.

“So how can I be of service?”

Even though the tone of voice was of one who was tired of being of service, Beth was shocked the words came out in English. She decided not to make a point of it, though she did exchange a quick glance with Beni, who did not seem to take notice.

“First of all, thank you for meeting with us,” Beni was quick to interject, before Barb spoke.

“I’m a friend of Beth Page, who was brutally murdered in her own home, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to update us please on the progress of the investigation.” Barb immediately worried that she was coming across as pompous. (Mitch often said “If you think you are, you probably are…”)

Gomez sighed and looked directly at Beni and said, “We are pursuing a number of leads at this point in the investigation.”

Barb sensed that the discussion was headed nowhere fast and said. “Listen I know you are, and we all appreciate everything you’re doing I’m sure, but could you be a bit more specific. I’m not sure you realize that I’ve spent some time myself looking into the matter.”

“Oh, we are well aware of the fact that you have contacted some of the same people we have during our investigation. In fact there have been complaints.”

“Really?” Barb was surprised. “Can you tell me who?”

“No,” Gomez said. Once again, he looked directly at Beni, who sat impassively, in a light grey sport jacket and blue shirt open at the collar.

“Listen sir,” Barb stood up and leaned with both hands on the desk. Her thin arms stuck out of a pale yellow shirtwaist dress. “All I’m trying to do here is help. I want to make sure that whoever killed Beth doesn’t get away with it—that justice is served.”

“So much for not being confrontational,” Beni thought, and then said “Maybe you could simply update Mrs. Multusky on your progress so far?”

“Well, first of all, I must say that I resent the implication that we have not done enough to provide Mrs. Page with the justice she deserves…” Barb could not get over how well the inspector spoke English and wanted to ask him how long he had spent in the States, but didn’t think that was the time, since she apparently had already pissed him off.

“Listen Jorge,” Beni said in a calm but professional voice, “we are not implying anything and we have every faith that you are performing your duties.” (“So his name is George,” Barb realized.) “I believe that all Mrs. Multusky is asking for, as a concerned resident, is information, an update if you will, about the progress you have made.”

“We have made very little progress,” Gomez said. “Our problem is this. There is no evidence, besides the bruise marks on the victim’s neck, which help to establish a cause of death, but are not fingerprints and so only indicate that whoever did it was strong enough to commit the act. Otherwise, plenty of fingerprints of people who readily admit that they had visited the victim; and yes hairs, and what you call forensic evidence that only prove that Mrs. Page had visitors. No witnesses and so far the suspects all seem to have reasonable alibis, which do seem to check out. So, unless you can tell me something new that implicates a reasonable suspect…” Gomez let his voice trail off.

“No. That’s exactly what I’ve discovered so far,” Barb said as if she were consulting with a colleague. Barb’s attitude both worried Beni and made him proud of his dear old friend. She was giving it a shot. “So why did you arrest Jamon?” Barb asked even though she thought she knew the answer.

“We had hoped that maybe whoever did it, would how do you say drop their guard,” Gomez said, almost as if he were conferring. “And of course, he was a viable suspect.”

Then Barb and Gomez ticked off the list of boyfriends, who they felt weren’t up to it for whatever reasons, including Jerry Cole, who Gomez dismissed as “not in the city.” There were still two names that had not come up—Billy Belize and Rodrigo Feliz.

“So who do you think did it,” Barb said as she sat back on her uncomfortable chair.

“Because of the lack of a sign of a struggle, no foot prints in the garden, no physical evidence, all the appropriate doors and gates locked; really nothing out of place that it might not have been a crime of passion.”

“Was anything missing?”

“No. So we’ve ruled out theft.”

“You mean that it was a professional hit?” Barb was back on her size-five feet.

“Well, Madame Detective has acquired some of the language of her new hobby,” Gomez said, still without a smile. “And with very little evidence to the contrary, we have to consider all the possibilities.”

“How about Billy Belize?”

“Out of the country.”

“He could still hire someone.”

“So could, anyone.”

That’s when Barb tapped her finger on the desk and said, “Okay, how about Rodrigo Felix?”

Gomez went back to looking directly at Beni Cortez and said “No evidence; no proof. So, how about Mr. Multusky? He’s a big strong man.”

“But he doesn’t have a motive,” Barb said without skipping a beat.

“That we know of,” Gomez countered with a wave of his hand that showed the flash of a large gold watch on his wrist.

“But that leaves us pretty much at square one,” Barb almost whined.

“It is however, not because we’re not making an effort,” Gomez said as he stood up. Meeting over. “If I were you Madame, I would leave the investigation to the professionals; and I will assure you that we will do everything that we are able to bring this case to a suitable conclusion.”

“Back to official non-speak,” Barb thought as she rose and offered a dainty, fingers-only handshake. “Thank you very much for your time,” Barb said without enthusiasm. She noted that Inspector Gomez did not ask her to let him know if she found out anything. It was clear he was done with her. She suspected that he had done a competent job of looking into Beth’s murder, but was also convinced that he wasn’t losing sleep over the case either.

“Muchas gracias,” Beni said injecting the first Spanish of the session.

“No promblema,” Gomez said.

Barb couldn’t resist. “Your English is better than mine,” she said. “Did you go to college in the States?”

“Florida International,” Gomez said, “and a law degree from Georgia.” He then shut the door.

* * *

“So why don’t you come with me to yoga class today,” Barb asked as she took off Carmen’s choker chain, just back from their afternoon walk, which Mitch always called a “smoke break.”

“Okay,” Mitch said as he kneaded the space between one white and one black dog ear.

It took a moment for the positive response to register with Barb, who had asked before. Mitch always laughed and said something like “Not me baby,” or “you go ahead and enjoy yourself, I don’t want to get in the way,” or simply “Nope, not today.”

“Are you kidding?” She really wasn’t sure.

“No, I’m not kidding,” Mitch said. He stood with his hands on his hips.

“Okay, that’s great,” Barb said. However she thought “Oh, wow honey, you must really be bored.”

When Mitch spotted Barb having extra thoughts, he offered in explanation, “To be honest, I’m kinda curious. I’ve never done yoga. Don’t worry I won’t get in the way.”

“Don’t be silly,” Barb said. “You can’t get in the way. Everybody has their own space.”

“So you don’t think I’ll slow down the class,” Mitch said.

“You go at your own pace. There are almost always new people or beginners. Nobody will even notice.” Barb smiled.

“I’ll stay in the back to make sure they don’t,” Mitch said.

Barb tried to clear her mind of lingering suspicions and concentrate on her yoga class with Tony Perdu, up on the roof of Columbus House. The class wasn’t meeting on the terrace of the old Union Club anymore because that structure looked to be under major renovation. In fact, most of the old building on the shore had been gutted and the huge terrace, with what Mitch called “the best view of the city across the Bay of Panama,” had been torn down. The sign outside promised a beautiful new boutique hotel right on the water with what looked, based on the artist’s conception, like a much smaller terrace out back. “Well, at least, there’s still some sort of terrace in the plans,” Mitch pointed out.

The problem was that Tony’s classes were popular and the twenty to sometimes thirty mostly middle-aged women students were able to spread out across the broad space facing the sea. Sure it got hot sometimes, especially in the morning sun light, but the evening classes allowed for cooler breezes and pink skies over the waves of the Pacific. The roof on the other hand, sectioned off with a small swimming pool, bar area and the air-conditioning units was a much tighter fit for the nearly two dozen participants. At least there was still a breeze and a sea view off in the distance. Mitch was situated next to the large air compressors, right behind the only other man in the group, Allen Myers. Barb hadn’t seen Myers for a while. He was still a suspect, but not a prime suspect, and she wondered how he was doing. Both men had on similar outfits, college tee shirts—Michigan State green and white and red with “Stanford” written across the chest in white; old rumbled Bermudas; and short golf socks. Each had a pair of white running shoes with blue stripes off to the side. “A couple of old jocks,” is what Barb thought.

With “the guys” behind her, Barb, in a plain yellow scoop-neck tee shirt, thin cotton work-out pants and tiny bare feet, wouldn’t have to see if her husband was behaving himself or not. She had other things to think about, while Tony began the class with a brief series of warm up exercises including head and neck rolls and shoulder shrugging.

“Oh my, Mitch is going to think this is silly,” Barb thought. As usual Tony looked like a member of the American women’s soccer team, with her hair tied up in a pony tail. Her tanned arms and legs shown against her orange tank top and tan short shorts. In fact, at first, Mitch did think that the mountain pose, which was basically standing up straight, was “pretty darn easy.” Then however, when Tony Perdu noticed that he had his bent-leg foot on his knee in the tree pose, she said it either had to be held all the way up against his thigh or back down to his calf. At that he lost his balance.

Without looking around, Barb knew that it was her husband who was receiving extra instruction and she took a certain degree of pleasure in knowing that she was able to move from the table pose to the cat and then release to the cow pose smoothly and gracefully even, while her husband huffed and puffed on his hands and knees. When they moved into the downward facing dog, Barb was sure she recognized Mitch grunt as he attempted to do as Tony instructed and “push your butt into the air and push from your hands not your wrists.” Then during the bridge pose as Tony in a thin, soft voice told everyone “come back down, one vertebra at a time. Slowly, don’t flop down,” Barb was sure she heard the sound of a large man flopping. She was able to naturally spot Mitch while the group posed in warrior two. He looked big and powerful with his feet spread apart, one toe pointed and his long arms extended out at shoulder height, which would have been over Barb’s head if she were closer. There was no way, Mitch was going to be able to twist his long legs into a lotus position, but she could make out his voice from the crowd when he responded to the teacher’s “Namaste,” with a breathy “No mas tee,” of his own.

While she did believe in the stress reducing qualities of yoga, Barb was surprised how peaceful she felt, with her small, slender hands folded in a prayerful pose, as the group chanted “Om” three times. It wasn’t until she lay flat on her back in the so-called corpse pose with her arms out off to her sides, that her mind wandered once again to her failed attempt to solve the mystery. She found herself feeling deep regret, but it wasn’t because she couldn’t name Beth’s murderer. She wasn’t a professional, and as a civilian, knew that she would have to get lucky; and so far that hadn’t happened. Her main regret had to do with Jack, who had put her in the who-can-you-trust position. The answer, while she was supposed to be cooling down and relaxing out, was apparently nobody. As the class came to a close it was a reality that made Barb sad.

At the back as he and Allen tugged on their shoes, Mitch confided to his compadre that “that wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”

“I know,” Allen, whose red face stretched all over his shaved head, said. “At first, I was in class just to meet women. Hell, that’s how I met Beth. But I found out it’s quite a strange workout. Just posing can be strenuous.”

Directly over Allen’s sweaty shoulder, Mitch spotted his little wife with a surprised almost frightened look on her face as she listened to what Tony, the yoga instructor, had to say. Perdu had a stern look and wagged her finger in Barb’s face. “Shit,” Mitch wondered “what can that be about?” By then, Barb was striding toward him. By the time she got to him, he could tell by the simmering look in her eye that something was up. Barb actually grabbed his elbow and was turning him toward the stairwell, when Allen attempted a “Hello, there senora detective.”

To which Barb responded with a curt, “Hello Allen. We gotta go.” She stopped at the first landing and turned to Mitch and said, “Well, that’s that. I can’t go to yoga anymore.”

“Oh, shit, why not? I kinda liked it.” Mitch was trying to make a joke though he knew he was only postponing finding out what Perdu had to say. “So what’s up?”

“Well, little Miss Tony, yoga, peace-on-earth, told me that her husband, you know, the never-here rich guy, with lots of investments in Casco Viejo, or so we’re told, from Poland or Russia or where ever, had a warning for me.”

“He did? We haven’t even met him, have we?”

“No we haven’t,” Barb said, “but we’ve been warned just the same.

“Was it to keep your husband at home?”

“No. This is serious.”

“Okay, what was it about?” Mitch had no idea.

“To stop sticking my nose in business that is none of my affair.”

“Did she say that?” Mitch was surprised.

“Yes, she did.” Barb had been caught by surprise as well.

“Did you ask her what she was talking about?”

“Yes, I did. And she kinda softened and said that her husband, still no name, was worried about me. That what happened to Beth was none of my concern and that he thought I would be wise to mind my own business. And then she said, no kidding ‘listen darling, my husband says you’re in way over your head’ and she says ‘please take care of yourself,’ end of quote.”

“Oh, fuck,” Mitch said.

“I forgot to tell you, by the way, that the detective Gomez guy told me there were complaints about me asking around,” Barb said.

“From who?”

“He wouldn’t say.” Barb shook her head from side to side.

“Well, let’s get outta here,” Mitch said with his arm looped around his wife’s should. “There might be spies.”

“You know the peace and tranquility I’m supposed to feel after yoga?” Barb said, and then when Mitch nodded; “Well, I’m not feeling it.”

On their way home, the Multuskys stopped at a bench in a small park overlooking the beach. Behind them there was a large municipal parking lot, taking up some of the most valuable waterfront space that Mitch had ever seen. A small fountain gurgled in the center of the triangular park that was bordered on the third side by a sidewalk that led back to their apartment. Apparently, at one time a convent was located where an apartment building now stands across the street because the name of the park is Baluaarte de Monjas, which roughly translates bastion of the nuns.

“How did Mr. Perdu, if that’s even his name, know that you were involved in what has to be described as an informal investigation,” Mitch wondered out loud.

Barb couldn’t resist lighting up a cigarette and through a puff of smoke said, “And I was also wondering who could have possibly complained so Gomez knew.

“I know I wanted to complain, but not to the police. So, I’m pretty sure we can eliminate Allen, who doesn’t really believe he’s even a suspect; and I doubt poor ol’Joe Berger is doing anything to keep his name out front; so do you think it was Jamon?”Beth slapped his arm. “And how could your boy Jack complain when he’s been part of it; so it has to be that prick Jerry Cole.”

“Yup, I think he might have complained, especially after you gave him the bum’s rush; but he’s small potatoes and I doubt if he’s running around with Tony’s husband.”

“So, who’s left?”

“Exactly,” Barb said as she flicked her cigarette butt over the rusted iron railing bordering the beach below. “I never for a minute thought I could trust that creepy lawyer Billy Boar and now I’m convinced he knows more and is involved more in whatever happened than we’ll ever know.”

“That’s the problem isn’t Sweetheart –‘than we’ll ever know…’” Mitch took his wife’s hand in his that looked like a baseball mitt in comparison. “We’ve just been warned by one of the big guys.”

“I know,” Barb said. “I was already worried that I might be getting in over my head, like Tony said, but now I’ve been formally warned, by somebody who shouldn’t give a damn about me or the investigation.”

“Yup, it’s over,” Mitch said.

“Maybe,” Barb said as she looked out at the flat calm sea.

“Definitely,” Mitch said. “Listen Barb, I can’t protect you when I don’t know who we’re actually talking about. Right now, you don’t know shit, which is probably a good thing, because if you did, oh, I don’t know what.”

“What bothers me is that somebody is going to get away with Beth’s murder.”

“Yeah, I think that’s awful,” Mitch agreed as he stood up with his arms out in a shrug, “but we’re not equipped to deal with the situation.”

“I know,” Barb said. “I had that realization the minute, the second, I turned around and walked away from Tony. I don’t know if she was being a Good Samaritan or just a messenger, but the look on her face had something to do with the fact that I didn’t know her husband or his friends and had no conception of what I was getting into—a business that actually cost a friend of ours her life.”

“Not only that; and I don’t like the idea either; but while we’re facing up to realities; we need to keep in mind that we’re living in a foreign country.”

* * *

It was nearly two months since “Barb stopped going to yoga” when Mitch was walking Carmen around Simon Bolivar Plaza, right in front of the Church of St. Francis.

Seated at a table under a large umbrella in front of the Casa Blanca café was Joe Berger. That wasn’t surprising. What was out of character was that while Berger nursed his usual bottle of Atlas beer, a leash attached to a small dog, that looked like a mix between a Chihuahua and several other breeds, was hooked to the leg of Joe’s chair. Naturally, the Chihuahua mix started a yappy barking session, the minute it noticed Carmen prancing by. All black and white confidence, Carmen might have been surprised when her human headed in the direction of the yapping.

“Hi,” Mitch said. “Where’d you get the dog?” Carmen immediately assumed the cobra yoga position and looked as if she wanted to play with or at least tease the other dog. Both approached each other warily, but soon were nose to nose. Mitch stood while Joe sat.

“Oh, that’s my girl friend’s dog; actually my fiancée’s dog. Name’s Pepe; a little male.

“I guess you’ve already met Carmen here,” Mitch said.

“Oh, indeed I have,” Berger said, with a nod and a smirk aimed at Mitch, until Joe realized that the big lug might not know about the alleged kicking incident.

Mitch wasn’t thinking about dogs. He couldn’t believe that this guy was actually going to marry that little whore, whatever her name was; and with an obnoxious dog to boot. So just to make sure, he asked “So who is the lucky lady?”

If Joe realized that Mitch thought the answer was going to be a pole dancer prostitute from Columbia, he didn’t let on. It had been a while since Bebe wandered out of his life. “Her name is Anita, Anita Jimenez. She’s Panamanian/American. She actually grew up here in Casco Viejo, then married an American service man lived in the States for thirty years until he died and then she returned here.”

“Hey, well congratulations man, that sounds great.” Mitch meant it too. He really never got to know Joe that well, but he didn’t wish the bitter life of a jilted gringo at the hands of a young gold digger on anyone. “So I guess that means you’ll be settling down here in Casco,” Mitch said as he shook the fellow’s hand.

“Nope, she’s not happy here. She misses the States, actually more than I do.” The point Joe didn’t make was that he wasn’t happy in Panama either, but would have stayed to be with Anita, a sweet undemanding woman, who treated him with kindness and who he loved and appreciated. “So yeah, we’ll be moving back after the wedding—Florida probably—she’s got as much family there as here and that’s where I’m from.” Full circle.

“I guess you’ll be starting up your sports agent business again?” Mitch was shooting the breeze. “Do you have any prospects lined up?”

“Actually, I was never a sports agent,” Joe said. Even though he tried to make his admission sound nonchalant, he almost choked on the words. “That was all bullshit.” Carmen and Pepe gingerly circled sniffing each other’s tail. Soon the two leashes were tangled.

“Oh, really?” Mitch was disappointed. He liked the idea of knowing somebody involved with professional sports.

“I’m so sorry. I thought I would impress people. It was fucked up.” And stupid.

“So what did you do?” Mitch wasn’t angry, or peeved and not really surprised. In fact, Berger, a real average guy, never impressed him as the type of slick dresser/fast talker that he assumed would be the type to negotiate big league contracts; but once again he took a person on his word. “I may have to stop doing that here,” Mitch concluded.

“I managed a discount retail store, until it went out of business and closed and I was laid off. Somehow, I didn’t think that would impress anybody, so I decided to reinvent myself and as you can see it didn’t work.”

“So whatta you going to do, I mean back in Florida?” Mitch was retired with plenty of time to chat and knew he had to get all the details because Barb would want to know.

“I guess I’ll try to get a job in retail, and hopefully work my way back up to a management position. I won’t be able to retire anytime soon, since I’ve used up a lot of my money down here; but she’s got a pension and office management skills and we’ll survive. We might have to live with her family for a while.”

“That won’t be pretty,” Mitch said with a straight face, until he noticed the worried look on Berger’s mug and let him off the hook with a grin. They both laughed. At that Mitch sat down and hooked Carmen’s leash on the leg of his chair. Both dogs curled up under the chair of the men who had the leashes. Joe gave the waiter the two-sign with his fingers and soon both guys sipped their beers.

“So how’s it going with you?” Berger was always awkward with conversation but thought it was worth a try. “How did your wife’s investigation turn out?”

“The same as the police, so far,” Mitch said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“That’s a shame,” Joe said. “Listen, you guys never really thought it was me, did you?”

“Why whadya mean?” Multusky said, again with a straight face. “Did you do it?”

“Oh shit, of course not,” Berger blurted, before he once again spotted a sly grin of the big guy’s face.

“Gotcha. You’re easy, you know that?”

The two men clinked glasses and chuckled, each to himself.

“So is the investigation over?” Joe did wonder since he realized he was a suspect.

“Suspended indefinitely,” Mitch said. “I’m afraid that Beth’s murderer will never be brought to justice.”

“So who do you think did it?” Joe inquired.

“Can’t say for sure,” Mitch said with a note of finality in his voice.

“That’s a shame.” And it was too as far as Joe was concerned; and as far as Mitch was concerned. Nobody deserves to die alone in a far away land. “So what are you guys up to now?”

Mitch leaned back and took a slug on his beer. “Barb and I have decided to see more of Panama—you know—see the sights, travel around. I think we’ve come up with a good plan too. We’ve advertised on a couple of web sites, uh, PanamaToday.com and Panaplaces and we’re going to house sit for people and mostly dog sit really. Lots of expats down here can’t or don’t want to stay all the time and we’ll look after their dogs and bring Carmen along for the ride and we’ll live in different locations. We’re already lined up for a two-month stay in Boquette, up in the mountains and maybe three months in a beach place in Santa Clara.”

“Hey that sounds great.” It did too. Joe even felt some of the old envy creep back in like it used to whenever he heard about somebody else’s good fortune; but he tried to shake it off. “That should keep things interesting.”

“While still feeling like retirement,” Mitch noted. Then he realized that Berger was returning to work, and said “I’m sorry; but I guess that’s the way it is.”

“No, I understand,” Joe said. “You guys deserve it.”

“Not really,” Mitch said. He didn’t believe they necessarily did deserve it but as he said that was the way things seemed to work out.

“Hey listen,” Joe said and then hesitated. “If I invited you and Barb to come to my wedding, would you come?” Joe immediately recognized that it was a very awkward way of extending an invitation.

Mitch also appreciated the awkwardness and decided to joke it away. “Well, that’s pretty darn hypothetical. I’m not sure what we would do, if we happened to be invited.” Mitch knew that by taking that approach, he was implying that he would accept if invited, but that was okay, unless Barb really objected; but she was a sweet, forgiving woman.

“I’m sorry; would you please come to my wedding?” At that moment Joe really wanted the only guests, to whom he even considered extending an invitation, to come.

“No.” Mitch said. Then after enough of a pause to get Berger one more time, “Oh, okay, I’ll have to ask the boss, but I’m sure she’ll think it’s a good idea.”

Two friends on the groom’s side are better than no one.

When Berger arrived in Panama, he had high hopes—the wrong hopes—that he would fool people into liking him. That since Panama was a place where it seemed that a number of people from other parts of the world were coming together and beginning new lives; that he would be able to invent a new life for himself as well. Wrong. Yes, there are opportunities for big payoff investments and scams in one of the only booming economies left. Yes, many people are open to making new friends, since they’ve left their comfort zone behind. And yes, new lives and new identities are being invented in a place that seems to welcome such reinvention, a place that didn’t really have an identity of its own, cut in half by a canal owned by a foreign power; a country ruled by dictators, until recently. Every year, some magazine lists Panama as one of the five best places in the world to (a) visit; (b) retire; or (c) invest; but not for Joe.

2010-10-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Fourteen

Carmen usually walked along with only a slight tug on the leash, so Barb was surprised when the little dog gave a mighty pull. There in front of them was Tica, Beth’s maid, walking directly toward her. Because she was a servant, Barb had only a nodding acquaintance with the small, young Indian woman, who had her eyes down and didn’t notice them until Carmen jumped up to greet her apparent friend. Barb never knew that Carmen had breakfast with Beth most mornings and that Tica served the little dog scrambled eggs on a plate.

“Oh, hello my dear,” Barb said when the maid made eye contact. At that moment, Barb could not recall her name.

“Buenos dias,” Tica said without a smile on her thin angular face. Her big brown eyes darted around only at times stopping at Barb. She held out her tiny hand as much to ward Carmen off as to greet the dog.

Barb knew that Tica could speak some English, but instead tried an awkward “Como esta usted?” followed with what was hopefully perceived as a friendly smile.

“Okay,” Tica offered tentatively, followed with a half step away.

“Bien, bien,” Barb stalled knowing that she would have to revert to Spanglish very soon. And then it hit her. “Oh, my God…” Barb thought as her face flushed. “I should have spoken to this woman long ago, right away; I mean she worked in the house for goodness sake.” “Como se llama, por favor?” No point hiding the fact, she didn’t know.

“Tica.”

“Of course, lo siento. Quiero hablar a usted, por favor con Miss Beth.”

“Por que?”

“Por que esta muy importante,” Barb stressed as her vocabulary ran out. Immediately, she realized that for anything substantive to come out of a conversation with this important witness, she would have to get Beni or better still Candi to help out as an interpreter for both sides. The problem was how to be able to make contact. “I don’t suppose she has a card,” Barb wondered, as she fingered one of her little business-style cards that many expats carried because they were always meeting new people. “That’s stupid, but I could give her one of mine.” Barb pulled out a card and pushed it toward Tica, whose body language was that she really didn’t want to take a card with a phone number she had no intention of putting to use. So then Barb surprised herself and came up with “Que su telephono numero, por favor?” At that, she fished a ball point out of her purse, which she kept handy to make notes about the investigation, along with a small note pad. “Escribe, por favor.” Barb was on a roll with her elemental Spanish and threw in a few more biens and por favors as she watched Barb’s maid, who could not have weighed more than 100 pounds, scribble eight digits (Cell phones in Panama have an extra digit, the first of which is a 6), on the back in small tight numerals. Barb took a quick look at the number and since it began with a 6, hoped Tica wasn’t giving her a dummy in an attempt to get away from this inquisitive gringa. As a backup, Barb asked, “Donde vive, Senora?”

During the entire exchange, after she stopped standing on her hind legs with the leash fully extended just out of reach of Tica, Carmen sat calmly between the two women and appeared to listen attentively with one black ear cocked and one flopped.

Tica shrugged but then seemed to relent to an internal discussion and said “Calle Quince.”

“En Casco Viejo?”

“Si, Senora, si.”

“Yes,” Barb said. If it was true, that was close enough to be able to find her. It wasn’t the safest street. The rule in Casco was the higher the number the more dangerous the street particularly after twelve, so Tica living at 15 was borderline. After all nobody in Panama had house or building numbers so addresses were often vague or limited to building names, but what the heck thought Barb. “Que nombre su edifico?”

At that point, Tica raised her left hand with a thin wedding band on the ring finger in a stop gesture.

“Okay, okay, no problema,” Barb said with what she hoped looked like a reassuring grin.

“Ciao,” Tica said as she continued to scuff up Avenue A in her flip flops, apparently headed home.

“Ciao,” Barb said, as she turned off headed to the Chino’s for cigarettes. Everyone called the small grocery stores and mini-marts “Chinos” because virtually all of the hundreds maybe thousands of convenience stores were run by Chinese merchants. It was said that they had a monopoly.

“Mitch is going to be amazed,” Barb thought. Not only was it amazing that they had not thought to speak to the maid earlier, (Barb wondered if the cops had touched that base or simply scraped Jamon off the street without a second thought), but Barb was also sure that her husband would be impressed by how much she was able to accomplish by speaking Spanish.

Carmen, whose white tale with a black tip curved up behind like rudder, was neither impressed nor not.

* * *

Mitch was sound asleep when a series of loud knocks woke him up from an afternoon nap. Since there was a locked outside gate to the entrance way to their apartment building, visitors needed to be buzzed in before they could knock at an individual apartment. The only person who had ever knocked on their door before was the concierge and never with such insistent gusto. “Jesus,” Mitch thought, “I hope the building’s not on fire.” Which was unlikely since the entire structure was made of block, stone and tile. More bangs rattled the door in its frame. “It better be a fuckin’ emergency, knocking like that.”

After he slipped into his flip flops, Mitch shuffled to the door and opened it with a quick jerk. The sudden change in the position of the door left Jerry Cole frozen in mid-knock. He looked like a quarterback without a ball, his fist by his right ear and his skinny arm bent at the elbow. Mitch, who was at least six inches taller and maybe a hundred pounds heavier, stepped into the doorway and glared down at the intruder whose face was clenched in an angry grimace. Mitch, in a wrinkled white tee shirt and navy blue shorts, was in no mood to be cordial, since he immediately suspected that Jerry’s visit had something to do with his lovely little wife’s investigation. The look on Cole’s face switched from pissed off to surprised when Mitch asked “How in the fuck did you get in here without buzzing?”

Jerry took a step back and rubbed his knuckles. Apparently knocking rudely hurt his fist. “The concierge was right there and let me in.”

“You should have still buzzed,” Mitch pronounced every word like a traffic cop speaking to a speeder. “So get out of here.” Mitch had no intention of giving Jerry an opening. “I won’t allow anyone to bang on my door like that. So scram.” Mitch did not remember ever saying scram to anyone before and it struck him funny when the word came out. It was also clear to Jerry that he had pretty much lost control of the agenda.

“I’m here to speak with your wife,” Jerry blurted. It sounded more plaintiff than threatening, as Cole’s voice broke.

“No you’re not. I told you to leave.” Mitch was peeved but he was nowhere near losing his temper.

It was Jerry whose knees were knocking in an adrenaline rush of angry confused threat. The big lug could throw him back down the passageway if he wanted to, but he was also well known as the gentle giant with the petite wife, so would he? “And what if I don’t?” Even to Jerry the retort made him sound like a school boy, which played right into the hands of the retired vice principal.

“I’ll throw your sorry ass out.” It isn’t a threat if you don’t really intend to do it; but the fact of the matter was that Mitch had every intention of literally throwing Jerry Cole out on the sidewalk. It would be easy—Cole was a lightweight; there were no witnesses—the concierge had disappeared; and it would be righteous because he was defending his wife—something he wanted to prove he could still do. “Okay Buster, on your way.” Scram, buster, the words Mitch chose were intended to belittle and they worked.

Cole decided to call the big guy’s bluff. Sometimes a larger man would be worried about a confrontation appearing as an unfair fight. After all, Cole had been involved in confrontational situations before and often got away with his aggressive behavior. “I’m not leaving until I give your wife a piece of my mind,” Cole said as he immediately saw that he had once again overplayed his decidedly weak hand. In one quick motion, Multusky grabbed both of Jerry’s thin biceps and lifted him a couple of inches off the ground while giving him a powerful push backward, not unlike an offensive lineman blocking a cheerleader. Cole had the air knocked out of him when he hit the wall. Just as quickly, Mitch spun the smaller man around and gripped the collar of Cole’s golf shirt and the belt of his Bermuda shorts from behind and was giving Madge’s husband the classic experience known as the bum’s rush. The only problem was that the gate had become relocked in the meantime.

First Carmen barked, which itself was a rare occurrence and then Barb appeared at the gate with her key out. In a move that Mitch would describe later as “graceful as a dancer,” Barb unlocked the gate and swung it open, just in time to allow Mitch to keep his unwelcome visitor’s toes dragging as he was swept out onto the sidewalk. Cole spun around and landed in a seated position on the hood of a parked car. The car’s alarm screeched into operation, as Carmen continued to bark, and the Multuskys spun back behind the gate which shut with a secure click. Both Barb and he had grins on their faces and Mitch had to restrain an impulse to thumb his nose at Cole who shook with fury.

“God damn you!” Cole screamed like a spoiled brat. “My wife left me because you told her I killed Beth Page. You know god damn well I never murdered that woman; and you had no right accusing me to my wife.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mitch said, back to his administrator voice even if his vocabulary was not as regulated as in the old days.

“You’re definitely a suspect,” Barb pointed out from behind Mitch, “but I never told your wife any such thing. You can rail and scream all you want; but everybody knows you hated Beth and you were the one stupid enough to let everybody realize that you had a motive.”

“Listen buddy,” Mitch said “I’ll be perfectly happy to come out and make you cease and desist from disturbing the peace, (Actually, it was unlikely then with Barb present that Mitch would once again resort to being physical.), but your wife left you because you’re an asshole who bullied her constantly and acted crabby all the time. Personally, I don’t think you have the guts to murder Beth or anybody.” As he spoke, both Mitch and his wife watched as the red drained from Jerry’s face and neck, leaving him pale and slumped. “So get the hell outta here, before you cause any more trouble; and make sure that you leave my wife alone. If she comes and tells me that you’ve bothered her even a little bit, I will break you in half. And that’s a promise, pal, you will be wise to believe.” Buddy, pal—Mitch was perfectly happy to incite Cole, partly because he felt that Jerry wasn’t really man enough to do anything about it.

Cole stood seething for another instant or two, and then peered through the bars of the gate at his massive tormentor, with a tiny woman at his side. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney in the morning.”

Mitch couldn’t help himself and laughed, not a guffaw more of a chuckle. “I’ll look forward to

that,” Multusky said with a broad smile.

Barb, put a small hand on her husband’s sturdy forearm. “Honey, don’t be mean,” she said “leave him be.” Before he turned to go, Mitch saw a bewildered look of defeat on Cole’s scrunched face. Carmen pranced ahead dragging the leash that Barb had let go. When they closed the apartment door behind them , the two, one tall and burley, one short and slim, embraced, fitting together as pieces of a well worn puzzle.

“Crabby?” Mitch shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get an interview now, thanks to you,” Barb said.

“You’re welcome,” Mitch said with a slight bow.

“Maybe, he’ll still talk to Jack.”

“Oh, stop. Please.”

* * *

It took three days but Candi was able to set up a meeting with Tica at the Café Coca Cola, a historic location on the border of the area known as Casco Viejo. “Tica certainly has a sense for the dramatic,” Barb reported to Mitch after the meeting. The Café Coca Cola is said to be the oldest diner in Panama City dating back to 1875; and named with the famous brand name in 1906 because Panama was one of the first countries outside of North America to operate a bottling plant. When they were on their way to the 10 a.m. meeting, Candi filled Barb in on a little bit of the history of the neighborhood institution situated just off from the Plaza Santa Ana. Apparently, particularly in the ‘50s and ‘60s, many if not most of the wheeler dealers, politicians and government officials would hang out over a pinato, a tiny cup of strong coffee with a spot or two of white cream, and make deals and decide policy. According to local legend, Che Guevara stayed for awhile in the rooms above while passing through on his way to Guatemala. There is even film of the time back in 1989 when then vice-presidential candidate Billy Ford was beaten up right in front of the Café Coca Cola. It seems that the dictator Noriega didn’t appreciate any opposition.

Today, it is simply a diner with brusque waitresses in hairnets waiting on a mostly working-class clientele of local merchants, secretaries, police men and senores viejo playing chess and enjoying the refrigerator-cold air conditioning. (It is said there are two kinds of weather in Panama—hot and air conditioning.) Tica was late and Candi and Barb both worried that she might not show as they absent-mindedly watched one of the never-ending soccer games broadcast from somewhere in the world, on one of the big screen TVs. Barb thought it only appropriate and sipped a Coke through a straw in what she described as “a classic collectible glass.”

“So what did you gals find out?” That’s what Mitch wanted to know.

“Plenty,” Barb seemed excited about the news she was able to scoop when Tica finally made the walk up Avenita B and arrived at what she considered a neutral site. “First of all, and you’re not going to believe this, but Tica thought our Carmen was Beth’s pet dog. In fact, Carmen usually had breakfast on Beth’s back porch most mornings. Scrambled eggs no less served on a plate. Carmen sat on a chair and ate from the table. She’s such a princess”

“Did Carmen take her coffee black or with sugar?” To be honest, Mitch did not find Carmen’s secret life that hard to believe. “So, are you going to interview Carmen next?” Mitch couldn’t resist pointing out that that meant their own part-time pet was a potential witness.

“I wish I could,” Barb said, mostly going along with the joke, but also wistfully wondering what Carmen could tell, if only she could speak.

“So what was Carmen’s other name?”

“Tica didn’t think she had a name. Beth usually called her ‘perra.’ But that’s not the only bombshell,” Barb said with both eyebrows raised on her small, still pretty face.

“Do tell,” Mitch said. He was enjoying being included more if only as a sounding board.

“According to Tica,” Barb said reverting to the professional language and tone she affected when discussing the investigation, “Beth had numerous male visitors to her home after her husband died. Muy mucho; but the most frequent and regular man to visit, at least while Tica was there, but she did work some evenings was…” Barb did not seem happy with the news and nodded her gray head slightly.

“Jack Smith,” Mitch guessed; and by the stunned look on his petite wife’s face, correctly.

“That’s right,” Barb seemed surprised again. “My so-called partner, who appeared to be, you know, disinterested in an almost professional way, was or so Tica seems to believe, one of Beth’s closest friends, her confidante or boyfriend, or whatever, but he was there a lot.”

“So, I guess he’s not that gay, huh?”

“We don’t know that,” Barb said with a slightly perturbed edge to her voice. “Tica says she never saw a lot of affection between the two, just hugs and air kisses and that sort of thing; but like a good maid she also left them alone for substantial periods of time. So Jack could be a boyfriend…”

“A jealous boyfriend, who didn’t appreciate Berger and Allen and whoever else…”

“Or a gay guy friend, like lots of single women have…”

“Who didn’t appreciate her crude, rude heterosexual boyfriends like Berger and Allen or whoever...”

“Okay, okay,” Barb put her hands up in surrender, “he’s definitely a suspect and actually one of our leading ones. (“Our,” Mitch noted.) Especially, since it now appears that he hasn’t been at all candid about his past relationship with the victim and might have joined with me in the investigation in order to monitor whether or not anybody thought he might be involved.”

“You missed your calling,” Mitch said as he watched a sweet smile cross his wife’s face; and then “Well, I think our boy Jack has some splainin’ to do.”

“Oh, definitely; even though, you know what, Tica doesn’t think that Smith is the one. For one thing young, shy, Tica speaks pretty good English, apparently her husband lived in the States for a while and never sensed any real tension between her mistress and Jack, our new mystery man.”

“So who did our inside informant think did it?” Mitch said ever so casually working in the word our again.

“It was more who she didn’t suspect, like Jack, who she considered loyal and always friendly. She thought Berger was a joke and said something about him kicking la perra, that I understand put him on the outs with Beth. She thought Allen was too new on the scene and acted like the well-dressed suitor, who really digged Beth. That’s Tica’s word ‘digged.’ She went on to say before that that both Billies seemed nice.”

“Both Billies? Who in the hell are both Billies?” Mitch asked, as he stretched out his long legs in front of the chair he had eased into for the long haul.

“Well, there’s Billy Boar, her attorney, who like virtually every other available male was at least smitten for a while; and some guy by the name of Billy Belize, who Boar, the other Billy mentioned as a business partner of Beth’s who may have owed her some money. Tica described him as a good looking younger guy from Columbia, who Tica thought was hot.”

“So, you were worried that Tica wasn’t going to say much, but now it seems she’s been fairly forthcoming,” Mitch pointed out.

“Definitely,” Barb agreed. “Candi was a big help and really put Tica at ease with no problems with language, just an easygoing mix of Spanish, English and Spanglish; so it really turned into girl talk if you know what I mean.”

“I can only imagine,” Mitch said. “So what about our favorite asshole Cole?”

“You know, Tica didn’t have much to say about him and wasn’t exactly sure who he was. I guess he didn’t stop by Beth’s that much.”

“So we’re the lucky ones,” Mitch said with a grin. For a variety of reasons, Mitch had gotten a kick out of putting Jerry Cole in his place. “You know after all that, with only the addition of the widower Jack ‘not-that-gay-if-you-ask-me’ Smith, you’re still stuck with about the same list of suspects that you’ve always had.”

“Not exactly,” Barb got up and paced their little living room not unlike dozens of detectives did in dozens of movies as they attempted to sort out what they knew. “Tica said that for the last month or two before her death, Beth would often receive phones calls that would leave her mistress looking upset sometimes; angry sometimes; and in tears sometimes. More than once Beth would end up yelling into the phone saying things like ‘you can’t get away with this’ or ‘that’s wrong—you should be ashamed’ or ‘I can’t believe what you’re saying’ and things like that. Tica said if she answered she could recognize Jack’s voice, but usually could not tell who was on the line. Many times, Beth would wait for her to leave the room before some of the shouting matches.”

“So that certainly leaves Jerry on the list,” Mitch said.

“And maybe both Billies—Boar was involved with some touchy negotiations; and that Belize character from Cartagena, who may have skipped out on this or that deal.” It was obvious that Barb didn’t really think anybody mentioned so far would end up actually being the perpetrator. “Then of course,” she continued “there’s Rodrigo Feliz.”

“Beth’s favorite next door neighbor.” All along, Mitch figured it could very well be somebody like Feliz, who never would actually put his hands around Beth’s neck, but who would see to it that somebody like her never got away with getting in the way. Casco’s most notorious developer; a guy so ruthless he would purposely jeopardize the historic section of Panama City by causing it to lose its World Heritage status so he could maybe make a buck; a short dumpy, bald on top, with dyed black hair; the self-designated cock of the walk, who was probably untouchable, was just the guy Mitch did not want his little, smart but defenseless wife to come into contact with; was, had been, and always would be a leading suspect in the death of Beth Page.

“And that’s not all,” Barb said almost anxious to change the subject from the most dangerous to the least. “Tica is not so sure that Jamon didn’t do it. She thinks he’s a low life and didn’t trust him; didn’t like him and didn’t approve of Beth giving him jobs around her house. She seemed to think that arresting Jamon made a lot of sense.”

“Which means we’re pretty much back where we started from?” Mitch threw up his hands.

“What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe?” Barb stepped over and sat in her husband’s lap and gave him a kiss on his one-day-old cheek.

* * *

Jack Smith had a simple solution when Barb paid him a not unexpected visit and suggested that he had not been candid with her when it came to his relationship with Beth Page.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “I should have never gotten involved in your witch hunt, and I will not be involved in any way in the future.” Jack had on a pair of light tan linen trousers, and a white long-sleeved shirt, open at the collar.

Poor Barb had actually expected an apology. “Okay” she said, “so what was your relationship with the deceased?” She watched as he rolled up one sleeve and then the other to just below his elbows.

“That, my dear, is none of your business.”

“Oh,” Barb said, “we can go around and interrogate other people about what they know, but when it comes to you, yourself, you’re going to plead the fifth.”

“I’m not making a plea or anything else. I don’t need to.”

“Oh, come on Jack, you know something. Fess up. You lead me to believe something and now we know something very different. You owe me an explanation.” Barb took a quick look around Jack’s uncluttered but tired looking old apartment with its cheap “native village” art on the walls and the heavy dark wood furniture.

“I do not owe a nosey old gal, with nothing better to do than play at being Lady Sherlock, anything.”

“Jack, you weren’t honest. You misrepresented yourself. Now I think it’s time to come clean.” Compared to Mitch, Jack at 5’8” seemed tiny to Barb, and neat. Only the crooked part in his gray hair was not in line.

“And what did I lead you to believe that wasn’t and isn’t true,” Jack said, still not really losing his cool. “That Beth was my friend? That I wouldn’t mind finding out who murdered a lovely woman, who did not deserve to die? Where is the dishonest part?”

“I had no idea the extent of your relationship with Beth.”

“And you still don’t and won’t because it is none of your business.”

“Oh, come on Jack,” Barb pleaded, “I know that I have no right (with extra emphasis on the word), to be involved, not like you, but I simply felt it was wrong and dangerous to allow people like Beth or any of us to be murdered, for goodness sake, without justice, without attention being paid, in a foreign country, if you know what I mean.”

“I am no longer involved in your silly so-called investigation,” Jack said. “Case closed.”

“The case is most certainly not closed,” Barb said. “For your information, the police released Jamon, this morning, so there is not even a suspect in custody, much less the wrong one. Even though, I’m not so sure if releasing Jamon was even a correct decision.”

“In fact, you’re not sure of anything are you?” Jack couldn’t resist.

“I am sure that as of now, you’ve become a suspect by the way you’ve misrepresented yourself.”

“I may be a suspect in your eyes, but then again you don’t know shit.”

Barb felt she might be getting to Jack, so she pressed on with, “So, you tell me what I don’t know.”

Jack took a big breath. “You don’t know me; you don’t know Beth; you don’t know Panama; you don’t know how to speak Spanish; you don’t know what you’re getting into; and you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.”

At that Barb laughed, but then thought twice and came back with “So what am I getting myself into?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said and shook his head, “but neither do you.”

“So do you think it could be that bastard Feliz?”

“I don’t know. It could be a lot of people.”

“That’s right.” Barb knew she was very close to losing Jack for good, so she figured she had nothing to lose by pressing him. “There were a lot of men in Beth’s life.” If Jack was jealous that might get a rise out of him.

“That’s right,” Jack said. He did not look particularly perturbed. “Maybe you need some women on your ever-expanding list of prime suspects.” With a new hint of sarcasm, Jack continued, “Maybe it was Tica, the trusted maid or maybe that hooker, you know the one that hung out with Allen and then Joe, what was her name?”

“Bebe.”

“That’s right; she deserves to be on your never-ending list. Which is just the point isn’t it. For even an amateur detective, you haven’t a clue. Heck the cops, who don’t give a flying fuck about some hussy gringa probably have more clues and a better idea of who did it than you ever will.” More sarcasm, but Jack did feel that everyone would be better off if Barb dropped her act as well.

“Have you talked to the cops? What do they think?”

“Stop,” Jack said. In fact Jack had talked to a detective informally and by now would have told Barb that the only finger prints they found belonged to Tica and Allen. There didn’t seem to be any skin under Beth’s fingernails and the hair that they found was mostly dog hair. However, since he wasn’t involved any more, she would have to get her boy Beni to find that out, if he could.

“Have you seen Bebe around lately? I really thought she was out of the picture.”

“Not lately. She’s probably escaping back to Columbia as we speak.”

“And Tica. I just spoke to her. She was the one who filled me in on you. Is there some way that Tica could have had the strength and could she have locked herself back out?”

“What about the CIA?” Jack added. “Or the KGB or the FARC?”

“Oh, shut up,” Barb said. “There is no point in making fun of me for trying to do the right thing, something you were very much involved in for a while.”

“Well, I am not involved anymore,” Jack said. Slowly, he walked over to the door of his apartment and opened it. Barb, paused a moment in the door way, sensed an emptiness that old objects didn’t fill and then turned and walked toward the stairwell. “Good luck, my dear.” Barb did not look back.

To be honest, Jack actually thought that they had done a pretty good job of eliminating suspects, at least in his mind. Without access to forensic evidence, they were basically hoping to find someone who acted guilty and/or in some way incriminated himself or herself. For one thing, Jack was certain he had not somehow killed a woman he adored and then forgotten about it. No. When he first heard the news, he sat down in the very chair he was sitting in and cried. He wept because whatever it was that Beth had done, he knew that she did not deserve to be killed, it was crazy. That is in fact what he hoped to find out—if any of the so-called suspects on Barb’s list were irrational enough; troubled enough; twisted enough to do in sweet, sexy and not-as-tough-as-she-would-like-people-to-think Beth. He also wept because he didn’t have that many friends, very few in fact, and none he loved more than a woman kind and caring and generous enough to take him to her bed. Beth was his only source of affection and he, like anyone, everyone needed some affection every once in a while.

When Beth’s husband died, Jack comforted her. After all, he was a widower and knew something about what she was going through. He had not expected it to lead to sex, but wasn’t surprised when it did. The love making brought him comfort too. He missed it and appreciated being held close. It also didn’t take long for other suitors to appear and his dear friend was free to be with whomever she chose. When she came over there were times when they didn’t even go to bed.

Even though they were friends, close friends there were certain topics that Beth did not seem interested in discussing. Details about other men and business were two subjects about which his friend was not forthcoming. Jack tried with casual questions such as “How’s business?” or “How is your love life?” Beth’s answer was almost always the same “You don’t want to know.” Instead, they told each other stories from their past lives. Their spouses, his daughters, books, America, college, childhood memories even—these were the things they talked about. Jack knew that Beth was often hassled by her real estate dealings and did say things like she wasn’t sure how long she could handle her little business on her own. However, she never seemed scared; never acted frightened. Attractive and desirable, Beth kept up a feisty front. Maybe she didn’t want to be but she seemed determined to be independent by not being dependent on anybody else.

Yes, she held Beliz to his debts; and dumped Berger without an honest explanation; and stole that hooker’s sugar daddy; but these weren’t trespasses that those weak characters would or could do anything about. Revenge seemed like a reach for them because they were all at least somewhat used to being treated in that manner. And that blustery fool Jerry Cole was too stupid to realize that virtually everyone he was dealing with from the plumber; to the bank; to Beth; was jerking him around because they didn’t like his attitude and they also knew he really couldn’t do anything about it. Beth would have never let him in, even though she was not at all scared of him. Jamon, who was often totally out-of-it, was very respectful and would have been foolish to hurt one of his best meal tickets. He only brought up Tica to piss Barb off. Sooner or later, jack realized that Barb would want to ask the maid a few questions, so he had correctly guessed that Tica told Barb Multusky about all the boyfriends, even the one who only drank tea.

As far as Jack was concerned that left three suspects—Billy Boar, Rodrigo Feliz and that unknown someone. Beth had secrets. Maybe one of her secrets blew up in her face.

Jack knew Boar in other contexts. Since Beth’s attorney was a rather rare breed known as a Zonian, Jack had encountered Billy Boar off and on again for the 40 years he had been coming to Panama. Before Jimmy Carter turned the canal over to its rightful owners or gave it away to some small-time dictator of a banana republic (depending on your point of view—Billy believing in the latter), the United States occupied a ten-mile- wide strip of land that enclosed the Panama Canal. Within the Canal Zone was a way of life that was separated from the rest of the country. The Zone was like a county in America without a state. English was spoken; the high schools played American style football and products from the States were shipped in and stocked at supermarkets. U.S. troops protected the canal, patrolled the borders and guarded the gates. After 1977, most of the American citizens left and returned to what used to be home. However, with dual citizenship, some people like Boar stayed for professional or business opportunities; or because they had married into Panamanian families; or they were used to the hot weather; or they had no place to return to.

Jack never liked Boar, even though he understood why Beth and other people would want him as a lawyer. He was a pseudo American, who knew his way around the obtuse Panamanian legal system. It was the same reason Jack was uncomfortable around and didn’t like Zonians in general. It seemed to Jack, that they weren’t actually citizens of two countries but really citizens of neither—outsiders in the land where they were born, who spoke with an odd American accent, but weren’t really from there. Jack was sure they felt like outsiders everywhere because their parents or grandparents or they never embraced the country they had partitioned off and so were not welcomed with open arms when the fences came down. They weren’t and didn’t feel like immigrants. What happened was that their little piece of America moved away. Panamanians are, for the most part, not at all anti-American, which Jack found surprising when he first came down and then particularly after the invasion under Bush. The history of the two countries just goes back too far, with the good ol’US of A being a relatively benevolent big brother for the most part. Zonians however weren’t even a part of that. By the time the new millennium had come about and the canal was entirely under Panamanian control, Zonians were definitely the odd people out, with a vague heritage that was quickly being erased. There are also too few of them. There are no Zonian Society meetings held once a month. No Zonian clubs, bars, hangouts or neighborhoods. There are only individual Zonians, like Billy Boar, who consider themselves experts on all things Panamanian but have few Panamanian friends. In Jack’s experience the few he knows tend to dominate conversations; make crude jokes; get aggressive when they drink; drink rum; and have trouble maintaining satisfying relationships. That includes Billy Boar, who Jack always found came on a little too strong and whose sense of humor leaned toward mean and who never acted warm or genuine. The guy’s crew cut never seemed to be in style.

And yes, after Paul died, his attorney did in fact make a move on his other vulnerable client, the deceased man’s wife. Timing is everything and Billy was on Beth like a cheap suit too strong, too soon. It was a situation that a woman in a foreign country needed all the help she could get and her lawyer needed to be there for her on a variety of issues. Jack had become friends with the Pages, when they first arrived and he too was in a position to pounce when Beth became available if that’s what to call it. However, Jack held off and really didn’t see anything out of order when Beth’s attorney would stop by more than once or twice a week. However, the visits seemed to stop rather abruptly. When he asked Beth about it much later, she simply said that after the initial period of sorting out all the legal matters, she no longer needed to consult with her attorney on such a regular basis; and she mentioned “He gives me the creeps.”

The problem of course was that Jack had no evidence. One of his hidden agendas with Barb Multusky was to see if he could keep an eye on Beth’s affairs to see if her property or equity somehow ended up in Boar’s control and even that wouldn’t be proof of murder. Rather it would simply show that like most lawyers, Billy was ready, willing and able to take advantage of an opportunity to represent his own best interests. No—shifty eyes and a hunch wasn’t much to go on; but Jack had decided to keep an eye on Boar and Beth’s assets as best he could. It would be a bit more difficult, since he was officially not involved, but he also knew that Billy Boar wasn’t going any place.

That left Rodrigo Feliz, who had the most to lose in the unlikely event she was able to stop his illegal building from going forward. If he was even aware of Beth Page and her official complaint and that stupid planted story in the paper, why would he bother to knock her off? His pack of high powered legal beagles could tear a lone wolf like Billy apart. It might take a little longer, but guys like Feliz flicked nuisances like Beth off the sleeve of his silk suit jacket like a piece of lint.

Then again there is something out there that Jack knew was associated with some Panamanian men known as machismo. Not just a masculine toughness, but with a sexist slant that somebody like Feliz might allow to influence decisions. Put bluntly, Feliz, a big shot certainly in his own mind, a gangster in others’ perspective, might have really been pissed off by not being allowed to get his way. Add to that the perceived insult of some woman even trying to push him around, and a big fish like Feliz might not think twice about eating a smaller female fish. It was already demonstrated that Rodrigo Feliz didn’t worry much about public opinion. So unless he could somehow be caught red-handed –an unlikely proposition since it was a professional hit with little or no evidence left behind at the scene—he could continue to march around town; step from limos; ignore regulations; pay off bureaucrats; bump off gringas, who tried to get in the way; pay off the cops; and make lots of money as he always did. Jack knew he had no way of getting at Feliz; and his helplessness made him feel angry and frustrated. There would be no smoking gun dangling from Feliz’s finger.

So there Jack sat in the apartment he once shared with his wife, filled with things his wife had arranged; pictures and chairs and lamps that he might not have selected himself, but were theirs. With half of the partnership dissolved by death, the furnishings didn’t seem like his but half hers and she’s gone. After the funeral, her family, a sister and two brothers, disappeared. He would go out to dinner with the publisher of the paper he wrote for occasionally, but always suspected his boss was as interested in a free meal as companionship. Being a dining critic also meant that there were very few dinner invitations because none of his acquaintances wished to be judged. It reminded Jack of the old days when he would introduce himself at a cocktail party as an English professor. Almost always, the other person would say that he or she would “have to watch my grammar.” Even though Jack liked to tell himself that was unfair, the truth of the matter was that he almost always immediately lost respect for a person who used faulty grammar or seemed to possess a poor vocabulary. He also could not stomach overcooked or poorly seasoned food.

However, over the years, Jack had become accustomed to his isolation. He was resigned and took certain steps to accommodate the situation. First and foremost, he didn’t go out of his way (it sounded to Jack as childish) to make friends. He hadn’t become that close to the Pages, who laughed at his jokes and appreciated his manners, before Paul’s death and wasn’t strong enough to hold on to Beth. Finally, he allowed himself to be associated with Barb Multusky in part out of desperation. Not only did he lack human contact, but it was fun when Barb would pay him a visit and they could play detective together. It filled some time, and she was so serious and charming. Jack even held out the possibility that he might be able to insinuate himself within Barb’s affections. After all, what were her motives for “conducting an investigation” into the wrongful death of a mere acquaintance. If, at worst, she was a little bored and, at best, she was dissatisfied somehow with her life—maybe that oaf she was married to, then he might have an opportunity. As of then, Jack had not really put a move on the little lady, who had become a mute point.

When he closed the door on Barb’s back and turned to face his deserted apartment, Jack felt what he had experienced before but never so intensely. A bit dizzy, Jack staggered and slumped in his all too familiar, but not that particularly comfortable chair. At that moment he felt profoundly lonely. He realized he couldn’t fight it off anymore; no more self delusion; but worse no more hope. Without anyone, he was lonely. It was a fact. There was nobody. Not unlike that sad sack Billy Boar, he was a man without a country, without a place, with no loyalties either way. He was the ultimate expatriate.

2010-09-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Thirteen

Just three or four feet away, the stream spilled over the cliff and the water cascaded down another 300 feet below. Jerry stood at the edge and leaned over to take a picture. He held the small digital camera out at his skinny arm’s length and aimed it over the precipice. “This is spectacular!” he shouted over the roar of the water. A strong breeze that tugged at Madge’s curly red hair, added to the strong hum in her ears. The river spilled into a long deep valley that seemed to stretch for miles as it widened between two steep green mountain ranges. “Come on.” He motioned to his wife to step closer to the rocky edge so she could see the water fall below. “Come on, baby. There’s a rainbow in the spray. You gotta see this.”

Madge could not do it. She could not put herself in that position. No matter how much her husband coaxed her to a better view, she was frozen in a spot several paces away from the edge. “I’m afraid of heights,” she said to explain her reluctance, which was true to a certain extent. However, it was more than a case of acrophobia. No matter, how well the last day and a half had gone—and it had seemed to go well; she could not take another step.

Jerry sung along to an Elton John CD as he steered up the curving road to Santa Fe. At points, they faced rocky walls rising from each side of the road; at other points one side or the other fell off just a few feet from the asphalt down to yet another dizzy deep valley below. Every shade of green from almost yellow to deep verdant soaked up the sunlight. Across the valleys, ridge after ridge of blue-green mountain ranges faded into the clouds in the distance. Madge had to agree when Jerry said that it was “one of the most beautiful drives” they had ever taken.

The little town of Santa Fe, which had been founded by Conquistadors looking for gold way back in 1571, nestled in a forest that crowned a mountain at 6,000 feet. Taller peaks stood off in the distance. They got a room in a hostel that had bamboo walls, a broad second floor porch with two or three cats lounging on the barrister. Even a haze of drizzle as evening approached did not spoil an ambience of casual, bucolic warmth. The innkeeper, a French woman with a cigarette hanging from her lip, fixed them a dinner of pork chops and Spanish rice. Jerry and Madge polished off a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and went to bed under mosquito netting. With a light breeze blowing through the spaces between the bamboo slats, that also allowed a buzz of bugs, Jerry was snoring within minutes.

The next morning came early. Before sunrise, maybe around five a.m., the peaceful starry darkness was interrupted by an explosion of shrill screams. Both Madge and Jerry sat up in bed and in shock as what sounded like 4,000 roosters shouted to each other. When it dawned on them what was happening, both laughed out loud. “Well, we don’t have to worry if our little alarm clock goes off or not,” Jerry said. Their travel alarm had never been reliable. Madge smiled back, even though she was surprised that her husband wasn’t furious. Jerry had never been a good sport since she married him. This was unusual and did nothing to make her feel any more at ease. Maybe if he had said fuck or something, but laughing off being rudely awakened a good two hours early was not normal. Even after a breakfast of bacon and eggs—Jerry joked about not being surprised that “the eggs were fresh in the chicken capitol of the world”—Madge felt uneasy, off balance, not dizzy exactly, but out of kilter, in another dimension. It was as if a very capable imposter had taken over Jerry’s thin, tense body. Of course that wasn’t possible, so she remained on guard, wondering when the real Jerry would come out from behind his jovial mask.

After breakfast, they put on their hiking shoes, applied a slick coat of sun block on their exposed arms, ears and necks and sprayed all over with Off bug repellent. After about an hour of a steady, steep-at-times climb, they had come to the waterfall, and that was where Madge stood paralyzed not by fear exactly but by uncertainty, doubt. Jerry was smiling, a plastered-on salesman smile that Madge did not trust. Madge did not trust her husband and pulled her wrist away when he tried to grab hold.

“I’m afraid,” she said. Like a cloud passing in front of a mountain peak, a stern look of recognition crossed Jerry’s pinched smile, which looked for a moment like a grimace. If he had persisted for another moment or two, Madge may have turned to run away, but he didn’t. “Okay, okay,” Jerry said sounding cross but calm. “You’ll have to be satisfied with the pictures, but you’re missing a chance of a lifetime.”

Everything Jerry said lately came across as double entendres to Madge, who backed off slowly as if not to incite an attack that she wasn’t at all sure was actually coming. A chance of a lifetime. Had she just saved her own life, denied her husband a chance to stage what would have appeared to be an accident without anyone to witness or know for sure what had happened? She had spent a lifetime, with a man she now realized she could not trust. At that moment, as Madge pushed her glasses back up her nose and turned to scuttle back down the path, she realized that as far as she was concerned their marriage was over. It didn’t matter that she had no proof of intent on Jerry’s part to do her harm. It didn’t matter that he had not actually pushed her over the edge. It was at once much more complicated than that and actually rather simple. She didn’t trust him. It was okay that she would never know for sure if she had come close or not. It was better that she didn’t have to pull her arm out of his grasp and fight for survival. The moment had passed and she was safe. A lifetime of slights; of outbursts of temper; of sneered jokes; of angry body language; of self doubt and guilt that she was somehow unworthy or lacking; had finally pushed Madge to another edge, almost as scary, but much less uncertain. Before they arrived back at the lodge, Madge knew that she would still have to be careful, but that she was going to leave Jerry.

* * *

Mitch didn’t know what to do. For a while he tried to play solitaire on the computer but had trouble paying attention. Throughout his career, he had always been a busy guy, teaching, coaching being an administrator. Retirement was supposed be a time when a person took it easy—didn’t have to be at school by 7 a.m. ahead of the teachers and students, who would dedicate their days to screwing up the schedule with disputes, sometimes petty and occasionally major. No more pressure to win games; help silly boys stay academically eligible and out of trouble; or keep up with coaching trends from run-and-gun to zone defense. The accepted retirement picture was a wise old guy sitting peacefully on a rocking chair, reflecting back on a life well lived. The past life seemed okay to Mitch, lucky even. Never drafted for the Vietnam War, Mitch was free to pursue his chosen career as a history teacher and basketball coach. If the truth be known, he went into teaching so he could coach. He wasn’t bad either, won a couple of county championships. Even though he never made it past the semi-finals in the states, he had a winning record.

He had become an administrator because it seemed like the logical progression in a career in education. However he never really enjoyed being thrust in the middle of one problem after the other; whether it was a discipline problem, when the teachers seemed out of line about a third of the time; or a problem with the air conditioning that never seemed to be properly maintained and consistently failed to be ready for the first heat wave or would break down half way through summer school. Mitch thought that being a vice principal would have a certain degree of prestige. Wrong. There was never a time when somebody; a weak whiney teacher; the cheerleading sponsor; a student caught cheating; the head of the janitorial staff; parents furious with the grades their precious little brats were earning; the drama teacher (often) or glee club adviser; some functionary from the school board with a hidden agenda; but always somebody hated him. So what about the principal? In his last ten years, he had worked with (for) three— a good ol’boy who was simply waiting out his tenure until he retired; a distracted woman, who had no idea what Mitch was doing; and a manipulative younger (by about ten years) go-getter, who routinely dumped all the unpleasant situations into Mitch’s lap and then neglected to give credit where credit was due. If things turned out well, this guy would take his bows; if not, Mitch would take his lumps, enough that he was never seriously considered for a principalship. At the time Mitch was eligible to retire, it seemed like a good idea.

Barb and he had always been considered a happy couple. Often friends would congratulate them for being married for longer than the average, in some cases way longer; and why not. Barb and he always got along well, made allowances for real or perceived short comings. They suffered through the small stuff together. Mitch never left his socks lying around, but if he had that would not have been enough to send Barb packing. Barb wasn’t much of a house keeper. There were always dust balls in the corners and spots on the glasses, but she was a good cook and a lovely companion. Barb never missed a basketball game and Mitch never forgot her birthday or their anniversary or even the anniversary of their first date. In fact both of them made sure that a big deal was made—dinner out at a fancy restaurant or a weekend at a bed-and-breakfast in the mountains.

Neither had been at all worried about not having children. If that was self-centered, then both had made the decision. Their biological clocks never sounded an alarm. Neither blamed the other. Instead each took care of hundreds, maybe thousands of other people’s kids, from all stars to criminals. The point was that after 40 years of marriage, it had been firmly established that they were together, fully aware of the for-better-or-worse clause. That was why Mitch was stunned by even the suspicion of an affair; and after all these years. Why now? Did retirement have something to do with it? Was she unfulfilled in a way that had not been the case when they both had jobs with responsibilities and obligations? Now each was only responsible to the other. No kids; no grandkids; just a dog for a pet and a cozy little apartment in a historic neighborhood next to the Pacific Ocean.

Sure Barb was going through much of the same stuff that he was. After they had spent so much of their energy pulling up stakes and moving to a foreign country, she probably felt at loose ends too. With time on her hands, she decided to play sleuth in a misguided attempt to right a wrong (assuming that Beth didn’t somehow deserve it). That was understandable to a certain degree. After all, there was the question as to what Mitch would do all day, now that the little basketball season had finally come to a fruitless end. Maybe he would take Yoga classes, but then again he and his wife needed some time apart. Mitch recalled when his Uncle Ted retired; his Aunt Alice would complain that “I married him forever, but not all the time.” Maybe the investigation was Barb’s excuse to get away on her own some. However, she could do that without Jack.

Lately, one of the things Mitch did with his extensive spare time was surf the web travel sites. When he mentioned that they should travel more, Barb seemed interested if not excited. That was something he definitely thought they should do, except where? Maybe a cruise; they had never been on one; but to where? They had not been to very many different places—Florida a couple of times; the Bahamas once; California twice, LA and San Fran one each and Honolulu once. That was it—never to Europe and rarely outside of the good ol’US. That was why, most if not all their friends and family were surprised when they moved to Panama of all places. Where in the hell is Panama? Why Panama? Why not Pago Pago? Besides the usual reasons of cost of living; AARP recommendations and the weather; one of the reasons Mitch always said was because “they had never ever been any place exotic.” So why not look into traveling to Croatia or Ecuador or Sweden or New Zealand. He had no desire to go to any place in Africa or Asia, particularly India, (too crowded), but that wasn’t the point. There were two main objectives, in Mitch’s mind, achieved by travel. First was something interesting to do; and secondly going on a trip would get Barb away from Jack.

The other thing that worried Mitch was that he was fairly sure that Barb was worried, or bothered, or concerned about him. At first when he was “kinda forgetful,” Barb acted impatient, perturbed and told him more than once “to get a grip.” More recently however, she would get a sad look on her face and call him “honey” and ask him leading questions like “Are you still planning to go to the wine store?” or “When is your next practice?” Barb knew full well the team practiced every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Mitch was worried too. He was well aware that people lost their short term memory to a certain degree when they got older, but for the last few months he felt “lucky to come down stairs with his pants on.” Once or twice, when he was on a walk with Carmen, Mitch got lost or at least didn’t recognize the street they were on. He couldn’t find his way around his own neighborhood, but his brilliant solution was to wander around the streets of Paris or the canals of Venice. He could just tell that Barb was trying to be calm and understanding and of course supportive, but he didn’t want to invoke the in-sickness-and-in-health provision quite yet. No wonder Barb was covering all her bases, with a sharp guy like Jack as a backup.

Then there was the carjacking. How confident could Barb feel when her protector, her man, had been ripped off and attacked by a bunch of street punks? Ever since then, they always drove around with their car doors locked and only opened the windows in certain neighborhoods. That made sense to be safe and not invite problems; but the fact remained that they were closing the gate way after the horse had run off—that the guy who was in charge of the gate had already left it and him wide open to attack. Neither one of them ever mentioned the attack and Barb never questioned him about it, but Mitch had to wonder if the fact that it happened undermined his wife’s confidence in him. Not that that twerp Jack could have done any better under the circumstances; but maybe that was the deal. Even though Jack was not as physically capable as Mitch, maybe Barb saw him as more clever, to stay out of danger while figuring out the murder mystery.

Any way, he looked at it, it was irritating and hurtful and stupid. Mitch didn’t want to fly off half cocked, so he was biding his time before he confronted Jack. Punching the guy in the nose without proof would probably backfire. At one point, he looked down at the computer screen and was surprised to see that it was on the NBA Now web site. He must have been checking the scores or standings or something but he didn’t remember. That wasn’t good.

Just then, Barb unlocked the door and came into the apartment. She looked very businesslike in a white blouse and gray slacks with flat black shoes. She gave Carmen a quick pet as the dog stretched out from a nap, and then walked over to her husband and kissed him on the forehead. Immediately, while still standing with her small leather purse strapped over her shoulder, Barb said, “I meant to tell you that Jack was coming along for my meeting with Billy Boar, but I didn’t. I don’t know why, but I didn’t. So that’s also why I didn’t want you to drive me. I know you don’t like Jack, for some reason, or you don’t like him being involved, but I should have told you that he was coming along.”

“I know,” Mitch said. Even though he was seated, he was able to look his petite wife directly in her face, which seemed to have a surprised expression on it. “I took Carmen for a walk right after you left and spotted Jack getting into our car, right away.”

“Oh, dear,” Barb said. “I knew I should have told you.”

“So, is he your boyfriend?”

“Oh honey, don’t be silly.” At that Mitch stood up and towered over his wife. “And I don’t mean that in a mean way.” Her birdlike hand touched his chest but not defensively. Barb wasn’t afraid that the big lug in front of her would hurt her. That could never happen. She was worried that his feelings had been hurt. “Honey, I love you,” with an emphasis on you.

“Well, it really looked suspicious, I’ll tell you that.”

“I can imagine,” Barb said as she walked into her husband’s arms. “I knew I should have mentioned it, but I didn’t want to get another disapproving look. I know you don’t like Jack, but I wasn’t sure why.

“I guess I was jealous,” Mitch said. “Why should you want to spend time with some other guy instead of me?”

“Because you didn’t think I should be trying to find out who really killed Beth—and Jack was willing to help. I still don’t think I can go it alone.”

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Mitch said.

“Oh, please honey, I don’t want to stop now. Not that I have any better idea than I had before.”

“I just worry that you might be putting yourself in some sort of dangerous position, and that pip squeak Jack is not going to be able to protect you.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Barb said. “I don’t know enough to get into trouble, but if I did, I’m smart enough to back off and inform Beni to get the cops involved. And I know that you’ll always protect me.”

“I hope that’s the way you really feel,” Mitch said with a shrug. “You know I really didn’t know what to make of the whole situation. I mean I do trust you, but I wasn’t so sure I could trust Jack. After all, you’re a very attractive woman.”

“I’ll just make sure you know what I’m up to, so you can keep trusting me,” Barb said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Mitch, who was sincerely relieved, said.

“One thing,” Barb looked somewhat hesitant to bring up another point. “I was just wondering?”

“What?” Mitch was puzzled.

“Did it ever occur to you that Jack might be gay?”

“No!” The word popped from Mitch’s surprised lips. “Is he?”

“Oh, I don’t know for sure,” Barb said, “but I’m afraid I always assumed he was. I mean that’s why I was surprised you were jealous. I really don’t have any proof, I mean he never said anything and he’s not real feminine or anything, but I always got that impression, or feeling or whatever. You know, like a vibe.”

“So he never once flirted?”

“No, not that I noticed,” Barb said. By that time, the two of them were chuckling, on the verge of laughing.

“Well, he never flirted with me either,” Mitch said. “So how was I to know?”

* * *

Joe Berger was not happy. He hadn’t seen Bebe for over a week. When he called her on his cell phone and asked her in his broken Spanish where she was, she responded in her broken English that she would see him right after work. Then she did not show up. Donde usted? He didn’t want to go to the club either. He was tired of nursing his beer and watching his supposed girlfriend humping some other guy’s leg. It was over and he knew it. Bebe, in her tight dresses and no panties had moved on to greener pastures and to be honest, that wasn’t difficult to do. Eventually, she would realize that her particular gringo wasn’t half as rich as he was supposed to be. Joe didn’t even own a car; his watch was a Timex and he wore Nike sneakers. Joe was surprised that he had access to Bebe’s charms for as long as he did, since even he realized that her main motivation was to make Allen jealous or at least piss him off by being around and in his face. After the first couple of times, which Joe found gratifying as well, because showing up in Casco Viejo seemed to make Allen uncomfortable, he hadn’t seen him around. Mitch went by almost every day walking that damn dog. Jack could often be seen sitting out on a bench in front of their building some days and most evenings; but no Allen Myers. Maybe Allen blew town before they stuck him with Beth’s murder. That certainly wouldn’t surprise Joe. He knew Myers was an arrogant shithead, who had more luck with women than he deserved. Without buxom Bebe at his side, Joe really had no need to see Allen and couldn’t be sure that he would not be the one more embarrassed—No Bebe; no Beth; no prospects.

Berger was beginning to admit to himself, since it seemed obvious to everybody else, that his move to Panama was not a triumph. After the party in the building where he lived, he received no further invites, none, nada. He went to a couple of expat socials that had been advertised in The Visitor, a local tourist newspaper, but he only ended up having awkward conversations with people, retired couples mostly, who were very willing to tell their stories, but who seldom said anything even approaching “so what’s up with you.” Fuck me. After Beth, he had lost what confidence he had with women, so the few gals he encountered at the week-night socials, never seemed impressed by his lack of anything amusing to say. It was a nightmare. He felt like a junior high nerd. Unfortunately, he could vaguely remember how that felt. It was no fun remembering and even less fun feeling ill at ease again.

Joe Berger was more lonely, much more, than he had ever been in Miami. Which is saying something. He had a life in Florida—pathetic, mediocre, unfulfilled, depressing even—but a life and a job before he was laid off. In Panama, he was not allowed by law to simply go out and find a job and since his social life was a big zero, he had nothing to do all day and worried that he would soon go crazy. That’s not an overstatement either. Crazy. Looney Tunes. Nuts. He had failed before, but never so profoundly. He was not only a stranger in a strange land, but completely alone, an alien from another world. He knew people back in the States. Not all of them were good guys, or loving family members or hot dates, but he wasn’t totally, absolutely on his own, with nobody to even really chat with. That guy Jack, for example, could give a shit. He didn’t seem to go out much, except with Barb once or twice. What was with that? Otherwise, he didn’t seem to have any more friends that popped around to the apartment than Joe had. The only difference is that he seemed okay with his lot in life. Berger came to Panama because he wasn’t satisfied and thought a change of scenery and a new start would provide him with a new opportunity to impress people. Au contraire. It gave him many more chances to appear nervous and lost for words, and therefore to feel inadequate, feeble, goofy.

Berger had gotten in the habit of sitting at the same table in front of the Casa Blanca restaurant, watching the same world go by the same corner every afternoon. From his vantage point under a large maroon umbrella with Balboa Beer advertising written in gold, he had a chance to study a strange little chapel across the street. Iglesia San Felipe de Neri was purported to be one of the oldest churches in Panama but it never seemed open, not on Sunday or ever. Berger liked the mystery of the place with its oyster shell steeple and rumors of Opus Dei. It was a good location for people watching even though lately it bummed Joe out because he was forced to watch people going places, young women in flower-print sun dresses and sandals; government workers in white shirts and ties, their suit jackets hooked on a finger over their shoulders; tourists, couples mostly, looking a bit lost. There was a time that Joe would ask them if they needed help and then direct them to the Presidential Palace a block away. Not any more—a constant parade of strangers, who never seemed interested in Joe, wasn’t what he was looking for anymore. That was how he felt when customers trooped by back at the store in Miami. Lots of people, but nobody interested in seeing him, unless they had a complaint. He felt lonely back in Florida and he felt even lonelier in Panama. Changing places didn’t seem to change the problem. Face facts, bud. You’re a loser.

So there Joe sat, literally crying in his beer, when he noticed a woman walk by with a small yappy dog on a leash. The dog looked like a big Chihuahua. That’s an oxymoron. Maybe it was a mix of some sort, but it didn’t matter; Joe automatically didn’t like the stupid mutt. After the woman walked by, she stopped and lowered her pet over the fence onto a grassy area in front of the statue of Simon Bolivar. Sort of chubby, the lady looked to be in her fifties, with black hair cut in a bob. Like lots of Panamanian gals, she was short, no taller than 5’2”, an ordinary woman in a simple yellow A-line dress and flat white shoes. Not Joe’s type at all, even though it had become more difficult lately to determine if he had a type. As Joe contemplated the question of what exactly his type was, the brown-and-black-striped dog slipped through the wrought iron railing that surrounded the small lawn in the square. Surprised, the dog’s owner called out her pet’s name “Pepe! Pepe.” Inexplicably, amazingly the dog made a beeline toward Joe and then leaped into his lap. Berger was frozen. He had no idea what to do so he did nothing. Having learned his lesson, he resisted the impulse to backhand the mutt off his lap. Holding his hands up with his palms out in a not-me gesture, Joe experienced the indignity of having his face licked. By then the woman arrived and scooped Pepe into her arms. When Joe looked up he saw the brightest smile he had seen in months; certainly the brightest, most friendly, lovely smile that had been aimed in his direction.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said still smiling maybe laughing, “Pepe doesn’t usually do that. Please forgive me and my dog.”

“No problema,” Joe said and then immediately realized that the woman had spoken English. “Ah, you speak English?”

“Si, senor,” she said with a glint in her eye. “Like I said, Pepe, your new friend has never done anything like that before. I don’t know what got into him.”

“I gotta be honest,” Joe said, “I’ve never had any dog jump in my lap before ever. I don’t always even get along with dogs.” Joe couldn’t help of thinking of Carmen and how badly that had gone with Beth.

“Well, dogs are usually pretty good judges of character,” the woman said, “and Pepe obviously likes you, so you must be a nice man.” That smile again.

“First impressions can be deceiving,” Joe said and then realized he might talk himself out of this encounter, as he had done so many others, and changed course. “But I’m flattered. Tell Pepe he can jump in my lap any time, as long as he’s careful.” At that the woman laughed. “Hey listen,” Joe said, “now that I’ve made friends with your dog, can I buy you a drink, a glass of wine, ice tea, whatever you want.”

“Sure,” she said, “why not?”

For the next twenty minutes Berger found out that the woman’s name was Anita Jimenez; that she was a widow; and that she married an American soldier serving in the Canal Zone; and lived in the States for thirty years. Anita sipped a white wine, while Joe listened attentively and forgot his Balboa beer that warmed up in its can. When her husband died, she retired from a position as an executive secretary in an Allstate Insurance office in Trenton, New Jersey and returned to her native country. She had family, a couple of sisters and an elderly mother in Panama City and owned a small apartment in a renovated building just a couple of blocks away.

Then it was Joe’s turn. Oh, oh and then what the fuck? Joe explained that he had been laid off as the manager of a Thrift Center when the store closed.

“We had a couple of them in Jersey,” Anita interjected, “and I’m pretty sure they closed too.”

“Well, that left me high and dry, with no prospects, so I decided to see if anything was happening here in Panama.”

“And is there?” Anita seemed interested.

“Not so far, to be honest,” Joe said, doing something he had not done since he arrived in Panama. Berger went on to explain that he was divorced; had two grown daughters, who he was not close to and a shrinking circle of friends, which caused him to consider moving to a different place, an adventure, that hadn’t really turned out as he had hoped—that he had difficulty meeting people. He didn’t know how to break the ice—“not that there’s much ice around here.” Again she laughed at one of his lame jokes. He wasn’t sure what he would do. Maybe Mexico, maybe back to Florida…

“I don’t think you’ve given Panama much of a chance,” Anita said, still with the smile. Joe was giddy. This was a nice girl, woman, whatever, and she hadn’t run off yet; hadn’t pretended to be late for an appointment; didn’t look around the plaza with a bored stare. She was making conversation, while Joe held his hand down and allowed the dog to lick it. She wasn’t the best looking woman he had seen around, with a kind of pudgy figure on a small frame and her hairdo was short and plain, but she had a flat-out great smile that lit up her small round face and her dog liked him. After all, Berger knew that he was no prize either, an average Joe (Ha, ha!), with thinning gray hair and an unemployed store manager wardrobe. He had nothing to lose.

“Hey how about I take you out to dinner, tomorrow night,” Joe said trying to sound matter-of-fact, when his heart was racing. Then, when Anita paused, though she looked like she might be considering it, “There’s a new tapas restaurant on Calle Primero called Callejon del Gato, which I think means alley cat; or we could go to Buzio’s which is an outdoor café and you can bring Pepe.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Anita was shaking her head no, which caused Joe’s heart to sag, when she then went on to say, “Pepe can stay home. I’ve been curious about the Alley Cat, let’s go there.

“Okay, okay.” Joe was elated and figured it probably showed, but he didn’t care. This is good. “How about seven?”

“Make it eight,” Anita said.

2010-08-26T14:47:00.001-07:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Twelve

Madge was mixing her third vodka tonic, while a report on a typhoon in the Philippines was showing on CNN International. That was the only “real” news that was available from Sky TV. She couldn’t stand to watch “those bigots and right wingers” on FOX, which was the only other English language news available. Jerry was too cheap to buy a better package that included the BBC. No problem, she planned to switch the television off soon and then grab a book and read herself to sleep.

At that moment, Jerry walked through the front door of their apartment. Madge did a double take at her watch. Her husband then called out and said “Hi honey; I’m home.” For the past few weeks, he seldom arrived home before eight even nine p.m., but there he was kissing her on the cheek at 5:45.

“Well, you’re home early,” Madge said. She was surprised, not only by the time, but by the fact that her husband had a faint almost mischievous smile on his face.

“Yeah, I am,” he said. He walked over into the kitchenette area, opened the freezer, and grabbed a handful of ice cubes, which he placed in a glass. “Do you mind if I join you.” Madge shrugged. He then poured in some vodka and filled the glass from the open can of tonic on the counter. “And that’s the point.”

“Oh, oh,” Madge thought. When he did finally come home, he was often exhausted at best and angry and upset at worst. If she was awake, she usually heard some story, seldom accompanied by a kiss, about how stupid, or lazy, or unreliable he found the workers to be that day. If she were in bed, Jerry would watch TV for a while and then attempt to slide into bed without waking her. What he didn’t know was that she only pretended to be asleep lying beside him. Soon he would be snoring loudly. Madge watched apprehensively, as her husband, dressed in a white tee shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his thin biceps, blue jeans with less than the usual coating of gray dust and thick brown work boots, stood in the middle of their small living room sipping his drink. If anything he seemed pleased or at least, not unhappy. Madge just sat on the couch. She imagined that the look on her face was one that implied that he was welcome to go on and tell her what was on his mind.

“I’ve been neglecting you lately—too blasted busy with the house and pissed off all the time, and I don’t know, frustrated and tired. Whatever.” Madge sat still and alert on the couch dressed in an old tee shirt with Dubai stenciled across the front in faded green letters and a pair of green Bermuda shorts. One bare foot was tucked under her other leg. She didn’t dare move as she peered over her big white-rimmed glasses at a man she hardly recognized. “So…” Jerry stretched out the word, with a twirl of his hand as if he were making an introduction. “I thought we need a break. I know I need a vacation from that money pit and I’m sure you’d like to get out more; so whaddaya say. Let’s go somewhere.”

Madge was surprised by how surprised she was. Of course it was a great idea, long overdue actually. So why wasn’t she thrilled? Or relieved? Or at least pleased? She couldn’t help it. Instead of being touched by the fact that her husband seemed to be emerging from a long-standing funk, she felt apprehensive, unsure. “Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“I don’t know honey. I thought we might take a road trip, you know, like we used to. Just load up the car and take off. Head west. There’s plenty of this country we haven’t seen yet. Jeez, honey, I thought you would be pleased.”

“Oh, I am, I really am,” Madge said, even though she wasn’t so sure. “I just didn’t expect this.”

“I know, I know,” Jerry said drawing out the second I know with a mixture of regret and conviction in the tone of his voice. “I knew you would be surprised; and I hope pleased. I’ve been so focused, maybe even a little obsessed lately with the house. I know I need a break.”

Maybe—a little—lately. Madge found herself examining every word her husband said. She really didn’t know what to make of his sudden turnaround. The look on her face as she tried to figure out how and why she felt the way she did, apparently was not one of glee or appreciation.

“I don’t know, I thought you would be pleased,” Jerry said and then drained his drink.

“Oh, oh, don’t blow it,” Madge thought and then out loud “I am, Honey, I am.”

“Well, the look on your face…” Jerry was headed back for another vodka tonic. “You want a refill?”

“Please,” Madge said sensing how close her husband was to reverting to his usual peeved personality. “I was just trying to figure out where we should go.”

Again with a wave of his hand, “I don’t think we should have a set destination. Let’s just set ourselves free. We’ll follow our noses and have fun.”At that Madge was standing in front of her husband with her arms out at the side and then they hugged, for the first time in what seemed like months.

“When?”

“How about tomorrow?” Jerry was all smiles.

“What about the house?” As far as Madge was concerned, the situation was becoming surreal.

“I’ve put Charlie in charge. He can handle it for a few days.”

“Oh my,” Madge thought. He could never handle it before—not as far as Jerry was concerned, and so with a consciously concerned look on her face, “Really?”

“Who knows?” Jerry said with a laugh, with the usual touch of bitterness. “Maybe he can, maybe the dumb fuck can’t; but we’ll soon find out. All I know is that we can’t go on this way much longer, now, can we?”

“No we can’t,” Madge agreed, as her husband bent over and kissed her on the lips.

* * *

Barb Multusky always enjoyed her lunches with Candida Riva Cortez. Candi was the one who helped her find their sweet little apartment and then was invaluable at helping them get set up. Moving to a new country meant that what had taken years to get organized back home had to all be redone all at once—pensioners’ visas that established legal permanent residency; drivers’ licenses and car registration after the purchase and importation of the vehicle; transfer of the water and electric bills and maintenance fee from the previous owner’s name; car, medical and home-owner’s insurance; a bank account (not an easy matter in Panama which included a personal interview); a family doctor, dentist and a vet for Carmen; and furniture and stuff for the apartment. The Multuskys had shipped very little down, a couple of oil paintings that really didn’t go with their new décor, some clothes and photo albums, but the rest of their belongings had been sold at garage sales; given away to family and friends; donated to the local church charity; or simply thrown away. Mitch suggested that they had made “a major impact on the environment” by how much they dumped into the county landfill. So Candi, as their hired “relocation assistance expert” and Barb’s first friend in Panama, helped with everything from arranging for contractors to repaint the apartment; to where to find the perfect coffee table; to knives for the kitchen; a new mirror, shower curtain and towels for the bathroom; and new drapes for the bedroom that matched the bedspread.

Candi’s English was excellent with the closest thing Barb heard to an American accent in Panama. More to the point was that probably because she was young and attractive, Candi was able to actually yell at workers, sales people and government clerks in a manner that seemed fiery and oh-so Spanish; while if Barb and particularly Mitch would have tried the same approach, they would not only be considered ugly Americans but actually deserve the title. That was certainly why Jerry Cole had most of his problems—somehow his exhortations came across as arrogant insults to the Panamanian ear. Where Candi was concerned the painters, electricians, store managers and bank officials seemed eager to please and anxious to avoid a dispute. Thin and angular, with her tiny fists on her thin hips, Candi was an almost stereotypical firecracker. As Mitch pointed out, “stereotypes don’t come from nowhere.” More to the point, Candi was their firecracker and both of the Multuskys adored the young woman.

Another of her prominent traits was that Candi was seldom on time—no, never on time. While seated under a large green umbrella at a table at Casa Blanca, Barb’s favorite sidewalk café, she had a few minutes to smoke a cigarette and wonder why she was so reluctant to interview Jerry Cole about Beth’s murder. Neither she nor Jack was anxious to take on their prime suspect. Could it be that the reason he was on the top of the list was his temper—a temper that was almost certain to show itself, the minute, no, the second, he suspected that they suspected him. Barb had pretty much decided to save him for last. He was the obvious candidate, which made him the least interesting and because of his grumpy disposition the most likely to be uncooperative and angry. Barb tried to convince herself that they were circling in on him by eliminating the others. The fact that so far no one, absolutely no one, had been eliminated was another problem, but what could she do?

Carmen’s leash was looped under a table leg, as she played one of her many roles as café dog. Carmen lay with her front paws crossed. When Barb looked up, she saw Candi striding down the sidewalk with her shoulders back and the sea breeze from the nearby ocean blowing her hair. Candi wasn’t a classic beauty, but her light brown hair with blonde highlights, her neat trim beige business suit with a short skirt and her medium high heels, made her look quite attractive in a stylish confident way. “This girl is going to end up being first lady one day,” Mitch would say which was also an indication of the high opinion they had of her husband Benito.

“Hola amiga,” Candi said. She never apologized for being late, probably because she didn’t consider herself as at all tardy. She had arrived as soon as she was able. Her mother was in town from Las Tablas in Los Santos province; her sister was getting married; and her new job as a trainer for the Marriot Corporation was keeping her busy. So after about five minutes of non-stop narrative about the traffic getting into Casco Viejo and the fact that she was trying to hire a new maid, Candi finally took a breath and said, “So what are you up to?”

For Barb, this was always an embarrassing question to answer. The first response was usually, “Oh, I don’t know, nothing much.” Compared to Candi, Barb was retired. Got up when she wanted; took Carmen for long walks; read an endless series of whodunits; and went to bed early. Of course, there was the so-called investigation, but wondering who killed Beth wasn’t time consuming like Candi’s job and family obligations with a never ending series of baptisms, birthdays, weddings and funerals. Barb had even gotten used to their conversation being interrupted by the insistent buzz of Candi’s cell phone. Barb was also not ready to confide in anyone about her worries concerning Mitch. Telling someone, would mean having to confront a situation, she wasn’t ready to admit, much less face. So at least there was the investigation, which Barb mentioned wasn’t getting any closer to finding out who the murderer was.

“And if you do, then what?” Candi had that fiery look in her big brown eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know, I guess we’ll notify the authorities,” Barb said without conviction.

“I have to tell you,” Candi began, shaking her hair out of her eyes, “that Benito is not at all happy about you becoming involved.”

“Does that mean he’s not going to help me anymore?” Barb was genuinely concerned.

“He didn’t say that, but he is worried that you might get in over your little old gray head.” Candida tried to make a joke, but it was clear to Barb that both Beni and she had talked about it. “What if it turns out to be somebody bigger, more powerful and much more dangerous than your current batch of disgruntled gringo suspects? Then what?”

“Then what indeed? If it’s that horrible developer that Beth was having trouble with, what’s his name?”

“Feliz, Rodrigo Feliz.”

“That’s right. Then we shouldn’t do anything, is that what you’re implying?”

“Now, don’t get your panties all in a bunch…” (Candi loved to show how with it she was with even using English slang and slightly off-color phrases.); “Beni’s just not sure how ready for prime time you are. I mean to mix a few metaphors in there, this guy Feliz is the big leagues and if he wanted to play hard ball he could cause a lot of people trouble including Beth and anybody else for that matter.”

“You know, I was planning to talk to Beth’s lawyer tomorrow about that very possibility,” Barb said.

“Who’s that?” Candi wanted to know.

“Boar, I think his name is Bill Boar. I believe he’s a Zonian.”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure everybody calls him Billy. Beni knows him. I doubt if he’ll be much help.”

* * *

After crossing over the canal on the high arcing Bridge of the Americas about an hour before, Madge was amazed that her jovial husband wasn’t even tempted to stop at the construction site near the ocean in Gorgona, a rapidly growing beach community, where the Coles had staked their retirement claim, if the house would ever be finished. Instead he kept their steel grey mid-sized Hyundai Tucson aimed west at between 80 and 100 kilometers an hour. Jerry was hunched over the steering wheel wearing a blue and white Hawaiian style shirt, cargo style shorts and Crocs. Except for the billboards that were scattered all along the roadway, Madge considered the drive to be very scenic with mountains looming up in the distance. Coming over one such peak, there was a vast view of Punta Chame a thin peninsula sticking out into the Pacific Ocean. There were quite a few disheveled towns along the way at various crossroads that seemed to contradict the term of highway. In the States and elsewhere, real highways were unobstructed two or three-lane expressways that had to be exited on cloverleaves before being able to access fast food or a gas station. The Pan American Highway seemed more like an extended two-lane boulevard that at points swept past cow pastures and green tree-covered mountains and at other times slowed down for towns with names like Arraijan, Capira, Campana, Espave, Sajalices, Bejuco and Chame. All along the way, there were pedestrians; school kids in white shirts and navy blue trousers or skirts; an endless string of men in baseball caps, tee shirts and jeans; old guys carrying machetes and quite a few young women in short shorts with babies on their hips. In many places, plywood or concrete footbridges were stretched across the deep drainage ditches in the median that drained the rainwater off the concrete surface of the road. Many of the towns had pedestrian bridges built over and across the road, but few people were wary enough about the cars speeding by to use them.

Heavy trucks loaded with chicken crates or rebar, tanker trucks and dump trucks labored up the steeper grades, while SUVs and pickup trucks passed in a hurry. The Pan American Highway was the only road stretching the entire length of the country. A persistent adventurer could actually follow it all the way up through Central America and eventually reach the United States. This all-purpose road could sometimes be packed with weekend travelers. At other points, this thoroughfare could be wide open for miles allowing car to safely reach speeds of 120 to 150 K per hour. All a driver had to do was keep an eye open for the possibility of a man scurrying across the lanes carrying two heavy buckets or a slow moving pickup loaded with mangos.

Madge had kicked off her flip flops and tried to relax, with her window rolled down and her elbow out. The variable lenses in her glasses had turned dark in the bright sun light as a Bob Marley CD hummed along with the window wind and traffic noise. Jerry did not seem to be as perturbed about the glare or slow trucks or cars that wouldn’t pass quickly enough. Instead, he seemed to honk his horn almost merrily, as if he were in the game rather than a booing disgruntled fan on the sidelines. The problem was that the fun, the merriment the congenial patter, all seemed forced. It was like Jerry was putting her on; and at some point would turn on her and say something like “You stupid bitch, you didn’t really think this was all going to be fun and games did you?” Why couldn’t he be trying to make up to her, for his nasty outbursts; for all the tension and complaining? Wouldn’t it be great? Part of the problem for Madge was how sudden this trip came about. One day she’s cooling her heels feeling neglected in a rented apartment, wondering when her obsessive husband would deign to keep her company, and then the next day they’re on the road singing along to reggae. Up until yesterday, a mini-vacation was too much to hope for. What changed? Madge realized that especially since Beth’s death, that she had trouble trusting Jerry. If he was able to strangle somebody, he was able to do almost anything. If only she could ask her husband point blank—so did you off the bitch Beth—but of course she couldn’t. What if he did? What would he do next? And what if he didn’t, what did that say about their relationship—that she suspected him of murder?

Either way it was crazy. She had told no one that she was going, so nobody knew that she was gone much less where. As a loyal wife, she had put herself at the mercy of a man who may be capable of who knows what. Was her imagination running away? Yes, but she couldn’t help it. People don’t change overnight, but that was exactly what the smiling man behind the wheel had done—gone from worse to better, an overnight sensation. At that point Jerry asked her what she was grinning about. “Oh, I don’t know,” Madge said without sarcasm, “just happy, I guess.”

Jerry never slowed down when they passed through Coronado, a much more built-up community with large shopping centers situated on both sides of the road. There was even a McDonalds. When Madge asked about maybe stopping for lunch, Jerry said that he still wanted to put some miles between him and “the job.” Coronado was the last town along the way that there was even a chance of seeing somebody they knew. After that there would be no witnesses. “Oh, just stop it,” Madge told herself. “You’re being paranoid, you silly goof. Why don’t you just allow yourself to have a good time for once? Give the poor guy the benefit of the doubt. After all, he’s the one who has been banging his head against a concrete wall, literally and figuratively, trying to get their dream house built.” Yes, it was her dream house too, Madge reasoned. Maybe Jerry allowed himself to lose perspective sometimes, but what was she doing? Wasn’t she having paranoid fantasies that her husband was taking her on a one-way trip? “Get real,” she said under her breath. Of course it’s only paranoia if it’s not true. Madge thought it was a sad state of affairs that she hoped her fears weren’t true, but was also resigned to the possibility that she really didn’t know what was going on.

* * *

Beni needed to be in court all day, so Barb asked Jack to accompany her for the meeting with Billy Boar. She didn’t know the guy and had hoped that her young lawyer friend could help her sort through any legal matters that might have gotten poor Beth in over her head. Mitch offered to drive and acted a bit miffed when his wife told him that that wouldn’t be necessary. With her bear of a husband skulking around their cave, Barb decided not to mention that she had decided to bring Jack along for moral support and help with the questioning. It was getting obvious that Mitch wasn’t really in favor of his wife going around asking about what was in fact an unsolved murder. At first she assumed that Mitch was rightfully concerned over her safety; but in the past couple of days, she sensed that Mitch just didn’t approve. More than once he referred to Jack as a “wanker” and concocted sentences so the words Jack and off would be used consecutively as in “Is Jack off tonight?” or “Where is Jack off to?” or “I think Jack’s off the mark on that one,” in response to the theory that Jack thought that the young Columbian hooker should be added to their list of suspects. Barb did try to discuss “the case” with Mitch, but he seemed uninterested and frankly impatient with what he had recently referred to as “a wild-goose chase, with you, my dear, the only one in danger of getting goosed.” Mitch always liked to kid around, but Barb learned long ago, that a joke with an edge to it usually meant that the subject wasn’t always being taken lightly. Could it be that Mitch was jealous of Jack? Since she knew that she had absolutely no interest in a man she suspected of being gay; and that Jack had never, not once, flirted with her; she found it difficult to imagine what had provoked Mitch’s feelings, if that indeed was the problem. Since it wasn’t true, Barb decided that “the big old lug might as well get over it.” Mitch snatched the leash that was hanging on a doorknob and announced that he was taking Carmen for a walk, even though the little black and white dog was sound asleep on the couch. Mitch stuffed a plastic grocery bag into his back pocket.

“Try to get back before nightfall,” Barb said.

“Very funny.” Mitch didn’t storm out exactly, but Barb knew that something was brewing and that allowing him to stew, might not be a good idea. She decided to bring up “So what’s the problem?” soon. What she didn’t know was that a few minutes later Mitch witnessed her stopping their Honda CR-V at the corner by the Columbus House and picking up Jack Smith dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and dark green slacks.

Billy Boar’s office was in a small non-descript four-story building on a side street off Via Espana. His door was open when they entered the outer office with an empty desk and chair in front. “Come on in,” a voice called out from the back room. “By secretary is off today,” Boar said as he stood behind his large mahogany looking desk. “Her kid’s sick and has to go to the doctor, or so she says. Same old story.” He motioned for the two to take their seats in two old but not very shabby leather arm chairs facing the desk. A long institutional table was along one wall, covered with stacks of papers and manila folders. Two pale green, three-drawer file cabinets guarded the only window that overlooked an alley. There were no pictures or diplomas hanging on the blank beige walls. Barb knew that Mitch would have said something like “Did you have a decorator or did you do all this yourself?” Which wouldn’t have been that funny. Little did she know that Mitch was not in a joking mood.

It turned out that Billy and Jack had met before, at a party or some social event, but no last names had been exchanged. Barb decided to get right down to business. “So who do you think might be responsible for Beth’s death?”

“Well, first of all, I did not know Beth socially, so I have no idea about jealous boyfriends, or angry neighbors or any of that, “ Boar said with a grin that Barb felt came across as smug. “But I’ll be perfectly honest with you, because I liked Beth, she was a good gal.” Boar scratched his close-cropped hair and attempted to grin, but rather grimaced. “I’m afraid that some advice I gave her, a strategy we employed may have directly or indirectly led to her untimely demise.”

Barb noticed that Jack was sitting bolt upright in his chair with a peeved look on his face.”I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain what you mean by that,” Barb said as, out of the corner of her eye, she watched Jack fidget.

Billy Boar, sat slouched in a high-back swivel chair, in a blue long-sleeve shirt and blue with gold stripes tie loosened at the collar. “Absolutely,” Boar said, while also taking a sidelong glance at a very rigid Smith. “As you might already know, Beth was involved in a dispute with a developer who was constructing a building right next door to one of her principal properties.” Both occupants of the leather chairs nodded. “Well our plan had two parts. One was direct action and we did file a formal complaint. The housing commission actually did put in place a temporary stop-work order because his structure basically was not in compliance with codes, guidelines and specifications, you know, the standard reasons. To be honest, that was enough to really piss off the developer, a total asshole by the name of …”

“Rodrigo Feliz,” Jack interjected rather too sharply. “We know all about that. So get to the point.”

“Okay,” Boar said, as he looked askance at a glaring Jack. “The second part of the plan was a bit more complicated; and it involved embarrassing Feliz in the media, with a couple of critical newspaper articles in “the American” and La Penza and on the internet in Panama News, Panama Digest what have you.”

“And, your point?” Jack was obviously testy, so much so that Barb felt she needed to interject, “Go, ahead Mr. Boar.”

“Billy,” the lawyer said with the sardonic grin back on his angular face. “The point was that we weren’t only trying to make him look bad among his big-wig friends at the Union Club, some of whom actually care about Casco Viejo and its status as a World Heritage site. I also thought that having his name in the paper, would cause enough heat that it would provide some protection for our Mrs. Beth Page. That’s where I think I just might have fucked up—excuse my language.”

“How so?” Jack was on alert.

“I decided not to actually have Beth quoted in any of the articles. I thought it was better, that the son-of-a-bitch Feliz, not be able to blame her personally. Now that I think about it, we probably would have been much wiser to have Beth go public and lead the attack. After all, because of the complaint, she was a target. If her name was well known as an opponent, it wouldn’t look that good if all of a sudden she was bumped off. I thought I was protecting her by keeping her out of the papers, but now that I look back, she probably would have been more protected if everybody already knew that our boy Rodrigo wanted her ass in a sling.”

“So you believe it was that Feliz character, that as you say had her bumped off,” Barb leaned back and looked small and defenseless in the large chair.

“Yup, I do.” Billy folded his hands in front on his desk, like a school boy.

“That’s all well and good,” Jack said, obviously not convinced. “However, somebody of Feliz’s stature probably has a prestigious law firm that could put up a pretty good fight especially against a one-trick pony such as yourself, no offense intended.”

“I’m not sure of that, but you’re absolutely right. Except we’re dealing with a big shot, with a gigantic ego, who’s pissed off and has the stature and money to get away with murder. You don’t think I have any proof do you? If I did, the police would have it. You asked me for my theory and I’ve obviously thought about it and I worry that I might have been able to handle certain facets of the dispute differently, with possibly a different result. Now that’s as about as candid you’re going to get from anyone.”

“Hardly,” Jack said. Barb was surprised by how righteous her associate was acting, with a truly indignant tone in his voice. “You said at the outset, that you didn’t have social dealings with Mrs. Page. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Billy Boar said. To Barb he sounded calm, and seemed credible.

“Well, I’m afraid that I have a reliable source, who has told me that Beth had engaged in a very spirited telephone conversation with someone named Billy. In fact, she literally screamed the name ‘Billy’ several times into the phone. She was emotional and it didn’t sound like a business call. It was a night or two before she was strangled by someone she apparently knew, not some thug, hired by some local gangster.”

“Who told you that?” Boar wanted to know, “and Billy who?”

“You tell us, Mr. Boar. How many Billys played a role in Beth’s life?”

Again, the grin that Boar seemed to use in a variety of situations appeared. His features were sharp and calm. He even twiddled his thumbs as he responded, “Well, there’s Billy Beliz.”

“Who?” Jack seemed a bit caught off stride.

“Billy Beiiz, a young good looking developer from Columbia. Some people thought he was Beth’s boyfriend, there for a while, but I don’t know about that. What I do know, is that Beliz owed Beth a boatload of money. So again I don’t know,” Boar said with a shrug. “So how’s he for a suspect?”

* * *

Jerry Cole stuck to their plan, which was pretty much no plan at all. Their itinerary was unfocused and open-ended. After driving past the beaches of San Carlos and through the not particularly friendly looking towns of Rio Hato and Anton, they stopped for lunch in a bustling town called Penonome. Fried fish, deep-fried yucca—everything was fried. From there they soon bypassed Nata and Aguadulce. When Madge spotted Santa Maria on the map, she suggested that they might want to turn off the Pan American Highway and make their way down the Los Santos peninsula to Pedasi; a beach community that she had heard was nice.

“Nah,” Jerry said, “I thought we might go a little farther, maybe turn off near Santiago, and head up into the mountains.”

“Hey wait a minute,” Madge thought. “All of a sudden our nowhere-in-particular journey seems to have a destination. At least in Jerry’s mind. I guess we’re following his nose.” Madge wasn’t happy. She was finding it impossible to shake an uneasy, suspicious, sick feeling in her gut. Were they just winging it, or did her often angry, sometimes mean, but currently on his best behavior husband have a goal all along. If so, why didn’t he share it with his only passenger, who happened to be his wife? Really, nobody knew where they were headed. Madge hadn’t informed anyone that they would be gone, much less where they were going or when they would return. Madge felt vulnerable, even foolish, to take off to points unknown with a man that she could not rule out as a suspect in a brutal murder. Did he sense her suspicion? They had been married for 23 years, and knew each other pretty well after all that time. So if he should be able to tell that something’s bothering his wife, why can’t she get over being afraid? He had been a responsible and respected (if not always popular), executive engineer. Never had a criminal record and, though he threatened a couple of times, he never hit or grabbed Madge in anger. “I’m a nurse, after all,” Madge reasoned, which meant that she should be able to recognize and control irrational fears. Madge was so uneasy that she worried her demeanor would somehow irritate her husband and send him into a rage.

“Hey Madge,” Jerry said as they approached the outskirts of the large town called Santiago. “Check on the map and see if you can find a little place called Santa Fe. It should be off to the right somewhere in the direction of the mountains.”

Sure enough directly north at what looked like the end of a thin red line was Santa Fe.

“Jesus,” Madge thought, “this has been our destination the whole time.” Then out loud in what Madge hoped sounded like a casual tone, “So what’s in Santa Fe?”

“I have no idea,” Jerry said still jolly. “Let’s go and find out.”

2010-08-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Eleven

Mitch was not involved in the investigation. To be honest, he thought it was pointless for his petite, frail wife to even try to get to the bottom of a murder, especially in a third-world or second-world or whatever-Panama-was-considered country. So he never volunteered to stake out any locations or ask a few questions or even get on the computer to do some background checks. Even when he thought of it that way, it seemed absurd, silly even, as if Barb was playing the Angela Landsbury part in Murder, She Wrote. Of course, if that was what his wife wanted to do, he wasn’t going to stand in her way, though he worried that she could get herself in some sort of trouble, maybe even in danger, if she did by some stroke of luck or clever deduction solve the murder.

As usual, Mitch sat on a bench with Carmen on her leash out on the promenade and faced a spectacular view of the Panama City skyline. The Pacific Ocean was flat and gray. A few normal thunderheads draped the horizon. Why did Barb care? Poor departed Beth was an acquaintance not a dear old friend. It must be that his wife needed something to do. Ever since they retired, Barb was looking for a hobby or activity to become involved with and she even took some oil painting classes and Spanish language classes and Ti Chi classes but none inspired any more than a passing interest. Whenever, somebody suggested that Barb might want to teach, she always gave the same answer—“Now that wouldn’t be retirement, would it?” Mitch agreed. After all, his main activity was coaching some midget scrubs who appeared to have no chance to win a single game in a rinky-dink league—Now that’s not much of a retirement plan, is it? Plus the season was going to mercifully end soon, and then what? Maybe she could write a novel or a murder mystery or a children’s book or poetry. Barb was an intelligent, sensitive, resourceful, well-educated woman, with a master’s degree in Education and a sharp mind.

Carmen would occasionally pull the leash and stretch out to meet a passerby in hopes of receiving a pat on her clownish head. A woman in sneakers, tee shirt and jeans and a Panama hat leaned over and called Carmen a cute dog. Mitch nodded. Middle-aged women were the most likely to stop and speak baby talk to the dog. “Maybe I should try picking up one of these gals,” Mitch thought, and then “Yeh sure, and then what?” Mitch would give the ladies a smile and a nod and then they would be on their way. Some people both women and men and often Panamanian, but particularly children acted afraid and cringed at the sight of the small white dog with black accents. “What do they see?” Mitch wondered. How could they be frightened by a small 20-pound dog attached to a leash being held by a 230-pound hombre?

What was retirement supposed to be anyway? The rather vague notion was that a person was supposed to rest after a lifetime of work. Just hang out and smell the roses or play golf or travel. Maybe Mitch could get Barb to plan a trip to Columbia or Peru, since they were in the neighborhood; or Argentina; or a safari in Africa; or a tour of England and/or France. That’s what old people do. Of course for a while going to Panama was a rather adventurous trip; and getting settled in was a sometimes frustrating but time-consuming activity; but then they were established, their apartment was furnished; and they knew their way around the city. But, and it was a big but, what then? Boredom, not abject, tedious, hopeless boredom, like convicts in prison or monks in a monastery (Mitch could not picture meditating all day in silence), or collectors in a toll booth might feel, but a feeling of boredom did creep in on an almost daily basis. Part of the deal was that being on a pensioner’s visa in Panama meant that a job was prohibited. Mitch didn’t want to be a greeter at a Wal-Mart anyway. Even starting a business was complicated. The visa required that a foreign business operator had to employ at least three Panamanians and that wouldn’t be retirement, now would it. Retirement was supposed to be like a permanent vacation, and come to think of it, Mitch remembers often being bored at the beach, just sitting there watching the waves or reading a book.

Mitch supposed he could take up golf and play at one of the few courses in Panama, but he had never really been that interested and figured that starting at his age would be futile. On the other hand, little Barb was never into sports. She could almost hide behind a tennis racket and a bicycle seemed like a high seat from which to fall. Mitch remembers one time at a family softball game worrying that the force of a batted ball might knock her over. Involvement in even noncompetitive sports at their age didn’t seem like such good idea. They’d be smashed up against the rocks kayaking down some rapids; or drown scuba diving; or fall off a cliff mountain climbing with no previous experience. So how about hiking?—boring and hard on Mitch’s knees. That left them wondering what to do. Barb, apparently, decided to become a senior sleuth.

There was another key reason why Mitch was not involved in the investigation. Barb never asked him to become involved. Maybe Barb assumed that he would say no, which is probably what he would have said. In fact, he would have tried to talk her out of it. However, she did not ask. Making assumptions after 40 years of marriage is not unheard of, but it did bother Mitch that he wasn’t invited or consulted. Barb simply assumed he would decline and instead announced her intention to look into the matter. What bothered him even more was that she then recruited an associate, a widower approximately their same age and off she went. Was he jealous? Of course he was. Time spent with that Jack fella was time not spent with her own husband. While they were married, his coaching duties and administrator duties often meant that he stayed late after school or attended and chaperoned evening activities, leaving Barb to fend for herself many week nights, which she did—book clubs, charity work, friends, TV and knitting. Not much call for knitting sweaters and scarves in the tropics. However, when he retired, one of the desirable parts of the plan was that he would spend more time with the love of his life. In fact, they were together most of each day, every day since they had only one car and did the grocery shopping, banking, dry cleaners, hardware store and even doctor’s visits together. Mitch appreciated an opportunity to get out of the apartment. He always had plenty of time on his hands and didn’t mind pushing the grocery cart as Barb led the way.

Mitch figured that there would be a renewal of their sex lives, which didn’t in fact turn out. Mitch thought that if they had the time there would be much more sex. He didn’t kid himself and think he suddenly turned into a 6’4” bulky Sean Connery, though Barb was still trim. Maybe he didn’t turn her on anymore. He did think that now both of them had more opportunity that they would take advantage. They had always been careful and that was how they avoided having kids. Mitch would always pull out. He hated condoms. Then when Barb went through menopause, he didn’t have to any more. Frankly, Mitch missed the cum shots, as he liked to call them, while gradually the number of times they had sex tampered off to once or twice a month—more often on weekend trips but those times were rare. Vacations were a time when they always had sex, but now they were on permanent vacation. Even simple affection was harder to come by. There were fewer welcome home kisses because there were no late nights at school; or long basketball practices. They were always together and Mitch had to admit that he had never been much of a hugger and kisser for no reason. They would cuddle up at night in bed but soon either one or the other or both would be snoring away. Often when walking Carmen at night, Mitch envied the young couples seated on the benches or with their legs dangling from the wall that bordered the old town. The young smirky boys in black tee shirts and the girls in their tank tops, their bare arms wrapped around the guys’ necks seemed to be in a different world. It would be foolish for Barb and Mitch to make out on a park bench, when they could snuggle all they wanted on their couch in the privacy of their apartment. Instead they watched DVDs or old movies on Sky TV.

It was hard to imagine, but Mitch hated the idea of his sweet, innocent wife having an affair. Maybe she secretly resented their sex life dropping off a cliff. They never discussed it. It just happened. He had assumed that menopause was part of the cause. Of course the spark had faded if not disappeared completely, but Barb had a cute little figure in a girlish, not too wrinkled way. Plus, he loved her. She was the cutest, nicest, sweetest, most interesting woman he had ever known personally and he was lucky—she was his wife. Now the first thing you don’t go doing is accuse your wife of an affair, without a courthouse full of evidence. Mitch had his doubts that that was what was happening or that it could happen. Then again, Jack was sort of a cool customer, a writer and a restaurant critic and not a bad looking guy for his age and available. The so-called investigation could be nothing more than excuse for those two to see each other. Or not. That was the problem, even if there was no geriatric romance blooming anew; even if Jack never had “any ideas;” or Barb wasn’t even tempted to have one last fling; the question remained—Why Jack? Why did Jack agree to play Watson to Barb’s Sherlock? What was in it for him? Maybe, probably, certainly Mitch could trust his wife of 40 years; but could he trust Jack? Was Jack a break from the routine of decades of marriage? Was he more interesting or more fun; or at least interesting or fun in a different way—a little variety to spice an old girl’s life? Obviously, Mitch had too much time on his hands and was letting his imagination run a bit, but all things considered, Mitch was determined to keep an eye on that Jack guy.

For a while, a long while, Carmen slept under Mitch’s legs, but then stood facing her master, well not exactly, but the guy holding the leash, and looked at him expectantly. “Okay, okay,” Mitch said “it’s time to move. Let’s go back to the apartment and see what Mom’s doing.” Much of the sky was pink as a half dozen pelicans swooped low, just inches above the surface of the sea. As Mitch stood up, the leash went taunt and Carmen gave it a steady pull all the way back, with only a few sniff stops at car tires and door steps. When Mitch unlocked the door, he bent over and slipped the chocker chain off Carmen’s neck, and the dog scooted in and jumped up on Barb, who was standing in the middle of their small living room. An open book was placed face down on the wicker easy chair, and Mitch noticed Barb had on a white tee shirt, red Capri pants and a stern look on her face.

“Where in the world have you been?” Barb asked with her palms raised toward the ceiling fan.

“I took Carmen for a walk, like I always do.” Mitch thought it was obvious.

Barb’s expression changed from peeved to concerned. “You’ve been gone for nearly two hours. That was a mighty long walk there mister. For the last hour, hour and a half, I’ve been worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Mitch said, “but I didn’t realize it had been that long. Are you sure?” To Mitch it seemed unlikely he could have been out for more than a half hour, 45 minutes at the most.

“I’m sure, honey,” Barb said and walked over, stood on her tiptoes and gave her big husband a kiss on the cheek.

The gesture made Mitch feel foolish and instead of apologizing any more he said, “First of all, I don’t believe for minute I was gone any two hours, and so what if I was. Should I punch in and out with a time card, for Christ’s sake?”

It made Mitch even more angry when he heard his wife switch on her teacher voice and inquire, “So do you remember what time you left with Carmen?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” By this time Mitch was snarling. “I suppose it was around 4:00, maybe 4:30.”

“It was a little before 4:00,” Barb said rather too patiently for Mitch’s taste. “And what time is it now? It’s getting dark out.” There were long shadows outside the window.

At that point Mitch didn’t really want to take a look at his wrist watch, but did. “It says 6:15.” The watch hung on his wrist like a handcuff, both proof of his wife’s accusation and evidence of his negligence. Why hadn’t he checked his watch before? Where had the time gone? But also, why was his wife so upset? He wasn’t running around looking for clues. He was just out for a stroll with the dog they had adopted. What was the big deal?

Barb patted him on his bicep and said “Don’t worry honey. Everything is okay. I just got worried is all.”

“Well then, don’t you worry either,” Mitch said, “I’m a big boy and I can take care of myself, and don’t you forget it.” His statement was intended to sound light-hearted, but it sounded silly to Mitch himself and he wondered what his wife was thinking even though she said, “Of course, honey, no problem.”

Well that’s the problem right there. Mitch knew he was being handled—handled with care; with kid gloves; as if he were a problem. The fact of the matter was that Mitch was not so far gone that he didn’t know that to a certain degree he was losing it. The main thing was that he couldn’t remember stuff—what time it was; or day; or month; and plenty of “senior moments”—forgetting why he had gone upstairs; or where he left his glasses; or names of his young hapless players. He even called Carmen “Pesky” more than once which was the name of his dog when he was a boy. At first, Mitch hung on to the senior-moment concept; that it happened to everybody his age, but lately he found the situation more unsettling. He worried that he needed to get a hold of himself. No wonder, he admitted, that Barb didn’t want him involved in anything that needed mental acuity. No wonder Barb was interested in another slightly younger, more with-it guy. It was bad. Mitch knew as much and it bothered him because he didn’t know what to do.

“Oh, Honey,” he said, “I’m so sorry. I’ll watch the time better, I really will. I don’t want you to worry.” Mitch was surprised to find himself near tears. To counteract, he pounded his right fist into his left palm and said a bit too empathically, “I’ll just check my watch more often, that’s all.”

Barb’s small hand fluttered to his shoulder and her bright green eyes met his. “That’s okay Honey; I was just a little worried that’s all.”

At that, Mitch pulled back abruptly and sneered, “You think I’m losing it. Don’t you? You think I’m god damn losing it. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

Once again Barb reached out her small hand and this time gripped her husband’s wide wrist right behind his large, clenched fist. Mitch slumped but did not pull his hand away, as his wife gently kissed his knuckles and said, “Maybe, Honey, sometimes, I don’t know, but sometimes, I’m afraid so.”

* * *

Joe Berger sat at a small corner table under a fake palm tree. The Tropical Island Club, on 37th Street just off Calle Cincuenta, was decorated with artificial palm trees and plastic foliage with what looked like stuffed parrots scattered around in white painted cages hanging from wires attached to the ceiling. Tacky. This was the gentlemen’s club where Bebe worked. It had occurred to Joe that many if not most of the so-called gentlemen’s clubs in Panama City had English language names like The Crazy Horse, where Bebe worked before it closed. There was also Elite II, the Crystal Moon, the Cotton Club, Golden Times, and place names like Miami and Las Vegas and one with a bit of a French flair called Le Palace. It was pretty obvious why, since even the little Tropical Island had a mostly gringo clientele. Some of these guys were businessmen at loose ends but some were in Panama because prostitution was legal. Basically they were sex tourists; or pervs as Joe liked to call them.

Even though it was against the law for Panamanian women to be prostitutes, girls from other countries were actually licensed and were given visas for that expressed purpose. Many of the girls, like Bebe, were from Columbia. Joe did not include himself in the pervert category because he had not come to Panama in order to have legal access to hookers. I’ve never paid for sex and I hope I never will. He told himself he was just keepin’ an eye on my girlfriend. Whatever that meant? He certainly didn’t interfere with her job, which was mainly doing lap dances or table dances as they’re called. Bebe was dressed for the part with big hooped earrings; a thin gold chain with a cross dangling from it; several gold and silver bracelets on her left wrist; five-inch, open toed heels and nothing else. While two naked young ladies danced on small platforms with a pole sticking out to the ceiling, about a half dozen women, a couple of them in g-strings, one in nothing but what must be called a platform bra and the rest like Bebe in high heels and a garter belt for the money she danced for.

Joe liked to watch Bebe do her stuff. Just then Bebe was leaning over a table where two middle-aged guys both in gray suits were seated. Both had removed their ties and were fondling her breasts and butt well past the tan line. She is one sexy piece of ass. Actually, she seldom came over to Joe’s table, because it was understood that he wasn’t a real customer. Once or twice, a new girl tried to entice Joe, but soon learned that he was only paying for rather expensive seven-dollar beers. Bebe and some of the other girls seemed to get a laugh out of watching a newbie do a little dance with no payoff. The performances were pretty much no-holds-barred affairs, since the guys were allowed to touch the dancers, who were humping their legs. What the girls were actually trying to do was provoke enough interest in their marks, so that the guys would soon follow them into a back room, where they would have sex for the house price of $85. The management would take $50 leaving the girl with $35; so the babes tried to go into the back as often as possible. Joe had never actually been in the back. Most of the ladies would also try to make dates for later, so that they could keep more of the money.

It was important that Joe keep Bebe thinking that he was well off financially because she was losing money by dating him. Soon enough, Joe knew his fling with Bebe would come to an end when he refused to marry her. She had already complained about how plain his apartment was, so he printed some photos off the internet of a house he claimed he owned in Boca Raton. The money for the house and the black Mercedes sedan, which he also bragged about, apparently came from the proceeds of his lucrative sports agent operation, a concept that Bebe never seemed to fully comprehend. Yes, he was scamming her, but Joe justified his behavior because he knew that Bebe was scamming him, every time she said “Oh, Joe Baby, I love you mucho.”

The plan that Joe suspected (expected really) was simple. The minute the nuptials were officially sanctioned, Bebe would request, demand more like it, that the happy newlyweds take in her mother and/or sister and/or cousin or her two previously unmentioned kids with Grandma for help. Then just a few days after the family members were moved in, Bebe would charge Joe with physical and psychological abuse backed up by witnesses. This would lead to a divorce and settlement (or criminal proceedings) that seldom benefited the husband. There was even a web site www.gringolovelost.com dedicated to all the forlorn, lovelorn gringo victims. Many anonymous men, who used their dicks to sign away their nest eggs, shared their stories, which were all remarkably alike. It was surprising, almost shocking how prevalent this bait-and-switch scam was—almost as if young women were being trained somewhere; part of their heritage, passed on from generation to generation—how to fleece aging horny gringo men, lonely guys mostly. Joe could identify with that. Loneliness can give a person some weird ideas. Lucky for Joe his ego was low instead of in high gear when he arrived. He was many things and lost way more than he won at life, love and sports, but he wasn’t an idiot. After all, he wasn’t being very honest about his own background either, and so far lied to every woman he met about his resume. However some of these jerk-offs actually believed that the sweet young Columbian thing sucking his Viagra induced hard-on actually cared for him—that she found the little hairs growing out of his nose and ears attractive; and loved Frank Sinatra almost as much as he did. Smucks. Almost nightly, Joe would watch a parade of aging would-be romeos seem to fall for one of the many hookers with hearts of gold. Sure plenty of party boys came through, with no intention of spending more than the going rate in the back room. Then too, there were probably more than a few frauds, like Joe, who never let on that there really wasn’t any gold to dig. Using a user who is using you isn’t using at all. That was why Joe didn’t mind seeing his so-called girlfriend hustling off to the back room with yet another potential husband/payday—it all was a sham, a game and he got to play, at least for a while, before she wised up and moved on to greener pastures.

When Bebe wiggled her way to the back for the third time—this time with a Spanish looking guy in a black tee shirt and jeans, who left a table where three of his friends cheered him on—and it was only 10 p.m., Joe decided it was time to stop nursing his beer and call it a night. Sometimes Bebe came up to his apartment later and sometimes she didn’t. He’d have to wait and see.

When Joe got out of the taxi in front of Columbus House, he spotted Jack Smith sitting on his usual park bench in the square. A light, cool breeze rustled the leaves in the sculpted Fica trees that shaded the sidewalk, casting deep shadows between the streetlights. Berger gave his neighbor a perfunctory wave but was surprised to see Jack motioning toward him as if he wanted Joe to join him. What the fuck could this be about? Slowly, warily Joe sauntered over, hoping to look casual as he did so.

“Good evening,” Jack said, but he didn’t stand up.

“So, what’s happin',” Berger said.

“Have a seat.” Jack patted a space on the other end of the bench.

Oh, oh. Joe remained standing.

“As you probably know, some of us are very concerned about Beth’s murder. We’re also convinced that the suspect in custody is not the one responsible. So I was wondering if you had any theories as to who it might be.”

“Well it wasn’t me,” Joe said with a shrug as he sat down on the edge of the bench, “and even it was, I’m probably not going to confess out here on the square.” He looked up at the imposing statue of Simon Bolivar with what looked like a vulture on his shoulder with his back to the two gringo bachelors shooting the breeze below.

“We’re not accusing anybody,” Jack said, “but we are concerned that the police aren’t doing much to find out who really did it.”

“First of all, they’re not doing diddlysquat,” Joe said, but then more defensively, “and just who is this we you keep referring to?”

“Let’s say it’s a small group of concerned expats,” Smith said. At that Berger stood up again. “Okay, I’m the we, and I didn’t do it either, but somebody did. All right?”

Joe laughed. “Yeh, I know what you mean. So why don’t you start off by telling me who’s on your list of suspects.”

“To be perfectly honest, it’s virtually everybody with whom Beth had some sort of relationship.”

“Exactly, so the list includes you and me there bud.”

“At least theoretically,” Jack said. “Though for obvious reasons, I’ve managed to scratch my name off my personal list.”

“Well, you’re still on mine,” Joe said pointing a finger at the small man in a tidy flower-print shirt, pleated shorts and flip flops sitting across from him. “Okay, I’ll admit that right after Beth broke off what I had hoped would be some sort of, you know, relationship, I was pretty upset…”

“After all, you did kick that little dog,” Jack said, but then seemed to immediately regret making the point.

“Exactly! First of all, I never kicked that fuckin’ dog; but more to the point is how the hell do you even know about it? I’ll tell you how. Beth, your old pal, buddy, friend, lover told you herself. You want to know how I know? After she threw that hissy-fit over that stupid mutt, I decided to wait outside her house in hopes of getting a chance to talk to her. No, I wasn’t stalking her, I didn’t do it all the time, but I would hang out every once in a while, and lo and behold, who do I see coming out the back door and out the back gate, after a kiss on the cheek and hug? Why none other than the restaurant critic for some silly-ass local newspaper, that nobody reads. That’s right, pal, you’re still on my list, for obvious reasons.”

“No need to be aggressive,” Jack said. While Berger was raving on, he did appear to be a bit surprised but not very worried. “After all, if I wasn’t a friend of hers, I wouldn’t be interested in finding her killer, would I?”

“Maybe, as a concerned citizen…Anyway, if you want to continue this conversation, you can drop your righteous attitude. My name’s not on my list either, but I’m not so pompous to expect that somebody else might not wonder if I had something to do with it. So did you kill her?”

“Don’t be silly, of course not.”

“Silly, silly? Then why so secret? The front door didn’t work or something? You’re sneaking out the back door…”

“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere…”

“…but I’m a suspect because I kicked her dog? That doesn’t make much sense.”

“No, but you resented being dismissed as a hateful dog kicker,” Jack said as he attempted to regain the upper hand. “Then you lurk around in the shadows watching the comings and goings even at the back door. That’s pretty suspicious behavior, if you ask me.”

“No, no, you asked me…” By this time Berger was pacing back and forth in front of the bench. “And I only hung around a couple of nights, before I gave up, but just long enough to catch you sneaking out.”

“I wasn’t sneaking, I told you. We were in the kitchen. It was the closest door. She had the front door bolted, against you if you must know.”

“So I am a suspect,” Berger said. And my point is?

“Of course you are,” Smith said it with a slump of his shoulders as if he were exasperated. “You had a grudge against her. And now that I’ve spoken with you, you obviously feel that she rejected you unfairly, whether or not you kicked the dog.”

“I never, ever kicked …, oh what the hell.” Then with a sigh, “Okay, I see your point. I know I didn’t do it, but I don’t know who did. So, like I said, it could very well be you and you’re going around covering your ass or whatever.”

Jack even surprised himself by remaining relatively calm. This Berger fellow was a prime suspect as far as he was concerned and it didn’t seem that the interrogation had gone that well. If Berger was the one, he was certainly on alert from now on; but what if he didn’t do it? He had Beth’s house under surveillance for goodness sake. “Okay, just for argument sake, let’s operate under the assumption that neither one of us did it, because if we did, then this is a pretty foolish conversation we’re having…”

“I didn’t do it, but okay…”

“So, who do you think did?”

“Back to square one, aye? Well, for one thing, I’m not as sure as you seem to be that it wasn’t that bum, Ham or whatever his name is. He hung around her place a lot, and even did odd jobs. Maybe he needed some money. The problem is that if you start thinking about it, the list can get pretty darn long.”

Jack nodded and said “go ahead.”

“So, who saw her last? That prick Allen, right? As far as I’m concerned he’s the leading suspect, except there is no apparent motive. But my gut feeling is that for some sick reason it’s him.”

“I see you’ve done some thinking on the subject,” Jack said, with the same pompous tone that pissed Berger off in the first place.

“Yeh, just like you. When it dawns on you that you’re probably a suspect, and you know that you didn’t do it, you start wondering who did. You’re the one who said he wants to catch the real killer and not just the bum on the corner. So, your turn. Who do you think did it; that is unless you’re ready to confess?”

“I think you would have to consider Jerry Cole,” Jack offered.

“Do you rank him ahead of or behind me and Allen or the street guy?” Joe wanted to know.

“This is quite a conversation…” Jack said with a smile.

“You started it.”

“…but to honest, I haven’t come up with a ranking system, but like you, Jerry Cole is a top suspect. Allen and Jamon, not so much. And since I know I didn’t…”

“Okay, okay! So, what about her fuckin’ lawyer, Billy somebody?”

“No I hadn’t thought of him.” After all, Billy Boar was his lawyer as well. “Why on earth would he be on a list of suspects?”

“I’m not sure, but on the night before the dog incident, Beth was yelling on the phone with some guy named Billy for about half an hour. When she left the room, she said ‘it’s my lawyer, I have to take the call,’ and while I couldn’t hear what she was saying, I could hear that she wasn’t happy. Maybe there were problems. Maybe Beth was a slut. Who knows?”

“Listen, pal,” Jack stood and looked up at Berger, who was much taller with his hands in a defiant pose at his hips. Joe was dressed almost identically to Jack, though his shirt was printed with much fainter flowers, his khaki shorts more rumbled and his flip flops more worn. “We’re not here to besmirch Beth’s reputation.”

“She doesn’t mind. She’s dead,” Berger said, backhanding the air dismissively. “Heck, she slept with me on our first date; and only date. Then moments later she’s in Asshole Allen’s arms; while you’re slipping out the backdoor. Who knows how many others? I believe that the deceased has been around the block more than once. Is all I’m saying.”

“I was not having an affair with Beth and I would appreciate it if you would stop implying that I did. However, I agree that jealousy is a strong motive and keeps you at the top of any list.”

“Okay, I’ll admit that I wasn’t that thrilled seeing Beth and Allen the ass-wipe sashaying around Casco Viejo, but I’ll tell you who really hates our dearly departed…”

“Who?”

“Bebe, that’s who. Listen I’m not kidding myself; but at least half the reason our favorite Columbian cutie is dating me is to piss off Allen, who dumped her the minute he got a foot in the door, so to speak, with Beth. Bebe refers to her simply as ‘that bitch.’ Yup, if I was making a list, I would have to include sweet little bouncy Bebe as someone who wished Beth dead.”

“Do you really think she could have done it? I mean she’s not very big.” Smith was stunned by Joe’s candor; and found himself liking his prime suspect even less than he did before. There had always been something shady, underhanded, creepy even about this Berger fellow, ever since he appeared on the scene. His willingness to implicate his paramour did nothing to improve Berger’s image in Jack’s mind.

“Sure, she’s a tough little cookie. If she gets a hold of you, she’ll turn you every way but loose.” At that, Joe winked. “So you see your little list is getting longer all the time. It might not be me after all.” Another wink.

Just then, a yellow taxi pulled up in front of Columbus House and Bebe emerged. Her black curly hair was down over her shoulders. A white tee shirt with the words Tropical Island Club written across her snug breasts in hot pink was tucked into a very tight pair of jean short shorts. She wobbled toward the two gray-haired men, who stood facing each other, in a pair of red very high heels. “Good evening gentlemen,” she said with a smile that looked genuine to Jack Smith.

“Where?” Joe pretended to look around in search of any gentlemen. Bebe slapped Joe’s arm playfully. “Well, I’ll be seeing you old buddy,” Joe said as he took Bebe by the elbow and steered her toward the door. “Happy huntin’.”

2010-07-05T08:33:00.001-07:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Ten

Almost forgotten in the aftermath of Beth’s murder was the scheduled visit of Barb’s best friend from high school Jackie and her husband Hank, all the way from Saginaw, Michigan. Even though they didn’t socialize much with the Hanners back in Saginaw—Barb would meet Jackie once or twice a year for lunch—they were the first and so far only people who showed any interest in visiting Panama. “Their visit will give us a chance to become acquainted,” Mitch pointed out. It mystified the Multuskys that so few of their friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances seemed to consider Panama a desirable place to visit. “Maybe they don’t know what’s here,” Mitch reasoned. “I mean how interesting can a canal be?” When Barb raised an eyebrow, “I know, an engineering wonder of the world; but I don’t think people realize how big and impressive the city is or that the entire country is two beautiful coast lines with a mountain range in the middle or …”

“A banana republic with dictators like Noriega running around having machine gun battles with drug cartels,” Barb giggled. “You know when we left, people kept saying how brave we were; like we were hiking into the rainforest with nothing but a water bottle and a machete. If not being able to speak Spanish stops people then no one would go to Miami. I think they’re ignorant of where or what Panama is. All they know is that Carter should have never let Panama have control over the canal.”

“Another real possibility is that the people back in Michigan don’t miss us that much,” Mitch said, as he popped open a can of Atlas beer.

“And vice versa,” Barb said, which was true. She had expected to feel more sentimental about leaving a place where she had spent most of her life, but she didn’t. Before she left, at her school’s end- of-the-year party for example, she got the impression that some of her fellow faculty felt that they were somehow being abandoned—that Barb was turning her back on them, or on America or home or something that comprised all of that. Why would anyone want to live anywhere other than in the good old United States of America?

Mitch and Barb never had kids and there was always a mixture of resentment, disapproval and pity about that, but it also gave the Multuskys the freedom to live wherever they wanted, without worrying about being there for their children and grandchildren and birthdays, graduations, weddings and Christmas. Barb always wondered why her biological alarm clock never went off. Mitch and she never considered themselves particularly selfish or ungenerous, after all they ended up working with thousands of other people’s kids, but the urge to procreate seldom if never came about for them. It wasn’t a problem, except in other people’s minds, some of whom had even inquired over the years if “everything was working properly.” To be honest, they never checked medically, but had always been very careful. When Barb reached menopause, Mitch claimed to “miss a good ol’ cum shot every once in a while.”

With their parents deceased (Mitch noted once that “we’re orphans living in a strange land,” while Barb thought the term orphans seemed inappropriate for two old fart retirees.), and a brother here and a cousin there, family wasn’t as strong a force as it seemed to plenty of folks Barb knew. Again it wasn’t rejection. As far as Barb was concerned they weren’t rejecting family or America. Once when they were discussing what they left behind—partisan politics; real estate tax coupled with a rising cost of living; eight-lane highways; and reality TV; both were quick to admit that there was much they missed including smooth roads; postal service; the local evening news on TV; corn-fed Angus beef; and long summer nights. “I do miss apple pie,” Mitch admitted, “but we have baseball down here and they’re pretty good, so there’s pluses and minuses.” Yes, when they watched CNN International they were informed that other things were happening to people in the world other than U.S. politicians and celebrities. They voted absentee in the federal election (Obama—both wanted Hilary, but never voted for “that idiot Bush” and certainly not McCain), and still paid income tax and worried about the recession and the oil spill. “Okay,” Mitch said when Barb kept fretting, “we’re retired, which means we’re on permanent vacation and we picked some place exotic, instead of some god-awful retirement community outside of Orlando or Tampa or wherever. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (with a wink), but we took the path less travelled and that’s made all the difference.”

“Not an exact quote, but close enough.” Barb loved her husband and appreciated his attempts at humor and/or wisdom and knew there was nothing she could do about the perception of others. Maybe in a busy world, they hadn’t really been gone long enough yet to be missed. And Jackie and her husband were coming in, soon in fact, so Barb washed a couple of glasses in the sink and asked Mitch if he was ready to go to the airport.

At Tocumen Airport, Barb and Mitch waited for nearly an hour after the flight landed for their friends to finally emerge through the door from customs. Many, many people had come out that particular sliding glass door in the past forty-five minutes and were greeted by huggers or guys with signs with names printed in marker, but never the Hanners. There was even a lull, when no one existed for what seemed like five minutes. Then when the Hanners did show, Barb and Mitch failed to immediately recognize them. It might have been the sun glasses (“Why would they need sun glasses inside the terminal?” Mitch wondered later, in private. To which Barb replied “maybe they were ready for the tropic sun.”); or maybe it was that Jackie’s long brown dyed hair was pulled back in a ponytail; or maybe it was because neither one of them knew Hank that well. Then too Jackie and Hank peered past and beyond their hosts before finally focusing on the Multuskys looking around anxiously.

“Can you imagine,” Jackie said as she ducked away from Mitch’s attempt at an air kiss, “the people in customs didn’t even speak English.”

“It’s a Spanish speaking country,” Mitch said.

“At the airport?” Hank was in full eyebrows up; head back; well-I-don’t-think-so attitude that immediately, irrevocably pissed Mitch off.

“Actually, everywhere. Here let me help you with that.” Hank handed over his suitcase happily and allowed Mitch to hoist both his and his wife’s luggage, while he pulled a small carry-on bag on squeaky wheels, while Barb took control of Jackie’s carry-on.

For the next four days, Mitch had to bite his tongue and ignore the urge to grab the much shorter but pudgier man and shake him by the lapels, actually by a fist full of polo shirt. While Barb and Jackie seemed to have plenty to talk about, Hank kept hitting Mitch with statements like:

“I thought they drove on the left in Panama.”

“No that’s the Bahamas and I think maybe Bermuda—nowhere near here.”

“I’m going to need to exchange some money.”

“It’s the U.S. dollar down here.”

“You’re kidding. So I guess we’re still in charge.”

“Not really.”

“So I need to change the time on my watch.”

“Actually, we’re in the same time zone, so your watch is correct.”

“No way. How can that be? You know that was the announcement on the plane when we landed, but I didn’t believe it.”

“Panama is directly south of New York or Miami in the Eastern Time Zone, but we don’t have day-light-savings time, so we match the Midwest.”

“No way. How can that be? Panama’s way over in Central America. Am I right?”

“Well yeah, but its longitude, not latitude. Anyway, your watch is correct.”

“So who is the dictator now?”

“Actually, they have an elected president, a fella by the name of Martinelli, and a vice president, and a democratic legislature and democratically elected representatives and mayor of the city.”

“You’re kidding. So where’s, you know, what’s his name?”

“Noriega?”

“Yeah, that guy.”

“Well, for the past 17 years he’s been in prison in Florida and just recently he was extradited to France for money laundering charges.”

“You must be kidding. That long ago?”

“I kid you not.”

And so it went. When Carmen jumped up to say hello, Jackie acted as if she were being attacked by a giant scorpion. Hank would push down at Carmen and fervently say “Bad dog, bad dog,” until the free-range pet would take the hint and escape through the window grate. Jackie was allergic to seafood in a country of coastline. Hank wasn’t but wanted oysters and something “light and white like haddock”—neither available. Jackie, who was shaped like her husband, kinda round in a not very tall way, seemed to talk constantly, but never directed a single utterance at Mitch, who they both treated like a hired driver, with perpetual requests to turn up or turn down the air conditioner or radio combined with exhortations to “Slow down” or “Look out!”; or concierge with unending requests for different soap, fresh towels, tissues, toilet paper that turned out to be under the bathroom sink and to make fine adjustments to the air conditioning or fan speeds; or bartender, with requests for diet cokes, sparkling water, Corona beers with limes inserted in the bottle, vodka tonics that were too weak more than once, but never too strong and unpredictable switches from white to red or red to white wine almost always when a new bottle needed to be opened. Barb tried to help, but most requests, demands and comments were directed directly at Mitch, who made a point of springing into action like a well trained domestic, after his suggestions that “please feel free to help yourself” went unheeded.

More than once, twice in fact, Hank got up to go to the men’s room just in time to avoid being present when a dinner check arrived. Needless to say, he never inquired about the bill or even offered Mitch the pleasure of receiving a thank you. Hank was quick on the draw for lunch and made a point of saying “My turn,” strongly implying that the next meal—dinner with cocktails, appetizers, dessert and at least two bottles of wine—would be someone else’s turn.

Were they impressed by the locks on the Panama Canal? Not really. “It takes a mighty long time for a boat to get through.” They did think the skyline of Panama City reminded them of Miami Beach, which turned out to be a place they had never been. Too much horn honking, too many pedestrians and way too many tall buildings as far as they were concerned in Panama City.

Ah, but what about Casco Viejo? “Well, it certainly is no New Orleans.” Another place they had never actually visited. Too much construction. Too many tourists. “So what are they?” Mitch wondered under his breath. And the sidewalks. Both Hank and particularly Jackie walked the sidewalks of Casco Antiguo as if they were crossing a lunar minefield. Hank actually said “I can’t look at the architecture because I have to watch my every step.” No doubt there are too many cracks, holes and uneven places, but the Hanners were so not making a go of it, that Mitch was tempted to push Hank off the curb into an oncoming taxi and simply claim that Hank fell. When they saw the cranes, stately exotic birds that had been part of the scene since the 1920s, in the lobby of the presidential palace, they thought it was “weird.” And the views of the Pacific Ocean from the walls of Las Bovedas. “Nice.” For once Mitch did not think that the ancient practice of chaining prisoners to the outside walls during low tide as too cruel. “It would be nice, when high tide came and Hank was chained at rock level.” Mitch smiled at his fantasy. Overall impression of Casco Viejo—“kinda run down, but could be nice (Nice again. Mitch’s nostrils flared.) with a whole lot of elbow grease.” Mitch thought of greasing his elbows. Then in one of Hank’s most gracious moments, “…an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.” A two or three beat pause, then a nervous little smirk and a lame “I was only kidding. It’s all very nice.” Jackie slapped his arm and said, “They might not believe you’re kidding.” They didn’t. After five days of “getting handled by the Hanners,” as Mitch would remember it, Multusky drove them to the small local airport at Albrook for their flight to David and their stay in a small boutique hotel in the mountains near the town of Bouquete. Since Barb stayed back so she could get back to her private investigation, Mitch saw no reason to do anything other than simply stop at the main entrance of the airport and pull the lever that unlocked the back door of the SUV. Hank struggled some but got the baggage to the curb. When the door was closed, Mitch needed all his self control, developed through years of being the vice principal in charge of discipline at a junior high school, to not burn rubber. Instead, he lowered the passenger side window half way and said “Good bye.” He then pulled off slowly, but without waiting for anything more to be said by his guests.

Barb really had no idea how to conduct an investigation, especially since she did not have any authority to do so. Benito Cortez, her young Panamanian lawyer and guardian angel, tried to get information from the police, who were not very forthcoming. Since Beni was unwilling to misrepresent himself as anything other than a concerned citizen, all he was really able to do is translate the official police report—estimated time of death: sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. / cause of death: strangulation / suspect: Horace Gomez, aka Jamon / motive: attempted robbery / evidence: Gomez had an unspecified amount of cash on his person / victim’s purse and wallet were missing / items of value such as a cell phone; wide-screen TV; art work; jewelry including a diamond ring on victim’s small finger were still on the premises / other details: no evidence of forced entry; cat’s bowl was empty and cat had not appeared; front door and back gate locked, while door to back porch left ajar.

Beni was allowed to speak with Jamon, even though he had no intension of representing the street person. Cortez did not do criminal law and couldn’t see how becoming officially involved would benefit his career or reputation. Barb was so anxious to do something that Beni went along but wasn’t very convinced by what he learned during his interview with Jamon. For the most part, Jamon didn’t know what was happening or what happened. He was very sorry, but he didn’t hurt Senora Beth. He had no idea who did, and did not remember seeing anyone. He was around like always, but couldn’t remember exactly where or when. He looked up at the handsome young lawyer with a bewildered expression on his sad face.

Did he have an alibi? No. / Did he go to Senora Beth’s house? Yes, but she was not there. How did he know she wasn’t there? She didn’t answer when he knocked on the front door, looking for a donation. (That answer won’t help him Beni thought.) / Was he with anyone? Sure. Juan, Billy and Carmen. Did he mean the dog? Yes. Was he with them at any particular time? Yes. When? During the night…and so it went. Beni was fairly confident that Jamon had not committed murder, but was also sure that the poor little dumpy helpless man would not be an easy client to defend.

The only method that Barb could come up with was to visit with people who she thought might have done it. In other words involve the suspects themselves in her informal inquiry. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that she was a bit afraid of Jerry Cole’s temper herself, she skipped him and went on to Allen Myers, the closest thing she had to someone who would be grieving and maybe who would share her ardor to find the true perpetrator.

She had never been in Allen’s apartment before and was surprised at how much it struck her as a so-called bachelor pad. It was done up in what she considered “retro Playboy Mansion,” even though Barb really had no experience in any such place. There was actually a painting of a busty Nubian princess on black velvet, hung directly above a sectional couch upholstered in a leopard print. A single black-leather Lazyboy-style lounge chair was stationed in front of a huge flat-screen TV hung on a wall that was painted fire-engine red. A three-stool curvy bar with gold studs in red leather stood in one corner. The dining area with an over-formal chandelier seemed neglected with papers, envelopes and magazines scattered on the table surrounded by four chairs, all pushed in. When Barb used the powder room she noted two rather tasteful pen-and-ink drawings of nude women on the wall.

After Barb expressed her concerns about Beth’s killer getting off, while poor Jamon was taking the rap, she asked Allen if he had any idea who might have actually committed the crime.

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Allen said as he pulled out one of the dining set chairs and pushed a couple of old newspapers out of the way. One was a La Penza that had the front-page story of Beth’s death. “Of course you know the husband is always the first and primary suspect, but since Beth’s husband is dead, the boyfriend is the most likely and that was me. To be quite frank, I expected a lot more attention from the police. After all, I was the last person to see her alive.” When Allen saw the surprised look on Barb’s small alert face, he shrugged. “We even had sex, so there should be a boatload of DNA evidence if they even checked. Anyway, I told them I left around 11 and they duly noted that and apparently went out and arrested the bum on the corner.” Barb did not know how to respond to Allen’s incriminating evidence. “Here’s my point,” he said in response to the fact that Barb did not display a poker face. “I know I did not kill Beth. Shit, I liked her, a lot. I mean what would my motive be? End the best chances for a real relationship in years. We were perfect for each other. To be totally honest, I was more than a little put off by how casual or off-handed or however you want to put it that the cops were. Now, I do have a witness, who saw me arrive home at a little after 11, but that still doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be a suspect, if you know what I mean.”

Barb nodded. “Who’s your witness?”

“Jack, Jack Smith. He often sits out on a bench in the square outside our building. I even said ‘hello’ to him.”

Barb’s hands were fluttering like sparrows. She had decided not to take notes, until after she left because she wanted to appear like a concerned friend, rather than a nosey private eye. However, Allen was hitting her with more info than she knew what to do with. Why hadn’t Jack mentioned that he had seen a or the prime suspect that night? Why was Allen being so darn forthcoming? Was he trying to disarm her with candor? What would be a plausible motive for Allen to do Beth wrong? And what am I getting myself into? “So, who do you think did it?”

“I have to admit, I don’t think that worthless homeless guy had anything to do with it. So I agree with you that Beth’s murderer is still at large.”

“So?”

“So I don’t know; but if I had to guess I’d say it could very well be that creep Joe Berger. Beth told me that he had been lurking around her house for days and I actually caught him once on her door step.”

“Why Joe?”

“You’re kidding right? The stupid shit, excuse me, was jealous. I mean you’re not going to broadcast this around, because if it’s not true it’s slander.” Beth gave a wave of her jittery hands to indicate no problem. “But the guy was literally stalking her. Beth told me that she might have encouraged him at first, whatever that meant, but that he kicked her dog or something and she decided he wasn’t her type and that she had trouble getting rid of him.”

“I don’t believe that Beth had a dog,” Barb pointed out patiently. “Maybe it was a cat.”

“No, no, it was that little black and white mutt, that hung around her place.”

“You don’t mean Carmen?” Barb was reeling from too much information, much of which was a total surprise. So, she tried to get back to Berger, since he was in fact near the top of her list of suspects.

“I really don’t know the dog’s name. I mean I think it’s a stray.” Apparently Allen had never encountered Barb or more likely Mitch when Carmen was on a leash. “What I do know, was that Berger lost what chance he had, when he kicked that dog; and then I came into the picture and he wasn’t happy. So much so that the jerk started going out with that bimbo, I was dating before.”

“I believe I met her on at least one occasion,” Barb offered.

“Yeh, the Columbian hooker I forced on you folks a couple of times. I’m sorry about that, but I guess I was showing off or something. I’ll tell you I was thankful that Beth didn’t hold it against me.”

Again Barb was stunned by Allen’s candor, so much so that she found it made her suspicious. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Allen paused, and looked the little woman at his table straight in her eyes. “Am I telling you anything really that you haven’t at least suspected? I mean, you’re the first person that came around, except the police, who has even bothered to ask how I’m doing. Well, I’m fucking upset, if you really want to know. I meet somebody pretty darn cool and we start like dating, really dating and I have sex with her and later that same night, she’s murdered. And you ask me who I think might have done it and so I tell you. What do you want me to say? I think it was that Berger character.”

“Do you think he’s capable of murder?”

“How the shit should I know. Does anybody know anything about the guy?”

2010-05-26T12:46:00.001-07:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Nine

For a moment, Jack did not realize that the faint buzzing sound was actually coming from the buzzer to his door. It had been weeks, months maybe, since anyone had come to visit and pushed 3B. He was both surprised and irritated. Why was he being bothered? His cell phone seldom rang. Jack Smith had gotten used to being by himself. Sure his name was recognized as the restaurant critic for The Visitor, but that required a certain degree of professional anonymity, so he often flew solo. Every once in a while he brought the editor Edward Jacobs along because the young American, who had learned Spanish while his parents were missionaries in Bolivia, always seemed to appreciate a free meal. Jack had gotten used to his loneliness. In a way, he romanticized his isolation as a tribute to his dead wife. Nobody could take Patricia’s place. She had been his best friend; his lover; the mother of his children ; his confidant. It was disturbing, almost scary to have his solitude interrupted. The buzzer sounded again. Reluctantly, Jack stepped over to the intercom and enquired “Who is it?” Nobody answered. The buzzer sounded again. “I hope this isn’t kids pulling a prank,” Jack thought, because he had heard it happened to other people, though never to him before. So again, “Who is it?” This time he heard a voice, cut off at the first syllable when he released the button. “Oh, shit,” and then with the button held down, “I’m sorry. Who is it please?”

“It’s me, Barb. I need to talk to you. Can I come up for a minute?”

The feeling Jack had at that moment could only be explained as panic. Brief, fleeting, illogical but that is what he felt, and not just because he was seated in his parlor in his boxer shorts and a woman was trying to gain entry. It must have been something in her voice. Why would she need to talk to him?

“Okay,” he said. “Give me a minute. Is Mitch with you?” Jack wasn’t sure why that mattered, but he wanted to know. He grabbed an old pair of khaki shorts and tucked in his tee shirt.

“Just me,” Barb Multusky said.

“Oh, oh,” Jack thought. Even over the static of the intercom, Barb’s cheerful-enough tone sounded forced, excited maybe or anxious. “What is this about? I hope Mitch is okay,” he wondered wringing his hands in a worried way. “This is silly. It’s Barb for Christ sake.” Sometimes Jack did speak out loud to himself, and this was such an occasion. “Come on up,” he said and this time he held down the release button that unlocked the exterior door, with a jailhouse clank.

When he opened the door, Barb darted into the room, strafed him with a quick air kiss and positioned herself in the middle of his living room. “I’m sorry to burst in on you like this,” Barb said. Burst was exactly what she had done. Had she looked around, Barb would have noticed a rather old fashioned, very tidy apartment decorated in what would have to be called Spanish Colonial style. There was actually a faux painting of a bullfighter with his red cape swirling as a hefty bull reared its horns. The coffee table, side tables and dining room set were all done in thick dark wood and the soft couch was upholstered in shiny green and gold brocade. The place had been decorated by Jack’s late wife and he saw no reason to change anything. He motioned toward a chair with his hand, but Barb acted puzzled by the gesture. Her agitated movements did nothing to quell the feeling of dread that Jack felt when the buzzer first sounded.

“My god, Barb, what’s going on? Is Mitch okay? Please, please have a seat and tell me what exactly is going on.”

“Oh, Mitch is fine,” Barb said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’s at practice with his little team, trying to figure out if they’ll ever win a game. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?” Jack was in no mood to be patient.

“Well, you know about poor Beth…”

“Of course—it was on the front page of La Penza. Terrible, absolutely terrible,” Jack said, and he meant it. Nobody deserves to be murdered, but he, like many people, was shocked and troubled by the fact that it was somebody he knew and liked.

“So,” Barb said as she slid to the edge of her chair, “who do you think did it?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” Jack said, even though the first person he thought of when he saw the newspaper was Jerry Cole. After all, Cole had made no secret of the fact that he was furious with poor Beth and railed against her at every opportunity. Even though he hadn’t read many mysteries as an English professor, sticking more to serious fiction, he had read enough and seen plenty of movies, where the perpetrator of the crime was never the most obvious candidate, so he wasn’t about to speculate.

“But you must have some suspicions,” Barb persisted.

Jack was not a big man, at 5’8” a little below average, thin but not fit, with a short gray haircut, with a sloppy part, but he looked even smaller to Barb as he leaned back into the cushions of his couch.

“I’m afraid with our friend Beth there might be quite a list of suspects, to be honest,” Jack said with shrug. “Being unhappy or jealous or whatever is one thing; but being capable of murder and motivated enough to do such a thing is quite a different proposition. And then of course, it could be somebody we’re not even aware of; a burglar for example; or a rapist; or somebody from a part of Beth’s life we know nothing about.” Jack hadn’t realized until that moment, but he had done some thinking on the subject of who just might be capable of strangling Beth, which was the reported cause of death.

“Exactly,” Barb said waving her right index finger in the air. In some ways, Barb reminded Jack of his mother, who died at the age of 86, small, frail but energetic, with an intelligent glint in her blue eyes. “I don’t suppose you heard,” Beth continued, “but the police arrested that poor street person Horace and charged him with Beth’s murder for goodness sake.”

“Who?” Jack had no idea. “But there you have it. Case closed without slandering anyone.”

“You know, Jamon, Ham, that’s what they call him, the street guy…” At that Barb rose to her entire 5’3” height, “but I don’t for a minute believe it was him. He’s harmless and helpless and he’s no bigger than Beth. To be honest in a fight, I think she would kick that poor drunk’s butt and definitely not allow him to choke her much less to death. It’s ridiculous and just too easy. Poor old Horace or Jamon was passed out in an alley when they picked him up. Mitch was out walking Carmen and watched as the cops had trouble waking the guy up, for goodness sake. Not much of a getaway; and of course no alibi; but I just can’t believe it. You said there would probably be quite a long list of suspects; but I bet Jamon wasn’t on the one you came up with, was he?” In a pair of skinny pedal pushers and a white blousy top, Barb paced back and forth across the worn oriental carpet as Jack watched like a spectator at a tennis match.

“Of course because first I don’t think I know the fella and secondly, I don’t have an actual list.” Jack leaned back into the sofa.

“Oh please Jack, don’t be obstinate.” Barb flopped back into her chair and her feet actually came off the ground. “I need your help. Obviously the wrong person is being accused, while the real murderer is out there and for all we know could be somebody we know. We can’t let the real murderer get away with it, can we?”

“Now wait a minute, will you,” Jack said trying to sound calm and firm as if he were attempting to cool down an argument at a faculty meeting or a confrontation in a classroom. “You keep saying we and that you need my help; but to be quite honest, I don’t see how I’m involved at all. Or you, for that matter. It’s none of our business.”

“She was a friend of ours—one of us, a member of our little community. There’s nobody else—no husband; no children; I don’t know if there’s even a next of kin. She died alone, like a lot of us will down here, since we’ve made a clean break with back home; this is home, our home. At least we should challenge the police to make sure they’ve got the right person.”

Jack sat up straight in his chair. He didn’t like hearing about dying alone. Little Barb sat across from him making him feel very uncomfortable and guilty and alone. “Why are you saying these things to me? I knew Beth, sure; I even liked her; but we were far from fast friends. She has never been in my apartment, for example. What am I supposed to do? Why are you here?”

“Because, you’re a journalist, you know how to investigate things, you know, like crimes.”

“I’m a fucking restaurant critic,” Jack said throwing up his arms. “Excuse my French, but the only thing I investigate is the dessert trolley.”

“Jack, you taught journalism for years, I know that, and I’m sure you know how to be an investigative journalist.”

“No never,” Jack said. “Theory sure, and a couple of my students investigated crimes on campus or misappropriations of funds or something like that but not often and nothing like this. Who do you think you are Agatha Christie or Miss Marple or somebody?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. This is serious and I’m serious. You know more about conducting an investigation than I do…”

“Don’t be so sure,” Jack interjected.

“…and there is nobody else; nobody else. If it had happened to me, Mitch would have tried to find out the truth, but I sincerely feel that the poor dear wouldn’t get very far. How about if you got mugged or murdered? Who would look after your interests?”

“That’s just my point,” Jack said and surprised himself with the bitterness he felt. “Nobody. Nobody in the world would bother to investigate as you suggest. Why would they? Nobody cares. They would tisk, tisk, tisk over white wine at happy hour and go about their business. I would be surprised if you would be out tracking down my killer, to be quite honest, my dear.”

“Maybe so, maybe so, I don’t know,” Beth said with a sincerely sad look on her face. “I would like to think I would do what I could; to do the right thing. That’s what I want to do, the right thing by Beth, by myself by all us lost souls looking for a home in somebody else’s country. I’m sorry Jack; it’s not your problem, but who else is there? And excuse me, what else is going on in your life? Or mine? Why can’t we stick our nose in and see if we can do our part to make sure this horrible business turns out correctly?”

“I write my restaurant reviews.” Jack tried to look indignant.

“That takes three hours, four hours max and two of those hours are spent eating the dinner. You’re a professional. I read your reviews. They’re fine and informative, but you’ve got it down to a pattern and then what?”

Jack was pleased that Barb actually read his stuff and at the same time upset that she felt she had detected a formula. Of course there was a formula, especially when writing to certain space limitations, but it was his job to hide that from his readers. “I’m sorry, you find my reviews tedious,” Jack said.

“Oh, stop it,” Beth said. She looked cross and exasperated. “I find your reviews very entertaining, but that’s not what we’re talking about. I’m here because a woman we knew was killed, before her time, by somebody who is still walking around; and laughing; and having a life; and eating in nice restaurants that you recommended while some poor jerk takes the fall and nobody cares. So I say, let’s care. Why not?”

“Well, the murderer could get you or me next especially if he finds out we’re playing Sherlock Holmes. That’s why not.”

“Only if it’s not Jamon. We’ll be discreet. I’ve asked our friend Beni, you know Benito, my lawyer to help out with the Spanish speaking police and all; and when I told Bobby Boar, Beth’s attorney, that they arrested a bum off the streets, he laughed. He promised me he’ll look into some things too. So we’re not alone. Please Jack, help me out. I need somebody to brain storm with and snoop around and, you know, work with me. It might even be rewarding; but I can’t do it without help.”

“And, it’s me, not Mitch because?”

“Because Mitch would never do it and he’s not up to it, to be honest. And it’s you; because I did work up a list of possible suspects and Mitch and you are the only men I know who are not on the list, if you really want to know. You didn’t murder Beth, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jack said. “By the way, why are you sure it’s a man?”

“I’m not. I don’t know who did it. But I will tell you that Allen’s hooker ex-girlfriend is on my list.”

“Tell me,” Jack said. “Was, as far as you know, anything stolen from her house?”

“I have no idea. That’s something I hope Beni finds out from the cops,” Barb said, then, she smiled.

“Well, that’s important,” Jack said. He sat straight up. “If nothing’s missing that means it was probably a crime of passion.”

“So do you want to compare lists?”

* * *

Since she read in Panama News, an English-language news website, that Beth Page had been murdered, Madge had a knot in the pit of her stomach. The thought “stupid Jerry, stupid Jerry” played over and over like a refrain in her brain. When she read the first paragraph of the article and realized that the “Prominent Real Estate Developer…” in the headline was Beth, the first person Madge thought of was Jerry. After all, her husband, more than anyone else, had gone out of his way to establish a motive. He told people that he “hates that bitch.” He cussed her and yelled at her and made angry faces at her at parties and even on the street. Madge was sure that there were dozens of hateful e-mails on Beth’s computer from her bitterly angry, often distraught husband. How difficult would it be for an investigating detective to find that incriminating paper trail, or electronic trail or whatever it’s called?

When her husband would come home frustrated and angry, it seemed like he was letting off steam by describing the method he would use to “get rid of that Beth bitch.” That’s what he called her, never simply Beth or that Page woman or anything like that but always “that Beth bitch.” He would often go into detail, about the creative ways he would wreak his revenge—a briefcase that supposedly contained the last payment which he never intended to make but was stuffed with explosives instead; a poisoned wedding cake “if she ever married that jerk Allen”; a Fer-de-Lance tucked under her pillow; and the not so creative methods involving aluminum baseball bats; chainsaws; shotguns and machine guns; steak knives or machetes; or his favorite, his bare hands. Oh, oh, that’s a little too close to what reportedly happened. Madge had taken out a tissue and wiped her glasses when she read that Beth had been choked to death. Jerry had told her repeatedly that he “would love to wring her neck.” That’s what he said. Most of the time, Madge would laugh off the threats as silly fantasies and Jerry would make it seem comic with exaggerated gestures and a deep announcer’s voice as he described lighting the fuse to the stick of dynamite or running her over with a bulldozer from the construction site.

Of course, he was joking. Where was Jerry going get his hands or grenades or a Glock. But his bare hands, there was the rub. As was often the case lately, Madge had had her first vodka tonic around noon and usually switched to Absolute on the rocks with a twist by cocktail hour. As a nurse, she knew she was self medicating and as Jerry’s wife she felt she needed to tranquilize herself. Jerry never hit her. That’s what she always told herself. However, if the truth be told, he had shoved her a couple of times and grabbed her arms and left bruises that she had so far successfully hidden from friends and colleagues with long sleeves or makeup. So was that enough to mean that he was prone to violence? Even though they weighed about the same, not always but lately, Madge was in fact afraid of her husband, because there was no way she could match his intensity. She tried to tell herself that it didn’t happen often, but sometimes he would yell loud and rage at her and call her fat, which was true and stupid which wasn’t true at all. His small pinched face would contort into an ugly grimace, while his words would be cruel and direct without sarcasm, simply mean—fat pig; four-eyed sow; stupid cow; stupid hippo; stupid mutt…One time, it finally struck her as so ridiculous that she laughed and said that “you’ve called me every animal name under the sun.” To which he responded, “you’re right, you stupid pile of shit.” No more laughing it off.

Of course, he almost always apologized and said that he regretted losing his temper and would even show up occasionally with the cliché flowers or champagne and always with a promise to do better. He didn’t mean what he said. He was out of control. If anything, he needed her help and was so, so very sorry. He never actually promised that it would not happen again, but did say that he would try, whatever that meant. Marge was embarrassed that as a medical professional she couldn’t get herself out of the cycle.

Moving to Panama was supposed to help. Now that he was retired—forced out was the not-for-public-consumption story—building their dream house on the beach was supposed to keep Jerry occupied and stimulated. He was an engineer, after all, who for most of his life had specialized in oil rig construction; so how hard could it be to build a house. It was supposed to be their latest adventure. Really, they had moved around enough that Marge assumed that settling in Panama on a pensioner’s visa would not be that much of a challenge. The main reason they had chosen Panama was that even expats on a pension were exonerated from property tax for 20 years. Jerry loved the idea of not having to pay taxes. An unforeseen consequence was that Madge could no longer work locally because that was prohibited because she was the spouse of someone with pensioner’s status. There was no home base. They didn’t own a house anywhere else like in Houston or Curacao. So she could say she was on leave, since she had kept her certification up to date, but the reality was that no particular hospital had her on its books. Nobody was anticipating her return. Madge was trapped. She felt trapped. Sure she considered leaving Jerry, though she still felt loyal and responsible some times, but she had no particular place to go—by herself; all alone; a fat four-eyed cow with no prospects. It was Jerry, with all his faults and most of the money, or nobody.

Then Madge had the extra worry that her stupid misguided husband may have actually gone too far. The main reason that Madge found it difficult to sleep at night was that she could not provide an adequate alibi for her husband’s whereabouts the night of the crime. He wasn’t home at their apartment in the Columbus House until almost midnight. Plenty of time to do poor Beth in. Supposedly he was out at a bar along the highway socializing with his architect and one of the sub-contractors, trying a new approach of getting along with the people he was working with. However, it was an hour-and-a-half drive back to the city from Gorgona, so lots of unaccounted-for time even if he had someone who could corroborate his story. Then he was up and out by a bit after 6 a.m. and on his way back to the construction site. Again he had time to pay Beth an early unwelcome visit and still be on the Pan American highway before rush hour. Such thoughts filled Marge’s head with dread and her heart with a sadness that she couldn’t express to anyone, least of all her number one suspect, her own husband.

Another notion added guilt to the mix of feelings that made Madge ill. If Jerry had in fact done it; and she certainly didn’t have any proof he did, then that might be the last nail in the coffin and she could, would be forced to crawl out from under his thumb. Was Madge hoping that her own husband of 25 years was a murderer? In a way, yes—that would be an undeniable last straw; uncontestable grounds for divorce, with Madge getting most of the money. The beach house would eventually be completed and she could live there; get a dog; and be free; free of abuse; free to leave if she wanted. However, there was also the possibility that he had nothing to do with Beth’s death. In fact, when she told him the news, Jerry had appeared to be sincerely surprised and more than a bit bewildered. As far as Madge could observe he didn’t act guilty, though she also wasn’t very sure how guilt would be displayed. What he said was “So, the bitch is dead. How about that?”

To say that Madge’s nerves were on edge, jangled even, was an understatement. During the past couple of days, she couldn’t sleep, had trouble concentrating on the book she was trying to read and went on long walks around Casco Viejo, just to use up some of her nervous energy. Pacing the hallway of her small apartment made her feel like a crazy woman.

So there she was walking along the sea wall with the Gulf of Panama stretched out to the horizon. The tide was out and what waves there were in the hot afternoon calm broke some 300 yards away. Somebody had told her that the Pacific tides could run as much as 17 feet from low to high. Indeed there were times when waves splashed over the wall, but at that time long, flat brownish rock formations and sandy patches stretched out for what seemed like a couple of city blocks. At one point, a flock of 30 or 40 pelicans sat and rested on a rock formation that would be totally submerged at high tide.

Madge was at loose ends. She was on more of a wander than a stroll. There was no destination. Her only goal was to get out of the apartment. Not a smoker, she didn’t need cigarettes. Without a car, she couldn’t drive into the city and pretend to go shopping or out to lunch. A taxi was too much trouble. Even before she had the worry that her husband may have done a very bad thing, she sometimes thought of their apartment, with its rented furniture and a big screen TV that she didn’t watch very often, as a jail cell. She still wanted to visit the site where their dream beach house was being built, but Jerry often made her feel unwanted; not needed; in the way. How could she be a third wheel in a partnership of two? Without being able to escape to a job at a hospital, where she was treated with respect as a professional, because that’s what she was, she felt useless without an outlet.

At first, she was able to express some creativity by helping with the design of the house. Jerry seemed quite open, even welcoming to her suggestions. The upstairs balcony off the master bedroom; the wide doors that opened onto the terrace from the dining room as well as off the living room; the skylight over the stairwell; the way that the built-in flower beds curved around the terrace and the stairs down to the swimming pool were all her ideas. However, when construction actually began, Jerry suggested that she would be bored or even in the way. So, she was left back at the apartment and only visited the beach once or twice a week, most of the time on the weekend when the workers weren’t even there. The house was taking shape and Madge could see that it was going to be quite spectacular, when it was completed with an expansive view of the Pacific and Toboga Island out near the horizon.

However, progress did seem to be very slow. At times she couldn’t see much difference from one visit to the next. Costs also seemed to continually escalate. That was what angered Jerry the most. The contract that he signed that was brokered by Beth Page through the real estate agency with the contractor wasn’t as binding as Madge and Jerry had expected. At juncture after juncture, prices for materials seemed to go up and needed to be renegotiated and then paid up front. Permits took weeks to be approved instead of days. Bribes were offered, but then ignored; or accepted with no tangible speedup to the process. The specified windows were unavailable, even though the holes were already cut in place. Eight-inch tiles turned into six-inch. Twelve-inch tiles didn’t look right either. There was no drain hole for a sink in one of the bathrooms. Openings for light switches were behind doors. The guy who was supposed to do the very attractive blue-on-blue tile work in the pool got started right on time and then never showed up again. Plus Jerry didn’t handle the contractors and workers that well. Not only did he speak in pigeon Spanish, but he was too quick to yell. Whole crews quit and walked off the job because he disrespected them and made it clear because as Jerry said more than once “I don’t respect these guys. They’re useless at best and dishonest at worst.”

Jerry had never been known as a patient person and Madge had always had to deal with his quick temper and biting tongue. However, Jerry was no fool at his job and conducted himself in what could only be called a professional manner. That was until he had a “falling out” with his superiors and been forced into early retirement. At least that was Jerry’s side of the story and Madge really never had a chance to find out what exactly happened. Then when they decided on Panama and committed to the beach house, the trend continued. Things seemed to consistently go wrong and Jerry seemed constantly unhappy. Jerry had so many fallings out that Madge had joked to herself that her poor husband was in free fall.

Madge simply stood along the seawall and stared out at the distant ships anchored off the end of the Amador Causeway waiting their turn to pass through the canal. Mitch, with Carmen on a leash, was almost right next to her before she noticed her friend and his dog.

“Hola Senora. So what are you up to?” Mitch said. Tail wagging, Carmen jumped up and Madge caught the little dog’s front paws in her hands. “Down you bad dog,” Mitch said with a smile and a tug on the leash.

“Oh, nothing.” Madge shrugged. “I just had to get out of the apartment. How about you—what’s up?”

“Well, I know it’s silly but I like taking Carmen for a walk, every morning and afternoon. She even usually takes a pee and sometimes both.”

“Why’s that silly?” Madge patted the dog and gently pushed her away from her white peasant skirt.

A brief look of mild surprise passed over Mitch broad friendly face. “Well, she’s actually a street dog and really doesn’t need my help or permission to do her duty. She’s free to wander the neighborhood and poop where ever she sees fit.”

“Oh, I know,” Madge said. “I saw her once all the way up by the fish market. But, I guess she always comes home, huh?”

“So far.” Mitch said and nodded. “I guess you could say we’re out role playing as owner and loyal pup.” It was obvious to Madge that the big burly man in front of her loved the dog, that in no way appeared uncomfortable in its role as pampered pet. “I think the secret is that we feed her.”

“And love her,” Madge said. At that moment Madge felt more than a tinge of jealousy and wanted a dog of her own. The problem was that Jerry was dead set against owning a dog. Madge figured that he wanted all her attention for himself.

“So what do you think of this Beth business?” Mitch enquired while Carmen placed both paws on the edge of the wall and peered out to sea. “Carmen loves a good view,” Mitch would say when ever Carmen did that or stopped and looked around.

Meanwhile Madge knew exactly what she thought of the Beth business but had no idea what to say about it, so she came up with “Terrible, simply terrible,” then a bit more candidly, “I just don’t know what to say or think for that matter.”

“Any way, did you hear they arrested poor ol’Jamon for Beth’s murder?”

Genuinely surprised and relieved Madge said “No I hadn’t. So it’s solved then.”

“Hardly,” Mitch said and shook his head as if considering a bad play on the basketball court. “The guy’s tiny. Smaller than Beth and I’m sure she’s tougher. Both Barb and I agree that there is no way that sickly, usually drunk or stoned street guy had enough gumption or strength to overpower much less strangle to death a healthy, determined woman like Beth. No way.”

“Oh, dear,” Madge said, sincerely concerned. “Then who do you think did such a thing?”

It was at that moment that Mitch realized that not only was he talking to an acquaintance and fellow expat in the neighborhood, who would be properly concerned, but that he was also speaking with the wife of a leading suspect in the case. “Me and my big mouth,” Mitch thought as he sputtered “Oh, I have no idea.” Mitch was sure he saw worry in Madge’s expression and also strongly suspected that she sensed that he had grown nervous about the subject they were discussing, which he brought up. The two stood in awkward silence for a long moment as Carmen wrapped the leash around Mitch’s leg. “Oh no, you don’t,” Mitch said to Carmen, in a sincere effort to change the subject. “You’re not going to pee on my shoe.” The remark did make Madge giggle and at that Mitch said, maybe rather too briskly, “We’re off, take care.”

Madge wasn’t fooled. As she watched the tall guy hustle off with the small black and white dog, she realized that at least some of the people around Casco Viejo probably suspected her husband; and why wouldn’t they? She did.

2010-05-03T09:36:00.001-07:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Eight

The sun rose over the Pacific. It took Mitch Multusky a while to get used to the idea, but that’s what happens in a country that basically runs from west to east, with two coastlines along the north and south. Casco Viejo is on the western side of the Gulf of Panama, so the view of the rising sun was obviously due east but the bright line of morning glitter sparkled the Pacific defying a lifetime of logic. The Caribbean, with much less severe tides and often calmer seas, runs along the northern coast and leads to the Atlantic. Mitch remembered the time Barb and he were walking along the Amador Causeway, when they first visited Panama, and the sun set behind their view of the city. It was disorientating because the Pacific was at their backs. It was like his compass had gone haywire. “Hey, wait a minute,” Mitch had said. “How is this possible?” Had the world tilted in a different direction on its axis? No, but coming from the US, with an East Coast—Atlantic sunrise and a West Coast—Pacific sunset, it did feel as if his gyroscope was out of kilter. “Stop the presses,” Barb joked. “I think we have a scoop. Sun sets in the North.” Sometimes it still felt odd, another element that gave Panama an exotic feel.

A few fishing boats were silhouetted against the glare as they sped into port with that day’s catch. First one flock of pelicans, then another soared smoothly, effortlessly, just inches above the morning-calm water. Mitch never tired of calling them “the Panamanian air force,” because they usually flew in graceful line or “V” formations.

It was difficult getting up before seven every morning to take the dog for her walk, but after he was actually up and out, Mitch appreciated the beauty of a new day. Panama is near enough to the equator that there is basically the same amount of daylight and night, year-round, with the sun coming up around 6:30 every morning and setting every evening at about 6:30 p.m. There was no need for daylight-savings time because there was no more or less daylight to save. None of this seemed to affect Carmen, who pulled on her leash just a bit as she appeared to always enjoy being out and about sniffing the cellophane wrappers and Styrofoam cups that had collected along the promenade during the previous cool, breezy evening.

Most Panamanians were not careful where they threw their trash, so the streets, gutters, sidewalks and grassy patches were usually strewn with a plethora of Styrofoam cups, plates and boxes, with the added chance of chicken parts, which made such items irresistible to Carmen who loved pollo. Looking over the railing at the small beach, which was already strewn with tires that had floated in on high tide (“from I wonder where,” Mitch thought); the sandy area looked as if it had been decorated by a number of red, green and blue balloons, maybe two dozen that had blown in from a party somewhere across the bay. These colors mixed with the ubiquitous plastic bags, mostly white, shocking pink or lime green that littered much of the Panamanian landscape.

Every morning, Mitch and Carmen would encounter a crew of workers, mostly hefty women, in bright yellow tee shirts with “Aseo” printed in bold red lettering across their backs. When Mitch looked aseo up in his Spanish/English dictionary it translated to cleanliness and most of the gals seemed determined to scoop up as much debris as possible with their ragged brooms and rusty dust pans. The clean-up crews apparently did not appreciate dog doo, because, more than half the time, Mitch and Carmen not only were greeted with dirty looks, but often one of the gals would say something to Mitch in a peeved voice. Even though he didn’t know exactly what she was saying, Mitch got the drift and made an educated guess and pulled out the plastic bag he always carried to show that his intentions were honorable. Seeing a plastic bag clutched in one of Mitch’s big hands usually placated the workers. A garbage truck also came by almost every day to unload the bulging dumpsters that were scattered around the neighborhood. The result was that the town was both clean and filthy depending on the time of day in a before-and-after sequence that was repeated on a daily basis.

Mitch wondered which came first—the routine street sweepers, who might be even considered enablers of the litterbugs; or vice versa, the propensity of the average Panamanian to simply discard their trash, sometimes even just steps away from a rare, but not unheard of, can that necessitated daily cleanups. Most evidence led Mitch to believe that the latter was the case since he had numerous opportunities to observe people tossing cigarette packs off balconies and virtually anything and everything from condoms to beer cans from the windows of their cars. Cigarette butts formed rings around park benches and outside of restaurants, since a new law didn’t allow smoking inside. Some of those butts even probably belonged to his wife, Mitch figured. He had never smoked, but couldn’t give Barb a hard time about “her one vice” as he referred to her smoking habit. Mitch concluded that there was no Suzy Spotless, no Susanna Inmaculado in Panamanian culture to caution folks with the admonition “Don’t be a litterbug.”

While the little dog and her owner circled the block, government employees who worked at either the presidential compound or the ministries of Justice or Culture began taking all the available parking places, something that never failed to irritate Mitch. Many seemed to arrive even before breakfast, because parking along the narrow cobblestone streets was limited, which was Mitch’s point exactly. Soon, Mitch’s thoughts left the parking problem and went back to the day before and the first game of the season for the youth basketball team he coached.

The Casco Cougars, as they were called, lost their opening game in the 12-13-year-old league to a team from nearby Calidonia, by the score of 36 to 12. Mitch knew his boys weren’t very good and wondered what the rest of the league was like. “Maybe the kids weren’t much worse than the rest of ‘em,” Mitch had hoped. Now he had a suspicion that he had his work cut out for him. The game, which was played on a smallish court in an old church that was converted into a community center and gymnasium, was refereed in Spanish and Mitch suspected he wasn’t getting any breaks either. Even with some old ceiling fans rattling in the rafters, the gym was stifling hot and Mitch’s old coaching shirt from West Saginaw High was soaked in sweat. In a funny way he was relieved that the other team seemed competently coached with a couple of kids who looked like they had some ability. Mitch had been afraid (based on the lack of knowledge and experience of his players) that the whole operation might be too rinky-dink to tolerate. Now, he simply knew he had plenty of work to do to “coach ‘em up” to a standard where they might be competitive. Thank goodness for Tito Romero, who helped with translating the coach for the kids or it probably would be impossible. Actually, Mitch was learning a bit more Spanish and that was certainly a plus. So, if Tito and he could get the boys to show up regularly and take their very tall gringo coach seriously and stop laughing at his Spanish, maybe, just maybe there’s another bad team out there they could beat.

Finally, Carmen squatted and took a dump on the parking lot next to the National Theatre. Mitch looked around to see if anybody had noticed. This was the same lot where he couldn’t procure a parking pass because all the spots were taken up by those pesky government workers. “Well, fuck it,” Mitch thought as he spared himself the sensation of grabbing several steaming turds in his plastic covered hand and left the bag in his pocket. “Good pup,” Mitch said, “good pup.” Especially out on the concrete parking lot, the morning was already getting steamy hot.

When they got back to the apartment, and the report of “number three” was given, Barb handed Carmen a doggie treat and reiterated “Good pup, you’re such a good pup.” Carmen had a few slurps of water and hung around for a while and then casually sauntered over to the window which was open. The security grate on the outside was wet since the maintenance guy had watered the plants out in the small courtyard, but that didn’t stop Carmen from squeezing through.

“There she goes,” Barb said with a smile. Most everything her small, fragile looking black and white dog did, Barb considered cute.

“Write when you find work,” Mitch said.

Carmen was lucky because she had four legs instead of only two, like her people, because this meant that she had no trouble making her way along the sidewalks in Casco Viejo. The dog also didn’t know any better and so it didn’t bother her that the sidewalks were broken up to gravel in places where construction trucks had crushed the curbs. She simply wandered along, stepping over holes in the sidewalk that used to be covered with utility plates, long lost or stolen. Even when the plates were in place, they were sometimes loose and seldom reliable. Mitch had a rule, which Barb followed, to never step on plates or grates. “Watch your step” was a good policy. Cracks in places had widened to fissures. Halfway down a block, a sidewalk might change levels with a small step up or down. Curbs, with no disability access anywhere were never at a standard height. The curb in front of the Super Deli, a popular local sandwich shop, was over two-foot high, for example. At that point, Barb would have to go around, because the step up hurt her knee. Mitch often pretended to be surprised that the streets weren’t littered with the bodies of drunks from the night before who failed to negotiate the sidewalks that reminded him of “a moonscape.”

Often, Carmen simply walked in the street; and she wasn’t alone. The sidewalks were also quite narrow in most places, so the streets, which weren’t that much smoother, at least meant there was no place farther to fall. Okay, there were missing manholes, but these never bothered Carmen either. Some residents would hose off their balconies in the morning with no regard to the fact that the water dripped onto the sidewalk below. So many pedestrians also seemed to feel safer or more comfortable walking in the roadways. For some reason, most tourists sweating under their newly purchased Panama hats treated the streets as if they were on an esplanade and greeted oncoming cars with dumfounded surprise. The locals, children in particular, acted as if there were no cars at all. Mitch figured there had to be a number of pedestrian accidents, but was also fairly certain that the word had not gotten out. It dawned on Mitch that he never realized how trained he was as a child back in the States—look both ways before crossing; always walk facing traffic; always cross at intersections; wear white at night—these were rules he and most other folks followed routinely; but seemed unheard of in Panama.

School children hurried by in uniform white shirts and navy blue trousers or white blouses and blue jumpers. Men in short sleeves and ties sat on stools in front of storefront counters and sipped their coffee and chewed a bit of fried beef or crunched patacones, crispy fried plantains. Shop owners rolled up the corrugated steel shutters that protected their windows and doors, while various concierges swept the foyers and hosed down the steps of the buildings they tended. Carmen’s black and white ears were tuned to the constant murmur of automobile tires. Many horns honked, but mostly in a friendly greeting of two short bumps of the driver’s fist. Red Devil buses would stop at intersections and add more pedestrians to the uneven cobblestone thoroughfares and side streets and then rumble off in a cloud of dark grey diesel exhaust. Carmen’s black tail curved up behind in a crescent moon shape that made her appear alert and perky.

Carmen’s first regular stop was the Central Hotel construction site. This was the place that was supposed to revitalize Casco Viejo, by giving tourists some place to stay within the old city. There were a couple of bed and breakfast places and two or three hostels, but most of the time, tourists were bused in and led around in groups of 12 to 20. Often they left after bumping around the streets and stalling traffic, without buying anything and not stopping for lunch. The Hotel Central would change all that was the hope. Guests of the hotel would provide a more meaningful type of foot traffic—the type that stuck around for more than a couple of hours; browsed the gifts shops and actually purchased a souvenir or two; and whose plans included lunch at a sidewalk café; dinner at a restaurant and a few drinks at a bar. Until then, the bars, cafes and restaurants had to count on Panamanians coming in from other parts of the city on Friday and Saturday nights and the relatively few expat residents who did their best to patronize the local spots.

At that point in time the Hotel Central was a big dusty promise. When most of the interior was demolished, some of the unsupported exterior walls collapsed, leaving an incomplete shell of what was once one of Panama City’s best hotels. One whole corner of the façade was gone. Crews spent endless days (at least that’s how it seemed to nearby residents) pouring new concrete floors from an ingenious but noisy spout held by a boom that loomed over the steel girders. One after another wide cement mixer trucks would back up to the site, and the concrete would be emptied into a pipe that led to a pump. The workers in their Red hard hats and heavy boots were Carmen’s buddies. Before the first truck arrived, the men, mostly young Indians or blacks, would sit on the curb or park benches in the park across the street and toss crusts of bread to Carmen, who always acted grateful. Barb would have been mortified since it looked as if Carmen had not eaten in days, rather than less than a half hour. Some of the guys called her “Periodico,” because she was black on white like a newspaper. The rest called her simply perra, which was what she was. Nobody seemed to mind that she was around and to Carmen’s credit; she didn’t over stay her welcome and kept moving.

Soon, she found Horace aka Jamon sitting with his head in his hands in a back doorway not far from the gate to Beth’s backyard and Carmen’s ultimate destination. Jamon smelled of puke, and stale whiskey and regular old body odor, but Carmen didn’t seem to mind even after a sniff. “Buenas dias, Carmelita,” Jamon said with a weak but sincere smile. Carmen leaned her shoulder into Jamon’s damp shin in what Mitch called a “dog hug,” and accepted a friendly almost grateful pat from a man at the bottom. It is doubtful if the guy could give a name to it, but what Carmen provided instinctively was unconditional love. All the dog expected in return was a bit of affection, which was just about all Jamon had to offer. “Ciao, mi amiga,” Jamon said, when Carmen headed off toward Beth’s gate at the other end of the alley. When Jamon looked away for a moment, Carmen was gone under the gate. There was no way for the dog to know that the gate was locked tight. The normal smells of bacon and eggs were not present, but Carmen climbed the steps anyway. There was something there. One chair was knocked over and blocked the top of the stairs. Carmen paused for a moment and sniffed the air. In a quick vertical leap, she cleared the chair and landed next to Beth, who was sprawled on the deck. Beth Page was motionless, with her chest on the floor, with one arm beneath her and the other, elbow out and awkward to the side. Her left cheek was flat against a floorboard, and a trickle of blood dripped from her nose. Carmen licked some of the blood and also licked Beth’s pale cheek and closed eyelids.

Outside the locked gate, somebody called “Senora Beth, Senora Beth,” in a somewhat insistent, somewhat worried tone of voice. Carmen stood still and listened. It was Tica the maid, not in her usual spot. “Senora. Senora!” Carmen could not possibly understand, but might have sensed something was wrong. With her paw, she ever so gently nudged the breakfast lady on her shoulder, but Beth did not move. Twice more “Senora Beth! Senora,” and then Tica was gone.

2010-04-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Seven

Joe Berger wasn’t happy. In fact, he was miserable. He had just eaten a hamburger at Mojito’s, an inexpensive but trendy open air bar on a corner of Plaza Herrera—by himself. “Geesus,” he thought, “I’ll never, ever kick a dog again.” Indeed, since he had been sent off in disgrace by Beth Page, he felt like he was not back to square one but somehow strangely further behind the curve than when he first arrived and knew no one. It wasn’t like everybody was aware of the story. For some reason, maybe “because she’s a classy gal,” Joe was pretty sure that Beth had not made him the butt of gossip as a notorious dog kicker. Yet, he had to believe that some of the folks knew something was up or more correctly down in his case. His e-mail account wasn’t exactly burning up with invitations (none in fact). A couple of chance encounters, once with two Panamanian women in their thirties, who seemed to be on a girl’s day out, and an older woman in a broad-brimmed sun hat, out walking her dog Oh, oh, turned out awkwardly.

Joe had lost his confidence, again, not without reason. If you go up to the plate and strike out every time, then there’s no reason to expect to get a hit. Berger never got beyond Little League and that was sometimes a painful experience, stuck out in right field hoping that no speeding baseballs would come his way. If you usually get knocked out, after a while you’re reluctant to climb back in the ring. Face facts, you’ve got a glass jaw. Enough with the metaphors, the reality was that Joe was in a new slump in a new land.

It was only about 9:00, so Berger wandered up to check out a popular night spot called the Relic, which he heard about but never visited. “Who knows?” he thought, I might get lucky.” Luck had nothing to do with it. As Joe descended the long stairway down to a courtyard with palms shielding the soft lightning, he noticed that the crowd was about evenly split between male and female. At least there weren’t more guys. The only problem, that Joe became aware of as he made his way around and through several talkative groups, was that everyone in the place appeared to be under 35 and most looked to be under 30. What also surprised him was how many kids seemed to be expats, or tourists, but definitely speaking English. Kids Not one young lady, and there were many, many of whom looked bright and sexy, with nice long hair, blonde, brunette and lots of black, short skirts and high heels; not one made eye contact with Joe. Against his better judgment, Joe elbowed his way onto a stool at the bar and ordered a rum and coke. It didn’t help that the bartender called him “jefe.” As he looked around expectantly, he soon realized that he was virtually invisible. To be seen, the person in question has to come into focus, and not a single young woman even bothered to allow him into her depth of field. “They must all consider me a dirty old man, and I’m not that old.” Even at 50, Berger realized that if he stayed until closing time, which he was sure was way past his bedtime, that the ugliest girl in the place would simply give up, find her purse and head out the door. When a young fellow accidently bumped into him while carrying a couple of drinks, and the guy said, “Excuse me, Sir,” Joe thought, “I’m outta here,” and paid up; climbed the stairs as if he were headed to a hanging, his own; stopped in the men’s room for what was becoming an all-too-frequent pee; and found himself back out on the street. Sir

At that moment, no kidding, coming up the street, illuminated by a streetlight, was Carmen. Without hesitation, she pranced up to Joe, and was the first being to actually make eye contact in the past half hour. “Well, well,” Berger said as he bent over and gave Carmen the pet that was expected. “At least, you don’t hold a grudge.” He played with the one white and one black ear for a moment and then patted the dog on her fuzzy white side. Carmen gave a quick little shake that made Joe think, “Oh shit, she shook it off,” and then continued her jaunt down the street, stopping once at a streetlamp for a sniff.

Joe had become used to facing defeat and decided he might as well go back to his apartment and see if he could get interested in a porn site on his computer. As he came around the corner of his building he spotted a young woman pacing back and forth in front of the Columbus House. Not skinny, but curvy rather than pudgy, she was wearing a strapless, leopard-print, what could only be called a party dress, sandals with a short heel and an angry expression on her face.

In fact Bebe Castro was pissed off. Not only had Allan Myers not called her for three days, he had not returned her calls and then that day apparently changed his phone number. This was a guy she had allowed to fuck her in her ass. Of course he paid the first time they had sex, but after that she gave it away. Allan was her boyfriend and he seemed to like to take advantage of her willingness to suck his cock any time and any where. He bought her sexy underwear, which he expected her to wear when they were alone in his apartment and nothing else. Okay, they didn’t talk much. Allan didn’t seem that interested in learning Spanish, but she tried a few words in English; and “oh baby, yeh baby,” was a kind of universal language. The problem was that she really thought he liked her, beyond the good sex. Maybe she hoped too much that he liked her. If she gave him what he wanted, then he would appreciate it and make it worth her while. Marriage, sure, why not? Instead, he dumped her, like a discarded candy wrapper, without a word, without a gesture of good will, without a cent. Bebe truly believed that Allan owed her something; and her plan was that she wasn’t going to leave until he took her back or until she got paid.

Berger recognized her as Allan’s girlfriend, if that’s what you want to call her. He also recognized an opportunity for a bit of revenge. How’s it hangin’? So he tried to push his casual button and nonchalantly strolled up and said “Hey, what’s up Babe?” To which, the woman, who had her hair pulled over to a ponytail on the side of her round face, said “Be Be,” emphasizing each syllable. This caught Joe off guard for a moment and he repeated “Bay Bay?” in the tone of a question. “Si,” she said, “Bebe.” The fact that was her name finally dawned on Joe and he said “Oh, si, Bebe,” as he shook her right hand and leaned over and kissed her left cheek. “Mi llamo Joe. Como esta usted?”

“Bien,” she said. Since, Joe couldn’t think of how to say “How about a drink?” He countered with “Habla, usted, inglais?”

“A pequeno,” she said with a shrug of her bare shoulders that glistened with a sheen of perspiration.

“Okay, how about a drink?” Joe held out his elbow for the girl to take and she did.

“Okay,” she said, and for the first time since he arrived she smiled. Bebe couldn’t exactly remember where she had seen this gringo, but she was pretty sure he was a friend or at least an acquaintance of Allan’s. “Vive aqui?” she asked pointing to the front door.

“Si,” Joe said. He was pleased and surprised he understood. Then a bit too formally “Yo vivo aqui.” He pointed actually at a window of his apartment instead at the entrance.

“Muy bien,” Bebe thought. She too recognized an opportunity for revenge.

* * *

When Beth and Allan entered Indigo’s they immediately came upon Jack Smith sitting at the bar. In fact he was the only person seated on a stool along the front side wall.

“So are you reviewing this place, old buddy?” Allan gave him a friendly faux slap on the back.

“No, not tonight,” Jack said, looking up from his vodka on the rocks with a twist. “Actually, I’ve already written up this place, when it first opened.”

“So what did you think?” Allan persisted.

“Four out of five stars.” Jack shrugged. “So Beth, I saw an article in the paper about whatshisname Feliz, the happy-go-lucky developer. I’m pretty sure though I didn’t spot your name. Isn’t the building in question right next to your much more legitimate development project? I’m surprised the reporter didn’t try to get a nice scathing quote out of you.”

“Oh, shit,” Beth said with just the hint of a forced smile, “I’m glad they didn’t. I would have probably stuck my foot in my mouth.”

“I doubt that,” Jack said, and he did too. Beth was becoming a major player in Casco Viejo, and he was still enough of a newspaper man (retired) to wonder why she wouldn’t have been the first person a reporter would have gone to for a statement about that Feliz character.

“I’m not the only one who is trying to save Casco,” Beth pointed out. “I’m glad that other property owners and developers and residents even are concerned about preserving our heritage.”

“And our property values,” Allan said. It was pretty obvious that Allan wanted to move Beth on to a table and back to him as the center of attention.

“Indeed,” Jack said. Beth’s response sounded to him like a prepared statement, with no high-heeled foot in her mouth. As the newest couple on the social scene moved away, Jack figured Beth knew more than she was saying about her involvement in “saving Casco Viejo.”

What did that mean exactly? Save what from what? Obviously, Casco Viejo, which was also known as Casco Antiquo, is a place, but somebody, even a greedy bastard like Feliz, would not change that by putting up a brand new building. In many places that would be considered urban renewal. Certainly, there were plenty of buildings in Casco Viejo and the greater San Felipe district that were run-down or worse to fallen down. Those old structures had not been saved—not in time. The deal is that the whole peninsula was declared a World Heritage site back in 1997 apparently because of its rich historical and cultural importance and is supposedly protected by the National Historical Heritage Office. There is a finite number of a bit over 800 buildings; and every one of them are supposed to remain true to their original architectural plan. In fact, a few years ago Jack climbed nearby Ancon Hill and took a panoramic photo of the whole area. When he compared it to an antique photograph taken in the 1890s the view was remarkably similar.

After all, neighborhoods even cities decline then decay and sometimes are abandoned but often replaced with newer, not necessarily better or more charming, but practical and improved buildings where people live, work and have families. Jack had lived in Casco longer than most expats or gringos or whatever including the many younger Panamanians who worked in the modern high-rise city and wound their way through the narrow streets of the old section, back to their small apartments in renovated buildings and out to sidewalk cafes like the Casa Blanca or Ego’s or restaurants like Cedro’s or Indigo’s. As far as Jack could tell, the vague hoped-for plans for the area didn't really include family life. The parks or squares were sites for cathedrals and/or sidewalk cafes. The streets and sidewalks were narrow and not stroller friendly.

If Casco Viejo was being saved it seemed like it was being saved for a future group of residents, people who weren't there yet, but who would purchase the renovated buildings and condos and apartments for more than they cost to restore. It was being saved for baby boomers, who had not yet retired; for Venezuelans who had not yet gotten their money out from under Chavez's thumb; for Columbians, who needed a place to invest their drug money; and for Panamanians who needed some place to reinvest. Most importantly, with about a half dozen hotels in the works, including the renovations (or more correctly the rebuilding) of the old Union Club and the Hotel Central; Casco Viejo was being saved so tourists would have a place to visit. It is doubtful that as many tourists would go to San Juan if there wasn't a fully restored, heavy on the charm and safe Old San Juan to tour. The streets of the modern Panama City were like anywhere; but the streets of Casco Antiquo reminded some of the French quarter in New Orleans with wrought-iron balconies and jazz music coming from a club nearby.

Of course, Panama as a nation needs to remember its history from Simon Bolivar and the founding fathers; through first the French and then the Americans and their involvement in the canal and up to Torrijos and Noriega. Even the fact that Casco Viejo exists on the peninsula it does is because the true original town was burned to the ground by Henry Morgan and his private army of pirates. High walls on a peninsula made the town easier to defend. Yes, that history too of exploitation goes back to the early days of the Spanish conquest and it too was based on greed, the greed for gold.

Now what is either being exploited or saved is because of greed for profits made from history and old -time architecture. Jack felt cynical when he had these thoughts, as he stared at the prism of melting ice floating in vodka. The great old days of Casco Viejo, were when it wasn't called that; when it was simply Panama, the capital and a town that bordered on the American territory known as the Canal Zone. Come to think of it, that wasn't that great either—the capital of an occupied country.

What Jack knew was that the place wasn't being saved at all. Not restored, not renewed, but replaced. When many or most of the buildings are finally renovated, most of the people, not all squatters, by the way, would be moved out; either relocated by the government to huge developments of tiny houses out along the Pan American Highway; or priced out with pretty much the same destination—those ticky-tacky little boxes out on tracks of land stripped of trees and character. Probably, many also would end up occupying the smaller, older high-rise apartment buildings, whose views have been blocked by the newer, taller towers along Balboa Avenue.

The people who would move in, who already started and lived in buildings like the Columbus House and the old Hotel Columbia and the Art Nuevo Building or their own three story mansions on cobblestone streets, would not share the heritage that was preserved. Being well-off, they might be able to appreciate it, but relocating for maybe six months a year or retired from Spain, Canada, Russia or the States, meant that the Canal Museum was something to show visitors from back home. The history of daring splits from Columbia or the fall of a two-bit dictator were stories to be told; value added to the setting. If people like Beth and that Feliz character had their way, Casco wouldn't be Viejo at all, but Nuevo, with new buildings that looked old. And the native people who remained would have plenty of opportunities selling handicrafts and souvenirs on the streets; or as waiters, cooks, and bartenders; maids, superintendents, store clerks; and yes some would own the shops that catered to the new clientele and probably a new generation of Panamanians would join the mix, but most of them would speak English and tip badly, like the expats and retirees who seem determined to take over.

So Jack at least, who had embraced yet a different Panama, the land of his deceased wife, a place cut in half by an American-built waterway, couldn't really go along with the idea of anyone, not the government, not the developers and certainly not future residents saving Casco Viejo. Yes, there were good strong even worthwhile reasons to protect the concept of a quaint quarter, filled with historical landmarks and tourist attractions. Definitely, it would be a shame if the old places were bulldozed away and even more towers scraped the sky—that would be a total loss. However, Jack couldn't help seeing self interest in any notion of saving Casco Viejo, not for posterity as much for economic potential; not for the people as much as for personal gain; not for the soul of a nation as much as for the bank accounts of the few who dared to invest. It was probably true that people like Beth and Allan saw it as a win-win situation, where a unique place is not destroyed, and because it isn't, they double their money. What could be wrong with that? Nothing was wrong with that, Jack knew, but he also wished that the section of the city, now known as Old/Viejo, would have stayed nice and really true with Panamanians living and working and governing from a neighborhood that didn't need to be renovated, because it had always been kept up and lived in and maintained as a place worth saving.

* * *

When Beth Page and Allan Myers followed the waiter out to the back open-air courtyard (so Beth could smoke), they immediately noticed Barb and Mitch Multusky sitting with Madge and Jerry Cole at a table along the wall. Even though she wondered if Cole would be civil, Beth led Allan across the small space and greeted the other two couples with the required hugs and air kisses. Along with Mitch, who towered over the group, Jerry stood up and shook Allan’s hand with both his eyebrows arched high on his forehead. He nodded toward Beth, in an I-know-you’re-here kind of way. Without much chitchat, Beth and Allan retreated to the relative safety of their candle-lit table. Both exchanged smirks.

“Well, had we announced our date on CascoViejo.org, I’m not sure any more people would know about it,” Allan, who really didn’t mind, said as he lit Beth’s cigarette. “Not that there’s anything to be ashamed of or secretive about. In fact, I’m proud to be seen out with such an attractive woman,” Allan asserted as he signaled the waiter, who had not bothered to take their drink orders when he seated them.

“You’re such a flatterer,” Beth said, “and don’t stop for a minute. I just hate the tension that is caused by just having Jerry Cole in the room.” It occurred to Beth that she had never before had such a long list of enemies—probably the price of being an independent woman in a macho land, a concept even the gringos seemed to embrace the minute they landed at Tocumen Airport. Maybe not so much with Mitch, who simply let Barb do most of the errands; but definitely Cole who seldom missed an opportunity to brow beat his wife. That’s why she liked the idea of Allan. He was a bullshitter, for sure, but he was also apparently independently wealthy and had been accomplished, so not likely to feel jealous or threatened or uncomfortable when dealing with a woman as strong and capable as Beth hoped she actually was.

“I think Jerry was so surprised to see us together, that he forgot to hit you over the head with a chair,” Allan said as they clicked their glasses, each a Mojito.

For the next hour or so, one couple at one table and two couples at another in a pleasant courtyard surrounded by a stone wall bordered by leafy trees that only allowed a glimpse of a half moon, tried to speak in hushed tones so the other table wouldn’t be aware that they were talking about them. Everybody agreed that Beth looked good in what Mitch called “yet another strapless dress,” this time white on white lace. Nobody at the couples table knew what had happened to “that Joe fella” but they weren’t surprised that Beth had apparently moved on rather quickly. They agreed that they were a bit more surprised by Allan being added to the equation since “he seemed to be into las chicas,” as Mitch put it.

“I just hope Allan doesn’t invest any money with her,” Jerry said.

“Oh, Jerry, give it a rest,” Madge said. She hoped to get away with the rebuke because they were with another couple. Further, she hoped that after some more red wine that Jerry would forget the putdown. Probably not, but she was having a hard time putting up with his tirades. Also, since she was the only one who would listen, she often found herself in the position of surrogate object of his wrath. Beth for example had not replied to any e-mails sent by Jerry in months, and she wasn’t the only one. No doubt about it, Madge was tired of being her husband’s scapegoat, most probably because no one else would listen to his invective, particularly not most of the contractors, foremen and laborers responsible. She was sick of being his whipping boy or girl or whatever and wasn’t willing to take the rap any more. No wonder Madge felt the need to reply in kind on occasion, when she had a chance.

* * *

When Beth spotted Berger walking from the other direction toward the door of Columbus House with Allan’s puta on his arm, she laughed out loud. “This is unbelievable,” she said. Actually, it wasn’t that surprising since the expat community was small and concentrated within a few blocks. Beth, way more often than not, saw people she knew out and about town. Heck, the question back at Indigo’s was who didn’t she know. Plus Berger did live in the same building as Allan, but the timing seemed ridiculous. It also seemed to her that the other couple, who were closing quickly, were somehow pleased by and welcomed the opportunity to confront the two of them.

As Joe said “Good evening,” in a very hearty almost boisterous manner, Bebe slipped her hand from Berger’s elbow, stepped forward, with her shoulders back (which meant that her breasts were thrust forward), her chin up and her eyes big, and said “Hello, Allan.” The way she said his name was all so very formal—Al and lan being two distinct and overdone syllables—that Beth laughed again. It was like getting the giggles during a funeral or in court. Everybody seemed to be taking things so seriously and at least as far as Beth was concerned it was pretty darn silly.

“I woulda like to speak you, uno momento,” Bebe said as she glared at Beth, who was failing in her attempt to stifle her laughter.

“Sorry, that ain’t gonna happen,” Allan said with a sneer that could have almost passed as a smile.

“That was a good try, but no cigar, Baby,” Beth said, as she tried to catch her breath. Sure she had what three, maybe four Mojitos, but this was just too funny.

“What so funny, bitch?” Bebe said, with her hands on her hips.

At that another laugh burst from Beth. “Oh, please,” she sputtered.

“Say, look here,” Berger said, as he put a foot on the step as Allan worked his key in the lock.

“Oh, this is too much,” Beth gasped. At that, the mechanical lock clicked loudly and the door swung open. Allan smoothly swung Beth, unsteady on her high heels, through the entrance and turned to the other two. After he gently shoved his giddy school-girlish date toward the elevator, he held the door partly open and snarled “listen you two losers—get the fuck out of our face.”

“Hey, wait a minute. I live in this building too,” Joe said.

“Yeh, I know. So, fuck off,” Allan said as he shut the door which locked automatically. Since Berger did not have his key out, that was that as the elevator door could be seen closing behind the barred windows. That was certainly that as Bebe turned and walked away at a quick and determined pace.

Unseen by the two couples, Jack Smith sat on a park bench, and watched life unfold on the front steps of his building across the street. From his point of view not hidden really but not under a street light, Jack found that he was able to appreciate the comic element of what he had just witnessed. Jack often sat on a bench in one of the squares “playing the role of an old geezer” as Mitch suggested one evening when he came by walking Carmen. “Takes one to know one,” Jack said and Mitch readily agreed. “You betcha,” Mitch said “I’m an authority on geezer behavior.” He was too and hit Jack with a series of one liners.

“You know you’re a geezer when you try to get your jubilado discount on a hot dog from a sidewalk vendor. “You know you’re a geezer if you can remember when Noriega was in power. …when the US of A owned the Panama Canal. …when real estate was cheap in Panama. “

Jack had laughed, but it wasn’t because he was old exactly, but because sometimes sitting by himself in his apartment made him feel extra lonely. Out on the squares, there was life, even if it turned out to be screwballs like Berger, who chased after a young woman, half his age, who looked vulnerable rather than sexy in that little bit of a leopard-print dress; or couples still lucky enough to have each other, walking by; or groups of young guys out on a toot; or even a Presidential police officer riding by on a noisy ATV. It was somebody to think about and observe for a moment. It was seldom as diverting as watching the local soap opera play out on the steps to Columbus House, but it was better than focusing on himself and the empty space in his world.

2010-03-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Six

For the past few weeks, Terry Perdu held her yoga classes out on the terrace of the old Union Club. Decades ago, the exclusive, old-family members of the club abandoned the building and relocated directly across Panama Bay, not unlike most of the gentry, who moved away from Casco Viejo during the ‘70s to newer, more modern houses and apartments in Marbella, El Congrejo or the condo canyon of Paitilla. For a while, Manuel Noriega had taken over the club, which previously denied him membership (A sign of a powerful, established club is when the dictator of the country cannot gain admittance.), and reportedly made it one of his favorite hangouts which he renamed Club de Clases y Tropas, even though there were many more military than working class in attendance. That was until the U.S. invasion of 1989 put Noriega out of business and in a Miami jail. The once elegant, neo-classical building, which was built in 1917, looks like it must have been bombed out, during operation “Just Cause,” but apparently simply collapsed from neglect into a roofless ruin, with vultures lounging on a railing around the empty trash-strewn swimming pool, and a tree growing out of a chimney.

What remains is a wide terrace, perched out over the waves of the Pacific, with a skyline view that stretches around the entire bay past the ocean’s horizon and over to where ships, lighted at night, wait at the entrance of the canal for their turn to pass through. Attempts to keep the entrance blocked and locked seemed half-hearted and futile as skateboarders often found a way out on to the terrace, which Mitch Multusky claimed “had to be one of the most gorgeous skate parks in the world,” especially in the pink of evening. There were occasionally art shows and/or discotheques staged on the premises and scenes from the James Bond movie The Quantum of Solace were shot there, but for the most part the structure stood in magnificent decay with a front door latched by a broken chain and a padlock cut with bolt cutters.

So why not hold yoga class out on the sunny, mostly breezy terrace (it did get hot and glary sometimes), with pelicans flying by and the sound of waves washing below. Then one day, the door had been reinforced and locked, but even more meaningful to Perdu’s class was that an eight-foot wall of corrugated steel had been constructed over night around the building. Actually, it took the workers the full previous day, into the evening to complete the barricade, but that was still lightning quick by local standards. Those members of the class, principally, Barb Multusky, who lived down the block and even Beth Page, who made a point to know about such things, noticed the wall go up, but still figured that they could gain access. The rest of Tony’s students were surprised to discover that construction was indeed beginning on what had been rumored for years to be a new boutique hotel. A sign depicting an artist’s conception of what the totally renovated building would look like, was even tacked up at the front of what used to be the second story. Allan Myers, Perdu’s only male client, pointed out that a corner of the grand terrace was represented in the picture, so “at least, that is a good thing;” to which the ladies standing around in loose-fitting tee shirts and draw-string pants, with plastic mats tucked under their arms, readily agreed.

“Okay,” Tony Perdu announced, “we’ll have to walk over to Columbus House. Sorry for the delay.” Perdu, all in white, leotard, short shorts and sneakers, with her brown hair in her usual ponytail, looked peeved, even though her dozen devotees didn’t seem to mind at all. Probably only Beth Page knew that Tony’s seldom-seen husband was interested in developing the old Union Club, which was rumored to be for sale but Beth couldn’t identify the owners, so was unable to represent Mr. Perdu’s Polish money in obtaining the potentially lucrative property. “Please follow me,” Tony said with a raised hand, as her twelve followers walked in double file like a school field trip.

“Welcome, to Casco,” Madge Cole smiled. It was a statement, a version of which was repeated often among the expat community. “Welcome to Panama” or “Welcome to Casco” or “Welcome to Bocas Del Toro” or “…to Boquete.” So what does it mean? Since most of the misplaced yoga enthusiasts nodded knowingly in agreement, the attitude represented by the statement had to do, at least in part, with a kind of agreed-to Murphy’s Law approach to the way things were in Panama. Things never quite worked out smoothly. Plans were often changed; or sabotaged by forces uniquely Panamanian and out of the control of the gringo making the statement. The electricity would go out for three hours after a spectacular thunder storm—Welcome to Panama. An Atlas beer truck would get wedged in between a balcony and Toyota Prada parked on a narrow street—Welcome to Casco. The entire city would close down for Carnival week—Welcome to Panama. The third restaurant at the same location over the past two years would close—Welcome to Casco. A fellow pushing a shaved-ice cart, would be run over by a Diablo Rojo, one of the colorful busses (often painted red—that’s why they’re called Red Devils), that jam the city’s streets—Welcome to Panama. A real estate agent could not ascertain the names of the owners of a desirable property, which, in fact, had a “Se Vende” sign out front--Welcome to Casco. The mountain streams and rivers would flood the town and ruin the annual flower festival—Welcome to Boquete. A tourist would hand his camera to a passerby, who would then run off with it instead of taking a picture—Welcome to Panama. A retired expat couple’s beach cottage would finally be ready for occupancy, nearly a year and a half late—Welcome to Panama. (Just ask Madge’s husband Jerry about that.) Even though the statement was most often used in a negative, what-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong manner it also was used to refer to other more positive things that seemed inevitable about Panama. Many new faces at an expat mixer—Welcome to Panama. Nearly two dozen cats being fed nightly around the kiosk at the public parking lot—Welcome to Casco. Very hot, humid bright sunny days fading into cool, breezy, star-lit nights—Welcome to Panama.

The group did not march in silence. All Tony Peru needed was to be in a nun’s costume with a clicker and Barb Multusky’s memory of Catholic school would have been complete. She walked next to Madge Cole, whose constant smile seemed more nervous than usual. “So, how’s it goin’?” Barb inquired routinely. Madge pushed up her big white-framed glasses with a finger between her eyes, and sighed. Her hair was bleach blonde, but so light it didn’t make her look any younger than if she had allowed her natural gray to show.

“Sometimes, I feel so guilty,” Madge said. “Here I am off to find inter-peace, while Jerry’s out there at the beach descending further into a hell of his own design.”

Barb laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You have every right to relax every once in a while.” Even though their little group seemed agitated in talkative two by twos, Barb persisted. “Yoga class is supposed be to where you learn to relax and reflect, so instead of feeling guilty that you’re here and he’s not, you should get him to come along. It would probably do him a world of good.”

“Oh, yeh, I can see that…” Madge seldom stopped with the smile. Often sincere, it was almost always plastered on her round face, which Barb described as cute, a term that Madge would probably interpret as a euphemism for chubby. “Jerry sitting in the lotus position, while gritting his teeth—he’s wound too tight.”

“That’s just my point—it might loosen him up.”

“Hardly.”

“So what’s happened now?” Barb asked, even though she didn’t really want to know any details.

“Sometimes, I think he’s like a Job character,” Madge said, warming to the subject, just as Barb had feared she would. “It’s like the gods are torturing him for the fun of it.”

“What’s happened now?” Barb was resigned.

“Oh, I don’t know. You mean like having the floor tile in the upstairs bathroom come out three tiles short, after they’ve laid ‘em. Or the fact that he was careful and hired a new plumber before he fired the old plumber; but then the new guy didn’t show up and didn’t call or answer his cell phone.”

“Well, welcome to Panama.” Barb provided the standard response.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Last Saturday, Jerry was cleaning up the area, you know, picking up loose concrete bags so they wouldn’t blow into our neighbor’s garden, stuff like that. He had all the trash in a big barrel on the site, so he splashes a little bit of gasoline on the pile and throws a match on. Well, it explodes and knocks Jerry off his feet into a hedge bordering our neighbors’ driveway about fifteen feet away.”

“Geeeezus, Madge. Is he all right?”

“He says he wasn’t hurt.” Madge shrugged, and her smile looked wistful. “Someone must have thrown away a container of gasoline is all we can figure. Jerry’s gas can didn’t explode; and he says he was careful; and he usually is; but he coulda been burnt, or hurt or killed for Christ sake.”

“That’s scary.” Barb had to admit that Madge’s latest tale of woe exceeded the normal level of griping—and oh yeh, my husband was almost killed or maimed at our construction site last week. “Things are just going to have to get better,” Barb said. “They can’t get any worse.” Barb heard her own cliché, but continued, “things are bound to improve.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Madge countered. “Jerry’s ordered a stun gun over the internet. Apparently, it’s legal down here. Guns are hard to get a license for if you’re not a citizen, we’ve been told, so he’s getting a stun gun instead.”

“Guns, are you kidding me?” Barb was surprised. “What do you need a stun gun for?”

“I don’t know; protection, I guess. Jerry says he needs one, so that’s it.”

“Protection from what? Who?”

* * *

“So, you still seein’ that Berger guy?” Allan Myers enquired as casually as he could. He and Beth were the last two in line.

“I was never seeing him,” Beth said with added emphasis; “and excuse me, why is that any concern of yours?”

“Now, don’t get bent out of shape, I’m just making conversation.” Allan made an exaggerated move to back off with his hands at shoulder height and his open palms facing Beth. What Beth didn’t know was that Allan already had a pretty good idea about Berger’s status with her.

The evening before, Beth arrived home from grocery shopping at Riba Smith’s and got Jamon to carry the bags into her kitchen through the front door. As she handed Jamon, who was showing his crooked smile and dirty finger nails, two quarters, Joe Berger’s head appeared over the street guy’s shoulder. He said, “Hi, Beth” in a sudden, high pitched, kinda loud voice. Jamon almost jumped out of his beat-up Crocks, as Beth bleated “Oh, shit!” Jamon spun off the stoop and down the steps in a rather graceful stumble, leaving Berger facing Beth with a surprised look on both their faces. Damn.

“I was hoping to get a chance to talk, you know. It was a big misunderstanding. I didn’t know about the dog and that it was like your pet or whatever.”

“Oh stop. That doesn’t matter. This has nothing to do with the stupid dog; and she’s not my pet.” Beth backed into her open doorway.

“Okay, okay. I was just waiting for you, so we could clear things up, you know, straighten everything out, so we could, you know, get back together.”

“Are you stalking me, you son of a bitch? What do you mean ‘waiting’? You nearly scared Jamon to death, sneaking around…”

“I wasn’t sneaking and I’m not stalking anybody, I was simply in your area and saw that guy at your door, so I figured you were home and so I waited a minute and then I came up to talk.” It was all true, but Joe knew he wasn’t getting anywhere (his explanation sounded contrived to him), and that his timing turned out as bad as always. “Can’t we just sit down and talk for a while. This is all a big mistake.”

“You’re right about that Buster,” Beth said; and closed the door firmly just short of a slam.

Buster ? Berger stood staring at the closed door for a moment and then turned to go. It was his turn to be caught by surprise. What the hell. Walking by slowly, just then at the foot of the three steps, Allan Myers smiled up at Joe and said, “Hey, Berger, how’s it hangin’?”

Before he could compose himself, Berger came out with, “Huh? Okay, I guess.” To Joe, it looked more like a smirk than a smile on Myer’s always confident, smooth face. After a moment, he wished he had said “None of your business, you bald bastard,” but the moment had passed. Dressed in one of his many flower-print Hawaiian shirts, this time green with yellow and white blossoms, chino shorts and flip flops, Myers didn’t stop to talk. He had all the information he needed. He left Berger to linger at the foot of the stairs, befuddled and embarrassed.

“Okay, if you’re not dating anybody, how about me? I would really like to take you out to dinner; how about tonight?

That was not what Beth was expecting, so she came up with a rather weak, “are you kidding?”

“No. I couldn’t be more serious. It occurred to me that we’re perfect for each other.”

Beth quickly regained her footing and countered with “Oh, really. How do you figure that?”

“We’re both smart, independent and good looking and approximately the same age. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a lot in common, besides a love for yoga.”

“Smooth,” Beth thought, “maybe too.” It had occurred to Beth, when Berger sought her out that she was a relatively limited edition. There just weren’t that many widowed, or single for that matter, gringo women around above the age of 30. The younger women were all graduate students or interns or chics on round-the-world adventures, just passing through. Beth did know of a couple of other middle-aged single gals, one divorced and dating a younger Panamanian guy, who Beth thought of as her “boy toy”; the other a widow. Her husband drowned in their backyard swimming pool, which was considered suspicious in some circles (Beth thought the whole situation, with a lucrative insurance payout was fishy as hell), and so the so-called “black widow” was not in as much demand as her voluptuous figure might have indicated. This made Beth feel like a rather unique and probably desirable commodity; certainly from a businesswoman’s perspective. And Beth was a businesswoman, first and foremost. That’s why she hated the idea of giving in to Berger’s attention, like some sort of school girl. As a couple they had no prospects, but there they were cozied up on her couch. Yes, she was bored and horny and that’s how bad decisions are made. Allan, on the other hand, was loaded, Beth knew that; and therefore self-sufficient. Even though Beth liked hair on a head, Allan wasn’t bad looking and had to be smart—he was a wealthy doctor, divorced and on the lam, but still smart enough to keep his money close.

“So what about that bouncy little bimbo I’ve seen you with, there buddy boy,” Beth wasn’t giving in without putting up some sort of defense.

“You gotta admit, she is good looking,” Allan pointed out. Not the rebuttal Beth expected. Allan paused for Beth’s opinion.

“Well, sure, in a young, full bloom, kind of slutty way,” Beth countered.

“A lot of Latin women dress sorta slutty,” Allan said, again avoiding getting pinned down.

“But she’s so young,” Beth said.

“Exactly,” Allan said, pointing his figure in the air. “Bebe’s a sweet kid (That was good—Beth didn’t remember her name), and she’s sexy (at that Allan made direct eye contact, which Beth did not avoid,) and fun (Beth’s eyebrows went up at that), but we have nothing to talk about.”

“I’m sure Spanish is part of the problem.” Beth was enjoying the exchange.

“But, not totally.”

“And she’s a hooker.”

“And yes of course, there’s that,” Allan admitted readily. “I just can’t trust that she’s into me, and not my money; you know, rich gringo and all that goes with that. What she doesn’t know, is that I have no intention of any sort of commitment. She’s young and needs to move on.”

“Well, good for you,” Beth thought. Too many guys, way too many, came down to Panama and Costa Rica especially, first with the intention of exploiting all the young willing women, only to fall for one of their intended sexual conquests. Soon the older dude was deluded into thinking he had found his love match and before he knew it, the girl had moved in, followed in short order, by one or two unexplained and previously not mentioned children, and soon by the mother or sister or cousin. Then it was time to cash in. The hopeless romantic was soon accused of abuse and she had witnesses. That scenario never worked out to the financial benefit of the then not-so-rich gringo. To be honest, that was the path Beth assumed Allan was on, but not anymore.

“To be quite frank, I think I looked kinda foolish in the company of that particular young lady.”

Beth was disarmed. “You did.”

“I know. So help me out here. Let me take somebody out, who I would be proud to be seen with.” Allan stood expectantly, his hands spread out in front, bowed at the waist ever so slightly.

“Oh, all right,” Beth said and slapped him lightly on the shoulder, “but it better be someplace nice.”

“No problemo, I only go to nice places. How about Indigo’s?”

“Fine.” Beth was pleased. This was more like it. Allan suggested one of the most popular restaurants in Casco Viejo. She had been embarrassed by having given in to Berger so easily. She didn’t know anything about him and didn’t really care. Allan was obviously going to be more fun, clearly had money—that Joe character might not—and any way, she was simply going out on a date, not getting engaged or anything stupid like that.

The line had spread out to over a block, with Beth and Allan bringing up the rear. They were approaching the Columbus House, when the group’s newest couple passed by a Chino’s. All, not almost all, all the small grocery stores in the city and even out along the highway and in the towns are owned and run by Chinese. At the beginning of the 20th century, many Chinese migrated to Panama to help first build the railroad across the Isthmus and then the canal. Over the following generations, they came to control the small grocery business. While there are three or four supermarket chains, one owned by the president of the country, all the mini-marts and corner groceries have simply become known as Chino’s.

It was there that Beth spotted a man sitting out front on a bench with a newspaper. Open in front of him, she could read the front page headline Revelador Pone en Peligro Designation de Patrimonio Universal, which translates to Developer Endangers World Heritage Designation.

“Oh, shit!” Beth said as she rushed in to buy a copy of El Diario, the country’s leading daily. Beth could read Spanish, but not with confidence, but she had no difficulty spotting the name Rodrigo Feliz in the first paragraph. She skimmed the rest of the article but did not locate her name, which was good since she had not spoken with any reporters. Beth waved Allan on, but he stood there with a puzzled look on his tanned, clean shaven face. Yoga class was forgotten. In the next instant, Beth had her lawyer Bobby Boar on her cell phone.

“No worries,” Boar said, “you’re not in it. I’ll translate it for you, if you want me to, but it makes him look bad, I assure you. There are a couple of references to ‘local property owners’ and ‘concerned developers’ but no specific reference to you or the building of yours in question.”

“I think he’ll still know it’s me.”

“Of course he will,” Boar sounded condescending and Beth couldn’t help picturing him with that irritating grin on his face. To her quizzical “um” sound, he went on, “you seem to forget my dear, that we’ve filed a formal but useless complaint and we’ve stuck him with a 90-day restraining order, so it’s pretty obvious that you’re one of the local concerned property owner developers. However, when our boy Feliz contacts the editor, and he will, the editor can not link you to the story directly or indirectly. I steered the reporter, who owes me a couple of favors, to some other people. You’re not the only one who thinks this guy is up to no good, you know. You just happen to be the one with the building next door.”

“What do you think he’ll do?” Beth was surprised at how worried she felt.

“Like I said, he’ll try to find out the sources of the story, but I think the guys over at El Diario can stonewall him. Then I think he’ll be somewhat embarrassed tonight at dinner at the Union Club.”

“Big fuckin’ deal,” Beth interjected.

“I thought that’s what we’re trying to do.” Boar sounded impatient. “There are judges, and government officials and big-time real estate types and even a few people, wives mostly who value things like historical heritage, who are members of the Union Club and don’t admire bad publicity. And that’s where we’ll probably get our main benefit. I don’t mean any of those folks will come riding in on a white horse and save Casco Viejo from the jerk. What I hope will happen is that Feliz will want things to die down, so he’ll hopefully decide not to fight the restraining order. Maybe by then a couple of our city fathers will see the light and put a stop to his flagrant disregard for the cultural integrity of Casco Antiquo.”

Beth was impressed and actually gave Allan a thumbs-up sign. “Well, good job, Bobby, really. I hope you’re right.”

“I hope I am too. If not, the shit’s really going to hit the fan.” Pause, Beth did not laugh or say anything. “I’m kidding, okay, just kidding. The worst that can happen is we’re where we are now, with his building lowering our property values.”

“Okay, keep me informed.” With that Beth closed her phone and walked over to Allan and with a shrug said. “Business.”

Meanwhile, it had taken Tony several minutes to locate the concierge to open the door to the Columbus House roof-top terrace that wasn’t supposed to be locked in the first place. Welcome to Casco. As they waited Madge surprised Barb by asking how she was doing. Usually, at the end of a one-way conversation, Barb wondered why it was so seldom that anyone ever returned the favor and asked about her, so she welcomed an opportunity to share a concern of her own.

“Well, you’re not going to believe this,” Barb started tentatively, “but Mitch has volunteered to coach a youth basketball team.” Madge continued to actually look somewhat interested and even a bit surprised.

“That’s nice,” she said, a trite response which immediately discouraged Barb, but then “Where?”

“In Chorrillo.” Barb waited a moment for the information to register with her friend and it finally did.

“You’re kidding isn’t that where he was carjacked?” At that, both women looked around furtively because Barb had asked Madge not to tell anyone else that Mitch had been victimized in the dangerous neighborhood that bordered Casco Viejo to the north. None of the other yoga pilgrims seemed to be paying attention to their conversation, so Madge adjusted her porthole glasses, yet again, and said in a hushed tone “Isn’t that a bit risky?”

“Obviously,” Barb said, but then with a shrug, “but you know my Mitch was never a wimp or anything like that. I mean he won two state championships and then as a vice principal it was his job to deal with the hoodlums in the school; but anyway, he says it has something to do with facing your enemies and overcoming your fears, by simply not giving in to ‘em. Yeh, I know it’s kinda macho,” Barb said in response to the raised eyebrows behind Madge’s glasses. “But, he also said that ‘the best revenge is doing something good’ but I’ll be honest with ya, I’m not so sure that he has to go back into the lion’s den to be positive and constructive.”

“Compared to Jerry, he’s a saint,” Madge said. “My husband would have at least fantasized about machine-gunning down those bastards.”

“Oh, Mitch went thru that stage, I assure you.” Barb was relieved she could tell somebody else about the aftermath of the attack. “His plan was to rent or steal, no kidding, a pickup truck and then load about a dozen suitcases in the open back. Each case was to be booby-trapped with explosives; so when the citizens of Chorrillo stole the luggage and then broke the locks the bombs would go off and wreak havoc in those awful buildings. The charm of the plan, as far as Mitch was concerned, was that ‘if they don’t steal the cases, then there won’t be any explosions.’”

“Where was he going to get explosives,” Madge wondered.

“And where’s Jerry going to get his hands on a machine gun?” Barb said impatiently. “That’s not the point. There are certain ways of dealing with these situations, and this is what Mitch is going to do and even though it worries me, a lot, I’m going to try and support him.”

That left Madge contemplating some topics for meditation, as the group filed up the final stairway and out onto the sunny terrace. “Whew, this might be a hot one,” she said.

Barb left it at that, but she had more on her mind. Even before those gang members attacked Mitch, her husband was showing signs of losing it, but since then his mental acuity seemed to be fading faster. Ever since she knew him, Mitch never, ever took a nap, not even on the weekends; or on vacation and not even when he retired. After the incident, however, he would fall asleep virtually every afternoon and that was after sleeping in until 9—9:30 most mornings. For a guy who used to stay up to watch Jay Leno, Mitch often took a book to bed before 10 p.m. and was snoring soon after.

Mitch’s memory was slipping too. There was a time when Mitch could name every member of every team he coached; and recall the scores of every playoff game and many more. Lately, however, he was hard pressed to recollect the names of people they met at parties or dinners or other people in their building. Of course most people when they get into their sixties experience more difficulty remembering names and items on the thing-to-do list, but Mitch wasn’t bad at all before the attack but afterward he constantly had to walk back downstairs to remember why he had gone upstairs; he was forever searching for his keys and cell phone; he always had to be reminded of names of people they had known for a while; he seldom came back from the Chino’s with everything he was supposed to get; punch lines for jokes (a Mitch specialty), were lost; and appointments, if they weren’t immediately written on the calendar were forgotten.

Before the carjacking or whatever you want to call it, Mitch was not excelling at learning Spanish, but he knew his numbers, days of the week, months and quite a few basic vocab words. It was just that he had problems putting a sentence together. Not anymore—he often had to ask Barb for simple terms; time; everyday objects; place names; basic verbs. From the passenger seat, Barb was concerned about how many times she had to remind Mitch the driver how to get to a place they had been to before, like the grocery store or the Felipe Motta wine shop. He wasn’t drinking any more—that was a good thing. Mitch was still “a couple of beers” kind of guy. Sometimes, though, he would tell a story as if he had not told the same story just a day or two before, if not only an hour or two earlier.

Yes, Barb knew that a faulty memory was a consequence of aging, but she was stunned how quickly Mitch’s memory deteriorated after he had his bad experience. It was like he had become distracted, that there were things on his mind that occupied too much space and didn’t leave room for names, places, dates and/or events. Recently, he persistently called Carmen Butch, a name of a very different (Labrador) dog they used to own back in Michigan. Most of the time, Mitch acted as if nothing was different, though to Barb his memory was twice as bad if not more so than just months before. At other times, however, her big masculine husband, would get a worried look on his broad face, and say “I can’t remember shit.” At times he would look almost frightened. That was why Barb was worried about the basketball plan. Mitch was recruited by a local community organizer Tito Romero, a reformed gang-banger in a blue Casco Antiquo tee shirt with an earnest look in his eye.

Getting back involved with basketball could be a good thing, Barb knew. It might help Mitch get rid of the blues and get him out of the apartment and doing something he was good at and enjoyed. But what if he got lost driving home after practice in the same bad neighborhood where he had already found trouble? Then would he feel even more foolish and impotent and old? Romero, who had a diamond in his left ear that was so big it had to be fake, assured Barb, when she bumped into him while walking Carmen, that he would keep an eye on Mister Mitch. Tito spoke a passable version of Spanglish, enough that Barb could understand and vice versa, but Barb was sure he wouldn’t always be around, even if he gave her a reassuring wink. Her husband was a big guy, who knew how to look confident, even when he wasn’t. What could she do? Coaching a team made up of boys who robbed his car could be therapeutic or not. Tito Romero suggested that after the folks in Chorrillo got to know “el amigo grande” that they would actually look after him as “un compadre de barrio.” Barb hoped that Tito wasn’t being overly optimistic or simply filling a coaching position with the only person he could find; and she figured that a 5’7” part-Indian wouldn’t be overly protective of a man who weighed nearly a hundred pounds more than he did. She sincerely hoped that good things would happen—that challenged, Mitch would sharpen up and maybe even help a couple of kids avoid a life of crime, or straighten up and fly right or whatever. Barb surprised herself at how cynical she had become. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help it, Barb had doubts.

2010-03-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter Five

“Okay,” Beth thought, “this is a bad idea.” Joe Berger was asleep beside her, snoring in a regular, apparently contented rhythm. “I don’t need a man in my life, right now or ever, as a matter of fact, but definitely not now.”

They had dinner at a new place called Callejon de Gato, the Alley Cat, and Beth thought the food, tapas, langostinos and meat balls, was pretty good. Joe was attentive and complimentary and most importantly not overly interested in real estate. Sure, he would like her to help him find a “nice little, inexpensive condo in Casco,” like everybody else. Nobody ever seemed to be looking for a horrible, big, expensive place, but that seemed normal for the situation he claimed to be in. But that was a point—there was something about the guy she didn’t trust exactly; or quite believe; even though he didn’t seem to be scamming her or trying to weasel his way into her operation or anything remotely like that—he didn’t want to be a partner, in the business at least; or that’s what she thought. Her judgment or sense of human nature gave her just a hint that this guy wasn’t one hundred percent honest or candid or aboveboard, whatever that meant.

So, why did she go to bed with him? It seemed so natural, inevitable even. After dinner, they went for a drink at Havana Viejo, the Old Havana, which sometimes had a lively crowd, many of whom Beth knew, but not that night—only a couple of couples. Joe made pleasant enough conversation and told two or three mildly funny jokes. So, “what the hell,” she invited him back to her place and they ended up sitting on the couch and smoking a joint. Beth was in the mood to get high and so she did. Joe was neither smooth nor not. He smiled, put his arm around her shoulder, like a date at the movies (years, actually decades ago), and kissed her. To Beth the kiss seemed friendly, not overly aggressive or desperate, and to be honest, she was kinda, sorta, okay, rather horny.

Joe, who was completely naked, rolled over on his side, with his back to her. The hair on his narrow shoulders was gray and wispy. Beth was aware of how thin and ordinary he looked. “Well, he’s not moving in here,” she decided in advance; “and I don’t think he should assume that I’ll be falling on my back every time I see him either.” The point was that she could use a male escort sometimes and Joe already demonstrated that he was willing to at least try to fend off unwelcome attention.

The problem was that Beth Page, real estate operator and deal maker, was involved in a number of disputes at the moment. In fact, the least of her concerns had to do with that grumpy old Jerry Cole, who Beth considered nothing more than a chronic complainer, who made matters worse by getting bent out of shape with the builder and contractors and even the ordinary workers out at his site in Gorgona. Even though Beth did feel sorry for Madge, who was obviously bullied by Jerry, there was nothing she could do, even if she wanted to, to help him out of a work slowdown inspired by his own asinine behavior.

No, Beth was swimming with bigger fish, much bigger fish than Madge Cole’s silly overwrought husband. As far as Beth was concerned she was in a tricky war, one she could lose, and on two fronts at that. Her first battle was with Billy Belize, a 35-year-old developer from Columbia, who acted like he had a lot of money until it came time for him to pay his bills. They were in a partnership in a promising three-story building on Avenida “B” between Calles Quarto and Cinco. The plan was to restore the building that had lovely arched windows, wrought-iron balconies on the second and third floors and thick stone walls, with a commercial property on the first floor and two condos on each of the remaining levels. Belize showed up with his half of the down payment, no problema, but since then there were promises but no more money coming in from his side. He had become a classic “fly-by-night” guy, as far as Beth was concerned, with long absences, purportedly back and forth from Cartagena, where he was also developing a couple of old buildings. At first, she was confident and liked the guy, thin, classic dark short hair and what was becoming a more and more mischievous smile. Eventually, she was going to have to sue him, a deal she was sure was a “lose-lose” situation.

The biggest fish in her particular sea of troubles was Rodrigo Feliz, a short, dumpy fellow, maybe fifty, probably closer to sixty, with a male-pattern bald head trimmed in jet black hair. The first time she met him, Beth suspected that he dyed the hair he had. Feliz reportedly owned 19 buildings scattered around Casco Viejo. Eighteen were just sitting there moldering, some with squatters including a couple that were inhabited by drug dealers and some gang members, and most that were either boarded up or empty shells. Apparently, Feliz’s plan was to eventually sell off his buildings, when they acquired more value due to the restoration of the rest of the neighborhood. Far be it from him to actually contribute to the revitalization by actually investing any money or effort himself.

There was one notable exception; the building directly next to Barb’s on Avenue B, right at the corner at Fifth Street. Here the other half of Feliz’s plan seemed to be taking shape. Not only had the building been gutted, but because of the lack of support, two of the four walls had collapsed as well; which meant that the entire building needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. At first, this particular rebuilding project seemed like a positive, until the structure rose to a grand six stories, with modern rectangular windows.

Casco Viejo, after all, is a World Heritage Site officially designated by UNESCO. What that means is that there are a complicated set of rules and regulations that stipulate that any restoration of a building must be consistent with its original, historical design and that all the buildings have to be compatible and true to the heritage of the “protected” area. As far as Beth was concerned, this historical designation was what gave the district its value. There were and could only be some 800 buildings in a clearly defined area, which was to be preserved as a memorial to the original city of Panama. Old Town San Juan came immediately to mind, and of course Billy’s stomping grounds Cartagena.

Before anyone could restore a structure, a detailed building permit was required, that insured the integrity of the original (for example, if the old building had a courtyard, the new building had one too), specifically having to do with appropriate design and dimensions. “What in the hell is goin’on,” is what Beth wanted to know with the monstrosity next door. Her building was literally hunched in the shadow of what looked like a Soviet apartment block. Naturally, she had her lawyer, Bobby Boar, a Zonian, file a complaint, only to find out that Feliz “allegedly” had all the permits.

“That’s not possible,” Barb pointed out. “That place, has nothing to do with the original building or anything remotely like preservation of the surroundings.”

“Obviously,” Boar said with a grin that Beth never knew quite how to interpret. “We’ve just experienced a change in administrations (Ricardo Martinelli ran on a reform, anti-corruption ticket and soundly defeated Balbina Herrera and the party that had been in charge previously.), but it appears that our boy Feliz may have pulled a fast one right before the end or during the transition.”

“You mean he bribed someone and got phony permits or what,” Barb said.

“We have no proof that such a thing happened,” Boar pointed out in his smug lawyerly fashion.

Beth knew she was swimming in shark infested waters, but decided to file a formal complaint against Feliz. Boar also managed to get a judge to issue a restraining order that forced Feliz to stop construction, at least temporarily for 90 days. Boar was cautious.

“I just don’t see how he can win this,” Beth said. “The old building was no more than four stories. Rodrigo’s skyscraper is at least six stories, if the fat bastard is going to stop there. He should not only be made to cease and desist, but he needs to be taken down a coupla pegs—like about two stories.”

“I am sure he will not like that idea,” Boar said, then flashed a brief grin.

“Too fuckin’ bad,” Beth said. “The rules are the rules and they have to be followed or…”

“Or what,” Boar interrupted. “I got a theory for ya, that ya might not have considered.”

“Oh, good,” Beth said. Even though Boar wasn’t very personable, Beth knew he was smart, fairly well connected and knew the so-called ropes. “Tell me.”

“Were you aware that the bi-annual review of the status as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO is scheduled for next month?” Beth nodded but Boar did not grin. “Have you heard that there are a number of problems with the maintenance of several of the government buildings; the cobblestone streets (which were a mess because of truck traffic and had been filled in at several points with black top or concrete); and the fact that the previous government supposedly failed to file much of the necessary paperwork?” Beth had heard rumors too. “Now, I don’t know if any or all of it is accurate or if it will even affect the World Heritage status. What I am pretty sure of is that Senor Feliz would be just as happy if UNESCO was no longer involved with his building plans, so he could do whatever he wanted with his properties; maybe even put up a coupla towers, if you get my drift.”

“Are you telling me that that shit is trying to sabotage the ruling by putting up a building that is clearly in violation?”

“I don’t have any proof and I’m not in Senor Feliz’s inner circle, but it is curious that he has recently become interested in developing one of his properties. You know don’t you that if it comes to a battle in the Panamanian courts that it could take two or more years and you could quite possibly lose.”

“Oh, I know,” Beth said, “and if I don’t fight the fat, bald bastard, I lose. What do you suggest?”

That was when the biggest grin of the day came over Boar’s narrow face. “I do have some connections with the local press. Let’s see if I can get a reporter or two to start asking the right questions.”

“I’ll be glad to talk to the press,” Beth said and stood up to make her point.

“I don’t think you fully understand,” Boar stopped grinning. “My job is to protect you and your interests, so the last thing I want you to do is hold a press conference or even be quoted in the papers.”

"Fine." As the sun came up, Beth lay in her bed going over her current “challenges” in her head and wondering what would happen next. Nothing good, she was sure. All the while Joe Berger, who had not yet fully achieved the status of boyfriend, slept soundly at her side.

* * *

Joe Berger didn’t have to pretend to be asleep. Following the first sex he had had in over a year, he slept soundly, content that his life had taken a positive turn. After all, Beth was an attractive, apparently prosperous woman, and she had asked him up. He hadn’t needed to be pushy or suggest it or anything. He was goin’ with the flow, as they say, and it was working. God knows, he was nervous and had even practiced some small talk before their dinner date. He also brought cash in case there was a problem with his credit card. He checked himself in the mirror and even brushed his teeth twice, before venturing out.

At times, Beth acted maybe a bit too casual, as if she wasn’t all that interested much less excited; but then she invited him up for a drink. Beth looked good too. She seemed to favor strapless outfits and had on a snug-fitting green and brown striped dress that showed off her faintly freckled shoulders. Her perfume had what seemed to Joe a tropical fruit scent.

Yes! Berger shouted in his head while he attempted to accept the invitation naturally. Then she came out of the bathroom with a joint. Even though Joe hadn’t smoked pot since his first wife (His second would not allow it.), he thought this was a positive sign as well. He tried not to inhale, so he wouldn’t go nuts or fall asleep, but he still managed to get a pretty good buzz, which scared him. Don’t fuck up now. Beth seemed to relax and had kicked off her sandals. When she stretched out her legs and put her bare feet, with bright red toenails, on the coffee table, he, oh, so smoothly, put his arm around her shoulder. She actually leaned into him and rested her blonde head on his shoulder. So far, so good. The only thing he could think to do then was kiss her, so he did. Pretty soon, she stood up, put out her hand, with bright red fingernails, and led him into the bedroom. Sweet dreams.

* * *

Most mornings, Carmen would cruise on over to a construction site on Avenida “B”, where a number of construction workers would be sitting on the curb having breakfast. Carmen was cool. She would not attempt to steal any food, patacones or bread, but simply hang about, nearby, until something was dropped or more often tossed in her direction. How the workers knew the dog’s name was Carmen was a mystery, but some greeted their small black and white friend with jovial "buenos dias, Carmenlita" and none of them ever kicked at her or shooed her away.

Mitch, the provisional owner, often took an early morning walk and more than once noticed his would-be pet working the crowd at one construction site or another. “It is hard to believe that our puppy isn’t mucha gorda,” he would say to Barb upon his return. “Carmen has breakfast with us, each morning and joins the local work force for desayuno numero dos.” Actually Mitch had learned very little Spanish and what he did know he often used for comic effect, a classic defensive maneuver for the language challenged. Sometimes Carmen would abandon her amigos and follow Mitch for the rest of his walk and sometimes she would allow the man to go on his own.

Mitch never caught her at Beth’s breakfast nook and had no idea. Mitch did know that one of his pup’s best amigos was Jamon; and that particular morning, (the one Joe Berger would always think of as the morning after) Mitch watched as Carmen stopped in a doorway, where Jamon was curled up after apparently spending the night. Mitch always called him Horace, because he just couldn’t get himself to call the guy “Ham” to his face. Jamon/Horace did not look very good –his clothes were dirty and extremely wrinkled and his socks could be seen sliding down into his shoes, baring chubby ankles. There was a smile on Jamon’s pink, puffy face as he fiddled with Carmen’s black ear. It appeared to Mitch, that the left side Horace’s face was swollen and redder than the right side, though both of the guy’s eyes were half hooded by red lids. He certainly wasn’t fat, but he was soft and formless and pretty much deserved his nickname.

“Buenos dias, jefe,” Jamon said as he stood up on uneasy legs. An empty half-pint bottle rattled at his feet. Mitch was just liberal enough to be uncomfortable being called boss, but he reached in his pocket and handed Horace a dollar and said emphatically “para desayuno.” Jamon almost bowed to his flabby waist and said “gracias, jefe.” Mitch went on with his morning constitutional, while Carmen, her white tail wagging, lingered for more pets, from her gentle friend. “I am such an enabler,” Mitch thought as he turned the corner, “but whatcha gonna do?”

Soon too, Carmen left Jamon on the doorstep to contemplate yet another lost day. With the big old man still in sight in the distance with his back to her, Carmen ducked down an alley and then slid under the gate toward the smell of coffee and her third breakfast of the morning. Halfway, up the walkway, she noticed a strange man sitting on her chair. He had short gray hair and was wearing a blue and white flower-print shirt open to the waist, a pair of chino slacks and was barefoot. Carmen went directly to her place and looked up at the man expectantly.

“Oh, oh,” the man said. “Where did you come from, you little rascal?” Berger was amused, but thought it best to shoo the dog away. “Scat,” he said and waved his hand, palm down, at the mutt. The dog just stood there, with its black and white face cocked at a quizzical angle. “Scat!” Joe said, in what he felt was a commanding voice. When the dog didn’t budge, Joe tried “Vamos!” thinking maybe Spanish would work. Nope. The dog stood stoically beside his chair. This is when Joe’s hopes took an unfortunate turn. Berger made what he felt was a playful swing at the dog with his bare foot, in an attempt to get the animal to move away. What Beth saw as she passed through the door was the guy who she had spent the night with kicking her favorite breakfast companion. Poor Joe didn’t see or hear Beth until he attempted an even firmer nudge, no not exactly, kick, not really, swipe with his foot at the dog, who he thought was the intruder.

“What in the fuck do you think you’re doing?” It wasn’t a scream exactly, but the protest was decibels louder than a simple question. It caught Berger completely by surprise as Carmen leapt from the terrace and hid behind a rose bush.

To his eternal regret, Joe answered “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Beth snarled. “I just saw you kick Carmen. What gives you the right to kick that dog?”

“I didn’t know it was your dog,” Berger said, and then immediately corrected his defense to “I didn’t really kick him. I was like, you know, shooing him away.”

“It’s a her, you idiot.” Beth looked like she was shaking in rage, which put Berger in a panic. “And, I saw you kick her. So don’t deny it.”

“But, I didn’t.” By that time, the argument was lost and Berger knew it. Nothing. Why did I say nothing? I am an idiot.

“Get the fuck out of my house.” Beth stood rigid and pointed toward the doorway, where Tica, the maid, stood with two large plates and one small one of scrambled eggs. Apparently the maid had adapted much better to the situation than Joe, who only expected that two would be having breakfast that morning.

“Oh, please Beth—this is a silly misunderstanding.” When Joe stood up, it must have looked to Carmen as if he was threatening Beth, because she started barking at him.

“I wasn’t kicking your dog,” Joe insisted.

“She’s not my dog,” Beth said waving her arm in an exasperated manner.

Joe’s mind was racing. Not her dog, so what’s the big deal. He was playing around, not trying to hurt him or her or whoever. “Oh, come on,” he said, while Carmen barked incessantly, from the foot of the terrace. Joe also saw Tica smiling broadly, and that pissed him off. “This is stupid,” he said in a voice with a brand new but not welcome tone of anger.

“Get__the__fuck__out__of__my__house,” Beth pronounced each word with individual emphasis, “Right, now.”

“Jesus Christ, Beth, would you calm down for a moment.” It was too late for Joe to attempt to take some sort of control.

At that Beth whirled around and told Tica to “telefone las policias, por favor.” Joe didn’t speak Spanish, but he could figure that out.

“Okay, okay, Christ this is stupid, but I’ll leave. Just let me get my shoes, and wallet and stuff.”

“Tica, policias, pronto.” Tica put the plates down and went inside.

“You are overreacting,” Joe said, pointing his finger in his ex-girlfriend’s face. However, he didn’t hesitate and soon had his wallet in his pocket and his shoes in his hand. In another moment, he was out the front door, which was slammed behind him.

“How in the hell was I supposed to know that that dog was going to have breakfast with us,” Joe asked rhetorically, out loud, as he sat on the steps and slipped the boat shoes on his feet.

2010-02-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Four

It got lonely, sometimes. Barb Multusky sat on her favorite bench along the promenade at the end of Las Bovedas and watched an afternoon thunderhead build ominously behind and above the line of skyscrapers that surrounded the steel gray Bay of Panama. The windows of the buildings reflected the late afternoon sun and seemed to burn bright in contrast to the smooth gray of the water and the darkening gray of the clouds behind. She puffed on her cigarette, only the second of the day, while Carmen rested at ease at her feet. With her two front black paws crossed in a dainty prone pose, Carmen waited patiently, the leash slack on Barb’s wrist, until the cigarette was flicked over the wall and their routine stroll would continue. Two benches down, a small black guy, with a natty black straw hat, sat and strummed a ukulele and sang a guttural version of The Banana Boat Song. Every once in a while, a tourist (usually the male member of a couple) would drop a quarter in the tin can at his feet as a reward for a rendition that reminded Barb more of Tom Waits than Harry Belafonte.

Barb had lots of acquaintances, people she liked, like Marge and Beth and Suzanne, who ran a store filled with Peruvian rugs and handmade hammocks; but she didn’t really count on any of them as friends. Most of the expats and especially most of the Panamanians she met, were friendly enough and in fact were more social, meaning that they actually liked going out to dinner and having cocktail parties and meeting for drinks, which Barb seldom did back in Saginaw. (Back in Michigan, people would say “We have to get together, sometime…,” but that wouldn’t necessarily mean soon, or within a fortnight or ever really.) But friends? Like Morgan, who she taught with off and on for her entire career, or Jackie, her best friend from high school, who was her maid of honor—no, there was nobody like that in Panama. Of course, those friendships took time, and if anything most of the retirees she knew were getting older and running out of time. They just didn't share the background—West Coast; East Coast; Midwest; South or Great Britain or South Africa. In some ways they were as different from the people Barb knew back home as were the Panamanians.

“Everybody has their ways,” Mitch would say and it was true. It seemed like everyone spoke with an accent. There were however a couple of things most people that made up the so-called expat community seemed to have in common. The first thing was a willingness, maybe even a need, to meet other people, what Mitch called “a common bond between strangers in a strange land.” Many of the ladies would share shopping tips, particularly leads on where to find certain hard-to-get grocery items, like tender beef for example (Panamanian beef was grass fed, lean and tough. Barb never realized how important “corn-fed” was until she tried to chew a piece of grass-fed steak.) The guys would discuss car repair places (Flat tires were not rare, but only cost three bucks to repair) and service people like plumbers, electricians and movers. Plenty of folks were generous with advice. Barb tried to be.

Carmen seemed to always be on the lookout for bits of food and the promenade, which was the main tourist attraction in Casco Viejo, was a good place to find chunks of hot dog buns; a solitary fried yucca; or chicken bones. Barb felt embarrassed sometimes and thought people might think that she didn’t feed her dog enough. Pollo was obviously Carmen’s favorite and she seemed to have a knack for locating the remains of a chicken dinner, whereever she sniffed. “It’s genetic,” Mitch liked to say. “She’s a street dog and always will be and the love of pollo is in her blood.”

The other thing that Barb understood, but didn't always appreciate was how self-centered many of the expats were. When Barb complained, Mitch would ask rhetorically, “Well, who isn't a bit self-centered when you get down to it.” Barb agreed that everybody was a bit and so the only ones who were actually designated as “self-centered” were those who were very much so. Many expats were very much so. When Barb said something like “Everybody is so damned self-centered,” Mitch would get agitated and throw his meat hooks in the air and say “Everybody. It can’t be everybody. It’s not all, by any means, but, I gotta admit it’s not some, or a few, either.”

“No, you’re right,” Barb would fight back, “I wouldn’t just say many, though—I think it’s more like most.”

“Many, most, more than some, lots,” Mitch would agree, “whatever, it’s too many.” When the topic came up, like over cocktails before dinner at Indigo’s, the couple would allow each other to vent for a while and then agree that it was rather self-centered of them to complain about how self-centered everybody else was, but “then again, we’re expats too and can’t help it.” Mitch would grin and get Barb to smile.

When she met somebody new, which seemed to be a weekly occurrence, if not more frequently, the new comers had plenty of questions: Where’s the nearest mall/ liquor store/ beauty shop/ garage/ hardware store/ dry cleaners/ kosher deli/ movie theatre (with the latest Hollywood movies—which translates to “in English.”)/ bookstore (with books in English)/ etc.? Who’s your Spanish instructor/ doctor (Educated where?)/ lawyer (Jewish? Male?)/ architect/ builder/ masseuse/ hairdresser/ dentist/ psychic/ mechanic/ manicurist/ gardener/ maid/ etc., and do they speak English? What’s your favorite restaurant/bar/radio station (…English?)/ bakery/ beach/hardware store/route to the airport? And, can you lend me your can opener/telephone book/car/sports jacket/ maid (“I really need her Tuesday, just this once. Naturally, that would be the Multusky’s regular day.)/ lap-top/ tweezers/map of Panama City/corkscrew? Barb didn’t mind exactly, (except when somebody tried to steal her maid), but after awhile it got tedious, maybe even relentless.

Had Mitch and she done the same thing? Of course, but they mostly went out and bought stuff they needed or waited for it to arrive in their container; and if they did borrow something it was never anything essential to the other person like their coffee maker; and as far as they know they returned what was borrowed. Mitch and she would drive around town in their new lime green Hyundai Santa Fe SUV to explore and find where the stores were located. It was part of the adventure. It just seemed like more give and much less take than seemed fair. It was highly unlikely that they would need to borrow something from a “newbie”; or get directions to the dentist office; or advice on title insurance; only vice versa.

Sometimes, Carmen would pull on the leash that was attached to a small harness strapped neatly around her white fuzzy shoulders. Most of the time, her pulling meant that she needed to relieve herself, which was one of the purposes of the walk. When Barb and Carmen came around the tip of the peninsula past the Ministry of Culture building, they were hit by a stiff breeze. That was when Carmen squatted and took a dump. Barb was good. She carried a small plastic bag for just such a situation. However, when Barb leaned over with the bag covering her hand, the wind blew the dog droppings away; not far but just out of reach. Barb quickly grabbed one as two or three others rolled along the tiled sidewalk. “Oh, shit!” Barb said and then laughed at herself for the unintended pun. With Carmen helping not in the least, but actually wanting to pull away, Barb scuttled along and eventually captured the last tootsie-roll sized bit of puppy poop. Barb knew that at that point Mitch would have quoted Johnny Carson and said “No good deed goes unpunished.”

The other thing about expats, especially newcomers, was that many, maybe not most but a majority, quite naturally assumed that the other person, like Barb, for example, was not only interested but eager to hear “their story.” Seldom was “how are you?” met with a simple “Fine.” In Barb's experience, the new wife of the retired car dealer from Jacksonville or the retired Air Force Colonel immediately assumed you wanted to hear all about them and how the furnishing of their condo was going. Maybe what bothered Barb most was that the stories were hardly ever unique or interesting. The shipping container arrived two weeks late from the States; or the air conditioners blew only hot air; or the construction of a new high-rise had just broken ground right in front of their view of the sea. One guy spoke non-stop for 45 minutes about cabinets he was having installed. “He never once seemed to notice that we were just sitting there,” Barb pointed out. “If I was his wife, I would have kicked him under the table. But she didn’t and that amazed me as well.”

“I just hope I’m never the guy who deserves to get kicked,” Mitch said.

“The longer I stay here,” Barb would say as Mitch would admit that it was true, “the more the same old stories repeat themselves; and we haven't been here that long. If I hear another sad tale of woe about a tile job that didn't turn out perfect, I'm gonna scream.”

Mitch agreed that there was “a lot of the same-old, same-old bitching and moaning” going on, but tried to be philosophical about it. “I guess it's kinda new and scary for them; they don't know what to expect.”

“Fine,” Barb replied “but how about after a blow by blow by blow description of their visit to Immigration; how about inquiring or even faking some interest in our experiences. Half of ‘em; more than half of ‘em; go right on to their next topic,” which was often how screwy, or stupid or simply wrong things were in Panama.

The thing Barb almost couldn't stand at times was Panamanian bashing. It appeared that a significant minority of the expat community hated the people who populated their adopted country, or at least talked as if they did. “Those damn Panamanians...” was like a refrain that drove Barb batty sometimes. Another refrain was “It's hard to believe the locals can stand...” followed by something like the heat or the lack of customer service that frustrated the usually white, elderly speaker. Okay, traffic was nuts, with drivers honking their horns as they cut off whomever they wanted to be in front of. And manana was a fact. The cable guy; the fellas delivering your new couch; the investigating police officer; your regularly scheduled maid; or your dinner guests seldom if ever arrived on time and often came a day or two later than scheduled.

For the most part, Barb really liked the Panamanians she had met. It's not very practical to generalize about a nation, even a small country of three million, (She wasn’t generalizing about the expats—they were an identifiable self-centered group.), but the people of Panama seemed to be quite friendly, a bit shy but quick to smile and most tried to be helpful. Barb readily admitted that she found it infuriating that the telephone repair guy had called that he was on his way but didn't make it until 11 a.m. the following day. Yes, she's not so old and out of it that she doesn't remember that the government agencies were somewhat more efficient in the States; but she also remembers dreading going to the MVA or standing in line at a U.S. post office during the holidays. Part of the problem, Barb was sure, was that expats were seen quite legitimately as foreigners (by some locals as rich foreigners), who couldn't be bothered to learn to speak Spanish. So some of the tradesmen and business people who the newcomers encountered did in fact try to take advantage or simply dealt with people, in what to foreigners, seemed like a cockeyed manner. Again, if it was different in the States, it was more a matter of degree rather than opposites. “I guess all construction superintendents in the States are honest, on-time perfectionists and the fact that problems sometimes arise down here catch people by surprise,” Mitch would say with a straight face and Barb would laugh.

Often, when Barb dropped what both Mitch and she called a “doggy bag” into the trash can, she would recall her husband’s misadventure trying to pick up what his dog dropped. One day, Carmen apparently wasn't feeling well, because when she did her duty, it was in puddle form in the middle of the walkway and Mitch didn't have a spatula to scoop her dirty work into the bag. So, he force marched his dog back to their building and found a nice new bucket where the concierge had left it in the laundry room. Mitch filled it with warm water at the utility sink and hurried back to the scene of the crime.

As he briskly approached, Mitch spotted a woman in the distance, who looked like she was doing that old sixties dance called the frug, with a little mashed potatoes thrown in. He guessed that she had hit the spot, which usually has a positive connotation, but not in this case. After some slippin' an' sliddin', she finally did an awkward spin and then landed on the seat of her pedal pushers. Mitch felt terrible and rushed to her aid, but not before putting the bucket down, not only so he could move faster, but admittedly so she might not realize that he somehow had partial ownership of the brown slick. Luckily, she was okay, only slightly shaken up but stained. Mitch walked her down the stairs and over to where he hailed a taxi for her, in front of the French Embassy.

Whirling quickly, Mitch hustled past several vendors selling molas, jewelry and old Panamanian license plates and took the steps two at a time with his long legs. There were a half dozen skate boarders attempting to crack all the tiles on the promenade. That's when he noticed one groovy guy skidding dangerously close to Carmen’s catastrophe. The surfing term “wipe out” probably popped into his head an instant before it popped into Mitch’s, as it became clear that his board was planing. For a split second, Mr. Multusky witnessed the scene in slow motion. The board went one way and spun in the air as the boarder danced tip-toe in the direction of the wall. For a moment, Mitch feared that the skate-boarding “dude” would suffer the same fate as the ancient prisoners at high tide; but instead of going over the wall, he rather gracefully belly flopped on to the rim of the precipice.

Well, enough of that. Mitch wasn't interested in going for a third strike, so he dashed for the bucket. It wasn't where he thought he left it. Breathing heavily, Mitch darted back and forth, guessing that he had simply forgotten the exact location. It wasn't anywhere. Somebody had stolen the bucket.

Maybe they were lucky. When they first arrived, a couple a years back, Mitch and she knew no one. They retained a young lawyer by the name of Benito Cortez (They saw a small ad for “Newcomers” in Focus, a tourist magazine, and liked his historic sounding last name.), who helped them with their pensioners’ visas and setting up a corporation and a bank account. In Panama, a lawyer is required to get anything done. Immigrants who try to get things accomplished on their own are always frustrated and soon gone, as Barb had dutifully advised several newcomers. Benito was 28 and engaged to Candida Riva who was 24 and had majored in hospitality and tourism management at the University of Miami. Both spoke English very well (“Beni”, as he was called, had gone to military school in Virginia, before attending Texas Tech. He got his law degree in Panama). What Barb and Mitch didn’t know until later was that they were the very first clients of the brand new company Newcomer Services, Inc., that “Candi” and her fiancée had set up.

Barb and Mitch were pleased and impressed by how much time Beni and Candi spent on their behalf. They didn’t know that there were no other customers to distract their guides. Beni, tall, dark and, yes, handsome, maybe even male-model handsome looked the part of an up-and-coming lawyer. Even though she was thin and blonde, Candi was still very Spanish in the way she passionately approached every conversation, with big brown eyes and plenty of gestures and vehemence. While Beni, with his “Jon-Jon style” as Barb liked to refer to his approach, was there for any legal matters, Candi, who wasn’t pretty exactly but stylish in peasant blouses, jeans and high heels, was almost like a personal assistant. After she had shown them the apartment in Casco Viejo that they really liked and could afford; she would pick them up and take them furniture shopping (she would demand a discount and usually get it); arrange for the place to be painted (she scolded the painters about tardiness and drips.); and answer any question, since the Multuskys had her cell phone number and called it once or twice a day, at least.

Usually, an older couple would take a young couple under their wing and show them “the ropes,” whatever that meant. However in this case it was the younger couple who looked out for the older ones, who lacked the experience. Yes, at first, the Multuskys paid for the services provided, but soon after spending literally whole days together, the two couples started spending social time together. The Multuskys were invited to the Cortez family beach house out near Coranado. Before long, they attended Candi and Beni’s wedding and danced and drank until three in the morning. Mitch stood out on the terrace and smoked cigars with Beni’s uncles Alfredo, Juan and Mike. More than once, Barb had lunch with Senora Riva, Candi’s mother, who spoke pretty good English, was always charming, but seemed impatient with Barb’s very limited Spanish. Candi’s parents were the same age as the Multuskys, while Beni’s parents were actually a couple of years younger; and yet, Barb and Mitch would still go out to dinner or at least have drinks with their younger mentors at least once a week and spoke several times a week on the phone.

Barb and Mitch didn’t get it exactly. Why would these youngsters take such an interest in them, but the Multuskys considered themselves very fortunate indeed. It certainly had something to do with the Multuskys being the first “newcomers” that Candi and Beni worked with and wanting it to be a successful venture, but after a while, the two couples (who Mitch called “the geezers and the go-getters”) had actually become friends. Neither Barb nor Mitch had strong family ties back in Michigan, which made leaving relatively easy. What they didn’t expect was to be included into a nice, generous Panamanian family, who welcomed them to birthday parties and Easter dinner and Mitch’s favorite, New Year’s Eve, with plenty of fireworks.

In fact, Newcomer Services, Inc. was not a successful business and “the kids” as Mitch and Barb referred to them but never addressed them as such, shut the operation down soon after it started. It was never determined how many clients were served, but it did seem that the Multuskys were members of an exclusive club. It was a shame; Barb thought that more expats couldn’t have benefitted from the same type of help that Mitch and she had received. But then again, there were only so many newly retired couples that Candi and Beni could adopt.

Barb unlocked the gate that led to the canopied walk way back to the courtyard in front of their apartment. She always let go of the leash and flipped it into the air. Carmen seemed to like to catch the leash in her teeth and carry it back to the next set of locked doors herself. Carmen then stood patiently by the door to the building and then the apartment door itself as Barb unlocked each. In moments the little harness was off and hooked in the front closet. “Okay, kiddo” Barb said as Carmen walked over to her water bowl, “you’re free.”

That was when Barb noticed Mitch sitting on the couch in the shadows with his head in his hands. “Oh, my,” Barb could tell from his slumped posture that something was very wrong, “what’s the matter Darling? Are you all right?”

“I’m okay, I guess,” Mitch said, as his tiny wife tried to put her arms around his wide shoulders. “I just got mugged, or car jacked or whatever you want to call it.”

“Oh, no, Darling.”

“Yeh, I was short-cutting through Chorrillo, had just turned down a side road off Avenita de los Poetas, to cut across to Avenita “A”, when this young guy, who was crossing the street stopped in front of my car. He stood there smiling at me; smirking actually. I was being patient, you know, not honking my horn or anything. Well, I should have run the little prick over. It all took about five seconds. Suddenly all four of my doors were open and guys, young men, teenagers, I don’t know, were lunging into the car. Yes, my doors were unlocked and the front windows were open, I know, but it was 2 p.m. and I’ve gone that way a dozen times; well anyway, this one guy has a hold of my St. Christopher medal and I grab him by the wrist when I see a hand reaching for the keys in the ignition. Some punk had dived across the seat; so I let go and grabbed his wrist as I elbowed the first fella in the forehead as he pops the chain and gets the medal. The guy has the keys so I don’t let go. I’m holding on with both hands, basically as they clean out the rest of the car. CDs; my golf clubs; our groceries and the case of beer I just picked up; but I wasn’t going to let that bastard get my car keys. Somebody had opened my door and had his arm around my neck and was trying to pull me out, but as they did the keys slipped into my hand and allowed me to start throwing elbows. I was standing next to the car and pushed the one guy down as I watched a couple of other punks running off with my golf clubs.”

Barb was sitting straight up, rigid. She noticed that Mitch had a scratch on his face and his hair was mussed and that he seemed smaller, more vulnerable than he had ever seemed before. He was her giant, bigger than most men; and he could have been killed.

“No kidding, the cops arrived right then. Obviously, they patrol that area regularly. They pull up in one of those pickup truck van things and two guys in flak jackets get out with shotguns and stand there looking mean, basically guarding me, but it’s over. They didn’t get my wallet, which I was sitting on for most of it and they didn’t get our phone which was in my front pocket, so I called Beni, who I got to talk to the police, who shrugged when I asked them ‘Hablan ingles?’ Beni said the cops said I had to go down to the main police station and file a report where they have translators; and ‘what the hell was I doing in that neighborhood?’

“I’m telling you, it was over in seconds and the cops were sending me on my way within minutes. They weren’t pursuing any perpetrators. I was so angry and so frustrated and so embarrassed, I can’t tell you. You could tell the police thought I was an idiot, but I had been that way before, and I’m a big guy, you know and it was broad daylight and there is road construction the other way and traffic and this was so much quicker, but the windows were open and Jesus, the doors were even unlocked. I was probably their easiest mark in months.”

Carmen had slowly inched up to where she was leaning against one of Mitch’s long legs. Mitch absentmindedly fingered her black ear.

“It’s not your fault,” Barb said firmly. “People should be able to drive around, without being attacked.”

“Not in that neighborhood,” Mitch said, and he was right. Chorrillo, which was next door to Casco Viejo, was one of the most notoriously dangerous sections of the city. Nobody would consider driving through there at night, not even with the doors locked and the windows up—not even a big old guy like Mitch, who had spent most of his life not really being afraid of anyone. What neither one said but both were thinking was that Mitch was lucky none of his attackers appeared to have a gun.

Chorrillo was where the 1989 US invasion of Panama had taken place. Noriega’s old neighborhood had been bombed out and never really recovered from what was called at the time Operation Just Cause. Much of Panama was poor, but Chorrillo had the most resentment, the meanest streets, the toughest gangs and the worst reputation, fully deserved. So more than anything else Mitch felt foolish, naïve, like just any other silly gringo, who didn’t know shit. The first guy probably spotted the open windows and stepped forward. Unlocked doors were a bonus. It was sad that thugs would hang around waiting for marks to happen by, a grim way to live, but that was how it was in Chorrillo, truly infested with crime. Mitch’s plight didn’t even draw much of a crowd; a few kids gawked, while some might have been hoping for an opportunity of their own. That’s why the police stood around looking menacing, but that is also why they copped an attitude. It was obvious in Spanish, English or body language that they had very little sympathy for this tall, white ignorant man who walked into the lion’s den wearing a pork chop jacket. What a fool.

“So what are we going to do?” Barb asked.

“Well, I’m going to talk to Beni and see if there’s any point in filling out a police report. I mean I doubt if I could ID anyone except maybe that jerk who stopped my car. I’d like to wipe that look off of his face. Otherwise, I’m going to have a beer, lick my wounds and I guess we’ll never be able to go that way again.”

All valid, but that wasn’t actually what Barb meant. For the first time since they had moved to Panama, Barb thought that it was all a big mistake. “We can’t stay here,” is what Barb thought as Mitch fished a Panama out of the frig. The only problem was that their small apartment in Casco Viejo was their only home. They had no place back in the States. There was no place to go.

2010-01-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

Casco Viejo: The Second Season

Chapter Three

All the usual suspects turned up around 5:30 to stand around the rather small pool situated on the roof of the Columbus House, a four-story building on Avenita “A.” Ice tinkled in a couple of vodka tonics as a light cool breeze came in off the Pacific about four blocks away.

Jerry Cole leaned over and fished an Atlas beer out of a large cooler. Retired at 62, the minimum age for social security, Jerry used to be an engineer with a few different oil companies over the years, but now he and his wife Madge, a nurse—not yet retired at 58, but on leave, were building a beach house on the Pacific coast about two hours away from Panama City. They had moved around quite a bit, Texas, Indonesia, Venezuela, and so, with no roots anywhere, found Panama to be both an exotic enough place for their tastes and rather affordable as compared to where else they had lived. Madge was not thin, with big white framed glasses perched on a small nose and a perpetual smile, and looked larger than her husband, who was thin, nervous and just a bit hunched over. She referred to herself as a “bottle redhead” and kept a wary eye on her husband who wanted to have words with Beth Page, “if or when she has the chutzpah to show her face.”

Madge and Jerry were renting an apartment in the Columbus House until the construction of their house in Gorgona was complete. The problem was that completion was already six months overdue, with no end in sight. Beth had put the deal together, so Jerry held her responsible, even though she had nothing to do with construction and had never even been to the site. Lately, Jerry’s mood was more and more angry and agitated, and he often snapped at Madge, whose “bedside-manner” approach didn’t seem to calm him down like it used to. Jerry expressed machine gun and machete fantasies to Madge at one time or another involving their contractor, most of the work crew and even Beth Page. Madge was glad to see that Jerry was drinking beer and not scotch, so if Beth did show, he might not be tempted to throw her off the roof.

Not only was there a view of the sea, just a few blocks away, but the spires of the church of Saint Francis out toward the water and the National Cathedral, off to the side, stood out above the red tiled roofs of the old stone and concrete buildings that were protected as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The skyscrapers of the city were visible off across the bay, because nothing in Casco was allowed over its original height, almost in every case three stories and seldom higher than four.

It might have looked like Jack Smith was chatting casually with Allen Myers, but he was actually checking out Allen’s date, a small pretty Latin girl in a tiny, tight white dress. Jack, a widower, who lost his Panamanian wife nearly five years ago, had an eye for “Latin ladies,” and the young woman standing beside Meyers, seemed to appreciate it when Jack spoke to her in reasonably coherent Spanish. She smiled shyly, even though there was nothing shy about her outfit. Her breasts were squeezed together and looked as if they might burst free from the low-cut neckline held taught by two thin spaghetti straps.

Allen Myers already had a reputation as a lady’s man, even though he had been in Panama for less than six months. A very successful plastic surgeon, Allen escaped a nasty divorce by moving his millions, tucked neatly away in several foundations, to Panama for safe keeping. According to Allen his wife “got greedy” and wanted a substantial share of his future earnings “on top of” what Meyers characterized as a generous settlement. “Now she gets nothing,” Allen often summarized, with a wink and a sneer, even though it wasn’t quite true, since she owns all their assets that are still located in the States, including a country club home, a beach house, three cars, their joint bank account, which he didn’t clean out (“I’m no criminal,” he said.) and his beloved Chocolate Lab, Buddy, who had been named after Bill Clinton’s dog. At 50, Myers was young for retirement and still planned to practice his specialty in the future, but currently was in Panama on an investor’s visa. Because of pending law suits and warrants (He failed to appear at a couple of court dates.) Myers considered it “ill advised” (according to his lawyer.) to return to the United States, anytime in the near future. So, with plenty of money to spend and his life on hold, he dressed the part of a playboy, with a huge gold Rolex, a heavy gold chain around his neck, a black silk sport shirt open to his navel , sharp slacks and Gucci shoes. Since he was balding already, he decided to go all the way and shave his head for what he called the “Telly Savalas look.”

Obviously, Allen’s date, a 24-year-old hooker from Columbia, had no idea who Savalas was, but it did sound kind of Spanish. Bebe Castro, actually was allowed into Panama to be a prostitute and worked as a pole dancer and professional escort at one of the city’s most popular “gentlemen’s clubs” The Desert Island Club. Bebe had a single ambition in life and that was to marry a rich gringo. It certainly looked like Allen Myers fit the bill; and since Allen seemed to be on a self proclaimed quest “to fuck as many good looking women as humanly possible,” they appeared to Jack, anyway, as a “perfect couple.”

Old Jack had no such ambitions, though he wouldn’t mind getting into Senorita Castro’s panties, that is, if she were wearing any. No, he was happy to just look. To be honest, he still really missed his wife, Patricia, who he had met 40 years ago, when he taught English in the Canal Zone at Balboa High School, and she was a first-year teacher in the History department. After his two-year contract, they moved to College Park, Maryland, where he scratched his way up through grad school at the university and got his doctorate in Composition Studies, while Patricia worked as a school secretary at High Point High School. Pretty soon, he landed a job teaching Freshman Comp at Western Maryland College, eventually becoming head of the department; and that was where he ended up until retirement.

Jack tried not to be bitter because he remembered many good times when he considered himself a popular, successful member of the faculty, with stints as the college senate president and the editor of a respected though small circulation journal, with the uninspired title College Composition. The last few years, however, didn’t go smoothly, with his students showing up for class with earphones and plagiarized essays downloaded off the internet. Somehow, over the years, the English Department, had, according to Jack, turned into a bunch of “school marms,” who saw themselves more as counselors than instructors dedicated to maintaining standards. Nobody seemed to flunk English 101 anymore, even though few of the students knew the difference between there, their or they’re or cared. He wasn’t forced out or anything so dramatic, but the time to leave Western Maryland felt long overdue, and so he and Patricia decided to retire back to good old Panama, where his wife still had plenty of family and they both had fond memories.

It was a shame because Patricia, the little dark-eyed love of his life and mother of two American daughters, died from a stroke soon after their condo on the third floor of The Columbus House was completed, nearly two years before. Patricia had grown up in Casco Viejo and gone to primary school there, so it had been a true homecoming for her. Jack Smith had no other place to go, so he stayed. The fact that he wrote restaurant reviews for a bilingual tourist newspaper called The Visitor/El Visitante, helped pass some of the time. Because his reviews were often witty while still being reliable, even though he really wasn’t supposed to pan any potential advertiser, Jack had become a personality in the expat community. “I’m not sure how,” one of his readers had written in an e-mail, “but somehow I can tell if the place is really first-rate or not, and especially not, even when Jack seems to be saying all the right things about yet another new restaurant .”

“Hardly a celebrity,” Jack pointed out, but “known around town” and often asked for his opinion or for a recommendation for a nice place to eat, “not too expensive.” Actually, that was exactly what Allen Myers was asking him about, just without the price proviso.

“Jeese,” Jack thought, “he doesn’t have to impress this chick. She’s already ready, willing and able to turn him every way but…oh, never mind.” Jack graciously suggested a couple of spots including his usual standby, La Posta, a fine restaurant located in an old house in the center of the city. At that, Jack turned to survey the group that was steadily growing as the roof-top terrace continued to fill with middle-aged ladies in flowing dresses and thin-strapped sandals and “geezer” guys in flower print shirts and boat shoes with no socks. No shorts—long pants was how men “dressed up” in Panama. The building only had eleven apartments, so obviously some of the twenty-plus people were friends and neighbors, most of a certain age.

The exception to the rule (besides bouncy Bebe, who was standing off to the side, not welcomed into any of the gaggles of gals), was Tony Perdu, the young (35) fit and trim yoga instructor, who lived on the top floor with her Polish businessman husband (He was at least 60, wealthy and often absent). Their apartment took up the entire top floor, while the third floor was divided into two suites (Meyers owned one and Jack the other), and the first two floors housed four small apartments each. In a tank top and dark, slim slacks, Tony looked healthy rather than sexy, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was popular with the ladies, who came regularly for her “tough” classes held up on the roof-top terrace in the early morning sun and then again in the late afternoon, three times a week. Tony struck most of the ladies as inspired and thus inspiring, always encouraging her students firmly but positively to do better. The classes were somewhat informal, and Tony allowed the participants to pick and choose among the six classes a week by providing a coupon book, with a dozen prepurchased classes at a reasonable ten bucks a pop. “She’s obviously not in it for the money,” was a common refrain among her ladies, even though it was unclear what she was in it for, besides a vaguely defined missionary zeal for the benefits of yoga and a healthy mind and body. Most of her students (including a couple of guys, with Allen Myers on a semi-regular basis) felt lucky to have Tony.

According to the notice in the hallway, the party was supposed to start at 5:00 p.m. and so Joe Berger arrived a few minutes before. He thought he might be able to ingratiate himself, with whoever was setting up, a good first impression. The only problem was that when Joe stepped off the elevator and climbed the last few steps to the terrace, nobody was there. Nada, not a soul.

“Oh, shit,” Joe said out loud, as his face and neck flushed red in what would have been an obvious blush had anyone seen it. Clutching a bottle of white wine and a bag of tortilla chips, he virtually leaped back to the landing, slammed his palm against the button and slumped into the elevator. Going down. Even though Joe had been looking forward to the get-together since he saw the sign, he didn’t want people to think he was desperate and that’s how he was sure he would have looked to whoever found him waiting forlornly for somebody else to show up. Berger was relieved when nobody was there when the doors opened to the second floor to find him muttering to himself about possibly having “the wrong date or time; or being the only idiot to show up on time; or at all for that matter.”

Back inside his nearly empty bachelor pad, with only one picture on the wall, that of a large pineapple, Joe sat down on one of the two chairs around the kitchen table and considered what to do next. Well, I’ll never show up early again, that’s for sure. He wondered if he could check the sign downstairs one more time without being detected, but thought it was too risky. Instead he decided to wait until “at least 5:30,” and then try again. If nobody was there by then it would be clear that it wasn’t going to happen; maybe it got cancelled or postponed; or maybe they all hid until he left; or it was a cruel practical joke on the new guy.

So Joe was both relieved and surprised when he found nearly two dozen people fully engaged in conversation when he next ascended the final few steps. “Timing’s everything,” Joe thought as he placed the bottle on a table stacked with plastic cups and looked around helplessly for a bowl for the chips.

“Hi, there,” Madge said with what looked to Joe like a smirk. “You’re late.” She immediately regretted the remark because of the odd expression that flashed across this stranger’s face. It was an instant, but the guy looked shocked and bewildered before he quickly composed himself, and with a faint smile, said “Hi. My name is Joe Berger, and I’m new in this building and in Panama for that matter.”

“Well, good to meet you Joe,” Madge said and offered her cheek for an air kiss. “Let’s put these chips on the table, and I’ll introduce you to some of your neighbors.”

“Thank, god,” Joe thought, “for a second there…, oh, fuck it, I’ll get used to stuff around here, soon enough;” but meanwhile, he was actually going to meet some new people. It didn’t take Joe long to spot Tony Perdu, who was pouring herself a glass of white wine. Joe pounced. “Hello,” he said “I hope you’ll like that wine. That’s the one I brought.”

“Oh, great,” Tony thought, “he’s hitting on me.” To be fair, Joe was, and that was a problem since Tony had grown tired of “older guys” constantly coming on to her. She wore her wedding ring and tried not to make eye contact, but without fail, some optimistic “old dude” with hair in his ears, would give her “that look” which meant she was going to be cornered. Within a moment, Madge, in her green and white flower print dress swooped in to save Joe, who immediately recognized the meaning of his target’s body language. “Jesus Christ,” he thought, as he noticed her faint cringe and pursed lips. “I still got it, and it’s not good.”

“Hey there, Tony, I’d like you to meet our newest neighbor, Joe from Florida,” Madge said. “This is Tony, everybody’s favorite yoga instructor,” she continued as Joe observed the woman across from him fain a cordial smile. “Yoga, huh? Maybe I’ll take some lessons,” Joe offered, as he watched Tony do a poor job of concealing her lack of enthusiasm. He then tried out the retired sports agent angle on the two physical opposites,one slim and trim and one not, but it was clear that neither were interested, much less impressed. “Oh, I don’t even understand sports,” Marge said with a giggle and a wave of her hand. “Neither do I,” said Tony. Conversation over. Joe wandered over to the railing and watched as one falcon and then a second landed on the red roof of the building across the street. They were small, compact birds, with sharp curved beaks, brown/gray wings and a row of horizontal grey bars across their white breasts; and held on to the peak of tiles with what looked like oversized yellow claws.

When Joe turned around he noticed the blonde woman, he had seen a couple of days before on the street, come up onto the terrace. “Oh, good,” he thought, “she’s more in my age bracket, and nice lookin’ too.” Beth Page, who did look good in a Spanish style peasant blouse that showed off her bare shoulders, lived around the corner and knew just about everybody in the building and most of the gringos in Casco Viejo. She immediately spotted a fellow she didn’t know by the railing staring at her. “Oh, oh,” she thought as she tried to avoid eye contact, and quickly stepped up to little Barb Multusky, who was standing by herself with a glass of white wine in her hand.

“Who’s that new guy,” Beth said as she moved her head slightly in his direction.

“I have no idea,” Barb replied. “There are always new people and sometimes I just can’t keep up with all the comings and goings. You know what I mean?”

“Absolutely. So where’s Mitch?” Just as she asked, Beth spotted Barb’s husband’s head sticking out from a group of average height men across the room. She could see Allen Myers and Jack Smith with Jerry Cole, whose back was to her. “Well, the gang’s all here.” Barb shrugged. First Mitch, from his higher vantage point, saw Beth and smiled, but then Allen and Jack turned and smiled as well. At that, Jerry literally spun around and glared in Beth’s direction. “Oh, Jesus, not again,” Beth moaned and Barb shrugged again.

“You have a lot of gall, showing your face around here,” Jerry said as he strode over to confront the woman he held personally responsible for getting him into a construction nightmare that seemed destined never to end. At the same time Madge was literally scuttling across the terrace in what turned out be an unsuccessful attempt to intercept her husband before he confronted Beth Page.

“Oh, come off it.” Beth stood defiantly with her hands on her hips. “I don’t even have a drink yet. Gimme a break.”

“Jerry, now…” Madge cautioned.

“Shut up, Madge,” Jerry said a decibel too loud and in an angry tone that made everyone on the terrace take note and feel uncomfortable. “I simply want to find out what Mrs. Page has done to facilitate matters as far as our house project is concerned. For example, did you know that our contractor has not been on site for a week and is not returning my phone calls?”

“I’m not surprised,” Beth said as she pushed past toward the bar. “Why would anybody want to call you back?” It was the way she said you (dripping with asshole connotation) that even stopped Jerry for a moment to contemplate the answer to the question. A quick scan of the audience showed that the group of guys Jerry had abandoned was thoroughly enjoying the confrontation, while Barb, Tony and even Bebe seemed more interested than distressed. Only Madge looked worried. “Please, honey, she said in a voice so plaintive that her husband, paused a moment, before he continued “it’s your damn responsibility, and you know it.”

“Okay, friend, enough is enough.” It was the new guy standing between Jerry and Beth. If a group could ever have a communal thought, it was then; and could be generalized as something to the effect of “What the fuck does he think he’s doing?”

What Joe Berger, the new guy who had been renting an apartment on the second floor for almost two weeks, thought he was doing was coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. He saw his opportunity to impress this attractive woman and he leapt on it. The surprising thing was that it appeared to work. Jerry, for a second, hunched over even more than usual and clenched and unclenched his fists, but it was clear that the air was leaking out of his balloon. Madge pushed her glasses back up her nose as far as they would go and hesitantly placed her chubby hand on her husband’s thin arm. Jerry turned to Beth’s back as she poured herself a full glass of red wine and hissed, “I’ll being calling you first thing, Monday morning.”

“Good luck, with that,” Myers said under his breath to Jack and Mitch, who nodded, while attempting to stifle a laugh. Everyone, except Bebe of course, whose bare back shined with a thin coat of perspiration, turned back and attempted to remember what they were talking about before Jerry went on his rampage.

That left Beth to turn around and deal with a smiling guy, standing right behind her, who she didn’t know and had never met before, but for some reason had decided to take her side.

“So, who in the hell are you,” she said as she brushed past the rather ordinary looking guy with a short gray haircut, and a dumb grin on his face. (“Joe …) After she balanced the wine glass on the railing, (Berger, I’m…), Beth rummaged through her purse for a second (new in the building…), and brought out a pack of Kools. (…and you’re?) Joe was thrilled—he too was a smoker, a dying breed. In a flash he whipped out his lighter. Beth couldn’t help it; she touched his hand to steady the lighter and lit her cigarette. She regretted the tiny intimate gesture and tried to make it appear that she was shielding the flame from the breeze, but it was too late. The Joe fella reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights.

“You know back in the States, it’s almost impossible to smoke in public anymore,” Joe said, as he beamed at Beth. “We’re outside here though, so I guess it’s all right.”

“Listen Joe,” Beth said, more exasperated than peeved, “I really don’t need your help, and in the future, I would appreciate it, if…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Joe said, hoping to keep up his confidence for at least a few more moments, “you’re obviously a very capable woman. I’ve seen you before, around town, and I wanted to meet you; and I was worried that that jerk would cause such a scene that you would leave or sock him or something and I wouldn’t get a chance to introduce myself.”

“Okay,” Beth thought. “He’s not going away, and that is a pretty good line, which could even be true, so what the shit…” and with a sigh, she asked the mandatory series of introductory questions.

“So, where in Florida are you from?”

“Miami. And where are you from?”

“Arizona. The Phoenix area. My husband and I had a real estate business and we moved down here because of the many opportunities in that field.” When she noticed a quizzical look on Joe’s face, Beth added, “He died almost two years ago, but I’m still at it. So, what did you do in Miami, and what brings you to Panama?”

“I was a sports agent, but it wasn’t as glamorous as some people suppose,” Joe offered.

“I really have no idea what that entails,” Beth admitted.

“Good,” Joe thought. “And, to be honest, I’m not sure why I ended up down here.” Joe reverted to honesty for just a brief moment. “I’m retired and looking for something new.”

Beth took a long sip of her wine. “Oh, shit,” she thought, “if he says that he’s keeping his options open, I’ll just throw myself over the railing.”

“So anyway, I’m pretty much keeping my options open.” When Joe noticed Beth shrink back, barely perceptibly, he laughed. After years of experience, Joe had become sensitive to even the slightest sign of distain or rejection, but he was turning over a new leaf, so he pretended not to be discouraged, and countered with, “Pretty weak huh?”

“Well…” Beth knew he had detected her cringe.

“Actually, I’m escaping,” Joe said.

“Oh, great, probably the police” Beth thought, even though she was aware that he seemed to be acutely aware and reading her thoughts, or at least anticipating her reactions.

“The cops,” Joe said, and when a look of amazement appeared on Beth’s face, “just kiddin’. I caught my wife in bed with another man—literally my neighbor. It’s the worst kind of divorce, because to prove you have grounds, you have to prove you’re a cuckold, which is no fun at all. So, any way, that’s what I left behind in Florida. That’s what I’m getting away from.”When Beth looked relieved, Joe’s confidence soared. Honesty isn’t always the best policy. “Here let me get you another glass of wine.”

When he returned from the bar, Barb and Mitch Multusky were standing beside Beth, who introduced them to Joe. Unlike at first, Beth did not feel any more like she needed to lose this Bozo, and actually filled Joe in when they turned to go. No they didn’t live at Columbus House either, but had a little courtyard apartment down Avenida “A” “in a building called Casa something, I don’t remember; but they’re the nicest couple.”

At seven o’clock sharp, as if a factory whistle had sounded, people gathered at the stairwell and made their goodbyes. Beth and Joe were smoking off to the side, near the pool. “So, how about a bite to eat,” Joe enquired, keeping things casual.

“Sure,” Beth said, "why not?”

Casco Viejo: The Second Season, Chapter Two

2010-01-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

If this is your first time at Casco Viejo, The Second Season, please go back to chapter one and catch up on the beginning of the story...listed under 2009

Chapter Two

Carmen was a Casco Viejo street dog. She roamed freely around the old section, along the narrow, cobblestone and brick streets, bordered by uneven, pock-marked sidewalks and around piles of sand and stacks of cinderblocks in front of construction sites. There were cats in doorways she knew to avoid and small barky dogs on balconies that seemed to yell at her, jealous of her freedom.

Carmen was also a pet. Her owners, Barb and Mitch Multusky, two retired educators from Saginaw, Michigan, would take Carmen on walks on a leash at least twice a day along the Paseo General Esteban Huertas, a promenade that curved around the top of Las Bovedas, the fortified walls that protected the old city. Mitch, who used to coach basketball before he became a vice principal, often said that this “had to be one of the prettiest dog walks any where in the world.” A trellis of pink, white and purple bougainvillea shaded about one third of the walkway, and then opened up to breezes off the Pacific Ocean that lapped at the walls where dungeons (bovedas) were located. The legend is that prisoners were sometimes chained to the walls at low tide and faced their fate at high tide.

Barb liked to sit on a bench, with Carmen at her feet, and gaze out at the skyline of the modern Panama City. More and more skyscrapers seemed to be rising up every day along the coast of Panama Bay. Barb was trying to cut back on her cigarette habit so she never smoked in their one-bedroom loft apartment, about a block away. She only indulged her guilty pleasure outside, so the bench was ideal as pelicans swooped by in formation. Mitch called them “the Panamanian Air Force.” Carmen would sit patiently and wait to be adored by young tourist women with ankle bracelets, or kids, who had gotten loose from their parents (Some Panamanian children were afraid of dogs, which seemed silly in Carmen’s case, since she was less than 30 pounds and on a leash.) or couples of various ages, who were out for a romantic stroll.

The rest of the walkway curved around the tip of the peninsula, with views of the Amador Causeway, the man-made break water that bordered the entrance to the Panama Canal and then the Bridge of the Americas, a tall, steel-girder arch that spanned the canal and connected the city, with the western half of the country. Out at sea, a number of ships rested at anchor, waiting their turn to pass through the canal. At night, their lights reflected in long thin lines across the water, near three small islands that were stuck in shadow at the end of the causeway.

Every time, Carmen paused at the top of the steps that led down to the Plaza de Francia, where the monument to the failed French effort to dig the canal is located. Mitch liked to say, as Carmen seemed to survey the statues and tall obelisk with the French rooster at the tip, that “Carmen loves a view.” Especially in the evening when the sun set behind the mountains past the far end of the bridge, the views were, as Mitch often noted, “stunning.” Scattered along the way, were Kuna Indians, at tables or sitting beside blankets, selling molas, ornate, stitched panels of cloth with bird and lizard designs that were actually part of their native costume. The tiny women (Kunas are the second smallest people in the world, after pigmies) wear the molas as kind of bibs, and they also wear colorful scarves, multi-print blouses and skirts and beaded anklets. The men wear tee shirts and baseball caps. Tourists buy the squares of dark black or green cloth with bright green, yellow and orange designs and turn them into pillows or wall hangings. Most of the vendors know Carmen’s name. “They don’t have any idea what our names are,” Mitch points out, “and they don’t seem interested; but they all know Carmen.” Maybe it is because to some extent Carmen is one of them.

Barb and Mitch feed Carmen and take her for regular visits to the vet, but they have no intention of interfering with Carmen’s freedom. Like the Kunas, who resisted Spanish domination in the old days of conquest, Carmen has no intention of being held prisoner. The Kuna nation still rules over an autonomous province in Panama today—tiny free spirits. The Multuskys put the collar on Carmen (a simple, thin leather affair, with no dog tag), in the hope that no one else would take custody of the little dog with the funny black and white face. Their apartment is located on the ground floor and looks out on a court yard in the center of a three-story restored colonial house. There are six other apartments in the building. Three barred windows open onto the courtyard from the Multuskys’ living room. When ever, the windows are open, which is often, Carmen has no trouble slipping her thin white, wiry body between the bars. She then slips out between the bars of the locked gate at the building’s entrance and is on the street again.

Barb first spotted a small white puppy with a half white and half black face curled up behind a potted palm in the courtyard—it was as if she was hiding out after she had apparently snuck in through the bars of the gate. The puppy was thin and dotted with what turned out to be nearly thirty ticks. “Okay, we can keep her” Mitch said “but only if we can clean up her dirty black paws.” It was a joke. Mitch at 6’4” 240 pounds, found it difficult to deny anything to his 5’3’’ thin, almost frail wife of 40 years, who had spent most of her career teaching fifth grade. Even though he could look imposing after all the practice he had in front of the bench at basketball games and in hallways filled with rambunctious kids, he was her gentle giant. They never had kids, but “we’ve had hundreds of other people’s kids,” Mitch liked to say, “actually thousands.” Both of them, particularly Barb, had become pet lovers over the years, numerous dogs, mostly Labs and a few cats; but when their last Labrador Josie died, they decided not to get another, since they were planning to move to Panama in a few months.

That was almost a year before, so both of them were ready for Carmen. They actually liked Carmen’s independent streak, though neither could resist worrying that she might one day never again step though the window grate, one black paw at a time. So far, so good—Carmen always came back from her daily jaunts around the neighborhood and slept every night at the foot of their bed. Her water bowl was always kept full; and there are usually at least a few nuggets of dry dog food in a matching stainless steel bowl. Unlike the Labs that they had back in the States, that gobbled food as if it was their only meal ever, this mutt would snack, (Barb called it “grazing.”), eat some, or most, but seldom all of the food that her (Now there’s a question. Would it be owners—not exactly; parents—when talking to Carmen, Barb and Mitch referred to each other as “Mom” and “Dad”; friends; benefactors; roommates?), people would fill when they noticed it was empty.

Sometimes, Carmen would be locked in the apartment, when her people went out; but she didn’t seem to mind. The dog seldom barked; and never even cried when she was a puppy. There was food and water in her bowls; and when the door shut, she would climb up on the couch and sleep. Sometimes, the Multuskys were gone for most of the day and sometimes for just an hour or two, but they always came back. It is hard to tell if dogs tell time, but Carmen never punished them for their absence, by chewing or peeing or wailing. When a key was inserted in the door, she would jump up and greet who ever came in, which turned out to always be Barb and Mitch. Soon after, one or the other humans had the leash and a plastic poop bag, and Carmen would accompany that person for a stroll.

Barb and Mitch were confident that most of the street guys that helped park cars; and most of the squatters, who occupied the building next door; and the Policia Tourismo, who patrolled the streets looking out after the clueless tourists; and the residents nearby knew that Carmen was their dog and that the neighborhood would look out for and keep an eye on their happy, innocent , independent pet/ward. They were right too. Particularly, the street guys, “bien cuidados,” Juan and Jamon, who staked out the intersection by the building where the Multulskys lived, liked Carmen, who often hung out with them as the fellas pointed out parking spots and directed people into the spaces. The usual rate was fifty cents for such a service. Juan or Jamon (…which means ham in Spanish. The man’s actual name was Horace, but his skin was kinda pink like ham.), would watch as Carmen’s curved tail would disappear around a corner; and they would always grab her ears and pet her with plenty of “Hola Carmens” when she returned from where ever she had been.

In fact, Carmen had a secret life. Every morning, around nine, she would slip down a narrow alley between two buildings and then crawl under a wooden gate located in a six-foot wall that enclosed a small backyard garden. A narrow laha (stone and concrete) pathway led through the rose bushes and ginger plants to a patio where Beth Page was having her morning coffee at a glass topped table with white-painted iron chairs.

Beth, at 58, was not quite retired and ran a real estate operation from her lap-top computer that sat on a table just inside the sliding glass door. Both she and her husband made “a very good living” in real estate in Arizona, before moving to Panama, where they bought the narrow three-story house. The plan was that they would put baby boomers together with real estate deals, while enjoying “a nice change of scenery” along with some “opportunities to make a killing” in their adopted country. The only problem was that her husband Frank died suddenly of a heart attack, at 57 (he was actually a year younger) on the day after they celebrated their first year in Panama. Beth, who still had a good figure with what some people would describe as a nice set of tits, dyed her hair blonde like many women whose hair had turned gray. When she was younger, her hair had been brown. Even though Frank was gone, she was determined to follow through with the plan.

Without hesitation, Carmen would hop up on the empty chair and sit there like a little girl at a tea party. “Buenas dias, Carmen,” Beth would usually offer as a greeting. It was funny really, but Beth never mentioned breakfast with Carmen to Barb. Some people don’t like other folks feeding their dogs. Some get jealous. “What they don’t know, won’t hurt ‘em,” was Beth’s philosophy. Beth readily admitted to herself that having Carmen over for breakfast, was a selfish pleasure. Carmen was like a reliable rental dog, that would provide an element of entertainment, companionship even, without any of the hassle. If Beth wanted to go to the Pearl Islands for the weekend, she didn’t need a dog sitter. That was another reason Beth hadn’t mentioned Carmen to the Multuskys—if they needed a dog sitter, Beth didn’t want to be on their short list. She did tell herself that if Barb asked directly, that she would consider taking care of Carmen, for a while, but preferred this clandestine arrangement.

Usually, within a minute or two Tica, the maid, would place a dish of scrambled eggs in front of Beth and another smaller dish of eggs in front of Carmen. Instead of being chagrinned about serving a dog, Tica, a small young Indian, was as charmed as her mistress, because Carmen never dived in but seemed to wait politely for Beth to pick up her fork. Then Carmen licked her plate clean.

Carmen never did much dumpster diving, probably because she was hardly ever that hungry. Mongrels in Panama City were often referred to by the locals as “tinaqueros” which translates to tin-can dogs. It comes from the fact that at one time the brand name on many of the metal trash cans around town was Tinaco (a shortened version of Tin Can Corporation) and these were being regularly raided by los perros pobres, until tinaqueros became a nickname for strays, who often knocked over a few cans in the process of scavenger hunting for food. Even though she looked the part, technically—floppy ears and uncut tail, Carmen was not a tinaquero, but rather the slightly more socially acceptable designation, “a rescued dog.”

Casco Viejo: The Second Season, Chapter One

2009-12-29T12:39:00.000-08:00

Introduction to Casco Viejo: The Second Season

This is truly a novel-in-progress. In other words, it is not finished—I’m writing it as you’re reading it. I do not know how it will turn out because I am trying to stay true to “the creative process” and letting the characters; the setting; the situations; and the times lead me to discover what happens next as I continue the writing…

If you’re here at the beginning, welcome; and I hope you find a reason to continue checking in regularly as I attempt to add a chapter a week or so. If this process has already begun, when you check in, please go to the archives and begin at chapter one and catch up. I might also rewrite or add elements to chapters already published, and I’ll attempt to alert you to these changes if and when they occur.

Obviously, this method encourages comments and I do welcome your input. Please understand that I’m not looking for a couple a dozen copyeditors (though I do want to avoid egregious errors) and that I am not obligated to make changes that are suggested (though I might); but rather I want to include you, my readers, in an ongoing constructive attempt to write a new novel. If nothing else, this setup will encourage me to keep writing because I will have an obligation to those of you who are interested in following the story’s progress.

I hope you find this concept stimulating and that you’ll get a kick out being there at, or pretty near, inception. I believe that this is a unique way of going about writing a novel, and that it will be a shared positive experience.

Please see the current chapter, which follows immediately:

Casco Viejo: the Second Season

Chapter One

   Joe Berger arrived in Panama with high hopes. He hoped to meet some interesting new people—people who would also be interested in meeting him. For the past ten years, since his second divorce, that’s been a problem—women in bars who turned away as if he were a leper; job interviews that made him wonder about his breath; e-mails that didn’t get a response; investments that turned sour; an elderly father, who remarried “the Bitch.” Joe didn’t feel desperate exactly, though at times “kinda”, but he definitely was actively seeking a brand new set of relationships.

   The sidewalk café, where he sat alone sipping a Panama beer (that’s what it was named, so Joe figured when in Rome…) was located in front of a bar/restaurant called Casa Blanca that fronted onto Bolivar Square, with a rather magnificent monument to Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator, in the center. Several people wandered by under the mushroom shaped Fica trees, a number of Panamanians, who maybe worked in the government offices nearby and a few very white tourists in Bermuda shorts, bright white sneakers, and baseball hats, with cameras at the ready; but nobody stopped for a late afternoon drink. The large patio umbrellas offered little shade as the sun still glared.

   When the department store he managed went out of business (What turned out to be an early symptom of the recession that was on the way.), he decided he didn’t have to stay in Miami and managed to sell his condo, right before the bottom fell out of that market. Panama, according to a couple of magazine articles he read, was “the next hot spot,” so he jumped off the cliff and moved (both of his ex-wives would say he “fled…”) to Panama. It wasn’t a totally blind leap; after all, he looked it up on the internet; a small, rather prosperous Central American country, best known for being cut in half by the Panama Canal.

   Both of his adult daughters from his first marriage were virtual strangers, one was married to a golf pro in Georgia and the other was on the west coast, whatever that meant. So when his father, who had been a widower for eight years, remarried, Joe soon realized that he no longer had a family. “The Bitch” had five grown children of her own—a real working class bunch—two fat married mommies with multiple children and a plumber, complete with low-riding jeans and a too-small tee shirt; a fireman; and a mailman, who preferred being referred to as a postal worker. Joe sincerely believed that he had made an effort to embrace his extended family, (The fireman talked about “apparatus” and expected Joe to know to what he was referring.), but never felt that they gave “a flying fuck” about him. “The Bitch” never even made an attempt to pretend that she had a positive feeling toward her step son. At 50, Joe hardly considered her a mother figure and never referred to her as his stepmother; but realized he felt more as if she were his mother-in-law, with all the unwelcome connotations that implied. He missed his mother, a sweet though distracted little woman, who died when a third stroke attacked her frail brain. His father had spent the last ten years of their marriage taking care of a woman that neither he nor his son recognized as the woman they loved when they were younger. However, Joe believed that he would still have been a part of “a family” had his mother still been alive. His father who was then 73 had been assimilated as part of the inheritance system by “the Bitch” and her offspring and didn’t even remember his son’s birthday the previous year.

   Joe didn’t get it. He wasn’t bad looking, kinda average at 5’11” with gray hair that really hadn’t thinned that much. And the weight he lost, from 210 to a very respectable 185, made him feel sleek, except nobody seemed to notice; or care. Even though he tried to be a good listener, even when folks rattled on about their golf scores or grandchildren; and in spite of putting forward a friendly smile and a firm handshake, people didn’t take to him. In Miami, he was in a rut; a couple of loser friends, who were no help on the dating scene; his regular foursome at the club, who teased him more than necessary; one or two lady friends, who he’d escort to the Valentine’s charity dance for heart disease or the Halloween charity dance for breast cancer, with no real prospect of sex afterward, unless they were really drunk and then what was the point?

   Joe Berger pulled the plug. Nothing half ass. Panama was definitely somewhere else; with, as one of the magazines pointed out, a lively and growing group of expats mostly from the States, but also from Canada and Europe. With so many people from all over, Joe reasoned, chances of meeting new people were heightened, almost exaggerated. He hadn’t met anybody “new” in awhile, but in Panama, everybody was new and obviously open to new experiences and so how hard could it be?

   Okay, he couldn’t speak Spanish, but the guidebooks said that English was spoken “extensively in Panama City,” so Joe figured he could get along on his rudimentary south Florida Cuban style el espanol—muchas gracias y por favor. The guidebooks lied. Maybe in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, a form of English was attempted, but no taxi drivers; waiters or waitresses; store clerks; police officers; or people on the street seemed interested in even giving English a try. Instead, they spoke very rapidly, which meant for Joe that even the few words he knew, flew by unrecognized, much less understood. “No problemo,” Joe thought, “I’ll take Spanish lessons.”

   He decided to rent a small apartment in a restored building in Casco Viejo, for all the right reasons. Casco Viejo literally meant old town, and was located out on a peninsula by Panama Bay looking out on to the continuously growing skyline of towers rising all along the waterfront. Joe hadn’t really expected the city to look like Hong Kong, but was pleased with the apparent scene of prosperity and growth, while at the same time being able to hang out in an area that looked like a rather run-down colonial capital, with narrow cobblestone streets, and wrought-iron balconies decorated with potted plants. His real estate agent told him that many expats were moving into the renovated buildings because the area had been declared a World Heritage site like old San Juan. With squatters playing loud salsa music in some of the buildings, Casco Viejo seemed to have a long way to go, but to Joe at least, also appeared to be headed in the right direction, with plenty of new people moving in.

   The biggest flaw in his plan, as Berger saw it, was that he didn’t really have that much to offer. If he could get past the opening series of polite inquiries:
Where ya from? Miami. No problem.
Married? Even better—no, divorced. After all, he hoped to meet some lady, lonely and looking.
But:
What doya do? I’m retired.
What didja do? Well, I used to manage a Thrift Center, but then they all closed, if you remember … No, that would not impress. Joe knew that from a disappointing career of experience. He figured he would be meeting, hoped he would be meeting airline pilots and their still pretty ex-stewardess wives; artists; gamblers; real estate speculators; published authors; wealthy widows; college professors; world travelers all, who would delight him with their stories set in L.A. and/or London; Mexico City and/or Cyprus. But what could he be, that would impress or at least interest, his new found friends?

   Being a store manager had not brought happiness in the past, and so Joe had no intention of being that in the future. Stock broker? Didn’t know enough and could get slipped up in a minute, by people who were actually experts, who could afford to winter in Panama. Engineer? Either/or, most people would have no idea or really care about nuclear reactors on submarines, but if somebody did, Joe knew nothing. Soldier of fortune? Don’t be ridiculous. Hey, wait a minute, how about sports agent? One thing Joe knew plenty about was sports, and lot’s about the Miami Heat (season tickets) and the Dolphins—plenty of names he could drop and only had to be wary of other folks from South Florida. Heck, Joe was the commissioner of his NFL fantasy league for the past two years (Things got lonely on the weekends.), and he had read Billy Blackburn’s book Getting Paid about being a big-time agent and he had loved Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. So that was his new persona—retired sports agent at 50, made some money; too stressful, needed to kick back and relax with a lovely tropical change of scenery. It might just work.

   The only problem, so far, was that he hadn’t met anybody. The Panamanian real estate agent, who spoke pretty good English, was youngish and good looking and obviously not interested in hooking him up, though she did mention that there was plenty going on in Casco Viejo—jazz concerts on Wednesday evenings; a flea market every Saturday; and a number of restaurants. He even tried the sports agent angle on her, but it didn’t even register. So there he sat, sipping from a dripping glass, with almost as much sweat glistening on his forehead. The tropical humidity would take some getting used to. He tried a confident, nonchalant pose with an expectant tilt of his head, when a blonde woman in a low-cut yellow sun dress, (“Nice tits,” thought Joe.), who looked to be in his age bracket, walked by; but she took no notice, and continued down Calle Quatro with a slice of sea view at the end of the street.

   Walking briskly down the middle of the street in the opposite direction was small white dog, with four black paws and a harlequin face, half black, half white. The woman stopped and petted the dog, which stood patiently welcoming the attention. “Jesus,” Joe thought, “that dog has more luck than I do.” Then the dog almost passed by, but turned and stood expectantly next to Joe’s chair. “Well, aren’t you the social butterfly,” Joe said as he held his palm out for the dog to lick. That’s when Berger noticed the collar, a thin leather band around his new friend’s neck. Definitely a mutt, short wiry hair, looked a bit like a medium sized terrier, except for two floppy ears bent in the middle and a rather long tail that curved up at the end.

   Joe slid two dollars under the sweating glass. Beers only cost a buck and Joe knew he was over tipping but he didn’t have any change, and so he headed back to his sparsely furnished apartment about a block away. The dog walked beside him as if trained, but stopped at the door for one final pet. “See ya later,” said Joe as the dog turned and sauntered off down the narrow sidewalk, as a yellow taxi passed by closely.

There was a sheet of paper scotch taped to the wall by the stairs, with clip-art palm trees and bold type in bright blue. Joe’s heart actually leapt when he read the notice:

Happy Hour This Friday

5 to 7 p.m.

By the Pool Deck, on the Roof

For All Residents of The Columbus House

Beer and Wine provided

please bring a dish or a nibble

“This is great,” Joe thought, “I’ll finally get to meet somebody.” Berger took the steps up to his second-floor apartment two at time. Friday was only two days away.