Beneath a Panamanian Moon (8 page)

Cooper left and I polished his fingerprints off Ellington's picture. Then I stripped, wrapped a towel around my waist, and went off for a shower, making sure to take my money with me.

I reached the end of the hallway and heard a man counting. Step by step, an extremely drunk, extremely large man placed both feet on each riser and counted, as if he were just now learning to climb stairs.

“Two hundred and forty-six!”

He weaved a bit and closed one eye trying to focus on me. When he raised his head I could see a white scar that ran along his throat, ear to ear. “Two hundred and—”

“Forty-seven,” I said.

“That's a lot of steps. I've never seen that many steps in my life. And I seen a lot of steps.”

“You must be Mad Dog.”

He tried to salute, lost his balance, and stumbled sideways. His forearms were as big as my thighs and covered in tattoos, some good, some jailhouse.

“You,” he said, pointing at me, “must be the accordion player.” Then he laughed. “You're so little,” he said, and held his finger and thumb a quarter inch apart. “Like a little puppy,” he said. “C'mere.”

“Why?”

“I can't move my legs.”

He was still weaving at the top of the stairs, holding himself up by the banister. He draped an arm over my shoulder and I guided him into the corridor.

“Here we are,” he sang, “home sweet home.” I took the key from his hand, unlocked the door, and dropped him to his bunk.

“I had a little bit to drink.”

“I can see that.” So this was my backup, the bodyguard who would watch my six while I checked out the clientele.

Mad Dog looked up and said, “Where are your clothes?”

“I was on my way to the shower.”

“Let me buy you a drink, you little naked fucker.” He was up again, but weaving. A tiny push would do it. So I pushed him.

He fell back onto his bunk and lay there, staring at the ceiling. “Oh, now I'm going to have to kill you.” He tried to get up but couldn't lift his bulk from the horizontal. Finally, he gave up and curled himself into a ball. “I'll kill you tomorrow,” he said.

Cooper was standing in the corridor, looking in. “I see you met Mad Dog.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Well, then, I suggest you get some sleep, New Guy, because Mad Dog and I are going to run your ass off in the morning. Ain't that right, Mad Dog?”

Mad Dog mumbled.

“That's an affirmative,” Cooper said.

Mad Dog began to snore.

“You think we should cover him up?” I said.

“You his mother?”

“No.”

“Then leave him. He'll be okay.”

“Okay.”

Ren poked his head up from the stairway and said, “Hey, Harper, you wanna go get laid?”

CHAPTER SIX

Cooper begged off, but Zorro came out of his room and mumbled something about mud for his duck, so the three of us climbed into Ren's car and took off for Panama City.

Ren drove a '56 Chevy whose seat belts had rusted through. Ren sat behind the wheel in a chrome and vinyl kitchen chair, Zorro and I sat in back, a ten-gallon jerry can full of gasoline wedged between us. Whenever Ren accelerated, Zorro put his foot against the chair back to keep it from tipping and throwing Ren into the rear with his passengers.

Zorro held the seat upright with his foot and grumbled, “Why don't you bolt this son of a bitch down?”

“Don't need to, man. I got you.”

Zorro rolled a joint in the dark. “This place must have been something when the Americans controlled the Canal,” he said. “Man, the gringo was king, with servants to do everything; wipe the dog's ass, feed the babies, fuck the old man when the wife didn't want to break a sweat.”

Zorro lit the joint, inhaled, and offered it to me. “You get high, man?”

I took the joint and passed it to Ren. “Not any more,” I said, as if I'd been through that phase and was now on to something new. The truth was, I had only smoked once before, alone in my apartment, and all I could do was listen to Miles, watch infomercials, and eat everything there was to eat in my apartment including a pint of Godiva ice cream, a bag of Doritos, and an entire container of Tic Tacs I found in the pocket of an old coat. I did feel obligated, as a guest, to offer my opinion that the pot smelled good.

“The Panamanians cure it in rose water. Makes it nice.” Zorro rolled another.

“The Panamanians I saw today didn't seem to like us much.”

Ren said, “It's no surprise.”

Ren passed the joint back to me and I handed it to Zorro. Zorro took it and said, “The old men used to cut the lawns with machetes. On all fours like dogs.”

“And they're afraid that, one day, we're going to take the Canal back,” Ren said.

“And when that happens, they'll be back on their hands and knees, waiting on the white man.” Zorro leaned his head back and smiled a smile as white and wide as the Milky Way.

Ren told him to shut up.

Zorro's head came up and he said, “We coming to it?”

“We're coming to it,” Ren said.

“You don't have the hair to go weightless, man.”

It was Ren's turn to smile. “You mean airborne?”

“All the way,” Zorro said.

“Every day,” Ren sang back. And as the glow of city lights filled the horizon, Ren hit the accelerator. The Chevy's speed climbed to seventy and the wall of jungle flew by, rushing from the headlights' beam to the red-tinted darkness behind. The engine noise folded into the wind as we turned into a slow, loping curve. Ahead was a single-lane, hump-backed bridge and we hit it doing eighty. At the top of the bridge, the car left the pavement. Everything inside went weightless—us, the gas can, the kitchen chair, Zorro's joint, everything floated, still and silent, as the Bridge of the Americas, the black sky, and the city lights filled the windshield.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, and it came out “Zeeesa Heist” because every cell in my body was suspended in fright.

The car hit pavement, its springs and shocks contracted to the frame, sparks flew, and we rocketed across the Bridge of the Americas.

“Flyin'!” Ren yelled.

“Like the fucking birds!”

By the time we pulled into the city, my heart had begun to beat again. Ren parked behind a three-story apartment building and gave a gang of kids ten bucks to not strip his car. “If I'm lucky I'll have tires when I come back,” he said.

The three of us walked through an alley and onto a neon-lit city street.

“Welcome to the happiest place on earth,” Ren said. He opened his arms in an embrace that took in all of the people slinking through the night, from bar to hot-sheet hotel, drug deal, and alleyway blow job.

The buildings, two and three stories high, hunched in close to the traffic and shadowed the sidewalks with long porches. Laundry hung like flags of surrender over the railings and women, bored as prisoners, sat and smoked and watched the people in the streets below.

Under the porches the sidewalks were wet with a recent rain and every other storefront was open for nighttime diversions, from drinking and drugs to commercial sex and gambling. There were few tourists. The one group of Anglos I did see were young and foolishly brave, obviously gringo in their frat-boy swagger, inviting trouble from the sullen Panamanian men who lounged in the street.

I followed Ren and Zorro several blocks through a crowded neon neighborhood, past the smoky reminders of my country's colonial presence. Every block had a bar named the Foxhole, Hotel California, or Little Chicago. Anything the owners thought would remind American boys of home, although home never looked like this. Unless, that is, the boy grew up on Bourbon Street.

Most women waited at bars for men to buy them drinks and pay for their attentions. Most men traveled in packs. Some were drunk, and some were on their way, but few of them were happy to be where they were. Men who were alone weren't alone for long. There was always a woman who offered commercial companionship, if only for a few minutes. And everything on the street, from the drunks, the thieves, the hookers, and the homeless, moved to the horn-powered thump of Latin pop.

Ren led us to a small bar called the Silver Key. It had once been a popular place for American GIs and the jukebox itself was a time capsule, stocked with scratched 45s of Hendrix, Cream, Steppenwolf, and the Stones.

The rear wall, behind the jukebox, was painted with a murky mural that was supposed to be the city skyline. It was a night scene, black rectangles against a midnight-blue sky, daubs of yellow for high-rise windows. It looked like a dark and evil place.

The bar ran from just inside the front door to the back wall. Tables and chairs filled the rest of the room. A jukebox was cranked up and Van Morrison belted out one of his big hits. On the chorus, where once drunk soldiers would have sung “G-L-O-R-I-A,” there was only Van, and angry people who looked like they'd just missed the last bus home.

A woman with closed eyes, red lips, small hands, and a red satin dress danced by herself. A Panamanian man at the nearest table watched her without enjoyment. When he reached for her, she danced a few steps away, her eyes still closed. He stood up and moved in, not dancing but pressing his belly, and his crotch, against her. She tried to turn away but he grabbed her wrists.

I started to get up but Ren stopped me. With a nod of his head he told me to watch. I did.

The man lifted the girl up and placed her on a chair so that her body was close to his face. The girl opened her eyes and her teeth flashed in the dim light.

The man pushed her dress up, high on her thighs, and buried his face in her crotch. She put her fingers into the tangles of his hair.

The people in the bar watched as the girl's dress rode higher and higher, until the hem of her dress was above her hips and the man's fingers fumbled at the elastic of her underpants.

She pulled the man's head back and his laughter spread across his face, wide and unsuspecting.

In her other hand was a bottle, and as it came up it caught the light like a spark and then it fell back to earth, a meteor falling from the heavens, and bounced off the man's cranium. The man sat down on the floor, grabbed the top of his head, and squeezed his eyes tight against the pain.

Another man, built like a bear, waded through the room, picked up the guy like yesterday's trash and threw him into the street. The girl continued to dance, lost in rock and roll recorded before either of us was born.

When Van Morrison stopped, so did the dancer. She climbed off the chair and pushed her way through to the bar. No one stopped her. She sat next to me and the bartender appeared as if by magic.

“This boy wants to buy me a drink,” she said, looking at me with a big smile.

I nodded and said, “Bring me a beer, too.”

When the bartender returned, I paid him and said to the girl, “That was a D-flat.”

“What? What was a D-flat?”

“The note the bottle made when you hit that guy, the clonk was a D-flat.” I hummed the note.

“You some kind of music man?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

She scanned the bar, not even trying to hide a yawn. “I am a dancer,” she said. “I think it is a pure and natural art, requiring nothing but the human body.”

“And music,” I said.

She looked at me again, her head tilted back, this time looking beyond my skin. “The music can be in your head,” she said.

“But you have to hear it first.”

She turned toward me and put her hand on my leg, her fingertips rubbing the inside of my thigh. “Would you like me to dance for you?”

“I'm here with my friends.”

She took that as a no, shrugged, took her hand away, sipped her expensive drink, and watched the others in the room.

After a few minutes of looking for something more promising, she gave up, grabbed my hand, and said, “Let's get out of here.” She pulled me toward the sidewalk and I saw Ren sitting at a table with Zorro and a couple of girls. Ren laughed and waved. The dime in his ear winked in the neon.

On the sidewalk, the girl said, “Come on, let's you and me go over to the hotel. I want you to show me something, gringo boy.”

“You want me to show you something?”

“Yes. I want you to show me fifty dollars.” She ran her hand up my chest and caressed my neck. “What do you say?”

“What else would you like to do?”

She looked at me again, curious as to where this was going and how much more she could charge for it, and said, “You could take me someplace nice.”

“That would be okay.”

“Someplace with a piano, you can sing me a song, music man.”

“I'd like that.”

“Then you'll give me fifty dollars?”

“We'll see how the song goes.”

“First,” she said, “you have to show me you have money.”

I did.

“So, why not just go across the street to the hotel?”

“What, do you object to a little romance?”

The girl laughed again, shaking her head. “Yeah, fine, okay. But romance costs you more, gringo boy.”

“It always does,” I said.

I waved for a taxi. A smoking cab pulled to the curb and we climbed into the back. The girl told the driver, “La Rosita de España.” We took off and the girl settled back against me, wrapping her arms around my chest.

“What's your name?”

“Marilyn,” she said. “Like Marilyn Monroe.” She seemed to be having a good time. “Are you from Hollywood?”

“No, Washington. But it's just up the road from Hollywood.”

“Hah!” She pulled away and said, “What a fucking liar. I know where Washington is and Hollywood is in California.” She put her hands together, her two index fingers in the air, and separated them. “They are like on two different coasts. You think I don't know this?” She sat back in the seat with a satisfied smile. “I know all about the United States. I know Ronald Reagan is from Hollywood. And George Bush is from Texas.”