Cocaine (18 page)

‘Is that enough?’

‘
Si
.
Ten cuidad.
Be careful. There are men. Scouts. They work for the cartels. You do not talk to them.
Entiendes
?’

‘How will we know them?’

‘If anyone try to sell you cocaine.’

‘I’ll do it’, said Kieran, serious for once. ‘I’ll do it. What do you want me to say to the
hustlers?’

‘
You just say no.’

Mama Garcia locked the door behind us. The curtains were drawn to stop the sun
heating up the vinyl seats and the food in the kitchenette. Kieran and I stood in the mid-day sun, breathing in the refreshing smell of the sea. It made me feel very hungry. I followed Kieran’s gaze and then I grinned. The girls on the beach were in the middle of a volleyball game, dark-skinned, lithe bodies diving onto the sand, their swimming costumes riding up high around their pert
derrieres
.

‘You know what I’m thinking?’

‘I’m hungry, Kieran. Hungry and hot.’

‘Hot
muchachas’
, he said. ‘I better ring my dad.’

‘Now? What for?’

‘I haven’t called for like a month. He’s gonna be wondering, like, is he alive or something.’

‘What? And he works out you’re calling from a payphone in Colombia?’

‘
He won’t guess. He’ll think it’s the Swiss Alps.’

We walked along the beach, the sea to our right, the sun directly above us
, looking for men selling tours to Rosario Island.

‘
You’re scared, aren’t you Kieran? Admit it. I know I am.’

Kieran looked at his shoes, suddenly a little boy again.

‘I’m just a little concerned about what happens to us if we get caught. I have this vision of the headline in the newspaper.’

‘Me too. I’ve been trying not to think…I had different plans, you know, Kieran.’

‘
The synthetic coke?’

‘
Yes. Then we wouldn’t have all these transport problems.’

‘
Looking good, your plan.’

‘
We can walk away. Juan Andres and Mama G’ll never know.’

‘They’ll think we got arrested. We’ll be dumpin’ them in the shit.’

‘Listen. They’ll get to keep all the money.’

‘Yeah well I think Juan Andres ain’t comin’ out of that trailer. And can you see Mama Garcia sunbathing? They need us to get this boat for them. We got British and Canadian passports. Good cover. We look like we
might
have the money and the inclination to spend money on a boat.’

We looked each other up and down. We didn’t. We were dressed like tramps. I reached down into my pants and pulled out a tightly-rolled bundle of notes.

‘Five hundred dollars’, I said. ‘We eat first, then we buy some clothes.’

Kieran slapped me round the back.

‘Ryan’, he said, slipping on his black felt hat, ‘You da man.’

Franz or Heinz
was getting tired of the waiting, the endless games. Ten kilos to Panama? Six hundred bound for Miami? Last minute dock-side sales at knock-down prices before taking product onto the high seas and risking the US Coastguard? If only. There was nothing. Just the shifty little men with bloodshot eyes selling five grams here, ten grams there. Suares wasn’t interested in them. Today he was in a green T-shirt with ‘Super-Cool Dude’ scrawled across it in orange. He wore a pair of stonewashed jeans a size too big and sneakers.

‘You may need to run’, said Suares to him on the last de-brief. ‘Sandals are for peasants.’

Franz or Heinz
had already worked out what he needed to do. Suares was obsessed by the need to run and so was
Franz or Heinz
. He was by the sea and he supposed Suares might be having him watched, maybe from the Intercontinental. He was sure his room was bugged. They let him watch German porn on the pay-per-view channel but Suares even checked the bill and made a poor joke about it.

The two men he saw walk past him just after lunch were European or North American, but they were wearing expensive new clothes, one in a smart cream linen suit with a Panama hat and soft brown loafers, the other in shiny black sneakers, Reeboks, with black linen trousers and a black linen shirt with a wing-tipped collar that hung open to the waist. They were very tanned, quite tall, and they looked fit, as if they worked-out or did manual labour. In other words, they were interesting. He decided to follow them.

I resisted the temptation to turn round when Kieran told me someone was following us.

‘Green T, new sneakers.’

‘Recognise him?’

‘He looks familiar?’

‘
What?
’

‘Shut up Kieran. He looks familiar.’

‘We can’t go back to the caravan.’

‘Oh…yeah…I see.’

‘Not together. One of us has to pass a message to Juan Andres to tell him where we are. Without being followed.’

‘I’ll go and talk to him’, I volunteered.

‘Don’t turn round.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Can’t see. He’s got these big shades on.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Look in the side of your sunglasses. The left corner. Reflection.’

‘Got it.’

‘I’ll go tell Juan Andres. Grab our bags. We’ll stay in a hotel. I’ll meet you back here in thirty minutes. You can keep him busy for that long, right?’

‘I’ll do my best, Kieran.’

He walked into the nearest café and he was gone. I turned and pretended to wait for him, lounging against a concrete bench, the waves lapping gently behind me.

Franz or Heinz
stopped by the café and pretended to look inside. Then he turned to me and grinned.

‘
Es ist gut hier, ja?
’

He hadn’t recognised me from the Gran Casino. He had been too engrossed with the two Americans to pay any attention to anyone else there that night, which included Kieran, Juan Andres and me. I smiled. I felt rather good in my new linen suit.

‘I’m English’, I said. ‘I can’t speak German.’

‘I said it is good here, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are on holiday?’

‘Yes. I’m meant to be teaching English but I haven’t done a lot of teaching.’

‘Ha! You have been enjoying yourself, of course? This is necessary when one is in this country.’

‘Yes. What about you?’

‘Oh…the same. I love the architecture. So different to my town. Dusseldorf. It rains all the time.’

‘Just like England.’

We laughed, neither of us very genuinely.

‘You waiting for your friend?’

‘He has a stomach problem. He could be a few minutes.’

‘He is not…?’
Franz or Heinz
snorted quickly and his eyes went wild.

‘Not what?’

‘He is not doing cocaine up the nose in the toilets?’

‘Good God no. H
e wouldn’t touch the stuff.’

‘Can I buy you coffee?’

‘Sure.’

We sat down. I was sure now he hadn’t recognised or even ever seen me before, despite the fact that I’d seen and heard him
ad nauseum
extolling the virtues of doing exactly what Kieran and I were now doing.

‘I have a big confession to make to you’, he said after the coffees came. I looked askance at my watch. Kieran had been gone ten minutes.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I am here on business. Not on holiday.’

‘You’re dressed for it.’

He grimaced momentarily and then he laughed.

‘Ha ha. Such a sense of humour. English.
Ja ja.
’

‘What business?’ I asked as nonchalantly as I could. ‘That is, if you don’t mind talking about it.’

Franz or Heinz
leaned in. The man he was looking at – me – was well-dressed, clean-shaven, tanned and lean. I looked the part.

‘I am buying raw commodities’, he said quietly. ‘In large quantities.’

I tried to stop myself looking interested.

‘Coffee?’

‘Something white and crystalline. I think you know what I am talking about my friend.’

‘Sugar?’

‘No. You know.’

I drank my coffee for a moment. Perhaps, just perhaps,
Franz or Heinz
was trying to score big. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could give us the money we wanted. But I couldn’t help not trusting him. I wanted Juan Andres here. He could sniff him out in an instant. Mama Garcia had said we don’t sell here. We just get a boat. Scouters, she’d said. Cartels. Sniffing out the competition and then snuffing out the competition.

‘It sounds very enigmatic…’

‘You call me Franz. Or Heinz. You choose. Your name?’

‘Gary’, I lied, picking the name from the song playing in the next bar.

‘Look Gary. I have a requirement for five hundred kilos. Can you satisfy that?’

‘Five hundred kilos of
what
?’

‘Charlie.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Cocaine. Cocaine. Cocaine.’

I stood up quickly, my chair toppling onto the tiles. He stood too.

‘I am sorry’, he said. ‘I am sorry. It was a poor joke. Please. Sit down, Gary. Finish your coffee.’

I sat slowly, sheltering behind my sunglasses. I took another look at my watch. Twenty minutes had passed. Where was Kieran? And why ‘Franz’, or ‘Heinz’? What was the point? I drank my coffee so slowly that it started to congeal at the bottom of my cup. I wished
Franz or Heinz
would fuck off, but he wasn’t budging. Five minutes later, Kieran emerged, sweating, from the café. He was holding our bags.

‘Found ‘em’, he said, coming over to me and handing me my small black sports holdall.

‘Thanks.’

Kieran leaned over to
Franz or Heinz
.

‘Guy in the second cubicle wants a word.’

‘Can you repeat this?’

‘There’s a man in the toilets, second cubicle on the left, who wants to talk to you.’

‘You are sure it is me?’

‘Your name’s Franz or Heinz, right?’

‘This is correct.’