The Mangrove Coast

by Randy Wayne White

  Cannabis? Yes … no doubt about it. Right out there in the open, no big deal.

  There were some chilies growing, too. Beefy-looking green chilies. Made me think of Tomlinson. He, Musashi and their toddler daughter were probably under sail right now, headed for the Dry Tortugas. If nothing else, maybe I could get some chili seed stock for him….

  “You really must excuse the mess, gentlemen. I’ve acquired so many things. So many things since we arrived in Cartagena! I hired one of the fruit ladies to clean for me, but she didn’t come today.”

  “Fruit lady?”

  “You’re unfamiliar with Cartagena? It’s an absolutely delightful place. Every morning, the fruit ladies come carrying baskets on their heads while the merchants sweep the streets. Baskets of fruit, understand. These women, they scream like cats. ‘!Piñas! !Bananas! !Aguacates!’” The Turk was attempting to imitate them, shrieking out the words. I realized that he was very drunk or very stoned.

  Five in the afternoon. Probably both.

  We were still following him—down a ladder that was peeling varnish; ducked through the steel frame of a watertight hatch—as he said, “So I hired one of the fruit ladies to do my cleaning. She brings me breakfast, cleans all the cabins, absolutely anything I want her to do. If I haven’t had a woman for a day or two? She takes care of that, too. All for just a few pesos. In your money … American money, perhaps two, maybe three dollars.” The Turk seemed very pleased with the situation. He was smiling. Had a nervous laugh that was more like a twitch. He also had a very noisy case of the sniffles. “Have you gentlemen noticed? The poorer the city, the more passionately a man can live! I’ve been in Cartagena a year. I may stay another year!”

  The poorer the city, the more passionately a man can live!

  Undoubtedly, guessing from the Turk’s satisfied expression. Also judging from the vast number of men like the Turk whom I’d met around the world.

  Now we were in a large salon area: dining booth, sectional couch and chairs, big-screen television, VCR, teakwood cabinets that held stereo gear, books, plastic controls for video games, a pinball machine in the far corner, a ship’s coffee table made from a massive porthole bolted to the deck in plush carpet at the center of the room. On the coffee table was an ornate jade water vase with small hoses dangling out the top. The hoses were tipped with gold. Smoke drifted out of a brass bowl near the bottom of the vase, little tendrils of steam. A Bedouin’s hookah.

  The salon smelled of marijuana and diesel fuel, rotten fruit, electrical conduit and paint.

  The Turk made a welcoming gesture. “Smoke if you like, gentlemen. We grow it ourselves. Viajera de Cartagena, we call it. In English, the ‘lady traveler of Cartagena.’ Because people will travel through time zones and risk much to find it. An absolutely wonderful product. If you’re interested, I have some I might be willing to sell you.”

  Was the Turk really in the drug trade or simply offering to share? I was curious. “How much product do you have available?”

  He paused for a second or two to think about it. “At the moment … a thousand … perhaps two thousand kilos, I believe. But I can get more if you are serious.”

  Laughter … sniff! … laughter.

  Yes, he seemed to be in the business.

  “I wouldn’t mind having me a quick smoke. Bought a whole roll of Copenhagen for this trip, but damn if I didn’t go off and leave her at the ranch. Where the hell’s my brain lately?” Tucker had one of the rubberized stems in his fingers, looking at it. “There’uz this bawdy house in Tampico, they bad them one of these here kind of pipes. Suck on her, she made bubbles. Coolest smoke I ever had.”

  I took a step to warn him … then thought, hell with it. Let him think it was tobacco. Maybe he’d get high, pass out, go to sleep, leave me alone.

  Tuck took a couple of puffs, then a couple more. Finally he smiled, blowing smoke out of this nose. Surprised me, saying, “Yep, same thing like in Mexico. First-rate shit you boys grow down here.”

  The Turk explained that their development was so new they didn’t have their brochures printed yet. But what they did have was a superb Web page. They’d just got it up and running. This American, the CEO who put the whole syndicate together, was a real computer wizard. Probably could have done the whole thing himself, but he had the cash, so why not hire the best?

  The Turk said the American paid some Taiwanese Internet specialists like twenty thousand U.S. to design the entire Web page. Made the thing interactive with audio and little videos and all kinds of rooms. “But some of those rooms” —his tone was telling us “naughty-naughty” — “some of those rooms, we have to restrict, because U.S. authorities will not allow certain things to be shown. Even to adults.”

  I was thinking about Gail’s money. A project, any real estate project, arrives at a point where it requires fast cash.

  She’d been right there with lots of it. Gail had almost certainly paid for the high-tech Web page he was describing, X-rated rooms and all. That and probably a lot more.

  “They’re just plain tightass idiots,” Tucker said. He was referring to whoever it was who made them censor whatever it was in their Web page rooms. He visited often enough with Tomlinson to be more familiar with computer jargon than I, but his concern was manufactured. He had to concentrate to speak, enunciating very carefully. He’d been smoking right along, still carrying a beer from the bar. He seemed to know what he was doing with a hookah in his hands, I noticed.

  The Turk was nodding, very eager to agree with him. “But here in Colombia, I can show you anything. Everything. We have freedom here! The entire program. Anything you want to know, it’s very simple, just point the arrow and click. But you’ll see. Our company is having the Web page, the whole layout, put on CD. This CD, we will send out to perspective buyers. Even the scenes certain people find so offensive.” That laugh again … sniff! Very nervous, slightly crazed, lots and lots of drugs. That’s what the laugh told me. He said, “But I don’t have the CDs yet, either. So you’ll have to look over my shoulder, I’m afraid.”

  The computer was on a three-tiered desk near the TV. It was small, about the size of a reference book. A Macintosh Powerbook G3-something with a color screen that reminded me of Tomlinson’s machine.

  Tucker and I stood behind the Turk as he tried to get the thing going. But something was wrong. Couldn’t get a dial tone; couldn’t get on-line. He checked the beige telephone wire that was plugged into the machine. The wire ran across the floor on top of the carpet and out an open porthole on the marina side of the freighter.

  The Turk shook the wire, said something loud, furious in Turkish, then charged across the deck to the porthole where he yelled, “Garret … ! Mr. Garret! You have unplugged my telephone line again!”

  Didn’t wait very long before he screamed the same thing again.

  Finally, there was an answer: “Stick it up yer arse, you fuckin’ raghead! I’m busy!”

  “I need my telephone, Mr. Garret!”

  “If you don’t like the service, pay your bloody bill and tow that garbage scow out to sea. The federales, they’d love that! You wouldn’t make it past Bocachica before they had you in cuffs!”

  No mistaking the bush brogue of northern Australia. So … Garret, owner of Club Nautico, was back from his shopping.

  The Turk fixed us with a look—Give me a moment, I’ll get this straightened out—before he yelled through the porthole. “Mr. Garret! I have clients here. Americans who may be interested in buying a membership in Mr. Merlot’s project.”

  Tucker and I exchanged looks at the mention of Merlot.

  The Aussie yelled back, “They ain’t my bloody problem, Turk! You want the phone line hooked up, I’m gonna charge you double this time. Them long-distance access calls for your bloody computer bullshit ain’t bloody cheap. Fifteen … no, twenty dollars U.S. for the first half-hour and then I cut you off.”

  The Turk was smiling—okay, things were all arranged now. “Yes, of course. That is
acceptable. To show my appreciation, Mr. Garret, I will pay you twenty-five U.S. It is worth it to me! Put it on my bill.”

  As the Turk sat at the computer again, he said, “It is a game that Mr. Garret and I play. He pretends to expect payment from me and I pretend as if I expect to one day pay.”

  He was working at the keyboard.

  “You stay here for free?”

  “I owe Mr. Garret a year’s back dockage. Plus utilities. plus our restaurant bill and tips.” He looked up at me briefly, very serious. “I am the grandson of a Sultan, you must understand. I am accustomed to living comfortably; to the better things life has to offer. It is what I deserve, so it is what I demand. In my country, my family is of the highest social station. President Demirel is a second cousin to my mother. Prime Minister Erbakan attended the same British preparatory school as my father. You can understand, then, why I refuse to allow money to dictate my lifestyle. Plus, I entertain many ladies here, many, many ladies. As a part of our new real estate venture, understand.” The laughter, that cocaine sniff!

  “The owner lets you stay here even though you don’t pay?”

  “Mr. Garret? He would prefer not to be paid because he hopes to take my yacht. Naturally, he would be very disappointed if I paid even a portion of the bill. Already he has filed papers with the Colombian court. So I live here and he keeps charging me and the bill keeps adding up. See? It is now a game that we play! Ah-h-h-h, here we are!” The Turk gestured with his hand. “Our Web page!”

  The Turk said, “You were under the impression our property is in Colombia? No. It is in Panama. Over the water and through the jungle. Not far! Just as Ohio is next to … next to an adjoining state in your country. Illinois? Very close, very, very close. And if you like what you see on the computer, we have a plane. We will fly you there. At no charge, of course.”

  I don’t know that I’d ever seen a Web page, but this one certainly seemed professionally done. What Merlot and company were offering was membership and time-share participation in a converted country club in an old Panama Canal Zone village, a tiny place called Gamboa. The locator map showed it to be about midway between the Pacific coast and the Caribbean coast, on a paw of jungle where the Chagres River entered the canal. The Isthmus of Panama, where the canal cuts through, is less than fifty miles ocean to ocean, so Gamboa was close enough to Panama City to make for easy access.

  But Merlot was offering more than just property.

  The home page headline read:

  Gamboa

  A Private, Protected Community for Fun-Loving People

  Then in smaller letters:

  Gamboa

  Finally! The Freedom to Live Our Dreams!

  Anything you want … because you’ve earned it.

  The script was backdropped by a stunning photograph of classic tropical homes overlooking the canal on a hillside of dense rain forest. There were flowers, gigantic luminous leaves, clapboard and wedges of bamboo fence showing through. The houses appeared to be from another time: wooden, perfectly maintained, elevated off the ground like tree houses.

  The jungle that dwarfed the houses implied components that jungle always implies: shadows, waterfalls, vines, earth as black and potent as gunpowder, wild parrots.

  I’d driven through Gamboa once years ago, but it was at night. Didn’t see much, but remembered the smell of the jungle there, and the solid look of the houses that drifted past in our Humvee’s headlights. Like most structures in the Zone, the houses had been built back in the 1920s and ‘30s by American shipwrights. The guy who’d been driving was an old hand from the Jungle Operations Training Base at nearby Fort Sherman, and I remember him telling me how the houses were built: redwood imported from California, hardwood floors, copper plumbing, even roofs layered with copper sheeting, for God’s sake, everything pegged and bolted and dovetailed solid as a ship, built for the long haul of colonialism. Only the best if the U.S. government was buying and building it. Also told me something about the work-hard-drink-hard locals … yes, he’d told me what they called themselves: Gambodians.

  Right … and I had certainly passed Gamboa while transiting the canal by ship or boat. I had a vague recollection of white houses on a hillside, a little working tugboat and dredge marina. But I had not realized what a truly lovely place it was.

  The Turk was clicking through a scrapbook of photos: houses, interiors and exteriors, swimming pool, tennis courts, a refurbished bar and restaurant on a high hill. “The Gamboa Country Club,” it was labeled.

  “Is it not beautifully done?” The Turk asked.

  “The Web page? First-class. Really nice.”

  Looking at the computer screen, reading the words, I felt a chill … the kind of chill that precedes nausea. It is always troubling when innocent words are used to mask a broader meaning: If the buyers Merlot wanted to attract were nothing more than fun-loving people, why did they need to be protected? If they had legitimate dreams, why was it so difficult to find a place where those dreams could be realized?

  The Turk wanted to ask us something, I could tell. But he was having difficulty finding the right approach. Finally:

  “You are men of the world, I take it.”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “Gawldamn right we have! I’d barely scratched the surface when I told you about that bawdy house in Tampico. Tampico, the best place in the world to buy hand-tooled boots. Also, maybe the toughest city in Mexico to leave without takin’ a case of the clap home as a souvenir. Lotta people don’t know that, either.”

  The Turk smiled indulgently. “So you appreciate the more pleasurable … the more sensual needs that all men of health and vitality share. Of course! Why else would two successful American men come to a place such as Cartagena.”

  Yeah, the sex trade. Why else would a Yankee come to Colombia?

  I nodded, hoping Tucker would keep his mouth shut for once, just let it happen.

  The Turk said, “Gentlemen, what we are offering for sale here are not simply beautiful time-share duplexes and homes in one of the most beautiful rain forests in the world. What we are offering is a private, a very private, members-only club where a man—or, yes, a woman—may come and indulge any … any appetite or fantasy they wish. Indeed, the management of Club Gamboa will … strive to provide whatever … whatever is required to make your fantasies a reality.”

  I wanted him to come out and say what he meant. “What you’re telling us is there’ll always be women available. So it’s like a whorehouse village. Or are there options?”

  The laugh, that sniff! “Gentlemen, why am I talking when our Web page is designed to show you? Here … please consider what we have to offer. This feature” —he was moving the cursor, closing windows, opening others—“it is called … it is a video, a QuickTime video. Watch and you’ll learn much of what I’m sure you want to know.”

  16

  First I had to sit through a little bit of history on the Panama Canal. I watched the video patiently, already convinced that Merlot and Gail were at Gamboa, but also knowing that my best approach to Merlot was probably as a potential buyer. I wouldn’t receive a very warm welcome if I just walked up and said, “Hey, that lady you’ve been blackmailing? I’ve come to take her home.”

  To convince Merlot that I was a legitimate buyer, I had to first convince the Turk.

  Tucker was still smoking … Christ, wobbling now and humming country-western songs to himself … moving back and forth between the hookah and the computer as I watched helicopter footage fly me over locks and down a straight brown conduit of water, jungle on both sides, as the Powerbook spoke to me as if it were guiding a tour of Disney World:

  “The independent nation of Panama is completing its takeover of the Panama Canal and the land that sides it. It is the world’s most lucrative shipping route!

  The United States opened the canal in 1914 and, over the years, built ten military bases and American-style villages in prime areas of the fifty-mile-long, ten-mile-wide C
anal Zone. Those facilities will soon be abandoned by the U.S.!

  The Zone is so beautifully maintained that outsiders often compare it to a national park. It consists of 560 square miles of prime land, much of it uncut tropical rain forest … and one of the Zone’s most beautiful little tropical colonies, Gamboa.

  Gamboa’s rain forest is the richest on earth. That’s no exaggeration. Honest. Biologists have counted 184 varieties of tree per hector there, a world record! Tiny Gamboa also holds the world record for the most birds counted in a contained area—525 species! In and around Gamboa you can also find more than 120 kinds of orchids plus all kinds of wild fruit and flowers. But know what? You’ll probably be too busy having fun to spend much time outside.”

  The Turk interrupted, saying, “What it says next is important. Very important. As how you would say … background information that will make you feel secure about your investment.”

  That seemed to be the sole objective of the video: convincing potential members that Panama was a safe investment.

  “Want to know why investors like you and me are being offered this extraordinary opportunity? Here’s the fascinating story: In 1977, the Carter Administration agreed to gradually turn over the canal and the land to Panama by December 31,1999. It was also agreed that the so-called Zonies—mostly Americans from families who’d worked in the Zone for several generations—would be phased out Prior to the Carter treaty, there were nearly twenty thousand Americans, or Zonies, living and working in the Canal Zone. On the afternoon of the transfer, fewer than 800 remaining Zonies will finish their last day at work and leave for good. Why should that be of interest to people looking for a unique new vacation paradise?