Saffire

by Sigmund Brouwer

  During my travel years, I played a small role in helping Buffalo Bill build the myth, and for that reason, I had no such illusions about myself. I had discovered the result of mythology was that people tend to overestimate a cowboy’s athletic skills in the same proportion that they underestimate a cowboy’s intelligence or education.

  Both misconceptions were always helpful in barroom situations, so the cowboy hat and boots, I felt, were a good choice. After all, here on the isthmus, where else but such a place would I go to get local answers to local questions?

  If the selling of liquor was illegal in the Zone on a Sunday, it was easy enough to realize why the pick-and-shovel men not at work were in Panama City. That’s where I’d find them, and that’s where I’d find them in the types of spirits—literally and metaphorically—most likely to engage in unguarded conversation.

  I pulled my books out from the valise and set them on the desk. I unrolled my spare clothes and placed them under the mattress to flatten them and take out the wrinkles. I placed my shaving kit in the bathroom.

  I then searched for a suitable hiding spot for the two things that mattered most to me: my revolver and the bank draft that would save my ranch from foreclosure.

  My housing was too Spartan, however. And too well built. I couldn’t pry any floorboards loose, nor could I find a way to access the ceiling. Any hiding spot that I found would be too easily found by anyone else.

  I put my revolver and the envelope with the bank draft back into the valise, along with the coupon books.

  I put my hat back on, took the valise, and stepped outside.

  Hot. Very hot. Sunset was hours away. Panama wasn’t very far north of the equator, and that meant sunset was around 6 p.m. almost every day of the year.

  Nothing could be done about the heat. But something could be done about making sure my revolver and bank draft stayed safe while I visited Panama City.

  I looked around for a place where I would choose to best observe House 31. It had to be close by and offer mobility. A house was close but wouldn’t make it easy to leave unseen. Nor would a perch in a tree. I decided on the tall hedges across the street. I walked across the street, and no birds flew from the hedge. So, a good guess.

  “Muskie.” I spoke in a conversational tone to the dark green leaves of the hedge. “I need a favor. Well, actually not a favor. The way I figure it, you are under direct orders from Goethals to assist me. When you help me with this, it won’t be a favor; you will be working for Goethals. That’s important to establish because I don’t want to owe you any favors. Is that understood?”

  Except for the chatter of birds farther down the hedge, there was silence.

  “Are we really going to do it this way? Do I have to walk around and embarrass you as you try to hide? If you weren’t there, a flock of those fancy red birds would have scattered when I walked to the hedge. No birds. That means you already scared them away.”

  Miskimon’s voice came from the other side of the hedge. “I’m merely waiting until I hear the word please.”

  “Would you please come out and walk back to the train station with me? I’ll tell you where I’m headed so that you don’t have to skulk around and blend in with changing scenery as you try to keep up with me.”

  Miskimon stepped out from the hedge. He adjusted his glasses with that customary flick.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Here’s my request.” I passed the valise across to Miskimon. “There’s a cashier’s check in there, along with my revolver, so make sure it’s in a place where no one can take either. Coupon books are there too, but I’m not as worried about them.”

  I’d torn out a few coupons for meals today, along with a couple of tickets for the train. “I’d like the revolver and cashier’s check back when I’m finished dealing with the colonel’s request. That will be in about twenty-four hours. Or less.”

  I knew the contents would be safe. Someone as fastidious and prudish and rule oriented as Miskimon would guarantee it. “As for where I’m headed, train station. You don’t have to walk with me, but I think social graces demand it. And it’s easier to have a conversation.”

  Miskimon fell in step with me, and we began the progression, block by block, from smaller houses to larger houses.

  “Where do you intend to take a train, Mr. Holt, and when will you be back?”

  “To Panama City. I don’t know for how long. But if you like, when I get back, I’ll report to you to set your mind at ease. It’s silly for you to follow me when I don’t care to hide from you what I’m doing. But I do want to be alone, so that excludes any kind of partnership.”

  Miskimon shuddered. “I’m not paid enough to partner with you.”

  “Nice to have an understanding then. Follow me if you feel the necessity. I’ll even send you a drink across the room.”

  “I would prefer to believe you are not the type of man to tell lies,” Miskimon said. “Consider this, then, an opportunity to prove yourself such a man.”

  “Trust me, my motivation is not to prove myself to you in any way. What’s the best drinking establishment in Panama City?”

  “You need to be more precise about what you consider best. I’m not sure yet of your particular bent for evening activities.”

  I sighed. “You always think the worst of people?”

  “I’ve had considerable experience discovering it is an accurate place to start. I’ve also learned it leads to fewer disappointments in life. For the remainder of this afternoon, for example, since I’ll be spared the wretched experience of following you, I get the equally wretched experience of attending to complaints about a broken screen made to the colonel this morning by a shrew whose voice makes me fear for shattered spectacles.”

  “Mrs. Penny.”

  He raised an eyebrow. Score one for me.

  “What, then, suits you best for a drinking establishment?” he asked.

  “Well, let me help you out when it comes to my particular bent. All I want is to get home as soon as possible because I have a young girl to raise.”

  “The report did say you were a widower.”

  “What would a report say about you?”

  “Define best for me.” Another twitch of his eyeglasses with his free hand. “Panama City is rife with drinking establishments.”

  “I first want a place where journalists gather like stupid gazelles at a water hole.”

  “Journalists? I don’t think you yet appreciate how confidential all of this must be.”

  “Or maybe you don’t appreciate that I want to ask, not answer, questions. How about helping me fill out one of these blank trip tickets and writing down directions to a few bars and then escorting me to a train to get me there.”

  “I’m not your servant.”

  “But you are the colonel’s. Second, I want a working-class bar.”

  “It will be dangerous.”

  “Then definitely don’t follow me this evening. I doubt you’d survive five minutes in a place like that.”

  “Strange,” Miskimon said, “I was just thinking that I couldn’t ever dislike you more than I do already. Yet here I am. Proven wrong. It’s a novel sensation. Not my dislike for you. But being proven wrong.”

  “That’s okay, Muskie. I’ll be gone tomorrow. Keep that in mind. Confirm for me that you’ll reimburse me for receipts for the booze I buy. Tonight is going to be nothing but work for the colonel.”

  “I would think nothing but.”

  “By the way, the bars in Panama City, they accept American dollars, right?”

  “So do the con men and pickpockets and all the other riffraff.” Miskimon sniffed. “If I’m lucky, you won’t make it back here at all.”

  The Zone police had a station in Corozal, a few stops south of Culebra, and, conveniently enough, the second-to-last stop before Ancón, where I would disembark later to reach Panama City.

  I stepped off the train and noticed immediately a man in a khaki uniform. He was a handsome, large man, skin ebony blac
k, and when I asked for directions to the police station, he stretched a grin across his face. “Follow me, mon.”

  We didn’t have far to go. It was on a knoll across the track, a pleasant-looking low building with a veranda and rocking chairs.

  “What bizness you got here?” His voice was a rumble.

  “I’m looking for Harry Franck.”

  “That man? I hope you not in no hurry. He talks and talks. Talks ’nuff to make a horse lose its hind leg.”

  We stepped onto the veranda, and he peered through the window.

  “Yah, mon. Nuttin’ different. Jess listen. He’s a mon to tell stories. Good thing his stories are good.”

  He pushed the door open and motioned for me to remain quiet. We both snuck inside.

  “I can tell you boys,” Harry Franck was saying as I slipped past the open door to step into the station, “getting a transfer from Uncle Sam’s quarters to bunk here with you is not something I mind in particular. Let me tell you about my roommate in House 81.”

  Harry had his back to me, and his audience consisted of two other men as ebony black as the policeman who had led me here. I would find out later from Harry that they were called First-Class Policemen and that the term was a euphemism for men of color in general, much needed for peaceful dealings with the laborers, who lived in segregated camps. Here, I would learn, their regular duties were to make sure the rocking chairs on the front veranda didn’t get blown away by the occasional strong winds from the Pacific and to stroll the short distance from the police station to the train station seven times daily to see which passengers might disembark.

  Those two First-Class Policemen on the other side of Harry looked as bored as teenage boys sitting on the wooden shelf in an open jail cell.

  His audience cared so little about events around them that even my appearance didn’t rouse them. They just let Harry enjoy telling the story.

  “That fellow had one slight idiosyncrasy that might in time have grown annoying,” Harry said. “On the night of our first acquaintance, after we had lain there, exchanging random experiences till the evening heat had begun a retreat and before the gentle night breeze arrived, I was awakened from the first doze by my companion sitting suddenly up in his cot across the room. ‘Say, I hope you’re not nervous,’ he remarked. I told him, ‘Not immoderately.’ After all, boys, I have been around the world, and anytime you want, you can read the book about it.”

  “Hurts my head, mon,” one of the First-Class Policemen said. I could not judge whether he meant reading or listening to Harry. Harry took it as encouragement, but I suspected already that Harry took any kind of movement from his audience as encouragement.

  “Well,” Harry said, “he answered by saying he suffers from a nightmare. What he said was that when he gets it, he generally imagines his roommate is a burglar trying to go through his junk. Boys, that’s when he reached under his pillow and brought to light a Colt of .45-caliber and pointed it behind me. I turned my head and saw three large, irregular splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches above me. Those holes were the last three bullets he fired at his former roommate.”

  Against my will, I found myself wanting to know more and was glad when he continued. Some people know how to tell a story.

  “ ‘But I’m trying to break myself of them nightmares’ is what he told me next,” Harry said, “and then he slipped his revolver back under his pillow and turned off the light to go to sleep. For sure that’s a story I’m putting in my book. What do you boys think of it?”

  “We think you have a visitor,” the boy said, pointing over Harry’s shoulder. I’d find out later he was Trinidadian and did custodial work, for which he was provided sleeping quarters in the jail cell—when it was not occupied by prisoners.

  Harry Franck turned, and I had my first full look at him. He was a man of my height but a decade younger and easily fifteen pounds lighter. He had short-cropped hair and a narrow handsome face.

  “Visitor?” Harry asked.

  “T. B. Miskimon said this would be the police station for my new employment tomorrow,” I said. “I thought I’d look in today just to get a lay of the land.”

  “Miskimon? Walks like he has a broom pole going down his throat and coming out the other end?”

  “I’ve learned not to talk badly of those who employ me.”

  “That’s just a statement of fact.” Harry wasn’t put out at all at my implied criticism. “Unless you’re blind, you have to agree with me.” He didn’t wait for me to agree with him. “You here about those men getting knocked out along the tracks?”

  This was a man who, when he had a thought, would straightaway blurt it to the world. I liked him.

  “It’s like some invisible hand reaches down and strikes them upside the head,” Harry said. “Miskimon is supposed to be looking into it for us. Even if no one figures out how that happens, I’ll put that in my book.”

  All the men in his audience of three began to mutter and cross themselves.

  “I’m here to introduce myself as your new enumerator,” I said. “Badge 28.”

  Again, all the men in his audience muttered and crossed themselves.

  “Don’t mind them,” Harry said. “Last man wore that badge died in a bad way, but I’m not superstitious. Are you?”

  Regardless of what we were going to discuss, I wanted it more private than this, although my gut told me that Harry was such a storyteller that anything we spoke about wouldn’t remain private for long.

  “You hungry?” I asked Harry. “I need something to eat, and I have some coupons.”

  “Always hungry. Especially on someone else’s coupons.”

  “You probably heard of my book,” Harry said. “A Vagabond Journey Around the World. The subtitle says it all: A Narrative of Personal Experience. It’s got my stowaway stories, how I survived crossing India during the famine, amazing stuff all through. Bet you’re surprised to be sitting right here, with a real published author.”

  We sat just outside the YMCA building, in a screened-in room beneath a large overhang. At the YMCA commissary, I’d traded coupons for sandwiches of thick fresh bread, crisp lettuce, and ham so tender that chewing was a mere formality.

  “It’s been a day of surprises,” I said.

  “I’m only here to write another book, this one about my time at the canal. Back in the United States, people are crazy about the canal. But all they get is the official line. About how wonderful it is. I’m going to give them the inside view. I’m calling it Zone Policeman 88: A Close Study of the Canal and Its Workers. It’s going to give readers an entirely different view of the canal, I promise. My view. What we’ve got here is a kind of socialism with a twist to it. People don’t understand. You a socialist?”

  “Catchy title. I’ll look for the book when it’s out.”

  “Book’s nearly finished. So am I as a Zone policeman. Don’t worry though; I’ll show you the ropes just like I was making this my career. I’m the best, so you’re in good hands. ¿Prefiere hablar en inglés o español?”

  “Little dusty in Spanish. Might need help with what you just asked.”

  He frowned. “We can get around that, I guess. Have you seen the dig? Thousands of men, hundreds of machines. Controlled chaos. They were in the wrong place, wrong time, as far as anyone can tell. Dynamite went off before the signal. Hill tumbled down.”

  “They?”

  “Two policemen. Five workers.”

  “Seven all told?”

  “Seven. Took awhile to find them. Only because the two of ours were gold men, not silver. Had all seven been silver they would have stayed part of the dig for eternity. Nobody wasting time to help the silvers more than necessary.”

  “Gold? Silver?” I remembered Cromwell making disdainful reference to silver-dollar people. And Mrs. Penny doing the same.

  “Tell me,” Harry said, “would you find it offensive if areas of the Zone stores and restaurants were clearly marked with ‘white’ for men li
ke you and me and ‘black’ for men like the policemen back at the station?”

  “Labels of any kind don’t seem like a good idea,” I said. “Anyway, I haven’t seen any such signs since my arrival.”

  “Dexterously,” Harry said. “Like that word? The colonel—and I’m sure you know who I mean—has very dexterously dodged the necessity of lining the Zone with those types of offensive signs that I’ve seen in the Deep South of the United States. This is supposed to be a place where men are equal.”

  I had my own agenda, but Harry would not be distracted by direct questions unless it suited him. So I sipped water. With ice in it. Amazing. In the tropics, yet ice was served at no charge. Americans changed the world to suit themselves.

  “Let me tell you about a Jamaican woman and her trip to a Zone dentist.”

  I nodded, being patient.

  “Inside, the first sign said, ‘Crown work, gold and silver fillings.’ ”

  Harry watched my face, as if trying to see if I could guess where this was headed. I had no idea.

  “What she said when she saw the sign was”—he switched to a decent imitation of a Jamaican accent—“ ‘Oh, doctah, does I have to have silver fillings?’ ”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t understand yet. She assumed she had to have silver, not gold, because she was a darker shade than you and me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If you are a Zone employee, you get paid in gold or silver,” Harry said. “White-skinned get paid in gold. Did you notice as we passed by the dining room below how it was sweltering and filled with laborers? They get paid in silver. You don’t see signs for ‘white’ or ‘black,’ but gold and silver accomplish the same thing.”