Up until a few years ago Manta had shared its airport with the US Air Force in a joint effort to fight the flow of Columbian blow coming through to my neck of the woods. I'd spent a couple of weeks in Ecuador along with another Dade cop and some DEA guys to give them the ins-and-outs of the traffic and show them what to look for. A few years before that a Boeing 707 cargo plane had gone down into a wooden church in Manta, making big news. They were still talking about it when we'd arrived because the Virgin statue had not been damaged in the crash.
A big beach and surfing culture exists along Ecuador's coast. Manta had been the site for the South American Windsurfing Championship once and Mantans were hoping to get it again because of the revenue it generated.
I had arrived in July, which is the dry season, so while it was warm, I hadn’t had to deal with the muggy humidity you find so often when the ocean is nearby. Manta had casinos and great food, and live entertainment which I found to be listenable during my short stay.
What I remembered best, however, was a darkly sensual Ecuadorian girl as tender, hungry and insatiable as any I'd ever encountered. She was engaged to one of the Ecuadorian airport personnel but from the moment our eyes met as she lay in a hammock at a barbecue thrown to help everyone get acquainted, we knew we were going to be lovers. Even though her boyfriend was there that day, we found a way to get close. She'd brush her rear against me as if by accident, or let her fingertips linger as she handed me a plate. I caressed her fingers beneath the plate, and when no one was watching, filled my hand up with the warm sexy flesh of her buttocks.
She’d worn rust-colored shorts that day, and a top of soft reds, browns and creams all circling, intermingling. Her skin shown everywhere, a mix of copper, brown and cream. Dark, dark eyes, big but tapered at the outer edge, giving her an exotic look. Her legs were soft and shapely, her breasts supple, their tips long and dark and showing through her blouse. I couldn’t wait to get them in my mouth. That most intimate softness below her waist that makes a man's life worth living felt warm and sensual when surrounding me later, and tasted sweet and tropical. Her lips always seemed to be wet and soft, and her butt was so spectacular that I could remember the graceful curve of it still, after all these years.
We created no illusions during those two weeks. We didn't shop, we didn't sneak out to dinner or lunch. We made love. Every moment we could find, every moment we could steal, we were entangled; tasting, caressing, and pleasuring one another. I took her in ways I'd have been reticent to love any other girl, and she had loved me with such naughty abandon that for those two weeks nothing mattered but being alone so we could devour each other.
Her soon-to-be was a greasy-haired guy who thought he was Ecuador's gift to the world, and the female population in general, so I didn't feel too bad about the indiscretion. We didn't love each other in the way that can happen, but we did share a deep affection for each other by the time I had to leave. She'd snuck away from him in the middle of the night to say goodbye in the same way we'd said hello.
Perhaps every man needs a couple of weeks or even a month like that in his life, to get all the wildness out of his system, all the lust he can't express because whomever he's with would try to make him feel dirty. Perhaps a girl, too, as I thought back on it. I doubted she'd ever be as uninhibited with her somewhat swarthy husband. But he had a good job, a future, and he belonged to the culture of Ecuador. I think I'd have felt it if she had loved him, because then I would have found a way to stay away from her. Or tried to at least.
Before boarding the plane I asked her to come with me. A large part of me meant it, too. But there was that tiny part that wondered what I'd do with her once we got to Miami. The same hot passion for life that made her so wonderful in Manta, Ecuador, could ruin her in Miami, with all its glitter and excess.We couldn't carry on as we had in Manta, for sure, or I'd have a coronary. It would have been a wonderful way to go, though.
Fortunately, and in spite of her being in her very early twenties, she'd been wiser than me. Those dark eyes grew bright as I begged her to come with me. She had kissed me with those luscious lips one last time, before whispering in my ear, "We wouldn't make it, Seth, but God it was wonderful!" She had smiled, and looked into my eyes. "We'll always have Manta, Rick."
I'd had to laugh. On our third or fourth lover's tryst, Casablanca had been playing on an old black and white Motorola television while we made love. In fact, she'd become so engrossed that she'd had me stop what I was doing so that she could turn around and face the screen. I enjoyed and praised the view from behind her. The film was nearing the end while I loved her with gusto. Anguished moans and that needy meeting of hardened muscle and tender flesh lasted until Bogie put Ingrid on the plane.
"What are you laughing at, Seth?" Caroline asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.
"Oh, nothing, just an old memory." I felt guilty even though it had been many years ago. I’d learned a couple of years later that she’d left the swarthy airport guy and married someone in politics. Apparently she was sort of a big deal now.
Caroline squinted, then her face became a shade pinker.
"What was her name?" she asked, just a little too casually.
"Josselyn," I replied without skipping a beat. "But she's got a different name now, just like all the other girls I knew before you."
She smiled. "And what's that?"
"Not Caroline. It's sort of a funny name but they all share it." I shrugged and grinned. "You wanna write it down so you don't forget?"
That made her smile. "No, I won't forget." She slipped my her arm around mine. "Let's anchor here and go down below."
"What's down there?" I teased.
"A reenactment of whatever made you laugh like that," she said, her eyes very bright.
"We'll, we don't have Casablanca, or a television to watch it on, so that might be kind of hard."
She kissed me, throwing her arms around my neck. "We'll just reenact the rest of it then."
And we did. And it was a hundred times better than with Josselyn, and a hundred times sweeter, because Caroline loved me.
Four
Before I met Josselyn and began exploring her wonders on my first visit, I had spent some time exploring Manta. All the surfer girls I'd spoken to — and one who'd let me do a lot more than just talk — told me San Lorenzo was the place to go, so I began there, working my way through El Murciélago, Santa Marianita, and Barbasquillo beaches looking for more brown-skinned beauties like I'd discovered at San Lorenzo. I found them in abundance, plus one lovely young blonde from an Ivy League school who'd come down to party with her classmates. She had gotten bored with the not-so-nimble-minded frat-boy crowd, and appeared to like her male friends a bit more seasoned. Not a daddy complex, just a healthy interest in conversation and life beyond chugging beer and doing body shots.
University life hadn't dumbed Krista down yet and she hadn’t bought into all that America-is-bad crap her liberal professors were feeding her. She was bright, blonde, tattoo-free and wildly sexy without being wild herself. Proof that conservative girls were hotter.
Needless to say, Krista was refreshing in and out of bed. It had been the final weekend of her vacation, however. We'd made love one last time before she joined her shallow, mindless peers wearing T-shirts advocating beer, Obama, the latest zombie video game, Che, marijuana, more beer and Obama. I remember wondering as she kissed me goodbye how long she'd be able to hang on to herself in a world that was becoming too “enlightened” for nice, healthy, sexy girls like her. A year later her father ran for Senator of the southern state which she called home, and won.
"What's that smell?" Caroline said as we putt-putted towards shore in the little runabout she had named Rosita, after the woman who had taken care of her for so long on Cozumel. Rosita had been murdered by a perverted drug dealer named Vargas in an attempt to cover his daughter's tracks, whom he'd been screwing so long the girl thought she was his wife — and for all intents and purposes, was.
"Fish," I answered. "A lot of tuna canneries on Manta, and lots of fishing, the commercial kind. That and tourism give Manta one of the healthiest economies in Ecuador."
“Oh!” she exclaimed, undisturbed by the smell of tuna being canned.
"How are we going to get around, Seth? Or are the good places all right on the beach?"
"Taxis are cheap here. And they're everywhere. Most places we can walk, but when we need to we'll take a cab."
I didn't mention that one of the reasons to take a cab, especially at night, was to avoid grifters using children as a front, purse thieves, and pick-pockets who preyed on tourists. One of the first things I'd been told not to do by an Ecuadorian Colonel was carry a wallet in Manta. He suggested distributing my cash in various pockets so if I got picked I wouldn't lose everything. I decided to let Caroline keep her innocence. I was jaded enough for the both of us.
"Awesome! It sounds cozy." Caroline's face was bright and full of wonder, as it always was when we approached some heretofore unknown shore where she could experience new things, new people. It wasn't that she didn't know con-artists and thieves existed, she simply preferred to see the beauty of a place and its people. Caroline's optimistic outlook sometimes made me feel like a stick in the mud, but in a wonderful way. She balanced me, her bright-eyed wonder at life despite all she'd been through trumping my world-weary cynicism.
As we neared shore, I realized not for the first time in these past weeks just how much having Caroline in my life had changed me. I was excited for her, and being able to give her this experience excited me. We would have been completely happy were it not for a young dead girl thrown from a plane. But that could wait a day.
"What do we do first, Seth? It looks wonderful? What are all those umbrellas? Is it a market?"
I laughed and kissed her smile. Caroline's enthusiasm took years off my life, and stains off my soul.
I hailed a cab and we headed for the handicraft markets. Our cab looked much like the ones you see in pictures of Cuba taken by photographers attempting to glamorize oppression and make Cuba appear retro-exotic. You didn't have to travel to Cuba to know what it was like once you'd lived in Miami. Just stop any Cuban on the street who'd fled from there and they'd be more than happy to tell you all about the real Cuba.
It was a short drive, as most are in Manta, and in no time I simply became the guy following the pretty sandy-blonde American girl through the markets. Women with round brown faces smiled knowingly at me. They were sweet, and on the gentle side. Most looked similar to Alegria, the personal secretary to Fernando Marquez. Thanks to Sanchez and I, Marquez had become the largest supplier of drugs in the United States. No one could say Seth Halliday hadn't done his bit for the American economy, by gosh.
Caroline found lovely things to ooh and ah over and often added them to the big paper bag I carried dutifully as I tried to keep up.
One of the many things I recalled about the markets from my time in Manta was how colorful they were; shawls and throws in vibrant, beautiful colors; ceramics and paintings with bright, bold designs; pretty little dolls wearing crochet dresses; small paintings equally cheery and lovely; dresses, hats and coin purses handmade in lively colors and interesting designs, some from alpaca wool; replicas of pre-Columbian artifacts; Tagua carvings and silver jewelry; and of course, the "Panama" hat.
Monticristi is nearby and where the famous off-white hats with black bands are made. Decades ago, President Teddy Roosevelt became the first in-office such dignitary to travel to a foreign land. A photo of him in Panama wearing the Ecuadorian hat manufactured in Montichristo circulated in all the papers. Next thing you knew, it became known as the Panama hat. A lot of big stars in 1930s and 1940s movies had worn it, and now Caroline. She looked more fabulous than they did, for my money. Of course, most of them were guys, and the ones that weren't…well, I'd only slept with Phyllis Brooks and Hedy Lamarr in my dreams. Caroline I slept with every night.
"You look hot in that hat." Her green khaki shorts and bright yellow tank top didn't hurt either.
She kissed me. "This is so much fun." She laughed. "But you must be so bored. I'm sorry. I couldn't stop! The bag must be getting heavy. Wanna have lunch? I'm hungry."
"I'm famished. I need to call Sonny, anyway.”
Sonny was flying over with Harry to meet us this evening, but Caroline wasn't supposed to know. I'd fooled her into thinking their arrival was a few days out. One of the things Caroline lost to memory the night she was drugged and brutalized was the month and day on which her birthday fell, so we'd made one up and arranged to throw her a surprise party at one of the nicer hotels in Manta.
Katarina and Sonny had become a sort of couple, so she was meeting up with us there this evening — where from, was anyone's guess. Sonny and Katarina didn't spend a lot of time together due to her work as a spook of some sort, but when I'd spoken to Sonny last there had been a lightness in his tone I'd not heard since Maria.
Sanchez was flying in and mentioned almost too casually that he'd be bringing a date, which made it something in my head. Knowing Sanchez, she could be a very sweet sixteen or a sexy loved-starved wife in her forties.
Classy yet down-to-earth Florencia was bringing her husband with her, whom none of us had met. She was also bringing the cake, and had made the party arrangements at the hotel.
We didn't have far to walk before finding a busy little café. I ordered a burger and chips to be safe, but Caroline ordered ceviche pescado, which I knew from experience was a coastal fish concoction. I also knew that I'd never seen it look the same way twice while I was there, which worried me. Caroline ordered hers with plantain chips on the side, and I stuck with my burger. Both meals ended up costing us a total of five bucks. We sat beneath an umbrella and listened to a trio of gentlemen wearing "Panama" hats serenading us with guitar and some wind instruments while we ate.
"What are we going to do, Seth? I mean to find out who murdered that girl so horribly?”
"We'll start with the tape, since it obviously was important enough for her to die for. That's why I want to call Sonny. So when he arrives later on he can bring something to play it on. I don't want to scrounge around here trying to find something."
"But he won't be coming for days, Seth. What do we do until then?"
I couldn't give away her surprise party, but I also didn't want her to worry any more about the girl than she would in the natural course of things.
"Like Lovato said, someone will miss her. She’s white. It's doubtful she came here alone."
Caroline suddenly asked, "How did he know she was American?"
She surprised me sometimes.
I smiled. "Good question."
"So he knew something but wouldn't tell us?"
I nodded.
"Why?"
"Could be several reasons. Whatever he knew, he wasn't going to tell me."
"Because we're Americans?"
"Naw, because he's a cop, and because he suspected we were holding out on him."
Caroline took a bite. I was already done with my burger. "We were,” she whispered.
"Yes, we were."
"Do you think he knew what she was hiding or why she was killed?"
"No, if he did, he simply would have searched our boat and took it. He knows something, or suspects something, but he hasn't figured out yet what's going on."
She took her last bite and pushed her plate away.
"That was great, you should have tried it."
"No, thanks," I smiled. "I'll stick with the burger."
She took out one of her little paper squares, dictating to herself as she wrote: "No exotic foods for my sweetie." She stuffed it into her short's pocket with a big grin, laughing.
"You know what I would like to taste while I'm here again?"
"What?"
I leaned across the tiny metal bistro table and whispered in
her ear. Her eyes got big and she blushed.
"I'm not even sure that's legal here, Mister,” she said, her face flush.
"That's alright," I said with a smile, taking her hand in mine as I stood. "I know a quiet place."
I hailed a cab and we headed for the lovely Sueños Celestiales.
Five
The Sueños Celestiales had a soft pink exterior and lush green grounds on each side of a pink brick walkway. As Caroline and I strolled along the winding path, in no particular hurry because of the lovely surroundings, a couple of Ecuadorian girls in swimwear exited the lobby and smiled as they passed. Probably Pacifico or Alfaro girls. Manta has an abundance of universities, so there are a lot of brown-skinned, dark-haired lovelies competing with vacationing white-skinned, blonde-haired lovelies from universities in America on the beaches. These girls were two generations removed from the round faces of the older women in the markets, with more elegantly defined curves than their foremothers. Their smiles implied they'd be just as sweet, their bronze legs and hips suggested they'd not be nearly so proper.
The room we were given was bathed in oranges and creams and the open window faced green palm trees, completing the tropical feel. It didn't hurt that a touch of moisture from the ocean drifted on the breeze coming through the open window.
"How do you want me?" Caroline asked, beaming and bright-eyed.
"Is it my birthday or something?"
She stood over me as I sat on the big bed and picked up the phone to dial Sonny.
"Well," she laughed, which to me always sounded like a happy melody, "I do have an outfit for that occasion."
"But we didn't bring any bags."
"That's the beauty of the outfit!"
"You know, if I don't call Sonny soon, it'll be a long time before I do."
She kissed the top of my head. "I'll go freshen up in the bathroom while you call him and be back in a jiffy. Tell Sonny I said Hi."
"I will." After she'd taken a few steps I teased, "Don't forget what you went in there for."
The Long Gray Goodbye: A Seth Halliday Novel Page 3
