Rendezvous With the Fat Man

by Gail Sherman Jones

  He suggested that they go to the Black Cat Club and talk for a few minutes and that would be it. Having heard that the Black Cat Club was notorious for drug trafficking, Jan grew more suspicious than ever. She hesitated a moment, wondering why they were so interested in speaking with her. But curiosity won her over and she could not refuse their invitation, needing to know who these guys were.

  “All right, but only if we go upstairs to the rooftop bar. I can meet you there in ten minutes.”

  “Can’t I come in?” he asked plaintively.

  “Of course not! I’ve got to put some clothes on.” She supposed he wanted to subtly eyeball her room.

  “I’ll just wait here by the door until you’re ready,” he said.

  Jan was getting exasperated. “What are you, the FBI or something?” she replied accusingly. That did it. He relented and agreed to meet her in the hotel lobby.

  Jan’s mind was working in overdrive now. She knew she was clean, but she was going to be smart and in control as well. Dressing hastily, she scoured the room and used a number of tricks designed to detect an unauthorized entry. She laid hairs discreetly across her suitcases and dresser drawers, and lightly powdered drawer handles and doorknobs. She also rested a book against the door so she could tell if it had been opened. Then, satisfied that she had covered herself well, she locked the door and took the elevator to the main lobby.

  Both of the American men were there together and she gave them a friendly greeting.

  After a few quick introductions, the heavy-set man made a big production of leaving the hotel. Jan snickered to herself. ‘Who did he think he was fooling?’ Full of confidence, Jan accompanied Sam to the bar for her drink. This was going to be fun.

  “Well,” he began, asking the killer question, “What brings you to Bolivia?”

  ‘Cocaine’, she thought, ‘but you don’t have to know that’. She told him her fabricated story, leaving out only a few significant details that he would never miss.

  “I’m a writer doing a story on tourism at the invitation of the Bolivian government.” The story rolled easily from her tongue enhanced by her sweet smile and bright green eyes. He nodded.

  “And what brings you to Bolivia?” Jan inquired.

  “I work for an oil company,” he started to explain.

  “Come on,” Jan interrupted, needling him, “Everybody knows there’s no oil in Santa Cruz.”

  “Yes, I know that, but I’m here with geologists to explore possible areas to mine minerals in the jungle for export. We’re working with representatives of Bolivian industries,” he explained.

  Probing a bit deeper, Jan found out that Sam had worked on Nixon’s unsuccessful campaign for the Presidency in 1960; another clue that this man was not all he appeared to be. At this time, Jan imagined that her room was being searched by Sam’s counterpart in an attempt to find damning evidence that she knew he would never find.

  When the bartender noticed that their drinks were nearly finished, he asked if they would like another. Jan figured she would have one more, just to be accommodating and give Sam’s partner a little more time to search her room. However, Sam declined for both of them, curious behavior for a man who begged her to have a casual drink just a few minutes before. Jan then knew that she had passed the test and the two of them left the bar soon afterwards.

  Sam didn’t even leave the elevator when her floor was reached. “Thanks for the drink,” he said, indicating by his manner that he was done with her and she could go on about her business as usual. Jan smiled and walked casually to her door.

  As expected, the fingerprints were there, the hairs were missing, and the book was out of place. She checked her luggage and belongings to confirm that nothing was missing. Her suspicions had been right all along. It was almost too easy to catch them at their game.

  Jan had learned to be cautious no matter how safe circumstances appeared to be at the time. The line between caution and paranoia was very fine and Jan preferred to be a little too cautious rather than not paranoid enough. Careless people tended to get caught.

  In any event, she never saw either of them again. They were not guests at the hotel and she never knew why they happened to be eating lunch there that afternoon. These guys had dropped out of sight completely and Jan didn’t miss them one bit.

  She could not become too complacent, no matter how safe the situation appeared. She put up her guard again and maintained that sense of awareness for the rest of the trip, especially when she had cocaine in her possession.

  There was no time left to catch another nap. Jan was scheduled to meet with Papi in two hours. She quickly showered, dressed in a bright fuchsia pantsuit, then called a cab to take her to Las Incas Night Club.

  It was a short drive from the hotel to the club, where people of all ages mingled outside wearing their best party attire. As Jan exited the cab, everyone seemed to focus on her, a single American, attractive Caucasian girl, a new face and possible dance or drinking companion. She flashed a huge, friendly smile and walked inside.

  The club crowd soon discovered that she was meeting someone as she walked directly to the back of the room where Papi was seated with his workers, whom she had met in the jungle. Jan barely recognized them now. They were all dressed in their evening attire of pressed dress shirts and slacks, clean shaven faces, and shorter haircuts. It was quite a contrast from their scraggily looks in the jungle when they were wearing soiled, sweaty tee-shirts, faded, ripped jeans, and leather sandals.

  “Chiquita, over here,” Papi said as he waved her over to his table.

  “Hola, mis compadres,” Jan responded as she approached them.

  Papi grabbed a chair from another table and placed it next to him for Jan to be seated. He gave her a big hug and they sat down together. “How ya doin’?” Jan inquired.

  “Life is good. I’m busier now than ever before,” Papi responded.

  “You’re my only connection as promised. I also brought a guy on this trip as a mule and he’s waiting in his hotel room until I return with the coca,” Jan informed him.

  “Follow me to my friend’s office in the back to conduct business,” Papi directed. Jan trailed Papi through a hallway to a small storage room filled with bottles of wine and liquor. He shut the door behind them and pulled out two packages from his leather satchel, each filled with one kilo.

  “This is better stuff than what you picked up last time,” he bragged.

  “You always come through for me. Just wish I could spend more time with you tonight. We’re leaving tomorrow for Buenos Aires and I need time to hide this stuff for transport,” Jan responded.

  “I understand. This trip is business as always. Maybe we’ll have more time to socialize on the next one.”

  Jan emptied her large purse of its contents, including a bundle of cash to pay for the product and carefully stuffed the packages on the bottom, then covered them up with the removed items. Papi gave it a quick inspection for approval. It didn’t seem any larger with the additional contraband. She handed him the cash payment and he stashed it in his leather satchel.

  With the transaction completed, they returned to his table. By this time, the club was filled with music and his buddies were dancing with the prettiest girls in the room.

  “You can at least dance one time with me before you leave,” Papi asked.

  “Why not.” Jan carefully deposited her purse under the table and headed to a part of the dance floor where she could monitor it.

  Jan and Papi both grooved freestyle to the infectious Latin percussion of the clave and timbale beats. The Fat Man danced part cumbia and part salsa, definitely doing his own thing. Jan tried to follow his lead but failed miserably, realizing that the steps looked easier than they actually were. This was not the time or place to practice. Jan needed to leave and returned to the table to retrieve her purse. After saying goodbye to Papi’s w
orkers, she was immediately escorted out of the club by Papi to hail a taxi.

  Their rendezvous was short and sweet. Papi gave her their traditional long hug and a polite kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back soon. Consider me your friend for life,” Jan promised. At that moment, a taxi pulled up along the curb.

  “Goodbye, Chiquita. Stay safe and let me know when you arrive home,” Papi said with endearment. He opened the car door and Jan climbed in, leaving him amongst the young party goers outside escaping the heat of the dance floor or taking a smoke break. He watched as her taxi disappeared around a corner.

  Once Jan arrived back at her hotel room, she pulled the coke packaging from the bottom of her purse and broke it up into half kilo baggies, hiding a half kilo of the stash in the bottom of her cosmetic case. She put the other kilo and a half back in her purse for David. It had been over 12 hours since Jan last spoke to him and she figured he was getting anxious to hear from her. Finally, she called, telling him to expect a knock on his door in a few minutes.

  David was bouncing off the walls in anticipation of her arrival. He couldn’t wait to get out of his room and start the trip back to Buenos Aires the next day. “Knock, knock. Open the door,” Jan jokingly announced.

  He jumped off his bed to the door and escorted her into his room. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” David admitted. Jan placed her purse on a small table and pulled out the three coke baggies. “Damn, that’s a lot of cocaine,” he remarked.

  “It’s a kilo and a half, a half kilo per baggie. For the trip home, we’ll tape these baggies to your legs, but for now, let’s just see how they’d look stuffed in your high top Fry boots,” Jan explained.

  He put on his boots and she carefully tucked a flattened half kilo baggie into each side of them. On close inspection, nothing looked out of the ordinary and with the jeans covering them, nobody would notice. The third baggie was stuffed in a sock and placed at the very bottom of the leather bag. Jan was not so worried about Buenos Aires custom inspections since they were not as diligent in their searches of baggage and carry-on items of American tourists.

  After separately checking out of the hotel and taking different taxis to the airport, they made sure to avoid coming in contact with each other in the terminal. Jan boarded the plane first and took a seat. David was near the end of the line before he boarded the plane, saw where she was seated and walked past her to the back seats.

  The plan for them was to go through customs separately and meet later at the prearranged hotel. They would then call Larry who was waiting for them at another hotel. Further plans would be made once the trio regrouped in Buenos Aires.

  Jan, ahead of David, was whisked through the inspection line without incident. Once out of customs, she turned to her right and walked to the bank, exchanging her money for Argentine currency. While doing this, she glanced back to the inspection line to see how David was doing and didn’t like what she saw.

  His back was to her and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. But his luggage was open and his head was cocked to one side in puzzlement, as if to say, “You want me to go where?” An Argentine customs official was directing him to the side. Since David didn’t speak much Spanish, he was obviously confused about what was happening to him.

  Seeing this, Jan gathered up her money and luggage and went outside the airport. She quickly purchased a taxi ticket to her hotel, then looked back inside the terminal trying to see what had happened to David. Jan couldn’t see him anywhere. She got into the taxi and sped into town, knowing that the only thing to be done was wait for him to hopefully show up at the hotel or call her for help.

  A hundred questions filled her head as she sat in the hotel room, waiting. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Was anything really wrong? Did they discover the cocaine in David’s boots and if so, how? What should she do with the cocaine she had? Should she hide it? Flush it? Give it to Larry? Would they come here looking for her? Jan was stymied and didn’t know what to do, except continue waiting which she always hated doing.

  An hour passed, then two hours. In desperation, Jan called the taxi stand at the airport and asked if a young American guy had, by any chance, bought a ticket to go to the Hotel Crillón. The answer was “No.” No one other than she had purchased such a ticket within the last several hours. Jan thanked him and hung up. Now she was convinced that David had been caught with the cocaine and was being interrogated by customs officials.

  The time dragged by for Jan, filled with thinking, wondering, planning, trying to remain calm and rational, but unfortunately, not being very productive. The three hours of stress waiting for David to call was torture. It was more nerve-wracking than anything else she had ever experienced as a cocaine smuggler.

  Half an hour later, Jan answered a knock at the door, expecting room service. Instead, David was standing in the doorway with a porter behind him carrying his luggage. Jan nearly burst with joy, but David’s expression told her to hold it in as long as the porter was there.

  She immediately excused herself to the bathroom, turned on the water full force, stuffed her face into a towel and muffled her screams of relief. When Jan heard the porter leave, she burst out of the bathroom excitedly, half-laughing, half-crying. “David, what the hell happened?”

  “Since the customs guy didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Spanish, they directed me to a detention area. They had to get an interpreter.”

  “Why were you there so long?”

  “I sat there for a fuckin’ hour and a half not knowing why I was there. Then this Argentine opera singer walked in to pick up her belongings and saw me sitting there. My red hair and cowboy boots caught her attention. She spoke to me in English and asked why I was detained.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I didn’t know. So she asked the customs guy what was the problem. It was my damned JVC radio-TV-cassette player. They thought I brought it into their country to sell. I told him to keep it if that was the only problem. Do you believe that? My luggage was never touched. The customs guy kept apologizing for the inconvenience.”

  “Remember, I pleaded with you to leave that monstrous JVC portable unit behind. I only agreed to let you bring it if that made you feel better about doing this trip. I know you always carry it around everywhere.”

  “I had no idea it would cause problems with customs inspectors,” David confessed.

  “The fewer items we bring on a trip, the better. It won’t happen again, believe me,” Jan confirmed.

  “Well at least the opera singer came to my rescue. She and her husband dropped me off at the hotel and they didn’t even know me. Can you believe that?” David gushed.

  “The Argentinians are cool people. That’s why I like working here. Fortunately for us, the stars were aligned in our favor today. Let’s hope it stays that way for the rest of the trip. At least we’re back on track now,” Jan responded.

  “What’s going on with Larry?” David asked.

  “I called and welcomed him to Argentina with an invitation to meet us here at the hotel for dinner tonight. We can all talk about the next step in our master plan.”

  They waited for Larry in the upscale restaurant to celebrate with gourmet cuisine and wine. He was in his early twenties, with brown shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail. When he finally arrived, his attire was disheveled, wearing faded jeans, t-shirt, and windbreaker jacket.

  “Couldn’t you have at least combed your hair and changed your clothes to something more upscale? You look like a hippy. This is a classy dining room,” Jan admonished him.

  “Gimme a break. You asked me to come here from my hotel and didn’t tell me it was a fancy restaurant.”

  “Sorry about that, my mistake. I know you just arrived yesterday, but what are your impressions so far of Buenos Aires?” David asked.

  Larry just sat there staring at them,
struggling to answer the question.

  “Did you have a chance to walk around and get a feel for the city?” Jan inquired.

  “You really want to know?” Larry responded

  “Oh, oh. It doesn’t sound good,” Jan said.

  “I hate Argentina,” Larry confessed.

  “Why?” Jan responded.

  “Because I don’t speak Spanish and I don’t know the customs.”

  “That’s it?” Jan asked.

  “Well, the truth is I’m fuckin’ depressed. My girlfriend broke up with me.”

  “Sorry to hear that, man. But your four day, all-expense paid work trip to Bariloche should take your mind off everything,” Jan replied.

  “Yeah, right! A day and a half ride on a crowded bus there and back which leaves me one lousy day in Bariloche,” Larry complained.

  “Just enough time to buy the souvenirs. This ain’t no goddamned vacation,” Jan angrily replied.

  “If it weren’t for the money, I wouldn’t be here,” Larry admitted.

  “HELLO….That’s why we’re all here, jerkoff! Pull yourself together and let’s get on with this job,” Jan countered.

  Larry wasn’t expecting such a caustic response. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to put my now ex-girlfriend out of my mind.”

  “You’re a handsome guy, and I’m sure you’ll find another chick soon. There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” Jan assured him. Larry acquiesced and spent the rest of the evening trying to enjoy his gourmet dinner even though he had lost his appetite.

  The next day Jan and David accompanied Larry to the bus station and helped him unload his bulky and cumbersome steamer trunk which he regularly used for travel. It had numerous drawers and compartments which could easily distract a customs agent in search of contraband, rather than focusing on the MacGregor coat and leather bag where the drugs were actually hidden. Jan thought it was brilliant smuggling diversion.

  Once Larry had boarded the bus and was on his way to Bariloche, Jan and David left Buenos Aires for a five-hour drive to Mar del Plata to meet with Jose Maria in his leather shop. After arriving, they parked their rental car in the back of his building and walked inside. Jose Maria was busy at work tailoring a leather jacket. When he looked up to see who came through the front door, he put his tools down and walked over to greet them.