Accidental Encounters

by George Friesen

  Their Turkish host was at the point of despairing when Alvarez finally arrived, apologizing for being delayed by heavy traffic. He spoke rapidly in flawless English delivered in a soft Mexican accent, his white teeth flashing against his tanned brown skin. Unlike the other men, he wore a light summer suit, tieless, with an open-necked shirt. When he gestured with his hands, Bob noticed three rings on his fingers, one of which was set with a sparkling diamond. Alvarez was not your typical businessman.

  Within two hours, the business luncheon ended with handshakes all around. Alvarez promised that he or a representative of his company would visit Istanbul in the fall to discuss possible deals with his Turkish counterparts. Celik and Balbay offered their assistance in setting up meetings.

  To Bob, he said, “I will be visiting New York in early September. Could you schedule a meeting for me with your firm so that I can learn more about your market expertise and trading capabilities? Perhaps we can explore sales opportunities in both the United States and Turkey.” Again he smiled, but his opaque eyes did not reveal a hidden meaning.

  When Bob walked back to his room at the W Hotel on Campos Eliseos in the Polanco business district, he reported to Murat on his phone. “The lunch went as planned. Alvarez indicated that he is coming to New York in early September and would like to meet you.”

  “Excellent. My schedule is open the week after Labor Day.”

  “I will mention that to him tonight. I am in my room waiting for his call.”

  “You still have the instructions with you?”

  “Yes. I took the envelope to lunch with me, in case he could not meet tonight.”

  “Smart. One can never be too careful.”

  After Murat hung up, Bob decided to change into casual clothes. Opening his suitcase, he had the first surprise of the day. The contents of his suitcase had been disturbed. He always packed his underwear and socks beneath his folded shirts. Now the order had been reversed. Had the hotel maid searched his suitcase, looking for something valuable like gold cuff links or a watch? He had been the victim of petty theft on a vacation in Rio de Janeiro years ago, so that was a possible explanation. Yet nothing was missing.

  But perhaps the maid (or whoever it was) had been looking for something that was not there—the instructions, for instance. But who knew about the instructions? Only Murat, who gave him the sealed envelope; Alvarez, who was expecting it; and Shafer, whom he called from the airport to alert him that he was leaving for Mexico City. Murat and Alvarez were unlikely suspects. That left only Shafer. But did his reach extend to Mexico City?

  Bob settled back on the bed and dozed off, waking with a start when his phone rang. He heard the voice of Alvarez. “I will see you in the bar downstairs at 7:30 p.m.”

  At 7:25 p.m., Bob left his room and headed toward the elevators. He heard a door close and footsteps following him down the hallway. On reaching the elevator, he was joined by a tall young man neatly attired in a business suit and wearing dark sunglasses. After exchanging greetings, they stared straight ahead, taking the elevator to the lobby in silence. The young man exited from the lobby to the street. Bob headed toward the Red Lounge, whose neon tube lighting could be seen from the lobby.

  After ordering a whiskey, he sank into one of the lounge chairs easily visible from the entrance and observed the parade of elegantly dressed women and their escorts, who entered or sipped cocktails at nearby tables. Music pulsated softly in the background. After a half hour passed, he surveyed the occupants of the bar more closely, in case Alvarez was sitting unobtrusively away from the entrance. He did not see Alvarez, but sitting several tables away was the man who accompanied him down the elevator, still wearing sunglasses even though the lighting in the bar was dim.

  Arriving late apparently was a characteristic of Alvarez. Bob checked his watch. Already 8:30 p.m. He was getting tired of people watching. He considered ordering a second drink but decided against it. Looking at the business card Alvarez had handed him at lunch, Bob was about to call him on his phone when he heard a pleasant female voice.

  “Buenas noches!”

  Standing in front of his chair was a chic young woman whom he had noticed, some time ago, sitting by herself at a nearby table. “You seem to be alone tonight. May I join you?” Without waiting for his response, she sat down in the chair next to him.

  “I am actually expecting someone. He seems to be running late.”

  She smiled. “Ah, that is a trait of us Mexicans. Being punctual is less important to us than to Americans. You are from the United States, yes?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Would you like to buy me a drink?” she asked as she leaned toward him.

  Bob thought quickly about how to extricate himself without creating a scene. Linking up with an expensive hooker was not part of the plan. What had happened to Diego? How could he be so careless about keeping appointments?

  “I need to make a telephone call,” he said.

  Then came the day’s second surprise. She pouted and leaned even closer to him, whispering softly, “I have a message for you from Diego. You are to meet him in front of the Pied de Cochon, a restaurant located in the Presidente InterContinental Hotel, not far from here, at 9:00 p.m. He will be waiting for you in a car. Now do you want to order me a drink?”

  Bob looked closely at her pretty face. “Okay. What would you like?”

  “Champagne, of course.”

  He motioned to the waiter and ordered two drinks.

  After signing the bill, Bob asked her, “What is your name?”

  She shrugged her bare shoulders. “It does not matter. But if you like, you can call me Juanita.” That amused her. Her laughter tinkled over the sound of the music.

  “How did you get to know Diego?”

  She arched her eyebrows, pausing briefly before replying, “We met at a party and became friends. That’s all.” She lit a cigarette and exhaled before asking, “Do you mind?”

  “No. Go right ahead.”

  She swiveled in her chair to gaze around the lounge before whispering to him, “We are being watched. I do not mean ordinary people watching. The young man sitting a few tables behind us is Miguel Rodriguez, who works for the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States.”

  He whistled under his breath. “Interesting,” he said but caught himself before revealing that the young man was staying at the hotel and had a room on his floor. Could he be the person who had searched his suitcase?

  She tossed her head in the opposite direction. “You see that middle-aged man over there sitting with his bleached-blond lady friend and two bodyguards?”

  Bob’s eyes moved around the lounge until they came to rest on a table only thirty feet away.

  “That is Vicente Garcia, who is a competitor in our business. Normally, he stays on the west coast of Mexico, in the state of Sinaloa, close to where his boss, Guzman, is thought to be hiding out. Mexico City should be neutral territory, but I think it favors their cartel more than Diego’s.”

  “And his cartel is?”

  She looked genuinely surprised. “Diego did not tell you? He is Los Zetas. But you had better go. Diego is waiting.”

  Bob glanced at his watch and excused himself, walking in the direction of the men’s washroom. Pausing to look back, he observed her still sitting at the table; and on either side of her, several tables removed, were Rodriguez and Garcia. It occurred to him that he might be heading into a trap and that his life could even be in danger, but he resolved that he could not leave Mexico City without delivering Murat’s instructions.

  A small group of people straggling by provided him with the screen that he needed to make a sharp turn away from the washroom toward an exit door leading onto a side street. Within minutes, he was in front of the Pied de Cochon, where Alvarez was waiting for him in his Mercedes-Benz. By the time the men watching Juanita saw her get up from
her chair to walk out of the Red Lounge, Bob and Alvarez were speeding along the Campos Eliseos.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Buenas Noches, amigo! I am sorry about the confusion tonight. Let me explain. My girlfriend and I were about to enter the lobby of your hotel when I spied some people in the vicinity whom I would rather not meet. So I asked Maria Elena to go alone to the Red Lounge to make contact with you.”

  “Maria Elena? I met a Juanita.”

  Alvarez chuckled. “That is Maria’s joke. She likes to play cloak and dagger sometimes. It amuses her to use different names. But let me make amends.” He gave some quick instructions to the driver. “I have asked the driver to take us to the Bulldog Café. It is a popular nightclub south of here—three big dance floors and a decent bar. Perhaps you will meet some of our local girls.” He winked.

  Soon they had been driving along the Calzada Chivatito. Alvarez became more serious. “Tell me about yourself. Lunch did not provide us with the opportunity to talk much.”

  Bob provided a brief sketch of his life.

  “So you joined Ottoman Trading Company only at the beginning of this year? Recep Murat must trust you by asking you to deliver important instructions. You have them with you?”

  “Yes, right here.” Bob pulled the sealed envelope from the inside of his suit pocket and handed it over.

  Alvarez tucked it away in his jacket. “I will read it later. I do not know Murat, your boss, personally. But I did know the man who once reported to Emir Tilki, the chairman of Ottoman Trading Company. But that was many years ago. Does the name Abdullah Catli mean anything to you?”

  “No.” Bob shook his head. “Should it?”

  “I was a young clerk starting out in the shipping department of another sugar exporting company. The name does not matter, but it was the one I worked for before I joined Veracruz Sugar. I became involved with an organization that was smuggling Colombian cocaine into the American and European markets. That is how I met Abdullah. He was a genius. He had contacts everywhere, but especially in Europe. Working with him, we succeeded in making big shipments into the Italian and British markets. Then it suddenly ended. Abdullah was killed in a car accident in Turkey, wiped out by a rival gang.”

  “When did that happen?” Bob asked curiously.

  “In 1996. There was a big investigation in Turkey, and Ottoman Trading Company decided to lay low. Our European business dwindled, so my organization focused on the US market. We gained control of the supply routes to the United States passing through the eastern half of Mexico. You may have heard of it—the Gulf Cartel. For a while, everything went well. We hired a private army to enforce our control. Then the troubles came. Our leader, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was arrested in 2007, and a big fight broke out over who would succeed him. Many people were killed. I became aligned with the Los Zetas group when it broke off from the Gulf Cartel in 2010.”

  “That is what Maria Elena told me tonight—that you belong to Los Zetas.”

  “Yes, that is correct. During the day, I am a businessman having lunch with Turkish diplomats and businessmen. But at night, I have a different identity.” Alvarez smiled, looking pleased with his double life. “Did Maria also tell you who our worst enemies are?”

  “She pointed out two men in the Red Lounge tonight—one who belongs to the Sinaloa Cartel and the other who works for the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States.”

  Alvarez’s face hardened. “Exactly. We have been at war with Sinaloa in recent years. But let us not forget the Mexican and US governments. One of our leaders, Miguel Morales, was arrested last year by the Mexican Navy.”

  He became pensive for a moment and then continued, “That is enough of the past. Let us get back to the present. I received a call ten days ago from New York—from Demir Ozmen who, like Abdullah before him, reports to Emir Tilki, although he mentioned that most operational responsibilities are now in the hands of his son, Omer. He said that he wanted to renew old ties. Cocaine prices in Europe are twice what they are in Mexico. He said that a business proposal would be delivered by a personal messenger from New York. That must be you.”

  “Yes, I’m the man.”

  As the Mercedes-Benz pulled up to the entrance of the Bulldog Café, two burly men emerged from the shadows and opened the rear doors. As Bob stepped out of the car, Alvarez advised the driver to stay in the car because he would be back shortly. They walked into the club together, flanked on either side by the two bodyguards.

  The dance floor at ground level was crowded with young people gyrating to the rhythm of the music. The two bodyguards plowed a channel through this mass of humanity so that Alvarez and Bob could make their way to the bar, where two empty stools were conveniently waiting.

  “Let me show you a little Mexican hospitality. What would you like to drink?” When the orders had been placed, he spoke to one of the bodyguards, who walked onto the dance floor and returned in a few minutes with a lovely young woman in tow.

  With a flourish, Alvarez introduced Teresa. “She will be your hostess tonight.”

  Teresa was beautiful. She was tall and slim, dressed in a short, clinging low-cut dress that revealed the swell of her breasts and her shapely legs. Her shoulder-length black hair framed her large eyes and red lips.

  “Your name is Bob, right?” Her voice was melodious and warm. “Would you like to dance?”

  Before he could protest that he was not a good dancer, she pulled him to the dance floor, and they began moving in time to the throb of the music. She pressed her body against his, and as they whirled around, he glanced back at the bar. Alvarez and his bodyguards had disappeared, leaving him on his own.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion at the entrance to the nightclub. A disc jockey blared over the loudspeakers that a celebrity rock band had arrived and would be performing that night. Dancers on three floors roared their approval as disco lights flashed and the beat of the music became deafening. Trailing behind the rock band were the paparazzi, pointing their cameras at the entertainers and then at the dancers. Bob did not realize that within twenty-four hours, a photo of him dancing with the lovely Teresa would be on YouTube—irrefutable evidence of his infidelity to his betrothed, Andrea.

  Bob had no memory of how the evening progressed thereafter except that he woke up in his hotel room with the lovely Teresa beside him in bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The punishment for his indiscretion was swift. Several days after his return to New York, he was getting out of the shower with the intention of going over to Andrea’s for dinner, as they had agreed the previous evening, when the telephone rang.

  “Andrea, I was just about to come over.”

  “Don’t bother!” The fury in her voice startled him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I was having drinks earlier today with Derek Taylor, a former flame of mine who’s been helping me to find a replacement for Fred Sanford on my television show. We got to talking. He’s been doing a special television program about the career of Bruce Cockburn, the Canadian songwriter and guitarist. He did a little research for the program on YouTube.”

  “So what does that have to do with me?” Bob asked apprehensively.

  “Everything. Last week, a Mexican rock band, Luge Mx, performed at the Bulldog Café in Mexico City and sang one of Cockburn’s songs, “Love in a Dangerous Time.” He pulled out his iPad and showed me the clip he intends to use. Of course, the clip included more than just the rock band’s rendition of that song. It also showed the people on the dance floor, cheering them on. Who do you think I saw hugging and dancing with some slut?”

  “Andrea, I can explain! She was introduced to me by the businessman I flew to Mexico City to see. We went to this nightclub after our meeting. We danced, that’s all. Nothing to be concerned about.”

  “She didn’t look to me like your typical businessman’s wife or
girlfriend. Her dress was so skimpy she might as well have been wearing nothing!”

  “Sweetheart, please be reasonable. Can you trust a video clip made by Derek Taylor? He’s an old flame of yours, and he’s jealous of me. He probably altered it to make me look bad.”

  “Nice try, Bob. But that wasn’t his clip. He got it from a vendor on YouTube, so he had no chance to doctor it.” Her voice cracked. “You’re rotten! You couldn’t even wait until our wedding day to be unfaithful! Why are you men all the same? Do you even know what the word ‘fidelity’ means? Our engagement is off. I never want to see you again!” she cried, slamming down the receiver.

  Bob tried calling her back but got only her voice mail. He poured himself a cocktail, downing it in one gulp, and then pulled out and lit up a joint, staring sadly into space. He was a born loser—a college dropout, a divorced man, a business failure, a prime suspect in the death of a television actor, and a police informer. Now he was a jilted lover as well. Nothing in his life had gone right or ever would. He was convinced of that. Suicide did not seem an attractive option, but fleeing to Rio de Janeiro was becoming ever more appealing.

  Jack, lying on the floor by his chair, looked up at him with soulful eyes and whimpered sympathetically. His dog was the only friend he had.

  Then the telephone rang again. Was it Andrea?

  He picked it up without looking at the caller ID and answered, “Andrea?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, buddy. It’s only me.”

  His heart sank. It was the unmistakable voice of John Shafer.

  “Connors and I need to see you again to get a report on the fun you had in Mexico City. You’ve been back a few days and still haven’t called us. We feel hurt and neglected. You’ve got to be more responsive if our friendship is to survive. Got the message, buddy? How would you like to get together tonight?”