VII
The Bar Tropical and the Gran Hotel Paris in La Ceiba was a
balmy kind of place on Avenue San Isidro, a main road.
When Bill and Eke walked in, it felt exotic with the syncopatic
background music and colorful Honduran folk art on the walls. The
big room was full of rich, older couples while the smaller bar had a
more male clientele and the atmosphere in the smaller bar was
somehow different. Eke couldnt put his finger on it. It was something
he felt as soon as he walked into the bar.
Eyes turned and looked at the two Americans. Three men seated
at a table started to laugh. Eke looked at them and looked away but
Bill headed straight to the bar. In broken Spanish, Bill said he was
looking for a bartender named Juan.
In English, the bartender with slicked back hair said that he was
Juan. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Sam from the docks sent us,” said Bill. “Were looking for work.” “Oh, Sam from the docks?” asked Juan rhetorically. “Interesting.”
He smiled. “Get you a drink?”
“Beer,” said Bill.
“Nothing,” said Eke.
“Nothing?” asked Juan. “A man should drink, you know.”
“No thanks,” said Eke.
Bill, trying to save his friend from explaining 12 steps to a
Honduran bartender, decided to pursue their reason for being here.
“So, Juan, do you think you can get us some work. We were told
there might be some, um, interesting work to be had.”
Juan eyed them cautiously. He poured Bill a beer and handed it
to him. For a long time he said nothing and then finally he said, “It is
dangerous work.”
Bill smiled. “Thats okay with us.” Dangerous sounded good,
especially to Bill, who spent years when he was a young man
studying the martial arts. He stayed a brown belt in several disciplines
of self-defense because turning black belt would have meant he
would have to register as a lethal weapon. He just wanted to be a
lethal weapon, not register. Then later, while he was married, Bill
spent a few weeks in a bodyguard camp learning to protect other people as well as yourself. About 200 guys, each thinking hes the
worlds biggest badass, attended. Less than half completed the
training. Bill did. Off and on for years, Bill had pursued some sort of
danger. But this was real. He could tell by the look in Juans eyes.
This wasnt training.
“Is it?” Juan smiled now too. “Come back tomorrow,” Juan said.
“Noon tomorrow and meet a man named Carlos. I will introduce you.”
And they did and Carlos, with a long handlebar mustache and
evasive eyes stopped his eyes long enough to stare at Eke and tell
him to meet Jacque and Maria near the old Catholic Church in a town
called Catacamas. Meet in five days, they are told. And then Carlos
chugged his drink and disappeared.
“Good luck,” said Juan. He smiled. Big teeth. He looked at Eke and asked, “You sure you dont want a drink?”
