Randy White - Twelve Mile Limit

I kissed her hands, smiling. “No, I think you’re wonderful. I mean that, Amelia. I’m a little preoccupied, thinking about how to get information on Janet and the others.”

“You said you might know some people who can help.”

“Maybe. That guy in the bar. I need to talk to him after we order. Alone.”

Earl Stallings blew smoke toward the ceiling fan before he looked down at me, and lied, “Kazan? Kazan… hmm. No, I’ve never heard of a man named Hassan Kazan. And if I had, why should I tell you?”

I’d introduced myself to him at the piano and endured his domineering handshake. Then I endured him saying, “I saw that redhead you’re with. Kind of attractive. I’ve never slept with a redhead. They any good?”

Now we were standing in a quiet corner of the bar, him with a tall brown drink in hand, me with a bottle of Aquila beer in a brown bottle.

I said, “I’m surprised you don’t know Hassan Kazan. He stays at this hotel regularly. That’s what my friends tell me, anyway.”

Stallings seemed to swell slightly. “You interrupt my evening, I don’t even know who the hell you are, and already you’re calling me a liar?”

His voice had a mellow, raspy quality that I associate with Hawaiians, but his English was occasionally clipped, guttural in a way that suggested Austronesian languages. I forced myself to smile congenially while my brain struggled to remember a few of the Samoan phrases I knew. Laega, laega -didn’t that mean “sorry”?

I couldn’t remember for certain, and then I decided, screw it, I wasn’t going to bother trying to charm him. I said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m calling you. A liar. I’ve got a business proposition for Kazan. Maybe for you, too. But I’m not going to stand here and let you waste my time.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to swing at me, smash the glass into my face, or maybe pull a knife. I watched his face blanch, then freeze masklike as he reconsidered. Stallings was used to bullying people, and bullies rarely have to use any force stronger than words. It was a struggle, but he got his temper under control. “If I’m included in your business, that might be different. Money. If there’s money involved, I’m interested. You have American cash with you? Here in Cartagena? How much are we talking?”

I had brought a sizeable bundle of cash-about $5,000-but I doubted if that were enough to tempt someone like Stallings. So I said, “All I could bring in legally, plus I have access to a little more, depending on how our negotiations go.”

“You’re going to need a lot more than that, but, okay, it’s a place to begin. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

A reasonable man-if cash were involved.

I said, “I wasn’t thinking, Earl. Sorry. So let me start all over again. I want to discuss something that could make you both a profit. Sizable money and very simple. So the question’s the same: Where’s Kazan?”

“No, no, no, Ford. The question is: What kind of business are we discussing?”

I said, “I think three friends of mine are being held captive somewhere in Colombia. I’m here to buy their freedom.”

“How would I know anything about that? Now you’re saying I’m a criminal, too.”

“I know because they were adrift in the water the morning you ran the shrimp boat Nan-Shan into the Ten Thousand Islands. I know you saw them and stopped.”

He did a good job of trying to hide his surprise. When he started to reply with a predictable lie, I held up a warning finger. “No more of your bullshit. I’m going to have dinner now. Think it over. Find your pal Hassan Kazan and meet me at that little restaurant, La Habinita. No… make it Plaza de Santa Domingo.” I looked at my watch. “Let’s say eleven.”

Stallings wasn’t used to being on the defensive, but he was already regrouping. “I’ll meet you-but not so early. Let’s say midnight.” He nodded toward the woman with the purple blouse and Panama hat as he grinned, his incisor teeth gigantic, the color of yellow ivory. “I hired her for the evening. I want to make sure I get my money’s worth.”

As I left the bar and was walking through the hotel’s marble lobby, a tiny Arabic-looking man in a dingy white suit, his black hair pasted smooth, stopped me. He had a normal head, but his hands and his legs were dwarf-like. He was obviously very nervous, sweat beaded on his face, and his head swiveled constantly in a way that reminded me of a pigeon that has just heard a hawk. He was smoking a cigarette in a short black holder, and he took the cigarette from his mouth when he had my attention, and said with a Pakistani accent, “Senor, if I may be so bold as to offer you a warning. The man you were speaking with in the bar, do you know who he is? What he does?”

He was a humorous caricature of the sort of person one often meets in smuggler ports in the earth’s darker places. They make a living off the scraps of larger predators, but I did not smile. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he is a very dangerous man. Extremely dangerous. And he has many dangerous friends. If you are here to purchase something-anything-I am a much better choice. Emeralds? Gold? Women? Whatever you want, even items I have not named. I’ll leave those words for you to use.” He touched a finger to one side of his nose and sniffed to illustrate. “I’ll guarantee you fair market value, and I am not nearly so dangerous.”

I told him I’d think it over, maybe another time. As I was walking away, he called after me, “In the jungles here, there are still savages! On the street, as well. Trust no one!”

Back at our hotel, Amelia stripped the beige dress up over her head, draped it on a chair, and walked on long legs, pelvis rotating, through the wedge of light that came through the doorway. Then she stood beside the bed in silken bikini underwear, her nipples very dark on the white, white skin of her breasts, and she said, “Every time I see your body naked, I love it even more.”

I folded my hands behind my head, and said, “Same here, lady. I’m getting to be a very serious fan of yours.”

She laughed as she lay down beside me, her fingers already encircled around me, moving on me, eager for me to be ready, and she said, “Yes, you do seem to be a fan, right there for the world to see. No denying it.”

We made love quickly, both of us too eager and needy to attempt to slow ourselves, losing ourselves in a physical unity of belly-slapping, groaning, laughing without inhibition.

Then we held each other, saying private, silly things until slowly, gently, we were each ready again, and then we took turns pleasing each other, giving ourselves without restraint, and finally coupling to a final release that was simultaneous, and so powerful that I actually heard a ringing in my ears.

“You’re amazing,” I told her.

She replied, “No. We are. We’re amazing.”

Later, as we lay together in darkness, our bodies still wet, our legs tangled, Amelia pulled her face close to my ear and said in a tone that was touching for its uncertainty, “There’s a word my heart keeps wanting me to use, but my brain won’t let me.”

I said, “I hope the word’s not ‘three.’ After that last one, I’m going to need a little more recovery time.”

She chuckled. “That sounds wonderful. But you told me you had an appointment.”

“People in Colombia are big on midnight meetings. They sleep ’til noon and have dinner at ten. I’ll only be gone an hour or so.”

She lay silently beside me for a long time before she said softly. “The word is love. I don’t want to say it because it scares me. And it might scare you. Doc? It’s true. I think I’m falling in love with you. It scares me because I’ve never truly been in love and, if it happens, you’ll have all of me, everything about me. I don’t want to scare you away by saying it, but it’s true. I’ve never really given myself before, but, if I do, I’ll no longer be just one person. Forever.”