Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

She is not ugly, and she is not perfect. She looks young and malleable — about five-foot-two and skinny, shoulder-length straight dark-brown hair center-parted, pretty face marred by a mild case of acne; her dark eyes telegraph longing looks — and she would probably do exactly as you say. Her docility is creepy.

We watch the mariachi band for one tune and then drift to the pool-table side. It’s less crowded than the dance floor, almost laid-back. Here we can stand around, drink beers, talk shit, and watch the working girls work the vacationing men perched on stools around the bar.

Tony, like Meranda, believes in reincarnation, I find out. Meanwhile, we haven’t seen much of my host, the now-inebriated chauffeur, because, I’m guessing, he’s decided that he’s made a dumb move by encouraging our girl pal and is currently trying to shake her. But she is patient. She has latched on to a good thing for the evening and is not easily discouraged. She hasn’t gotten the message. It’s his fault — he allowed himself to be engaged.

Finally, she departs, chirping something indecipherable. Tony and I order another round of beers, watch old dudes engage with young girls, and talk about politics and global warming. We’re relaxed now, ranting about things we can’t change. About ten minutes later, the chauffeur’s new friend returns and introduces us to two buddies. The language barrier between us had been insurmountable, but she figured out the problem: we weren’t expressing interest because there weren’t any girls for us. So she went back to the Del Rey to round up a couple. See, now we’re all happy. Party time.

Tony and I try to explain there’s been some misunderstanding, with little success. Tony speaks some Spanish, so I can’t see a problem with communication. They won’t take no for an answer. There’s nothing left to do but turn our backs and ignore them. We continue jawing about neo-conservatives versus liberals for a bit before I look over for a peek. Girl number one stands there, waiting for our private meeting to end, giving us a mournful look. Maybe she’s trying to save face with her pals. Maybe she guaranteed them customers. They’re not as patient — there are a few hundred other fools around to lure in. They slip away and, eventually, because the chauffeur has been avoiding us now for at least an hour, she slinks away as well, defeated, back to the Del Rey in search of a new source of revenue.

I wonder about being a tourist in the sex and gambling house — talk about an inauthentic activity. Maybe I shouldn’t be here unless I mean to conduct business, and the business of this bar is not to shoot pool or to gamble or to drink or to dance to mariachi or to hang out and soak up the atmosphere for my book. It’s to pay money for sex. I start to feel lousy about girl number one and then I start to feel lousy about all the girls here, about the exploitation, about the nature of man’s inhumanity to such girls everywhere.

Tony and the chauffeur want to stick around past midnight, but I’ve had about enough. I ask the chauffeur if he’d mind if I grabbed my notebook out of his SUV, which I’d tossed in the back seat on the way over to the Key Largo. He finds a cabbie for me, one he knows to be honest. He is an excellent host, the chauffeur. Back in Escazú, it’s not that late, about 12:45, but everyone’s in bed. I have to roust Matteo to let me into the compound, which makes me feel just that little bit more existentially crappy about the whole evening. There’s always tomorrow, the second half of the aborted tour.

On Tuesday morning, we’re on the road by 9:30. Meranda and I head east along Carretera John F. Kennedy toward San José to see a place that was dear to John. Café de Artistas is right on the main boulevard in Pavas, a couple of miles east of the B&B. I snap pictures while Meranda points out the exact table in the restaurant where John would hold court. The gang came here often because he liked the place so much. Brightly colored tile adorns every surface, and local art is hung everywhere. The visuals are intricate but the atmosphere is informal, hippie-ish as opposed to hipster-ish. Not a lot of irony here, but lots of food, coffee, beer, and joking around. They were a team and they stuck together, toiling to make Neteller work in CR.

They started to learn the language and understand the customs, and they played hard whenever they could. They were all so young and eager, and they had a boss who could match them in every category except age. Sometimes he even acted like a boss. He’d cock his head toward them and say, “Hey! You know, I don’t think we need to be doing that, do you?” He was signaling that he was on the verge of getting pissed and maybe they ought not push him any further. So there had been limits, but not many. What difference did it make? They were pulling in the merchants, convincing them to sign up with Neteller. The company was growing, they were all making money, and they were having fun.

Even staff meetings were held at Café de Artistas, known for its delicious potato salad. Ten years later, the café is still here and looks the same but is under new ownership. Meranda peeks at the menu and sees they’ve deleted the potato salad. That’s a mistake, she says. She hasn’t been here since John left in 2004. It still has lots of local artwork on the walls and that gorgeous tile work.

In one of Meranda’s café photos from the era, Steve Glavine and Scott Morrison, the IT guys, are missing. That’s because they had to cover the office in case something went down. “Steve Lawrence was like a ghost,” she says. “We’d be in the restaurant finally taking a break and there was the bloody phone, and it was Steve. The server had just gone down and there he was, on the phone saying, ‘It’s down, what’s going on? How long has it been down?’ So other Steve’s like, ‘Okay, I’m on my way.’ That was his life.”

We drive west to Santa Ana to see Escuela de Rafael in San Rafael, a nearby school that has been improved with John’s money. Meranda helped run the small foundation that receives a $60,000 annual injection from John. They dole out the money as the need arises. Escuela San Rafael, for example, has a few students who require the use of wheelchairs. They were no ramps, so Meranda paid for a little cement and labor, and now the school is wheelchair friendly. Sixty grand can go a long way in Costa Rica.

Cecilia was the one who came up with the idea to help a bunch of kids get an education in San José, and John put up the money. That was a long time ago, but John continues to contribute each year. Meranda took over the administration of the program after J & C split up.

We shift over a couple streets to a recently erected, imposing three-story edifice to which John contributed money. More than a community center, the new Escuela Municipal de Artes Integradas, Santa Ana Center, San Rafael, contains a recital hall, music practice rooms, art studios, and a large ballet room with pristinely polished and as yet unused wooden floors (with a sign that prohibits shoes that mark). The director gives us a pleasant tour, although I can’t make out much of what he’s saying. Meranda translates occasionally. Outside, a painter on scaffolding high above lets his inspiration flow, mapping out his design on one of the cement walls. Eventually, it seems, the expansive exterior will be entirely covered with original work by local artists commissioned by the center.

Around 11:30, after we’ve seen the public school, the arts center, and the Artista restaurant, Meranda drops me off at a spot where I can meet up with the chauffeur once more. Most of the time I’m with him, the chauffeur works the phone. We sit in a dining room — or dining room in theory. He has PCs positioned at each end of the table. He’s talking on the phone with a man from Asia. It sounds like he’s talking to an unreliable Costa Rican about Tico time being fatal to business deals. The guy can’t seem to pull things off that fast — he has to go by local banking rules. The chauffeur shakes his head. Hey, you want to do business or not? “A day . Twenty-four hours!” He sounds like he’s rapping knuckles.