“Can you?”
A shrug. “Don’t know, but my chances are better than Colin’s. If anyone has Zaul’s ear, it’s me, but that’s a big if.”
“One more question?”
“Sure. You seem to be on a roll.”
I had a feeling she’d been baiting me, asking me a bunch of questions until she got to the one that mattered—the one she’d been wanting to ask me for a few days. Her eyes told me this was it. “When you find him, how do you know he’s going to let you take him home?”
It was a good question and I’d been asking it myself. “I don’t.”
Her eyes didn’t change. “And yet you’re here anyway.”
It was a question posed as a statement. “Yes.”
“What motivates a man to do something when he knows he’s got almost zero chance of succeeding?”
I answered, hoping she accepted it. “I love the kid.” She did not.
“I bet his dad does, too.” She paused. Considering me. “If I knew you better, I’d say there was something you’re not telling me.”
She was a good reader of people, and she was reading me like a book. There was a tenderness to her that drew me. More than that, I liked being known, and for the first time in my life, I was known by another. I’m not saying I liked what she knew about me, not proud of the bits and pieces, but somehow she was standing inside my skin and yet I didn’t experience shame at her reflection. I feigned. “Have to try.”
I don’t know if I satisfied her or gave rise to more questions, but for the rest of the ride back, she eyed me, studying my face and saying nothing more.
Chapter Twenty-One
We returned to the casa in time to pick up Isabella from school. Paulo and I quickly loaded up and returned to the well, where he patted me on the back and once again dropped me in the hole with a smile that spoke volumes. Before I kicked my feet loose, suspending myself over the hole, a crowd had gathered. Kids. Old folks. And it’d grown. Paulo said, “Word spread. Gringo digging Alejandro’s well.”
I worked through the afternoon, robotically filling buckets and driving the hammer down into the mud and rock as deeply as I could in such a tight space with limited swing arc. My headlamp was growing dim. As was I. Between the sugarcane, the heat, and this well, I was tired.
Around dinner—or to be more honest when I couldn’t lift that hammer one more time—I tugged twice and Paulo lifted me to the top, where he patted me on the back approvingly. It’d been a good day. I’d dug another twelve feet.
After dinner, Paulo gave me the information I’d requested and even told me he’d been able to secure my seat at the table. I didn’t speak with Paulina before I left, knowing that her look of disapproval would affect my ability.
I arrived in León forty-five minutes later and hunted around until I found the restaurant where the game was played. La Playa was an upscale restaurant in León. White tablecloths. Waiters with starched shirts. The works. The restaurant had a private room around back entered via a staircase. I parked the bike just below the stairs and noticed Colin’s HiLux parked in the shadows along the fence. I climbed the steps and a young man in a suit and sunglasses, which he didn’t need at 9:00 p.m., stepped in front of me. He pointed around front and said nothing. I said, “Poker? Card game?” and pointed to the door behind him.
“Su nombre?”
“Charlie.”
He held out a hand and said, “Five grand.”
I placed $5,000 in his hand.
He nodded approvingly and moved aside. I stepped into the smoke-filled room to find seven men sitting in a circle around a large table. Two scantily clad women were serving drinks while a third sat on the lap of the most puffed-up man in the place. Apparently the foreman. High off his win from the week prior, he had returned the conquering hero. I didn’t know anything about his ability to play, and even less about his ability to cheat, but I knew his arrogance was my asset. I was here because I wanted two things: information about Zaul and Colin’s truck.
Being the “new guy” and speaking little Spanish, the crowd of regulars nodded at me and spoke in Spanish—solely. I was ripe for the picking and they, a pack of wolves, smelled fresh meat.
I played dumb, lost early, and fit the description of “ignorant gringo” to a T. The liquor flowed, laughter ensued, and for three hours, I lost several thousand dollars. As did many of the other players. No one at the table was an especially good cardplayer, but the foreman was an exceptionally good cheater—which meant they were going to lose anyway.
A few hours in, the foreman was rolling in chips and the three “girls” were taking turns either sitting on his lap or rubbing his shoulders. One by one, and with some help from me that he didn’t realize, the table dwindled. One of the men turned out to be the chief of police. Another was the mayor. By midnight, we were down to three players. The foreman, myself, and the restaurant owner, who was the biggest loser of the night and too stupid or prideful for his own good.
Pretty soon, I realized they were speaking about me and, I felt, making a comparison between me and another player. Presumably Zaul. If I had envisioned obtaining any information, I was misled. They spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish. But the truck was still in play.
At 1:00 a.m., I quit losing chips, put the restaurant owner against the ropes, and took everything he had in three hands. The foreman watched me out of the corner of his eye, but he’d had so many drinks by this time that I knew he was foggy. And while the number of players at the table had dwindled, no one had gone home. Each had lost some or all of $5,000, so no one was eager to get home. That meant that we at the table had an audience of eleven other people. The dealer. Six other players. The three girls. And the guard. When I finished with the restaurant owner, the foreman switched to water and asked for a cold rag.
By 2:00 a.m., we were even, and by 2:30 a.m., he was swimming in doubt. I had twice as many chips, and he was sweating despite the air-conditioning. Close to 3:00 a.m., I shoved; he went all in and my straight beat him on the river when the dealer dropped a king.
Beaten, embarrassed, and broke, his eyes narrowed and he cussed me. I smiled—which only made him more angry, which was exactly what I was hoping. I needed him mad if he was going to risk that truck.
I cashed in my chips with the dealer, placed a thick wad of cash in my pocket, and stood as if to leave, paying him absolutely no attention whatsoever. When I did, he sat back, slammed down an empty glass, and spoke loud enough for the room to hear. I didn’t understand what he said, but every eye in the place was looking at me. He said it a second time. This time louder. “Doble o nada.”
While I had a pretty good idea what he was saying, I shrugged as though I did not. “No hablo español.”
The guard stepped forward. “Double or nothing.”
I laughed mockingly, keeping my eye on the foreman. “With what?” I patted my pocket. The message was clear. I had his money.
The foreman, looking to save face and praying for one more lucky hand, which he was not going to get, stared around the room, making sure he had everyone’s attention, and then with great machismo, reached into his pocket and dropped the truck keys on the table. That was his version of throwing down the gauntlet.
And it accomplished exactly what he wanted—it got everyone’s attention. One by one, they inched their chairs closer to the table. All eyes on me.
I shrugged, as if I didn’t know what vehicle the keys fit. To suggest that I hadn’t heard the story. That his fame hadn’t reached me.
I pointed at the keys and then shook my head at the parking lot as if I didn’t know. The foreman waved off the guard, who propped open the door, descended the steps, and cranked the HiLux. When he returned, I said, “What’s it worth?”
He looked at my pocket. “All.”