Academia de Baile Alfredo in Barranquilla, Colombia, is on a street of bars and cafés. The entrance bears the image of a couple dancing the tango, though instruction in the tango is not part of the actual curriculum.
The academy is the current headquarters of the Ten Bells school of pickpocketing, theft, and robbery. The school is named for the test of hanging ten bells from the clothing of a practice pickpocket victim to teach stealth. The pockets are sometimes lined with fishhooks or a razor blade as well to increase the difficulty of the dip.
The studio on the second floor has a large open dance floor. At midmorning a pleasant breeze came in the tall windows along with sounds of the street below.
One corner of the dance floor was set up as an airport food-court café with a cafeteria line, stand-up tables and a condiment table. A dozen people in their teens and early twenties were on the open floor in street clothing. The students were from six different countries in Europe and the Americas.
The instructor was about forty. He wore Pumas and his glasses were on top of his head. He thought of himself as a choreographer, and he looked like one when he wore a shirt over his prison tattoos. His photograph was on the bulletin boards of airport police stations in cities around the world.
Teams were practicing condiment wipes. The instructor was talking:
“In a condiment wipe you have to set up early and see the mark come into the food court, so you know in which hand he carries the thing you want to take. Say it’s a computer in its case in the left hand. Fix on it. Left hand. You must smear the mustard or mayonnaise behind the right shoulder so he can only reach it with his left hand. And, ladies, when you point out the mustard smear to him as he is walking, you must give him the tissues immediately into his free right hand, so he cannot just switch the briefcase from hand to hand before he wipes behind his shoulder. He must set down the burden. He must put it on the floor and turn his head over the smeared shoulder, away from the briefcase. Push some teta on his arm while you are helping him. A wired support bra will help conduct the sensation through a suit coat. At that moment your partner makes the snatch. You would be astounded how many people smear the wrong shoulder or are late with the tissues. And the ones that do it wrong are sitting in a little windowless room at the airport, waiting on a bail bondsman and dying to pee. All right, here we go. Vincent and Carlita, you’re up. Places! Okay, let’s have the mark. And go!” The director cupped his hand over his mouth and spoke through his nose. “Flight Eighty-Eight to Houston now boarding at Gate Eleven. Connecting service to Laredo, Midland, El Paso.”
In his office off the dance floor, Don Ernesto Ibarra could hear the excited voices, the running feet, the yelled misdirections—Carlita pointing in the wrong direction, yelling, “He went that way, I saw it!”
In his capacity as head of the Ten Bells school and its postgraduate criminal activities, Don Ernesto was writing a difficult letter to the late Antonio’s parents, and sending them a check. He thought the check, though generous, might be offensive to them. He hoped so. Then the parents could be mad at him while they spent it, and it would spare him verbal commiserations.
A tap on the office door and Don Ernesto’s secretary brought in a burner phone. She held it in a napkin and Don Ernesto used the napkin too. “It will ring in about five minutes. It’s someone you know,” she said.
At the Tour de Rêve in the busy Port-au-Prince Iron Market many old bicycles are for sale cheap. Most were obtained at night in Miami. They all have been overhauled and are guaranteed for at least a month. Proprietor Jean-Christophe had, earlier in the day, locked the big chain securing the display models out front and carried his laptop to the Café Internet, where he sent an email to Barranquilla. It said:
Mi señor, could you send me a number of convenience?
The reply came within minutes. +57 JK5 1795.
At Alfredo’s Academy of Dance in Barranquilla the phone in Don Ernesto’s hand buzzed and vibrated.
“Jean-Christophe here, sir.”
“Bonjour, Jean-Christophe! How goes the band?”
“You remember that? We play the Oloffson when we’re lucky, on the off nights when Boogaloo is playing out of town.”
“When does your DVD drop?”
“Still in the works, thanks for asking, Don Ernesto. We need studio time. Don Ernesto, I’m calling you because the fellow in Miami who ships me bicycles? He received the call of a guttural person from Paraguay. A person without hair. This person wanted some help in our port of Gonaïves.”
“What kind of help, Jean-Christophe?”
“Transshipping something very heavy out of Miami. Hush-hush. Needs to transfer from a ship to a trawler at Gonaïves. I thought it might be of interest. Is such a person familiar to you?”
“Yes.”
“The little freighter Jezi Leve sails in one week from Miami. I’ve got a pile of bikes coming on it. My bicycle friend is going to call me after a meet on the boat tomorrow night. Should I pitch this phone?”
“That would be best, Jean-Christophe. Tell your friend in Miami he might wear a kerchief around his neck. Bright orange would be good. Would you give my secretary your bank numbers? Thank you, and good luck with the music.”
A knock on his office door. It was Don Ernesto’s assistant Paolo, a saturnine man in his thirties with a pronounced widow’s peak.
Don Ernesto raised his eyebrows to ask a question and felt a twinge from the stitches above his eye-brow. “Paolo, who do we have in South Florida now? Right now, at this moment?”
“A good crew working the jewelry show in Tampa. Victor, Cholo, Paco and Candy.”
Don Ernesto examined the documents on his desk. He tapped against his teeth his note of condolence. “Have Victor and the crew done any wet work?” he asked without looking up.
In a moment Paolo answered. “They are not inexperienced,” he said.
At the boatyard in Miami, Captain Marco answered his telephone.
“Hola, Marco.”
“Don Ernesto! Buenos, señor.”
“Marco, how long has it been since you went to church?”
“I can’t remember, Patrón.”
“Then it is high time to work on your spiritual life. Go to Mass tomorrow evening. There is a nice place up in Boca. Go to six o’clock Mass. Take your helpers and pray for Antonio. Sit in front where everyone can see you. Photograph yourselves at the church.”
“Some of them, I won’t say who, can’t really take Communion.”
“Let them slink out then, or stare at their laps during Communion. Then, when that embarrassment is ended, go to a good restaurant an hour north of Miami. Send a dish back to the kitchen to piss them off, then tip big so they will remember you. And Marco, see what your friend Favorito is doing.”