39

“UNA CERVEZA MAS. Este es la última.”

San Juan el Bautista knew he should have stopped two beers ago. But he still wasn’t ready to go back and face Paulo. He’d rather be a little drunk.

He didn’t go far after making his discovery at the hotel. He only drove a few blocks before deciding to stay in the Getsemaní neighborhood. It would be a long drive back to the headquarters on the opposite side of the city. The open-air bar grew crowded as the Saturday evening livened up, but Juan felt his solitude as he sat alone at the end of the bar. A man like him didn’t fit in around here. The beer made him less uncomfortable about it, even though each one cost twice what a beer cost in El Centro.

Paulo had been sending him to Old Town almost daily for this search. He complained about it every time. But Paulo had been right—the girl did come here for work. Paulo would be giddy when he learned what Juan had found, yet Juan was in no hurry to tell him. He would be helping Paulo ruin another person’s life—just as Paulo had ruined Juan’s.

Juan knew why Paulo cared so much about this girl. It was ridiculous, but after all these years, Juan understood his boss. Paulo couldn’t stand to be beaten, not by anyone. He had worked so hard to track Manny and never stopped resenting Manny for escaping him. To make it worse, Manny took a girl Paulo had set his eyes on. Her falling back in his lap was more than Paulo could have dreamed of. Now that she was so close, he wouldn’t rest until he found her, paying back Manny after all these years.

Juan sipped at his beer, his shoulders slouching over the bar top.

His heart burned with resentment. He hated Paulo but also needed him. He was oddly comforted by the control. Knowing this made him hate himself too.

Juan often wished he’d died that day at the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. He had dreamed of a better Colombia back then. Now, he worked for the kind of man who made it a corrupt and evil place. It was hard to remember that boy he’d been—full of vitality and hope. It changed when he started killing. With each bullet he fired, it was a little piece of himself that he killed.

Manny told him that day would make him a man. But he never said what kind of man. It turned out Manny, who ran away, became the better man, while Juan, who stood and fought, had nothing at all to be proud of.

He touched the gun under his shirt. In his youth, it felt good to carry a gun. Now, it felt ridiculous. Not being official police, he couldn’t carry it openly, but Paulo had supplied him with a department-issued weapon anyway. He must have known how much Juan would have liked to kill him every day, also knowing that he would never dare.

There wasn’t much to hope for anymore. Things would never change. Even simpler dreams of other men were beyond him now. He would never marry and have children. Even if he had not become unattractive—out of shape and uninteresting—he had nothing to make a woman think twice about him. There was no story about himself he could tell, no sense of humor to draw on, no talents or interests. After being a handsome boy, he doubted any woman had taken a second glance at him in the years since he got out of prison.

Juan glanced up as a group of young people came into the bar, laughing and hanging on to each other’s arms. A man and a woman leaned over right beside him to order their drinks but didn’t seem to notice that he was there. Anonymous as always.

All he had now were his comforts, like this warm sensation from his beer. He hated the comforts too, but he couldn’t give them up. His work for Paulo allowed him to have a nice little apartment and never go wanting for food and drink. He consumed more of both every day than he should. These comforts meant something after the poverty of his youth—the poverty that drove him toward revolution to begin with. These simple comforts should have been enough to make some poor woman want to be his wife, if only there was something compelling about him.

Juan turned around on his stool, savoring the last few drops of his beer. There wasn’t much to distinguish the bar from the street outside as passersby mingled briefly with the people spilling out of the crowded bar. He more intently watched the people on the sidewalk, on this side and across the street, in anticipation of the one he hoped might pass.

Because now, depressed by his thoughts and emboldened by alcohol, he didn’t really want to let Paulo win. He didn’t care what happened to the girl. He didn’t even care about her father. Manny deserted him, after all. He had no loyalty left for Manny. But he would enjoy seeing Paulo outsmarted for once. He would like to see Paulo have to suffer with his desires just as Juan suffered with his own. It wasn’t fair that Paulo always got the girl.

Getting in Paulo’s way would be incredibly foolish. If he weren’t drinking, it never would have crossed his mind. He wasn’t smart enough to do anything without getting caught. Better to go home and suffer his loneliness in peace.

San Juan el Bautista finished his beer and stood up on wobbly knees. He stepped through the bar crowd into the street. His eyes latched on to a figure coming toward him from the other side of the street.

Even if he hadn’t been watching for him, it would have been hard to miss the man with the baby strapped to his chest, who walked with tired sadness toward his lodging at the end of another fruitless day. He looked so out of place.

He had been watching this man too while searching for the girl. The blond father with bad Spanish was the newest neighborhood character. Juan had suspected a connection and now he was pretty sure of that suspicion after learning this afternoon that she had a child. He wondered if the poor man knew how everyone in Getsemaní was talking about him. Everyone knew he had been asking questions in the local hotels and restaurants. It was a wonder the girl hadn’t heard about him by now.

Juan crossed the busy street and fell into step beside the man. “I often see mothers looking for their baby’s father in Cartagena.” He trusted that the stranger understood Spanish well enough. He himself would not have been able to say more than a word or two of English. “But you’re the first father I’ve seen going to seek the mother.”

The American looked sideways at him, surprised, maybe even afraid. “Who are you?”

San Juan el Bautista smiled. It had been a long time since someone had looked at him with fear. He savored it.

“One with open eyes.”

“Stop playing around. Who are you, and what do you know? If you’re trying to get money out of me, it won’t work.”

Juan snorted. Typical American. “I bet you’d pay to know where your girl is.”

“What do you know about Leila?”

The man stopped and examined him. Juan stopped too. The baby looked from one to the other in confusion.

“She’s here in Getsemaní.”

“You’ve seen her!”

“Not here. Weeks ago I saw her, after she arrived in Cartagena.”

“Tell me where she is.”

“Why should I?”

The American grabbed his arm. The fear in his eyes had disappeared. Now, he looked angry and annoyed. Juan knew he had been foolish and was now desperate to get away. He may have been the one with the concealed gun, but he had little doubt this man could hurt him, even kill him if he wanted to, despite the baby in his arms. Such was the strength of his grip and the passion in his eyes.

“Let me go,” Juan pled. Having lost his moment of power over the man, he now began to hate him. “I’m not the one who wants to hurt your novia. She’s working in the restaurant at Hotel Caribe.”

The man released his arm.

“You’d better hurry and find her before Paulo Varga does.”

“That name!” Fear returned to the man’s face.

Juan laughed. “Sí. Ese nombre. You’d better not let him find you either.”

Juan scampered away, relieved to be free of the crazed father. It was time he told the chief what he’d discovered.