Chapter 51
Short Straw Has Red Hair
I was leaning against the rail, facing Fort Clayton.
We passed the parrots, the bus stop, the fire station, and the bamboo forest.
Robert came up beside me.
“How are you holding up?”
He looked sober.
I kept looking toward the gate.
“Look at that guard. Would you say he has red hair?”
We were explicitly told that shouting from the ship was not allowed. What I knew and they didn’t was that I was going to totally do just that anyway if it was Short Straw.
“Do you want to find out?”
He scanned the deck.
“Patrick! Son, come here!”
Patrick came running over with a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck.
“Can we borrow those for a minute?” Robert asked.
Patrick handed them over.
“Thanks, Bud.”
Robert offered them to me.
I shook my head.
“Patrick, will you look for me? Tell me if the man at the gate has red hair or brown hair.”
Patrick put the binoculars back around his neck and raised them to his eyes.
It took him a minute.
“Looks brown to me.”
He shuffled his feet and kept scanning for anything more interesting.
“Can I go back now?”
“Go ahead,” Robert and I said at the same time.
“Jinx.”
A tie.
“Double jinx.”
Patrick got me that time.
“Just what I need,” I said. “More bad luck.”
“No bad luck if you keep your mouth shut.”
That was too complicated for me right then.
Patrick ran off.
Robert stayed.
“Are you ever going to tell me what all of this is about?”
You never believe me.
Someone believes me now.
I don’t need that from you.
“No more than I’ve already said. General’s orders.”
“They told me we aren’t eligible to get the certificate for the trip today.”
“That’ll make the colonel happy.”
“They said because you were given the coin, that takes the place of the certificate.”
“That makes sense.”
He looked at me.
“What coin?”
I reached into my pocket and handed it to him.
Robert inspected it, then flipped it over.
His expression changed.
“That’s a coin for all of Panama.”
“That’s the same thing the general said.”
I held out my hand.
Robert gave it back.
“Why would he give that to you?”
“We’re friends?”
“They only give those coins to the military.”
“He said it’s mine. He said I can use it to contact him if I need to.”
Robert looked at me for another moment.
“So, I’m supposed to believe that you are under drug lord protection?”
I was finished.
“Believe it. Don’t believe it. Or hurt me and find out. I don’t care anymore.”
And that was it.
We never really spoke about the drug lord protection again.
Not really.
There was one brief exception, months later, when Marcus’s daughter died.