*****
Cameron was nervous in his cab as it pulled up at the place the waitress had named. It had taken nearly ten precious minutes to get here, and he had not even started what he needed to do. He asked the cab to wait and promised a ten Euro tip, then leapt out and through the door into the restaurant.
It was dim inside, even for late afternoon. There was a wall on his immediate left that ran all the way to the back, and along this wall a bar of dark polished wood. Standard bottles behind the bar, and a mirror, several beer taps, and hanging in a niche amongst the shelves the trademark jamon, a Spanish cured ham. The whole leg stood there in the wooden rig, with the knife that slid on a guide to slice it along its length, paper thin. He salivated. “Jamon and beer. Not much time,” he thought, “but have to break into this somehow, might as well look like a homeboy.” He walked down the bar toward the man behind it. To his right was a space of perhaps thirty feet, tables a little farther apart than you would see in the US, but about what he remembered from his one trip to Spain. The air was stale with old smoke, beer, food, bodies, and there was a light haze of cigarette smoke clinging to the ceiling. He made a quick look and turned to the bar, counting the people from the snapshot in his head: maybe fifteen.
“Buenos tardes, señor” he said to the bartender in what he hoped was Castilian-sounding Spanish, or at least Cuban. He’d learned in Colorado as a high school student, so he thought he probably sounded like a Mexican, but Cuban would be better here.
“Hola, que tal señor?” Said the bartender in reply, “Hello, how are you. Will you have something?
“With pleasure, señor,” Cameron continued. A plate of jamon, and a beer, if you please.”
“Of course señor.” As the man busied himself with the ham, Cameron made a study of his prospects in the in the mirror behind the bar. He was looking for someone dressed in dark, even black clothes, maybe even a leather jacket, perhaps longish hair, hopefully with some pals along for a drink. Nobody that looked like fitting the bill, he found to his chagrin. “May have to do this the hard way,” he thought, but that would spoil things and it was his absolute last option.
The ham and beer came, he paid, and asked in a low voice, “señor, I have not much time. I need to meet a certain kind of man, someone who can do something for me, something that requires a certain, shall we say, “reputation”. I am discrete, can you help me?”
The bartender looked suspicious for a moment, considering. The man in front of him looked European, dark slacks with no pleats, fashionable shoes, the gray turtleneck and the light olive skin. His Spanish is a little queer, but perhaps he’s a Catalan or something. Well, what’s it to me? If Miguel gets into trouble with this guy, that’s his problem.” Leaning low across the bar, he pointed at Cameron’s middle and said “directly behind you, señor, a man named Miguel, the blonde one, might be what you want, but it’s nothing to do with me.” Without another word he turned and walked through a door to a backroom at the far end of the bar.
Cameron tried to see this Miguel in the mirror, but couldn’t for the mass of his own shoulders. He rolled up a slice of the ham and popped it in his mouth, letting it lie there on his tongue and savoring the salty, earthy flavor that only came from real jamon. “Righteous” was the word that came immediately to mind. It melted there in his mouth, and he took a great gulp of beer at the right moment. “Well, here goes, no time to waste.” He turned to face Miguel.
The man did not really look the type, but he would do if he was willing. He was about six feet, medium build, black turtleneck and jeans with heavy shoes and a dark wool coat like his own. The face was handsome but hard, there was a scar along the jaw on the left, this guy had been around the block at least once. The other one was not as promising but typical. A little pudgy, close shaved dark hair, oval face, and doing his best to dress like a sophisticated Spanish-Parisian tuff. It did not bode well for Miguel’s prospects that he kept a sleaze like this in train, but his time was short and it would have to do, or not, as fortune provided. The rest of the men in the bar were intent on their own beer and conversation. “Good.”
He decided that direct was the only way, so he covered the three paces to the table and stopped to the pudgy one’s left, looking directly across the table into Miguel’s eyes as he looked up. “Gentlemen,” Cameron began. “Good afternoon. I regret I have no time to spend on pleasantries, but there is something I need done and I require the services of some reliable men. I would make it worth your while and it will not take you long. Shall I sit down?” He placed the beer and the plate on the table and stood, hands open and hanging limp, waiting.
The pudgy one looked from Cameron to Miguel, wondering what would happen, then back to Cameron with a sneer as he thought he’d read what his master would say. “What makes you think we want you here, Catalan?” He started to rise and reached for Cameron’s jacket with his left hand. Cameron slid his right foot almost slowly to his right, making a small circle with the right hand as Pudgy reached for it, not quite keeping up. As the circle came back down Cameron grabbed the hand with his thumb in the middle of the back of Pudgy’s, on top of the crown of the first knuckle of the ring finger. Pudgy’s haymaker right hook was just getting underway, but it was too late. Cameron pivoted on his right foot, suddenly beside Pudgy with the hook flying harmlessly into empty space, and then with a smooth, quick turn of his whole body, he folded Pudgy’s left hand in a twist that pointed his palm and fingertips back toward the inside of his own wrist, and pushed the whole thing toward the floor just under the man’s buttocks. Pudgy yelped as the strain came on all the connective tissues of his lower arm, and dropped like a ton of shit onto the floor. He fell awkwardly, landing on the point of his left hip with an audible thud that produced another yelp. Another quick pivot, and the man was face down on the floor, Cameron towering above him and pressing the hand down at a right angle to the stiff arm, directly above the back of the shoulder. Pudgy was gasping there, Cameron standing loosely, one hand empty and open at his side, his eyes on Miguel but aware of all the others in the room.
Miguel had made only one quickly-recovered reaction to the flash of movement, and now sat staring up at the man in front of him. He smiled, hoping he looked cool, and said “You watch too many movies, señor. Sit down. May I share your jamon? Please release Patricio, he is harmless as you can see.”
Cameron did, surveyed the room once more, and sat. Pudgy stood up, favoring the hip and massaging his wrist. He pulled his chair around the table toward Miguel and out of Cameron’s reach. “Good,” Paul thought. “Didn’t really want to make a demonstration, but perhaps it’s helped.” He looked at his watch. “I got five more minutes here, max, and then it’s show time.” He turned to Miguel.
“Señor, as I said I have no time, but I regret your friend’s accident.” A look and a nod at Pudgy. “I need two, perhaps three, reliable men in about an hour, in the third alley along the Avenue Gustave Eiffel, northeast of the tower. You will see me walk by, then another man about my height and build, but probably with a mustache, let him pass. Behind him there will be a small man, perhaps one and a half meters, following us. I want you to mug him, take him in the alley, and beat him up, but do not kill him. I will pay you thirty euros now, and another hundred when I see you after. Come out of the alley when you are done. I will be there. You keep the cash and credit cards from the man’s wallet, all but one, that one is mine, and his identification. The rest is yours, along with my hundred euros, cash. I have no time. Yes, or no?” He finished, stood, placed another slice of the ham in his mouth, and reached for his wallet.
Pudgy flinched at the move. Miguel smiled. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t” Cameron said. “You’ll have my thirty euros, and you may choose not to show up, that risk is mine. In that case I will have to deal with the little man myself, as you see,” another look at Pudgy, “and perhaps I will be
back here for my money some day soon. It would be a shame if you could no longer come here for tapas of an afternoon, would it not?”
That made Miguel nervous, and the young man struggled not to show it. To cover, he smirked again. “Give me the thirty euros, and I will be there with Patricio and another friend, I like this place very much. Pablo the bartender has a most extraordinary sister, you would like her, you know? But I think one hundred fifty euros would be better since there will be three of us.”
“Done” Cameron said, and tossed the thirty on the table. One hour, perhaps ninety minutes from now, you know the place. Do not kill the small man, mind you.” He turned and swept out the door with a last look at the small crowd of men in the bar, into his waiting taxi, which sped off north toward the Ile St. Louis and the BatoBus stop under the lee of Hotel de Ville.