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from Unlikely People by Reese Palley The tale of my escape from the clutches of the Captain of the Port will be told elsewhere but when later I complained to Willie he drew himself up to his full, bedraggled, five feet and said, "Señor, a thousand pardons, but you are un santo inocente. I required only a little of your money, those bastards wanted it all!" For the rest of my stay in Buenaventura I hired Willie to be my guide, mentor, and deck guard. His ancient and shaky physique was no match for the hulking cutthroats who hovered about the fringes of my vessel. However I felt that I had done poor Willie an injustice. I owed him the job. He could use the money and, as he explained, he could use the oportunidad that went along with his position as factotum to the American yacht. I had been warned by friends that if I did not submit to the cozenage and peculation of the 'official' pirates I would be descended upon nightly and stripped clean by harbor thieves in the pay of officialdom. Since there was no way that I could afford to play the Captain of the Port's extortionist game, I had hopelessly resigned myself to pillage by the harbor thugs who were hourly edging closer, and had hired Willie as a last resort. Within moments after Willie came aboard the tightening circle of light-fingered gentry receded like a fast ebbing tide and, by the next day, the hovering had ceased entirely. Indeed, small boats in the harbor went to extreme measures to detour around us at a great distance and at the cost of much additional labor on their part. I watched Willie closely for some hint of his magic. All he seemed to do was lie about on deck, coughing a bit, as was his wont, and looking smug. We had to stay a week in that terrible place but we were as safe as in our mother's arms. No one bothered us. No one approached us. We were surrounded by Willie's mysterious force field. When the time came to leave I grossly overpaid Willie and asked what he had done to intimidate the entire harbor. Willie, being no fool, smiled slyly, refused to divulge his secret, and suggested that I advise all my American friends to seek him out for protection. I swore I would. We cleared both customs and the police, with unseemly haste on their part. It was evident that they wanted us the hell out of their harbor. We waved goodbye to Willie and sailed out. About a mile off the coast, still in Colombian waters, the entire Colombian Navy, or so it seemed, descended upon us and, with guns trained, ordered us to stop for a search. We thought it was a belated look-see for cocaine and since we were as clean of drugs as Nancy Reagan's medicine chest, we welcomed them aboard — not that we had much choice. The search was thorough. Twenty armed Colombian Marines herded us onto the foredeck and, with exaggerated care, left no possible hiding place unplumbed. Four hours later they trooped back to their ships, obviously relieved that their search had turned up nothing. The whole episode was an unfathomable puzzle for me until, as the last Colombian sailor climbed aboard his boat, I heard him report to his officer. "Willie esta loco. Los Americanos no tienen una bomba atomica." God bless Willie and never underestimate the threat of nuclear Armageddon.
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