Back when he lifted his hand and waved goodbye to Palmira for what he thought would be forever, the city had been rundown and full of petty thieves and lowlife criminals. Now, thirty-nine years later, Inmer Bolivar thought the city magnificent. He was an American now and in Palmira that counted for something. It counted for everything. In America it had not counted as much as he had hoped. In America he had been nothing more than another foreigner chasing a dream. But in Palmira he was the dream. And as his years advanced, he had come to realize that a man must go where he is already appreciated. So, he emptied out his bank accounts and stuffed his meager life savings, fifteen thousand dollars, in old shoes and put them in a box filled with old clothes and couriered the box to his ancestral home in Palmira where shortly after arriving he took out his American passport, brought it to his lips for a kiss and tossed it into the red-hot flames of the fireplace.

He sat at a café now. He was truly short with a very brown face and small black eyes that slanted downward at the corners. His hair was black on top and deeply grayed at the temples. He wore a salmon-colored polo he tucked deep under the waist of a pair of ironed jeans that tapered to a point covering his ankles, the cuffs of the jeans resting over a pair of black leather loafers. He studied the menu, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. He lifted his head, his small eyes searched for the waitress. She saw him from the corner of her eye and nodded in acknowledgement as she walked over to where he sat.

“You are Inmer Bolivar,” the waitress said.

A smile came to the old man’s face. “You’ve heard of me?”

“Everyone has heard of you.”

“And what is it that you have heard? Good things I hope.” He unfolded the napkin and placed it over his lap and crossed one leg over the other as he leaned back on his chair. The cigarette bobbing up and down as his thin lips moved.

“They say you are an American.”

“Who is they?”

“They everyone,” the waitress said sweeping her arms across the room.

The old man looked and saw there were a handful of people in the café. People he did not recognize. The old man shook his head. “They lie.”

“You are not an American then?”

“I am from Palmira. I am like you.”

“You are not like me. Not like me at all.”

“I am more like you than I am an American.”

“You are not Inmer Bolivar then?”

“I am Inmer Bolivar. But I am not an American.”

The waitress looked at him curiously. She did not know what to make of him. She had heard the old man had arrived from the United States the night before and was now living in the house on top of the hill across the river. A house that had sat empty for years.

“Sit with me,” he said. With one foot he pushed the chair opposing him from under the table toward her.

She looked around. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“No,” she said smiling. “I can’t. I’m working.”

Inmer looked at the girl. Her brown hair. Her big brown eyes. Her milky smooth skin. She reminded him of his first wife. The wife that had given him four daughters he didn’t see anymore.

“Get me a beer then,” he said.

Back in the kitchen, peering through a small window above the sink at the girl and the American was Marco, the dishwasher. Marco was not a native of Palmira like the girl and the old man. He had moved to Palmira from San Cipriano three months prior and had fallen deeply in love with the girl. Up until the American sat in her section he had thought she loved him too, but as he watched her, he began to doubt. From where he stood, he could only see her back, but he could tell by the way she leaned on one hip and shook her head that she was smiling. She had been smiling the whole time. The American was smiling too. That he could see plainly. Of course, it was her job to smile he told himself. But he had heard things about the American he didn’t like, and the girl, to Marco, was too naïve to see what the old man was attempting to do.

Inmer drank his beer slowly. It felt good to be back home where the weather seldom changed and the breeze always carried the light earthy smell of the sugar cane fields that lined the edges of the town. This evening he was particularly happy. He hadn’t been happy when he had walked into the café, but after seeing the girl, he felt good again. He felt the years that had lain on his shoulders begin to lift.

The girl pulled the loose strands of hairs that swung at the side of her face and hooked them behind her ears. She had heard of the American from her mother who had said that in his youth he had been nothing better than a common thief and womanizer and had been well known in the small town. She looked at him from the bar across the room and didn’t think he looked like a thief or a womanizer. He looked old and quiet like an old dog that had lost his bone to a stronger dog. She dug her hand into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a fistful of crumpled pesos which she put on the counter and began to smooth out. It had been a slow shift and in all the ten hours she had waited tables that day she had only earned enough for bus fair and a loaf of bread. Meanwhile the American with his expensive leather shoes sat smoking his cigarette and drinking his beer from the bottle. She thought she should get to know him better.

The boy came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on his apron and approached the girl from behind.

“It’s getting dark. I can walk you to the bus stop.”

She picked up the bills from the counter of the bar and rolled them together and secured them with a rubber band then put them deep inside her bra. She said, “It’s not dark yet. It won’t be dark for another half hour.”

“It gets dark very fast,” he said.

She looked at the American who was watching her, and not wanting to give him the impression she was with the boy, she took off her apron and said in a loud voice, “Good night, Marco. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She walked slowly across the café by where the American sat. She smiled as she walked out the door.

The boy saw how the old man looked at the girl. He did not like that look. He knew very well what that look meant and he instantly found the American shameful. To think she could very well be his daughter. But what could you expect from a man who had lived all his life in America.

From where he sat, the American looked at the boy with interest. He could tell the boy was brooding in the far corner and the old man observed how he watched the girl as she walked past him and out the door. Only when the girl was out the door did the boy turn his gaze toward him. The American fixed his eyes intently on the boy and they made eye contact for a second, then the boy looked down and turned to go back into the kitchen. So that was the boy he would have to contend with, he thought. He was a handsome boy. Thick brown curls and a chin that tapered to almost a point below his thin lips. But he was not a man. Not yet anyway. A man could give the girl what she needed. A boy could not. If the boy had been a man the girl would not be worth the effort, but he was not a man.

The next morning Inmer woke to someone knocking on his front door. He was not expecting company. He had no family living in Palmira. His mother and father had died when he was fifteen and his only other family, an older brother, lived in New York with a German wife and three sons. He had no uncles or cousins or any other relatives living in Palmira or elsewhere. He put on a black t-shirt and went to see who was at the door and was delighted to see it was the girl from the café. She wore a tan skirt that fell just above the knees and a thin white shirt. Her hair was neatly combed and parted down the middle.

“Pleasant surprise to see you at my door,” he said. He stepped aside to let her in.

“I can’t stay,” she said. “I’m on my way to work and thought I’d come see you. I’m hoping you have work for me.”

“Work?”

“Yes, work. I clean and sweep and can cook. I cook exceptionally well.”

“I don’t need a cook.” The old man licked his lips. “I may have other things you can do for me around the house, I suppose.”

A white dog, a stray that had been coming up to the house since Inmer got there, came up behind the girl and put his wet snout on her ankle and began to sniff. The girl jumped.

“Don’t worry about the dog. He’s harmless,” he said. “The poor thing came by begging for food the day I got here. I should not have given him anything, but I gave him a piece of ham from my plate and now I can’t get rid of him. Please, come inside.”

The girl followed him into the living room where she sat with her hands tucked under her legs. She could see he had not yet unpacked. There were boxes stacked on top of each other all over the room.

“I should go,” she said. “I’ll be late for work and my boss won’t like that.”

“Stay,” he said. “Tell him the American insisted. He’ll understand.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Think about my offer. Will you?”

The man looked at her. She was beautiful. She was young too. He guessed her at nineteen, twenty, no more than twenty-two.

“How old are you?” he said.

“I’ll be twenty in the fall,” she said.

“Twenty is a great age. I remember when I was twenty.”

“Maybe it’s a great age for a man. For a woman it just means I’m too old to be taken care of and too young to care for myself.”

“You want someone to take care of you? Is that what you are looking for?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “I just meant that it’s difficult to find work, that’s all.” But the girl had meant it that way and she was pleased he had picked up on it. She wanted him to imagine taking care of her.

“Where are your parents? Don’t they take care of you?”

“I live with my grandmother and she’s very old.”

“Come tonight. Perhaps you can help me unpack,” he said.

The girl was thrilled and hugged him. She pressed her body against his, her arms around his shoulders, and told him she was very thankful and that he would not regret giving her work.

When the girl left, Inmer closed the door and sank into the spot in the couch where she had sat. The dog lay at his feet. He thought of the girl. He wanted the girl. But could he have her? Would she want him to have her? He thought of the fierceness in which she had hugged him, and he was sure she was sending him a signal. When he was young he could read the signals well. He had read many signals. The signals had come from all over and it had been hard for him to refuse any of them. But now in old age he wasn’t sure he was reading her right. At any age, how can a man truly know what a woman wanted? All Inmer knew was that in the precise moment her body pressed against his he felt things he hadn’t in a very long time.

Men were predictable creatures, the girl thought as she walked down the cobbled street toward the café. This fact the girl had known well for many years living side by side with her three older brothers and seeing how girls would get their way with them. Marco, who also fit well into this theory, was firmly wrapped around her finger. She hadn’t wanted to hug the old man but had felt it necessary. She recalled his body, soft and weak, pressed against hers and the smell of his aftershave and she knew he would be reliving that hug for days. That made her smile. She liked him thinking of her. She wanted him to think of her. The more he thought of her the more she could control him. He had money. She knew he had money. A lot of money, and men, when well controlled, were more than generous with it.

At the café the boy couldn’t concentrate. He was thinking of the girl and of the old man and of how reprehensible the whole situation was. He couldn’t let the old man fool the young girl with his money. Marco had no money to offer the girl, but what he did have was a great love for her and that, he thought, should be enough.

“Hello Marco.” The girl said as she walked into the kitchen where Marco stood in front of the sink scrubbing a plate. She was beaming with absolute happiness.

“What’s got you in such a great mood. Haven’t seen you smile that wide ever,” Marco said.

“I’m very happy.”

“What makes you happy?” He immediately wanted to take back those words after he said them sensing he knew the answer.

“Do you really want to know?”

“If it has anything to do with that old man you can keep it to yourself.”

“What do you have against him?”

“He’s a dirty old man. I see how he looks at you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

Marco said nothing. He was certain she knew how he felt for her, but nothing of the sort had ever been discussed between them.

“I find him quite sophisticated, actually,” she said. She pulled her apron down from a nail that hung next to the back door and tied its strings around her waist.

“He is nothing but an old man with a dirty mind,” the boy said. “I think you shouldn’t be too friendly with him. Might get the wrong idea.”

“Don’t be silly,” the girl said. She walked behind the boy and put her hand on his shoulder. “I think he’s going to hire me to cook for him.”

The boy dropped the plate into the sink full of soapy water and turned around and grabbed her arm above the bend of the elbow. “You can’t work for him,” the boy said. “I see how he looks at you. He is not a good man.”

At this the girl smiled. The boy did not like the way she smiled.

“He is rich, Marco. He will pay me well.”

“Those are just rumors,” the boy said. “You don’t know it to be true.”

“He is from America. He has to be rich. I can feel it. Women can feel such things.”

That night and every night for the next month and a half the girl stopped by the old man’s house after her shifts at the café ended. She cooked and cleaned for him and they drank wine together on the balcony of the old house. The old man, knowing that women had to be brought in slowly like a big fish on a hook, would leave out an expensive looking watch on a dresser or a few large dollar bills on the kitchen counter. Each time he left something out for her to find he would watch from behind a door or through the corner of his eye to see her reaction, which was always the same. The girl, upon spotting the expensive item, would stop and turn around to see if the old man was near, then she’d touch it with a slight curve to her lips. Every time this happened the old man knew he was inching closer to having her.

One particular night the moon was full and bright and the scent of jasmine from the garden filled the air. The girl and the old man sat in their usual spots on the balcony drinking their wine. The girl looked at the old man with his hair combed to the side, the deep wrinkles that lined his forehead when he talked of his time in New York or Chicago or Miami. Part of her felt sorry for the old man. His prime time, she could see, was long gone. But even if she felt sorry for the old man, sorry didn’t pay the bills and what she made cleaning and cooking for him was not much. Especially since she knew she could have so much more if she agreed to be his woman, but the thought of sleeping with him repulsed her. No, she could not keep going like this and she wouldn’t have to. Her hand reached deep inside the pocket of her shorts and her fingers lightly touched two little pills she’d taken from her mother’s cabinet. That night, as she drank the wine slowly, her belongings packed in a grey suitcase hidden behind the jasmine bush below the balcony, the girl waited for the old man to get drunk.

“I’d love to bottle that scent in a perfume bottle,” the girl said. “I’d wear it every day.”

“I can get you all the perfumes you want,” the old man said. “Expensive ones too.”

The girl said nothing. She looked at the old man and tightened her grip on the pills inside her pocket.

The old man was beginning to feel relaxed and light. He was enjoying the breeze and was starting to feel that the girl was coming around to his way of thinking. He had not wanted to hire her to cook and clean but was happy he had. He wanted her to be the woman to see him to the end.

The girl stood up. “I’ll get you another,” she said. She picked up his almost empty glass.

“I’m not finished,” he said.

“You’ll be done soon.”

“But I’m not done yet. Sit with me longer.”

“You’ll be done soon enough, and I might not want to get up then.”

“Then I’ll get it.”

She sat down. She was anxious to get it over with.

“You should stay the night,” he said. “It’s dark and I don’t like thinking of you out there in the darkness alone in a bus.”

The girl lowered her gaze and then slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. “I might,” she said. “But first let’s have another.”

The old man lifted his glass and drank the last of it. “If it will make you stay,” he said. He handed the glass to the girl.

In the kitchen she poured was what left of the red wine in the man’s glass and reached for the two little pills in her pocket. She looked at the man who was sitting, his back to her, petting the dog that lay at his feet. She dropped the little pills into his glass and watched them disappear. He would fall asleep and she would search the house and she would get the money and then she’d run. She would run until her legs gave out from under her.

She brought out the glass of wine and watched as the old man drank it. Then she sat in silence. They sat until the old man’s head bobbed a few times before it rested on its side against his shoulder. The dog, loyal at his feet, lifted his head to look at the girl then put his head back down. The girl pushed her chair back and got up. She walked into the house where, with her pulse slightly quickening, began to look in the living room. She turned up the couch cushions and looked behind paintings on the wall. She lifted lamps and opened drawers.

Coming up empty the girl moved to the bedroom down a narrow hall. She lifted the mattress. Nothing. She could feel her pulse beating against her chest. She looked in the drawer of the nightstand. Nothing. She looked under the bed. She found a small shoe box and grabbed it. She pulled the lid off. An old pair of slippers. She could feel sweat trickle down her back. She needed to find the money fast. She had to make sure she was far away when he awoke the next morning. She ran to the bathroom where she turned on the light and opened a cabinet on the wall. Nothing. Damn old man. Where could the money be? She made her way to the kitchen. She climbed on the counter to reach the cabinets above the sink but found nothing but plates and bowls. On top of the refrigerator she spotted a can of coffee and she remembered how the old man had once given her a twenty-dollar bill from a similar can. She jumped off the counter and reached high over the refrigerator until she felt it with her fingertips. She walked the can slowly toward her and caught it as it fell in her waiting hands. She lifted the lid off the can and saw a few dollar bills; fives and tens. She pulled out the money and began to count. Only sixteen dollars. She put the money deep inside her bra. She turned to see where she hadn’t looked before and saw there was a door under the kitchen sink unopened. She knelt and opened the small doors wide. She moved the detergent and sponges and felt under the pipes. Nothing.

With her head deep under the sink she heard slow-moving footsteps approaching behind her.

“What are you doing?” the old man said in a groggy voice. He was holding his head with one hand.

Startled, the girl attempted to run out of the kitchen but the old man stuck his hand out and grabbed her by the arm. She writhed and twisted attempting to loosen his grip but his hands were strong.

“You came here,” the old man said. “You came here to rob me. I should have seen it. You are nothing but a common thief. No. Worse. A thief at least will rob you and stare at you in the eye while he is doing it. You drugged me to do it. You can’t even look at my face. Look at me.”

Hearing she was no better than a common thief the girl got angry and she pushed the old man with all her strength. He fell backwards onto the floor, and when his head hit the linoleum it made a dull thud, like a melon. She stood still for a while, watching to see if he moved. He didn’t move. She couldn’t just leave now. The old man had changed everything. Panicked she pulled a knife from the kitchen sink and she stood over him. She could hear his labored breathing. She gripped the handle of the knife tight. He tried to lift his head and, with her heart now threatening to leap out of her chest, she raised the knife, closed her eyes, and swung the blade just above the old man’s collar bone. When she opened her eyes she saw there was only a thin line of blood forming on his throat. She hadn’t cut deep enough, but even slow a flow will empty out and by morning she would be gone and so would he.

She stood, frozen. She looked at the blood pooling behind his head and soaking into his shirt. She had never killed anything before, she thought, unless you can count flies. She remembered the first fly she killed when she was six. She had come up slowly behind it with a fly squatter and wacked it like her mother had shown her. The fly, unlike the old man, had instantly died and fallen off the dining table.

“I’m not a common thief,” she said. She searched the old man’s pockets and found a thin roll of twenty-dollar bills. She put the roll in her pocket and ran out of the house grabbing her bag from deep inside the jasmine bush and disappeared into the darkness.

On the floor of the kitchen the old man awoke to the dog licking his throat. At first the old man thought it was the girl kissing him, but as he floated to consciousness he realized it was the dog and he remembered what had happened. He sat up and put his hand on his throat. He felt a warm liquid and a stinging pain as his fingers ran over the shallow cut. He looked at his hands and saw the blood. He looked at the white dog and saw its muzzle and paws were red also. He felt dizzy. Then a cold spread through his body as he looked at the kitchen drawers. The girl had been looking for his money. In a panic he got up from the floor and, with much difficulty, stumbled to the bathroom. He opened the door and pulled up the toilet tank lid. There inside a plastic bag tied to the wall of the water tank, was the money he had hidden. It was all the money he had. He put the lid back on the toilet tank. Feeling much relief that the girl had not found his money he sat on the toilet seat and rested his arm on the nearby sink. He felt lightheaded now and knew he must get help. He attempted to rise but his knees buckled under his weight and he fell to the floor. He looked up at the light on the ceiling and noticed one of the two light bulbs was out.

At the café the next morning the boy looked at the clock above the stove. It was ten o’clock and the girl was still not there. The old man was not there either for his usual expresso. The boy began to worry. Did the old man finally have his way with her? He washed the dishes from the early morning shift, and as he washed he thought of the girl nuzzled at the chest of the old man and he felt the anger deep inside him rise. Every time the door opened the boy peered from behind the window above the sink to see if it was the girl coming in holding the hand of the old man. By noon the boy was seething and could take it no more. He took off his apron and left the sink full of unwashed dishes. He walked in determined steps to the old man’s house.

The boy stood at the front door. His hands balled into fists. His stomach turning. He had no claim to be there. No real claim. He felt it was a matter of honor. The girl was young enough to be the old man’s daughter. She was too naïve to see the cleaning and cooking was just a way to get her into his house. He knocked on the door and as his fist pounded the wood of the door the door opened slightly.

“Irma?” Are you in there?” The boy pushed the door open a bit more and when the dog came to him, he saw its paws and muzzle were matted with red and brown blood and he immediately thought of the girl lying somewhere in a pool of blood.

He rushed inside the house calling the girl’s name, but no one answered. The boy followed the dog’s bloody pawprints to the kitchen where he saw a pool of blood on the linoleum. He looked around the kitchen frantic.

“Come out you bastard? What have you done to her?” he shouted.

He saw pawprints on the floor leading around the corner and he picked up the knife and followed them. He walked slowly. He did not know if the old man was armed. As he neared the corner, he saw a light on in the bathroom and he walked slowly toward it. He stopped at the bathroom door and pushed it open with one hand. The door swung lazily and stopped when it touched the foot of the old man’s shoe. The boy saw the shoe and knew it was the old man. He felt a delight because that meant the girl had defended herself. He opened the door and the old man lay by the toilet with his hand on his throat. The boy could see the old man was still breathing. He left the bathroom to search for the girl. In every room there were drawers open, and their contents strewn about the floor. In that instant the boy remembered what the girl had said to him “the old man is rich.” And he remembered the smile on her face when she told him she was going to clean and cook for the old man. It had been a strange smile and he had not liked it. And as he looked around the house a grave picture began to emerge in his mind, and he knew what he had to do next.

The boy dropped the knife and ran to the bathroom where the old man lay on the floor in a pool of blood. “Old man,” he said. “Don’t go yet.”

Paola Lastick is currently a student at the Mountainview MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. Her writing has appeared on blogs as well as the newspaper, The Real Chicago. She lives in a suburb of Dallas with her husband, daughter, and three small yappy dogs.