International Man of Mystery

We went to our coffee house in Guzman today after the gym. Luis and Felipe were talking, I was staring out the window watching the traffic pass. A car pulled up across the street and parked. A woman got out and I immediately tagged her as American. She and her partner walked into the coffee house and ordered drinks. They sat at the table next to us. I realized that her partner was definitely American as he was talking loudly and in American English. She had an accent which I couldn’t identify, but spoke English quite well. I didn’t want them to know I spoke English, so I kept quiet.

As they sat down he said, “so here is what happened in Israel.” How odd, I thought. Here is an American man sitting in a coffee house in Mexico, talking to a woman about his trip to Israel. She responded, but was speaking more softly so I couldn’t pick up what she said. As I tuned into and out of their conversation I heard him talk about “the Chinese”, and “in Asia” as well as more talk about Israel. I started to wish it was a bit more quiet in the coffee house so I could hear what they were talking about.

Then I heard him say “you just say the government stole it and it’s ok.” I started to wonder what they were talking about. International crime? “Of course, we’re going to give some of it back to the country,” he said. It’s got to be crime-oriented, I thought. Luis had over heard their conversation a bit too, and we talked about it on the way home. Yes, he said, they were talking about crime. And the American guy was an idiot for talking outloud, assuming that no one else in this little coffee house in a small town in Jalisco, Mexico would know English. He said that because this guy was white, no one would assume that he was doing anything illegal. People would look at him and think he was a businessman who earned enough money – legally – to spend time here in Mexico. Sure, I responded, it happens all the time in the US - look at how much white collar crime goes virtually unpunished.