In the Lap of Kings

Finding San Jose’s finest hookers was easy even for a poor tico like Orlando. The country’s best whorehouse is one of the capital’s best hotels; it is also an official national heritage treasure.
Back in the civil war of 1948 the rebels holed up in Hotel Del Reyes, the 10-story pink grand dame on Third Avenue. Firing from the hotel’s rooftop at government soldiers sequestered in the bowels of the nearby Bellavista fortress, the rebel’s resistance was the highlight of a 40- day war in which 2000 civilians died and not much changed.
History earned Hotel Del Reyes its heritage status but it was the nightly whirl of the croupier’s dice and the chica’s short skirts that make it a pillar of the country’s embrace of legalized prostitution and gambling. Del Rey’s pink neo-classic façade gives it a looming majesty that in a city of unimposing, faceless buildings make it architecturally comparable to the Titanic and World Trade Center. An opulent, overbuilt disaster.
At Hotel Del Reyes, Orlando was not welcome. It was the province of the dungareed kings and court jesters from abroad, mostly American men who could afford $200 fishing trips, $50 rooms and $50- a- night hookers. I was the front man smoothing Orlando’s passage. It was always a treat to rub elbows in the hotel’s Blue Marlin bar with the old gringos and young putas. News traveled faster there and more honestly than on CNN.
The sports betting tables are on the left as we enter, a handwritten tote board of games and point spreads make us feel as if we fell into a lounge lizard’s time warp. We were in low-tech Vegas, circa 1955. Seated at 10 small circular tables were groups of young women facing the gaming tables chatting among themselves. A 12- foot stuffed gray-green crocodile divides the gambling and prostitution sections from the rental car, fishing desk and other day-tour family oriented operators.
Sequestered in the dark recesses the slot machines thump and occasionally clang while above the Blue Marlin Bar the huge stuffed dorsaled mascot is losing his sheen. The once great sport fish’s bright blue iridescence is fading dulled by the nicotine puffs from the sharky packs of 55- year- old men in baseball caps and t-shirts. Distraught looking after blowing their cash at the craps tables, the gringos march back and forth to the ATMs conveniently ringing the bar that fed their deepening debt. The hookers could ease their sorrows.
The women were happy, smiling, chirpy, eager to make chitchat and conduct business. There were waves of them, in myriad shades and sizes. We were awe-struck captives in a cage filled with a mixed feeding flock of forest tanagers drawn to us as if we were a flowering tree. Bay headed, scarlet-rumped, golden hooded, speckled, flame colored, tawny-crested, dusky-faced, spangled-cheeked tanagers, were hovering omnivorously feeding. Some flit and move from the bar perching on barstools or landing by the door to probe and explore each gringo face for the slightest eye contact. The disheveled patrons in their drabness and scraggly faces are comparative ciphers desperate to suck some life from these fonts of hovering creativity and energy.
“See the two chicas in the corner that will work for us. The dark haired short one I want for myself and I know Ted will like the mulatto after he tires of the blond,” Orlando said.
We swam upstream towards them through assorted bustiers, a wave of designer jeans, and snorkeled above mesh tops as flimsy as sea fans. A 40ish woman in classy blue pants and nautical white silk blouse buttoned to the top lent a touch of elegance that most men ignored. Our poor taste couldn’t be deterred.
“Good evening gentleman. I am Carlotta and this is my friend Anna. We would like you to join us.” Carlotta’s dark hair and smooth olive skin overshadowed her tight red bodice and black tapered pants. Her partner was darkly broad shouldered; a white bra strap peeking out of a halter-top. They both were sexy not the obvious downtrodden drugged out hookers so common in the states. In a bar on Madison or Melrose Avenue a half dozen stockbrokers, real estate agents or other employable viriles their own age would be clamoring to buy them drinks and dinner. Here it’s just the over-the-hill burnouts that were this lucky.
Not interested in small talk, Orlando gets to business. It took all the fun out of the game and Carlotta didn’t like his abruptness. The small talk and the flirtation, the drinks are part of the excitement and what set them apart from their cheaper competition at Key West.
“My boss has a big home in the countryside and would like the two of you to join us tonight. Will you leave the city for the night and come with us?”
“It will cost 3000 colons and you must bring us back in the morning. We will show you a good time. We like getting out of the city and being with nice people. It will be fun for everyone,” she said and smiled.
“Orlando, let’s have a drink and enjoy the place before we go back, it will make every one more relaxed,” I said.
“Ted doesn’t like me drinking, it’s not a good idea. Besides they don’t like ticos coming in here and being with the women and drinking. But fuck it, one drink isn’t going to make much difference. We should be here anyway. This is our country these are our women.”