Totally Just Saw a Bribe Go Down in BA
So here I am sitting in an outdoor cafe in Recoleta, sipping a few glasses of chardonney, eating my pizzeta, and trying to use the slow wi-fi to get my Tinder on in Buenos Aires when I overhear a peculiar conversation going on at the table next to me. The two gentlemen had accents that at first I thought were British, but later I thought maybe were from another part of the Empire, perhaps diluted through travel or time away from the homeland, wherever that may be. Usually I can place accents pretty well, but these could have been South African or maybe northern England or maybe they were just disguising them in public in advance of the operation that was about to go down.
Now a brother ain’t trying to get these two chaps in trouble in case I am semi-wrong so I won’t name the exact companies they were talking about, but suffice it to say they were discussing some sort of business deal related to a natural resources exploration company for an emerging energy storage market. They repeated the name of the company several times, so I googled it and read all about it.
Then out of the blue, and to the surprise of one of them, one of the schiesters says, “Shake my hand.” The other is taken aback a little and says, “What?” Then homeboy repeats, “Shake my hand.”
That peaked my curiosity so I looked over at their table right as I saw a HUGE stack of hundred dollar US bills wrapped in a rubber band go from one of the dudes’ hands to the other. There must have been 3-5 thousand US dollars in the stack, judging by its girth. The recipient schiester hurriedly stuffed the stack of cash in his jacket pocket and suddenly the chatter turned more friendly and deal-oriented.
Meanwhile, I look back over a couple times, halfway hoping to catch the eye of one of them in order to convey a sly look of “I know what you did last summer… or 3 minutes ago.” About 10 minutes later they wrapped up their convo and skeedatled.
I’m about to go check out the Recoleta cemetery where Evita is buried. If I end up stuffed into one of the graves, it’s probably because I’ve seen too much today.