Playa del Carmen, Mexico 8:17 pm
Ditmar arranged the game at his place by the sea, in a small neglected corner of Playa del Carmen. Not far from the master planned all-inclusives, several worlds removed. The owner of the property had somehow resisted the hard-cash pitch of luxury developers, believing that, as someone of noble Mayan lineage, his role on the earth was to save remnants of a coastal culture that had erected pyramids and temples throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. Preserving coveted land in its natural state is never cheap and Izel was not adverse to extracting money from the property, so long as his ancestors’ hidden shrines were left intact. The end result: Ditmar had his beach house by the sea, rotting planks, peeling paint and all, and Izel his “no questions asked” $3,000 every other week. The motor boats that crept out under cover of night, the rustle of heavy feet and the disruptive whine of motor, were another matter altogether–– Ditmar’s silence on this was implicit.