I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and strode back over to the bar, where I drained my Cool and Deadly without even a backwards glance at what I’d done to the woman.
It took her a minute to regain her composure and rejoin me at the bar. She drained her drink and pushed the empty glass across the counter. “Another drink, Manny.”
I looked at her. “Make that two, Manny.”
19
“How’d you manage to score one of these cute cottages?” A giggle bubbled out of Natasha’s mouth as the golf cart carried us down the road to my new pad.
I finished the drink I’d taken from the bar and handed it to the golf cart driver. “Take this, will ya, pal?” I was too intoxicated to notice if I’d offended him by making him my personal valet. I scooted closer to Natasha and draped an arm over her shoulder. With my free hand, I traced a finger along the exposed heart-shaped outline of her cleavage while nuzzling her ear. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I whispered, inhaling the spicy scent of her perfume.
“Yes, I would,” she murmured before I clamped my lips down on hers once again. Her mouth was cold from the iced beverages we’d spend the last few hours consuming, and she tasted like rum. I savored her flavor. It was as refreshing and sweet as the beverage itself had been.
The driver stopped. “Cottage eleven, sir.”
I barely heard his clipped accent while devouring Natasha. She had to push on my chest, parting our mouths with a sloppy smacking noise. “We’re here, Drunk.”
I looked up at the pink cottage. “So we are.” I pulled out a couple dollar bills I had in my pocket and cupping them in my hand, I patted the driver on his shoulder with them.
“Thank you, sir.”
I followed Natasha out of the golf cart. “My pleasure.”
I threw my arm around her again as the driver tore off into the darkness. “What, you’re not even going to wait for us to get inside safely?” I said to the dust he’d kicked up.
Natasha giggled before tugging me towards my cottage. “You have your key?”
I dug inside my pocket and produced the key Al had given me earlier in the day. “Voilà,” I said, holding it up as if I’d just produced a quarter from behind her ear. “Magic.”
It was dark outside my cottage. The streetlights were several paces away, and I hadn’t thought to turn my security light on before leaving. The moon was obscured by the coconut trees overhead, but I could see it in the distance reflecting off the ocean. I held Natasha around the waist with one arm while I blindly searched for the keyhole with my key.
“You want me to do that for you, Slugger?” she asked with a sly grin on my fourth or fifth attempt at finding the hole.
I shut her up with my mouth.
When we came up for air, I tried again. This time I found the keyhole, and I pushed our way inside and flipped on the light. Both of our eyes needed a minute to adjust, but once they had, she looked at my fine furnishings and grinned. “Beachy.”
“I call it Golden Girls chic,” I said with a crooked smile before flipping my hat, shades, and key onto the end table. “Care for a little music?”
She nodded. “What do you have?”
I flipped on the little portable radio that I’d found in the kitchen earlier in the day and turned the dial until I found a crackly station playing a line of smooth jazz. I held my hand out to her. She took it, and I pulled her in for a little slow dance on my kitchen’s tile floor.
With her head resting on my chest, I did my best imitation of a sober man on a dance floor, turning the two of us around in time to the music. It was sexy and easy, and I felt Little Drunk telling me enough with the foreplay already, time for the main event.
I took her hand then and spun her around. Natasha giggled and played along. She held on to me with one hand while her other hand gripped her handbag, but she spiraled out as if she’d taken lessons.
And then a new song started up and the tempo changed.
This music was faster, more islandy.
She let go of my hand and began to freestyle. Her hips gyrated to the music. Her hands started at her sides and ran up the length of her body slowly. I couldn’t tear my eyes off of her. She was magnificent and sexy. Perfect in every sense of the word. She slowly began her mating dance around me, and when I tried to follow her with my eyes, she ticked a finger at me. “Uh-uh-uh,” she chastised seductively.
Holy shit, I wanted her.
Little Drunk pressed hard against my trousers.
And then I felt something press hard against the back of my skull.
“Turn around, Drunk. Slowly.”
“What?” I said, wondering if this was all part of her act of seduction.
“Don’t try anything funny. I have no problem pulling the trigger.”
My brows furrowed together as I frowned. She couldn’t be serious?
With slumped shoulders, I turned around to find myself nose to muzzle with a small black handgun. “What the fuck, Natasha?” I breathed as my hands instinctively went palms up next to my shoulders.
“Where is it, Drunk?” Her face was somber, and any hint of her intoxication had vanished completely. Mine still clouded my brain. The room felt like it was spinning.
“What the actual fuck?” I repeated. First a throat punch and now a gun in my face? This chick was fifty shades of fucked up. I should have known better!
She stood unwaveringly with both hands on the grip. “Don’t make me blow your fucking head off, Drunk. Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Don’t gimme that bullshit. I know you have it. Hand it over and we’re good.”
My mind reeled. The only thing I had was an erection and now even that was gone. “Look, lady, what kind of psycho bitch are you? I don’t have jack shit.”
“You’re full of it, Drunk. I know you have it. I saw you with Jimmie on the plane. You two were working together.”
“Jimmie!” I barked. “I don’t know Jimmie! I met him on the plane, you fucking nutjob.”
“Bullshit. I saw the signal he gave you at the security checkpoint.”
My mind flashed back to the airport and Jimmie giving me that odd head nod. My frown deepened. “That fucker was whack. I don’t know what his problem was. He punched a guy to impress you or some shit like that. I don’t know what that was about.”
“I’m not in a mood to be fucked with, Drunk. I know you’re in this with Jimmie. Now hand it over,” she said, holding a flattened palm out. “I’m losing my patience.”
I eyed the gun. She only had one hand on it now, and I knew a defensive move or two. Unfortunately, I was half-blitzed and was having trouble standing upright on two feet, let alone trying to pull off some crazy move I hadn’t tried in years. I straightened my shoulders and pulled myself up to my full height. I wanted to look and sound as intimidating as I could. I lowered my voice an octave. “Listen, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t know Jimmie before I got on the flight.”
“Fine, then you two met up on the plane and worked out an arrangement to get through security. Whatever. I don’t care how you did it, I just want it back.”
I shook my head at her and threw my hands out on either side of myself. I was getting annoyed. “I don’t know how many different ways I can tell you this, lady, but I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Jimmie slept the entire trip to the island. Then I went back to the bathroom and got assaulted by your skinny psycho ass. I came back, the guy was awake and wanted to chat. We said like five words to each other, and I fell asleep for the rest of the flight. That was it.” I looked at her suspiciously then. “Wait. Are you the person that killed Jimmie?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t fucking kill Jimmie.”
“But you know he’s dead?”
“Yeah, I know he’s dead.”
“Then who killed him?”
She pursed her lips and tipped her head to the side. “As if you don’t know?”
“No, I don
’t fucking know! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” I sighed and strode out of the kitchen towards the living room and plopped down on the sofa. I wished I’d brought a spare drink back with me.
“Hey!” she hollered. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
As I put my feet up on the rattan coffee table, I leaned back and drew a line in the air back and forth between her and me. “I’m over this whole little seductive thing you’ve got going on here. The femme fatale game might’ve been hot for the first ten to fifteen seconds, but now it’s overdone. I’m gonna check the scores.”
“You think this is a game, Drunk? Do you think I’m playing with you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, lady. I don’t know anything about Jimmie. I don’t know anything about whatever it is that you’re looking for. I came here because I busted my fiancée having sex with her ex-boyfriend in my apartment, on my bed, the night before my wedding. This is my honeymoon, Natasha, and I flew in alone. And I didn’t think it could get any worse, but then you assaulted me on the plane, a dead body showed up in my motel room, and now you wanna blow my brains out. So you know what? Go the fuck ahead and pull the trigger. I’m out of fucks to give, alright? Get it? No more fucks will be given tonight, or any other night for that matter.” And if I had to tell another soul that my fiancée had cheated on me, I might have to blow my own brains out.
I ignored Natasha while she stood in the kitchen. I knew she was likely debating what to believe or what tack to take next. I didn’t care. I blindly surfed through the channels, looking for something to watch and hoping I’d happen upon a porn channel. I preferred dying with a good image fixed in my head.
Finally she strode over to me, the handgun hanging by her side. “You seriously have no connection to Jimmie?”
I refused to look up from the television. “That’s what I said, sweetheart.”
“Then why was he killed in your room?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
She sighed, and for the first time, she didn’t seem as in control as she wanted me to believe she was. “Well, you have to know something.”
With one arm slung over the back of the sofa, I turned to look at her. “Listen. Jimmie made conversation with me on the plane. He asked where I was staying, and when I told him the Seacoast Majestic, he said that was where he was staying too. He asked me if I wanted to meet up for a drink later. Stupidly, and because I’d just been assaulted in the bathroom, I said sure, and I gave him my card with my cell number. I checked into my room and went down for a drink, and when I came back a few hours later, Jimmie was dead on my floor. Alright? That’s it. That’s the extent of the information I know.”
“And he didn’t give you anything?”
“Other than a migraine? No, he didn’t.”
“And you didn’t find anything that didn’t belong to you in your suitcase?”
“I didn’t bring a suitcase.”
She looked at me with pursed lips. “Who doesn’t bring a suitcase on vacation?”
“I don’t, alright. My ex packed my clothes for the trip, and I didn’t want to be reminded of her, alright? So I left it behind.”
She stared at me.
I pointed to the garbage can in the kitchen. “You can look in the garbage. You’ll find a shopping bag from the resort clothing store and a receipt in it for a package of underwear and some clothes. Check my room if you don’t believe me. The new clothes and the ones I wore on the way here are the only things you’re going to find.”
I watched her consider my words. Did she trust me, or did she not? She let out a groan and then stomped into the bedroom. I could hear her searching through my meager belongings. She was back in the living room seconds later. “Fine. I believe you, Drunk. Your ass is clueless.”
“Fuck you very much.” I rolled my head on my shoulders. “So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
She gave a little puff of air out her nose and then aimed the gun at me again. “No, as a matter of fact, I’m not. I’m leaving. And if you tell anyone about this visit tonight, I’ll find you and finish the job I came here to do. Got it?”
I looked down at Little Drunk. “Promises, promises.”
20
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
The next morning, the sun beamed in through my window, heating my skull until I thought it was in danger of exploding. I pinched an eye open and focused on the alarm clock on the nightstand.
Fuck. 7:17.
I hadn’t gone to sleep until a little after two. I’d been too paranoid to sleep. My tropical getaway had turned into the vacation from hell, and in my intoxicated state, every little sound had me on edge.
I rolled over onto my back, and Little Drunk and I stared up at the ceiling together. The image of Natasha Prince conning me at the bar rolled back through my mind. I should have gone with my gut instinct, and I should have listened to my mother. “Don’t bring home strays.” How many times had she told me that?
Fuck.
When would I ever learn?
I thought about Natasha’s demands. She wanted something. Something that she obviously thought Jimmie had given me. Wanted what? I wondered. I figured the people that had killed Jimmie in my room had been looking for the same thing that Natasha was looking for. Had they found it?
Natasha said that she’d seen the nod Jimmie had given me in the airport, and that was what had led her to believe that we were together. That nod had seemed odd to me too. Of course, how was I to have known that Jimmie was going to wind up dead on my motel room floor hours later? If I’d known that, I might have put more thought into his actions on the plane and in the terminal. But hindsight doesn’t pay the rent, now does it?
Bits of our conversation echoed dully in my head.
“And you didn’t find anything that didn’t belong to you in your suitcase?”
“I didn’t bring a suitcase.”
Hey, whoever said I didn’t have acting chops must not have seen my high school production of Our Town. I played Joe Crowell, Jr., and I sold the hell outta that paperboy.
I suddenly wondered if somehow Jimmie had managed to stash something in my bag. Maybe when I’d followed Natasha to the lavatory. The thought actually made sense.
I sat up in bed. I thought maybe I’d think better if I were vertical. The pulsing in my head told me it was a bad idea. Gripping my skull between my hands, I fought the headache and continued thinking.
Jimmie had been asleep when I’d gotten out of my seat, and he had been awake when I’d come back. He’d made sure to find out where I was staying. He’d gotten my cell number. He’d created a diversion at the airport. And then he’d found my room. The pieces were all coming together.
Despite my headache, I thunked my hands on either side of my head. What an idiot I’d been. How had none of these things registered in my brain as they were happening?
Shaking my head, I crawled out of bed and headed for the shower. I was going to need to get that suitcase back. I could only hope it was still exactly where I’d put it.
21
Showered and dressed in my last new tank top, shorts, hat, sunglasses, and flip-flops, I stood at the top of the stairs to the beach and peered over the railing and through the expanse of jungle that separated the resort from the ocean. Roosters pecked at the dirt, and a white-and-orange cat wandered about, weaving a figure eight between my legs.
A young couple with two small children came from the resort, carrying sand buckets and a duck-shaped inner tube. “Good morning,” chirped a pear-shaped woman with a toddler on her hip.
“Morning,” I grunted. I’d yet to have my morning Dr. Pepper or my morning constitutional, and I was anxious to have both. Especially since the latter relied on the former. I planned to stop into the resort gift shop after retrieving whatever item Jimmie had put inside my suitcase and pick up the soda. And after a night of boozing, I could safe
ly assume I’d also be in the market for some new bathroom reading materials. I thought maybe I’d pick up an island newspaper and see if Jimmie’s death had made island news.
I watched the young couple as they helped their small children navigate the long, winding stairs to the pool. I wanted to make sure they were far enough away before making my move. I didn’t need anyone reporting to resort security that there was a strange man roaming the jungle. Especially since there was a sign posted on the other side of the railing that clearly read, “Guests Not Allowed Past This Point.”
When the family was at a safe distance, I put a hand on the wooden post and scissored over the top rail, thus beginning my hunt for my suitcase.
Weaving and ducking through the thick island flora was a challenge. Never before had I seen trees like those I was now climbing through. Dense thickets plagued every step. In many places, roots stuck up out of the ground and caught my flip-flops. Strange snakelike seed pods lay in clumps on the forest floor, scaring the living shit out of me as every step made me think I was stepping in a snake den and had my heart in my throat.
Not only was the trek a challenge, but I also had to keep a close eye on the motel windows that faced the jungle. Many of them had curtains drawn, but there were a few that were open, though I had yet to see anyone. I was also counting them. Before I’d started, I’d counted how many rooms were between my original motel room and the stairs to the beach, and now I was trying to count the windows in reverse.
I struggled through the jungle for what felt like an hour before I came to what should have been the window beneath my motel room. I looked up at the balconies above me. They all looked alike, so aside from counting the windows, I had no way of knowing for sure if I was in the right spot. At least the curtains in the window on the ground floor were drawn. I was safe to start looking. I turned and faced the ocean with my hands on my hips. I could barely see glimpses of blue through the dense jungle.
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