He cut off the radio anyway.
Speeding frantically along the beach, he had an urgency to reach their destination.
But he knew Leonora had no other place to go.
And neither did he.
Chapter Eighteen
Chino's Cafe stood on the corner of Water Lane and Shark Street, about half a block from the shrimp docks. An overgrown banyan tree with airborne roots had lifted up the right end of the building nearly a foot, including its lean-to porch. No one had painted anything ... ever. The entrance door, wired back so that it was always open, was strung with a beaded curtain. Numie went in.
The cafe was jumping. Shrimpers in for a late lunch of green turtle steak and conch chowder filled the little oilcloth-covered tables.
On a lone counter rested a large urn of bitter, black coffee. Chipped cups and mugs stood upside down on paper toweling. Nearby were three large cans of evaporated milk.
All eyes turned and looked in Numie's direction. But by now he was getting used to stares. Ignoring them, he headed for a deserted table in the far corner. There, he ordered a cup of coffee and settled back.
Flies buzzed around a chrome stand, holding the remains of a key lime pie. On the wall were clusters of enlarged snapshots of shrimp boats, their owners grinning or glowering.
Everywhere he looked no frills, no fuss, no curtains, no pretense—as bareboned as his soul this day.
Forty-five minutes and three cups of black coffee later, he still didn't know what to do. The afternoons were long and heavy in Tortuga, and Numie was growing increasingly restless. Leonora had retired for the rest of the day—so he was free. Lola, thank God, was getting her beauty rest before her appearance in the bar tonight.
Then a familiar figure at the door. Anne, carrying a package.
He didn't know why, but her very presence stirred something within him. Maybe it was because he was bored. At any rate he was genuinely glad to see her. He got up quickly, heading for the front. "Let me help you."
She looked startled, almost as if she didn't recognize him. "Oh, it's you," she said. "Never expected to find you at Chino's"For a moment, she hesitated, then surrendered the package. "Thanks."
"
"Come join me for a cup of coffee," he said. He glanced quickly around the cafe. The presence of the other men made him nervous.
"I'd better get back." She smiled.
"Please," he said. He was afraid he was sounding desperate.
She gave him a short laugh. "Okay, if you ask that way." Winding her way through the crowd, she added over her shoulder, "I didn't know you knew how to say please."
He smiled, raising his eyes. "I know how to say a lot of things."
"I bet you have quite a line." Her lips were close to his ear.
Was she flirting? Leading her to his table, Numie ordered more coffee.
Silence fell. The utter silence of a hot afternoon.
Her brow was shiny, and her lips also shone in the bright light. Occasionally she would glance at him, but no thoughts came to mind—at least nothing that needed to be expressed.
As he sat looking at her, he sensed forlornly that his life had to change. He couldn't go on living as he was.
"I must tell you something," she whispered confidentially. "On this island you run into everybody you know at least three times a day." She sipped her coffee, eying him, then glancing at the other men in the cafe. "It's fantastic—hopeless if you're trying to avoid someone. I should also warn you that the major industry is gossip." She wiped her forehead. "If word gets back, Lola will be jealous."
His cozy feeling building with her collapsed at that remark. She was baiting him. "Don't remind me of that ... " he said sharply. "I'm enjoying this afternoon." His flare-up subsided quickly, and he was at peace again. "Now that I've got some real female company."
She laughed softly at this compliment. "I've never gotten on with Lola at all," she said, "although Tangerine likes her. Leonora can't stand her either, but the commodore is Leonora's closest friend—so she tolerates Lola for Philip's sake."
"What gives with Lola and the commodore?"
"I don't understand such relationships," she said. Her voice was low, plaintive. "At times I'm so normal I seem like an oddball in this crowd."
"
This made him wonder how she classified him. "Your life is hardly normal."
"That doesn't mean I wouldn't like it to be," she added quickly. Surprisingly, she caught his hand and held it for a fleeting moment.
A tingling sensation rushed through him.
After dropping his hand, she seemed embarrassed, her eyes no longer looking at him. "Speaking of normalcy, how was your morning with Leonora?"
The afternoon sky was lit strangely, giving everyone a yellow glow. He paused, thinking of her reaching for his hand, not hearing her latest question. Then it sunk in. "You can imagine, I guess. You know better than anyone what a morning with Leonora is like. Voodoo queens, cathouses." He sighed. "I'm glad to have an afternoon off from her, too."
"Me, too," she chimed. "I'm out shopping right now because I can't stand being in the same house with her, even though she's retired to her private quarters. She's driving me crazy." Her lips trembled. "And Ralph is no help. He's completely on a sex trip. He's not even a companion. I never see him any more, which is just as well, I guess."
An ache of desire skidded along his spine. "I think he's very foolish to neglect a wife like you."
She was taken back. "I take that as a compliment." Nervously she stirred her coffee. "I'd like to say you're very nice yourself. Which raises a question. Can't you do better than an aging drag queen?"
He frowned at her reluctance to drop that one subject. "Do better with who?" he asked. "What do you have in mind?"
A couple of boys went by to the toilet in the rear, and she used this momentary diversion to avoid answering him. Then she said, "You're the man."
He was searching her face, but it told him little. Hands clenched, he rose quickly.
She looked up at him. "You realize I'm only teasing."
"Sure," he said, reaching down for the last of his coffee. He could feel his neck redden.
"Is it ever hot!" she said, getting up. "Let's go back to Sacre-Coeur for a dip in the pool."
The hot bricks of the patio burned through Numie's sandals. At the opposite end of the Olympic-sized pool, Anne was removing all her clothes. Big breasted, with an hourglass figure, she had tanned skin, smooth and inviting. Laughing at his surprise, she jumped into the pool backward, her arms outstretched. She splashed him with cool water. "Bashful!" she yelled.
"Like hell!" he called back. He felt his body flood with excitement. "I'm joining you," he told the wet head emerging from beneath.
"Can you swim in big waters?" Her look was provocative, challenging.
He felt ready for the challenge. In moments, he was out of his clothes—every piece of them, and was heading for the diving board. Bouncing once, then twice, he executed a perfect dive in her direction. Surfacing, he came up by her side. He capped her head with his hand, dunking her. "That's for wetting my clothes," he said, as she emerged again.
She tried to dunk him, but he escaped, swimming to the other side of the pool. Splashing noisily, she was hot on his trail. He swam past her, going up and down the pool's length, enjoying this respite from the day's tension.
"Let's rest up," he said when she finally caught up with him.
Her body seemed ignited. "But lowe you a dunking," she protested.
"It'll wait." On impulse, he pulled her close, pressing his lips against hers. He kissed her hungrily, his tongue slipping inside her mouth.
She responded, but it was weak, passive. Then she broke away.
His innocent play with her had now become self-conscious.
Out of the water, she was reaching for a towel, wrapping it quickly around her nude body.
He, too, got out of the pool in his search for a towel. Drying himself, he sprawled on a pad in the sun
. Suddenly, he felt exposed in her presence. So he wrapped the towel around his body, as she had done.
Anne was filling her mug of beer. "You've got a nice body," she said. "Or is the man supposed to say that to the woman?"
"If he is, and I haven't, I'd like to return the compliment now." The sun was drying his body, and he stretched luxuriously in its glow, marveling at the beauty of the Tortuga sky. Her compliment had gotten rid of the self-conscious feeling that had crept over him. The other day at the beach, he'd been worried about his body. Now he felt perfectly secure with it.
She seemed to be studying him. "We're about the same age, aren't we?" she asked. "I'm thirty-two."
This bolted him upright. Age, especially his own, was about the last subject he wanted to talk about. "Yes," he said hesitantly, not knowing why she was asking.
"Ralph's thirty-four," she added as an afterthought. Finding a comfortable spot on an adjoining pad, she lay back. "Why does the world belong to the young?"
"You're young," he answered quickly, hoping she would drop the subject. Even though they were the same age, she was obviously much better preserved than he was.
"No more than you are," she said. "Let's face it. You consider yourself old ."
A look of alarm crossed his face. He reached for sunglasses. The savage glare of the sun was too much for him.
"I'm always thinking I'm old," she went on. "But isn't it stupid?"
"In your case, very," he said.
"I don't feel old."
"And why should you?" he asked.
"The world when it looks at me makes me feel old."
"I'm the world," he said, "and I'm looking at you. And age is the last thought on my mind." He lay back and closed his eyes. The sunglasses were providing a shield against reality for him. But then on their glass a film of his fleeting youth, speeding life started flashing before him. Opening his eyes wide, he still couldn't get rid of those pictures.
"I often wonder what it's going to be like when I'm older," she said. "I know I'm pretty good looking right now. But what will happen in a few years?"
He grabbed some of her beer and drank thirstily from the mug.
"I see those older women up on the mainland panting after young studs," she continued, oblivious to his rising agitation. "And the way they're treated in return. Those bastards like to make the old gals not only pick up the tabs, but crawl while they're doing it."
Her haunting eyes were staring at him, but he lay back on the mat—hoping to become indistinguishable in the white glare.
"I sit by the pool day after day, feeling the world passing me by," she said.
Her entire conversation was unbearable to him. It was he who was feeling the world passing by, but he didn't want to be reminded. He hoped to find escape with her, not this torture.
"I see myself getting old at Sacre-Coeur, sharing a cold brother-sister relationship with Ralph," she said.
He swallowed hard. That prospect did not entice him either. "After thirty in life, one starts taking the leavings," he said. After he'd said it, he didn't know if he really meant it. It was something to say.
"But are the leavings all that bad?" she asked, sitting up and staring intently at him with her large eyes.
He didn't say anything at first. Had he insulted her? He wasn't sure what she was asking ... and why. "I guess I've automatically given in to the world's retiring me while I'm in my prime. Never thought I'd have much chance fighting back."
"But you've got most of your life facing you," she said, still intent with her gaze. "Of course, you can't go on playing chicken to a lot of youth-starved perverts."
For some reason, this statement angered him. It was an anger directed not so much at her, but at his increasing frustration in life. "Yeah," he said, "well, just what is waiting for me?"
"You can be yourself for a change and find out what that's all about."
Before he could reply, or even think about that, Ralph was at the poolside, slowly sipping a glass of Scotch. "Hope I'm interrupting something."
Anne was angry and wasn't trying to conceal it. She was also acting guilty. "I see my philandering husband has finally returned home for his supper."
Ralph's eyes were on fire. "My neglected wife seems to be doing okay for herself." He eyed Numie, softening his glare
"Hi."
"Good to see you," Numie said, covering himself better with his towel.
In one quick plunge, Anne cast her towel aside and was back in the pool, swimming deep this time and emerging at the other end. "Come and join me, Ralph," she called. "We've both seen you nude before."
"Forget it!" Ralph called back. "She's really into this nudity thing." Then, remembering, he added, "Guess you are, too, up to a point."
"It doesn't bother me," Numie said. "I used to think we learn it from our parents. But that's not true. My mama had sex with her clothes on."
Ralph sat down on a chair near Numie. "I saw my mother naked—or partially naked—only once. She didn't know I was home, and she came barging out of her bedroom into the living room, her bathrobe swinging open. I saw her breasts before she spotted me. She actually screamed. Can you imagine?"
"Why?" Numie asked, genuinely puzzled.
"Then she said the strangest thing. She told me if my father ever found out about this, he'd beat me to within an inch of my life. What had I done? I was just sitting there."
Numie was enjoying this confidence, yet at the same time he was resenting Ralph. He felt he had been building a mood with Anne. Now it was ruined. Ralph brought out the bitch in her.
Dripping wet, Anne was beside them.
Ralph turned and gave her a hostile look. "Dammit," he said, "put some clothes on. If you could see how disgusting you look."
Numie winced.
"Disgusting to you, maybe," Anne retorted. "Numie told me I have a very lovely body." Reluctantly, she reached for her towel, wrapping it around herself again.
Ralph stared at Numie.
Numie didn't say anything, but lay back, closing his eyes, not wanting to get involved in a triangle, but moving deeper and deeper into it. When he opened his eyes again, he looked at Anne. She was drying her hair and itching for a fight.
Seeing she had Numie's attention, she said, "When Ralph and I got married, I don't think he'd ever seen a woman completely nude before."
"What I'd seen or hadn't seen was none of your damn business," Ralph said, finishing his drink.
Anne was persistent, the same way she'd been about Lola. "After a few weeks, I got Ralph to playa little game with me. He didn't want to, guess I forced the issue."
"As you're inclined to do from time to time," Ralph said sarcastically.
"I thought I could break down his disgust at looking at the female body," she said. "We started watching television, and getting our dinner, completely nude. But the experiment never worked. To this day, Ralph can't look at me without repugnance showing in his face." With this she dropped the towel, letting it cascade to the ground. Before both men, she was completely naked.
Numie was seeking some excuse to leave, but couldn't find one. Once again he felt trapped, the way he was with Leonora and Joan. Ralph and Anne actually wanted him here.
"You even forced me to touch you," Ralph accused, practically spitting out his words.
"Since when does a wife have to force her husband to touch her?"
"It wasn't to be that kind of marriage," Ralph countered.
"That's for damn sure," Anne agreed. She turned to Numie. "Ralph did try, I must say. We had a few experiments, but they were disastrous."
"I don't care to have my sexual inadequacies discussed in public," Ralph said, picking up his empty glass.
Wistfully, and very unrealistically, Numie was still hoping for a late reprieve from this conversation.
"I'm sure Numie knows more about you sexually than I ever will," Anne said.
"Cut it out," Numie said. She was really making him angry.
At first she seemed surpr
ised that he'd reprimanded her. Somehow she'd been counting on his support. Then, looking at both men in front of her, she added, almost under her breath, "If only Nick were alive."
Impulsively, Ralph crashed his empty glass on the bricks around the pool. "NickI" he shouted. "If I hear his name one more time ... just one more time. I've warned you"
Numie got up. To hell with both of them. He was leaving for more peaceful oases.
"Just a minute," Ralph called to him, grabbing Numie by the shoulder. "Did she tell you about her precious Nick?"
Numie turned back, glaring. "I think she might have mentioned him," he said.
"I bet she mentioned him," Ralph charged. "The love of her life. Let me tell you about the love of her life."
Numie tried to break away, but Ralph held him firmly.
"If you tell that awful lie," Anne shouted. "I'll take something and strike you. Don't listen to him, Numie. It's a lie. "
He sensed her rising panic.
She put her hands to her mouth and started running from the pool. "It's a lie! A lie!"
Again, Numie tried to leave, but Ralph practically pushed him into a chair. "Hey, cut it out, man," Numie said. "I'd better go help her."
"She doesn't need your help," Ralph said. "That great love, that Nick, was a fantasy. Sure, she was married to a Nick. A cheap hood from Brooklyn."
"Come on," Numie urged, "I'm not into life histories."
Ralph totally ignored him. "Leonora and I found out all anyone needed to know about Nick. Even Anne broke down one night and told us what he did to her, the love of her life."
"Listen, I've already told you, I don't want to hear it." Numie settled back, shutting his eyes, as if that would blot out Ralph. "I long ago learned, and you should know it by now, don't take people's illusions away."
"But I'm always being unfavorably compared to that gangster," Ralph protested.
"Let her keep the memory," Numie said. "It's probably all she has."
Ralph got up and walked around to the other side of the pool. He put his hands on a railing and looked into the deepening shadows of the garden. His voice was tired when he spoke. "Love of her life one night brought three guys home with him when they had an apartment in the Bronx."
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