by dannal
Isobel’s mouth gaped open. Her right hand gravitated toward her hair, and her left hand collected up the ridiculous oversized handbag she carried with her. “Max, right? What are you doing here?” she asked, sounding almost as if she were caught cheating on someone.
“Just dinner, with my business partner,” Max said.
“I didn’t see you at Maisie’s yesterday,” Isobel said, suddenly looking rather critical. “Or today. You said you go there every day.”
“I’m sorry?”
Suddenly Isobel’s countenance changed and she, despite her bright sunburn, began to turn even more red. “I hoped to see you there, but you weren’t. At least not while I was there. I mean, I didn’t wait all day. I just thought I would see you.”
“I’m sorry, Isobel,” Max said, nodding toward the empty chair across from Isobel. “May I?” Max sat down in the chair. “I shouldn’t have told you I go in there every day, the day before the two odd days I wouldn’t be there.”
“Well, it wasn’t as if we had a date, or anythin’,” Isobel said, forcing a smile.
“I was…working. A busier workday than I expected, and I didn’t make it off of my island all day.”
“Your island?” Isobel asked, and he wasn’t sure if she was really impressed or not. “I didn’t know the life of a tropical Caribbean accountant was so demanding. If you’re under so much stress, maybe you should unplug and move to a—oh wait—island or something.”
Max was about to get up and go back to his table when Isobel laughed. “It’s okay. I’m just playing with you, Max. Relax. Let’s get some drinks. Oh, wait, you’re with your friend. It’s okay if you want to get back to your table. We can catch up another time.”
“Would you like to join us?” Max asked. He stood up and offered his hand like a proper gentleman. “I’d love for you to meet my partner.”
Max introduced Isobel to Josue, who nodded and stood up to shake her hand politely, before they all sat down around the big round table. “This is Josue,” he said, as his friend slid over to make room for the Scottish substitute teacher.
“Did you say, Josue?” Isobel asked, staring blankly at Josue. Max noticed that she looked surprised, but couldn’t tell how.
“Yeah, why?” he asked. “You know someone named Josue?”
“No,” Isobel said with a wave of her hand. “It’s just such an unusual name. Is that Cuban or Haitian or something?”
“Haitian. Josue made it to the states right after the earthquake in 2010. A refugee. I caught up with him in Miami, we partnered up, and we ended up here, in Martinique, eventually,” Max said, intentionally avoiding the most delicate details of their past adventures.
“And what does he do for you?” Isobel asked; she twirled her blond hair around her finger as she spoke; it nearly mesmerized Max. “Is he in accounting too?”
“No,” Max said with a chortle. “My villa requires a lot of upkeep. Josue just takes care of anything that needs to be done.”
“So he’s like a manservant or somethin’?”
“He is most definitely not my servant,” Max said, sounding a bit more defiant than he had intended.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Isobel said, looking at Josue. “Sounds like you’re a very good friend. Max is lucky to have you on his side.”
They ordered large platters of food with white rice, lentils, fried plantains, whole fried fish, shrimp, octopus, and lobster. Max carefully avoided the octopus; something about the suctioning tentacles had always sent an icy chill up his spine.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to the bar and get us some drinks,” Max said, standing up and smoothing out his wrinkled nylon shirt.
Isobel and Josue nodded, and continued back to their deep conversation. Good to see them hitting it off, Max thought. He knew that if he liked a girl but she didn’t get along with his partner, there was no going forward with any kind of relationship. He respected Josue that much. It was a relief to Max that things were already off on the right foot.
“Maxwell!” a loud and rather high-pitched man’s voice greeted his ears, and Max spotted the bartender Smoky down at the end of the long and nearly overrun bar. Smoky was about Max’s age, a shade over five feet tall, and he knew all there was to know about all the unique rums of Martinique. The petite bartender was a native of Tartane, and a person Max considered a trustworthy friend. Max eased himself into an empty space between patrons at the crowded bar and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wood.
“How about three Neisson planter’s punches? And then, in about fifteen minutes, could you send over three Rhumerie du Simon mojitos? And fifteen minutes after that, send out three JM V.S.O.P. Ti’ Punches.”
Smoky nodded. “Excellent choices, all. Hey, I’m glad I ran into you tonight, Maxwell. I wanted to tell you a woman came in looking for you earlier this evening.”
“It’s okay, Smoky,” Max said, picking up a few cashews from a bowl on the bar. “I caught up with her already. She’s sitting at my table with Josue now.”
“The blonde?” Smoky asked, craning his neck to look past the throng to see Max’s table in the corner of the busy restaurant. “No, no, no. This woman was black, maybe a meter eighty-two.”
Max strained his brain to convert the numbers. That’d be about six feet tall. Wow, he thought.
“Beautiful, actually,” Smoky continued, “but her makeup was kind of subdued and her hair, black, long, and curled, was tied into a ponytail in the back. Almost seemed she was trying to dumb down her obvious hotness.”
“Hmmm,” Max said, thinking back to the female footprints he had found near his dock. Too much of a coincidence to be coincidental.
“I think she was Martinican,” Smokey said, putting a tiny folding umbrella into a drink for a female bar patron.
“What makes you think that?”
“She carried no bag or purse with her, and her clothes were no-nonsense, if you know what I mean. She didn’t look like a tourist, and she wasn’t dressed to impress anyone; more like just for comfort. Otherwise, she could have been a runway model. And I don’t mean that in the exaggerated way people say that to describe a hot chick. This woman had all of those model features: long slender arms and legs, amazing eyes, curves in just the right places—she just didn’t seem like she was using them.”
“Did she say what she wanted with me?” Max asked, feeling a slight unease in his gut.
“No, she didn’t say, Max. But she gave me twenty Euros to call her if you showed up here.” Smoky laughed. “She thought I would give you up for twenty.” Smoky mixed pineapple juice, orange juice, and freshly squeezed lime juice in a shaker as he talked. “You know where my loyalties lie, Max.”
“Thanks very much, Smoky. You’re a good friend.” Max peeled two hundred Euros off his money clip and handed them to the bartender.
Smoky showed Max his palms and shook his head. “Not tonight my friend. I will not take your money for the information. And the drinks are all on me.”
Max knew Smoky was just trying to prove to Max it wasn’t money that made him a loyal friend. It was one of the reasons Max kept coming back to this crowded restaurant, when he would have rather been at home eating takeout in front of the TV.
“I’ve got two bottles of Fleur de Lis élevé sous bois in my boat. I’ll make sure you get them before I shove off,” Max said, as Smoky pushed a small serving tray with three planter’s punches toward Max, who picked up the tray.
“Those I will accept,” Smoky said, his face lighting up with a huge grin.
Max, Josue, and Isobel enjoyed the local spirits, fresh seafood, and lively company well into the small hours of the morning. Max and Isobel talked for hours, and he felt as though the more she revealed about herself, the more about her he wanted to know. It had been a long time since he had liked someone so much, and somehow, it almost hurt him, deep down.
Before heading back to his villa, Max promised he would meet Isobel at Maisie’s for lunch later in the d
ay, and he made certain to get Smoky the bottles of well-aged rhum agricole from his boat. To avoid causing a frenzy among the few patrons left at the restaurant, Max wrapped a jacket around the bottles to conceal them, until Smoky had safely stowed them behind the bar.
Max kissed Isobel on the cheek. She smiled and hugged his neck tightly. Josue held out his hand for a shake, and Isobel hugged him as well.
As they headed back to the ilet, Max asked Josue if he had ever seen a six-foot tall Martinican woman poking around their island. “Apparently she is quite beautiful, and she sounds rather no-nonsense. If you see her, would you tell me?”
Josue nodded. “And if you see her, will you send her to find me as quickly as possible?”
Max grinned and pushed away from the dock with his foot. Despite the questions raised in Max’s mind about the mysterious Martinican woman who was looking for him, it had been a good night.
Max snapped awake as soon as he heard the TV. The flat screen’s alarm was set to wake him up every morning at six. After crawling out of bed, Max typically did some pushups, jogged around the rugged terrain of the island, or took out his sea kayak for an invigorating paddle around the ilet. Feeling the residual effects of the previous night’s drinks, Max now cursed himself for not having turned off the alarm before dropping into bed.
The channel was always set to West Indies Media Network, and he usually woke up to the audio from in-depth stories about various rum producers in both the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as puff-pieces about yachting, skin diving, and fishing in a variety of locales throughout the Caribbean. The network offered typical lightweight newsworthy stuff; it tended to represent much about why living in the Caribbean was so appealing.
It was the tone of the presenter that startled Max, waking him up from his deathly slumber. The drinks had left him slightly hungover, and staying up so late had made him feel groggy and weak. The soreness in his muscles from the cane harvest and all of the crushing still ached deeply in his back, shoulders, and thighs. Despite his mind telling him he could do it and be okay, the reality was, pushing himself so hard over age forty was starting to take a toll.
“…a lot of blood,” the female presenter’s voice said urgently from the small speakers on the TV. “But, mysteriously, no bodies have yet been found.”
Max pried his head up from his pillow. It felt like a dead lift of more weight than he could handle just to get his body upright so he could look straight at the TV. With the curtains closed, the room was very dark, except for the bright, pixelated glow from the television.
He squinted, his eyes struggling to focus on the face of the woman speaking earnestly into the microphone in her hand.
Max rubbed his eyes and blinked about ten times.
“The fifty-five foot Viking yacht is called Plan B, and is registered to Jacques Troy Miller, a resident of Grand Cayman. Mr. Miller and his wife, Susan Miller, are co-owners of a popular beach bar called Suzy’s Hurricane Hideout on Grand Cayman, and a spokesperson from the bar told West Indies Media Network that Mr. Miller and his wife had been traveling from Trinidad and Tobago to the Bahamas, stopping at as many islands as possible along the way to purchase new and unique rums to serve at their bar. Strangely, no rum was found on board the Plan B, leading authorities to believe that Miller and his wife may have become the ill-fated victims of robbery gone very wrong; an unfortunately all-too-real case of piracy in the Caribbean.”
Max stumbled out of bed. His forehead burned with feverish heat brought on by a shock cocktail of fear, misbelief, and horror. Clammy beads of perspiration covered his face. Was this really happening?
Max tried to stand up, but he tripped and fell, face forward, onto the ground. He picked himself up and shuffled across the hardwood of the master suite’s floor. He kicked open the bathroom door.
Max stepped inside and dropped to his knees. For a fleeting second he thought the nausea might pass. Then he lifted the toilet seat and retched violently and uncontrollably into the bowl.
Max stumbled down the long pier toward the boat dock when he heard the rumbling sound of outboard motors approaching. His feet shuffled over the grip tape placed on the white boards to prevent slipping as he wobbled his way to the end. Clear turquoise water surrounded the pier, and one could see the coral and the starfish no more than a few feet under the surface of the clear water. Max stumbled on, feeling numb and lifeless.
Josue stepped off the Cobia. Max remembered buying the boat in Miami; he had chosen a paint scheme called Atlantic Blue, and it now served almost as camouflage against the sparkling blue of the Atlantic ocean. Max staggered to reach Josue, to tell him what had happened.
Max’s gut twisted as he saw Josue reach toward the boat and offer a hand to Isobel, who was stepping down onto the dock. He didn’t want her to see him like this. Haggard, unkempt, heartsick and in mourning.
Isobel spotted Max. She hurried over to him, jogging the length of the pier. “What is it? Are you all right?” Her big eyes looked up at him with deep sadness. It was one of the most stunning sights he had ever seen.
“Something’s happened,” Max said, staring off the side of the dock into nothing. “Something terrible. It’s not a good time for you to be here, Isobel.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks reddening. “I only wanted to surprise you, maybe take you out to breakfast or something.” She frowned and crossed her arms, looking awkward. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“May I have a word with Josue?” Max asked Isobel. “Alone?”
“Of course,” she said. She sounded like she was trying to be understanding. “It is your island.”
Max walked halfway up the path to the villa with Josue. Then he stopped and faced his friend. “Jacques and Susan are dead. That couple you met on our drop the other night. They’ve been killed…for the rum.”
Josue’s lips curled into a frown. He was not one to express a lot of feelings, but Max saw the concern in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Max. Let’s get you inside and get you some tea.”
Josue walked side-by-side with Max all the way to the front porch of the villa. The younger man made sure Max was comfortable in a cushioned arm chair before going into the kitchen to put on the tea kettle.
“Would you take her back to land?” Max asked. “Don’t tell her what happened, just tell her I’ll catch up with her tomorrow at Maisie’s. I just can’t…be around her right now.”
“I run into her in town, Boss,” Josue said by way of an explanation for Isobel’s presence. “She beg me to bring her out here. She wanted to see you very badly. Can’t you let her stay?”
“No, you’re right, Josue. She should stay.” Max considered what a great thorny wall he could put up in order to keep the world out. He liked this girl, and he could tell that she liked him. “Why don’t you show her around a bit. I’ll go get cleaned up and meet you two on the porch, okay?”
After a hot shower and shave, Max put on a clean black shirt, carefully buttoning down the sleeves over his wrists, and a pair of black pants. He slipped tan leather huaraches over his feet and secured his Bulova diving watch over his wrist. He even slapped a bit of Polo Sport on his neck and slicked his mussy black hair with gel. For a moment, Max sat on his bed and he stared off into the corner. He fought tears again as he saw his friends’ faces in his mind. His throat was dry and it was difficult for him to swallow. He would never see their faces again.
As soon as he stepped out onto the porch, Isobel stood up from her chair. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just come out here without asking you, Max. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”
“My friends from college,” Max said, his voice at first sounding hoarse. Josue handed him a steaming mug of tea from a tray. Max took a good sip. “Jacques and Suze. They were on a yacht. They were cruising up to the Bahamas.”
“Oh, no,” Isobel said, her facing growing pale, as if all the blood had suddenly left it. “It wasn’t that couple everyone’s been talking about?
The Plan B or something?”
Max nodded.
“I’m so sorry,” Isobel said. She threw her arms around his neck, and tears welled up in her sparkling eyes. She pulled a bright pink scarf out of her large handbag and rubbed her face with it.
“It means a lot to me that you care so much about my friends you didn’t even know,” Max said, putting down his tea and wrapping his arms around Isobel.
She wiped her face again with the scarf. “I must look like a wreck,” she said.
“Actually,” Max said, holding her chin up to get a better look at her face. “You look amazing.” His mind tossed back and forth about whether he should show her his rum-making operation; whether he should let her into his world.
“What is it?” Isobel asked, and in her bright blue-green eyes, Max saw a mixture of sorrow, concern, and pity. “You look like you want to say something.”
“I don’t know how, or even if I should,” Max said.
“Does it have anything to do with this?” Isobel said. She lifted the front of Max’s shirt by his left hip. He instinctively moved his hand down to swat hers away, but he stopped himself.
“What are you doing?” he protested, half-heartedly.
She uncovered the Smith & Wesson 6906 tucked into a holster, just inside his waistband. “Accounting is dangerous work, Max? Isn’t it?”
“I…” Max started, but was cut off by Isobel.
“You don’t have to tell me anything more than you want to, Max,” she said. “I have a secret too: I seem to have an unending penchant for gravitating toward dangerous men. And while I can tell you are a dangerous man, Maxwell Craig—maybe I’m really stupid for this—but I trust you.”
Max was silent. He didn’t know what to say.
“Only a good man would have helped Angelique the way you did. Maybe it was not the most proper, most legal way to help her, but you helped her. You did what needed to be done, and she has peace now. You’re a good man, Maxwell.”