Franco suddenly remembered to keep his phone close at all times just in case The Shadow called. Information had just reached him that his former boss had been released from New York State prison.
A new war was about to unfold and time was speeding ahead of him.
Twenty one ……………
The four-engine airliner roared into action on the soggy airstrip. It proceeded slowly towards the runway. Erik Barfknecht sat with his legs crisscrossed at the rear of the plane where he could see everyone entering. Three of his associates were in his accompaniment but in total disguise.
‘Excuse me sir, can I get you something to drink?’ an exceptionally eye-catching hostess pushing a trolley filled with a multiplicity of drinks stopped at the back of the plane. The two uppermost buttons of her tightly fitted shirt were partially loosened exposing the fullness of her mammary glands.
‘A shot of breast milk on the rocks will do!’ a very jovial side of Erik urged him to humour her but lately he’d lost the last bit of humour left in him.
‘Certainly…some water will be fine.’ The attractive hostess was swift at her service.
Erik chose the gentleman’s approach and greeted her with a warm smile as he received the small bottle of water. He was headed to the Caribbean and by hook or crook he was going to find the man who’d betrayed him and caused him twenty six years imprisonment; the two-faced bastard who had stolen from him and was living in an extravagance that was seemingly larger than life itself.
Twenty two ……………
As we proceeded towards Shirley Heights’ summit, the cadenced steel pan became more prominent. Kamilla Anschuetz raced ahead of me to catch the live performance. Her nephew chased after her reluctantly in a brisk-walk-like manner.
I followed after them and climbed a short flight of steps that was carved purely out of stones as we entered the man made cavern. It was boarded with a glossy wood that had a semblance of Merbau. Immediately to the right was a fully equipped bar that reminded me of my own bar at Koconut Breeze.
‘Care for a drink?’ Kamilla swung in the direction of the bar. Her nephew seemed blasé. As for him, they could turn around the very moment and journey back to the beach where he was having much more fun than being in a cavern overcrowded with big people. My first impulse was to reject Kamilla’s offer but one drink wasn’t going to throw me off balance.
‘Sure…a local rum punch will do…’
On the other side of the cavern, a series of wooden tables mirrored the Merbau floor. They were overcrowded with a mixture of tourist and locals. They all appeared blitzed with alcohol. While some were rapt in their discussion, others were uproariously amused by their peers. In a far left corner, two relatively young female tourists were entangled into each other; they were romancing the night away. On another table, Daniel, a local rastaman was within eyeshot. Shirley Heights had become his routine destination to fish female visitors who advertently sought the companionship of local Caribbean males as part of their travel timetable.
Daniel was surrounded by a full table of white females. In my previous life, I would have easily joined him and secure a one nightstand but things were different now. I was more mature, responsible and was too committed to Kaila and Marielli to fall victim to such temptations.
Moreover, Kaila and I were just a few more yards till marriage; she just didn’t know it yet.
I stayed clear of Daniel’s eyeshot and turned towards the bar to receive my drink. We climbed down another flight of stony steps that landed us in the heart of the action. Kamilla left her nephew with me in order to assimilate her surroundings. It was a new experience for her. While awaiting Kamilla, I spotted Abdullah in the thickness of the crowd. He was absolutely coiled into a tourist. She seemed locked in a zone of unbridled excitement.
Later, Kamilla escorted me to witness the marvelous green flash that usually forms when the Caribbean sun levels with the horizon during dusk.
Darkness was slowly approaching. The steel pan players were packing their instruments and making way for the night’s main event. I received a telephone call just before the local band started their sound check. It was Kaila.
‘Hey babe…I’m done at the office. I was wondering if we could join you at Shirley Heights…’
The sound check ended abruptly and brought the local band to life with a fire.
Twenty three ……………
A menacing buzz from a mosquito caused Baptist to leap into consciousness.
He checked the clock on bedside. 5:15pm. He sat upright in utter disbelief. Baptist actually slept right through the day. The mosquito that awakened him collided with his face before finding its way deep down inside his eardrum. A splitsecond later, it was out and about again. It played an annoying tune that offset a deep rage within him. Baptist reflexively grabbed a mosquito bat then made a swift swipe at the annoying creature.
Burning smoke immediately oozed out of the bat. A pac pac pac sound followed as the mild electricity in the bat incinerated the mosquito it into pieces
‘Take that…you bloodsucker!!!’ Baptist replaced the bat under the bed where he found it. He got out of bed and strolled to the shower. Luckily enough, he had kept extra clothes at the apartment. Shakira still hadn’t returned during the course of the day. The debilitating thought of her being cradled by another man still clouded his head. Baptist hoped she was stationed at the restaurant. He had the urge to pick up the phone and call her at work but she’d warned him in the past never to call her on the restaurant’s telephone unless it was an emergency. He wanted her urgently but it wasn’t an emergency. It was his sheer curiosity to find out whether she was at work. He made a conscious decision to visit her unannounced.
Baptist suddenly remembered having a short dialogue with the police inspector before he’d falling into a deep slumber. His brother was brutally murdered and he was the only person that the crime could be linked back to. Besides being a paranoid junky, John couldn’t have hurt a fly. Sooner rather than later, Baptist had to come up with a story that would quell any suspicions of his involvement with Smallmoney. He had to make sure that his brother’s murder would by all means remain detached from that of Smallmoney’s. Any links between the murders could land him in hot water. Baptist made up his mind to surrender himself to Inspector cooper but on the morrow. It would buy him enough time to piece a story together and locate the two million dollars.
He was going to tell Shakira all about the events that led to his involvement. She would help him to locate it then they would once and for all disappear from the face of the island. Baptist slid into his Levi’s tennis. His hunger was unbearable. He reached inside the refrigerator for a cold beer and lit another cigarette. He then let himself out of the apartment.
‘Shakira…here I come,’ he thought, ‘you are going to prepare me a hell of an exquisite dish! God…I’m starving!’
As soon as Baptist reached the main road, he flagged down a speeding taxi and asked the driver to take him to the nearest Car Rentals.
Twenty four ……………
Ablanket of grey clouds drifted across the Caribbean sky. Cool air from the mountains soothed the sweltering mirage that was formed on the serene ocean’s surface for most of the day.
5:30pm came sooner than Shakira expected.
‘How time flies.’ she thought to herself.
Abdullah and the restaurant’s owner departed to Shirley Heights separately and she was left alone to oversee the operations at the restaurant.
She checked her time piece; 5:36pm. She hadn’t seen or heard Baptist for the day. It struck her as odd he hadn’t called or even shown up at the restaurant. Something of paramount importance demanded her presence and she had to reach her destination by 7:00pm. She couldn’t afford to be late therefore hitting the road by 6:15pm was inevitable. Shakira sensed that sooner or later Baptist was going to show up. She needed to vacate the premise before his arrival. They had much to talk about and her workplace certainly wasn’t the place. B
esides, time wouldn’t permit any lengthy discussion.
Her boss had also chosen the wrong time to rescue some party-seeking tourist who had earnestly entreated him to transport her to Shirley Heights. Shakira stopped for a moment and took a trip down memory lane. Never before had she left her subordinate workers unsupervised. What the fuck? There must be a first time for everything!
At times, she had the unfailing propensity to destroy the things and the people she loved the most.
Shakira never had any major confrontation with her boss or her boyfriend in the past. They were two adorable men yet neither was going to know of her rendezvous. Shakira learned of Little Kevin’s death earlier and it left her with little choice but to carry on with the mission as planned. She deposited the money in a safe place and now was as involved as was he.
Whosoever assassinated Little Kevin would surely come looking for her.
Shakira’s next destination would be English Harbour; the exact route that led to Shirley Heights. She only prayed that neither her boss nor Abdullah would bump into her. Either way, her job could be compromised.
The thought of losing her job over a clandestine meeting gave her the creeps. ‘I would rather successfully carry out my mission and apologize profusely to my boss than to ask for his permission and be denied!’ She mumbled to herself while clearing the last bits of dishes in the sink.
Shakira’s time to leave the premise was upon her. She programmed an excuse in the minds of her co-workers to be passed on to their boss. Leaving unannounced would certainly provoke a greater penalty.
Just as the Kia Sorento pulled out of Jolly Harbour and onto Bolan’s highway, Baptist simultaneously pulled into Jolly Harbour. He was driving a rented car. Neither of them recognized each other.
Twenty five ……………
S54B3 cruised along the highway that led to V.C. Bird International Airport. She wasn’t quite sure whether to be excited or disheartened by her boss’s arrival. He was so unpredictable a man. She was used to carrying out her missions solitarily without having anyone breathing down her neck. His arrival would certainly put a few dents in her plans. She would now have to follow his orders.
S54B3 retrieved two million of his stolen fortune but she knew that was going to be the least of his problems. He’d learnt of a treasure map that led to an untold reservoir of his stolen riches and it had become his ultimate point of interest. She’d gone out of her way to dig up information on his nemesis and one thing was for certain; the man was powerful and charismatic, and his mechanisms and maneuvers had advanced exponentially since her boss’s imprisonment. Tracking him wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
A heavy downpour ripped through the irregularly shaped clouds. A projectile of sharp droplets plummeted towards the Kia’s windscreen. S54B3 impulsively turned on the wiper. The treasure map had been stolen by a third party and had transformed the powerful man’s charisma into an unbending fury. The island had begun experiencing a spate of murders that were undoubtedly linked to the stolen map. Part of her mission was to find the culprits, eliminate them and retrieve the map before it ended up in the hand of the powerful man again. As S54B3 cruised along the Airport’s highway, she envisioned her boss and wondered what he looked like twenty-six years later.
A few months following her induction into his criminal organization, she misguidedly believed that her beauty or her feminine machinations would propel her to the upper echelons. Her plans were quickly rescinded one day when her boss summoned her to his office. He had greeted her with an affectionate smile and just when she was about to sit, he stopped her in her tracks.
‘No need for that S.B…’ he maintained his warm smile. S54B3 had straightened into a militarily stance.
‘Just a word of caution; I can get me any pussy in New
York, he’d locked eyes with hers, ‘I hired and trained you
with expectations of you being focused and carrying out my
missions when requested. I am not interested in your little
pussy…so don’t flaunt it at me; do you understand me!!!’ his
eyes had turned into a burning flame of rage.
From that day forward S54B3 learned a harsh lesson that
men like him didn’t surrender to feminine machinations. She
had grown to respect him even more.
S54B3 wait at the arrival lounge lasted a mere twenty
minutes. She spotted her boss strolling towards her amid the
bustling
company. travelers. There were three other men in his Twenty-six years imprisonment did nothing to efface his youthfulness.
Twenty Six ……………
Darkness fell at Shirley Heights. The atmosphere was electrifying.
The Shadow stood on a semi-triangular platform in a far left corner where he could spot everyone that entered the cavern. He wore apparels that camouflaged the dark night. A female tourist surfaced from out of nowhere and tripped into him. Her favorite reggae song was playing. She lurched towards him and stole a quick dance before he could ward her off. Shirley Heights usually housed the big fisherman. He attended religiously on Sundays. It was strange he hadn’t arrived yet.
‘ I am The Shadow…I am invincible…no one sees my face and survives.’ the Shadow was intent on finding him and finishing off what he started earlier. He wasn’t going to let him get away this time. He remained at his vantage point pretending to be taking in the sweet reggae melody of Bunny Wailer. Vivid flashes of the pretty blonde in the restaurant resurfaced. She didn’t know who he was but she ended up with the wrong guy at the wrong time.
“How does it feel to have been on the ballroom floor or do feel like you woulda rock some more.” everyone but The Shadow surrendered entirely to the popular reggae rhythm. He was engrossed in his own imagination. I’m gonna make you squeal Blondie. A sadistic visualization of the things he was going to do to her prompted a deep seated excitement within him.
Twenty Seven ……………
The obscured glow of twilight mellowed and gave way to a nightly sea breeze. Baptist spun the rented car into Jolly Harbour. He had a lot on his mind. A dangerous assassin was after him; a top detective wanted him; and the only person he needed was tentatively slipping away from him. He pulled the car into Koconut Breeze parking. He brushed an emerging tourist and hustled through a footpath that was decorated with palms on both sides. Baptist had a renewed eagerness to see Shakira again. He landed at the front of the restaurant half expecting to see her either serving or interacting with guests on the floor. She was nowhere in sight.
Baptist proceeded towards the bar but before he reached the counter, another worker met him halfway across the restaurant’s floor.
‘How can I be of assistance, sir?’
‘I’m here to see Shakira.’ Baptist got straight to the point. He hardly recognized the young lady but she seemed very well trained. Before the waitress had time to respond, her disapproving facial expression revealed her answer.
‘I’m sorry sir but you missed her by a few minutes.’ The waitress stood askance as if expectantly awaiting his order from the restaurant or the bar. Shakira had trained her to never give out personal information to strangers. Her response seemed to melt the towering man that stood before her. He retreated to one of the tables in utter disappointment. A gripping hunger settled in Baptist’s stomach just as the waitress turned to attend to a nearby table.
‘Excuse me, Miss.’ he regained her attention, ‘I’d like to order the Sunday special and while you’re at it, please bring me a double shot of Hennessey on the rocks.’
As the young waitress turned and headed towards another table, Baptist trained his eyes on her behind. She was petite, attractive, and well shaped. Since he’d met Shakira, he had never penetrated another woman. For a brief moment Baptist drifted into a lustful trance wondering what it would feel like to enter deep down inside a petite woman like the waitress.
The gentle crashing of waves on the seashore brought back
his focus to the pertinent matter at hand. Where in heaven’s name did Shakira go? Within little time, a waitress that was known to him brought out his drink.
‘Your dinner will be served shortly Mr. Silver.’ she served him with genuine delight.
A blinding streak of lightning followed by a deafening crack of thunder suddenly interrupted the restaurant’s tranquil atmosphere. The alcohol kicked in after a few gulps. Baptist ordered another double shot. He had only one intention. Moonshine or rain, he was going to dance some of his troubles away at Shirley Heights.
Twenty eight ……………
Kaila sped along English Harbour highway. She hadn’t been to Shirley Heights in ages.
When her family had newly arrived on the island, they’d explored the exotic scenery at the peak of the mountains. She’d later discovered the name, Shirley Heights. Her family had a swell day that’d overlapped into the night. Robert had knelt before her and there was no doubt he was going to pop the magical words. Instead, he’d simply tied one of her shoelaces and asked her to be more careful next time. Marielli sat uncharacteristically beside her mom.
Caribbean Rage Page 7