Thrown from one side of the gangway to the other, clutching each other for support, they left the creaking carcass of the ship behind. Ursula, Fionnuala, Paddy, Dymphna, Siofra, Slim and Louella pressed themselves through the air of Puerto Rico.
Back in the cabin, Keanu and Beeyonsay screamed in their stroller for food. The spoon was on the floor, out of the reach of their tiny fingers.
CHAPTER 40—LA ISLA BONITA, PUERTO RICO
¡CO-QUÍ! ¡CO-QUÍ! ¡CO-quí!
Siofra skipped backwards before the adults who were wincing through the horizontal drizzle, and she pointed eagerly behind her. “It's just down this wee dirt footpath of sorts a bit, and then through a patch of jungle sorta garden thingy. Get a move on, youse!”
“Eh?” Paddy called out; they were all straining to hear. Their ears had been attacked by the sound the moment they staggered off the gangway. Yes, there was the usual squawking of birds, the chirping of crickets, perhaps even the shriek of a monkey, the definite roar of drunken locals somewhere in the distance, but there was also a strange two-part whistle which pierced the air, filling it like a living thing and coming at their ears at all angles.
Louella, trapped between the twin evils of Ursula's diligent hairdressing and Fionnuaula's delinquent hygiene, tilted her head, then clapped her hands with glee. “I know this sound! I know it from my Ambient Sounds Of The Rainforest CD! It's the mating call of the coquí, a small frog that belongs only to Puerto Rico. You hear the whistles it's making?”
“How can we not?” Paddy muttered, holding his head and wincing.
“That's why they called the frog that, the coquí, because it makes a noise like that. Co-quí! Co-quí! Try it with me, little girl! Co-quí, co-quí!”
Slim gave it a half-hearted try, “co-koo!” but the dirty little girl ahead, wavering between excitement and nervousness, seemed to have other things on her mind. Perhaps she wondered how these adults, two of them drunk, one of them sightseeing, one of them fat, one of them dear but dim-witted, Dymphna, could possibly save her Uncle Jed. She had seen him struggling through the window, tied up to a chair and yelping every time the horrible man in the suit smacked him in the face, yelling “Where's the briefcase? Where's the briefcase, innit?” and the old woman did nothing but stand there and watch them like it was her favorite show on the telly. If Siofra hadn't been sat down time and again on the settee at home and warned by her mother never, ever to speak to the Filth, she might have sought out someone in uniform to help free Uncle Jed. But that was forbidden by the Floods.
In her drunken haze, which was fading fast, Fionnuala couldn't understand the air around her. It was like what her hands felt when, after a load set on 'boil', she reached into the washing machine at home to retrieve the underwear. And Fionnuala also couldn't understand how the air could be like that if it was raining. Surely it should be cold if it was raining? She had never encountered anything like it in Derry. And she knew, knew there were beautiful places in Puerto Rico; she had seen photos of a tropical paradise, though with scantily-clad slags, in the brochures at the travel agent's down Shipquay Street. But this wasn't it. Far from it.
They weren't on Puerto Rico proper, but on a little island to the south which maybe belonged to it. It seemed the government had forgotten about it. They were in a scattered collection of dwellings that time and the local police had passed by. There seemed to be no sidewalks, just a few crooked footpaths, which were also used for garbage disposal. They stumbled over old milk cartons, kicked through tin cans, sopping wrappers clinging to the soles of their shoes. Each garbage can they passed was empty.
“The stench offa the ground here be's something terrible, hi,” Dymphna said, her own sick threatening to join the piles she minced through.
As they squelched after Siofra through the muck, they cast furtive glances across the panorama of overgrown weeds and ramshackle shacks with many boarded up windows that had long ago been painted bright primary colors but were now glum, some riddled with bullet-holes. They forced their way past discarded refrigerators and over squashed iguanas and bicycles with no wheels.
The only person was sat outside the scary-looking store with the faded, tattered “Grand Opening” banner trying to flap in the wind, a grizzled, menacing man, ancient, with a straw hat and one leg who tried to sell them drugs from his wheelchair as they passed.
“This way, youse!” Siofra bubbled in excitement. She pointed to a sign which promised they would soon be at La Villa Boracha.
They hurried toward the jungle-garden-area. Their faces were smacked by the sopping, oversized leaves and twisting vines they had last seen the likes of when watching Jurassic Park and which hung glumly in the humidity from tired, graffiti-defaced trees, trunks sullied with bizarre fruit rotting where it had fallen, colonies of flies the size of golf balls devouring the mushy piles. They stared in fear at the buzzing masses as they passed.
“Would ye look at the state of them bananas!” Fionnuala marveled in disgust. “And I thought they only came in yellow.”
“Those are plantains,” Louella said, pointing. “And those are avocados and those are mangos. Not worth the prices they charge in our supermarket in Wisconsin.”
Fionnuala, Paddy and Dymphna exchanged a look which said 'intellectual twat.'
“No need to rub it in wer faces that ye know foreign languages,” Fionnuala said.
“But...they're called plantains and avocados and mangos in English.”
Fionnuala gave her a look which said she didn't believe it, and that she knew all the words in the English language.
“Naw, them be's bananas, but you be's calling them some other foreign name.”
Louella didn't know how she could explain it.
“Come on, youse!” Siofra said, her face red from the squealing. “Och, youse are dead slow! Put a bit of spring in yer steps!”
“We—we're twice as big as ye, love,” Paddy said through the vines, panting up against the bark of a tree. Slim lumbered past him. “Most of us, anyroad. It takes us longer to get through these vines and whatnot.”
“Shall we not just concentrate on the task at hand?” Ursula wondered with a worried look up at the quickly darkening sky. She missed the look Fionnuala passed her which said she would soon be unleashing her tongue on her and worse if she didn't shut up.
Slim was proving surprisingly nimble in the jungle, traipsing through the vines like he had been born a wolf-child, while the others tripped and cursed and toppled. Actually, Slim's mass was remarkably pliable for its size. Flight attendants frequently marveled at how he could configure his folds so that they didn't ooze over the armrests. He always fit in his seat, though usually to the chagrin of the passenger in the next seat, but that usually was Louella.
“The hunger's pure gnawing a hole in me stomach, so it is,” Paddy said.
“Aye, mine and all,” Fionnuala snapped grumpily. “And them flimmin sounds be's driving me mental! Shut the feck up! Shut the feck up, youse frogs and whatever flimmin godless insects youse be's! What the bloody feck am I doing here anyroad? With her?! Deranged, imbecilic with drink, I musta been to allow meself to be dragged along on this trip through Hell! I swear, heavenly Father and blessed Virgin, to never press a bottle to me lips ever again!”
Ursula was disappointed. She thought a truce had been called between her and Fionnuala, their own personal Peace Process, but the more time passed, and the more sober she became, Fionnuala was reverting back to form. But Ursula had to push it to the back of her mind and focus on saving Jed. That was the important thing right now.
They came to a clearing. A sign, splinters rising from it, told them this was La Villa Baracha. They peered through the gloom, which was now approaching pitch black, at the main house, where they supposed the offices were. From the yellowish glow of the few lights around, it looked relatively new, but the bungalows that stretched out from it on the grounds beyond looked like there was a permanent vacancy for a maintenance man on the premises. And a landscaper and
exterminator.
“Here, here!” Siofra hissed, pointing eagerly at a bungalow that back in the mists of time must have been flamingo pink and Caribbean aqua. “Number 12!”
“What is this place?” Slim asked as they tiptoed toward it.
“Used to be some sort of swanky hotel, looks like,” Louella answered.
“Who in their right mind would want to vacation on this island?”
Nobody had the answer to this question. With the chirping of the coquís around them, the angry black sky pressing down, the sopping air being sucked with difficulty down their throats, their hair frizzy and their clothing stuck to their exhausted limbs, they approached, hunched down, with little steps. Rats and lizards scattered through their feet. There was a light in the main window.
Louella took off her glasses, Slim his bifocals, and they wiped the raindrops from them. All eyes peered through filth of the window to the scene beyond. A few gasped at the sight of Jed splayed on the chair next to the old fashioned square tv, bedsheets wrapped around him, an impromptu rope, they supposed. A mournful mew rose from Ursula's throat, and she tried to stifle it with a fist to her lips. Jed was either passed out or dead. The thugs who held him captive were sitting at the kitchenette table, looking exhausted and at a loss, taking sips from mugs that read “Welcome to Paradise! Stay a while...”
“Oh, Jed,” Ursula moaned against the pane, “Please be alive and...dear God!” She clutched the arm closest to her. “It be's Frank the Faith Man! With his beard shaved off and wearing different clothing, aye, but Frank the Faith Man plain as day!” They all stared at her for an explanation; nobody knew who this Frank the Faith Man was. They got none. The thoughts were like bullets shooting through Ursula's brain: after her confession, Frank the Faith Man not interested in giving her penance, more interested in asking about the lotto win, how much they had won, what they had bought, how much they had left, how much interest the bank gave them. She had spewed out the information, and had even lied a bit, telling him they had won much more. Then the money slipping through their fingers, in no small measure due to Jed’s gambling and drinking, and the loss on selling the dream house and moving to Wisconsin. But she had told him about the special account, and how she kept checking it to make sure the $25,000 was still there. It had been the last time she checked.
“Distract them gits,” Siofra said. “One of youse knock on the door or something. I seen things like that done on the telly all the time. And I'll slip through this wee window here.”
“How can you do that?”
“Och, I've been climbing through them vents on the ship for the better part of the journey, so I have,” Siofra said.
Ursula looked alarmed, but not surprised.
“Has she really...?” Ursula looked accusingly at Fionnuala. Fionnuala wrapped her arms around herself.
“Mind yer own business, Ursula. Or themmuns in there can slaughter yer Jed for all I care.”
“Mammy! Show some, uh,” Dymphna struggled for the word. “contrition, does it be called?”
“I think you mean 'compassion',” Louella said.
The Floods glared at her.
“It's too dangerous to put a little girl through that,” Louella said. “How old are you, sweetie pie? Six?”
“Nine!”
“But...what are you going to do when you get inside, love?” Ursula asked. How she wanted to run her fingers through Siofra's hair, to show her gratitude and give the trembling, malnourished girl a bit of comfort. But...she felt queasy at the sight of the ratty, muck-caked throngs of greasy black filth that passed for her hair. And she thought she saw little things jumping around on the scalp. Och, to hell with it! Siofra was her goddaughter after all! As Siofra answered, Ursula reached out and touched the alternately slick and hardened locks.
“I've me special weapon, don't youse forget!” she said. After a few tentative strokes, Ursula moved her fingers off her head to safety, her stomach churning and finally now understanding the Yanks' love of disinfectant wipes.
“What is that weapon ye've been yammering on about?” Fionnuala asked. “Are ye planning on spreading yer cheeks and spewing yer shite all over themmuns? Is that yer special weapon? Yer shite?”
Siofra stamped her foot, enraged. “Naw!” she hissed up at her mammy. “Don't be an eejit! This!”
She reached into her unicorn jeans and tugged out a bottle.
“My Liquid Death triple X!” Slim gasped. “It's a controlled substance! Where did you get that?”
“Ye left it in the place ye met me,” Siofra said. “And piles more of them wile burny sauces. A wile craic, them sauces of yers be's. I've been making me way to the dining room and staff canteen and pouring them into people's tea. Ye should see the looks on their faces! And that many of them had to race to the toilet afterwards! Aye, a wile craic. This one, but, be's the worst. Or the best, if ye get what I'm saying. I figure I can slip through the window and pour some into whatever they be's drinking from them swanky mugs of theirs. Tea, I'm guessing.”
Fionnuala inspected the mugs through the window.
“Only an eighth of a drop will do the job,” Slim said. “Watch how much you put in. They might sue us.”
“Aye, I know sure. Now,” Siofra continued, as they formed a little circle around her, the light from the window shining on their heads. “Who's gonny go knocking on themmuns' door to distract them? Mammy and Daddy, I don't think it should be youse.”
“Why not?” they chorused, looking put out but relieved.
“As yer eyes be's goggled with drink, and there be's an awful stench rising from youse...And, Dymphna, I love ye dearly, but...Well...”
She turned to Slim and singled him out.
“You! Ye seem wile civil and a good craic. Are ye up for it?”
Slim looked chuffed. He rubbed his face with his filthy handkerchief, and Louella eyed him with jealousy, but also with relief.
“Well, okay!” he said. “Let's go!”
Ursula, Louella, Paddy, Fionnuala and Dymphna hunched in the fronds under the window, the fronds which were beginning to whip in the wind, as Slim approached the door and Siofra shimmied up to the window sill. She unscrewed the top of the hot sauce and brandished it in her little hand. She pressed her other hand to the filthy glass. One push and she would be able to open the window wider and scamper inside. Slim raised his massive hand before the door, knuckles ready. Ursula and Fionnuala blessed themselves in unison.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
They saw the two at the table jolt with alarm and their heads whip towards the door.
“Who...?” the youth asked.
The woman placed her hand on his and, eyes glinting, placed her finger to her mouth to warn him to be silent. “Who is it?” she called out in a posh voice, shooting glances over at Jed's body.
Slim cleared his throat.
“Uh, I've got to check the AC. I'm from the hotel.”
“It's working fine.” They saw the youth remove himself from the table and sidle towards the door. Jed remained either passed out or dead.
“Um, after that first part of the hurricane, there's been some complaints.” Siofra poised at the window, ready to drop down and scamper across the floor to the table and the mugs.
“Well, ours is working fine! Please leave us in peace!” The woman, wringing her hands, got up and tiptoed beside the youth.
“Ma'am! If you don't let me in to inspect the AC, we'll have to add an extra charge to your room!”
“Fine! Charge us, then!” the woman spat, while beside Ursula, Louella bristled. That would certainly make her fling the door open wide. ”Do you not see the Do Not Disturb sign on the door?”
From the window sill, Siofra poked her head into the room and saw the two on the other side of the door, clutching at it and trying to peer through the peephole. She poked her head back out. Slim wiped his brow, struggling for something else to say. He looked across the heads under the window to Siofra for support. She motioned for him to bre
ak down the door. Slim looked uncertain. Siofra hopped down from the ledge and ran over to him.
“Break it down! Ye've the mass to do so, so ye have!”
Slim took a step back, geared his shoulder and...
Agent Matcham and Nigel screamed as the door thrust inwards. They were propelled into the wall, their heads clanking together. They groaned, eyes rolling, bodies slumping to the floor. Their eyes flickered and they passed out. Siofra raced between the mountains of Slim's legs, screaming, “I'm not looking at yer faces! I'm not looking at yer faces!” just in case they caught her and would use that as an excuse to kill her. But they were passed out.
Siofra fought the urge to pry open their eyelids and squirt the Liquid Death into their eyes. The others raced past her and Slim towards Jed.
“Quickly, quickly,” Dymphna said, hopping up and down with nerves. “Themmuns is going to wake up soon!”
“Och, Jed,” Ursula said, feeling for a pulse. “Don't be dead.”
Paddy knelt down and began to fiddle with the knots. “Christ, themmuns have tied them tight! Hours, it's gonny take to undo them!”
“Maybe, uh, Fionnuala, I think your name is?” Louella said, “You can just lick the knots and the acid of your tongue will dissolve them off.”
“Jed, what use are ye to me dead?” Ursula wailed, shaking his body as Paddy managed to undo a knot and Fionnuala just stood, arms folded. “If ye die, I'll fecking kill ye!”
But Jed sputtered and was awake.
“What...?” he asked.
“These guys are coming to!” Slim called from the passed out bodies. As Louella, Dymphna and Ursula joined Paddy in trailing the knotted bedsheet from Jed's limbs, Siofra raced over the quickly-wakening bodies.
She pried apart the lips of the guy, took aim and poured gooey Liquid Death down his gaping throat. As the guy sputtered and jerked like he had been electrocuted, Siofra forced the bottle between the woman's lips and forced her to drink down.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 93