“Okay, three nights and two days, then. And we’ll have to charge for gas. We’ll need to refuel to come home. I’ll have to miss a few shifts here at the bar, too.”
“Whatever it takes.” Cofresí nodded. “I’m sure we can work out a figure agreeable to us all.”
“When would we do this?” Anna asked.
“Thursday night,” Cofresí said. “I will tell that man from New England that I have a funeral to go to on Friday. Hopefully he will go away.”
“He won’t want to stay and play poker again, that’s for sure.” Captain Jim laughed.
Captain Bob laughed, too. “Hopefully we will all have forgotten him by the time we set sail.”
Anna remained thoughtful. She did not express agreement. She continued to remain silent.
Captain Bob raised his glass. “A drink, then, to the success of our coming voyage.”
They all toasted, and Anna joined in with her coffee mug.
Then Captain Bob was serious. “Señor Cofresí, it is so sad to hear about your brother.” He looked around the table. “We all feel so sorry for your loss.”
“Si, lo siento. But I do not want to talk about such a bad thing.” Cofresí set down his empty glass and stood up. “I have things to do. Si, many things to do. I must go now, but I will come Monday afternoon to meet this Max you speak about.”
“Yes, of course,” Captain Bob agreed. “We will have a fresh deck of cards.”
Cofresí nodded to all of them. Then he turned and left the bar.
Anna was the first to speak after he had gone. “Wow, that was quite something. You set up a card game with an unsuspecting mainlander, and we’re going on a job to Key West, all in the space of a couple of beers.”
Her father shrugged. “You gotta take opportunities whenever they arise. It’s sad about Cofresí’s brother, though.”
“I just hope you don’t scare this Max guy away with your card game before I really get a chance to talk to him,” Anna said. “Besides, there’s something I don’t like about moving a dead man’s bones.”
“Now, there you go with that Santería or whatever shit again,” her father complained.
“Daddy…” Anna started to object.
“All that shit gives me the creeps,” Captain Jim said. “Dead men and religion are both no good for me.”
Captain Bob looked at Anna. “Well, I did name you after the patron saint of sailors. That should be enough to protect you.”
“I think it’s more the shipwrecked sailors that Saint Anne watches over,” Anna said. “And I don’t intend to ever be one of them. Besides, I channel an assortment of gods and saints, Pollux and Castor, the Roman gods of sailors…” She looked around at the bar, where a number of her regular customers were seated. She pointed to an older man, dressed casually like the two captains. “There’s Padre Pedro. He’s a retired priest. I can call him over to tell us for sure.” Then she pointed to a similar-looking man a couple of stools away. “That guy there’s a Santería priest or something. He could give us a different perspective…”
“Okay, okay.” Captain Bob held up his hands in surrender. “Just don’t go putting any hexes on our little card game with the New Englander.”
“Don’t worry.” Anna laughed. “That’s something I have no idea how to do.”
Chapter 4
On the plane to Puerto Rico, Max ended up sitting next to an elderly man who wore a dapper tropical straw hat.
“So you’re headed to Puerto Rico?” Max said as their plane pushed back from the gate. “From San Juan I get a connecting flight to Mayaguez. I hear they call it the tuna-canning capital of the world.”
“No hablo inglés,” the man grunted.
“Oh, really?” Max continued. “I don’t speak Spanish, not really. Yo hablo Espanol un poco. I mean, not really, not hardly at all.”
A silence fell between them. The plane taxied toward its assigned runway for the take-off.
“I hear they have good local rum in Puerto Rico,” Max said. “Although I’ve heard the Haitian stuff is the absolute best. Just like Cuban cigars used to be. Then a lot of the Cuban cigar rollers came here and set up shop in Key West.”
“No hablo inglés,” the man grunted again.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Max said. “Us gringos, we think everybody must understand what we’re saying. You know, speak slowly and loudly enough, and they have to understand.”
The man turned in his seat to face Max. “No hablo inglés,” he said slowly and in a loud voice.
“Okay, okay,” Max said. “I get the picture. I’ll shut up.” He fumbled in the pocket in front of him, found a travel magazine, and flipped open the magazine as the plane started its take-off roll.
“Santa María…” The man next to him started to pray in a barely audible tone.
“Ever notice that they never have articles about plane crashes in these travel magazines on the plane?” Max asked. It was directed more to himself than to the man beside him. He glanced over and noticed the man had his hand in his shirt. As he prayed, he was fingering a dried, bleached bone that hung around his neck on a thin gold chain. Max wondered if it was a chicken bone, and if it had come from some ritualistically sacrificed chicken. He also wondered again why his uncles and cousins didn’t want to go to Puerto Rico. Why had they wanted to send him?
****
It was mid afternoon. The heat and humidity were both high, and Max was sweating as he emerged from the Mayaguez airport. He was at least glad he’d had the foresight to wear shorts and a green Community College of Vermont T-shirt instead of dressing like a businessman for the trip. He had his Red Sox baseball cap for protection from the sun. He had squashed a jacket, good shirt, pants, and a tie in the one medium-sized suitcase he carried. If it came out a little wrinkled, he wouldn’t care. Max had sat alone on the puddle jumper from the big San Juan airport to Mayaguez. He’d wanted to ask someone about telling the future from the examination of freshly killed chicken guts—or maybe, in Mayaguez, they used a freshly killed tuna? He hadn’t found anyone to talk to about the local rum, beers, or anything. He felt very much like a stranger in the bustling little airport. Max thought he detected a slight hint of dead-fish smell in the heavy air, and he was upset that he had not had time to research Puerto Rico or even to brush up on the little Spanish he knew.
He got into the back seat of the first taxi in the line at the curb. Salsa music was blaring on the radio. “The Hilton,” Max said. He pulled out his papers with the name and address of the hotel Uncle Fred had booked him into, and he pointed to the name on the page for the driver.
“Si, señor,” the driver said with a nod. “Welcome to Mayaguez.”
“Ah, you speak English.” Max smiled.
“Un poco,” the driver responded. “Más o menos.”
Max didn’t understand. He figured his best move would be to remain silent and get to his hotel.
The driver tapped his horn and quickly swung out into traffic. Max almost screamed in fright, but he kept quiet. He kept to his plan.
Max was booked in the only big-name hotel in town. The driver had to stop at a gatehouse before driving to the main entrance of the hotel. Max spoke up as they passed through. “Now, that’s something. I’ve heard about that being how it is with a lot of resorts in the Caribbean. We tourists aren’t even allowed to mingle with the locals on a lot of the islands.”
The driver ignored Max. He pulled up to the entrance and smiled. “I hope you enjoy Mayaguez,” he said.
Max paid him in US currency, and somehow that seemed out of place to him.
The hotel staff spoke English well, and Max quickly claimed his room and dropped off his one bag. Then he went back to the entrance to look for another cab. He found one waiting at the curb just outside the door. Salsa music was playing on the radio in this cab as well.
“La Salida bar, por favor,” he said to the driver.
The driver nodded and headed out past the gatehouse and into traffic.
&n
bsp; Max thought he would see if this driver spoke more English. “I’ve been told it’s the place that the Americans hang out.”
“Puerto Ricans are Americans,” the driver said in perfect English.
“Oh, right, yes, I know that,” Max said quickly. “I mean people from the mainland.”
“Yeah,” the driver agreed. “You will be okay there.”
“I have to meet someone there,” Max said.
“I could pick you a better place,” the driver said.
“Is it one of those topless bars and everything?”
“Naw.” The driver laughed. “This is Puerto Rico. This is Mayaguez. This is not one of those kind of islands. It is strange what you mainlanders think about us down here.”
“Not all that different from what I pictured,” Max said as the cab weaved through the unwieldy traffic. Sounding one’s horn seemed to be a frequent part of driving. “I see palm trees, and, God, it’s hot as hell.”
“Hell’s probably better,” the driver said. “We don’t pay Federal taxes, so we can’t vote for President. And a lot of us are on welfare.”
“Great,” Max said.
The driver swerved in front of a slowly moving bus, eliciting a loud blow of the bus’s horn. Then he pulled in at the curb. “La Salida,” he said, “and I do take American money. US currency, that’s the money we use here.”
“Right, I do know that,” Max said. He paid and crawled out of the cab. The cab pulled back out into the traffic, again eliciting the sound of a loud horn.
Max read the sign above the nearest door. “La Salida.” He took a deep breath of the hot, humid air and went in the door.
The place would have been very dark except for the many slatted shutters that were open to let in any breeze that might pass through. Salsa music, similar to that in the cab, blared from speakers that seemed to be all around. Max noted that what little wall space was left was heavily paneled, with ropes, nets, lanterns, and other nautical ware hung everywhere. A group of obvious regulars sat at the bar. A few other mainlander-looking American customers and some obvious locals sat in groups or as couples at various tables scattered around. Max went up to a deserted part of the bar and climbed up on a stool.
Anna was the only staff. She was behind the bar. That day Anna wore a white T-shirt that proclaimed “La Salida, Calle Vingo Mayaguez” in red letters. She was barefoot and as usual had on only her T-shirt and a red bikini bathing suit bottom. She walked over to greet the newcomer.
“I just got in on the plane,” Max said before she spoke. “My Uncle Fred told me to come here and ask for someone named Anna.”
“I’m Anna.” She smiled and shook his hand.
“I’m Max. I was told you would be expecting me.”
“Yes.” Anna nodded. “Can I get you a beer?”
“Sure,” Max agreed. “I’ll take whatever the locals drink.”
Anna went to the taps. “The India Brewery is right here in town,” she said. “Their Medallion beer is the only thing we don’t have in a bottle here.”
“Good,” Max said, and he waited for her to draw him a beer. The two regulars down the bar had been looking at him. They seemed mildly interested in who he might be. Max wondered if Anna had a boyfriend. The group along the bar all seemed too old for her.
She brought a dark golden beer that had just a slight frothy head and set it down on the bar in front of Max. Then she stood opposite and studied him with dark, intelligent, inquiring eyes while he took a drink.
“It’s good,” Max said.
“It’s on the house.”
“Thanks. Is that a tradition down here?”
Anna laughed. “It’s my tradition in this bar when someone responds to a letter I sent all the way to Maine.”
“Yes, my family responded by sending me.” Max nodded. “I thought you had something to do with tuna boats. I was just to meet you here. I didn’t think you worked in a bar.”
Anna laughed. “No, I only work here part time. My father owns a tuna boat. He’s the captain, and I’m the pilot. The boat doesn’t go out when I’m working here in the bar.”
“So you’re a tuna boat pilot?” Max was surprised. He thought for a moment of the strange prediction of the woman on the plane to Portland. “Do you ever find your way across the water by recognizing the feel of the currents and maybe the wind?”
“Yeah, sure, I do it all the time,” Anna said. “It’s a sort of spiritual connection with the water or something, I think. The currents, the water, the wind, they move all the time. It’s not at all like driving a car on the road.”
“Amazing,” Max said. “I’ve been told there are pilots who do it that way.”
“I can also navigate by instruments—a compass, radar…”
“So its spiritualism and technology sort of melded together in you,” Max said. “That’s great.”
“I suppose,” Anna agreed.
“I spent a summer working on a lobster boat when I was in college, but the captain never let me drive.”
“Pilot, not drive,” Anna corrected him.
“Oh, right…pilot not drive when it’s a boat, of course.”
“I worked here and on the boat all the time I was in college,” Anna said. “In fact, I just graduated in June. Times are hard here. I’m still looking for a college-level job.”
“I teach in a college,” Max said. “That’s my real job these days. This year I’m working with the history department on a study of rhythms in various styles of music. I was once a rock musician.” He quickly made some imaginary drum-beat motions to demonstrate. They fit the music that was playing in the bar. “I love the Caribbean rhythms you’ve got playing here.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d be a detective or an investigator of some kind, not a college teacher studying drum beats.”
“Ah, don’t we all moonlight to stay afloat with more than one job?” Max laughed. “Times are hard in New England too. I investigate certain situations for my family. That’s what I’m here for, but it’s not my full-time job.”
“Sorry, I’m just surprised they would send someone like you.”
“They sent me because I’m good at this.” Max smiled. “They totally respect what I do.” He glanced around. The nearby regulars looked away. Max lowered his voice. “I want to hear all you have to say, but this doesn’t seem like a good place to get into any details.”
“You got that right,” Anna agreed. Then she leaned in closer to Max and said in a quieter tone just audible above the music, “I don’t work here tomorrow. How about you come out on our tuna boat, and I’ll show you the tuna fleet that works for your plant. And I’ll explain what made me write that letter.”
Max thought a moment. “Okay,” he agreed. “I don’t meet with the manager of the plant till Wednesday. I can meet with you tomorrow, no problem. You just tell me how to find your boat, and I’ll be there.”
Anna leaned away.
“You like being a bartender?” Max asked loudly for benefit of the nearby regulars. He was sure they were doing their best to listen in.
Anna immediately realized what he was doing. She shrugged again. “Sometimes you meet interesting people.”
“But,” Max said, “I bet it’s not more fun than piloting a boat through a storm with the wind blowing your hair.”
“I usually tie my hair back when I pilot the boat,” Anna said.
“Yes, and like the boat job, tending bar probably doesn’t have benefits like a health plan and a good 501K,” Max said.
“No,” Anna answered. “But I do get tips, propinas muy grandes, I mean, big tips from my job here. Good ones, usually, from mainlanders like you.”
They both laughed, and Max toasted her with his glass.
Anna looked at the diver’s watch she had on her wrist. “The night guy comes in here at five. Then I’m off. We can move to a table over by the windows.”
“Good,” Max agreed. He glanced from side to side. The regulars seemed to be lo
sing interest.
“What’s the name of your boat?” Max asked.
“Señorita Anna.”
“That’s your name, but you said it in Spanish,” Max said.
“My father,” Anna said in a bad fake Spanish accent, “he name it after me.”
“That was really nice of him,” Max said.
“He good guy,” Anna said. Then she returned to good English. “Technically, in Spanish, my name is spelled with one n. The name on the stern has two. That’s the English way. We’re all mainlanders on Señorita Anna. My father never gets things quite right. As far as I’m concerned, the boat’s named Ms. Anna, all in English. That’s what I call her, anyway.”
“I think I like the mainlanders here.” Max lifted his glass. “To your father…I don’t know his name.”
“Captain Bob,” Anna said.
Suddenly the door burst open behind them, and Anna looked surprised. Max lowered his glass and looked around.
“Speak of the devil,” Anna said. “Here’s my father now.” Captain Bob and Captain Jim had come through the door.
The two captains came over to where Anna was standing on the other side of the bar. “We’ll take our usual table,” her father said. “We’ll have a beer and wait for you to get off.”
“This is Max,” Anna introduced him. “He just got in from the airport. Max, this is my father, Captain Bob, and his friend, Captain Jim.”
They shook hands all around.
“And we are meeting our friend Señor Cofresí here, too,” Captain Bob said.
Max frowned. “Cofresí? Isn’t he the manager of my family’s tuna plant? I’m not scheduled to see him till Wednesday.”
“Ah, then you’re the man Anna said was coming to see her about the plant,” Captain Bob said, as if the fact were new to him. “This is perfect. You’ll get to meet him in an informal setting. It’s the way of the Caribbean, you know. Business is so formal on the mainland. Let us show you how business should be done, here. Have a drink with us while we wait for him to come.” He took Max gently by the arm. “Come over to a table with us. Anna, beers for us all around.”
Max looked at Anna and smiled. He shrugged and let Captain Bob lead him away from the bar. They sat at an empty table by the windows that opened on the busy street. The traffic noise outside, frequent car horns included, competed with the salsa music inside. There was a breeze, but it was still pretty warm.
Ms. Anna Page 4