Ms. Anna

by Bill Lockwood

  “What about my briefing? Yes, where’s the slide show and the charts? Or at least some printouts of the finances?” Max asked. “I thought you were going to brief me on the state of business here at the plant.”

  “Oh, that.” Ms. Parker laughed. “The boats bring in the tuna. Then we chop it up and put it in little cans. We ship them to the mainland and make your family a lot of money. I can get you a printout of the financial records. I can do that.”

  “Right,” Max agreed. “But I thought you were going to explain a lot more of the details.”

  “Oh, I don’t know any of the details.” Ms. Parker laughed again. “Señor Cofresí said my job would be to show you a good time.”

  “A good time?” Max asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not exactly having a bad time here in Puerto Rico, but here at my family’s plant…” His voice trailed off, and he looked around the room. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  “I could take you to lunch at a little place I know in the good part of town,” Ms. Parker offered. “There are some things I’d actually like to ask you…”

  Max didn’t respond.

  “Of course, as they say where I’m from, it’s hotter’n a snake’s belly on Georgia asphalt, outside in the midday sun,” she continued. “The air conditioning’s not very good here, but we could just have some drinks here…” She moved toward him.

  “I’m sure that’s not how the locals say it,” Max said as he backed away. He reached around and turned the knob on the door behind him. The door opened. Max looked back. “Tell Cofresí to send the financial reports to me at my boat. Tell him thanks, I’ve seen all I need to see for today, and I’ll see him for our trip on the boat tomorrow night.”

  “But Señor Max,” Ms. Parker protested, “you will insult Señor Cofresí’s hospitality if you don’t at least have a drink. I do want to talk to you…”

  Max turned away and went through the door. He hurried down the hall. He saw a sign over a doorway that read “Salida.” Where have I seen that word? he wondered. He went through the door. It led to a flight of spiral metal stairs. “Exit!” Max shouted out loud. “La Salida is the name of Anna’s bar.” By then he was running down the stairs, and no one had heard him.

  Halfway down the stairway Max realized that Ms. Parker had chased after him.

  “I’m tired of having drinks, having to play poker, and everybody being a captain!” Max shouted back over his shoulder to the stairway above him.

  At the bottom he rushed out through another door onto the giant processing room floor. “The office?” Max yelled to a group of startled workers. “Que es la fucking officina?” The workers started to laugh. Max looked around toward what his sense of direction told him was the street. He saw a door, and he ran again. Max burst through the door into the reception area he had first entered when he arrived at the plant. He rushed past the startled receptionist and out onto the street. The big car that had brought him was still parked in front of the door. The driver was seated on a bench just outside the door. His hat was pulled down, and his eyes were closed as if he were sound asleep. Max looked up the street. He saw a cab in the distance, and again he started to run.

  A short way along, Max heard a sound like a door bursting open. He looked back. Ms. Parker and two men in suits had burst out of the plant door. Max did his best to run faster. He looked back again. His driver trailed the two men, but Ms. Parker appeared to have given up the chase. Still, despite the heat, the two men were in hot pursuit.

  Sure the men would quickly overtake him, Max saw a space between two buildings and ran down a narrow passage toward the harbor. Before the running men entered the passage behind him, Max burst out onto a pier. He stopped and looked around. He was right next to a big green dumpster. Max lifted the lid, pulled himself up on the edge, and got inside. Then the lid slammed down above him, leaving him in almost total darkness.

  Max was fortunate the dumpster was fairly empty. It stunk much worse than the tuna plant, and there was something wet and squishy under his shoes on the floor. Max heard two men arguing in Spanish. They were joined by a third. He hadn’t talked to the man enough to recognize his voice, but Max figured that must be his driver. The men’s words were said too fast for him to understand, but Max did hear his name said three or four times. Then the voices moved away. Max listened intently for a while. All he could hear was rustling at the other end of the dumpster. There was just enough light coming in from the ill-fitting lid for Max to realize there were a number of pairs of little eyes peering at him from near the floor.

  “Rats!” Max screamed. He threw up the lid and climbed out of the dumpster as fast as he could.

  More afraid of the rats now than the men, Max ran back down the passageway to the street. The car Señor Cofresí had sent to bring him to the plant was still there by the plant door, but the men had moved on.

  Max knew the direction the car had come from, but he didn’t want to walk back past the plant. He quickly crossed the street and turned up a street he figured was taking him away from the harbor. Calle Vingo—Max remembered the name of the street where the La Salida bar was. He remembered seeing it on Anna’s shirt, as well. He knew he had no idea where his boat was tied up. God, I’m the captain, and I don’t even know where my boat is.

  Max spotted a few men at tables at the far end of the block where he was walking. They were sitting outside a business that must have been a coffee shop or maybe a bar. None of them had suits like Cofresí, but they all wore straw hats in the bright sun. They all looked very relaxed and carefree as he approached.

  Max thought hard, and he said slowly and very carefully, “Dónde está La Calle Vingo?”

  The men all laughed, as if it were the funniest thing they had heard all day.

  One of the men held up his hand, as if requesting silence from the others. He frowned and paused for a moment. He was deep in thought. Then he spoke in English, “Señor, do not sit with us here… You stink. Go to La Calle Vingo.” He pointed the direction down the cross street for Max to take.

  “Thanks, gracias.” Max smiled, and he walked away. The men’s laughter followed behind him.

  Max ignored them. He perked up when he saw a cab a block farther on. He ran to it, yanked open the back door, and tumbled in.

  “La Salida bar, por favor,” Max said. “You know that place? Calle Vingo.”

  “Madre de Dios,” the driver said. “You stink bad.” Despite the driver’s aversion, the cab moved forward. “La Salida,” the driver said. “Para turistas.”

  “Soy turista,” Max confirmed.

  “Man,” the driver said. “You don’t smell like no tourist.”

  “I had a little mishap,” Max explained.

  “Mishap?” the driver asked. He did not understand the English word.

  “Poco problema,” Max said. “Poco problema con la Señorita. La Señorita Parque de Bombas.”

  The driver laughed.

  “La Señorita Ms. Parker,” Max said.

  “La Señorita Ms. Parker,” the driver repeated, and he laughed even harder. “La Salida, no Ms. Parker? No Señorita Parque de Bombas?” he asked.

  “Si, La Salida bar.” Max smiled broadly and nodded. “No, don’t take me back to Ms. Parker. Or to La Señorita Parque de Bombas either.”

  They rounded a corner, and Max breathed a sigh of relief. He recognized the street: Calle Vingo. The La Salida was just ahead.

  “At La Salida,” the driver said, “they no like bad smell customers.”

  “I know the bartender. I’ll be fine.” Max pulled out his money as the cab stopped in front of the bar. Max handed over a big tip in addition to his fare.

  “You one turista loco,” the driver said.

  Max had gotten out of the cab too fast to hear. Anna and some scattered groups of customers were startled when Max burst in the door.

  “Max, what happened to you?” Anna demanded as he approached the bar.

  “I had a little mishap,” M
ax explained. “I had to hide out in a dumpster for a while.”

  “Don’t sit down,” Anna ordered. She pointed to a door behind the bar. “You go right out back and take off those clothes.”

  “Take off my clothes?”

  “I went to the laundromat the other day. There’s still some of my father’s clothes in the trunk of my car. I’ll get something for you. There’s a hose right outside the back door. Go out there, take that stuff off, and I’ll hose you down.”

  Anna was like a ship captain giving orders. “Aye, aye,” Max said, and he headed right toward the door she had indicated. He was happy to comply.

  Max stopped before going through the door. “Is there a cleaners anywhere around here?”

  “Forget that,” Anna said. “That stuff needs to be burned, not cleaned. What the hell were you doing hiding in a dumpster anyway?”

  Max held up his finger to indicate he wanted to save his answer till they were outside. He went on through the door. There was a bare dirt courtyard behind the bar. Cases of empty bottles were piled around, but otherwise it was empty. A garden hose hung attached to an outdoor faucet.

  Anna followed right behind.

  “Couple of Cofresí’s boys were chasing me,” Max said. “I jumped in a dumpster. It worked. I got away. Then I took a cab right here.”

  “Poor cab driver, I’m surprised he let you ride.”

  “I gave him big propino.”

  “I bet you did.” Anna laughed.

  Max had pulled off his coat, tie, shirt, shoes, and socks, but he stopped at taking off his pants.

  “Them too,” Anna ordered. “I’ve been to college. I’m not a kid. I’ve seen guys’ things before.”

  “Sorry.” Max shrugged. “I forget you’re one of my fellow sailors,” and he pulled his pants off too. Then Anna hit him with a hard spray from the hose. Max danced around, making sure she hosed him down all over.

  “You’re right. I’d better burn this suit,” Max said when Anna was done.

  “I’ll get you a towel,” she said and went back in the door.

  Max stood dripping dry in the sun as he waited.

  Anna returned quickly and tossed him a couple of fresh hand towels from behind the bar.

  “I’ll buy myself a new suit,” Max said as he dried himself off. “I’ll tell Uncle Henry it’s part of the cost of doing this job. In fact, I think I’ll buy a new white one like Cofresí has and one of those straw hats everyone wears, too.”

  “I’ll get you some shorts and a shirt,” Anna said, and she was gone again.

  Again Max waited, till she opened the door again and tossed them to him. Then Anna went back to her duties behind the bar.

  A short time later, Max was seated at the bar, dressed in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers T-shirt and an old pair of ill-fitting cutoff jeans. Anna brought him a beer.

  “Thanks.” Max smiled. “You do take care of your captain. I’ll give you that.”

  “I do laundry, I cook, I pilot the boat and drive, I tend bar, and I hose down stinky customers. You’d think I’d be quite a catch.”

  “Thanks again.” Max toasted her with his glass.

  Anna shook her head. Then she got serious. “Okay, start at the beginning, and tell me what happened to you.”

  “Before seeing the plant, I would have enjoyed a good tuna steak,” Max said. “I even enjoyed a good tuna salad sandwich now and again. Cofresí showed me all the machinery that chops up the tuna and everything. God, the smell of dead tuna is gonna haunt me the rest of my days. Now I see why you all eat rice and beans.”

  “No.” Anna shook her head. “I mean, tell me the part about why you were running away.”

  “After Cofresí gave me this really short, basic tour, I thought I was going to be given a briefing,” Max explained. “But the briefer turned out to be this Ms. Parker, who tried to seduce me.”

  “Seduce you?” Anna asked. Then her face broke into a smile, and she nodded. “Didn’t I tell you Cofresí might just try a trick like that?”

  “Cofresí said she should compete to be Señorita Parque De Bombas.”

  “Señorita Parque de Bombas,” Anna repeated, and she laughed. “That means Ms. Firehouse, you know?”

  “Ms. Firehouse?” Max repeated. “Is that what Parque de Bombas means?”

  “At least in Puerto Rico they keep fire engines at the parque de bombas,” Anna explained.

  “Okay, now I understand why the cab driver was laughing so hard.”

  “Never mind the driver. What did you do when she made the move on you?”

  “I ran like hell.”

  “Why’d you do that?” Anna asked. “I don’t know what she looks like, but couldn’t you have just stayed, had a drink, and refused the rest?”

  “I don’t know what that Cofresí and Ms. Parker have, or had, in mind,” Max said, “but my family sent me down here to find out what’s going on, and that’s not the way I plan to have a look around.”

  “Max, you’re quite a guy. You still planning to do the job with the boat for Cofresí tomorrow night?”

  “Absolutely,” Max said. “I can’t think of a better way of finding out what he’s up to than getting him out to sea for a couple of days. That is, if he doesn’t change his mind. I mean, if he shows.”

  “He gave you his deposit after he knew you were captain, so I’m pretty sure he’ll show. I can tell this job is very important to him. He wouldn’t have stayed with the Señorita Anna if there were a quick replacement. We aren’t the only boat in Mayaguez harbor.”

  “But you’re the pilot he wants. The one he says he needs.”

  “And I don’t drive any other boats.” Anna laughed. “He wants to move his dear departed brother Thursday night, so he’s stuck with both you and me.”

  “Sounds like we’re a team.” Max smiled.

  “Sounds that way,” Anna agreed. “Even with him dangling Ms. Parque de Bombas in front of you.”

  “I sure hope he doesn’t bring her along.”

  “Well, if he does, remember you’re the captain. Don’t go diving overboard and swimming for some dumpster.”

  “No.” Max grinned. “A captain has to go down with his ship. I know that much about all your damn seafaring traditions.”

  Chapter 8

  When Max got up the next morning, he found Captain Bob and Captain Jim were sitting in the wheelhouse drinking a late morning round of coffee. They graciously poured one for Max, and he sat down with his crew.

  “Anna’s already gone off to the bar,” Captain Jim informed him.

  “Wow, it’s open this early in the morning?” Max asked. “I just can’t imagine the crowd there as Bloody Mary or mimosa drinkers.”

  “They’re not,” Captain Jim said. “That crowd drinks beer any time o’ day.”

  Captain Bob smiled. “Perhaps we all should add a little rum to the coffee we have here.”

  “No, thanks.” Max declined the offer. “I’ll wait till cocktail hour.”

  Captain Jim laughed. “We got us a damn New Englander and an almost teetotaler for a captain, I see.”

  Max toasted him with his coffee mug and took a drink.

  “There’s leftover arroz con frijoles in a pot on the stove,” Captain Bob offered. “You can ask one of the chickens for an egg, but you’ll have to cook it yourself. Jim here only does breakfast when we’re out at sea.”

  Max shrugged. “Maybe I’ll have some later. After this trip is over, I’m going to see if I can find a grocery store around here that has some English muffins and bacon. Make us all some bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. You’ll have to teach me how to ask for English muffins and bacon in Spanish. I know queso is cheese. I learned that from menus in Mexican restaurants. Con queso means with cheese. And we have all the eggs we want. I won’t even imagine I could ask for all the ingredients for Eggs Benedict. I was a short-order cook one summer. I learned to make a mean Eggs Bennie.”

  “If only you weren’t Captain,” Captain Jim sighed. “You c
ould cook out at sea. And, if Anna ever gets asked out to dinner, you could be our cook here in port.”

  Captain Bob raised his hands in a “What can I do?” gesture. “She’s always hanging around here when she’s not in school or working. That girl of mine never seems to have time for any fun.”

  Max did not comment on that. “Yes, gotta keep it all shipshape.” He nodded. “But I’ll talk to the in-port cook and see what I can do.”

  “Good.” Captain Jim smiled.

  Max sipped his coffee. He was starting to feel more awake. With their trip starting out that night, he knew he would be up now for quite a while.

  Captain Bob spoke up. “That was some story you told about the day you had yesterday.”

  Max shrugged. “I never know what my family’s going to get me into.”

  Captain Jim laughed. “And I bet you never thought you’d be owner of a tuna boat.”

  “A boat that’s been hired on the side by the very guy you’re here to check up on,” Captain Bob added.

  “Yes,” Max agreed. “It’s all gotten quite complicated. Soon as I got here, it got all too complicated real fast.”

  “Max,” Captain Bob said, “I don’t think you quite understand yet that we all live at a much slower pace down here in the Caribbean. We just don’t like things that happen real fast or have too many complications. That is not our way.”

  “Those men of Cofresí’s at the plant moved pretty damned fast yesterday. None of that slower pace shit for them when they were after me. There’s so much going on here that I don’t understand.”

  “Still,” Captain Jim said, “you drew the two black kings. You must have some connection to good fortune.”

  “Let’s not go back to that,” Max objected. “I have a feeling that poker game was all a set-up to get me to lose a lot of money and be in Cofresí’s debt. And so was that woman Ms. Parker, yesterday, that he dangled in front of me. If I’d gone for it, Cofresí’d have an indiscretion to hang over me for my good report to the family.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then Captain Bob spoke up again. “You are one smart mainlander.” He toasted Max with his mug.