“Hey!” Tom exclaimed. “He was from Rhinebeck.”
“Where is that?” Ava asked.
“Near where we grew up,” Tom told her.
Over dinner Tom and I told Ava and Evonne about our flights down to Rhinebeck when we were kids and how we used to sneak the planes out of the hangar to go flying when my aunt and uncle weren’t around.
When we first met the girls, Tom had told them that my family had money and that the boat belonged to my father. He did this before I could say anything about it and now I found myself having to go along with his deception. It surely wasn’t the first time and I’m sure he did it to impress the girls and it was doing just that.
After hearing some of Tom’s recollections of our younger days, they wondered aloud what it must have been like to grow up with the opportunities of having money.
“It’s not everything,” I said.
“Easy for you to say,” Evonne insisted.
We all were having a great time and I found myself entertaining the idea of getting involved with Ava that night. Before my ideas got too far along though, Evonne reminded Ava that they were due back on board by midnight. It seemed they had to work the next day and started at four that next morning.
“That’s pretty early,” Tom said.
“Yes but we’re done at noon time,” Ava added.
“So, what about tomorrow afternoon?” I asked.
“We’re free any time after twelve,” Ava said.
“Well, then suppose we all meet here around one,” I suggested.
After the girls hopped into the cab, Tom and I returned to the boat. We sat up topside concluding the fact that we were both taking a strong liking to Ava and Evonne.
“So, what did Steve find out about Bruce?” Tom wanted to know.
“Well, it seems that Bruce was seen hanging around with some people that live over on Paradise Island,” I explained.
“Do you know where they live over there?”
“Sure do,” I replied. “Steve and I are going there tomorrow.”
“What about me?” he asked.
“I need you to be here to keep an eye on the boat,” I said. “Besides, someone has got to be here when Ava and Evonne show up.”
“Keep an eye on the boat?” Tom questioned. He could tell that I was putting him off. Earlier Steve and I had decided that it would be best if just two of us went to the house.
“Ok,” Tom said as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Hey, I’m just playing it Steve’s way,” I said in my defense.
“Forget it,” Tom said. “I’ll stay here.”
I left it at that.
The next morning Steve showed up around seven and I told him that I wanted to first go into town and make a couple of phone calls before heading over to Paradise Island. Before leaving, I told Tom that I would meet him and the girls back at the boat around one o’clock.
In town, I put in an overseas phone call to Linda but was unable to reach her. It was Sunday and I figured that in the morning I would stand the best chance of reaching her at home. Next, I tried Bruce’s dad. Bruce’s mom answered and promptly put Mr. Saxton on the phone.
“Hello,” he said. “I was getting a little worried.”
“Well, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten in touch with you until now but getting near a phone has been a problem. Besides that, I don’t have very much that I can tell you. We were able to establish that your son associated with some people who live here in Nassau and we’re on our way now to check into this.”
He asked me how the boat was doing and I informed him that we had no problems with it at all. He advised that I should call Bob or Lee if I needed anything at all for the boat. I assured him that I would and that I would call him the following Tuesday evening to fill him in on our progress. After hanging up, I put another call through to Linda but there was still no answer.
Across the bridge we found the address we were looking for. It was a large house that backed up to the water and had its own private dock. Yeah, this is a place that Bruce could appreciate, I thought to myself. Steve and I had decided that we had nothing to lose by just knocking on the door and if things felt right we could then inquire about Bruce.
After knocking on the door with no results, I suggested that we each work our way around the house and check it out for any windows that might be open or unlocked. Steve made his way all the way around the house to where I was standing.
“Did you find anything?” I asked him.
“I looked through the sliding glass doors in the back of the house and it looks empty,” he replied.
“Empty as in no furniture?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “There’s all that but it looks like no one is home.”
“In that case, I’m going in through this unlocked window,” I informed him.
With Steve’s help I was able to get up and through the window that was six feet off the ground. Once through the window I stuck my head back out and suggested that Steve keep a look out for any trouble. The window that I had come in through was a bathroom window and it appeared that someone did, in fact, live there.
There was a shaving kit on the sink and a towel that had been used recently was hanging over the curtain rod to dry. Just off from the bathroom was a bedroom that I figured to be as good a place as any to start snooping around.
I started going through the bureau drawers with hopes of finding some type of information as to who these people were. The top drawer produced enough stuff of value that it made me question why they would leave a window unlocked.
First, I found a Rolex watch, then a box that contained a couple of gold chains along with some unusual looking and obviously expensive belt buckles. In the next drawer, under a neatly stacked pile of shirts, I found a leather folder. Inside the folder were papers but before I could read though them I took notice to a passport that was also in the folder. Great, I thought. I’ll find out just who these people are.
The passport belonged to an André. It was a French passport and from the port entry stamps it seemed that this guy did a lot of traveling between Nassau and a place called St. Maarten. I wasn’t sure where that was but figured it to be somewhere along the drug trafficking route. Just as I was placing the passport back into the leather folder, I heard a noise from outside and quickly put everything back into the bureau.
After closing the bureau drawers, I quickly made my way back to the bathroom. I first looked out the window only to find Steve nowhere in sight. Great, I thought. The window was high enough off the ground that I had needed Steve’s help getting in but now things didn’t feel right and I was going back out that window - Steve or no Steve. I positioned myself in the window and lowered myself down.
Just as my feet were about to touch the ground, I heard something and turned to investigate. Bam! Out went the lights. The last thing I could remember was the feeling of my head being hammered down like an unsharpened fence post. When I began to regain consciousness it was pitch dark and I realized that I couldn’t open my eyes. When my brain began to function again, I became aware that my head had been tightly wrapped in some fashion which was not allowing me to open my eyes.
Not only that, but my hands were bound behind my back and my legs, too, were bound from the ankles up to a point just above my knees which prevented me from being able to bend my legs. Oh, shit! I thought.
I wondered where I was and for how long I had been unconscious. I couldn’t hear a thing. Just silence and reasoned that I had been left to myself. What about Steve?
I suddenly became aware of the pain in my head from where I had been subjected to the physical abuse by my assailants. I remained fully aware of this pain because my head was pulsing against the tightly wrapped restraint that was around my head. I wondered how I was going to free myself and decided that I better determine where I was and if I had been left alone.
I rolled around half way expecting to roll into Steve but soon realized that I was within the confines of what
I believed to be a closet and by myself. I started working my legs back and forth until I was able to bend them at the knees. This enabled me to roll around a little easier but still unable to stand. I kicked off my leather boat shoes and while lying on my back felt the walls with the bottoms of my feet for any indication of a door.
Halfway down the second wall I was able to locate what I thought to be a closet door. Before slamming my feet into the door, I thought of what consequences my action might produce. I wasn’t sure at that point if I was, in fact, all alone or if perhaps my captors were somewhere around.
I was in a somewhat perplexed situation. I could break out of here and they could what, I asked myself, kill me? Or, I could wait here until they got around to killing me.
If these were the same people that killed Kevin that day, they had no qualms about the termination of life. With that thought, I slammed my feet against what I believed to be the door. ‘Feets don’t fail me, now’, I thought. When my feet hit the door they kept going indicating that whatever I hit had moved. Crawling out of my confinement, I quickly determined that it was, in fact, a door and I positioned myself up against the open edge of it.
All the commotion hadn’t drawn any attention so I reasoned that my captors were not around. I rubbed my bound wrists up and down the open edge of the door until I could feel the tape began to loosen a bit. With this encouragement, I quickened the pace until I felt the last bit of my restraint break loose.
With my hands free, I started to work on what it was that was wrapped around my head. I quickly realized that I had been bound by duct tape. It was wrapped so tightly that it was preventing me from opening my eyelids that were actually stuck to the fibers of the tape. So was a lot of my hair. My head was wrapped like a mummy and it took a while for me to get the last bit of tape off of my head. Next were my feet and in short order I was back to standing on them. Once I was free my thoughts turned to the fate of Steve.
I made a quick search of the house and found him bound as I had been in another one of the bedroom closets. With the aid of a knife from the kitchen, Steve’s restraints were off in a matter of minutes.
“You alright?” I asked him as I removed the last piece of tape from around his head. He assured me that other than the lump on his head like mine, he would survive.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I remember hearing the sound of a car door and when I went around the corner of the house this baseball bat was coming down on me.”
“So that’s what it was,” I exclaimed.
“Hey, I’m sorry about getting you into this,” I offered Steve. “I didn’t mean to be getting you beat up.”
“Hey, that’s ok,” he assured me. “What now?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
It was still light out and I assumed it was late afternoon.
“Ten o’clock,” Steve said.
“Ten o’clock?” I asked
“Yeah, as in Monday morning,” he said.
“Damn, talk about a good night’s sleep!” I exclaimed.
“So, now what?” Steve wanted to know.
“Well, we better get the fuck out of here but, before we go, there’s something I want to take with us.”
“What’s that?” Steve wanted to know.
“I’ll show you,” I said. I headed back to the bedroom and pulled open the bureau drawer.
“Damn,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” asked Steve.
“Well, I found a passport here before and I was going to take it with us,” I explained.
“Whose was it?” Steve wanted to know.
“It belonged to an André,” I said.
“Sounds French to me,” Steve said.
“Yeah, it was a French passport,” I told him. “By the way, where is St. Maarten?”
“Why’s that?” Steve asked.
“Well, it seems that this guy does a lot of travelling between here and there,” I informed him. “The passport had his address there.”
“Well, it’s about twelve hundred miles south from here. In fact, it’s only a couple hundred miles north of where I’ll be in a week,” he said.
“You mean Guadeloupe?” I asked
“That’s it,” Steve replied. “Which reminds me, we leave today.”
“Shit, that’s right,” remembering it was now Monday. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before leaving we made a quick sweep of the house. It appeared that our captors had vacated the house and had taken everything but the furniture with them
After leaving the house, Steve and I walked about a mile before flagging down an empty cab which took us back into town. During the cab ride back to town Steve expressed regret that he wouldn’t be able to further assist us with our endeavors.
I told him that he had already done more than I could have expected and that I wanted to pay him something for what he had done. He insisted that a deal was a deal and that the deal was for a ride here to Nassau and to check out any leads on Bruce.
When we got to the docks I noticed that the cruise ship that Ava and Evonne worked on had left port. With all that had happened I hadn’t had time to think about the fact that I was unable to meet Tom and them yesterday.
After dropping Steve off, I had the cab driver deliver me to the marina. I felt bad having to say goodbye to Steve. I was starting to really like the guy. Like Tom and myself, Steve was outspoken and right up front about things. Besides that, he had connections here in these islands that would have been a real asset to us in our attempts at obtaining information.
Getting out of the cab at the marina, I could see Tom on the boat. As I made my way down the pier, he saw me and headed in my direction.
“Where have you been?” he wanted to know. “You were supposed to meet us here yesterday.”
“Well, Steve and I ran into a little trouble,” I told him.
“Yeah, I thought as much,” he said. “When you never showed up yesterday, I started getting worried. You should have left me a copy of that address,” he went on to say.
On board I further explained to Tom everything that had transpired since the time I had left him the day before.
“I knew I should have gone,” he said.
He was probably right. With an extra person, it might very well have turned out differently.
“You know Ava and Evonne are gone.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I took notice to that when I dropped Steve off at his ship. By the way he said to tell you goodbye.”
“Everybody’s leaving us,” Tom said.
“Yeah, it’s just me and you now.”
“So, what now?” he inquired.
“Well, we have to find out who owns that house or who was renting it.”
“So this guy with the French passport,” Tom asked. “Does Steve know anything about him?”
“No, but I know somebody that might,” I replied.
“Yeah, who’s that?” he asked.
“His neighbors,” I told him.
“When do you want to check that out?”
“Right now.”
“Let’s do it then,” he replied.
Less than an hour later, Tom and I were standing in front of the house where Steve and I had such a good night’s sleep.
“What do you think?” Tom asked.
“Well, let’s see if anybody’s home”.
With a Colt .45 in my pocket this time, I had no reservations about pounding on the door. It didn’t surprise me when it went unanswered. I didn’t suspect that they would have returned. I took notice to a couple of elderly women next door and suggested to Tom that we ask them about these people.
“Good day, ladies,” I said as I approached the two women who were seated in a couple of lawn chairs on the back lawn.
“I was wondering if you might be able to help us?” I asked.
“In what way?” they asked.
“Well, I was wondering if you could tell us w
here we could find the people who live next door.”
“Oh, they come and go a lot,” one of the women told us.
Then the other woman insisted on knowing the reason for our inquiry. I figured that, like most good neighbors, they weren’t about to just give away information about the people who lived next door. I explained that I was looking for a house to buy on the island where I could keep a boat.
“That house isn’t for sale,” the woman said.
“Well, if you could give me the owner’s name, I could at least make them an offer,” I said.
“She doesn’t live there,” the women replied.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She then informed me that the people that were presently living next door only rented the house and that the owner was a woman who lived in Freeport.
“Would you happen to have her address there?” I asked.
“Yes, but I know she won’t sell the house,” the woman insisted.
After getting the address from the woman, I showed her the picture of Bruce and asked if she had ever seen him before.
“Oh, yes,” she said, before realizing that something wasn’t right.
“Hey, what is this?” the woman wanted to know.
She became indignant realizing that we hadn’t been honest about our intentions. She followed us half way back to the road before giving up her verbal abuse over the deception. I didn’t like lying to the woman but under the circumstances, it was a means of acquiring the information we needed.
We had the cab driver wait for us that morning to avoid having to wait for another cab. On the ride back to the marina we decided that a trip to Freeport would have to be our next course of action.
Before handing me the woman’s address, the neighbor had informed me that the owner of the house had no phone and that we would have to go to Freeport if we wanted to speak with her. We reasoned that the owner of the house would know more about these people than anyone else we were likely to run into here in Nassau.
With that in mind, we decided to leave first thing the following morning allowing us the whole day to get there. The next day we headed north towards Freeport. Our objective was to find out from the woman who owned the house, just who her tenants were and where, other than Nassau, they spent their time.
Adventures In A Pair-A-Dice Page 8