Arlan smiled and said, “I’m glad the transmission works. Otherwise you’d be picking sand out of your teeth.”
“Sheeit, Rookie. You still don’t know nothin’. How many times you been with me when we’ve done the same thing? We ever crash?” Captain Jay asked and waved to Ashley, who had stepped out of the ferryboat wheelhouse.
Ashley shook his head and, with a big smile, said, “You still one crazy white boy, me son.”
“I’m not white, Ashley. I’m beige.”
Ashley laughed, returned to the wheelhouse and blasted the horn, signaling the ferry was ready to depart. For the next couple of minutes, as the ferry motored out of the bay, tourists and locals on the boat craned their necks to look back at the man with short, blond hair, wearing sunglasses and a red Speedo.
The two other boats from the flotilla slowly made their way to the dock, and their crews tied them in the space left empty by the departed ferry. The captains and crews were longtime residents of the island, and a dozen or more locals welcomed them with high fives, backslaps and handshakes. Arlan, not wanting any of them to ask about Lisa, herded Captain Jay away from the crowd.
“Why don’t you show me your new boat?”
“Jesus, Rookie. I just got here. Come on. Let’s get a beer,” Jay said and turned back toward shore. After a few steps he looked back to the boat and said, “Gizmo, we need to leave before the next ferry gets here. We’ll take my boat to Caneel after I catch up with the rookie.”
As they walked down the dock Arlan deflected conversations with friends who had approached Captain Jay and said, “Let’s go to my office. I’ve got beer there. My Jeep is across from the clinic.”
“No time. Let’s have a beer at Mooie’s,” Captain Jay said, basking in the adulation from locals and smiles from the few tourists who had witnessed his approach to the dock.
Two young ladies wearing backpacks, tank tops and short cutoff jeans passed Arlan and Jay as they walked to the bar.
“Hey, sugar puddin’,” Captain Jay said to the taller of the two, lifting his aviator sunglasses and resting them on top of his head. “You two needin’ a ride to the campground?”
The girls giggled, and the taller one said, “We missed the taxi and were told we’d have to wait for the next ferry to arrive and can catch the taxi to Cinnamon Bay with the next batch of tourists.”
“Well, darlins, this is your lucky day. I can take you in my boat,” Captain Jay said and pointed to the dark-blue boat on the port side of the dock. “That’s Gizmo standin’ next to the boat. He won’t bite and will help you with your backpacks. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
The shorter of the two women smiled, looked at her friend and said, “I don’t know…”
Arlan stepped over and bought two Heinekens from a vendor in the park a few feet away. He looked back at Captain Jay and shook his head at the familiar scene as Captain Jay charmed the two ladies that stood with him at the end of the dock. They smiled and giggled and were smitten with the rogue southerner who looked and sounded like a blond Elvis. Arlan could never understand how easy it was for Captain Jay to be… Captain Jay.
Arlan interrupted the trio and shoved a cold bottle into Jay’s hand.
“Come on. We need to talk,” Arlan said and stepped off the dock onto the beach.
“Keep your panties on, sugarplums. I’ll be right back,” Jay said and followed Arlan.
Both girls laughed and stayed where they were.
“Damn, Rookie. Not many tourists around durin’ hurricane season. Wonder what those two beauties are doin’ here.”
“Probably here on a research project,” Arlan said.
Captain Jay cocked his head and started to say something, but, once out of earshot from anybody near the beach, Arlan turned and told Captain Jay about the Happy Hobo, Boiled Bob and Lisa.
Jay chugged half the beer and said, “You sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything except Lisa’s gone. The police know nothing more than what the security guards could tell them, and the coast guard can only look for the boat as long as it’s in US waters. With the BVI a mile from here, they finished their search in a day. We’ve called friends in the BVI to be on the lookout for the boat. The BVI police have been notified.” Arlan paused and said, “Nobody’s seen anything.”
“That motherfuckin’ Boiled Bob. I should’ve killed him a long time ago when I had the chance.”
“You beat him senseless, if I remember right,” Arlan said.
“Should’ve killed him,” Jay said and stomped back to his boat, ignoring the two young women as he passed them.
Arlan followed and shrugged as he passed the two women, who seemed more than a bit slighted. “Sorry. You’ll need to wait for the next taxi to the campground,” Arlan told them and walked to catch up with Captain Jay. As an afterthought, he looked back and with a smile said, “He’s been a bit unstable since the accident.”
The two ladies shared confused looks and backed away toward the park.
Arlan caught up to Captain Jay as he jumped into his new boat and started the engines. Gizmo untied the lines and held them while Captain Jay rummaged through a bag below the center console. He pulled a T-shirt out and told Gizmo to shove off.
“Rookie, you need to get packed. We’re gonna go after that little weenie son-of-a-bitch.”
“Don’t you think we should wait until we get a little more information?” Arlan asked.
“From who? He’s goin’ down island. That’s the only thing that makes any sense. We’ll leave in the mornin’. I’ll pick you up,” Captain Jay shouted as he pushed the throttles forward, turning hard to starboard and motoring out of the bay as fast as he had entered.
Several liveaboard boat owners returned to their decks and shouted at Captain Jay as he sped out of the bay. Arlan wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Captain Jay turn a smile at him as he rounded the point and sped north to the resort.
Arlan walked to his Jeep and drove up the hill to Gallows Point. Captain Jay would stop at nothing to find Boiled Bob. What wasn’t clear to Arlan was whether Captain Jay’s priority was to find Lisa or to exact revenge on Boiled Bob for taking his girlfriend—if that’s what happened. Arlan wasn’t sure of anything, other than he was in for another adventure with Captain Jay—likely a dangerous one. Maybe he should tell Captain Jay he wouldn’t go along. He shook his head. Two things stood in the way of Arlan telling Captain Jay that he wouldn’t help—he had a difficult time turning down an adventure, and he was part of an island culture that demanded residents help each other when called upon. If you didn’t, you were either brand new to the island or on your way out, never having fit in.
* * *
After offloading the dinghy, Boiled Bob had meted out instructions to the crew and then instructed Tricia to take one of the dinghies, a bottle of water and a radio to the western tip of the island to watch for any boat that was heading to the south side of the island, which was not the normal navigation route through the BVI. If she spotted a power boat it would likely be a pursuit vessel, and she could at least warn Boiled Bob and the rest of the crew to defend themselves. There would be no chance of outrunning it. She was to return to the boat in the evening only to start her vigil the next morning.
For the better part of two days, while the crew worked on deck, Boiled Bob had spent his time in the stateroom studying the charts he had found on the Happy Hobo, mapping out a new course. He’d only occasionally climbed up top to check on the progress of the crew and give orders. He allowed none of his crew below deck except to eat and to use the aft head. Late in the afternoon of the second day anchored off Peter Island, Boiled Bob radioed Tricia, who’d reported that she’d seen no boating activity on the south side of the island. Bob told her to return and then stepped into one of the dinghies to see what the newly disguised Happy Hobo looked like from a distance.
Long Bill
had untied the line and tossed it into the bow of the dinghy. Boiled Bob made a pass around the Happy Hobo and saw that the raised wood cabin in the center of the deck, once varnished mahogany, had been painted white, and the gunwale, which had also been a brilliant natural wood finish was now an ugly green. The crew had found extra sail covers in the fo’c’sle. They were dirty beige, not the usual burgundy covers that made the unique boat stand out while at anchor. They’d wrapped the stainless steel cable rails that ran the length of the deck on both sides and kept people from falling overboard in rough seas with strips of white sheets they’d taken from the bunks below. Up close they looked shabby but from a distance it helped change the character of the boat. Boiled Bob was elated that his crew had done such a good job. The boat had started to take on a new identity—a clunky one.
He stopped a few feet off its stern and shouted, “What the fuck is this?”
The crew stopped what they were doing and looked toward Boiled Bob and then to Long Bill.
“What the fuck is a Pappy Bobo?” Boiled Bob shouted, pointing to a few scraggly, hand-painted lines that had been added to what was left of Happy Hobo.
After a long silence Long Bill said, “Boss, you wanted us to get rid of the name. I altered the letters a little.”
“I told you to get rid of the name, not change it to one only a moron could come up with.”
“Boss, every boat has a name. I thought getting rid of it all together would raise a few eyebrows.”
Boiled Bob shook his head and asked again, “What is a Pappy Bobo?”
LB looked down, shuffled his feet and then said, “It’s the name of our new boat. I was going to change it to, Bappy Bobo, but I wasn’t sure bappy was a real word.”
“And Bobo is a real word?”
Long Bill shrugged and smiled.
Boiled Bob gave up and climbed back on the Happy Hobo, or the Pappy Bobo.
The rest of the evening they discussed their new plan to get down island.
“Now that we have disguised the boat we’ll sail to Cooper Island early tomorrow for provisions,” he told them.
“But Boss, there’s no store on Cooper,” Long Bill said.
“Old Man Samuels will sell us provisions from the restaurant he manages.”
Maynard said, “How do you know it’s open. It’s hurricane season. There’ll be no tourists.”
“Old Man Samuels is always there. He lives there.”
“What if he doesn’t want to sell us any provisions?” Maynard had persisted, his hand absentmindedly reaching for his knife.
Tricia said, “Maybe we should go back.”
Pam and Mary nodded their heads in agreement.
Tricia continued and said, “We screwed up by leaving the provisions in the truck. We’ve taken too long to get away, and St. John is just right over there.” Tricia pointed to the lights of the east end of the island.
Boiled Bob fumed through his wooden smile. He had good reason to question Tricia’s loyalties. She seemed brighter than any of the other people who’d fallen under his spell. She’d shown up on the island a year earlier with a story that Boiled Bob knew was bullshit. Everybody had a story. He guessed she was running from a bad marriage or bad parents, or both. What bothered him most was that she seemed to have a stronger moral compass than any other of his misfit crew. Hell, he thought, she’s the only one with any morals. She had one foot in and one foot out of his control. He’d tried to keep an eye on her but couldn’t resist her adorable ass and gave her more leeway than he knew he should.
He looked at his crew and realized that, for now, he needed to bolster the morale on the boat. He said, “We’re home free. Look at this boat. Nobody’s going to recognize it.”
“Why are we going down island anyway?” Tricia asked.
“Because we all hate St. John and the idiots that live there,” Bob said, looking around at his crew. “We all decided this more than a week ago.” He then looked directly at Tricia and said, “It’s a little too late to back out now.”
Tricia and the other two women exchanged glances.
Boiled Bob couldn’t afford a mutiny, and he didn’t want to share the real reason for moving down island with anybody other than Maynard, who had given him the idea several weeks earlier.
Maynard had grown up in Frenchtown on St. Thomas but was close to the Rastafarians on the island. His uncle owned an old wooden sloop and would often take Maynard along on his trips down island where he traded in illegal goods and, more recently, smuggled firearms from Grenada to the Dreads on Dominica. Nobody was sure if it was the Rastafarians who lived on Grenada or if it was the Cubans, invited by Maurice Bishop to help build a new airport, that were supplying firearms to the Dreads. The intention was clear, though—the supplier wanted to help the Dreads create their own revolution on Dominica, and the Dreads were highly motivated to overthrow the government of Dominica. Prime Minister Regina Charles was part of the government movement that passed the Dread Act in the mid-70’s—a law that allowed imprisonment and worse to anybody on the island who grew dreadlocks. The police shot scores of Dreads, forcing many to escape to mountain hideaways. Many Dreads became violent and used theft, kidnapping and murder to meet their goal of overthrowing the Charles regime.
Boiled Bob looked toward Maynard, who sat with his permanent scowl near the bow of the boat sharpening his knife with a whetstone. Boiled Bob had met Maynard in a St. Thomas bar when he’d first arrived on the islands several years earlier, before he moved to St. John and gathered his group of flunkies. Bob was about to get his ass handed to him by a couple of locals when Maynard stepped in, brandishing his knife. The locals recognized Maynard and backed off. Boiled Bob learned later that Maynard was not saving him as much as he was interested in hurting the two locals with whom he’d had a long history. Boiled Bob and Maynard became loose friends, and a year later, when Boiled Bob found his way to St. John, Maynard, when not sailing down island, joined him and his followers. He often told Boiled Bob about the profitability of running drugs up and down the chain of islands, and Bob joined Maynard on a few trips. Running drugs didn’t appeal to him, but the more recent opportunity to make money transporting weapons to Dominica from Grenada did. Not only would he make money, but he’d be contributing to a revolution. Thanks to Maynard’s idea he now had a boat, a new vocation and a place to go where he’d be accepted.
A large fish, or something else, splashed a few feet from the boat, which brought Boiled Bob back to this new dilemma—what to tell his crew. He thought for a moment and decided to tell them his plan, but he’d leave out the violent nature of the Dreads and the gunrunning.
He told them that from Cooper they’d make their way to Dominica, where Maynard had introduced him to some local Dreads a few months earlier. There they would join the Dreads in their effort to overthrow the government. He stopped talking and waited for a reaction from the crew. Maynard’s eyes brightened. He was eager to get into a fight with anybody. Long Bill seemed confused but didn’t question the plan. Tricia looked shaken and glanced down the companionway. She started to say something but kept quiet. The other two women said nothing.
Boiled Bob knew he needed to have a private talk with Tricia. He might take her behind some bushes on the beach and give her what he was sure she wanted. She’d brushed off his advances lately, but he knew she’d come around after he showered her with compliments and gave her a thorough humping. They all did. He smiled at the thought.
“Are you with us Tricia?” Boiled Bob asked.
Tricia paused and then quietly answered, “Yes.”
Boiled Bob sighed and said, “Good. This is the new beginning we’ve wanted. And it’ll be perfect for us. Once the Dreads have taken over, we’ll be superstars on the island. They’ll protect us and our boat from anybody from St. John who’d be stupid enough to come after us. You’ll see.”
Long Bill and Maynard smil
ed. The women didn’t seem to share their enthusiasm. Boiled Bob would need to keep an eye on them. He stood and said to his crew, “Get some sleep.”
He then disappeared down the companionway and closed the hatch after him, leaving the crew to sleep on the deck.
Chapter 4
DAY 4: OCTOBER 17 (Morning)
The forward motion of the boat brought a rare smile to Boiled Bob. The boat listed as a strong gust of wind hit the sails. Long Bill, charged with captaining the newly disguised boat, had fallen off the wind slightly, but not enough that Boiled Bob needed to grab on to the table, fixed to the floor in the galley, to keep his balance. Boiled Bob stood and tight-roped his way to the sink where he poured out the remainder of his coffee and climbed the companionway onto the deck. Looking directly at Maynard, he told the crew that he’d be going onshore alone and that none of them were allowed to go below while he was gone. Maynard shrugged. The other crew members exchanged glances and went back to work.
Under an hour later the Pappy Bobo anchored on the northwest side of Cooper Island, and Boiled Bob took one of the dinghies to the wooden dock that served the small resort run by Old Man Samuels. Two small outboard fiberglass boats were tied to the dock on the lee side. He recognized one as belonging to the guesthouse. He wasn’t sure who owned the other boat, a typical narrow-beamed, twenty-four-foot fiberglass fishing boat with a fifty-horsepower outboard engine clamped to the stern, and he didn’t care. After tying off the dinghy he looked back at the Pappy Bobo and thought that the new disguise was sufficient enough at a distance to fool anybody familiar with the boat. Other than the five bunched up dinghies tied to its stern, the Pappy Bobo looked like a typical Caribbean sailboat and no longer like the impressive historic sailboat it was a couple of days ago.
Bob trudged barefoot through the sugary sand to the restaurant, the sun hot enough to cause sweat to roll off his brow by the time he reached the covered open deck of the restaurant. A small radio blasted a calypso song that the owner of the resort sang along with. The music was mixed with the sound of clanging utensils and the intermittent spray of running water splashing against a metal sink.
A Fortnight of Fury Page 5