“Yo can have all de women on de whole islan,” Ray said, his arms spread wide.
Arlan looked up and down the empty beach and said to Captain Jay, “Looks like you’ll be sleeping alone.”
Ray laughed loudly.
Jay snorted and said, “I’m thirsty. How about a beer?” He then looked to Ray and said, “On you.”
Captain Jay and Arlan spent the evening studying nautical charts, trying to figure out how far the Happy Hobo could have sailed, assuming Dominica was its intended destination.
“Why don’t we just go to Dominica and wait?” Arlan asked.
“That dipshit and his stupid crew could hit a rock and sink before they get there. I’m gonna kill him before somethin’ like that happens.”
Arlan rolled his eyes and sipped his beer.
Chapter 7
DAY 6: OCTOBER 19
Early the next morning Captain Jay and Arlan sat at a heavy wood table in director chairs made of faded green canvas seats and backs tied to flimsy, wood frames. Calypso music drifted from a cheap radio Ray kept in the kitchen. Arlan struggled with the chair, trying to settle its pointed legs to dig evenly into the sand.
“You got ants in your pants?” Captain Jay asked, glancing at Arlan as he folded up the chart he’d been studying.
Arlan settled into a seat that listed slightly to his left and looked at Captain Jay, whose chair leaned forward, causing him to lean onto the table with his elbows. Arlan wondered how many patrons fell over into the sand when they allowed their chairs to settle on the back legs.
Ray brought out two plates of eggs and jonny cakes and put them on the table. He returned a minute later with glasses and a pitcher of juice. Arlan and Jay sat quietly and enjoyed their breakfasts as the Caribbean sun rose, its heat intensifying proportional to its azimuth.
Thirty minutes later Ray shouted from the kitchen, “Yo need to listen to dis.”
Ray turned up the volume of the radio. The thin sound of a British-accented voice, mixed with static, repeated a BBC news flash.
…Grenada Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, and several of his cabinet members have escaped house arrest, where they’d been placed earlier this month by a hard-line military junta called the People’s Revolutionary Army. Tensions on Grenada continue to grow, leading some to speculate that the US might get involved if the political infighting becomes violent…
“Charlie was right. We might be heading into a shit storm,” Arlan said.
“Damn, Rookie. You still don’t know nothin’. Grenada’s two hundred miles south of Dominica,” Captain Jay said. He then stood, walked into the kitchen and handed Ray a wad of cash. He said, “Thank you for your help, Mr. Samuels. We gotta go.”
Ray followed Jay out of the kitchen and said, “Take care of yoselves and don’t be gettin into any trouble yo can’t get out of.”
“Don’t worry about us. Worry about the other guys,” Captain Jay said with a grin and walked to the dock.
Arlan smiled at Ray, shrugged and followed Captain Jay to the boat.
* * *
Captain Jay and Arlan left Ray Samuels and Cooper Island and in six hours, a third of the time a sailboat would have taken, they were a mile off the western tip of Anguilla and four miles north of St. Martin.
“What’s that?” Arlan asked, pointing to a shape in the water a hundred yards off their port side.
Captain Jay looked in the direction Arlan was pointing and shrugged.
“It looks like a dog,” Arlan said.
Captain Jay turned the boat toward the shape and a minute later both were laughing. A golden retriever was swimming toward Anguilla. Jay brought the boat next to the dog, and Arlan dropped the dive platform. Jay steered ahead of the dog and put the boat in neutral, waiting for the waves to push the retriever near the stern. When it was close, Arlan grabbed its collar and pulled it up onto the deck. It immediately licked Arlan’s face and, when Arlan stood to raise and secure the dive platform, it trotted up to Captain Jay, who rubbed the dog’s ears and pushed the throttle back into gear. Arlan found an old Folgers’ coffee can in the gunwale used to throw chum in the water when fishing for yellowtail snapper. He filled it with fresh water and set it on the deck. The happy retriever lapped it up and then alternately nudged Arlan and Jay with its nose and wagged its tail.
“We should head to Road Bay on Anguilla and drop the dog off at the dive shop. The owner’s a friend of mine. She may have heard about a missin’ dog,” Captain Jay said.
They skirted the north shore of Anguilla, looking carefully in the bays they passed for any sign of the Happy Hobo. Five miles up the coast Captain Jay slowed the boat and aimed its bow at a dock in the center of the horseshoe-shaped bay. Arlan jumped to the dock and tied the boat off, and they walked down the beach toward a wooden shack with a dive flag painted on its side. The happy golden retriever trotted behind them, acting like he was home.
They walked into the dive shop and were warmly greeted by a tall West Indian woman who hugged Captain Jay and introduced herself to Arlan as Myrtle. She then saw the golden retriever trot into her shop and shouted, “Tishna. Where you been?”
She bent down and Tishna tried to jump into her arms, almost knocking her over. Once Tishna had settled down, Myrtle explained that the dog’s owners were from the island and had been sailing with friends for a couple of days around the island. Sometime this morning Tishna had disappeared, evidently having jumped, or fallen, off the boat. They hadn’t noticed her absence until they were back in port.
“They are going to be so happy to see that Tishna has survived,” Myrtle said. She looked at Captain Jay and asked, “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Jay explained. Tishna nudged Arlan’s leg, and he squatted down to pet her.
“The owners are out on one of my boats now looking for Tishna. I’ll need to radio them. But I’ll tell you what they told me when they returned without Tishna. They said an ugly green and white yawl, towing several dinghies, sailed past them yesterday and looked to be heading straight for St. Marten.”
Captain Jay smiled, looked at Arlan and said, “Told you, Rookie.”
Arlan and Captain Jay thanked Myrtle and walked back to the boat. They motored around the west end of Anguilla, and Captain Jay then pointed the boat south to make the four-mile run to the crowded Dutch side of St. Martin. While there was light, they searched the bays on the west side of the island for the Happy Hobo before returning to Simpson Bay, near the airport, to find a place to sleep. Arlan knew they would have to be lucky to find the Happy Hobo without help. They needed to work closely with Forrest and his air search, but Arlan didn’t want to bring up the obvious to Captain Jay quite yet. It was always best to let Jay come up with things on his own.
* * *
Ninety miles to the east-southeast of Cooper Island and four miles south of Anguilla, in the small bay to the west of Grand Case, Boiled Bob’s crew was finishing up the paint job they’d started the previous afternoon. Earlier in the day, Boiled Bob and Maynard had taken the dinghies around the point to the dock in the center of Grand Case, having left one dinghy with the crew so they could paint the sides of the boat. Boiled Bob figured that if they sold them all they could get a ride back to the Pappy Bobo from one of the new buyers.
By late afternoon, having secured a buyer who’d told them he’d take all five but needed to go to his house to get the twenty-five hundred dollars and could return to the dock with the money in the evening, Boiled Bob returned to the Pappy Bobo to check on the crew’s progress. He smiled as he rounded the point and could see the boat from a distance. Two wide green stripes had been painted along both sides of the hull. The new green stripes, along with the ugly green wood trim of the gunwale and the white-painted wood trim around the cockpit, gave the Pappy Bobo the look of a cheap fiberglass replica of the real thing. He was confident that they could sail anywhere, maybe even back
to the USVI, and not be recognized. It didn’t matter to Bob that he’d ruined a classic sailboat.
Boiled Bob arrived at the stern of the Pappy Bobo, shaking his head once again at the moniker LB had come up with. LB and Tricia were on the deck helping Pam and Mary who were in the dinghy putting the finishing touches on the green stripes. Bob climbed up onto the sailboat and asked LB, “What the hell is a Pappy Bobo, again?”
LB looked at his feet.
Boiled Bob smiled and said, “I’m just giving you shit. We’ve made a deal to sell all five dinghies.” He looked at the companionway, then back at the crew. “How long before you finish?”
“Probably more than an hour,” LB said. “And we’ll need a dinghy to finish up.”
“No problem. With the deal our buyer is getting I’m sure he’ll give Maynard and me a ride back in this one,” Boiled Bob said, in the happiest mood he’d been in since stealing the boat and kidnapping Lisa.
Boiled Bob went below deck. Fifteen minutes later Tricia ventured down the companionway, in spite of LB’s warning not to.
Bob heard loud knocking on the door of the main berth, causing him to stop fondling Lisa, who was screaming through the gag he’d stuffed in her mouth.
“Bob, I need to speak with you,” Tricia said in a shaky voice.
“Speak!” Boiled Bob shouted. “Then get the hell out of here.”
“You need to leave Lisa alone. We need to take her to the island and let her go.”
Bob laughed out loud and shouted, “Why would we do that?”
“Because we’re all tired of you molesting her. This wasn’t part of the bargain. We’re not monsters. We don’t hurt people,” Tricia said with more resolve in her voice.
Boiled Bob shouted, “Bullshit!” but wondered if the crew was planning something against him.
He pulled his shorts up and opened the cabin door, knocking Tricia back a couple of steps.
“What I do with Lisa is my business, and if you interfere you’ll regret it,” Bob said. Spit landed on Tricia as he spoke.
Tricia backed up to the companionway ladder and climbed up to the deck. Bob followed and looked at LB.
“Are you part of this?”
“No, Boss. I mean…”
Bob looked over the rail at the two women in the dinghy and shouted, “How about you two? Are you part of this mutiny?”
The women shrank down into the dinghy.
LB said, “Boss, this isn’t a mutiny. Tricia is just upset about Lisa, that’s all.”
Boiled Bob glared back at Tricia and said, “I’m going back to get our money and Maynard. You’d better straighten your attitude out by the time I return, or you’ll be tied up down there too. I’ll let Maynard have his way with you.”
Boiled Bob pulled the dinghy to the stern and jumped in. He said to LB, “Keep an eye on Tricia,” and sped away in the dinghy around the point and back to the dock at Grand Case.
* * *
Boiled Bob and Maynard stood on the beach next to the dock at Grand Case. The buyer of Boiled Bob’s stolen dinghies had come to the dock with twenty-five hundred dollars to pay for all of the dinghies, save the dinghy Bob left with LB to finish up the work on the boat. When Boiled Bob asked the man, a stocky Frenchie who went by the name of Xavier, for a ride back to their boat he agreed with a smile. He’d just made a great deal. Each of the dinghies was worth four times what he paid for them. Boiled Bob was smiling too. The buyer never checked the two dinghies with the water-logged motors. A minute later Boiled Bob, Maynard and Xavier left the dock in one of the dinghies. Xavier drove while Boiled Bob and Maynard sat in the front of the inflatable Zodiac. In a couple of minutes they rounded the point into the small bay where the Pappy Bobo was anchored.
“Where’s our dinghy?” Boiled Bob asked. “It’s not tied to the boat.”
“Maybe it’s on the other side of the boat,” Maynard answered. “They could still be painting.”
Xavier joked, “Did you lose a dinghy? I have one I could sell you.”
Boiled Bob turned and glared at Xavier, whose smile vanished as soon as he saw Bob’s expression. Bob turned to look back at the boat but saw something on the beach, which was much closer to them than the Happy Hobo. He had to squint to make it out in the vanishing sunlight.
“Get us to the beach. Now!” Bob shouted at Xavier.
Two female figures had beached the Pappy Bobo’s dinghy and were climbing out. Xavier had turned his dinghy toward the beach and turned the throttle for maximum speed. Bob was sure Xavier had no idea what was going on and was too afraid to question his command. The girls’ heads turned toward the fast-moving dinghy, and they ran toward the tree line and a small hill behind the beach. Xavier ran the Zodiac up onto the sand, tilting the motor as it exited the water so he wouldn’t ruin the prop.
Closer, Boiled Bob could see whom he was chasing.
“That damned Tricia. She’s somehow gotten Lisa loose,” Bob said.
It would be close, but Bob was sure they could grab the women before they disappeared into the bush.
“Looks like you left the wrong man in charge,” Maynard said.
Boiled Bob was first out of the dinghy with Maynard close behind. Tricia was first into the tree line and disappeared. Lisa tripped and fell as she entered the bush. Bob grabbed her wrist and brought her to her feet. Maynard gave chase to Tricia but returned in less than a minute.
“It’s too dark in there. She could be anywhere,” he panted.
Xavier had cautiously walked up to the two men and Lisa and saw that she was bruised and was not with these men consensually.
“What are you doing with her?” he asked.
Before Xavier could say anything else, Maynard stepped up to him and drove his knife under his ribcage and up into his heart. Xavier was dead as soon as he hit the ground.
Lisa cringed in Boiled Bob’s grasp.
“Fuck, Maynard. What are you doing?” Bob shouted. “You’re a fucking lunatic!”
“No choice,” Maynard calmly replied, wiping his knife on the dead man’s shorts. “He saw us, saw the boat and saw Lisa. He’d have gone to the police, and we’d be sitting in a jail cell in a few hours.”
“We could have tied him up. He wouldn’t have gotten free until we were well away from here.”
Maynard flashed a humorless smile, grabbed Xavier’s ankles and dragged him into the tree line.
Boiled Bob stood, still holding Lisa’s wrist and stared at Maynard for a long time.
Lisa was first to speak. She tried to twist away from Bob and said, “You and your miniature sociopath are going to wish you’d never started this stupid venture. You’re going to both pay with your asses when Captain Jay catches up with you.”
Maynard snickered, held his knife up and said to Boiled Bob, “Control your play toy, or I will.”
Boiled Bob wanted to kill Maynard and leave his body and his knife on the beach. Let the authorities ponder about what happened as he sailed away. But Maynard had the knife and was good with it. And Tricia had escaped and would likely run directly to the authorities. He saw no way out of this except to run.
“Tie the Zodiac to the Avalon. I’ll hold onto Lisa while you drive,” Bob said and dragged Lisa toward the two dinghies.
* * *
It was almost dark when Captain Jay and Arlan entered Simpson Bay, immediately south of St. Martin’s international airport.
“Where are we going?” Arlan asked.
“The guy I buy electronics from has a boat slip near his store, which is near here. He also owns a guesthouse where we’re gonna stay.”
Arlan knew Captain Jay sometimes bought duty-free electronics from St. Martin to take back to sell to friends on St. John. He had no idea if it was a profitable business for Captain Jay. Most of his business ventures outside his dive business at the resort were not well th
ought out and usually resulted in Captain Jay owing somebody a lot of money.
“How do you know he’s here, or that there are rooms available at the guesthouse? Did you call him?”
A jet landed as they idled through the harbor, its landing lights lighting the runway and its engines drowning out their conversation. After it landed and crawled toward the terminal Jay said, “Jesus, Rookie. He’s here, and we’ll get rooms.”
Arlan rolled his eyes. The eternal optimist, he thought. Arlan had seen it dozens of times—Captain Jay shooting from the hip announcing that “we’ll get what we want,” often needing to change his want to the only available option. He would then smile with an expression that said “I told you so.”
“You know this search is going to take forever without air support. Even then it might not be successful,” Arlan said as they idled through the bay and into a cut that led to a crowded harbor, which was lit up by the lights of the multiple boat slips and businesses on its periphery. It also had the smell of stagnant water, like many unnatural harbors carved from land or shallow water that, in the short-term, seemed like a way to enhance the local economy or to beef up ancient naval dominance, but failed in its long-term environmental responsibility to properly flush or filter sediment and contaminants that inevitably seeped into the harbor from upland development.
Captain Jay didn’t respond for a while, searching the harbor for the Happy Hobo. He then said, “As soon as we’re in our rooms you’re gonna call Tommy and figure out a way we can coordinate their air search with what we’re doin’. This place is full of ugly boats. It’ll be easier to spot it from the air.”
Arlan tied the boat off in a marina slip, grabbed his bag and followed Jay across a deserted street to a guesthouse with few lights on. Arlan wondered why the town seemed empty and then remembered that it was off-season. The owner of the guesthouse was not around, but his manager recognized Captain Jay and gave him a warm welcome and led them to two small rooms. Thirty minutes later they walked to a restaurant a couple of blocks away where Arlan used a payphone to call Tommy while Captain Jay introduced himself to three local beauties who sat at the bar. A radio blared from a ceiling speaker near a hall that led to the restrooms where the phone was located, making it difficult to hear Tommy when he answered the phone.
A Fortnight of Fury Page 9