Bob Morris_Zack Chasteen 02 (7 page)

The crowd was about what I expected. The women wore a little too much makeup, the men a few too many gold chains. All of them were laughing just a little too hard and talking just a little too loud and straining just a little too much to have a good time.

It was like spring break for grownups, which made it slightly pathetic. Everyone seemed to be checking out everyone else, maybe deciding who they would pick when it came time to choose sides for naked volleyball.

My boarding pass said A-14, the window seat. A woman was sitting in it. Another woman sat next to her. Both were in their early thirties, I’d guess. Both had bottle-blond hair, lots of it, done up in a way that ought to be illegal outside of Texas or Tennessee. And both had devoted much time and consideration to their travel outfits, which were tight and revealing. They were pretty enough, if you like that over-the-hill-Hooter’s-girl kind of look.

“I hope you don’t mind I took your seat,” said the woman by the window. “We wanted to look out on all the pretty water.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I can use the extra room to spread out.”

They gave me the once-over.

“Well, I guess you
can,
” said the one in the middle seat. “You’re a long tall one, aren’t ya?”

I’ve been hearing that all my life, and I’ve never been able to come up with a suitable reply. So I just smiled and strapped myself in and sat back with my Red Stripe.

“Yoo-hoo, over here, hon,” said the woman by the window as she waved down a flight attendant carrying a tray full of rum punches. They each took one and passed over half a dozen empty cups in return.

The woman in the window seat leaned forward and looked at me and said: “So where you from?”

“Florida,” I said.

“Well, we’re from Knoxville . . .”

Knew it.

“You ever been there?”

I nodded my head yes. I didn’t bother telling them how I had been there twice when the Gators played Tennessee. We’d won one and lost one and I’d blown out my knee for the first time in the one we’d lost.

They talked. A lot. They both worked in “the financial industry,” which I took to mean they were probably bank tellers. Lynette and Darlene, that was them.

Darlene leaned closer to me.

“You traveling by your lonesome?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, I hear there isn’t no one who gets lonesome at Libido,” she said.

I shrugged.

“I hear things can get really wild and crazy,” she said.

I nodded.

“But that’s why we’re going there, isn’t it? To get wild and crazy.”

I wasn’t sure if I should shrug or nod, so I did a little of each.

Darlene looked at me.

“What’s a matter? Cat got your tongue?”

I shrugged.

“That’s OK,” she said. “I like the strong silent type.”

She snuggled up against me. Lynette elbowed Darlene.

“Girl, just cool your jets,” she said.

Then she leaned across Darlene and patted me on the knee.

“Just never you mind her,” Lynette said. “Darlene, she just got divorced a while back. And she’s hornier than a trumpet. Isn’t that right, Darlene?”

“Toot-toot,” said Darlene.

The two of them laughed.

I closed my eyes. I pretended to sleep. The plane took off. Pretty soon I didn’t have to pretend anymore.

Monk DeVane stood waiting for me on the curb outside customs at Sangster International. He was easy to spot. He wore a bright pink Libido polo shirt and white pants. He saw me and gave a big wave.

The sidewalk was hot and loud and thick with people. Dozens of cab drivers and hustlers worked the crowd with typical Jamaican zeal and rat-a-tat spiels. Several of them were in my face before I was halfway to Monk.

“Welcome to Jamaica, mon. You need a drivah? I got da wheels, mon, I got da wheels,” one said, falling in step with me. “Where ya be needing to go?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve already got a ride.”

Another one tapped my elbow and spoke low.

“Welcome to Jamaica, mon. You need ganja? You need crank? I be ya pharmacy, mon.”

I pulled away and reached the curb where Monk was grinning at me. I was still getting used to his gone-tropo appearance—the shaggy hair, the untrimmed beard. He looked like a particularly hirsute Jeff Bridges, a big guy with a big jaw and broad shoulders.

“Welcome to Jamaica, mon,” Monk said.

“What are
you
selling?”

Monk laughed.

“Misery and heartbreak,” he said. “Not sure exactly what I might have gotten you into here, Zack.”

“That bad?”

He wiggled a hand—so-so.

“Still hard to tell,” he said. “Afraid it might be one of those calm-before-the-storm things.”

“You figured out who’s creating the storm?”

Monk glanced to either side, cautious. It seemed a tad melodramatic, but what did I know? Maybe the bad guys were watching us. I had to get into the bodyguard mind-set, be suspicious of everyone.

“Not now,” Monk said. “We’ve got plenty of time to talk about that on the way to the resort. I’ll fill you in on everything.”

Just then a familiar trill shattered the sidewalk chatter.

“Hey, you! Over here . . .”

I turned to see Darlene and Lynette, watching us from alongside a big pink bus. The Libido Resorts logo was emblazoned down its side and the other passengers from our flight were filing onto it.

Darlene put her fists on her hips and gave me a cute little pout.

“Aren’t you coming with us?” she said.

“I’ll be along,” I said.

Lynette wagged a finger at me and winked.

“Alright, but don’t you forget about us,” she said. “We’re gonna party.”

They giggled and waved and got on the bus. Monk turned to me and cocked an eyebrow.

“Looks like you’re about to get lucky, my friend.”

“Believe I’ll pass, thank you.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a one-woman man, Zack.”

“Sad but true,” I said. “Think it suits me, actually.”

“That’s great. I’m happy for you.”

“Like hell you are,” I said. “Where’s your car?”

Monk smiled.

“Man, you know I always follow the Chasteen rules.”

When Monk and I were roommates, I had shared with him my grandfather’s three simple rules for surviving life in Florida
and the rest of the tropics: “Walk slow. Marry rich. And always park in the shade.”

“Unfortunately,” Monk said, “I can’t slow down or I’ll go broke. And I don’t plan to get married again, or I’ll go broker. But I can damn sure find a decent parking space. It’s way on the other side of the lot, under the trees.”

He pointed to the far end of the terminal, maybe a hundred yards away, where a stately row of royal poinciana trees was in full audacious orange bloom.

I grabbed my two duffels. I had overpacked, not knowing exactly how long I’d be staying or what the dress code might be for a bodyguard.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Monk stopped me.

“Naw, I’ll go get the van and pick you up.”

“I don’t mind walking,” I said. “Be good to stretch my legs.”

But Monk wouldn’t have it.

“Save your energy. You’re going to need it. Besides, it’s an hour’s drive to the resort. You might want to take a leak first.”

“Ah, the power of suggestion.”

Monk put a hand on my shoulder.

“Look, Zack,” he said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate you coming down here. Means a lot.”

“Now, don’t get sappy on me. I just wanted to beef up my resume.”

“We haven’t talked about money,” Monk said.

“I’m not worried about that.”

“I know you aren’t,” he said. “But I’ll make it right for you. Promise.”

He gave me a slap on the shoulder and headed off across the parking lot. I stepped back inside the terminal and found a men’s room and took care of everything that needed taking care of.

Then I made my way back to the curb, passing through the hawker gauntlet again. I turned down two offers of ganja and two offers from drivers wanting to show me all the sights in addition to selling me ganja.

The Libido bus was long gone. I stood on the curb, looking across the parking lot, trying to spot Monk. He’d said he was
driving a van. I was betting it was a pink van, just like the pink bus and Monk’s pink polo shirt.

Branding is everything these days. I was hoping my little stint as a bodyguard didn’t mean I’d have to wear one of the pink polo shirts. Pink doesn’t favor me. I’m a khaki-and-white kind of guy. Occasionally I will put on the plumage and wear something navy blue, but I always feel shifty about it for weeks afterward.

I glanced toward the royal poinciana trees at the far end of the terminal. They don’t call them royal poinciana trees down in the islands. They call them flamboyants. It’s a much better name. It says exactly what they are when they are in bloom—an in-your-face orange.

Only . . . these flamboyants were suddenly more orange than any I’d ever seen. They were consumed by orange, an inferno that billowed up from the pavement and above the trees, followed by a massive gray plume that lapped at the sky and swept out in all directions.

In the next instant came the roar and the shockwave of the explosion. I crouched behind a taxi, shards of glass and shreds of metal scattershot all around.

Then deathly silence. And then people screaming.

I leapt out from behind the taxi and ran to the parking lot. I hadn’t made it more than twenty yards when the second explosion came, followed almost instantly by a third.

I hit the pavement, landing behind a concrete balustrade where a young woman lay unconscious, her clothes singed, her face bleeding. The asphalt must have been a hundred degrees, but the air around us was suddenly even hotter. Green needles on a nearby stand of casuarinas crinkled and turned black.

I scooped up the young woman and retreated toward the terminal, casting a glance back toward the flamboyant trees. They were gone. So was the far end of the parking lot. All that remained was a gaping hellhole ravaged by flames.

This time the bastards weren’t bluffing.

“I am sorry about what happened to your friend,” said the man sitting across the desk from me.

We were in a small stuffy office at the Mo Bay headquarters of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and he was a smallish black man wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and a black tie—Inspector Eustace Dunwood. His close-cropped hair had a tinge of gray and so did his tidy mustache.

“Has anyone figured out how it happened?”

“Not really,” Dunwood said. He spoke in the measured tones Jamaicans use with foreigners who can’t begin to understand their lyrical patois. “There are witnesses who say they saw a van, one belonging to the Libido resort, explode.”

“That would have been Monk’s.”

Dunwood opened a manila envelope, fished around inside, and pulled out a charred leather wallet. He handed it to me. I opened the wallet. The plastic window that held the driver’s license had been singed, but I could make out what was left of the license’s green logo. “The Sunshine State,” it said. Below it was Monk’s name—Donald Wilson DeVane Jr.

“Is this the only thing of his that you have?”

Dunwood took a deep breath and exhaled.

“For now. Our investigators are still trying to determine what is what.”

My gut ached. I could have been in the van with Monk. It could have been shreds of my former existence that Eustace Dunwood was carrying around in a manila envelope.

“How many others?” I said.

“At least three. Maybe more. A half dozen vehicles destroyed. It’s fortunate the blast occurred where it did, at the far end of the parking lot. Otherwise it would have been much worse.”

I handed Monk’s wallet back to Dunwood. He stuck it in the envelope. He set the envelope atop a small stack of papers. He tapped the papers, straightening them, then squared the stack with the corners of his desk. It was the neat and orderly desk of a neat and orderly man.

“There are a few questions I must ask,” he said.

“Please, go ahead.”

“You stated that Mr. DeVane was at the airport so that he might give you a ride to the Libido resort, correct?”

I nodded.

“And he met you outside of customs and the two of you chatted there on the curb for a few minutes.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So why is it that you did not accompany him to the van?” Dunwood said.

“He told me to wait for him on the curb. He said it was a pretty good drive to the resort and suggested I might want to use the men’s room before we got started.”

“And did you?”

“Did I what? Use the men’s room?”

Dunwood nodded.

“Why yes, I did.”

“Did anyone see you use it?”

I looked at him.

“Exactly what are you getting at here?”

Before Dunwood could answer, the door to the office opened without anyone knocking on it and in walked two men, white guys.

The younger of the two, he might have been thirty, showed a
lot of white teeth in a face that was tan and smooth. He wore a blue blazer with some kind of fancy crestlike insignia, white polo shirt, khakis with sharp creases, and leather loafers with socks that matched the pants. He looked as if he had just stepped off a golf course, a very private golf course.

“Inspector,” he said, nodding at Dunwood. He stuck out his hand for me to shake. “Jay Skingle, U.S. Embassy, assistant consul for Homeland Security. Got here as soon as we could. On behalf of the ambassador, I’d like to express our sympathy over your loss and any hardship you might have suffered. We stand by to do whatever we can to assist you in this matter.”

His words flowed out like oil from a can. A born diplomat.

The other guy didn’t introduce himself. And Skingle didn’t bother to do it for him.

The other guy moved to a corner and leaned in it. He was a small man, quite slender. He wore plain brown pants and a plain beige shirt. His face was all angles, like something a cubist painter might draw, with a sharp nose, boney cheeks, a sharp brow—the very definition of a hatchet face.

Skingle sat down in a chair next to mine and gave me the once-over, his expression pinched. Guess the bloodstains on my shirt didn’t do it for him. Dunwood had told me the girl I’d pulled from the parking lot would be alright.