The Perfidious Parrot (20 page)

Captain Noah remembered de Gier. De Gier was the foreigner who distributed hundred dollar bills. And the foreigner wanted information? As to where, in Key West, ex-military oddballs hang out when in the money? “A strange coincidence, Old Buddy.” Right there, where else? In the girlie bar where the captain himself was spending de Gier’s hundred dollar bills that very minute. In The Perfidious Parrot, where the captain, at this very same moment, spoke into his cellular phone, de Gier would find his quarry.

“Must take a sip from my freshly poured Budweiser, Bud Bud Buddieboy.” Noah burped happily. He asked de Gier to come along to grab his very own Bud Bud Buddieboy in Key West’s Number One Lapdancery. Bouncy bare bosoms, the captain explained, rhythmically a-shake between the clients’ knees. “Listen.” Captain Noah’s raised phone filled de Gier’s telephone cell with a seemingly random mixture of sound blasts: KeBUM, keBUM, kerrrr-
BUM
. Heeh Heeh Heeh
HEEH
-heeh. Yaah Yaah Yaah
YAAH
. Turrr-
RATTEL
Turrr-
RATTEL
. K
AHCHEE
kah-
CHEE
. “Can you hear the bare bosoms?”

“Not really,” de Gier said but the captain didn’t hear him. “You hurry now,” Captain Noah shouted. “I’ll be here awaiting.”

After the captain clicked off de Gier asked a passerby where The Perfidious Parrot bar might be. Near the Seaside Store? Marked by red/white divers’s flags? Opposite Pelican Hospital? Behind the house-high wall painting of a parrot? “Thank you.”

The passerby, a local man, seemed friendly. De Gier might as well pursue his luck. “What
is
lap dancing, sir?”

“Are you from out of town?”

“Holland,” de Gier said.

“Holland, Michigan,” the passerby said. “Always wondered what Michigan folks talk like. Amazing. It’s like a foreign accent.” The passerby said he had never been in Michigan. He had flown over it once. He had thought about what folks might be doing down there. Wasn’t that where a good doctor helps the terminally ill finish themselves off a little early? Seemed like a good idea. Maybe Michigan hookers become intimate too? Not like in his home state (the passerby smiled self-consciously) “here in Florida Masturbiria.”

De Gier looked surprised. “Prostitutes don’t take clients upstairs here?”

“We keep things public.” The passerby assured out-of-stater de Gier that a Floridian “upstairs” was a thing of the past. “Hookers wriggle on Johns’s laps. Johns sit ve-ry quietly.”

De Gier tried to visualize the procedure. “What if the danced-on one gets excited and touches the dancer?”

The passerby looked upset. “Don’t even think about touching here.”

De Gier bicycled past silver-gray weathered wooden houses facing a harbor quay. Sailboats were leaving the shore, fishing boats were approaching. Sailors with earrings and faded bandannas wrapped around shaven skulls sucked on curved pipe stems while they leaned against the bleached carcasses of beached boats. Beautiful young people raced about on ski jets. A rusted Chevrolet, coming from the opposite direction, passed de Gier’s bicycle.

Tempting images flashed through de Gier’s mind. Suppose he stayed here, bought one of the ramshackle buildings that displayed a
FOR SALE
sign, sat on a weathered gingerbread-decorated balcony sipping whiskey, playing the trumpet, living on lobsters, stonecrabs, and key lime pie? Watched the boats go by. Bought a boat himself. Sayukta could visit. Maybe have some Cuban or Haitian ladies for tea. Keep changing company. Admire Sergeant Symonds in her uniform hot pants while the Mynah bird whistled a waltz.

Sub-images flashed along. Home-cooked exotic dishes featuring the day’s catch. His boat would be bizarre, maybe a Chinese type mini-junk like one he had seen in the harbor. Drinking coffee in the early morning, like the old Cuban gentlemen he saw everywhere, perhaps he could assume a similar persona, wear an immaculate straw hat and pressed white pants, a dress shirt, white and brown shoes, sip espresso, get energy, do nothing with it. The waitress was on her way already. “
Otro cafecito, señor
Rai-nus?” (she would recognize a good tipper)

“Por favor, señorita.”

Pornographing the evenings away, fill up the days with sailing and diving.

De Gier got off his bicycle in front of The Perfidious Parrot.

The bar’s logo was drawn in a few ragged Zen-like lines on the gable of a former marine warehouse. The bird, wings half-spread cockily, looked aggressive.

“We like it,” the doorman said, noting de Gier’s interest in the logo. The doorman imitated the bird’s arrogant stance. His hooked nose resembled the parrot’s beak. His clothes looked feathery. The wide orange silk sash became the parrot’s belly, the white jacket its breast. The doorman’s tall boots changed into muscular bird legs.

“Impressive,” de Gier said politely.

“The painting of the parrot is based on Mayan art,” the doorman said. “Pre-Colombian Mexican, modelled on a sixth century cave painting, found it in the Chiapas mountains. Mayan priests, in return for gold coins, performed totem-animal dances. The parrot powered the cave-temple’s doorman. I drew the damn bird from memory. It came out good. He and I welcome the likes of you.” He pointed a thumb across his shoulder. “You do want to get in there?”

“If you please,” de Gier said politely.

The doorman held up his. “Ten dollars entry-money.”

De Gier pulled out his wallet.

“That’s to bounce you out with,” the doorman said, “in case you misbehave. You know enough to keep your paws off the flesh? No flirtatious attitude? No smoking, eating, sleeping?” He flexed muscles. “Any punishment will be painful.”

De Gier stared at the doorman.

The doorman looked noncommittal.

“Fuck you,” de Gier said, putting his wallet back into his jeans’s rear pocket.

The doorman narrowed his eyes. “
What
did you say, sir?”

“Fuck you.” De Gier looked noncommittal too.

The doorman was expensively dressed. It is tiring to roll about on crushed oyster shells at high noon under a hot sky. Does it really pay to engage in fisticuffs with a neatly attired tourist ready to spend money in a holiday setting?

“Welcome, Friend,” the doorman said.

Inside, music rocked. Captain Noah waved from his high bar stool. Nude, almost nude, semi-nude, three quarters-nude, barely/flimsily/fully attired women walked between tables, stripped or dressed in the aisles, kneeled or squatted in front of clients, danced on tables, rolled on the stage, slid along bannisters, strode in and out of doors, stood on their heads for short moments, stood on their feet for long moments, smiled slavishly, glared domineeringly, raised the corners of their lips up like madonnas, turned them down like hellish whores, twisted their bodies as if in great pain, or great need perhaps. Of what? Of love? Love of de Gier’s money? A bald host in a red silk cummerbund shook de Gier’s hand. “You know our rules, sir?”

De Gier breathed in deeply. The doorman behind him waved at the host. The doorman made an O out of his bent index finger and thumb. His lips said “o-kay” silently. The host retreated. “Welcome, Friend. Our establishment is your establishment, sir.”

“Budbuddyboy,” Captain Noah said at the bar. “There he is. Join me, you well-funded foreigner, you.”

The captain pointed at the dancers. “The olive-green beauty
in the black skinny dress with the thin shoulder strips is a Syrian national, and the black lady is Jewish, escaped the Sudan for Israel, escaped Israel for our Peace & Quiet. The white women on stage are Irish, the taller of the two is Nasty Nick’s.”

“Nasty who?” De Gier asked.

“The doorman.” Captain Noah was happy, he said, that he could introduce this new world to a new arrival. “Nasty Nick is an anthropology university graduate.”

“Changed his field?” de Gier asked.

“Adapted his field,” Captain Noah said. “Nick specialized in pre-Columbian civilizations, paid for his studies by professional boxing, brilliant student, good degree, nobody wanted him when he was done.”

“Too different?” de Gier asked.

“Those who are different stick out and get hammered down,” Captain Noah whispered. “I am French Canadian–different. Do you know,” the captain’s elbow dug into de Gier’s side, “that you are foreign-different? You know what that means? No?” The elbow dug harder. “That means that the non-different don’t understand you too well so you get to play the bad guy in their movies.”

The waitress was British, with an introverted ladylike expression. She was large breasted. She wore a tight jacket. The jacket’s V was covered by a rose-colored scarf. De Gier ordered fruit juice. “Spiked?”

“No thank you.”

She smiled. “You don’t drink alcohol?”

“No longer,” de Gier said.

“Admirable,” the waitress said.

“Drunks drool on them,” Captain Noah said, watching the
waitress walk away. “See those ladylike swaying hips? Wait till you see her ladylike thighs. Ahhh.” The captain shook his head wildly. “We must be serious. You’re here on business. The whereabouts of ex-military men. The crude oil business. I have some information there too. Which do you want first, oil or the bad soldier?”

“Is there a connection?” de Gier asked, much aware of femininity everywhere. He should be. It was expected, Captain Noah said. “Are Dutch ladies more attractive?”

“They aren’t here,” de Gier said.

The captain said he couldn’t imagine more beautiful breasts than those of the British waitress, not even in unknown Holland. Could Dutch women have longer legs than the olive-green Syrian, who happened to be passing their table that moment? Were Dutch female hips more seductively smoothly oval than the Irish ones now on stage?

De Gier watched Nasty Nick’s tall Irish girl friend dance with a black woman. The Irish girl wore ballet shoes only, the black woman seemed about to undress. The two dancers were kissing.

“Crude oil,” the captain said.

De Gier kept watching.

Captain Noah’s hands covered de Gier’s eyes. “You gave me money up front for information on the Caribbean oil trade. The
Sibylle
. Piracy near St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. Remember?”

De Gier promised to listen, while watching.

The captain said he had asked around. There was an oil-transshipment facility on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, one island south of St. Maarten. The facility belonged to a corporation
that transferred supertanker cargoes to storage tanks, then transferred the product again to small tankers. A wholesale business—buy large quantities at a discount, sell small quantities at a mark-up. Buy when oil is cheap, sell when oil is dear. Play the market. Demand and supply. “You have that?” Captain Noah asked. “Or did it get mixed up with butts and boobs?”

De Gier tapped his right temple. The information was recorded, 100 percent error free. He said so.

The captain also reported that computerized supertankers are handled by small crews. Five, six men at most, including the captain. Tanker crews are almost always on board because their ships do not waste time in harbors. Being stuck in confined quarters causes depression. A negative state of mind leads to abuse of alcohol, drugs and porno on TV. It would not be difficult to take over a ship run by a sad and befuddled crew. Captain Noah had heard that insurance premiums on tanker cargoes were high and rising.

“Aha,” de Gier said. The British waitress had returned with papaya juice on the house, compliments of Nasty Nick who could be seen smiling and waving in the doorway. De Gier smiled and waved back. The waitress made de Gier step off his barstool, sat on her heels, placed her tray on a low table, showed long smooth thighs. She settled him in a chair. She stepped out of her short skirt. She took her jacket off. She knelt between de Gier’s knees and dropped her brassiere. Her breasts rubbed his thighs. She pouted. Her body followed, like the chassis of a well-sprung sportscar, the bouncing beat of the rocky blues thundering from loudspeakers placed in all the corners. She made her tongue pop from between tight lips, then let it slither about lasciviously. She removed her slip. She rubbed
her pubic down against his knee. She leaned, turning, sideways, alternating breasts against alternating thighs. She got up and let her nipples caress de Gier’s cheeks, get lost in his moustache. She got dressed. De Gier handed over a banknote. She raised her skirt and inserted the bill into her slip. He thanked her. She thanked him for thanking her. She walked away.

“Oil,” the captain, still on his bar stool, said from above, “is a fascinating product.”

“What?” de Gier asked.

“You seem fond of women,” Captain Noah said. “I like that in a man. You’re not overly fond of men?”

De Gier checked the captain’s low brow, his ragged eyebrows growing into each other, the small squinting eyes, the earlobes grown into his neck, the jughead ears, the moth-eaten fluffy beard, the bent legs, the hairy toes showing in the captain’s open sandals. “Men are okay,” de Gier said politely.

“Men-liking men do have taste, though,” Captain Noah said. Key West had been restored by them, gloriously, subtly. Tasteful restaurants, cozy bars, perfect Beds & Breakfasts, lovely gardens, all demonstrated good taste. He himself had none. When at home in inland Maine he drove a rusted-out pick-up, the back loaded with empty beer cans, a deer rifle clamped against the cabin’s rear window. Noah, back home, slumped next to Suzie, an inflated life-sized doll strapped in her seat by the passenger’s safety belt. Suzie wore a blond wig that Noah had found in a catalogue. He dressed her in tight jeans and a T-shirt that said GUANA-PARTY? under a picture of copulating reptiles. Suzie wore a bottle between her legs. Noah smiled sadly. “The way I live there.”

“A bottle of alcohol between Suzie’s legs?” de Gier asked.

“The bottle fits into her body, mouth facing out. It’s a receptacle,” the captain explained.

De Gier shook his head.

“Not good?”

“I never thought of any of that,” de Gier said.