They slept in the next morning, lazily making love to each other until the craving for good Colombian coffee over took their lust for sex. It was a quick walk along the cobblestones to a place named Pichichi’s Café. Irene felt a little out of place, still wearing her rumpled cocktail dress but no one appeared to notice, nor care. Just another tourist lady who hadn’t made it home the night before. In the background, Bachata played on the radio.
The waiter placed two silver carafes on the table. One contained dark espresso coffee, the other scalded milk. They drank off the first pot of coffee while studying the breakfast menu and ordered a second.
“How about a boat ride,” Jack offered, biting into his toasted western sandwich.
Irene was picking apart a balled honeydew melon, topped with a generous scoop of granola and yogurt, all drizzled in dark honey. “Boat ride where?”
“Punta Arena. It’s a fishing village on the island of Tierrabomba. We take a lanchas from the beach in front of the Hilton. It’s about a ten minute ride. We can get a drink, walk the beach. And I need to look someone up.”
“Business?” Irene eyed him carefully.
“Isn’t it always,” he smiled. “But it will…”
Irene’s spine seemed to lengthen and she threw up a hand.
“… boletín… huracán Amelia… aumentando… categoría tres…” Irene just caught the words from the tinny radio above the bar. “… reloj de tormenta tropical…”
“Damn. Did you catch any of that,” Irene questioned as the music started up again.
“Catch any of what?” Jack looked up innocently. “I was suggesting a boat ride.”
“Tres. That’s three, right? Category three! My Spanish is not so good,” Irene looked around for the waiter, “I think there’s a hurricane brewing somewhere. I need to call the weather office at the airport.”
“Okay. Look, we’re headed back to the hotel. You can change into beachwear and make the call from your room. I’ll just settle up with our waiter.”
They waved down a cab and Jack negotiated a lift back to the Hilton and a half-hour later, Irene caught up with him on the beach. Jack was eyeing an open boat that looked to have been cobbled together from packing crates. It was painted a bright green with orange trim and the outboard engine that hung off the back looked small, but reasonably new. “What’s the deal with the hurricane?” he asked.
Irene had changed into khaki cargo pants and a sleeveless white blouse. “Category three and soon to be a category four with sustained winds of one hundred and forty miles per hour. It’s strengthening and about to make landfall over the island of Saint Vincent before heading north-west across the Caribbean Basin between us and Jamaica.”
“Christ. Is that going to delay our flight back?”
“No. I can fly around the backside of it,” Irene assured him. “It might add a couple of hours to our flight-time but I’ll know better in the morning.” Her expression clouded. “This piece of floating debris our boat?”
“Geez! Shush, would yah?” Jack pulled her to one side. “Don’t you know boats are like women– easily offended?”
“I know a pile of crap when I see one and I’m not stepping into this one. How about that nice shiny boat. The one with the blue awning.”
“That’s called a bimini, and to get a true sense of the island, we need to arrive in a classic native skiff, not some plastic jacked-up party boat named– crap, what is that– Bad Simpson?”
“What? You don’t like the picture of Bart?”
“Sheesh. That boat’ll cost me twice as much.”
“Yeah. But we might survive the trip.”
The ten-minute trip to the island was a five-minute spine jolting blast across the waves in Bad Simpson. The dude behind the console, wearing a jazzy wife-beater shirt and cool shades, spun the wheel and landed them at the rickety old Punta Arena dock. Jack tried to negotiate a ride back to the mainland later, but the skipper was having none of it. He took a disdainful look at the shanty town and, remembering the bikinis he had left behind on the beach, scooped up Jack’s money and gunned his engines. “See yah, Dads,” he shouted over the roar of the outboards.
“That’s just great,” Jack complained as they stepped off the staging. Four street dogs lifted their heads from where they dozed in the shade of a sea grape and eyed the new prospects carefully. One dog with a stubby tail dutifully got to its feet and strolled over to sniff Irene’s ankles. Satisfied, the dog looked up with beseeching eyes and Irene stooped to pay the arrival tax: A scratch behind the ears. With the formalities at an end, the dog turned and trotted out to the main road and the other dogs, seeing that things were well in hand, went back to the more important affairs of stretching, yawning and scratching.
“Looks like we got a guide,” Irene commented as the dog turned to be sure they were following. “Okay Stubby, we’re coming,” she called out and was rewarded with a wag of the shortened appendage.
Jack eyed the dog. “He’s got the waddle of a three-legged duck.”
Stubby faltered and looked back over a shoulder.
“Geez! Shush, would yah?” Irene scolded. “If you’d look more closely you’d see Stubby’s a girl dog, and like all woman, she’s easily offended.”
“Perfect. You don’t happen to have a dog biscuit in your bag?” was Jack’s glib reply.
Stubby turned toward the village and led them to the main road, her bum twitching as she pranced along the sandy track. To one side, the surf slid up the beach to where colorful fishing boats were pulled up out of the reach of the waves. Men stood about worktables and watched as the day’s catch was being cleaned and sorted.
On the opposite side, a row of dilapidated shanties were clustered together under the palms. Built of wood siding with patch tin roofs, the shacks sprouted up at weird angles and appeared to be supporting one another. If one should collapse, surely they all will, Irene thought, studying the stooped and bowed walls. Women waved and smiled as they hung laundry on barbed-wire fences or swept the dirt with brooms made of twigs. “Where’s Stubby taking us?” Irene asked.
“Oh I know exactly where she’s taking us,” Jack answered. “Someplace where, like all women, she’ll scrounge a free meal.” And he pointed ahead to a thatched hut built on a rise of sand overlooking the sea. It supported a wrap-around deck and over the door the sign proclaimed the establishment to be “Rob’s Café.” Stubby reached the steps, trotted up and dropped to the floorboards next to the door; she panted a moment, slurped a long tongue around her lips, dropped her nose onto her paws and closed her eyes; she was prepared to wait.
“Well at least we can get a cold beer,” Jack said.
Inside, the place was dimly lit with sunlight streaming though raised shutters along the ocean side. There were four dusty tables and a bar across the end of the room. The waitress came out and, without a greeting, pointed to a table in the corner were they could catch the sun and a view of the sea.
She was a heavy-lidded, doe-eyed local with lusty black hair that hung straight to her waist.
Irene took a second look. “She should be standing behind the counter at a McDonald’s, not slinging beer in men’s bar.”
Jack took the opportunity to run his eyes across the lusty breasts. “They mature early down here.” He didn’t quite hide the appreciative smile.
The girl was barefoot, wore leggy jeans with a gray, deeply scalloped, cotton top. Her cinnamon-colored breasts, looking quite full on her slight frame, were richly presented in a lacy push-up bra and when she leaned forward to swipe the table with her dishtowel, Irene noted that the girl treated Jack to an eyeful.
He was usually pretty discrete about such things but this time he couldn’t help himself. He could see all the way down to the girl’s navel. “We’ll have a couple of cold beers,” Irene said, being Jack seemingly had lost the power of speech.
The girl straightened and Jack, tearing himself away from his preoccupation, added an order of fish fingers. “And tell Rob his primo is here,” he called after the girl. The girl nodded, but again, said nothing.
“Primo?” Irene asked.
“Spanish for cousin,” Jack replied, watching the girl’s round buttocks, tightly bound in blue denim, disappear into the backroom.
“You have a cousin on the island?”
Jack returned his attention to Irene. “An acquaintance. Rob and I have had some business dealings in the past.”
Irene let her eyes roam about the room. “Don’t tell me, the joint is for sale?” she taunted him. “I didn’t see a sign.”
There was the hot sizzle of grease and Jack looked back toward the bar. “Rob’s a good source of information,” he explained. The girl came out and presented her behind again, this time as she leaned into the cooler for the beer.
Jack definitely has the hots, Irene thought as she watched the girl fish a hand through the ice-water. There was no disputing the feline heat and Irene fought to keep from telling Jack that the girl was a bit young for him. Irene finally looked away, not wanting to appear churlish.
The frosty bottles were placed on the table and, without the benefit of a glass, Irene drank from the neck. “So what kind of information does Rob supply?”
Jack shifted nervously and stalled his answer by sipping beer. “Local gossip, mostly.” Jack looked around hoping for the girl to break into the conversation but she was in the back with the deep fryer and of no help to him. “The location is good,” he started in, “a short boat ride from the airport and, well property here is still reasonably priced.”
“Really…” Irene caught him off-guard. “And just how much would I have to pay for an acre of property on the beach, if I was going to build, I mean.”
For a realtor, planning to invest on the island, it should have been an easy question but Jack’s expression went blank as he wrestled for a plausible answer.
Irene let him off the hook. “Ah, here’s the fish.”
The waitress dropped a platter of golden fingers onto the center of the table; sizzling strips of grouper deep-fried in beer batter. “The ketchup is a little sweet,” Jack warned, “you may want to mix in a little Tabasco sauce.” He squeezed ketchup from the plastic bottle and stirred with a fork.
“Thanks, I’ll stick with the tartar sauce,” Irene replied, biting into a crispy morsel of fish and washing it down with icy beer. “God. That’s the best!”
“That’s because this grouper was swimming around, minding its own business this morning, just before he took the hook. This fish is fresh, never seen a freezer. You can’t beat the flavor.”
“‘ello mates. Cherries been looking after yah, I see.”
The man standing at the side of the table was in his late fifties with stringy white hair loosely held back in a ponytail. Irene recognized his accent as Australian.
“Ah, Rob,” Jack half rose from his chair to shake the man’s hand. “This is my friend, Irene.”
Rob gave Irene the once over, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Irene, love. Pleasure’s mine. How’s that bit o’ fish?”
“Excellent,” Irene smiled. “Best I’ve tasted in a very long time, in fact.”
“Cherries will be pleased. I had her out in the boat at five this morning to get that lovely.” He winked and nodded toward Irene’s plate before turning, “Cherries? Three cold ones when you’ve got a moment.”
Rob slipped into a chair. “And how’s the volleyball match?” he asked Jack.
“Don’t know, actually,” Jack answered truthfully. “Not much interest in watching bimbos knocking a ball around.”
Rob glanced at Irene. “Good answer,” he smiled, and turning back to Jack: “We okay here, mi amigo?” And he tossed his chin in Irene’s direction.
“We’re good. She’s a contact.”
Irene had been called many things in her fifty-two years, but never a contact.