That set them abuzz with a fresh round of banter, catchphrases and bad jokes. When they’d exhausted the possibilities, a sandy-looking blonde said, “You should go talk to Denise. Her roommate’s been shacked up with a copywriter the last couple of nights.” Touching off a new round of etc. etc. etc. “That’s Denise, second table over, with the carrot top,” she added when the babble died down.
I made sure I had the right table and the correct carrot top in my sights, thanked them and sauntered over. Denise sat chatting with a small group of bored-looking lounge lizards. “Excuse me, Denise?” I said. She looked up and gave me her attention. “My name is Jack. Your friends over there (I pointed at the group) said you might be able to help a gent in distress.” I explained my plight, embellishing it a bit.
“Not exactly friends,” she sniffed. “I haven’t even seen my so-called roommate for the past two days,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d ran off together by now. Is this a permanent arrangement you’re looking for, Jack?”
“No, just for tonight. I’d be surprised if their romance lasts even that long.”
“Have a seat and let’s get acquainted,” she said, turning away from the group toward a nearby, empty table. “I could use another Mai Tai.,” she added. She led me over, and the rest didn’t seem sorry to see her leave.
I flagged a barmaid, er, G O, and ordered drinks. “So where are you from?” Denise asked. Her face had a vaguely rodent-like quality, and her curly, strawberry hair had been absorbing salt, sand and tropical sun for a couple days, during which she hadn’t washed it. Slender verging on skinny, with cracks in the skin of her bare heels, she looked a little worse for wear. Early-thirties, I estimated, though she looked older. Her long fingernails, polished to carmine perfection, suggested she didn’t live by strenuous physical labor (administrative assistant at a head-hunting firm, I later learned).
“Los Angeles,” I said.
“I went there once, to Hollywood,” she said. “Took the Universal Studio tour. Did Disneyland. Wasn’t impressed.” She fished a pack of Benson and Hedges cigarettes from a side pocket in the floppy seersucker tunic she wore over a two-piece swimsuit, offered me one (declined it), put one in her mouth and handed me her lighter. “I didn’t know any charter flights from LA to here had come in,” she said as I lighted her up.
“I flew down from St. Barts.”
“Really? You came in by yourself? They only run charter flights from cities, I thought. St. Barts is one of these islands down here?” She expelled a smoke plume roofward.
“It’s a few islands north. I negotiated a special arrangement. I was yachting in those waters, so flying down from there was more convenient. Cost a little more, but worth it.”
“You get around,” she said. “Yachting. Wow. You own a yacht down here in the islands?”
“Friends of mine.”
“Good friends to have.”
“Some of my friends have yachts, some don’t. It takes all kinds. So, do you come to Club Med often?” I asked to change the subject.
“This is my first time. My first time to a tropical island, actually. My divorce just became final so I thought I should celebrate, you know? Some celebration. It’s not as wild as everybody said, and I’m not much of a beach person anyway. Yachts might be better, except I get seasick. So tell me about yourself. What’s your sign?”
That tired old pick-up line. I gave her a sign that worked in LA: “Slippery when wet.”
She chortled, then guffawed, then laughed out loud. “Tell me more,” she said, moving closer and resting a manicured hand on my thigh. Two rounds of Mai Tais and beers later I got my duffle bag from the bartender, and Denise led me to her room. It was small and basic, the Club Med concept dictating that you should participate in Paradise, not hole up in a hotel room. I’d barely set my gear down when she started massaging my neck. “Muscular,” she murmured. “Mmmm… I like that.” Obviously she expected me to respond, so I turned to her and instantly got a bear hug and a mouthful of cigarette-smoked tongue. Ah well…
Club Med beds weren’t designed with wide-ranging romping in mind, but that didn’t impede Denise. A very insistent woman, and I’ll bet she back-seat drives, too. The old fraternity saying is, “The worst piece of ass I ever had was fantastic,” but that’s just youthful inexperience braying. Afterwards, she took over the bathroom and returned all ready for bed, having greased, slaked, and slathered her face and the rest of her body with a variety of potions, lotions and ointments. I hugged her dearly, told her she was a woman like none I’d ever met and retreated to the empty bed, hoping she wouldn’t awaken in the wee hours with ideas.
Somewhere on Manhattan Island, a happy ex-husband was turning in for the night.
We went another round in the morning, causing me to cross gigolo off my list of possible fallback careers. I took the opportunity to shave and otherwise catch up on a couple days of grooming. I noticed my hair had grown enough longer than my passport photo to aid deception. When I came out of the bathroom, she said, “You’ve got a backpack in here? Why do you need both?”
Nosy bitch was snooping in my duffle bag. “You never know what to expect,” I said. “Be prepared, that’s my motto.” I guided her hand out of it and resolutely zipped it shut. She hadn’t gotten all the way into the backpack, or she’d have a lot more questions than that.
“Just getting to know you, hon,” she said, not sheepishly enough.
“Let’s go hit the breakfast line,” I suggested. She clasped my hand and pulled me along.
You can’t beat French pastries for breakfast, and there was plenty more besides. I especially appreciated the spread of fresh tropical fruit. Afterwards, I excused myself on grounds of wanting to look into some things, promising to meet her for lunch. An escape route was what I needed to look into. I put on a resort-y outfit, got into my running shoes and donned my backpack. Better not to leave it in an unlocked room with a snoop. I explored the compound boundary to boundary amidst a bustle of activity. Players sweated through morning volleyball. A group formed up for the morning snorkeling excursion. Down on the sand, a lithe G O led calisthenics. A speedboat gave a queue of eager beginners turns on water skis from off the pier. Joggers at the shoreline splashed their earnest ways along. Ping-pongers traded slams. Tennis players volleyed across their courts. Swimmers pounded out laps in the quiet water of the cove. A notice board announced football and field hockey tournaments slated for the afternoon. Concrete canyon critters couldn’t ask for a better place to unleash pent-up urban energies.
The Club occupied a tree-sheltered salient with a sandy shoreline on a peninsula at the southern end of Martinique—a fine location for a resort, but awkward for getting to somewhere else. A barbed wire-topped chain link fence defined its perimeter. Good for keeping the indigs at bay, but getting over it would be awkward. I could skirt it at the waterline, but hiking out along the beach I’d be too exposed. The front portal offered the only viable exit. Out along the road I could find some cover, but I’d have to locate a ride. No way I could hoof it to Fort-de-France. I figured one more night here at Club Med to settle my nerves—though I’d spend it anywhere, even on the beach, even in the scrub, rather than with Denise—then I’d go see what shakes in the big city.
My plan changed abruptly when Denise intercepted me en route to the dining hall. “Did you see those guys?” she asked. “These two guys were going around asking everybody if they’d seen an American named Jake. They showed me a picture. He looks something like you.”
Shit. “I’ve been getting that a lot down here,” I said. “Some guys on St. Barts showed me that picture, too. Uncanny, how people can look alike. Describe the guys you saw?”
“You know, average Americans, about your age. Clean cut. Office-type clothes. Looked kind of tough.”
Not the pair from St. Barts. “Denise, I just remembered something I have to do. Go on ahead, take
a table in a conspicuous spot, and I’ll join you in a few minutes. After lunch we’ll hit the nude beach together.” She greeted that with a smile, and I hurried back to the room for my kit. The first thing I did was pull my pistol out of the backpack and swap in a full clip. I returned it, silencer still attached, to the backpack, changed to traveling clothes and transferred everything else from the duffle to the backpack—a tight squeeze, had to leave a few things behind. I folded the duffle bag and secured it in the shoulder straps.
I strode through the grounds to the portal, where a pair of burly G O’s in jock-strap swim trunks stepped out of a palm-fronded shack, blocking my way. “Excuse me, M’seur. How can we help you?” one asked. The notion of somebody escaping apparently contradicted the Club Med concept.
“No problem, I’m just going out here for a few minutes,” I said.
“For G M’s that is not permitted,” said the other. “For safety reasons, you understand.”
“Of course, of course,” I said. “I appreciate your concern, but it is all right. It is for my training program. I must three times every day run two miles with my pack on. My sponsors insist on it.”
“Training program? What are you training for?”
“The Ecuador to Brazil Endurance Marathon,” I said, letting my imagination run wild. “It is an international event intended to call attention to the cause of saving the Amazon rainforest. I am sponsored by a major American petroleum company, Exxon Corporation, you of course have heard of it. They wish to portray themselves as allies of the environment, so they are sponsoring four entrants.”
“I have heard of Exxon Corporation, but I have never heard of this race.”
“That’s because this is the first time for it. It will be announced later in the year with great fanfare. Contestants in teams of four will race through the jungle with packs in a relay, each leg 100 miles, over several days. Every country will have a team, some countries more than one. This week I am training for the sprint trials. So I will run as fast as I can through the trees along the road, one mile out and one mile back. You can help me, if you would be so kind.”
By now they were intrigued. “Help you? How?”
“I have been training very hard, and this morning I’m hoping to achieve my personal best time. My sponsors insist on verification by witnesses. So we’ll say that the portal is the start and finish line, and, I notice you have a wristwatch, if you would time me I would be very thankful. I think it will take about eight minutes.”
“Running two four-minute miles through trees with a pack? Impossible!” one of them exclaimed.
“No one can do that!” the other man chimed in.
“As I said, it would be my personal best time. I haven’t done it yet. But how can a man attain excellence if he does not set a high aspiration? Wish me luck, gentlemen. I have been steadily improving. Today may be the day! Ready, set, go!” I took off down the driveway to the road at a brisk trot, leaving them glued to the wristwatch. I rounded a bend out of their sight and stopped to catch my breath. Then I walked fast to the palm tree plantation along the road. Planted in rows, it offered less cover than I’d have liked, but it was better than nothing. I got beyond the palms, went by some buildings, then spotted a denser stand of trees and scrub further along. I plunged in. It meant slower going, but it was dense concealment. I figured to put more distance between me and Club Med, then emerge and see about a taxi. I hadn’t gone far when I heard a car pull up along the road abreast of my woods, and then two car doors shut. I couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see me, but I soon sensed people clumsily following my trail. The gatekeepers must have ratted me out to the two Americans. I sped up, ranging further away from the roadside, then doubled back and slipped into ambush position, pistol at the ready.
Presently two men answering Denise’s description came struggling along in my tracks. I let them get ahead, waiting to see if they were on point. No, no one followed, it was just them. I crept out and stalked them quietly until they reached a little clearing. “Gentlemen,” I announced, “please put your hands up and turn around.” They did. I gestured with my pistol for them to stand further apart. They complied promptly. Pistols with silencers are more intimidating than pistols without. “Now, take off your clothes,” I ordered.
“Aw, come on,” one protested.
“It’s a warm day,” I said. “You’ll get them back. Hey, isn’t that better than if I shoot you in the balls?” I lowered my pistol to that sight line on one of them. Against the possibility that I wasn’t just joshing, they dutifully stripped. Beefy men—the two of them could probably take me in a fair fight. “The shoes, too… now, back away.” They did so, wincing at each step. I quickly frisked through their two piles, locating two automatic pistols. I threw the clips into the bushes in one direction, and the guns in another. One of them had a phone. I tossed that in the bushes too.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” one answered. I fired a shot between his ankles. “Clark Clifford,” he replied quickly.
“Isn’t he some political honcho?” I asked. “Some big Democrat?”
“As honcho as they come,” said the other.
“What does he want with me?” I asked.
“Not you personally. You’ve got some stuff he wants. He sent us after it. Look, he’ll pay you for it.”
“How much?”
“He didn’t tell us. We’re supposed to get it that’s all.”
“How about you give me a contact number, and I’ll get back to him.”
“No can do. Look, we’re just hired hands, work for an agency. Come with us, and we’ll see what he’ll cough up, but no way are we to give you ID or any connecting information.”
“That so?” I reached down and fished out one of their wallets. It contained several business cards, and I pocketed them all. An address book turned up, and I slipped that in a pocket too. Then I thought of something. “You’ve got a lot of cash there. I’m running short. How about if I sign you a Traveler’s Cheque for a hundred and take some of your bills?”
“Help yourself,” he said. He gave me his name. I signed over a cheque and substituted it for a fifty, three tens and a twenty. “A pleasure to do business with you, gentlemen,” I said. “Tell Mr. Clifford, I may be contacting him in the near future.” I tossed their shoes into the brush in different directions, noting the dismay on their faces. I told them to step into the trees away from our path and lie down, and when they had done so, I broke for the road. I took a chance, going out in plain sight along the road, but they seemed to be working alone. I marched along with my thumb out. I reached a little market crossroads before anybody stopped to pick me up, and there I found a cab willing to carry me to Fort-de-France.
If those two bumblers could find me, I had no security on Martinique, and false passport or not I had to get away. I couldn’t fly out on an international flight with no passport, and backtracking on a commuter to one of the other French islands was foreclosed. Moving further along to another island by boat was the only possibility, but the ride I’d cadged with the sailing club was a windfall. I’d need a boat for hire. I had the cabbie drop me off by a Fort-de-France waterfront saloon where he said the local skippers hung out. I might be able to find a ride with a boat skipper to some other island without being spotted. I couldn’t think of any other place to turn.
Working men filled several tables in the dim, sour room. I got a beer and a sandwich and opened my ears. Most of the palaver was in French. One table sounded American. A man in a uniform stood beside it, addressing a one-armed man seated there behind a down-to-dregs schooner of beer.
“Where were you last night?” the uniform said.
“Here and at home.”
“How late were you here?”
“Until the place closed.”
“Anybody see you here?”
�
��What’s the matter? You think I’d steal my own boat? What would I do with it?”
“I just asked you where you were. Don’t get plugged.”
“I’m not plugged. I was plugged when you Custom guys seized my boat without any proof there was anything on it.”
They carried on for a while, getting nowhere until the Customs officer finally threw in the towel and stalked out. I gave the table time to settle down, then went over. “You’re an American?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. He was wide-shouldered and tall. His blond hair was further sunburned nearly to white. He had broad mongol cheekbones, narrow eyes and a nose broken at the bridge. His shirtsleeve was pinned up to his shoulder “Harry Morgan, formerly of Key West, Florida.” He looked like the real deal.
“I’m Jake Fonko, California. I need a boat ride. How well do you know these islands?”
“Pretty well. Where do you want to go?”
“That’s just it. I could use some advice. People are after me (he looked squintily at me )… no, not the law. I haven’t broken any laws. People want something I’ve got. It’s not contraband, either. Everything’s legal. What I need is a bolt-hole, a civilized place that’s inaccessible. I need a little breathing room so I can contact people and work something out. I guess that’s a pretty tall order?”
“Say, I know just the kind of place. Mustique Island, south of there. It’s a private island. Wealthy Brits own it, the Queen and the Princesses and all them Earls and Dukes and Lords. Has a little town on it. The most secure airport in the Caribbean. Only one entry port for boats, and only yachts at that. Of course, if you want secrecy, you’d have to find a way around all that.”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 15
