Life, Liberty, and Pursuit

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  “What do you mean, ‘obviously’?”

  “I mean, are you dense? She’s looking at you with those big, brown eyes …”

  David instantly regretted his question. “Shut up, Tomasz.” Tomasz rolled his eyes and they kept walking in silence. Bay Street was more crowded than Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras. They forded the throng, and Tomasz ducked into a narrow alley between shops, heading south.

  This alley seemed to drill a straight path through the buildings, climbing up the foothills along the way. They passed one street, and then another, the surrounding shops and houses looking a little shabbier as the road turned from paved to dirt. They had left the tourist traps behind and were solidly in the local section of town. Tomasz saw something he liked and swerved to the right, heading for a tavern. Neon signs and dusty windows made it even seedier than the closed shops and abandoned buildings that surrounded it.

  Inside was a smoky bar filled with residents enjoying a game of darts and watching sports on the small TV tucked up in the corner of the room. All heads turned when they walked in, two obvious tourists. With their clean cut clothes, and especially Tomasz with his sandy blond hair, they stood out like aristocrats at a hoedown. David glanced at his brother to see if he was serious about this excursion into the local color, but Tomasz had an ear-splitting grin on his face.

  “Perfect!” he said, looking around with satisfaction, walking up to take a seat at the bar. David sighed and followed him, taking the seat next to him and wondering if he would have been better off going shopping with Tea and Eliza.

  Tomasz ordered them two Diet Cokes and turned to survey the patrons. There was an assortment of people, from the grizzled old-timers with the cue sticks, to the burly younger guys watching TV, to the two scantily clad, dark haired young women. They were already checking out Tomasz from their vantage point at the end of the bar. David turned back to his Diet Coke in disgust, stirring the ice cubes with the swizzle-stick-and-cherry combination the bartender had used to dress it up. He looked around the bar for something to distract him, given that Tomasz would soon be occupied by female attention. The dart board looked promising until the burly locals wandered over and started making bets.

  He sighed and drank his soda, wondering how far Eliza and Tea had gotten through the crowds on Bay Street. He was actually looking forward to lunch, thinking he could probably keep his gawking to a minimum. He wanted to talk to Eliza, find out more about her. There was no reason he couldn’t talk to her, like he did the night before. Right?

  He shook his head and took another drink of his soda. The two girls had made their way to Tomasz, who was smiling and looking like he had won the lottery. When David realized that he actually would prefer to be shopping with Eliza and Tea rather than sitting in a dark bar watching Tomasz flirt, he pushed the half-drunk Coke away from him.

  He turned to Tomasz and tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Tomasz nodded and waved, barely breaking his attention from the girl who was twirling her painted nails through the hair at the back of his neck. David shook his head and left.

  The sun was brilliant outside the tavern, and he squinted against it. He figured he would continue up the alley, towards the foothills. He could kill some time strolling through the older section of town before he came back and retrieved Tomasz from the den of iniquity.

  The tavern was bordered by a wooden plank walkway that apparently ended at the alley—he stumbled as he missed the step at the end. Swerving into the darkened alley, he could see a little better, shielded from the glare of the sun. The day seemed to have grown hot and muggy. He was surprised when he dragged the back of his hand across his forehead and it came away soaking wet. He hadn’t realized how hot it was. The heat was making him tired, too. He briefly looked up the long series of alleyways climbing the foothills and wondered if it was going to be more of a climb than he thought. Did missing one session in the gym with Tomasz really make him that out of shape?

  He shuffled along the path, finally reaching the next cross street. As he broke out of the alley, he narrowed his eyes against the onslaught of light and looked around. There didn’t seem to be another way up the foothills that didn’t involve climbing the steep alleyways. The sun disoriented him, and he felt a little dizzy. He would have a better view from the darkened alley just ahead, so he stumbled on.

  He paused, his hand against the cool wall of the building. His breath was coming in gasps, and his heart was pounding as if he had been running. His head was starting to hurt. That dizzy feeling came back with a vengeance and suddenly he was falling through space. The last thing he remembered was the dull smacking sound his head made as it hit the dirt floor of the alley and he sunk into blackness.

  * * *

  Tea’s slender fingers had a death-grip on Eliza’s hand as they made their way through the tourist crowds on Bay Street. It was a good thing, too, because if Eliza lost her hold on Tea, she was afraid she would never find the quick-as-lightning redhead again in this sea of humanity. Eliza breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped inside one of the shops. It was less crowded inside the store, but not by much. The apparel was mostly beachwear—shorts, bathing suits, and some crazy looking hats that Eliza wouldn’t be caught dead in. Tea made a little happy sound that Eliza would normally associate with small children at Christmas and started ransacking the racks. Eliza was happy to simply carry things for her.

  Shopping had never been Eliza’s forte. She didn’t really see the point. Sure, she needed clothes that were suitable to the occasion, but most of those occasions involved her studying in the library, and it didn’t have much of a dress code. The vacation had presented a sartorial challenge, and her mom had dragged her out shopping to stock up on “cruise wear.” Eliza was pretty sure she had all she needed. However, Tea seemed to have a need for anything that caught her fancy.

  Eliza didn’t really mind, though, and was pleased Tea wanted her along as a shopping buddy. Tea was sweet and made her laugh. She glided from rack to rack, blissfully examining the contents and chattering away. She smiled a little as Tea prattled on about some linen shirt she had found, and Eliza thought about how different she was from her brother, David. He was serious—about everything. Eliza was looking forward to lunch and having a chance to ask him more about his plans for the Navy. She had managed not to stare at him—or at least managed not to ogle—when they had disembarked from the ship this morning.

  “Oh, Eliza, you would look divine in this!” Tea exclaimed, holding up a bright blue bathing suit the size of a postage stamp.

  “Tea, I can’t wear that!” she said. Her bathing suits at home were decidedly one-piece affairs.

  “Of course you can! And I guarantee it will make David’s eyes bug out of his head!”

  Eliza flushed at the thought. “I doubt that,” she muttered, eyeing the suit that left very little to the imagination. Tea was watching her.

  “He doesn’t have a girlfriend, you know,” Tea said. “He likes the quiet, thoughtful types.”

  “Who?” Eliza asked, still pretending to examine the bathing suit, but a thrill was going through her with this new piece of information. She was much more interested than she should be in what Tea was saying.

  Tea gave her a disgusted look. “My brother—you know, the good looking one with the dark hair, not the ridiculous blond flirty one.”

  Eliza had to laugh at her characterization of Tomasz. “Oh.” She hoped her laughter hid her nervousness, but Tea wasn’t fooled. Eliza pretended to be suddenly interested in rack of hideous island T-shirts.

  Tea’s fiery red curls shook with her disapproval. Eliza pretended not to notice as Tea slipped the blue suit in with the other clothes approved for purchase. They continued to work their way through the store.

  Laden with packages, they hit a couple of more stores along the way, trying to spend as little
time outside as possible. The crowds were starting to thin as the tourists dispersed, but the street was still packed. As their appointed lunch time neared, Eliza suggested they get an early reservation to beat the crowds. They started heading back to their rendezvous point, scouting for restaurants along the way.

  As they passed a darkened passage, Eliza glanced down the long string of alleys that climbed up the foothills and froze. Several streets away, two burly men were beating and kicking a third man who lay on the ground. She was shocked by the sight of it. They reached down, handling him roughly, and searched his pockets for something. Then they each took one arm of the inert form on the ground and dragged him forward, out of the alley and into the sunlight. She saw a flash of dark hair … David!

  “Call the police,” she said flatly without looking at Tea, who had finally turned around. Eliza was running down the alley before she realized what she was doing. She broke out of the darkened lane into a brightly lit street, ran across without taking her eyes off them, and plunged into the second alleyway. She stumbled as the paved road turned to dirt.

  She dropped the bags she had been carrying as a plan formed in her head. They had dragged David away from her line of sight now, down the brightly lit street. She shoved her hand in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, flipping it open and holding it like a weapon. She reached the end of the alley and rounded the corner to see them dragging David toward some kind of bar.

  “Hey!” she shouted, sounding far calmer than she felt. She held the cell phone towards them, as though she was taking their picture. They turned and squinted in the sunlight at her. She hoped they didn’t see her hand trembling as she continued holding the cell phone in a threatening manner. “I’ve got your picture!” she shouted with as much force as she could muster. “The police are on the way!”

  They dropped David, and he landed with a sickening thud on the ground and didn’t move. At all. Fear ripped through her—was she too late? She tore her eyes away from his still body and stared at the thugs who were looking her up and down, deciding whether she was a threat or not. Her feet were planted wide in defiance, and she kept holding the phone out. They took a tentative step towards her. As she realized she didn’t really have a Plan B, she heard Tea come skittering out of the alleyway behind her, talking furtively into her phone. Thank God!

  Either two small girls with cell phones were too much for the cowards to handle, or they decided her threat about the police was real. Either way, they looked briefly at each other and turned tail and ran. She didn’t wait until they were out of sight. She ran over to David, panic clutching at her chest. He was face down in the dirt.

  “David! David, wake up!” she whispered hoarsely as she knelt down to him and tried to turn him over. He groaned, holding his stomach and squinting his eyes against the light.

  “Eliz …?” he said, thickly. Oh, thank God!

  “David, you need to get up—we need to get out of here.” She tried to pull him up to a sitting position. He opened his eyes, but they were unfocused, and the sun seemed to hurt them. He heard what she said, though, because he tried to get to his feet. His legs wobbled, and he clutched his head with one hand. His free hand reached for her, so she grabbed it and tried to help him up. Tea had been hovering nearby, talking on her phone. Eliza vaguely wondered if the police were really coming, but decided it didn’t matter—they needed to leave before the thugs returned with reinforcements. Tea helped David up too, shoving her bony shoulder under his arm.

  “Tom …” he was saying. “Bar …”

  “Oh, God, where’s Tomasz?” Tea asked, looking panicked. Why were David and Tomasz separated?

  “Bar …” David repeated, trying to stand on his own. He was still shaky, but seemed to be getting stronger.

  “It’s this way.” Eliza turned him around to face the bar. She wasn’t sure if he could see it, the way he shied away from the light. She kept his arm gripped in hers and guided him toward the run-down tavern. David stumbled but was obviously trying not to lean on her.

  As they entered the bar, Tea got back on the phone, speaking quickly and quietly. In the dark inside, David was able to open his eyes a little more. He let go of her and staggered to the bar. Everyone was staring at them, and the place had gone silent except for the small TV whispering in the corner.

  “Where’s … he?” David demanded, his voice slurring.

  The bartender gave him a cold look. “You’ve had too much, buddy. Time to leave.”

  David took a deep breath and pounded his fist into the bar, making half the patrons in the place jump, including the bartender and Eliza. Then David reached over the bar and grabbed the man by the shirt. He demanded slowly, close to his face, “Where … is … he?”

  The bartender’s eyes were wide—he jerked his head to a door at the back of the establishment. David released him and stumbled toward the door, holding onto the bar for support along the way. The two girls who had been standing nearby quickly scattered to make way for him. Tea and Eliza were right behind him as he leaned heavily against the door and opened it up. Tea whispered into her phone.

  The small dark room held only a cot, a chair, and a small dresser. Tomasz was lying on the cot, hands bound behind him and feet held together by zip ties. Eliza looked wildly around for something to cut the ties. She felt trapped in this tiny room, as though at any moment the thugs would return. They needed to get Tomasz untied and get out immediately. Tea was off the phone and trying to wake up Tomasz. David leaned one hand against the wall, breathing hard. She quickly looked through the dresser and found a pair of scissors, along with a scattering of zip ties and an old roll of duct tape. She grabbed the scissors and bent over Tomasz, making sure he didn’t move while she cut his bindings.

  “Tea, we have to get out of here,” Eliza said, her voice rising in panic. They stared at Tomasz and contemplated the task of trying to move him. She didn’t know if they could hold him up, even the two of them together. A shuffling sound came from outside the room, in the bar, and Eliza felt sure their time was running out.

  David was still leaning against the wall, one hand clutching his head.

  She flew to his side. “David, we have to get Tomasz out of here.” He shook his head as though to clear it, looked at her with unfocused eyes, and nodded. He launched himself away from the wall and staggered to Tomasz, who moaned on the bed, his head lolling back and forth. Tea was trying in vain to get him to sit up.

  “Tomasz. Got … to … go,” David shouted in his brother’s ear as he hauled him up to sitting. He took one of Tomasz’s arms, slung it over his neck, and lifted him to standing. He teetered backward, and she thought they were both going to fall, but David caught his balance again, grimacing. Tomasz’s head slumped against David, but he seemed to be able to stand with David’s support. Eliza led the way out the door, and Tea brought up the rear. As they emerged from the small room, she looked warily around the bar. She half expected to see the two thugs from the street again, but there were only a bunch of locals gawking at them. Still, she kept watch as David and Tomasz slowly staggered through the bar toward the door. If someone tried to stop them, maybe she could threaten them with her cell phone. In any event, they would have to go through her first. Thankfully, they made it to the door unmolested and stepped outside.

  Then the impossible occurred. Mia, Johnny, Fiona, and Jozef came running around the corner from the alleyway. It didn’t make any sense. How could they have known? Mia was hugging her, and Eliza told her she was fine—David and Tomasz were the ones who needed help. Jozef was already on the phone, maybe calling 911. Johnny helped David carry Tomasz over to the far side of the street where they sat in the shade.

  Eliza trembled in her mom’s arms all of a sudden, the adrenaline and anxiety starting to take a toll on her. Fiona and Tea huddled near the boys, and Eliza realized Tea must have called their parents when Eliza asked her to call
the police. All things considered, it seemed like a pretty good move.

  Suddenly, an ambulance careened down the street, kicking up a dust storm. David didn’t want to sit on the stretcher, but Jozef made him. David and Tomasz were loaded into the ambulance, and Jozef climbed in the back. Then they were gone, sirens blazing. A taxi appeared out of nowhere. Tea hugged Eliza before she climbed into it with Fiona. They must be headed to the hospital.

  Eliza’s body reacted with a sudden shiver. Her mom squeezed her, her arm firmly clamped around her daughter. Eliza was very, very tired. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, resting her head on her mom’s shoulder. She must have fallen asleep or passed out, because the next thing she knew Johnny was carrying her up the gangplank of the Miss Liberty. She closed her eyes again, too tired to care.

  Chapter 6

  Sunshine

  Eliza woke up later, feeling like she had been hit by a truck. She wasn’t sure if it was day or night—being in the belly of a ship did that to you. She flipped on the light and checked her watch. It was either three in the afternoon or three in the morning; that was no help. She didn’t want to call and wake up Johnny and Mia, so she dragged a brush through her hair and resolved to venture forth. Then she realized her clothes were still caked with dust, and the events of the morning came back and kicked her pulse up a notch. She needed to find out if David was okay.

  She quickly changed clothes and washed up. As she stepped out of her cabin, she saw the hallways were filled with passengers returning from Nassau. She knew the ship left port at five o’clock—were the Mareks still at the hospital? She knocked on Mia and Johnny’s door. Mia’s tear-stained face quickly appeared. Eliza regretted sleeping for so long.

  “Mom, are you okay?” She didn’t like the deep worry lines on her mom’s forehead.