“We will,” McKendry said gruffly.
The india girl shook her tambourine in impatience, and the young man looked down meaningfully at the few coins in his guitar case. “Now, do you guys have any other requests? I mean, for a song instead of for information?”
Keene threw another hundred bolivars into the guitar case and requested “Stairway to Heaven.”
McKendry looked at him over their warm cervezas.
Both men knew where they were going next.
“Looking good.” Keene took stock of himself in the bathroom mirror. He ran his fingers around his clean-shaven chin. “You could use a shave yourself, buddy.”
McKendry grinned and elbowed his friend out of the way. He hadn’t shaved since leaving Caracas. His beard, which had always grown fast, was already beginning to take shape.
“Tell me you’re not thinking about growing it again. Remember last time? The good guys took one look at you and thought we were the bad guys….”
Reluctantly, McKendry picked up a razor. It had taken them two days to get back to Caracas. Amazing, he thought, how it always feels like it takes forever to get somewhere and no time flat to get back. Like shaving a beard. Takes forever to grow and comes off in a minute.
When they looked fully presentable again, McKendry called Rodolfo. The actor willingly gave him what he needed—a way to contact Security Minister Bruzual. The minister in turn connected McKendry with the harbormaster in the major refinery city of Puerto La Cruz, where Oilstar’s largest tanker, theYucatán, was currently moored.
The rig actually produced more oil than Frikkie’s facilities on Trinidad could handle, and the refineries at Puerto La Cruz were the closest place he could use to turn a profit from the excess. The complex had been built to take crude from the long pipeline that extended through the deep jungles from the inland Orinoco oil belt. Oilstar had arranged with the Venezuelan government to use the refinery facilities—which had been nationalized in 1976—in order to prepare the offshore crude and send it up to the United States through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Keene—the better linguist—called the captain and made an appointment for them to speak with him, privately and in person.
“Perfect timing.” He put down the phone. “We see Captain Miguel Calisto tomorrow morning while theYucatán offloads. By afternoon she’ll be on her way to refill at Oilstar’s offshore rig,Valhalla, in the Serpent’s Mouth.”
“Now all we need is a way to hitch a ride. Any suggestions?” McKendry sounded dubious.
“Piece of cake,” Keene said. “I’ll explain over breakfast.”
With no further explanation, Keene placed two calls. The first was to Bruzual. All McKendry gleaned from the conversation was that his partner had asked the security minister to send them a fax care of their hotel.
The second call was to Frik on board theAssegai . Again, Keene asked that a fax be sent to them at the hotel, one that urged Captain Calisto to give them all possible assistance.
“Frikkie’s in Grenada,” Keene said after he’d completed the call. “Simon’s flying in today.”
13
Peta was pleasantly surprised when Simon called her before leaving Miami to ask her to pick him up at Grenada’s Point Saline Airport and transport him and his equipment to theAssegai . Given the fact that she had made it so clear that she believed he was risking his life to dive again, now or ever, she had thought he would slip quietly onto and off the island.
Simon was one of the last people to debark. He looked pale and tired.
“How was your flight?” Peta asked.
“Fine until we landed. The pilot must have had a hot date the way he stopped short on the runway.”
“I guess he didn’t want to taxi very far. Lord knows there’s no lack of runway. The Cubans saw to that.”
Simon laughed. “As I recall, they were building it long enough to handle bombers. That’s one of the real reasons why our forces took the revolution seriously, no matter what the president said about the medical students.”
Nodding, Peta said, “Eventually they took it seriously, but not before a lot of good people were killed. Arthur was almost one of them.” She stopped talking and waited for the sudden wave of nausea to pass. Simon was respectful enough not to try to say anything more.
When his gear was loaded and they were pulling out of the airport, Peta said, “I’m going to keep trying to talk you out of this madness, you know.”
“I know, but I’m going to do it anyway, so you might as well stop nagging me about it.”
“If that’s how you feel, Simon, why did you let me know that you were coming?”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know. Maybe I really did want you to talk me out of this.” He looked at her and sighed. “Or maybe I just wanted to have the most beautiful woman in Grenada chauffeur me around. Not doing too much else with women these days, not even the ugly ones.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Peta said, though in fact she did believe him.
Simon changed the subject. “I’d like to see the Rex Grenadian,” he said, referring to a large resort near the airport, one of the newest on the island. “Could we stop in for a drink?”
Peta hesitated. Simon’s color was awful. Positively gray. “You probably shouldn’t be drinking.”
“You’re not my nursemaid,” he said. He sighed again, loudly. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He thankfully paused a moment while she negotiated one of the dangerous roundabouts along the two-lane strip of concrete called the Maurice Bishop Highway, and headed down the side road that would lead them to the nearby resort.
When they were safely driving through the small patch of palms and mahoganies that separated the northern beaches of Point Saline from the airport, Simon said, “It’s about Arthur. I didn’t have a chance in New York to tell you how sorry I was, not really. We’re sailing tonight. I’d like to talk about him a little. Have a chance to—”
“You’ll have Frik around. You can do that with him.” Instantly she was angry with herself for her tone.
“Frik doesn’t believe in mourning the dead.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess it was my turn to get snippy.” Peta swerved to the left to avoid a water truck heading back to the main road, and turned onto the Rex Grenadian’s driveway.
The resort fronted on two beaches. One of them had no name that she could recall. The other was Parc a Boeuf Beach. Where they had found such an ugly name for so magnificent a stretch of sand was a mystery to Peta and everyone else. The hotel was frequented mainly by rich Americans; the Europeans preferred to be on Morne Rouge Bay or Grand Anse Beach. The Rex boasted a man-made, lushly landscaped three-acre lake, complete with aesthetically placed islands and waterfalls, as well as three restaurants, and an attentive staff.
All in all, it was an excellent facility for the traveler who was looking for a place to enjoy the tropical climate without having to interact with the people who actually lived there. Because it was too expensive to be a local hangout, it was not so Grenadian that you couldn’t shut your eyes and imagine yourself on almost any tropical island.
Sitting at the resort’s poolside bar, staring out over the Caribbean, Peta listened to Simon talk about his memories of the man she loved. She didn’t nag him again about the dive or the drinking. It was obvious that he was feeling his own mortality very acutely.
A couple of hours later, she delivered a considerably more mellow Simon into Frikkie’s hands.
14
“Port of Spain is busier every time I see it,” Simon said, admiring how gracefully Frik eased the sleek 120-footAssegai into its berth at the private docks. Despite the residual effects of the lab accident to his left hand—and with the help of twin screws which made maneuvering easier—he operated the throttles with surgical skill.