Cooper took a moment to pull a long sip from the bourbon. Observing the glass to be emptied by a third, he served himself a refill, seized a menu from the stack behind the bar, opened it to the lunch options, swiped the pen from the breast pocket of the bartender’s T-shirt, encircled the swordfish sandwich and conch fritter selections, wrote COOPER across the bottom in two-inch block letters, set it on the counter in front of the bartender, thrust a finger upon it, told the bartender, “Tell Ronnie,” then took his glass of bourbon and headed out of the restaurant.
Discovering that along with Riley, the patrol boat, and the cutters, he was also going to have to try to ignore the chatty buzz at the normally peaceful bar, Cooper kicked off his Reefs and trekked barefoot through the sharp-stoned garden path mainly just to prove that he could. Passing a series of freshly painted, breezily designed two-unit structures equipped with air conditioners and colorful flourishes of blossomed flowers, he ducked past one last palm frond to the last in the set of bungalows. On this very last of the buildings, bungalow nine, a board had been nailed into the concrete foundation on the corner nearest the garden. Positioned at shoulder height, the sign’s style and placement reinforced the message its words delivered:
KEEP OUT.
Cooper ascended the stairs of his weather-beaten bungalow, came in through the unlocked door, and plunked himself upon the frayed armchair in the middle of the room’s main living space. A bed, a table, an ottoman at the foot of the armchair, a kitchenette with a portable fridge, and a mostly outdoor shower-and-toilet stall were all that defined the place. Cooper took in none of it, putting back most of the bourbon, holding one of the ice cubes in his mouth, and leaning his head back against the chair’s soft head-rest. A faint hint of hope formed in his head, a final conscious thought.
It might just be I got away with it. Maybe, just maybe, I can sleep.
Giving in to sheer, unadulterated bliss, Cooper lost consciousness before the ice cube melted on his tongue.
4
The knock on the jalousie panes of his front door, and the deep voice that came in the wake of the knock, pulled Cooper abruptly out of paradise.
“Somebody order some food, mon?”
Cooper didn’t need to hear the mon to know it wasn’t Ronnie, the soccer-playing Englishman and dutiful errand boy, standing on his porch with the swordfish sandwich. He could smell the sandwich through the door. He could smell the side dish he’d ordered along with it too. The voice went on.
“Ladies in the kitchen make it up nice ’round here. Something special ’bout these conch fritters.”
Cooper’s rumbling stomach nearly shook him from the chair.
“Go home, Riley,” he said. His own voice sounded sludgy and deep to him, ridden with the sleep he wanted so badly to return to.
“Swordfish still piping hot,” Riley said outside the door. “Gonna cool off, I leave it waitin’ for you on the porch.”
Thinking he would just consume the food and let Riley have his say before dispatching with him, Cooper said, “Fine.”
He had a pretty good idea how to get Riley to skedaddle.
Riley pushed open the door and came in supporting the tray of food one-handed, the solid-bodied cop looking like a practiced waiter. As little as Cooper knew Chief Minister Roy Gillespie to allocate to police salaries, he figured Riley was moonlighting somewhere-but probably not in the food-service industry.
Cooper took the tray and started in on the sandwich. After he’d inhaled a good chunk of it, he looked up from his lunch.
“Whatever it is you want,” he said, “you’ve got until I finish this food to give it to me.”
Riley nodded pleasantly.
“Cap’n Roy looking to see you, mon,” he said. “We had ourselves a little excitement in the harbor this mornin’. Maybe you heard, maybe not, just comin’ in now.”
Cooper temporarily neglected the last remaining corner of the sandwich while he laid waste to the conch fritters, making sure to dip each gob in the spicy Thousand Island sauce.
“Yeah?” he said, mouth full.
“Yeah, mon-Coast Guard task force take somebody out, and hard,” Riley said, “but they not quick enough on the draw this time. Multiple casualties, mon.”
Cooper sipped the ice water Ronnie had been kind enough to add to his order. “Sounds exciting,” he said.
“Uh-huh, well, way these things work, we seize the vessel, the contraband, everything. Any drugs, we hand ’em over to the Coast Guard. Anything else, we keep.”
“And?” Cooper polished off the remaining corner of the sandwich and popped the last two conch fritters in his mouth.
“And Cap’n Roy askin’ me to come get you. Says he thinkin’ maybe you be willin’ to help with some o’ the more complicated matters.”
Cooper placed his tray on the ottoman, moving his PowerBook and its portable printer aside with the lip of the tray as he set it down. He lifted the glass of ice water again, drained it, and set the glass back on the tray. Then he reclined in his armchair, assuming almost precisely the same position in which he’d recently fallen asleep.
It was time to get Riley to skedaddle.
“Riley,” he said, “for all intents and purposes, I haven’t slept in six days. Plus, the only thing I managed to accomplish in the process of this sleep deprivation was to lose two hundred and fifty thousand bucks. Actually it came closer to two fifty-two, counting fuel and incidentals. Ordinarily, Lieutenant, I wouldn’t trouble you with such matters. The reason I mention it now, however, is so that when you return from this friendly visit and report back to our esteemed chief minister, you’ll be able to explain my position entirely clearly.”
Cooper had closed his eyes. Riley waited, but Cooper offered no further comment.
Finally Riley said, “And what that position be?”
One eye popped open. “My position, Lieutenant, is that the only way you’re going to get me out of this chair for the next forty-eight hours is if Minister Roy is willing to pay me around two hundred and fifty thousand bucks to do it. Two fifty-two, to be precise.”
Cooper shut both eyes again. He quickly began to feel the trickling onset of sleep, but the return of bliss slowed when he sensed Riley hadn’t left. He opened his eyes to find the lieutenant still standing there. In fact, not only had Riley not left-the man had a grin plastered across his face.
“When he ask me to come visit,” Riley said, “Cap’n Roy tell me some-thin’ like this: ‘Tell him this time, we make it worth his while.’”
“Riley,” Cooper said, “I don’t even think Roy knows what two hundred and fifty thousand looks like. Strike that-no doubt he’s seized that much and more from anybody with a busted taillight giving him the chance to do it. But we both know he’d never give a penny of it to anybody. So skedaddle.”
Riley held his grin.
Cooper said, “What the hell is so funny?”
“Probably be true,” Riley said, “that this is the kind of thing fall outside my area of expertise, mon. But still, with what I seen today, it seem to me there be a lot more than two-fifty to go around.”
Trying in vain to keep up the fight now that his skedaddle strategy had backfired, Cooper dropped his head to wrestle with his predicament. First, he remained skeptical there was in fact that much money at stake. Second, he couldn’t think of any good reason he should help Roy do whatever it was Roy needed help doing. The last time he’d helped Roy out, what followed hadn’t exactly been a tea party. And third, as Cooper knew quite well, the more Roy was paying, the more questionable the task would turn out to be.