“ Would you like another, ma’am?” Earl offered, ever the gentleman.
“ No thanks, I have to get back to work,” the woman said. Her blue eyes twinkled, clear as the South Texas ocean, and her smile promised hidden delights.
“ Maybe I’ll see you again,” he said. He couldn’t help himself. When he saw a pretty woman he had to flirt, and if she was receptive he had to give chase.
“ Maybe,” she said. “I come here a lot.” She handed the waitress a blue bill. “Keep the change, Elena,” she said.
“ What did you pay with?” Earl asked.
“ TT hundred dollar bill.”
“ How much is it worth?” Earl asked, a funny feeling rising in his stomach.
“ About eighteen dollars US,” she said. “There’s about six TT per US dollar.”
“ Shit.” He felt dumber than a roadkilled skunk.
“ Why?” she asked.
“ I paid the cab driver with green money.”
“ He must have been very pleased,” she said.
“ He was smiling,” Earl laughed. Then he added, “Name’s Earl Lawson.”
“ Dani, Dani Street,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “Are you staying here at the Hilton?”
“ Sure am.” Earl beamed, thinking he was making headway.
“ Then maybe we really will see each other again.” She smiled and took her hand back. He watched her shapely walk till she was out of the restaurant. When she was out the door he turned his attention back toward the pool, but Maria and her boyfriend were gone.
He spent another twenty minutes nursing three rum and cokes. Normally he was a scotch and soda man, but he was in the Caribbean and rum seemed to be the drink of choice. At first he didn’t like the sweet taste of the Coca Cola, but he found he was warming up to it.
“ Joo going for another?”
“ I’d sure like to, but then I’d follow it with another, then another, and you know how that goes.”
“ Sure do.”
“ So I guess I’d better pay and get on my way.”
“ Joo can sign for it, if you’re staying in the hotel.”
Five minutes later he opened the door and instantly grabbed for a gun that wasn’t there.
“ Stay calm, Earl, and stay alive,” Dani Street said. He relaxed his hand and let it fall to his side. She was sitting at the desk by the window. Her handbag was on it and a chrome plated thirty-eight police special was sitting next to the purse. She was still wearing her smile and by the tone of her voice he knew she could pick up the gun and use it before he got close to her.
“ What’s going on?” he said, trying to sound calm. His money was piled on the center of the bed, still wrapped in ten thousand dollar packets.
“ There’s more going on than you could possibly understand,” she said.
Dani looked at Earl’s strong jaw. His deeply tanned face looked like it belonged on a movie poster. He was a man used to the sun. His eyes bore into her, but he was restraining himself. She took in the cut above his eye and the bruise on his chin. He was no stranger to violence. He was going to be perfect, she just knew it. She wanted someone else to pull the trigger on this one. The job was too close to home.
“ Sit down, Sheriff.” He stared at the gun on the desk and she could see the calculations going on in his head. “Try it.”
“ I been around a long time. I know when to fish and when to cut bait. I’ll sit and see what you have to say.”
“ You’re not as dumb as you look, Earl,” Dani said.
“ It was my questions about the man with the shaved head, wasn’t it? You were watching him, too?”
“ In a way,” Dani said. “You were kind of clumsy.”
“ I got my way of doing things,” Earl said.
“ The money is counterfeit,” Dani said.
“ What?” Earl grabbed a bundle from the stack. He pulled a bill out and looked at it against the light. “Looks okay to me,” he said, but she saw his furrowed brow and his shaking fingers.
“ The serial numbers are all the same, Earl, and the paper is wrong. They have two dollar marking pens all over the world that will tell even the most unaware kid behind a register that you’re passing bad money. You might as well burn it.”
He peeled off another bill and compared them. “Shit,” he said.
“ But you have bigger problems,” Dani said.
“ I can’t wait to hear.”
“ The manager told me you were a big tipper, when he figures out you tipped him with funny money he’ll be up here and after your balls.”
“ Shit,” Earl said.
“ You’ll have to go down and make it right,” Dani said, opening her handbag. She pulled out a roll of hundreds and counted out twenty bills. “Here’s two thousand. When you buy back your bad money give the man an extra two hundred. That should satisfy him and it’ll leave you an extra thousand for walking around money.”
She got up and handed him the money. She left the gun next to the handbag on the desk.
“ You’re awful sure of yourself,” Earl said.
“ You’re not a stupid man, you’re curious,” Dani said.
“ I’m curious,” Earl said.
“ Stick with me and I’ll turn that pile of paper on the bed into the real thing. You can leave Trinidad a wealthy man.”
“ I’d like that,” Earl said, as Dani turned her back to him and moved back to the desk. “I’d like that a lot.”
“ I knew you would.” She dropped the gun into her purse.
“ Who do I have to kill?”
“ The Prime Minister of Trinidad.”
“ I could do that.”
Chapter Eleven
“ Good morning, sir,” Broxton said, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he smiled at the Indian Trinidadian behind the counter. “Do you sell breakfast here?” He was still half asleep. He’d been up most of the night talking and reminiscing with Warren.
“ We see a lot of Africans with shaved heads,” the Indian said, ignoring Broxton’s question, “but I’ve never seen a white man with one, only on TV. Looks good on you. Looks like you can fight, too. Plenty muscles.”
“ About breakfast?” Broxton said.
“ Do the girls like that head, or is it just you?” the Indian said. He had flashing white teeth flapping inside of withered gums and Broxton caught the laughing twinkle in his eyes. If he wanted breakfast he was going to have to play with the man.
“ I think the girls like it,” he said, running his right hand along the side of his scalp. “And it’s easy to keep up, I start shaving from the top and just keep going.” He put his hand back to his head, thumb and index finger together, like he was holding a razor, and brought it from the top of his chrome dome down along the side, where sideburns would be if he had any, over his cheek and down to his chin, imitating a man shaving. “And no barber bills either, very economical.”
“ I like you. I’m called Davidnen.” The Indian stuck his hand over the counter. Broxton shook it and Davidnen laughed. “Tough guy handshake, like a real American,” he said.
“ Do you always say whatever you want?” Broxton asked.
“ I’m ninety-six, almost a century old, a century,” he said, emphasizing his speech the way Trinidadians do. “I’m entitled, I’ve earned the right.”
“ Yes, sir, you have,” Broxton said, nodding. “Now about breakfast?”
“ Bakes is the best I can offer. Sort of like a pita bread sandwich. I can make you one with ham and eggs. No charge today, because you really didn’t come here to eat, but I might charge you for whatever it is you want to know.”
Broxton laughed again, but this time it was forced. “You’re pretty sharp.”
“ Not really. You don’t work over there,” he said, looking through the front window toward the American Embassy on the other side of the street, “and if you had business there you’d come later, after they’re open. You don’t look like you’re on vacation, and besides we’re off the tourist track. So what is it, are you some kind of spy looking for information?”
“ It’s not like you’re thinking,” Broxton said.
“ I’m hearing you good,” Davidnen said. “Keep talking.”