Rick’s Bar was located in a grubby corner of a cul-de-sac, a ramshackle place surrounded by stone buildings, the very focus of the sun’s baking heat.
Drake paid the driver and headed for a door covered by American beer signs. Budweiser. Coors. Michelob. “Don’t worry,” he said, laying a consoling hand around Ben’s shoulders, “we’ll get you a glass of icy cold milk.”
Rick’s Bar was surprisingly agreeable once the heat and the location were fastened away behind them. The meandering, dimly lit place was wood-panelled and decorated with a mind-boggling array of furnishings: from a pirate cutlass to a Jolly Roger flag that hung next to the green and black Jamaican flag, and from the often replicated picture of workers sitting along the girders of the Empire State Building, to standard bikini babes posing on an idyllic beach. Drake smiled. It was easy to imagine ole Rick tacking stuff on the walls here and there, anything he could get his hands on. The place smelled of beer, sweat and cooking meat.
A family of English tourists, their legs and arms the colour of virgin paper, were finishing off a meal, not looking at their food but studying the locals as carefully and warily as they could. A drunk sat at the bar, head slumped and hair dangling in his own dinner.
“Awesome,” Kennedy shook her head. “Let’s find Raychim and get back to civilisation.”
“This ain’t so bad,” said Hayden looking a little hurt. “Small town girl — I grew up in a place with a bar like this. We can’t all have a Denny’s on the doorstep you know.”
Kinimaka walked slap bang into a table, spilling a guy’s drink and waking up the drunk at the bar. The Hawaiian said: “Oops, sorry,” and skirted around, going red.
“If that’d been me,” Ben commented, “there’d have been threats, fist shaking, maybe even a head-butt.”
Drake glanced at him. “Not while I’m here, there wouldn’t.”
They found a table and sat down, Kinimaka looking especially uncomfortable perched on an undersized chair. A waitress with jet-black curly hair and a dirty pinny came out from the back, spotted them, and hurried over.
“Help you?” Her English was stilted and tuneful, but a million times better than any of their Jamaican.
“I hope so,” Kennedy took the lead. “We’re looking for Buds, all round, and a chat with Lionel Raychim.”
The waitress instantly looked suspicious. “Wha’ you need wit’ old man Ray?”
“A history lesson,” said Kennedy laying some cash on the table. “He around today?”
“Whoever y’ask prob’ly tol’ you he ‘round every day,” said the waitress studying them hard before seeming to come to a decision. “Jus’ wait.”
She went to the bar, took her pinny off, then turned and disappeared around the side into another room. Drake surveyed the place, catching the eyes of Kennedy, Hayden and Kinimaka. They got the message, each abruptly sitting lighter and weighing their options.
Around the corner came a tall, spare man with white hair, a white beard and wearing a white suit. Oddly, he still looked more tanned than the English family who gawped at him and surreptitiously reached for camera phones. Upon reaching their table he sat down, spirited the money away and shouted loudly for beer.
His eyes met Drake’s. “What do you need?”
Kennedy spoke first, butting in with such vigour that her unshod hair whipped forward. “We believe you might be the descendant of a pirate called Calico Jack. His only descendant. And that you still own the farm where his family were brought up.” Out loud it actually sounded ludicrous, though their research was sound.
Raychim glared at them. The waitress made a reappearance, bringing them their Buds and sliding Ben’s across with a little wink. Drake grinned.
“Alcohol, not milk? Wasn’t that a song?”
“Dr Feelgood.” Ben studied the Bud. “We covered it. The band, I mean.”
Kennedy gave Raychim a little push. “Are you that man, Mr Raychim?”
The man’s eyes flicked from left to right. “You eating?”
Drake took a closer look. Lionel Raychim’s hands were shaking, just a little. His nose was a red network of broken veins. His tongue flicked nervously across his lips. The man was a drunk, and probably didn’t eat much. “Choose what you want,” Drake said. “Just do us a favour — talk whilst you eat. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Raychim nodded and ordered the biggest steak and chips dinner on the menu with all the trimmings, and more Bud besides. “I still own that farm, though I hadn’t been there in over five years.”
Kennedy leaned forward. “Hadn’t?” Drake couldn’t help but watch her long black hair fall this way and that.
“There was a break-in two days ago. Many books were taken.”
“What kind of books?”
“Old ones. The kind of thing that might pertain to my ancestor, the famous pirate.”
Drake had been thinking: two days? They were really that far behind their rivals? Then Raychim’s words jolted him.
“They took the books?”
“Hmm,” Raychim became distracted as his food arrived. Kinimaka had ordered a burger. No one else dared the local fare.
“Most of them.”
Kennedy bit. “You saying they didn’t get what they wanted? Do you think that something in these books might be helpful to them?”
“So many questions,” Raychim drained half his first Bud, using his napkin to hold the glass and wiping his mouth on a white sleeve.
“Not everything.” Raychim put his knife and fork down and grinned. “I may be old, I may be a drunk. I may be a lot of things, but I ain’t stupid. I knew, as soon as that cursed old box was dragged up on prime-time TV that people would come sniffing. You ain’t the first, won’t be the last.”
Hayden placed her arms on the table.” But we are the most official.” She flashed her credentials.
Raychim looked relieved. “It’s a book they are looking for,” he said immediately. “I have it in my car.”
Not surprisingly, Raychim’s car was parked outside. Within ten minutes, Ben was thumbing carefully through the pages of the antiquated book. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “this is the scribe’s continuation piece. You know… ” he mused, “… this book might be worth a fortune if offered in the right circles.”
“Not now,” Drake chastised the youngster. “Speak, or the dummy goes back in.”
“The scribe wrote that after Blackbeard’s battle had finished the pirate could not return to Calico Jack. It doesn’t say why…” Ben scanned forward for answers. “No, nothing. Maybe the Queen Anne’s Revenge was damaged?”
Drake nodded. “Or being pursued. There were a lot of British men-of-war around here at the time tasked with ridding the seas of pirates.”
“Whatever,” said Kennedy tapping the table. “What happened next?”
“Blackbeard got word to Calico Jack and ordered him to send the devices to a prearranged meeting place. Look. There’s a map here, and even an X. A real pirate treasure map!” Ben’s excitement made his eyes wide and glassy.
To a person, everyone stood up and craned over to take a look. The revered silence that followed was a testament to notorious pirate history.
Ben continued. “It seems that Calico Jack did send the devices to the agreed meeting place on a small ship, or boat. It’s not clear. But the boat was intercepted by the British, its crew killed and its valuables confiscated.”
“So the British claimed the devices?” Hayden wondered.
“Yes. Blackbeard never collected them, in any event. Maybe he sent a scouting party to the rendezvous point and they saw what happened.” Ben read on for a few minutes and then closed the book.