"I believe we get the picture, Pablo. Thanks for sharing."
If the young man took offense at being interrupted, it did not show on his smiling face. "When shall we start?" he asked Remo.
"Sooner the better," Remo told him. "Right, Chiun?"
The Master Emeritus of Sinanju frowned and said, "Tell him to take us where we'll get decent reception."
Pablo appeared to know his business when it came to casting off and piloting the cabin cruiser out of port. In fact, there wasn't much to handling the cruiser, with its GPS positioning, automated piloting and other electronics that Remo had been instructed not to fiddle with. In fact, he had been keeping the thing under manual control since they took her out. Pablo engaged the electronics as a matter of course and soon had them on their way. Remo glanced at the controls, found all the blips and messages benign enough, as far as he could tell, and left him to it. If the course was not correct, he'd know, electronics or no.
The act of taking on a crewman for a boat the size of the Melody was more to give the passengers some extra leisure time than to preserve their lives at sea.
Some would have called the new addition to their crew a status symbol. Remo preferred to think of him as an investment in success.
The first day out from Puerta Plata they sailed east by southeast, roughly following the coastline, barely keeping it in sight, until they reached the Mong Passage and nosed due south. They had a distant glimpse of Puerto Rico, green on the horizon to their east, or left, but Pablo or his electronics seemed to know where he was going as they passed by the U.S. territory and sailed on, turning east again only when they were well into the Caribbean proper, the vast Atlantic safely behind them.
"Senor Morgan tells me joo are interested in pirates, si?"
"Could be," said Remo. "You know about that kind of thing?"
"Oh, si," said Pablo. "Anyone who grows up round this place knows pirate stories."
Remo noted that the young man didn't mention knowing pirates, and he wasn't sure if that should be a disappointment or relief. He experienced another moment of regret for letting Stacy Armitage aboard the Melody, but he suppressed it quickly, concentrating on the job at hand. That was when he noticed the scampering of small feet coming up to the bridge. Either the Melody had vermin or...
"You can show us where the pirates of old did their business?" Chiun squeaked as his head popped into view and he scampered up top.
It seemed to Remo that their pilot's grin was brighter than it should have been as he replied. "Oh, si, senor. This time manana, next day at the latest, joo see where the pirates lived. I think joo not be disappointed." Was there something in his voice, his eyes, besides the goofy smile? Or was Remo looking for some evidence of guilt and finding it where none in fact existed?
Before the summer afternoon began to fade, Stacy had already passed judgment on the new addition to their crew. "He's dirty," she told Remo as they sunbathed on the forward deck. "I feel it. Everywhere I go, he's watching me."
Remo considered the bikini bottoms she was barely wearing and the bikini top she had discarded entirely, and couldn't resist a smile. Her normal clothing flattered her, of course, but it didn't do justice to the supple body hidden underneath. A blind man would have dropped his pencils on the street corner if Stacy Armitage had passed by close enough for him to smell her sun-warmed, nearly naked skin. "He has good taste," Remo said.
"I'm being serious," she told him. "He may not be the one who set my brother up, but I don't trust him."
Remo had to ask. "Who do you trust?"
"Right now? Myself." She stared at Remo from behind big sunglasses, perhaps attempting to discover if his feelings had been wounded. When he gave no outward sign of injury, she frowned, whether from disappointment or concern, he couldn't say.
"That isn't fair, I guess," she said. "I should trust you."
"Don't be so hasty," Remo said, eyes closed against the sun's glare. "I've been looking at you, too."
She let that pass, but there was just a beat of silence, hesitancy, before she spoke again. "What do you think of him?"
He almost mentioned the tattoo on Pablo's hand, but let it slide. She was keyed up already, and he saw no point in goading her. If she was right about the new addition to their crew, it would be risky pouring any more fuel on the fire of her suspicion. She might say something, do something, that would divert the young man from his plan, either by scuttling it or striking prematurely. On the other hand, if Pablo was entirely innocent, Stacy might scare him off with some rash word or deed.
"I think we need to keep an eye on him," Remo stated, "but discreetly. If he has his own agenda, we don't want to spook him, right?"
"I'd like to crack his skull and toss him overboard," she said through clenched teeth, smiling at him all the while.
"That's my department," he reminded her, "and it would ruin any chance we have of finding out if he's connected to the men who killed your brother. Am I right?"
She was about to make a face at him but caught herself, glanced back toward Pablo in the wheelhouse, keeping up her smile. "He's watching me again," said Stacy.
"Good. That ought to keep him suitably distracted for a while, in case he has some kind of mischief on his mind."
"My God, it's true! You men are all alike, with only one thing on your minds."
"I'd say that depends," said Remo.
"Oh? On what?"
"The man, the moment and the inspiration," he replied.
Her voice turned coy, surprising Remo with the change, under the circumstances. "Would you say that I'm inspiring?" Stacy asked.
"I never thought about it," Remo declared, while pointedly avoiding even the suggestion of a glance in her direction.
"Is that right?" He couldn't tell from Stacy's tone if she was getting angry now, or simply teasing him.
"We're here on business," he reminded her. "Distractions could be fatal."
Remo felt her glaring at him after he had closed his eyes. The heat that radiated from her now had more to do with anger than the tropic sun above, or any fleeting passion that she may have felt. He felt an undeniable attraction to the woman lying nearly naked at his side, but Remo was at this point in his life enjoying the company of a woman who didn't get all aroused by the mere presence of his body chemistry.
It was an odd side effect of his Sinanju training. At first he thought it was the greatest thing in the world how women responded to him. They went gaga. They got all loopy. It got old pretty fast, having any woman you wanted.
Eventually he learned that eating shark meat dampened the effect. That created its own set of problems. Like Chiun behaving as if he had the world's worst BO and the fact that he wasn't all that fond of shark. Later Remo gained some control of the effect himself, but it came and went. It was one of those Sinanju skills that he never quite got full control of.
"How come you aren't getting burned?" Stacy demanded.
Remo shrugged. "I've got Native American blood. They don't burn as easy."
"Because of their skin pigmentation, which you don't show evidence of," she accused.
"I don't know, then."
He smiled at Stacy's muttering, as she rolled over on her stomach, offering her well-oiled backside to the sun. Once again, Remo found himself hoping that Pablo Altamira was one of the pirates they sought. Preoccupation with a raid to come might keep the young Dominican from making any moves on "Mrs. Rubble" that would ultimately lead to trouble on board the Melody.
The last thing Remo needed at the moment was a mutiny inspired by hormones. He had enough to think about, with Chiun still out of sorts about the lack of soap operas and whatever other bugs were up his Emeritus butt these days.
Their first night out of Puerta Plata, Remo sat with Chiun and Stacy at the table in the dining room, which could seat twelve, while Pablo took first watch. Chiun had done the cooking. Stacy seemed a little disappointed by the mound of rice and steamed fish on her plate.