On a bench in the plaza, he looks at the people and the band. He sees and hears nothing. His thoughts wander to roulette, the purest of the casino games.
The wheel itself, rich inlaid wood, spinning on precision bearings, is a work of beauty. At rest or in motion, it is mesmerizing. No participation whatsoever is required of the player. You lay your money on the felt and the dealer rakes it off.
Juan Gama, a statistics major with a mathematical brain; of all people, he should have known better. He could not stop himself any more than a heroin addict could keep a needle out of his arm. Like one of those degenerate gamblers, he lost the card-counting proceeds almost as fast as they came in.
He has enough money stashed for another year. Then what? He can worry about that then. Charlie is today’s headache.
Easygoing Charlie, wouldn’t he sympathize if Juan could convince him of his staggering roulette losses? What is that old saying? You’re only a temporary custodian of the house’s money. Wouldn’t Charlie take back word to his bosses that they’ve had their money all along?
Yeah, right. And pigs can fly.
“Are you not feeling well?” Teresa asks.
“What?”
“You won’t talk to me. You have been in a trance.”
“Sorry.”
She gets up. “Since you are not having any fun, I cannot have any either. Anyway, I am anxious to see if Perez is home.”
Why not? Juan thinks, rising slowly. He puts his arm around her and, setting a slow pace, begins to tell her everything.
Charlie Peashooter is impressed. This little abode is as neat as a pin and the living room is like an antique store with a military theme, including a rogue’s gallery of buccaneer and colonial potentate portraiture. The feminine touch is apparent, with doilies and the scent of waxes. The decorator presumably is the sister of that unfortunate lad with the drinking problem.
In order to gain access to the airport terminal’s interior, Charlie had purchased a ticket to Cancun. When he did not see Juan, it was logical that he utilized someone in this misdirection play. Another element in the logic: Why would Juan blab to that waiter if he were skipping town? It had been easy enough to grease a ticket agent’s palm to learn if a man named Perez had likewise purchased a ticket and to identify him.
Juan Gama’s ill-gotten gains may not be in an offshore account, Charlie theorizes. Perhaps, he thinks, Juan is oldfashioned, preferring to squirrel it in a mattress. His guess is close. In a shoebox in a cubbyhole behind a closet, perhaps unbeknownst to the lady of the house, is a shoebox containing fifteen thousand dollars in greenbacks and pesos.
Juan is teasing him with petty cash. They will have their chitchat concerning that Grand Cayman numbered account.
Charlie peeks between curtains. The stinker, there he is, home early from their picnic. His pleasantly plump lady friend is red eyed, squeezing her hankie for all it’s worth. Charlie steps out of the light.
“How could you do this to Perez?” a sniffling Teresa is saying not for the first time. “To make a hunting decoy of him.”
“Hey, like he’s having a ball,” Juan says. “Charlie’s looking for me, not Perez. Nothing will happen to him.”
“Something already has. I can feel it. How could you lie to me for these months?”
“I wasn’t lying. I, uh, withheld. I was planning to tell you everything soon.”
“Liar. When are you leaving me?”
“I have to go right away. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
“Liar. What do I smell?”
They are inside. Juan is about to close the door, but he freezes. He smells it too.
“A man’s perfume. You do not wear any.”
“I do,” Charlie says, stepping out of a shadow. “Forgive me. The door was unlocked.”
“Liar,” Teresa says, backing into Juan.
Juan steps protectively in front of her. “Charlie, I need an extra day or two.”
Charlie sighs and exhibits a compassionate frown. “Juan, Juan, Juan. You should have been upfront. That hurts. I’d have worked with you.”
Juan hangs his head.
Teresa demands, “Where is my brother?”
“A fine young man. Dissipating himself in Mexico City, I’ll betcha. Oops, sorry, sis,” Charlie replies with a wink.
“Liar. Liars. Both of you.”
Charlie looks at Juan, his eyes widening playfully. “Well, I know where the term ‘Mexican spitfire’ originates, you lucky dog. Juan, now, this situation of ours?”
“One more day, Charlie. There’s a mix-up on the account numbers—”
“You stop lying to him, maybe he will stop lying to me.”
“Excuse me?” Charlie says to her.
Teresa looks at Charlie and his dead, but cordial, eyes. She has no expectation of prizes behind curtains.
“There is not any money except for what this man hides in my house he thinks I do not know about. Answer me where my brother is and you can take that money and go.”
“No money?” Charlie says to him. “There has to be money.”
“There is. Honestly, Charlie, there is.”
Juan says “honestly” as car dealers in TV commercials do. Charlie realizes now that there is no money. An unsatisfactory development, yes, but the denouement will be the same.
He sidles to Juan, pats his arm, and says, “Money. If you say so. Splendid. Heck, we should go out to a telephone right now and resolve this. Let’s get it out of our hair, okay?”
Juan’s feet won’t move.
Charlie gives him a winning smile and a nudge that is more than a nudge. “C’mon, big guy, one call does it all.”
“No,” Teresa says in a hoarse whisper.
But she is not speaking from where she was, behind Juan’s slumped shoulders. She has shifted to the hallway shadows. Charlie may have to do her also. Three assignments for the price of one. Life is so unfair.
He has already edged Juan outside. Hand firmly clamped to a wrist of his prey, Charlie reenters. He blinks, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and turns toward Teresa, igniting his smile. He glances at the wall with the pirate memorabilia. Something is missing.
Charlie reaches into his pocket when it dawns on him what it is. He reaches too late. The arrow pierces his throat as he draws his pistol.
“We drove your kind away once. We can do it again,” Teresa says.
She is not talking to Charlie Peashooter, who is on the floor and cannot hear her. She is talking to Juan, who stumbles out the door and breaks into a run as she reloads the crossbow.
R. A. Allen
The Emerald Coast
from The Literary Review
There was no breeze. The Gulf’s blue-green surface was flat, and a haze — the waning vestige of a morning fog — hung above it. Listless waves slopped the tide line like a careless janitor. Waitron lit a cigarette and half-leaned half-sat on the wooden railing that enclosed the al fresco deck of Joe’s Crab Trap. It was the midafternoon lulclass="underline" bartenders prepping fruit garnishes for happy hour, bus-boys sweeping up sandy French fries, and the wait staff trudging through the personally unprofitable side work demanded by management in order to save money by not actually hiring someone to clean mirrors, dust woodwork, polish stainless steel, and whatnot.
Because of the haze, the glare was diffuse and everywhere and it burned into Waitron’s retinae even in the shade of the deck’s canopy. The haze muffled the beach noises: children squealing, the thump of a volleyball, snatches of music, the shrieks of gulls. He scanned the long white shore from east to west for as far as he could see. How many females could he discern between the vanishing points of his sight? Three hundred? More than five hundred? Certainly less than there were in August.