* * *
After an hour’s worth of driving dusty, potholed dirt roads, lined mostly with sugarcane nearing twelve feet high, we turned down a coquina-layered drive where the smell of salt and the sound of seagulls wrapped around us. A half mile later, we arrived at a small resort on the beach: a row of concrete bungalows, hammocks stretched between the columns, surfboards leaning against every available wall, various bathing suits hung out to dry on laundry lines, a man and woman floating on inflatables in the pool, cold beer in their hands with limes in the tops and condensation running down the sides, four tanned guys with sun-bleached hair sitting on chairs staring out across a relatively flat ocean. An American guy about my age—beer belly, reading glasses on his nose, bathing suit faded, barefoot with Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned—was scurrying between the rooms and serving patrons in the pool. When he saw us, he raised a hand and said in a Midwestern accent, “Be right with you.”
While we waited, Isabella walked around the pool. Eyeing it. Paulo, Paulina, and I stood beneath an umbrella, waiting.
Moments later, the guy appeared in front of me, sweating, breathing heavy, and smiling. “What can I do for you folks?”
I showed him the picture of Zaul that I’d taken from the kitchen sink at Colin’s house. “You seen this guy?”
He nodded and palmed the sweat off his head, flinging it onto the ground. He was not happy to see the picture. He squinted at me. “Sure have.”
“Mind telling me when?”
“Most of last night. Then this morning.”
“Here?”
He pointed at one of the bungalows, then around the pool. “He and his friends—if you can call them that—trashed my villa, partied at the pool till almost daylight, and ran off a couple of my guests. I’m just now getting the mess cleaned up.”
“Is he still around?”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“Any idea if he plans to return?”
“I told them if they did that I’d shoot them on sight.”
“That bad, huh?”
“They destroyed a brand-new flat screen, and I lost three extended-stay couples. Two had booked for a week. One for a month. I don’t do business with kids like him as I can usually sniff them out, but the girl that works for me took the reservation.”
“Any idea where they went?”
He pointed out in the ocean. “They hired a charter to take them to the reef. Some big swells out there the last few days. Almost twenty feet.”
“You know where they caught that charter?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know if they had transportation? A car or anything?”
He stuck his thumb in the air. “Best I could tell, they were hitchhiking, which can be tough when you’ve got five guys with boards.”
“Would you mind calling me if you happen to see them again?”
“Not if you don’t mind if I shoot them first.”
I turned to Paulina. “Can I give him your cell number?”
Paulina gave the man her number and he returned to his office. Paulo turned the truck around, and we were loading up when Paulina discovered that Isabella was not in the truck. We turned toward the water and found that she’d walked across the sand to what looked like the end of the yard and the beginning of the dune before the beach. Paulina hollered and told her to get in the truck. Isabella stood, staring at the ocean.
Paulina hollered again, but still no reaction.
I said, “She okay?”
“Yes, she’s just never seen the ocean before. I told her we’d come back when we had more—”
I hopped out of the truck and walked up next to Isabella, who was wide-eyed and chewing on a fingernail. The wind was blowing in her face and amplifying the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I held out my hand. “Come on.” She took it and we walked the well-worn surfer’s path toward the beach. When we got there, I kicked off my flip-flops, as did she, and we walked down toward the water. The surf pounded the sand and, to her amazement, rolled up and across her toes, bathing her feet in sand and small shells. The Pacific was cool, dark blue, and she stood speechless as the water washed up and back. Wave after wave. A moment later, Paulina stood to her left and whispered, “Careful. She can’t swim.”
I’d never considered that. Isabella walked a few feet toward the waves. Knee-high. Almost midthigh. I spoke more to myself than Paulina. “What kind of kid doesn’t know how to swim?”
Paulina spoke to me while staring at Isabella. Ready to pounce. “The kind who’s never had access to water and never been taught.”
Isabella turned, delight on her face, and walked out of the water.
I spoke again. “We need to remedy that.”
Paulina glanced at me but said nothing.
* * *
We climbed into the truck and were rolling out the driveway when I tapped on the hood of the cab and said, “Give me one second.” I found the man in his office, talking on the phone. When he hung up, I asked, “How much do you figure that crew cost you?”
He was still irritated but he calculated anyway. “Four-hundred-dollar TV. Two of the couples were a week at sixty dollars a night. Other couple was here a month. I gave them a rate.” He tilted his head. “Two thousand seven hundred dollars—give or take.”
I counted out thirty hundred-dollar bills and handed them to him. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I’m…sorry for your trouble.”
Eyes wide, jaw hanging halfway open, he stuffed the money in his pocket and followed me out to the truck. “Mister?”
I turned.
He pointed to the picture of Zaul in my pocket. “You know that kid?”
“Yes.”
“He important to you?”
“Yes.”
He squinted against the sun and hesitated before he spoke—as if doing so was painful. “You know, he’s real different than you.”
“I had a lot to do with making him the way he is.” I waved my hand across his resort. “If you want to blame someone for this, you can blame me.”
He held up the piece of paper on which he wrote Paulina’s number. “I’ll call if I see him again, but chances are—” He shook his head.
* * *
After Paulo had shifted into fourth, Isabella had fallen asleep in the front seat, and the wind had dried the sweat and salt and sun on our faces, Paulina nodded back toward the resort and asked through hand-shaded eyes, “What’d you do in there?”
“Asked him a few questions about Zaul.”
“And?”
“He told me.”
“And?”
“That’s it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t think she believed me, but I wasn’t willing to tell her the truth.
* * *
At my hotel, I paid my bill, tipped the attendant twenty dollars, and pulled my bike around front. Isabella’s eyes grew wide and round when she saw me sitting on it. She turned to Paulina and asked without asking. Paulina tried to shake her head without my seeing, thinking I’d be bothered by her. I spoke softly. “If you don’t mind, I don’t.”