Mr. Hooligan (12 page)

He nibbled Candice’s right ear, and she stirred, then swatted at him. She said, blearily, “You’re leaving? What time is it?”

“About two o’clock.”

“My God. I have such a headache.”

“Got to run a few errands, meet somebody for business out at St. George’s Caye.” A kind of truth. “I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“Sounds like breakfast tomorrow then?”

“I know. I’m sorry. Pancakes?”

“Yeah,” she said, groggy, and closed her eyes again.

Two hours later Riley was in a nameless Panga-style skiff, a thirty-three-footer with twin Yamaha 200s, roomy cockpit, and V-berth, cruising down the Belize River with an icy Lighthouse Lager for a hair of the dog. He was pasted in sunblock and sported a Tilley hat, scratched-up shades, feeling fair to middling in the warm breeze as he passed under the swing bridge. Then he glided by the sailboats and tugboats in the quiet harbor, a man with a black Labrador on the deck of a Catalina waving. At the mouth of the harbor, near the Baron Bliss Lighthouse, he stood up and pushed up the throttle and the bow lifted with a deep growl of the engines. Wind in his face, he tucked his hat strap under his chin. The boat bounced over the light chop as the water changed from brown to green and he ripped out into the Caribbean Sea.

In fifteen minutes, he came within sight of the mangrove islands and aimed the boat for the cut. He eased back on the throttle, skimmed through the calm water, past a fisherman’s shambling house on stilts at the edge of the island. Back in the rolling waves he picked up speed and banked east toward St. George’s Caye. When he neared the kraals and boats lined up at the piers, he slowed and came off plane, the bow dropping and knifing through the clear waters toward the island of coconut trees and two-story houses along the white-sand path.

There were a few more holiday boaters out than usual but nothing historic. He tied the boat at the Monsantos’ pier and walked barefoot down the pier to the Sandy Reef, a restaurant and bar at the north end. He sipped a bottled water on the upstairs verandah, feet up on the railing, watching kids playing by lobster pots in the front yard, and farther out teen girls sunning on towels around a kraal. Beyond the line of piers a windsurfer struggled to stay upright, losing the fight repeatedly. In the distance, surf rolled in a white line on the reef. Riley tipped his hat over his eyes and dozed. When it got too warm, he retreated down the beach to the Monsantos’ house.

In keeping with their low-key style, it was an old stilt wood-frame in need of paint, behind a stand of cocoplum trees. The house was shuttered, and the only key Riley had was to a room off the back porch. He entered. Inside it was musty, glass buoys hanging off one wall, a hard bench by the window, and a table with a marine VHF radio on top. He opened the shutters to air the place but closed the door. He checked his watch and turned the radio on. He spun the dial to 65, a rarely used channel. He checked his watch again, waiting for six o’clock.

He remembered the first time he stood in this room, when he asked Carlo if he wasn’t afraid police would see his tall antenna on the roof and put two and two together, come after him. Carlo took him out on the porch and pointed out the roofs of houses down the row that had antennas, about five others. “Everybody knows,” he said, “that VHF works through flat waves so you want to reach over the horizon, you need an elevated antenna, dig? Nothing wrong with that.”

Fifteen years ago, just about, but it felt like last weekend.

At 6:05 he clicked on the mike and put it to his lips. “
Dover, Dover,
calling motor vessel,
Dover,
whiskey tango five eight one five. Calling motor vessel
Dover,
whiskey tango five eight one five. Do you read me? This is Hooligan, over.”

The radio crackled, clicked. Then, “This is
Dover,
whiskey tango five eight one five responding. Come in, Hooligan.”

“Good evening. Please give me an ETA.”

A static-filled delay. Then, “ETA is … nine thirty, over.”

Static again, which could mean bad weather. “Copy that. What are the skies like? Over.”

“A little rain. No bother, over.”

“Good to hear, over and out.”

And until he was on the salt again, that would be the last communication with the
Dover
—which wasn’t really named the
Dover
and which didn’t have the call sign WT5815 either—all of this to avoid detection. Standard operating phoniness for this type of trade.

Riley locked up and went down to the pier in the twilight. Most of the holiday crowd had left; only a few boats were docked at the other piers. Someone was having a barbecue in a yard to the south. He could smell the meat roasting and hear laughter and voices, and that stayed on his mind when he pushed out in the cool air, heading for Robinson Caye.

*   *   *

He reached it in ten minutes, the sliver of white beach amid mangroves, a long wooden pier with an engine house, and farther back, a glimpse of red tin roof among tall coconut palms.

The Robinsons’ dogs trotted onto the pier barking when he glided in, three salty mutts. He called their names and spoke to them while he tied up, got their tails wagging, the little yellow one whimpering. They circled around then ran ahead, yapping, leading him down the pier and across the hard shore of crushed shells and down the sandy path that snaked through trees to the back of the island.

About halfway to the red-roofed house, he passed a short picket fence squared around a white cross in the ground, under a stately coconut tree. Old brown coconuts and palm fronds dotted the sand all the way to the front steps.

Miss Rose was at the stove as usual, stirring a steaming pot, banging the spoon against the rim, seemingly unaware he was behind her.

“Miss Roooose. I’m starving. A hungry man is an angry man.”

“Come see what I have for you, Riley,” and she made room for him at her stove and lifted the lid of another pot on a front burner. Like they had been in the middle of a conversation.

Riley threw an arm around her shoulders, leaned over and sniffed the pots. Fluffy yellow rice in the small one, an aromatic boil-up of onions, potato, carrots, cabbage, and fish bubbling in the other. “Heavenly,” Riley said, making the face of a man in unbearable ecstasy. “I’d kill for a bowl of this stuff, Miss Rose. What else in there, okra? What kind of fish?”

“Snapper and kingfish. Okra, no, but some malanga,” and she reeled off all the spices, Riley nodding, knowing she liked discussing her food almost as much as he liked eating it.

She spooned up a bowl of rice and ladled the stew on top, chunks of fish in there, potatoes, the bowl so hot Riley used a dish towel to carry it into the next room. Miss Rose sat across from him and watched him eat. “It’s nice?” Amusement shining in her eyes.

“With all this deliciousness in my mouth,” he said, mouth full, “how can anyone find words to express,” chewing, closing his eyes to show delight, “how divine this experience is, Miss Rose?”

She laughed. “Oh, lass, you funny, boy,” and she pushed up and limped back into the kitchen, Riley noticing her elephantiasis looking more swollen than ever.

Oh, lass
. That was one of her expressions Riley figured must come from old-country Creole, Miss Rose with the front of her frock perpetually wet from cooking and washing dishes. Not a dress, a
frock,
as she would say. Living out here almost twenty-five years with her husband, rest his soul, and now maintaining the island and her house at her age, you had to admire that. The house was a simple setup: two bedrooms off the porch, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a vast main room that served as dining and living area, with a long wooden table and wicker-bottom chairs. Huge screenless windows propped open with sticks in every room, and in some corners, the remnants of mosquito coils clothespinned to the top of Coke bottles.

Through the doorway Riley saw Miss Rose shuffle past in her slippers out to the porch. She returned after a while and sat with him again.

“I went and woke that boy up. Not like he didn’t know what time you coming. Ay, lass,” she said and put a hand to her cheek. “Don’t know what I’m gonna do with that one.”

Riley slurped the last of the stew, wiped his lips with the dish towel. He nodded, didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

“Drink rum and smoke that dope all night, you see him there, don’t want to get a steady job. My god, I named him like his father but not one ambitious bone in his body.”

“He’s not helping ’round the place?”

“You see how the yard looks? How I’m gonna clean all that up with my feet acting up like this?”

Riley looked down, playing with the spoon. “I mean, not to get in your business, but he’s contributing financially at least, correct?”

“Last piece of money I ever get from him was seventy-five dollars. Last month.” She rested her chin in a hand and studied Riley. “You always said one day you’re getting out of the trade. Me and Tito used to talk about us doing it one day, you know, just tell Israel Monsanto we can’t store his gas for him anymore. Tito used to say everybody always say they’re getting out soon, this or that, but once that easy money grab hold a you, it’s hard to let go. Look at me, Israel’s rent money is good business for me.”

“Here’s the thing. The money’s not easy for me anymore. Mentally.”

She nodded at his bowl. “Want more?”

He touched his stomach. “Better not. Got to keep on my toes, stay light.”

“For your last trip ever.”

“You don’t believe it?”

She smiled in a way that reminded him of Sister Pat. How her eyes gently fell on you as her mind gave your words due consideration. “I’m rooting for you. I’m proud of you, with your bar business and everything. Don’t let these people swallow you up, these are some bad people. Tito used to say if it wasn’t that they paid him good he wouldn’t even want to say hello to them.”

“I’m getting out, trust me.”

“One person I know, only one left the Monsanto fold, years back. Remember?”

“Brisbane Burns? Only because they had a personal falling out. Nothing to do with business.”

“Hear what happened to him? Know he lives by Buttonwood Bay, by your friend there, the Romeo, what’s his name, Harvey? Well, they broke into Brisbane’s house some days back. I hear this from my son that they docked at his private pier, broke in, stole a safe full of guns.”

“Brisbane still loves his guns, I see. If he’s still the same way, somebody better watch their back.”

Heavy footsteps sounded outside on the porch and Riley looked up as a lanky guy in dreadlocks sloped past the main room door. “What’s up, Julius?”

“What up, yo,” Julius said, heading to the bathroom.

“We might get a little rain out there,” Riley called.

“Uh-huh.” The bathroom door creaking open, slamming shut.

Miss Rose said, “Hear that?
Uh-huh
. Not even have the courtesy to give people time of day, please and thank you. You give him something.
Yo
. Not thanks,
yo
! Tell him thank you, hear what he says?
Uh-huh
. I didn’t raise him like that. And all this ghetto street talk or whatever the hell they call it. When he talks to his friends it’s always big talk and things like, ‘Know what I’m sayin’?’ No, I don’t know what you’re saying, I tell him, ’cause that’s all you keep saying. ‘Blah blah blah, know what I’m sayin’?’ ” She shook her head. “He thinks he’s a Rasta. Riley, I wish you could maybe talk to him so he could think of getting out the business, too. Offer him a job maybe?”

“Don’t think he wants one, Miss Rose. I’ve brought it up before, about something at the bar we could work out. Didn’t seem interested. Miss Rose, honestly? I don’t think Julius likes me too much. Generational thing, could be, I don’t know.”

She sucked her teeth. “He don’t even like himself, that one. Don’t mind him.” She got up and took Riley’s bowl. “But suggest it again for me, please?”

Riley said he could certainly do that.

*   *   *

Julius walked ahead when they left, Riley taking his time, checking out the island he might never see again. The dogs skipped and played around him. He liked Miss Rose but he had no real reason to come back except to say an occasional hello and he could easily do that on her market days in the city. He’d always told himself, when you end it, end it, clean and complete.

He tarried at Tito Robinson’s grave behind the picket fence. The sand there had been raked smooth and there was a bottle of white rum lying by the cross. Julius passed by rolling a fifty-gallon drum of gas. Riley hopped to, rolled out another fifty-gallon drum from the concrete shed and onto the pier. Julius was laying out the fuel storage bladder on the floor of the boat. Riley hooked up the hand pump to a drum and Julius connected the hose to the bladder. They pumped a drum each, swelling the bladder. Riley rechecked everything—radio working fine, flashlights had batteries, flares in the glove box intact, two cold Belikins in the cooler for much later.

He sat back in the chair and watched Julius untie the lines. It was full night now, seas mild. Julius was wearing a long white tee, oversized denim shorts, and as usual no shoes, which was why he had island-man’s feet—calloused, toes curled like claws. The guy’s only concession to good grooming: dreadlocks bundled neatly in the back with a ribbon. A pink ribbon.