Mr. Hooligan Page 9

  Harvey had invited a woman, Jawanda, who said she was from Chicago, but Riley had doubts, and whenever Gert’s head was turned, Harvey would rub Jawanda’s shoulder or hold her hand, in full view of everybody, guy had no shame when he drank. When one of the kegs ran dry at the same time the vodka finished, Riley trekked to the back with Turo to fetch more and they heard a clink clink coming from the back porch. Quietly, Riley cracked the door and looked outside.

  Harvey was standing out there in the semidarkness, his back to them, pants around his ankles, bare-assed. Jawanda’s legs wrapped around his back as she sat on a stack of beer crates, the empty bottles inside going clink clink clink. Turo said, “Disgusting,” but didn’t move, edging forward to peek some more. Miles shut the door and said, “At least he’s doing it gradigually.” Together they left to make sure Gert was in the front or wasn’t on the way to the back for some reason, but it made Riley want to take a shower.

  It was a noisy, blurry night, all right, but four in the morning, Riley toppled into bed happy, and now despite the pain racking his cranium he was most assuredly happier, knowing that after tonight, no more runs, no more anxiety over schemes; he was hours away from being a free man.

  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.

  Riley said to himself, shit, he shouldn’t judge this boy. He said, “Hey, Julius, what’s the significance of the rum by your old man’s cross?”

  Julius threw the ropes in the boat and hopped in. “Holiday today. The old man liked his rum on a holiday.”

  “That’s right,” Riley said, nodding, thinking of what else to say. “Tito did like his taste, all right. Your dad was a good guy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Julius pushed off from the pier and Riley started the engines, thinking he’d better raise the subject, get it out of the way. “Listen, one time we were talking and I said I could use somebody dependable three nights a week at the bar?” He looked at Julius’s expressionless face. “Been thinking about it?”

  Julius, sitting on the gunwale, turned his shoulder away slightly, put his attention on the water. “After tonight, this is it for you in this business, right?”

  Riley said, “Yeah,” knowing where Julius was going. “But I’m talking steady job, steady pay. Nothing underworld. Know what I’m sayin’?”

  Julius nodded, gazing away. “I hear you.”

  Riley waited.

  That’s it? What more could he say? When a man shows disregard by not wanting to converse, you don’t talk. So Riley thought, To hell with it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They headed for the reef. The waves had picked up some but not enough to slow them, the boat skimming unperturbed toward the break. Through St. George’s cut and then into the vast blue, the boat rode the swells and the movement became a rhythm to the drone of the engines. Every now and again
sea spray lashed them. Night had chilled the air. Riley broke out the rain slickers for comfort’s sake and offered Julius one. The macho man refused.

  When you’re on the sea, the mind drifts. You let matters surface that you’ve held at depths. Riley was thinking how Duncan would love a boat ride, so long since they’d been on the water together. He was thinking of the boy’s big round eyes, his mother’s, and bushy eyebrows and that raspy voice. Riley was beginning to forget how that voice sounded.

  Now the night was ink, the sea a rolling momentum. In the distance the Mauger Caye lighthouse winked at them as they moved north along the Turneffe Atoll. Riley picked up the radio mike. “Dover, Dover, come in, Dover. This is Hooligan. Calling motor vessel Dover.”

  The bow pitched and cold spray splashed Riley’s face.

  “Dover responding. Come in, Hooligan, over.”

  “How far away, over.”

  The radio crackled. “Fifteen minutes, over.”

  “I read you. Over and out.” Couldn’t have been more perfect.

  Not ten minutes later, Julius hollered into the wind, pointing out the lights of a ship … while Riley was thinking of Candice. That it felt right with her because she was a woman, as opposed to his ex-wife when she said I do at age twenty-one and was really still a girl.

  He cut his running lights when he saw the long shadow of the container ship holding steady in the current, on the leeward side of Bushman’s Caye, bow to the waves. Lights were off all down the ship. Riley pulled back the throttle and idled around the wide stern to its port side, the dark wall of steel towering above.

  Riley radioed up. He told Julius get ready. Two figures appeared at the ship’s railing, then the bulk of a net started down slowly, slowly, six white, ten-gallon buckets inside, knocking the hull as the net was lowered. Riley pulled up under it.

  The cargo thudded into the boat, and Julius worked fast, loosening the net, freeing the buckets. One fell on his feet and he cursed. Riley thought, That’s why you should be wearing shoes, fool.