Dragon Moon (27 page)

For the first time Claudia's voice sounds closer to the way I'm used to hearing it. “Give me the number again, Peter. I'll check it out and call you back in a few minutes.”

Minutes pass.

I sit. I stand. I drum my fingers on the top of the pay phone. Chloe walks to the back, smiles, says, “There you are,” and comes over and hugs me.

It's the first time she's been in physical contact with me since we left for Kingston and I realize I've missed her touch. Elizabeth had rarely touched me except during sex, but Chloe, to my delight, seems much more physical, always resting a hand on me or standing close enough to brush against me. I smile, hug her back, tell her all I've learned.

The phone remains silent.

“I need her to believe me,” I say to my bride. “She's the only one I think might be willing to help us. I can't be sure of any of the others. And poor Arturo — Ineed to know what happened to him, how badly he's hurt.”

“If she doesn't call back, so be it,” Chloe says. “Why is this woman so important to you? We don't need any humans to help us defeat my brother.”

I smile, rub her arm lightly. “Of course,” I say. “But my father taught me, ‘Only fools take action without first gathering all the information they can.' No one knows Miami like the Gomez family does. If Claudia decides to help, believe me, we'll be grateful for her assistance.”

More minutes pass. “Let's leave,” Chloe says. “You can try her again in Montego Bay.”

I shake my head.

My bride frowns. “I don't see what makes her so special that you let her make you wait so long. I'll wait in the car,” she says and stomps off.

Time drags by. I sit and stare at the phone. When it finally rings, the harsh sound of it startles me so much that I don't pick up until the second ring.

“You're at a pay phone in Maxim's General Store in Ocho Rios, right?” Claudia says.

“Yes,” I say, smiling that Claudia has already taken the opportunity to trace the number. Arturo would have done the same.

“Two men, employees of one of Pop's smuggler friends are on the way there. What are you driving?”

“A yellow Land Rover.”

“Yellow?” She laughs. “Could you be any more conspicuous?”

“Claudia, tell me what's going on.”

“I've faxed a photo of you to these people. If they find you look like the picture, they'll give you a cellphone, an untraceable one like we use in Miami. Then we'll talk. And, Peter?”

“Yes,” I say.

“If you aren't who you say you are, you better leave now.”

The blare of reggae precedes a huge black SUV as it pulls into Maxim's parking lot. Leaning against the trunk of the Land Rover, Chloe close beside me, I watch it slowly cruise toward us. “Your special friend's been reading too many spy novels,” my bride sniffs.

“She's not special and she's just being careful,” I say.

The car pulls up to us and the dark tinted front passenger window rolls down revealing a large, well-muscled dark Jamaican, talking into a cellphone, the phone looking like a child's toy in his huge hand. “Ya, mon,” he says into the phone. He motions for the driver, another oversized Jamaican, equally black, to turn down the music.

The first man holds up a piece of paper studies it, then looks at me. “Ya, mon, he matches the fax you sent us.” He listens for a moment, stares at my eyes and nods his head. “Ya, his eyes are very green, like you said.”

He holds out the phone to me. “For you, brother. The lady, she wants to talk with you.”

I take the cellphone and walk away from the SUV. The car sits, its motor idling, the two men watching me, waiting, I assume, for instructions. “Claudia?” I say.

“Peter, I don't know what's going on but I think I'm relieved to hear that you're you. What can I do?”

“First tell me about Henri.”

“He looked okay the few times I saw him. A little subdued, but he looked healthy. I can't really report anything recent. Peter, the other one, stopped bringing him to shore a while ago.”

“And Arturo?”

Claudia sighs. “Two nights ago Pop left work at his usual time. According to Ian, he and Peter — the other Peter — and Rita stayed to work late on this merger they're doing. You can't believe how Pop hated the whole idea. He kept trying to talk all of them out of doing it. But Peter and Ian insisted.

“Anyway,” she says. “When the others left, they found Pop by the side of his car, all bloody, bruised and unconscious. At first they thought he was dead, but Ian finally felt a pulse. The police think it was a mugging — his money and jewelry were all gone — but I'm not sure. You know how tough Pop is.”

“What does he say happened?”

“He's still unconscious. I contacted some of his people; they're putting the word out on the street, trying to find out who did it and why. My bet is we'll find it's someone connected to Tindall.”

“Because?”

“Pop thought if he and Ian went to Peter and presented a united front, they'd be able to change his mind about the merger. Ian refused to risk it. The two of them had some pretty brutal screaming matches. Pop told me they both threatened each other.”

I nod, even though Claudia can't see me. “I can see how they would,” I say.

“Who is this other Peter?” she says. “How can he look and sound just like you?”

“Claudia, you know there are things about my family that we never discuss.”

“Yes,” she says. “Pop was real clear with me on that.”

“Let's just say he's a relative — anot very friendly one.”

“Whatever you say.”

“What's more important is our getting to Miami and resolving this whole situation.”

“Our?”

“I'm married now. My wife, Chloe, is with me.”

“What can I do?”

I know there's no time for false papers to be made. Without them any commercial air travel is out. “Can your friend smuggle us into the Miami?”

“His next shipment leaves in two weeks.”

“I don't want to wait that long. Find out for me what cruise ships are in Montego Bay and what their itinerary is.”

“Sure,” Claudia says. “I'll have to call you back on that.”

“Fine,” I say. “Do you think your friends here can help with a few things?”

I hand the cellphone to the Jamaican in the SUV. He listens, nods a few times, saying, “Ya. Ya,” then disconnects and hands the cellphone back to me. He opens the glove compartment, gives me a charger for the phone and a manila envelope.

“A thousand dollar in twenties, mon.” He flashes me a wide smile. “Your lady friend on the phone must like you very much. She said you have some things for us.”

Opening the trunk, I say to Chloe, “We'll never get your herbs and potions through customs.” I take the wicker chest and our suitcases and hand them to the Jamaican. “This way everything will be in Miami in a few weeks.”

After the SUV drives off, Chloe folds her arms, gives me a hard stare. “ ‘Your lady friend must like you very much,' ” she says, mimicking the Jamaican's accent and tone.

“She works for me,” I say,

Chloe shrugs, obviously not pleased with my answer.

The cellphone rings just a few minutes after we leave Ocho Rios. As soon as I answer, Claudia says, “You may want to stay where you are. The
Carribean Queen
is in port at Ocho Rios right now. It's due to leave at six. Their schedule calls for a stopover in Cayman, a sea day and arrival at the port of Miami the next morning.”

I check my watch. Three P.M. With luck we have plenty of time to find our way aboard the ship. “Can you arrange for some of your people to watch my island and some others to watch the office — so we know what's happening with the other Peter?”

“Sure.”

“And can you get Arturo's SeaRay and meet us in Key West the day after tomorrow?” I say.

“Why Key West?”

“I don't want to contend with customs in Miami,” I say. “Key West is the first place we can get off.”

Claudia says, “But the ship doesn't stop there.”

I sigh. If all goes as I plan, arriving in Miami could prove inconvenient. For beings like Chloe and me, leaving a ship at sea is a simple matter. But I've no desire to explain any of it to Claudia. It's none of her business just how I intend to get on the ship or how I plan to leave it. “Didn't your father tell you there would be questions that go unanswered? I just need you to meet us.”

“Sure. Whatever you say. It's a push but, yeah, I can do it,” Claudia says. “Then what?”

“Then we have some people to visit.”

Chloe shakes her head when I tell her to turn the car around. “Why? Did your special friend tell you to?”

I glare at her. A little jealousy may be cute and endearing, but enough is enough. “Why would you be jealous of any human women, let alone this one?”

My bride shrugs. “I don't like that you're making plans with her and not discussing them with me. And don't tell me you never took any of them to bed. Derek brags about the hundreds he's had.”

“I'm not Derek,” I say. “Since Elizabeth, there's only been one — and I regret that. Most certainly it was not Claudia. We need to go back to Ocho Rios because there's a cruise ship there that I want us to catch.”

“How?” Chloe says. “We have no papers.”

I tell her.

24

The
Carribean Queen
sits at the end of a long, narrow concrete pier jutting into Ocho Rios bay. Painted a brilliant white, with six tiered levels above its waterline, it looks more like a floating wedding cake than a majestic ship of the sea.

Dozens of tourists stroll along the pier: some going back to the ship; others heading for some last-minute shopping on land. A number of them wear loose-fitting T-shirts decorated with a large blue trident, the same insignia that decorates the ship's three smokestacks.

“That's what's taking us home,” I say.

We cruise past the harbor as I study the sidewalks for likely couples. But most seem to be paired with other couples or using guides.

The crowds of tourists thin out as we pass a clock tower in the center of town. I grin when we approach a farmer's market after that and see a couple — both the man and the woman wearing blue trident decorated T-shirts and carrying shopping bags in both hands — arguing with a cabdriver. They look to be in their mid-thirties — the woman attractive in a sort of suburban, overdressed, country club way; the man smaller than me, balding, but trim.

The taxi drives away, the man and woman frowning as they begin their long walk toward the pier. I motion for Chloe to drive up to them. Putting down the window as we approach, I call out, “Would you like a ride?”

The couple stops, the man peering into the Land Rover. “You American?” he says.

I nod. “Miami,” I say.

“No kidding? We're — Marcia and me — we're from Boca. Barry and Marcia Liebman . . .”

“And believe me, we wish we were back there, right now,” the woman says. “I can't believe these people. Would you believe that cabdriver wanted to charge us extra to turn the air-conditioning on? Uh, don't think we're too spoiled. . . .” She looks into the car, smiles at Chloe. “But neither of us think that perspiration makes for a better vacation experience. You understand that, don't you, honey? After all, if Barry and I wanted to sweat, we could just as well stayed home and turned our air-conditioning off.”

“We have to make a stop first, but if you don't mind that, we'll be glad to take you to your ship,” I say.

“Great,” Barry says. He and his wife rush into the car's backseat.

“Thank God! Air-conditioning!” Marcia says, arranging the bags on the floor before them as Chloe drives forward, heading out of town. “I told Barry if he wanted sun we could have stayed home and gone to the beach club. At least there, the floor doesn't move. They say they have stabilizers on the ship but, honestly, I don't think they ever use them. The boat was rocking so much last night I was positively green.”

“Marcia,” Barry says. “You wanted to come.”

“Only because of the food — which I haven't had any appetite to eat — and because he got us a free stateroom,” she says. “Barry does the cruise line's books.”

Barry grins. “It's one of the perks of being a CPA.”

“Next time” — Marcia looks at her husband — “tell them to give you a bigger check instead.”

Chloe puts her right hand on my thigh, mindspeaks to me.
“How long are we going to have these people in our car?”
I smile.