Circle of Bones - Kling Christine - Страница 50
- Предыдущая
- 50/103
- Следующая
Interesting, Dig thought. He now knew which of the brothers was really in charge.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Portsmouth, Dominica
March 27, 2008
9:35 a.m.
Theo pointed to the rungs of a rusty ladder clinging to the side of a crumbling stone pier, and he shouted to be heard over the noise of the outboard engine. “The dinghy will be safe over there.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “But will we?”
“Long as your tetanus shot is up to date,” Theo said as he lowered a small stern anchor to keep the inflatable dinghy from rubbing against the sharp, rusty steel.
The Portsmouth customs and immigration offices were located in a waterfront warehouse just beyond the stone pier. The facility serviced the small cargo freighters that transported Dominica’s banana crop and the few remaining sailing cargo boats that traded between the islands. Open on one side and littered with the old lumber from abandoned cargo pallets, the place reeked with the sickly sweet smell of rotted fruit. Riley tried hard not to wrinkle her nose in disgust as they stepped into the shade.
Sitting on a couple of wooden cable spools that looked like the kind found in her mother’s sewing box — but on steroids — two bulky men in green, military issue uniforms stared at the game of dominoes on the table between them. One man wore a side arm at his waist, while the other had some sort of semi-automatic rifle resting in the shadows across his knees.
“Do you know these guys?” Cole asked Theo under his breath.
The men had not yet noticed the three newcomers. Theo lifted his arm to stop his companions. “Afraid not. Wait here a bit.”
When he was within about thirty feet of the two officials, Theo spoke in his proper, clipped baritone. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
The two men jumped to their feet. Riley hadn’t been aware just how tall the man wearing the pistol was until he stood up. She guessed his height at somewhere close to six foot eight, and with the bulk on his frame, he would have felt at home in any NFL locker room. The “smaller” of the two at a mere six feet tall, now held his rifle at an angle aimed at Theo’s feet.
“I am Theophilus Spencer,” he said. Then with a little half turn, he pointed at Cole and Riley and said, “And this is Captain Thatcher and his girlfriend. We came in on that trawler out there from Guadaloupe.”
Riley turned to Cole and raised her eyebrows at the term “girlfriend.”
Cole lifted his shoulders and cocked his head to one side as if to say, “whatever works.”
The giant walked up to Theo and motioned for him to remove his backpack. Theo extracted his passport and handed it over to the man who examined it for several minutes as they conversed in the local patois.
“Which do you think is worse,” Riley whispered, “the jails in Guadeloupe or in Dominica?”
“Definitely Dominica,” Cole said.
“Thanks a lot,” she said.
The big man extracted a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number. He stepped away and turned his back to Theo as he spoke into the phone. When he finished his conversation, he pointed to a crude bench nailed together out of old palette wood. “Wait over there,” he said. Then he and the other official returned to their game. Soon the warehouse was echoing with the sound of dominoes slapping against the table.
The three of them settled on the bench.
“Theo —” she started, but he cut her off.
He shook his head. “Trust me.”
She’d never been good at sitting and doing nothing. Riley saw the mosquitos hovering around her ankles, and she hoped the repellent Theo had offered her was working. It was beastly hot with no breeze whatsoever, and she was beginning to wonder what had made her decide to join this motley expedition.
She slapped at a mosquito on her calf. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for a submarine.”
“We are,” Cole said.
“Well, if we’re right about this, and your dad did put something up the Indian River, obviously, it’s not going to be a submarine.”
“No,” Cole said. “It’s not.” He reached up and pulled the gold piece out of his T-shirt. “The old man was here in these islands, Guadeloupe and Dominica, about three years ago. He found something. Maybe it wasn’t the sub. Maybe it’s something that will lead us to the sub.”
“So I’m risking life in a Dominican jail for a treasure map?”
Theo started laughing. “You think —” he began, but he didn’t have a chance to finish because at that moment the door at the back of the warehouse flew open, and a short, thickset man wearing a loud tropical print shirt, cotton pants frayed at the cuffs, and flip-flops burst in and bellowed “Theo!” loud enough that Riley reckoned all the boats in the anchorage heard him. The domino players glanced up, then went back to their game.
Theo stood up smiling, shaking his head, and walked over to meet the other man saying, “Uncle Reggie, thank you for coming so quickly.”
When they met in the middle of the warehouse, the two men embraced. Theo was as much taller as his uncle was wider. After they exchanged a few quiet words, they strolled over to Cole and Riley.
“I’d like to introduce you to my uncle, the Honorable Reginald Blackmore, Minister of Public Utilities, Energy, Ports, and Public Service in the Government of Dominica. Uncle Reggie, this is Captain Cole Thatcher and our friend, Maggie Riley.”
Riley caught the look Cole gave Theo.
Theo shrugged. “Like we say in the islands. No problem, mon.”
Less than ten minutes later, the three of them had “cleared immigration” and packed themselves into a miniature van which took off careening through the streets of Portsmouth. Theo’s cousin, Ezekiel Blackmore, his dreadlocks streaming in the breeze, sang along with the reggae music that blasted from the van’s tinny speakers. “Gonna mek yuh feel more steam dan rice wa jus cook.”
One minute they’d be flying down the narrow paved road, then Zeke would brake, swerve, and stick his head out the window to converse with pedestrians. Half the time, he nearly clipped them on the roadside swale, but they always just smiled and waved. Riley tried hard not to think about Cole’s thigh pressing against hers and not to lean too hard against him as the van swerved. But she was disoriented by the right-hand drive and the fact they were passing other vehicles on the wrong side of the road. She found herself twitching with body English in the back seat as Zeke, swerving around people, chickens, and goats, kept up a non-stop, one-sided conversation.
“Your mama, she gonna kill you, Teo, you don’t go see her after you been gone almost two years. I know you say you in big hurry take your American friends up the Indian River, but mon . . . Yoo-hoo, hello Mrs. Robinson. How’s de leg? Auntie gonna skin you, Teo. Hey, Mr. Joseph. Look who here in my van. Yeah, mon. It’s Teo. De prodigal son.”
At last, they pulled over into a dirt lot before crossing a bridge. Several dusty taxis were already parked there. The drivers squatted in the shade of a big banyan tree on the riverbank above a rickety-looking wood dock.
Zeke shut off the van and they climbed out. “My boat dat one over dere,” Zeke said, pointing to a fifteen-foot dory with a yellow hull and bright red and blue interior seats. “She call de Providence.”
“She turned out nice, Zeke,” Theo said. Then to Riley, he added, “He had just started building her when I left the island.”
The boat had four athwart-ships seats, and enough room to carry a group of six to eight tourists. Once they were aboard, Zeke untied the docklines and pushed off. He perched his backside on the high transom and took his place at the oars facing forward, looking over the heads of his passengers in the fashion of all the Indian River boatmen.
At the beginning of their journey, the river was nearly a hundred feet wide, and they could still see the peaks of the Diablotin Mountains. Theo explained that they were headed for the dock upriver where the boat boys took all the tourists, but they’d have to leave the boat there and go on by foot as there were rapids just beyond.
- Предыдущая
- 50/103
- Следующая
