Week 22 - Tourist Season - Part 3

Tourist Season Part 3

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Continued...

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Vicente could. He was working, but he sure felt like a drink was the right thing to do. He nodded in agreement with Tommy, the bartender. Tommy looked a little shocked. He knew Vicente well, and knew that he hardly ever drank, especially while on the job. But Thomas had also been hearing the chatter all day and knew that this was a stressful day on the island.

Tommy set them both up. There was no reason for Vicente to be drinking alone. They both sat in silence for a moment and sipped their rum.

“It sounds like you’ve already had a pretty long day.”

Vicente nodded again.

“Is that why you’re here?”

The Green Street Cantina was a nightclub and dancehall that catered to the tourists. It was built to look like something out of a film set fantasy. It was what a native bar in a beach town was supposed to look like, not really what it did look like. Everything was designed to remind people they were in a tropical paradise, as if they could actually forget that, when all they had to do was look out the window to be reminded. Fake palm trees, pictures of the water and boats, sailing and fishing paraphernalia hung around, and there was even some sand in a VIP area so people could lie and relax in the sand. They were less than a mile from the beach, thought Vicente. Why in the hell did someone need to pretend to be at the beach when all they had to do was step outside?

Vicente took another drink.

“Yeah,” he finally answered. “That’s why I’m here.”

If Tommy was worried, he didn’t show it. Vicente knew his friend pretty well, but was pretty sure also that Tommy could hide anything he didn’t want others to see. A frozen face was a good asset on an island like this.

Vicente had asked him many times about the name of the bar. Tommy never told. Vicente had asked Tommy a great many things about who he was and what he did before coming to the island. Tommy never told about any of them. Vicente liked to imagine Tommy was an innocent man back home, wherever it was that he came from, and had just come to the island because he wanted to escape city life, like some hero from some beach song. Vicente knew that wasn’t true. If there was no story to tell, Tommy wouldn’t be so reticent when it came time to talk about it. Still, it made a pleasant enough thought and that was what Vicente wanted to imagine.

“You want to ask me something?”

Vicente looked around the room and took his time. There was the dance floor in the center with too many lights shining down and the dance floor was lit like a holdover from the disco era. The main bar was on one side of the room with a window cut out to serve the people on the back patio. There were faux-support beams made out of bamboo. The back patio had a palm tree in the middle of it.

“This place always looks like shit to me.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I didn’t design it. Hell, I don’t even own it. I just work here.”

The bar and the surrounding few blocks had all been designed early in the previous century by a Hollywood set designer. Someone had the brilliant idea to create a tropical paradise for vacationers and somehow the best way to do that wasn’t to simply be an island paradise – it was to emulate what visitors thought an island paradise should look like.

Vicente didn’t like this part of town. It rubbed him the wrong way. The music was always too loud and there were too many drunks and everything was inauthentic. Vicente preferred seclusion and a slow quiet calm. He knew Thomas did too. But Thomas had to make a living, just like everyone else. And so The Green Street played loud dance music that had nothing to do with the island, but it was what the loud and drunk tourists wanted to gyrate to. Vicente realized he was very much out of step and too old for many of the island proclivities.

“I know you know what happened last night. I know you know what I’m tasked to do.”

Vicente had his marching orders. There was a dead tourist girl and Vicente had to find the culprit and enact quick and swift and very public justice. People on the island had to know there was such a thing as law and order and that murder was not a part of any of that.

“I don’t hear a question in there? What is it you want to ask me?”

Vicente wanted to ask Tommy so many things – what was his real name, where did he come from, what part of his past was he running from... He wanted to ask so many things that had nothing to do with the current task at hand.

Vicente had been headed for the south side of the island, where the larger private estates were, home to the island’s most “special” guests resided. “Special” meaning secretive. Vicente always figured that whatever Tommy did in his former life, it must have been a terribly heinous crime, but there wasn’t any money in it. If there had been any money in it, Tommy would be living on one of the estates, not tending bar. Vicente imagined it was a crime of passion, involving a woman or maybe more than one. It was his romantic side; he didn’t want to believe his friend was a murderer for murder’s sake. If he believed that Tommy was capable of that he would have to believe he was capable of many other things, and then Tommy would no longer be a friend, he would just be someone else to keep an eye on.

Renaldo had called Vicente with additional information. He had been talking to the friends of the dead girl and had found out all the places they had been the night before. Renaldo had been dodgy and was trying to avoid telling Vicente something. Renaldo hated to piss his boss off, but by avoiding it, he was just making things worse. Finally he relented. The tourists had been to many many bars. But one stuck out – The Green Street.

“...that bar… the American one. That friend of yours.”

“That friend of mine? Try not to sound so righteous. You drink for free too, remember? And that’s not all...”

Vicente had to head to the southern estates, but he knew his friend was more important. He had to follow up on this first. If his friend was involved, even accidentally, Vicente wanted to handle it himself. He couldn’t trust what would happen if Renaldo did the questioning, or if his wealthy benefactors took it upon themselves to investigate. Tommy was a good friend. Vicente owed him a warning at a minimum.

“What were they doing here?”

“They were doing what all those college kids do. They were getting fucked up and ready to screw.”

“You could try to sound a little more concerned. A girl died. An American girl.”

Tommy chuckled at that.

“Was that supposed to be an insult or a call to arms?”

“I thought it might matter to you.”

Vicente knew Tommy was from somewhere north, but didn’t know much more than that. He took every chance he could in conversation to try and rile Tommy up. If he could throw out things like names and locations and things like that, then maybe once, just once, Tommy would open up and start to talk about the past.

“You know me, always a true patriot. But I didn’t do it, and it wasn’t my alcohol that got her killed. I can’t keep track of every little girl that comes in here and makes bad decisions. If I did that, I’d never have time for anything else.”

“Can you tell me who she was with? Not her little friends that came on the boat with her. Who was she really with?”

“I can tell you, but you won’t like it...”

“Renaldo – I need you to find the Twins.”

 “The Twins?”

The Twins weren’t really twins. They were cousins that looked a lot alike and spent a lot of time together and everyone started calling them the Twins. They were drug dealers. Nothing major, purely recreational stuff. For the most part they did little or no harm and Vicente looked the other way. But this was different. If they had a hand in supplying this, this was trouble.

“They were there last night. Thomas didn’t see them leave, but he saw them talking to the tourists last night.”

“Making sure everybody was having a good time. Including themselves,” Renaldo laughed.

“Yes,” Vicente grunted tersely. The problem with The Twins wasn’t that they were petty criminals. That wouldn’t bother Vicente so much. What bothered Vicente so much was who The Twins were friends with.

“Don’t worry. I’ll find them. And I’ll find out what they know.”

“Alive.”

“Sure, sure.”

“There might have to be a trial.”

“Jesus boss, trust me a little bit, okay? I’ll find them and talk to them. I’m not going to fuckin’ kill ‘em if they didn’t do nothing.”

“I know. This whole thing is becoming a mess.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m heading south…”

Renaldo knew what that meant. He knew The Twins and he knew what was bothering his boss. The thing that bothered Vicente so much was just exactly who The Twins were friends with: Marques Ávila, nephew of Andre Ávila.

Vicente knew his day was about to get worse, a lot worse, before anything was going to get better.

To be continued...