Week 24 - Tourist Season - Part 5

Tourist Season Part 5

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Continued...

Vicente came into The Green Street, stinking of sweat, an exhausted look on his face and stains of dirt on his clothes. The Green Street was empty except for Tommy. Vicente didn’t think to ask why Tommy was all alone or why the bar was still open. Tommy sat at the bar, like a customer, reading an American newspaper. Vicente didn’t notice which one. He did notice the reaction on Tommy’s face when he looked up.

“You look terrible,” Tommy said point blank.

Based on Tommy’s gaze Vicente knew he must have. Tommy stood, and began to walk around, behind the bar.

“You want the usual?” Tommy continued.

“I suppose so.”

Vicente sat at the bar while Tommy poured two drinks.

“Do I really look that bad?”

“Yes. But one of those is for me… Based on the look of misery, I assume something has gone wrong in your murder investigation? I thought things were wrapping up.”

Tommy didn’t push the subject. If he was looking for gossip, it was hard to tell. He acted with a level of concern that seemed proper for what a friend might exhibit. Vicente liked to think of them as friends, but in truth he knew very little of Tommy before his arrival on the island. Vicente knew he should remember that fact more often; too often he forgot.

Vicente paused for a moment and smiled about some secret he had to consider. He looked at Tommy, but didn’t answer things right away. He was choosing his words carefully, not exactly sure what he should or shouldn’t tell his friend.

“Thomas, be happy you are a bartender and don’t have to answer to anyone.”

“We all have to answer to someone.”

Vicente chuckled at that. “I guess we do.”

“Can you talk about it?”

“How about we drink first...”

And so they did.

After a while Tommy asked again.

“So what happened?”

“What happened?”

“What really happened?”

Vicente smiled. He liked Tommy, he really did. But he knew he couldn’t tell Tommy the truth. At least not all of it. Vicente thought about what the island already knew and everything that had happened in the last few weeks...

Tommy had heard about what happened with The Twins and with the Americans. Most of the island knew most of that part of the story. The part no one knew about was Vicente’s encounters with Andre Ávila from the southern side of the island. That was private. The Ávilas knew how to stay under the radar.

Vicente had kept his last encounter private from everyone, including Renaldo and ‘The Wealth.’ Vicente liked a closed case and muddying the waters served no purpose. There was no reason to include Mr. Ávila anymore. It only mucked the whole thing up. Plus Vicente had plans of his own and keeping on the right side of the southern estates seemed like a good idea.

It was a week ago that Vicente had last seen Mr. Ávila. Andre had his bags packed and his crew was preparing his private yacht to embark. Vicente had arrived at the harbor nearly an hour earlier and spent his time plotting his approach. Part of him just wanted to sit there and let Mr. Ávila leave when the time came. But he knew he couldn’t do that. He had to act. ‘The Wealth’ would certainly learn of Mr. Ávila’s departure, and when that time came, it would look much better to them if Vicente had actually done something instead of sitting idly by.

Finally, he forced himself to act. He approached with great caution, walking towards the yacht, hands extended, showing he was unarmed. He actually got further than he expected to. But he was spotted and stopped and frisked. He had no weapons on him. He knew it would be perceived as a threat. He was never going to make it past security armed. Part of him had wanted to come in, guns blazing, backed up by Renaldo and his boys, and make a glorious big show if it. But that thought passed quickly. Vicente liked his life far too much and playing cowboy was something for the movies. Even fully armed with an army in tow, he knew he would never make it past security. Mr. Ávila had his own private army. One that was built to win.

Vicente thought he had made it closer to the yacht than he probably should have been allowed to. But maybe that was by their choice. Maybe they allowed Vicente to move about and think he was the one in control. Maybe Mr. Ávila’s security had eyes on him the way he had eyes on Mr. Ávila.

Or maybe not. Maybe it meant he was innocent and had nothing to hide. Or maybe he was a fool. Or maybe he just didn’t respect Vicente enough to even see him as a threat and put on a show. Vicente was pretty sure that Mr. Ávila was no fool.

“Surprised to see me?”

“No, not really... the men you have watching my estate aren’t very subtle.”

“They weren’t supposed to be.”

“I thought for a moment you were here to try and storm the Bastille.”

“I’m not that foolish. Charging headlong isn’t really my style.”

“You never know. At least it might be entertaining.”

“Are you saying I’m not entertaining? You sound disappointed.”

“How can I be disappointed when I’m still learning who you really are?”

“You figure that out, you let me know. I’m interested in learning that myself.” Vicente motioned towards the yacht. “You want to tell me where you’re going?”

“I have business I must attend to.”

“Business trip. Not a “get out while you can” sort of trip?”

“Vicente, you promised you wouldn’t waste my time.”

“And you promised to help me find your nephew.”

“I only said I would tell you if I knew something.”

“I’m not here to argue with you Mr. Ávila.”

“Are you here to stop me from leaving? Did you find some excuse to lock me away as you did with The Twins? Or detain me as you did with the American? I am a business man, much like your superiors. I have to travel to some of the other islands to protect my interests. I’m sure they would understand that. And tell you to let me leave.”

“Are you threatening me? Or just vaguely trying to put me in my place by reminding me I’m not really the one in charge here? I’m not worried about losing my job, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“I’m simply pointing out that we all have jobs to do and I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

“Then you can’t blame me for doing mine. And that’s all I’ve done. No one has been arrested or detained that shouldn’t have been. There’s a lot of trouble that’s been stirred up and murder is no idle charge. It would be nice to tie up all my loose ends.”

“Would be nice to blame it on an American as well. Sweep the problem away. Make it so no one here is to blame. No one would criticize you then.”

“I’m only trying to blame the person that deserves it.”

“You must be under a lot of pressure. I would imagine a man in your position is under a great deal of stress, all of the time.”

“I manage.”

“I’m sure. Just as I’m sure you would never cut any corners and blame the easier suspect.”

“You want to tell me where you’re going? And just when it was that you planned this trip?”

“Do I want to? No. Do you have reason to ask me that? Maybe. But do I have to answer you? No. No I don’t.”

“But you can tell if me you’re coming back, right? That’s not too much trouble, is it?”

“Of course I’ll be back. I’ll only be gone a few weeks.”

“Marques isn’t going with you is he?”

“As I’ve said before, I don’t know where my nephew is. I know you’ve had me under surveillance, so I know you know that he hasn’t been seen on my estate or here at my harbor.”

“Not out in public anyway.”

“Marques isn’t aboard.”

“So you said.”

“You can take a look if you like. Maybe then you’ll be satisfied and leave me alone to take care of my business.”

“You wouldn’t offer if he was actually there. Or else maybe you’d let me check, but then I’d get a bullet in the back of my head.”

“Dump your body at sea?”

“Perhaps.”

“If I were to kill anyone, it would be to their face so they could see me do it... But that’s not a threat. That’s just conversation. And you seriously misunderstand me. I am just a simple business man.”

“Sure you are. Just like everybody else on your side of the island. Good luck on your trip. With business.”

“You just let him go?” asked Renaldo, stunned.

“What was I going to do? Get myself killed?”

“Get him killed.”

“Yeah. I’ll let you try that next time.”

“If there is a next time.”

“You have a problem? You want this job? And everything that comes with it?”

“Jesus, boss. Lighten up. I’m just talking is all. We go light on this guy, we end up going light on everybody.”

“I’m not going easy on anybody.”

“So what do you want to do with The Twins?”

“I don’t know. We could keep them locked up, but so what? They didn’t do this. We lock them up, we have to take care of them.”

“No, but they’ve done plenty of other things.”

“I know.”

The Twins certainly had committed enough crimes. But they had never murdered. Or at least not that Vicente knew of. Maybe he could use that grey area to justify locking them up for good. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. He had also made a nice amount of money off of The Twins before, but he wasn’t about to tell Renaldo that. If he let them go, he could leverage that for a lot more in the future. But if he let them go, then someone else would have to be locked away.

“I know,” he repeated, with no clear answer arriving.

The Americans had left. Everyone that is, except for Nick. He had been with Sarah the night of her murder. Everyone at the bonfire had seen them together. Everyone told a similar story – young, drunk, and sexually explicit. He had been trying hard to get in her pants, in a very public way. Lisa had pointed the finger and Vicente and Renaldo had exploited it.

Nick admitted too much. Not to killing her. Not to anything violent or messy like that. But he admitted to leaving the bonfire with her. He admitted to trying to initiate sexual contact minutes later, barely down the beach from the others, barely out of sight. For her part, Sarah had resisted and run off. Nick was too stupid to leave that part out. He should have left that part out. No one would have ever known if he had just left that part out. But he was a scared kid and far too honest.

He had followed and they had ended up in the water together. Clothes off, flirting, having fun. Nick did what any drunken college kid would do. He tried to have sex in the water.

Again, he admitted it. She got nervous and swam away. That was the last he saw of her.

That was his story anyway.

It didn’t matter if it was true or not. He tried to force sex on her twice and she ran twice and he admitted as much. There was no reason to do it, but he did. He sounded like a predator. He acted like a predator. He helped stack the deck against himself.

If he had been older or wiser, or even simply in a different country with a lawyer, he wouldn’t have said a word. But he was young and stupid and scared. And now, locked away, pending further investigation, he was only going to be more scared.

Someone might come for him soon, and maybe he’d end up back in America. Maybe he’d go free. There was no real evidence of any wrongdoing. There was no way for anyone to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what Nick did or didn’t do. Much like everyone else that was there that night, his mind was altered and distorted.  There were a lot of drunks and a lot of altered memories. And like so many other things on the island, most any evidence had washed out to sea.

Only Sarah knew for sure, and she wasn’t talking. Maybe Nick chased her or maybe he got mad and held her under. Or maybe she was stupid and was too drunk and drowned herself. That was for lawyers to argue over. Preferably lawyers in a different country. Vicente didn’t care. All he cared about was getting things back to normal on his island and leaving the troubles for someone else.

Vicente drank his rum and thought about those events and the problems of today. He thought about the past few weeks and his desire to get past everything and move on. That was all anyone wanted to do. Why should he be any different?

‘The Wealth’ was satisfied. The locals were satisfied. The tourists were gone. The weather was shifting and there would be new tourists soon enough. People didn’t have time to remember or worry too much. There would be new mouths to feed and new people to make money off of. Time on the island might seem slow, but it only moved in one direction, much like everywhere else. The past was easily washed away and forgotten. That was the way they liked it here. That was what kept everything else going. No one cared too much about one lousy American that got too drunk for her own good and got herself into trouble.

Why should he care? Why should he remember? Why look into the shadows anymore when no one was asking him to?

He could just leave it all in the past. Except for what had happened earlier today.

A new body had washed up. On the western side of the island, away from the towns, away from the tourists. A friend had called Vicente. It was a private beach. There were no prying eyes. No new rumors. No new stories.

Vicente had been with Renaldo when the call came and couldn’t very easily not take him. So they went to the scene together to investigate.

It was Marques. Looking very dead. Dead, drowned and very waterlogged. He had been at sea for quite a few days.

It might not mean anything, but Vicente couldn’t help but think of Mr. Ávila, who was still away on business, and his trip out to sea on his private yacht. He wondered how soon Mr. Ávila would return. He wondered how he would react to losing his nephew. Vicente was sure this would come as a big surprise. A great big, tragic, surprise.

“You think—”

Vicente cut him off. He was not going to have a long conversation about this. Not now. Not tonight. There was no value in mulling over mysteries or tilting at windmills. Vicente had had enough of recent events and tonight the past was going to stay there.

“Get a shovel out of the truck...”

They buried Marques’ body. Together. Vicente made sure of that. They both took turns digging and they both got their hands nice and dirty. There would be only one version of this story.

“What do we do about this?”

Renaldo looked at Vicente hoping for a solution, for a good clean answer. Vicente didn’t have one to give. There was no hope here. There were no answers. There was only the past and then there was the way to move forward.

“We forget it. We forget all about it.”