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.”

Week 23 - Tourist Season - Part 4

Tourist Season Part 4

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Continued...

The room was silent, the moment was tense. The question, as of yet unasked, hung there in-between them, souring what was otherwise a warm and lovely late afternoon on the island. Vicente was sticky with sweat. He could feel his heart rate was elevated, but he tried not to show it. Most people on the island found him to be an intimidating force, but most of those people knew they couldn’t stand up to Vicente. He was used to a certain luxury, the luxury of power, which came with his position. But not here. Not in this room. Here, he was just a man, come to ask the wrong questions to the wrong man, a man Vicente knew he should be scared of. Hence, the slight case of nerves.

By appearances, Mr. Ávila was a stern and cold looking business man. His serious nature set the tone of the room and of their meeting. Mr. Ávila was a rich and powerful man used to getting his way. Vicente knew it. He could feel it. No one needed to say a word about it. He was naturally scary, but the current circumstances only served to make things worse.

Vicente needed to ask. He had to. He knew he had to. But all he could think about was how the man sitting across from him might kill him for asking. Andre Ávila was a very rich and very powerful man. He had investments everywhere – plantations, mines, shipping and exports, hotels and resorts. The list went on and on and the man was everywhere. His estate was a castle – walls and gates and armed guards. They were armed like an army, waiting on a threat that would never come. Just to be in the same room was intimidating enough, but Vicente was in a room alone. Even though it was just the two of them, Vicente knew who had the power and that he would never leave if that was what Mr. Ávila so chose.

Mr. Ávila sat there and stared and Vicente felt weak and inadequate in comparison.

Vicente knew he had ‘The Wealth’ on his side, but he had no idea if compared, which side was the stronger. He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t want to be in a situation where he would have to find out. And most importantly of all, he just wanted to keep his life intact and not piss off either side.

But he had to ask. It was his job. It was his island. Or so he wanted to believe. He knew the only way to keep his position and his lifestyle was to do what ‘The Wealth’ wanted, but perhaps the only way to keep his life was to keep his mouth shut.

Both sides were dangerous and both had a far reach, extending further than just this island. He didn’t know who had the longer or more dominant sphere of influence. Best case, the two sides might cancel each other out. Maybe if they went to war, it would be mutual destruction. He doubted it. He doubted he would come out on the other side of things unscathed. Who to back? That was the question. Who to obey and who to challenge? It was a tough position with no clear solution.

The far reach of powerful man could be deadly dangerous. Even if he survived this room. Even if he could flee this island. If he chose the wrong side of things he would lose it all.

He knew it was, at best, a calculated risk.

There was only one thing to do – ask the question and hope for the best.

“Where’s your nephew? Marques.”

Mr. Ávila sat motionless for a moment. If he knew something, his face didn’t betray him. The cold face grew colder. He used his silence to reflect Vicente’s silence, to acknowledge that he realized the difficult position Vicente must be in. Still, Mr. Ávila didn’t care for the question and certainly didn’t care at all for Vicente’s delicate dilemma.

“Be careful with what you choose to insinuate.”

“I am. But it’s my job to ask.”

“I’m well aware of what happened last night and whom you work for and what you must ask and answer. And you must know you have no reason to be here asking me questions.”

“I’m asking you because Marques is suddenly missing this morning.”

“Marques isn’t your concern.”

“You have to understand how this looks. Marques was with those girls last night. And now today—”

“Marques didn’t kill that girl.”

“I’m not accusing him. But I need to know what he did and didn’t do last night. He might know about this girl... or some of the other things that went on.”

“He doesn’t know anything about any of it.”

“I know for a fact Marques and The Twins were together last night. They all came into contact with those girls. And they all left together... What I don’t know is what happened after that and who was with whom by the end of the night.”

“Those two – filth of the street. Marques should know better.” 

Vicente couldn’t argue with that assessment.

“I’m sorry I even have to say this— I mean you no disrespect. I hesitate to keep pushing this, but I have to find him. I have to ask.”

“I’m a busy man, Vicente. Don’t waste my time.”

“I won’t. I wouldn’t.” Vicente could feel his authority slipping away with every word he added. He had no power here. If this conversation lasted much longer, he’d have no power left anywhere on the island.

“Marques is my family. If there is a problem, I will handle things.” There was vitriol in his voice. Vicente assumed Mr. Ávila was still angry at his nephew’s choice in friends, but maybe he was just angry at the entire situation and being put into this position at all.

“No. Not this time. This time I need to.”

“Fine. If, and I stress if he is guilty, I’m sure you will find him and any evidence you need.”

“But without your help.”

“Don’t sound so sad. If I had any knowledge to offer, I’d tell you.”

“I’m sure.”

Vicente was happy to get back to his side of the island. His relief was momentary, but welcome. While he had been on the south side of island, Renaldo had found The Twins and begun questioning them. They were mostly useless and total liars. They didn’t remember any tourist girls. They didn’t remember ever being at The Green Street. They certainly didn’t remember giving or selling or taking any drugs or spending any time with the aforementioned girls after leaving the nightclub they were never at.

Vicente hadn’t really expected Renaldo to get any information, but he had kept a sliver of hope that they might turn if presented with the opportunity to push any and all blame towards Marques Ávila.

They were smarter than they looked. There was no reason to take the bait and no reason to endanger themselves by crossing the Ávila family. They protested and presented righteous indignations. Even after Vicente spoke to them and could use eye witness accounts to place them at The Green Street, their stories didn’t change much. “We never went to the beach. We went home early…” “We danced with some girls, but never even found out their names...” “Marques? Was he even there? Man, I don’t know.”

The Twins proved to have terrible terrible memories and apparently they lived fairly chaste and innocent lives with early bedtimes.

“What do you want me to do with them?” asked Renaldo.

“Keep them locked up. If Marques is still nearby, we can’t have them helping him flee.” And if Vicente needed to arrest someone, these two would satisfy that need as well. Renaldo knew it. There was no reason to say it out loud.

Renaldo had several friends that had helped out with other tricky situations in the past. They were quick to be deputized when needed, solid in a fight, and they knew how to take orders and not ask questions. Vicente told Renaldo that they were going to need some of his friends to watch the Ávila estate and help search for Marques.

Vicente went to talk to Lisa at her hotel to try and find out what she remembered about the men she was with the night before. He was hoping that she could identify Marques and The Twins if necessary. Unfortunately Lisa was more interested in American justice and the American media. Her trip was ending soon and she had no intention of staying on this island. She wanted to be back safe and sound, back on the mainland. If there was going to be any island justice, she wasn’t going to be taking part in it.

Vicente considered confiscating passports and keeping her entire tour group on the island. He didn’t want to deal with their headache, but he wanted to keep the illusion alive that he was in charge and he was the one making the decisions.

Vicente decide he would send Renaldo and some of his new “deputies” over. They could question the entire group. Throw their weight around. Show some muscle. Scared witnesses were better than loud witnesses, and he didn’t want them asking any more questions or thinking he wasn’t pursuing every option. Besides, these were mostly underage kids who were drinking too much and fornicating. They should be a little afraid of him. He had sweat enough already today, it was time for someone else to do some sweating.

After his meeting with Lisa, Vicente went to update ‘The Wealth.’

“What did you find out?”

“Not a lot.”

“But you think you have something.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. But you’re not going to like it.”

“Let me decide that.”

“Andre Ávila is protecting his nephew. There’s no evidence Marques had anything to do with it, but if he was totally innocent, there’d be no reason to hide him.”

“Andre is an important man. You can’t simply accuse him.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“Yes it is.”

“You’re watching him?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“That American girl is loud, but all she wants is to go home. I say we let her... I already have The Twins, in case we can’t find Marques. If we need to identify a killer, I’m sure we can find our own eye witnesses. We don’t need her remembering that someone wasn’t there at the beach.”

‘The Wealth’ nodded. They were content. Vicente had passed this test, but he had no idea how many more he still faced. He was facing too many closed doors with not enough lights. He could sit and watch and wait, but he hated sitting and watching and waiting. He preferred a quiet day at the beach, but if he had to act, he wanted to act fast and with force. Sweating and hoping wasn’t going to get him anywhere. If he had to kick in a few doors, he could kick in a few doors. But he was pretty sure he didn’t have sufficient force to kick in any estate gates. And ‘The Wealth’ hadn’t seemed too eager to do any kicking of their own. That was okay for now, but that wasn’t a way to make a living. That was going to have to change sometime. Best if it changed sooner. Vicente wasn’t sure how he was going to make that happen, but it was something that needed to move up the list of things to figure out. No way was he going to make it on this island with too many bosses and no plan of his own. Something for another day, he supposed. Right now, he needed to get Renaldo and his boys on the move and make some noise of his own...

To be continued...

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...