Pirate

Twenty-three

Remi followed Sam into the building, the screen door clattering shut behind them. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior as they rushed down a hallway, its dingy white walls covered with a mix of graffiti and scrawled names and cities from past visitors. The beat of reggae music thrummed louder as they emerged into a barroom. Judging from the look of the rough clientele — Jamaica’s equivalent of a biker bar, Remi presumed — it was not the sort of establishment she and Sam tended to frequent. At least eight men and two women eyed them over the tops of their beer bottles. Most wore leather vests over sleeveless black T-shirts, their burly arms covered with tattoos, though some were hard to see against their dark skin. Remi smiled, hoping they weren’t being sized up as an easy mark.

Sam dug some money from his pocket, slapped it on the bar. “Drinks for the house, Mr…?” He gave a questioning look toward the bartender.

“Jay-Jay to my friends,” he replied in a melodious accented voice. “That amount of money, my good man, makes you one of them.”

Sam introduced himself, then extended his hand. The bartender shook it. “My wife will be safe here? I won’t be gone long.”

“Very safe. You have my word.”

Sam turned to Remi. “I’m going to see if I can get to our car. Back in a flash.” He walked to the front door, peered out, then left.

Remi glanced at the bartender, then his customers, who regarded her as they drank, and she told herself that Sam was very good at reading people — he wouldn’t leave her anywhere he didn’t think was safe.

Even so, she found it hard to sit and wait.

Alone.

Jay-Jay smiled at her. “Who are you running from, pretty lady?”

She swiveled around on the stool and faced him. His long dreadlocks were pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore a black T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson logo on the front. His dark eyes held no malice, and she realized this was probably what Sam had noticed. “A couple of men who apparently think we’re better off dead.”

“Those would be the white men who came in here earlier asking if we had seen two Americans — one a woman with red hair?”

That feeling of vulnerability increased, and Remi suddenly wished that women’s head scarves were back in fashion. “They were here?”

“About twenty minutes ago, but not to worry. As I promised your husband, you will be safe here, pretty lady. What will you have to drink?”

“Water, please,” she said. Serious alcohol would have to wait.

He poured her a glass, slid it toward her, then took a rag and started wiping down the bar.

Remi sipped her drink. But as the seconds ticked past into minutes, her gaze kept returning to the door, hoping Sam would appear. At one point, she walked over, cracked open the door, noticed a number of motorcycles parked out front but no sign of Sam.

The bartender joined her. “Perhaps you should let me have a look instead. No one will notice a man like me. But you’re a different story.” He stepped out to the sidewalk, wiping his hands on his towel as if merely taking a break from bartending. When he returned inside, he guided her back toward her stool. “Your husband will be here soon. He is good at hiding, but I am better at finding.”

Less than a minute later, Sam rushed in. He crossed the room toward Remi, somewhat out of breath. “Big problem.”

Jay-Jay poured Sam a glass of water. “What problem, my friend?”

He took a drink, nodding toward the door. “Avery’s men… Saw their car parking just up the street… One walked into the business at the far end.”

Jay-Jay nodded at the bikers sitting at the tables closest to the bar. They rose from their seats, two moving to the front door, two heading down the hall to the back. “The second time they have been on this street,” he said. “That would worry me.”

Remi grabbed her purse from the counter beside her. “Should we go out the back?”

Sam shook his head. “No way to get to our car without being seen.” He looked around the room, eyeing the men and women who remained. “Then again, there actually may be a way…” He leaned toward the bartender, disclosing his idea in a voice too low for Remi to hear over the music.