burnt rum 2

        "Whuh?" Aghast, the Alpha Male surrendered his wallet to the Raggedy Man.
        Black face, dreadlocks, tombstone teeth, eyes burning with Rasafarian faith, hope, and charity. This would be all the white man could remember. Normally aggressive, he sat back with astonishment. Thinking: What pluck this bastard has! I could shoot him dead where he stands.
        "Thank you, mon. May Jah bless you."
        With a flutter of cloth, red and green and yellow, and khaki sleeves flapping like a magistrate's Union Jack, the robber leaped a nearby croton hedge and disappeared.
        "Well, I'll be damned."
        Our American friend was too surprised with himself to be angry. The incident was stimulating, to say the least, and far more fun than losing money at the racetrack.


                                                                                          *
        Cap was mortified to hear of it.
        He swore an oath to the man that the wallet and all of its contents would be returned.
        "How?" Anton Mueller, big noise from Winnetka, wanted to know.
        "I have ways."


                                                                                             *


        Sweeping the patio, Cap chuckled to himself. The show he had put on for that Yank was worthy of John Ringling. On the afternoon following the robbery he handed over the wallet, most of Mueller's money (and a little of someone else's) still crisp as fresh lettuce. Credit cards untouched.
        "We settle things quickly," Cap said.
        "Hope there wasn't trouble."
        Cap grinned wickedly. "No more than in your Wild West."
        He did not feel the need to explain that the Raggedy Man was his own stupid cousin, the conch-blower.

        A fold-away card table had been set up beneath a mimosa tree, pink silky blossoms swaying in globular clusters, where dappled shade felt adequate. Raggedy Man and his three fat sweaty lady friends contemplated a swastika of domino tiles. He waved to Cap. "Hey, mon, how you doin?"


                                                                                                 *


        "Good morning, my captain." Hannah Ramirez had rolled out a cart with coffee pot and mugs.
        "Well, hello!" Face bright as dawn. "How are you this new day?"
        Hands upon her hips, she arched her spine. "My joints are aching. Gonna be a storm soon."
        Cap saw how wonderfully arranged she was within her airy butter-rum gown for bare shoulders. "Never mind dat storm. I know a special medicine for joints."
        Her mirthful heart echoed like a log drum. "Sit with me for a cup."
        "Mighty kind. Yes, I will."
        He stirred cream into his coffee until it was the color of her skin. Her cheeks wore a schoolgirl blush. Blue eyes twinkling, amber hair piled high in a frizzy cumulus, flat African nose. He wondered if this forty-year-old quadroon woman had a drop of Captain Morgan in her blood. As she poured for herself he admired her bounteous cleavage. To a dried-up old man her beauty was immeasurable.


                                                                                             *


        Holiday over, Mango began a new semester at the prep-school. Mister Radcliff paid his tuition. The boy was grateful, knowing his mother could never afford the princely sum required to attend Saint James Academy. Still the prospect of the fool fop selling Horseshoe Crab Key made him sore.
        Visions of chainsaws biting and chewing magnificent coconut groves into parcels of waste, and bulldozers shoving aside glorious dunes and decimating the mangrove ecosystem provoked him into red rage. At lunch he couldn't eat. He strode across the emerald lawn, failing to notice the sweetsap scent of freshly mown gtass. A huge banyan tree offered shade and solitude.
        He called his father on the cell.
        "What's up, son?"
        Henri Bertrand had invested all of his money in buying the Dutchman. The great house reared up like a fortress behind a battered coquina seawall. Tropical gothic.
        His idea was to be close to his son. Mango refused to visit.
        "I was wondering if anything had come up."
        "No, Mango. Nothing has changed."
        Mango had proposed a grand benefit, international in scope. Figuring his bigshot promoter father could pull strings, rein in great do-gooders like Bono and Sting. Maybe even that manatee guy from Florida, Jimmy Buffett.
        Now he was learning, that the world of showbiz considered Henri Bertrand a joke.
        "I've got a friend who can design a webpage."
        "Hmm. Let me get back to you."
        Dad, you are such a fucking flake!