end of the ride

        Pirate Jenny only knew she could find Johnny Luck at the hospital. Nothing more. There had been a communications breakdown at the Jolly Roger.


        Whipping his belt from his pants, Cap brawled toward Boca Raton. He wrapped the leather strap around his fist and swung a roundhouse punch with all of his might. He felt the jaw give way and sling like the carriage-return on a typewriter.
        "Damn you, Boca!"
        Coldcocked, the rodent man lay cheek-to-stone sprawled amidst sawdust and oyster shells.
        The lone oyster-eater stepped aside.
        "I'm gonna stomp yo eggs!" Cap roared. Strong arms prevented him from mutilating Boca. "Unhand me!"
        "Get the rat outta here!" A sailor shouted. "Befo' Cap kills 'im!"
        "Awright awright. I'm cool. Lemmee loose, mates."
        Cap dialed Speedboat.
        "This is the Jolly Roger. Is Missy Jen still there?"
        "No," Speedboat replied cautiously. "The taxi took her. Anything wrong?"
        "Well, I'm sorry. I gave her some misinformation."


                                                                                             *


        "I remember you very well, Monsieur Bertrand," Daddy Doc said without turning his head. "That parlor trick of yours in Pere La Chaise was impressive."
         The Haittian leaned forward, folded his elbows upon the driver's backrest and rested his chin. Then softly he asked, "Afterward did you see me again?"
         "You were the Sufi dervish on Pont Neuf and the vagabond guitar player in the Metro. Perhaps."
         "Perhaps," Henri Bertrand chuckled, twinkling.
         Listening to the two of them, Pirate Jenny felt as if she was sitting inside an atom-smasher.
         Then Henri Bertrand was speaking to her. "Dites moi, s'il vous plait. Why are you called Pirate Jenny?"
          "Since you can read minds," she replied faintly. "I suspect you already know."
          "The Threepenny Opera."
          Up ahead as the cobblestone lane curved into the asphalt pike known as Bayroad, a neon cube glowed in the dark. It was the hospital. People swarmed about it like fireflies.


                                                                                         *

        In a frantic rush to get away from the two men exchanging wild weird vibes, Pirate Jenny banged her knee alighting from the taxi. "Dammit frammit!"
        She hobbled toward the hospital entrance. She spied two nurses standing just outside the electric glass door. Smoking without a care in the world. That left only one nurse attending Johnny Luck, she figured. The door opened automatically and she hurried inside.
        The ER resident doctor was a Chinese-African man named Lee. Five-feet-four and ninety-five pounds, already balding at age thirty. He was updating a flipchart.
        "Doctor Lee!"
        "Miss Rhys-Jones. Come this way." He ushered her into a recovery room. Noticing her wound, he frowned. "Let me look at that knee."
        "Not now!"
        "Soon then."
        "Where's Johnny Luck?"
        A familiar voice answered from behind a curtain. "I'm right here."


                                                                                         *


        Washingtonia fronds rattled in the dodging zephyrs off Indigo Bay.
        Nosed toward the sea, the blue sedan afforded Daddy Doc and Henri Bertrand a magnificent view of the glimmer and glitz of distant bayside shops, bodegas, cafes and trattorias. Music and laughter from sloops and yachts only visible by lanternlight.
        The night loomed close, indelible as india ink.
        Henri Bertrand placed a firm, friendly hand upon Daddy Doc's shoulder. "You have something to tell me about my son."
        "May cost you."
        "I will drink the blood of the black pig."
        "Don't be silly. You know that we two are beyond all rituals, all folly, all gods."
        "C'est vrais."