Left at the Mango Tree (29 page)

As he mulled over his plan, he stood and paced the length of his room, piercing fat purple olives with a toothpick and pulling them out of the jar he carried in his hand, brine dripping onto his fingers and onto his shirt. He stopped at the desk to scoop a fistful of peanuts from one of the boats’ hulls and noticed, square on the side of the newsprint craft, Raoul’s second ad about Edda. Gustave read it and shook his head. He had already seen it of course, but in the heat of figuring the footage and tonnage of what he was about to steal, he had almost forgotten the other dilemma that occupied his mind. Since the day he spotted my blond locks in the market square, locks so like his own, he had thought a lot about me. Part of him was as sorry as Raoul that the ads had elicited no answers.

When I said before that Gustave was miffed by the distraction of Edda and her baby, that wasn’t exactly right. He was more than miffed. He was flummoxed and dazzled by his very own magic. More and more he believed me to be his own. My eyes were the eyes that met his every morning when he looked at himself in the mirror. Mine, the blotch on his face that he rubbed like a talisman, and mine, the skin of his brow that was unlike that of the other islanders. He had only seen me once, for a few moments that day at the market, but in those moments he felt a magic greater than any he had ever known. How he had made me, he had no idea. But he knew that somehow he had. And if I was his, he wanted me back.

But Gustave was mixing his flies. He had started the evening preparing one crime and now he found himself contemplating another. The mathematical Mr. Stan Kalpi would never have
approved of this. One polynomial at a time is all that you should ever ponder. Your process must be logical and your calculations orderly, if you’re to harbor any hope of defining your undefined variables. Would Mr. Stan Kalpi have re-claimed his family had he galumphed sentimentally from plantation to shore and rushed cock-a-hoop into the scrapping tide?

Why, most certainly not.

18

R
aoul, too, possessed a work ethic nothing to sniff at. The  devotion with which he applied, and applied himself to, the principles of Kalpi maths was but one example of it. Indeed, since that morning when the sun revealed the triangle that was Sinner’s Cove and the treasure that lay hidden in its sands, the enthusiasm with which he treated, and treated himself to, the pursuit of Gustave—and his cohorts—was but another.

Mind you, Raoul had no desire to see his friends behind bars. Rather his efforts were spurred by hopes that in cracking the case he would disprove his own suspicions, for surely his friends weren’t really stabbing him in the back. Surely there was a logical explanation for their apparent and utter disloyalty. In his philosophy Raoul stood firm: there wasn’t a mystery anywhere on the island that couldn’t be explained, no truth that, like the raw cashew, couldn’t be freed of its shell, roasted, and rendered agreeable.

Three weeks had passed since Raoul’s fingers plucked the sandy prism from Sinner’s Cove, three weeks since he had spoken with Fred and placed the second ad to induce the regret and confession of his three best friends (not one of whom had been induced to either, but I’ll get to that in a minute). Three weeks,
now, too, since Gustave had hatched his pineapple plan, pleated his newsprint boats, and bloated them full of peanuts. Both men had spent the interim days in furious activity, Raoul investigating and Gustave orchestrating, while the rest of the islanders thought and spoke of little but marimbas. The revival of the annual marimba competition, and Cougar’s generosity in hosting the affair at the Sincero, had in fact so captivated the attention of Oh that, as if in jealousy and neglect, the island rebelled, pelting the inhabitants with a persistent and unseasonable rain.

An inconvenience, yes, but not enough to dampen the merry spirits awake and awaiting a dead nice party. The islanders made friendly bets on whose marimba-playing would win, drank bottlefuls of beer and rum in the days’ run-up to the show, and generally ignored the island’s tantrum. If one of the islanders grew impatient and complained about the showers, another was quick to note how very lush they were making the hills. When Cougar griped about the outdoor tables the rain would make obsolete, Bang pointed out the merits of a Belly tight with ladies in festive skirts. It didn’t happen often, but now and again the islanders made their own fate, relegated Oh to the rank of scenery. There was magic in the air, and marimba songs on the wind, for which a bit of thunder in the dark was no match.

Like the triangles that grace Sinner’s Cove, the scenery of the story as it nears its end is delineated by three vertices, the Belly, Puymute’s Plantation, and Edda’s beach, defined and familiar variables in the polynomial of Raoul. So as not to mix my own flies, I’ll report on them singly, at least for as long as their stories will be kept apart.

To the Belly, then, where, contrary to Raoul’s hopes, newspaper ads do not evoke pity and penitence. Or not
enough
of the former to inspire the latter. Raoul’s mates were certainly sorry, sorry that their friend was still making a fool of himself and sorry that Edda’s circumstances were what they were. Their involvement with Gustave was another matter entirely. It had started innocently enough, and if Raoul’s mates’ plan to get information from Gustave had failed (though none had ever posed even one question to him about my mother), the mates saw no reason to give up their extra cash. Even Cougar, who didn’t really need it, had fallen irretrievably under the spell of all those rainbows, with which he planned to purchase embellishments for the Sincero that justified higher nightly rates.

Whether, as in the case of Bang and Nat, doing business with Gustave was blamed on fear (and maybe a little greed), or, as in Cougar’s case, on a silly and convenient delusion (Cougar had to go along, remember, so his island influence could protect them should they ever get caught), the important thing was that no one was smuggling for the sake of smuggling, conspiring with Raoul’s declared enemy just for the thrill. That would have been too striking an affront to their friendship.

The night before the marimba competition found Bang, Cougar, and Nat gathered at the Belly’s bar, where, after closing, Cougar was perfecting his signature cocktail.

“Try this one. Think I’ve finally got it now.”

Bang took the glass Cougar extended. He held its cloudy golden contents up to the light and twirled the glass for effect. Then he raised the drink in quick salute to Nat and downed the icy mix.

“Bloody hell!” Bang slammed his fist onto the bar. “A bit strong, don’t you think? What do you call it?”

“Pineapple Slam,” Cougar replied.

“You feed the audience drinks this strong, they’ll be under the tables before it’s even my turn to play!”

Cougar passed a taste to Nat. “What do you think? Bang’s used to water.”

Nat tried the drink and scrunched up his face as he swallowed. “Bang’s right, man. Too strong.”

“Okay, less rum, more fruit, and we downgrade it to Pineapple Sting.” Cougar set about mixing one last prototype.

“You guys hear from Gustave?” Nat’s voice hung in the hollow of the Belly. The bar was closed and empty, but even so, to speak of Gustave so openly and so close to home left all three as if sprinkled with a soft and eerie dust.

Bang coughed the discomfort from his throat. He looked at Cougar and then at Nat and said, “No, not a word. Wonder what’s going on. There was supposed to be another load going out this week.”

Cougar shook his cocktail and shrugged. “Probably the rain. Bet he decided to wait until it dries up a bit.”

Nat shrugged a silent reply and paged through the
Morning Crier
looking for something. When he finished, he sighed.

“What?” Bang asked.

“Nothing. Just making sure Raoul didn’t go placing any more ads. He’s out of his head, you know.”

“He’s fine,” Cougar insisted. “Just a little desperate, that’s all. This baby business has him so mad he can’t see straight. He just won’t admit it. So he’s playing dumb, placing his ads, hoping some fool will feel sorry for him and spill the beans. He should know better than to think anyone on this island would rat out Gustave. If Raoul would just keep quiet about it, it would all go away. All you need on Oh is a little time.”

“I guess,” Nat said. “I just feel bad seeing him act a fool. And the three of us making a fool out of him too, as if he weren’t doing a fine enough job of it on his own.”

“How do you figure we’re making a fool of him?” Bang’s inquiry was genuine.

“How?! Are you as mad as Raoul is? By smuggling pineapples with Gustave, that’s how!”

Cougar intervened. “No one’s making a fool of Raoul but Raoul. Babies are one thing, pineapples are another. This has nothing to do with him. It’s not his acreage we’re carting away, is it?” Cougar put three mugs on the bar. “Here. Make sure this is okay, so I can mix up a few batches before the competition tomorrow night.”

Bang picked up one of the mugs. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” answered a reluctant Nat and a relaxed Cougar. Then the three men sat in silence, sipping their still-bitter Pineapple Sting.

At Puymute’s Plantation things were not going smoothly at all. The rain had turned what should have been a two-week job into a three-week job, seriously testing even Gustave Vilder’s proven organizational skills. He had put off some of his orchestrating, in hopes the rain might stop before he should strike his next pineapple blow, but as the marimba competition and Gustave’s rescheduled coup grew nearer, the rain merely thickened. As it appeared it might never stop, the strike could be postponed no further.

Gustave had garnered the boats to flit away his booty to Killig, boats that had now spent two days waiting and bobbing just beyond Oh’s coast. Their crews were bored and restless and threatening to
abandon ship, so to speak. Gustave had to hand over some cargo soon or he’d owe more to the crews in payment than what the heist was due to earn in profits. He would have to move his fruit the very next night.

Although Gustave had already laid the groundwork for much of what would be needed that next night, firming up arrangements on a day’s notice was no mean task. The plantation was soggy and Gustave felt himself slip at every turn, both muddily and metaphorically. A muffled buzz hummed in Gustave’s brain, a niggling suspicion he couldn’t put his finger on. All systems were go, all his personnel poised, but rather more like sticks in mud than militiamen primed to the attack. There was magic in the air, and impatience on the wind, for which, Gustave feared, his plans in the dark were little match. Which is why the night before the marimba competition found him tentative, preoccupied, and prickly as a soursop.

Raoul was prickly too. Three weeks gone by and his ad had yet to bear the fruit he’d hoped, that of his friends’ confession. He had mixed up his own pineapple sting, and Bang, Cougar, and Nat were three ingredients too many. Gustave’s bobbing boats had not gone unnoticed by the Customs Office, and the bigger picture, elucidated by the loquacious and simple-minded Pedro, suggested to Raoul that victory was nigh. But his thrill at the prospect of cornering Gustave, of bartering Gustave’s freedom for information about
me
, was soured by the thought of his friends. How could he protect them from the law if they wouldn’t come clean?