Bad Monkey

Claspers held his glass with both hands, admiring the miniature wavelets on the coppery surface of the scotch. He was one of a half dozen white customers, including the rangy American he’d met at Moxey’s airport. Andrew, the fly fisherman. Sitting next to him at the bar was a Latin woman who probably smelled as heavenly as she looked. Claspers had a serious buzz going, a down-island buzz.

The woman at the fisherman’s side made Claspers think of another beauty he knew in Barranquilla, back in the old times, a woman he would have married if she hadn’t already had a husband and if the husband hadn’t been a macho hothead who liked to shoot people in the mouth.

Which Claspers well knew because he was working for the man at the time, running loads of grass up to South Bimini.

Donna had been the wife’s name. By now she’d be in her fifties and more lovely than ever. A few years ago Claspers picked up a rumor that her husband was machine-gunned on his way to a bordello, which is what happens when you hire a half-wit cousin to armor your Escalade. On some nights Claspers fantasized about flying back to Colombia, showing up at Donna’s doorstep with a grin, a hard-on and a bottle of Dom. The airstrip he remembered well, and also the Moorish-style villa at the north end; in particular, a second-floor bedroom with a balcony overlooking the valley.

To the bartender Claspers said: “Buy those two sweethearts a round on me.”

Afterward the couple returned the gesture and motioned for the pilot to move down the bar and join them. Andrew introduced the Latin woman as his wife, Rosa, and said she’d arrived on a flight that afternoon.

Claspers chuckled. “Your timing sucks, no offense.”

“Oh, we’ll find something to do,” Rosa said. “You ever flown through a hurricane?”

“Naw, but I’ve slept through a few. It’s easier than you think.” Claspers took a hearty sip, demonstrating his pre-storm preparations.

The woman said she was a surgeon. “Hopefully nobody’ll get hurt, but I always travel with a kit of instruments.”

“On this island,” said the pilot, “that makes you the whole freaking hospital.”

Somebody turned up the radio. The somber voice from Nassau reported that Hurricane Françoise was now “packing” winds of 105 miles per hour. Movement of the storm continued north-northwest.

The fisherman set a hand on Claspers’s shoulder. “Can I ask you something? We heard your boss is the one who’s building Curly Tail Lane. Grunion is his name?”

“That’s him,” said Claspers.

Leaning in close, Rosa confided that she and her husband were looking to buy in the Bahamas. “Andrew really loves this place,” she added, “and I do, too.”

“You should see it when the sun comes out.”

“Point is,” the husband went on, “do you think Mr. Grunion would mind if you introduced him to a potential customer?”

“I think Mr. Grunion would be fucking thrilled.”

“We’d rather not deal with any Bay Street realtors. And we’d be paying cash, if that matters.”

“Cash is never bad.” Claspers liked these people, and briefly he considered telling them the truth: that Grunion’s resort project wasn’t exactly advancing at a breakneck pace; that Grunion was still getting hassled and tossed by the bureaucrats in Nassau; that a vandal had targeted the job site; that only two other buyers—one from Taiwan and the other from Dubai—had put down actual deposits for time-share units.

However, even in a semi-trashed condition the pilot perceived there might be something juicy in it for himself, a commission from the boss, if a sale was forthcoming. Who was Claspers to stand between this earnest young couple and their balmy vision of paradise?

Rosa said, “What about tonight? It’s not raining anymore.”

Claspers cast a skeptical eye skyward. There would be a few hours of lull until the next storm band, but he wasn’t in the deferential mode necessary to deal with Grunion. “Now’s not a real good time,” he said.

The man shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll be on the first plane outta here after the hurricane. I got the whole damn trust committee waiting on me back in Boca. Maybe it’ll work out on another trip, if there’s anything left of this place.”

Claspers stood up. “Let me make a quick call. Sorry, I didn’t catch your last name.”

“Gates,” said Yancy, “as in cousin Bill.” He flinched when Rosa jabbed his ribs.

The pilot didn’t notice. He took out a waterproof radio phone and stepped through the puddles toward the tall pile of conch shells by the boat ramp. Eve, the girlfriend, answered on the other end. After listening to Claspers’s pitch, she accused him of being wasted.

“What are you doing? There’s a hurricane coming, you idiot.”

“It’s just I think these folks are for real. I didn’t want Mr. Grunion to miss a good opportunity is all.”

“How would you know if they’re real or not?”

Claspers said, “I didn’t know such things, I woulda been dead a long time ago.”

Thinking: Jesus, I am drunk.

Next Grunion got on the line and chewed him out.

“Okay. Forget I called,” the pilot said.

“This guy, so where does he get his money?”