Continental Drift

“You guys were at the bar back there,” Bob says. “The bartender tell you what I asked him?” The young man’s act irritates Bob and makes him nervous. He can’t see the reason for the act, can’t figure out what kind of impression the man is trying to make on him. Bob thinks he may be making fun of him somehow.

“He only say you a nice fellow,” the young man says. Then he moves in close and in a low voice adds, “He say you looking for somebody. True?”

“True.”

“Well, then, maybe we know how to find this somebody, eh?” Again, he’s expansive, arms spread, broad grin on his face. “Everybody here know everybody else, like a country village. Eh? You know that? You a smart man, I see it right off,” he says, crossing his arms over his narrow chest. Then he says, “So.”

Bob is silent a moment. Then he, too, says, “So,” and smiles. The other three are followers of the first, their expressions and postures merely weak imitations of the tall, thin man with the Afro and sideburns, so now all five men are standing with their arms crossed and smiles on their faces. This is a game, Bob thinks. They know who I’m looking for, and they know who I am too. They know my whole story. In a minute, when they’re through playing with me, when this one has finished showing off his English, they’ll surround me, show me their knives and take the money from me.

Bob doesn’t want that. The money is no more theirs than it is his. If he lets them take the Haitians’ money from him, it will be like throwing it away, burning it. He says, “I happen to know that somebody got to shore from that load of Haitians that drowned off Sunny Isles the other night.”

“Ah! How do you know this, mister?”

“I’m … I’m a fisherman. There were fifteen bodies recovered, and I heard there were sixteen Haitians on the boat.”

“You heard this, eh?”

Bob studies the man’s eyes, but he can’t penetrate them. The man seems purely and simply amused. “Yes. In a bar, on the Keys.”

“Oh. Well, then, you heard the truth,” he says. “A woman, sister to a man in the neighborhood, she get through to the land and get to her brother.”

Suddenly Bob’s chest fills as if with a large, hard, metal-skinned balloon, and his breath comes in short, rapid bursts. “You … do you know where she is?”

“In bad shape, I hear. Very bad shape.”

“Can you take me to her? I’ll … I’ll pay you.”

The man turns to his comrades and murmurs in Creole for a moment, then returns to Bob. “One hundred dollars.” He’s no longer smiling.

“Fine, that’s fine.”

“You got to pay now, mister.”

“Oh. Oh, sure, okay.” Bob reaches into his pocket, turns away from the group and draws the money out. Carefully, he peels off five twenties, replaces the packet of bills and hands the hundred dollars to the man. “You sure you know where this woman is?”

“No problem, mister. Like I say, this place is a neighborhood, a country village. Her brother is a well-known man here, and my friend is friend to him, too. We hear all about this woman this morning. Everybody who wants to know about her knows about her. If you don’t want to know, you don’t. If you do, you do. Simple, eh? We know where she is right this minute, too. Not far from this spot.” He’s grinning again.

Bob says, “All right, then. Take me to her.”

“You got something for her, give it to me, eh? I take it to her for you, save you trouble.”

“No. I’ll give it to her. I need to talk to her.”

“She probably don’t speak English.”

“That’s okay. Just take me to her.”

“Suit yourself,” he says.

They start walking, a shapeless group of five men, four black and one white. Shadows in moonlight of palm trees, parked cars, fences, lampposts, fly up like dark flames and lie down behind the men as they stride down Fifty-fourth Street. All the storefronts and shops are blocked and barred by iron gates and shutters; the restaurants and bars are closed, dark, empty. There is no traffic on the streets, Bob suddenly realizes, no cars or buses moving.