I look at Barbara. The way she wrinkles her eyebrows is barely perceptible, but it conveys boundless sympathy. It also conveys an unmistakable amusement. I am on my own here. I forge ahead.
"It was never my intention to mislead you," I say. "Those Bismarcks are at least sixty or seventy feet tall, and that's just about as tall as the species gets."
Aunt Trula makes a face.
"Disappointing," she says.
She reaches for one of the cucumber thingies. She removes the salmon from it and takes a small bite of cucumber, studying me while she chews.
"Don't worry," I say. "You're in luck."
"How's that?" says Aunt Trula.
"I brought a palm stretcher with me."
"A palm stretcher?"
"Uh-huh. We can hook it up and get another twenty feet out of each of those palms, no problem."
Aunt Trula considers me. She purses her lips while she does it.
"You are jesting," she says.
"I am," I say.
Aunt Trula says nothing. I get the distinct feeling that she is not someone who appreciates a good jesting.
I reach for the watercress sandwiches and dispatch with two of them in rapid order. Enough to fuel a hummingbird for maybe fifteen minutes.
Aunt Trula says, "My niece tells me that you were once an athlete, Mr. Chasteen. Football, was it?"
"It was."
"Rather a brutish sport, in my opinion."
"In mine, too."
It gets a raised eyebrow from Aunt Trula.
"Then why, Mr. Chasteen, did you play?"
"Because I'm a brute."
Barbara covers her mouth, stifling a laugh. Aunt Trula scrunches her lips some more, then unscrunches them to sip some tea.
We turn our attention back to the lawn. Boggy puts down the shovel. He kneels by the shallow hole he's dug and reaches into it.
"Your man there," says Aunt Trula. "What did you say his name is?"
I start to tell her that Boggy is neither my man, nor anyone else's. But I catch a look from Barbara. Behave, it says.
"His full name is Cachique Baugtanaxata," I say. "That's why we call him Boggy."
"And what is he exactly?"
"He's my associate," I say.
"No, no, I meant what is he?"
"Well, he's an aggravation sometimes, I can tell you that. A damn aggravation."
"Mr. Chasteen," she says, "I mean ... where does he come from?"
I know what she means. I'm just not having any part of it.
"He's from Hispaniola," I finally say. "The Dominican Republic side."
"He doesn't look Hispanic."
"He's not."
"And he's not a Negro."
"No, he's not."
"And he's no Chinaman."
I don't reply to that.
"So what is he exactly?"
"He's Taino," I say.
"Tie what?"
"Taino. They lived in the Caribbean long before any Europeans made it there."
"Ah, I see," says Aunt Trula. "He's an Indian fellow."
"No," I say. "He's Taino. Indians are what the Europeans called them. Because they had their heads up their asses about where they were."
If I sound a little testy it's only because I am.
Cue, Barbara.
"Titi," she says, reaching for her aunt's arm, "why don't we take a stroll?"
"Splendid idea," says Aunt Trula. "I could use the fresh air."
And she gives me a smile even thinner than the one before.
4.
I follow Barbara and Aunt Trula off the terrace. They go their way-to a gazebo on the bluff overlooking the ocean. And I go mine-to where Boggy and Cedric kneel by the hole in the lawn.
The two of them stand as I approach.
Boggy says, "There is a problem, Zachary."
"Yep, there is," I say. "It's called Aunt Trula. She's a pain in the ass."
Cedric looks away, biting back a smile.
Boggy picks up the shovel and pokes it in the hole. It only goes down a foot or so and then it hits something. Something that sounds like rock.
"That is the problem," says Boggy. "Limestone. We cannot dig a hole that will be deep enough for the palms."
"Well, so much for your prediction, huh?"
"What do you mean, Zachary?"
"I mean, that little scene back at the airport, where you held those stones in your hands and did your Taino-vision thing. You said what we planted here would grow strong."
"Yes, that is what I said."
"So this limestone thing is just a little bump in the road? We'll work around it? The palms will be all right?"
Boggy shrugs.
"About the palms, I do not know, Zachary. Maybe they live, maybe they die."
I just look at him. An aggravation, a damn aggravation.
"How much hole do we need for these palms?" Cedric asks.
"Five or six feet at least," I say. "The root balls need to be covered with soil or else the palms will die."
"Then we've got some hard digging ahead of us. I don't know that we have all the equipment here that we'll need. I better go make some calls."
"I'll go with you," Boggy says.
After the two of them have stepped away, I kneel beside the hole. I reach down and touch the limestone. Hard digging for sure.
We might be better served by dynamite. And, if not that, then at least some kind of big drill.
Which will mean renting heavy equipment, maybe paying for a couple of guys to help shovel out the rock and haul it away.
I'm thinking that these are turning out to be some very expensive palm trees when I hear Barbara shout: "Zack!"
She is standing in the gazebo with Aunt Trula, waving for me to come quick.
I set off on a run across the big back lawn. When I get to the gazebo, Barbara points to the water.
"Out there," she says. "I think it's ..."
I look to where she is pointing. A wave washes over a finger of jagged rocks that juts out from the beach. Sea foam sprays everywhere. I can't see what she is pointing at.
"Darling, please," says Aunt Trula. "It's just a bag of garbage. Probably off one of the cruise ships. It happens now and then."
Then the wave washes out to reveal something hung up on the rocks, something black and misshapen, something that is no bag of garbage.
"Stay here," I tell Barbara and Aunt Trula.
I scramble down the side of the bluff, stripping off blazer, shirt, and shoes as I go.
There's no reason for me to hurry. Not if the object in the water turns out to be what I fear it is.
But pumped by the adrenaline of the moment, I hit the beach running, hurdle the first wave, and the next, and then land squarely atop a rock, one of those rocks that gave this particular beach its name.
Knives slash the sole of my right foot and I twist as I go down, trying to break the fall. And then knives are slashing my shoulder.
A wave rolls me over and I catch a glimpse of my foot, blood drizzling from the heel. I grab for my shoulder, feel the gash, figure it must be bleeding, too.
Another wave crashes in, and now the water is just deep enough for me to grab a stroke without scraping bottom. Then another and another.
I close in on the finger of rocks that juts out of the water. And I can make out what I'd been dreading to see.
The dead guy wears a black wet suit, a full-body one, with footies and a neoprene hood. He is hogtied, his arms and legs bound behind his back with a nylon rope that has hung up on the rocks.
Easy enough to forgive Aunt Trula for thinking she'd seen a bag of garbage. It is a neat little black bundle of death.
I tread water, trying to figure out the best way to approach this, how to get the body unsnagged without actually, you know, having to touch it.
I reach for the rope, manage to slip it off the rock. I get a good grip and sidestroke to shore, towing my grim cargo behind me.
And then another wave rolls in. It lifts the body, thrusts it forward. And suddenly I am face-to-face with the dead guy.
Only his is like no face I've ever seen, nor ever wish to see again.
It's his eyes. They are gone. Just two ugly holes where once eyes had been.