Sweet Paradise Gene Desrochers (classic novels TXT) 📖

I continued, “I guess to get away from the craziness. I don’t know. Run back home?”

“St. Thomas makes you feel safe?” she questioned with raised eyebrows.

“What’s that mean?”

“There’s a lot of death here. A lot of crime. Not enough work or opportunity.”

“For a crime-fighter like myself, it’s perfect, right?”

This made her smile, and what a smile it was. Gentle as the tide on a warm summer night at Magen’s Bay. Perhaps I’d overlooked Yarey’s understated beauty.

“What about you?” I asked.

“Me. I’m boring,” Yarey said. “From this rock, and I still here.”

“Don’t insult my home,” I said. She laughed. The theater crowd had dwindled. “Didn’t your dad come?”

Her face plunged. “Could we not talk about him?”

“Sure, sure,” I said. “You sounded great.” Too late. She had that far-away look people got when thinking about loss. In her case, she had lost her father’s pride. He didn’t even come in faux solidarity, just to show he cared. Being right was more important to Gilroy Antsy than showing his daughter he loved her.

Junior patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. She stared down at the floor for a moment, then said, “I’m going to go change.”

“Yarey ... ,” Junior intoned.

She waved him off and headed backstage. Still looking at her phone, Anna soon followed. When they came out twenty minutes later, Anna scolded us.

“Wha’d you idiots have to ask about that man for? Which of you fools asked?”

I sheepishly raised my hand. Right then, Yarey skipped out and exclaimed, “So, where we going?”

“Hey, Yarey, I’m sorry.”

“Forget it!” She rubbed her nose. “Let’s go, I’m ready for some real music and dancing.”

We piled into Oba’s SUV and he zipped through the streets with practiced ease. We arrived at Mojo’s, a surf shack and nightclub not far from my office in the Port of Sale Mall. The place was already going strong, Calypso music bouncing off the walls as ladies ground their hips suggestively around drooling men in shorts holding Corona bottles aloft like mistletoe.

Oba insisted on buying the first round and I elected to have whatever Anna recommended. In short order I was gulping down a rum punch, heavy on the guava juice. Not typically a keen dancer, after two large glasses even my hips loosened and we all gyrated. Everyone except Junior. Not even Yarey’s pleas could get him out of his chair. He sipped his drink and excused himself outside. When he returned, he stunk like a skunk and Anna asked if he had any more. They ventured back out. I followed, mostly to keep an eye on Junior, which Yarey insisted was sweet.

“He could use a big brother,” she announced to Oba, who spread his patented grin.

Junior was stretched out on a thick stone wall, watching a chubby guy in a bowling shirt and flip-flops, argue with his cauliflower-armed wife about whether he was sober enough to drive. Anna lounged behind him, contemplating the dark storefronts of the mall. Somehow, she managed to look elegant smoking a joint on a stone wall outside a divey surf bar.

Yarey trailed me out. She refused a toke. I decided to stick with my rum buzz as well, but settled down next to Anna to enjoy the earthy smell of the weed. Yarey giggled at something Anna whispered. I asked what was so funny.

“Nothing. She just said something about my dad having a stick up his ass like a scarecrow, but you know what?” She paused, then said, “Of course you don’t know, silly, how could you! I’ve never seen a scarecrow. Least ways not for reals. Aren’t they in corn fields in Kansas?”

“I suppose they could be anywhere you want to scare birds away from messing with crops.” I pointed at the joint. “Probably good for keeping pests away from marijuana crops too.”

She laughed. “You call yourself a detective. What would birds want with weed? You don’t eat it.”

I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself for questioning my detective credentials, but she was right, birds didn’t eat weed. A piece of advice from my estranged uncle when I was eleven: don’t insult a beautiful woman until after she sleeps with you. He was a church-goer.

Anna continued to stare at the buildings, a sobering expression playing on her face while Junior people-watched the crowd milling about the entrance. The place was packed for a Wednesday.

“Is tonight some kind of ladies’ night?”

“Nah,” Anna said. “Just locals started coming here after eight a couple years now. Shit, this is quiet.”

An island breeze swept through, drying the light, yet constant film of moisture on my skin. The hairs on my arms prickled, and I knew it was time.

“Yarey, can I ask you about your dad?”

Anna piped up. “Shit man, you’re killing my buzz.” With that she got up and went back inside. Junior rolled over and gazed at the sky. Even in this well-lit parking lot, you could see more stars here than in the darkest recesses of Los Angeles. That was one of many things I’d taken for granted when I lived here, the immense natural beauty, real darkness, and genuine, almost noisy silence. The kind of silence that made you believe you were hearing the last remnants of the Big Bang.

“What about him?” Yarey asked.

“Did Junior tell you what I’m up to?”

“I know a little. I mean you don’t have to be a genius to know when an investigator is helping a family after someone died suspiciously.”

“Bingo. Your dad said you and he were both part of the reparations package Francine put together.”

“Yes, far as I know we are.”

“Has he given you instruction on your share?”

“If you’re asking whether he has designs on my money, I think he wants me to invest it in his distillery and stay in that business. Is that what you mean?” She looked confused and unsure how much to tell me.

“Listen, Yarey, I’m not trying to pry into your finances, but I need information on people who were financially involved with Francine because that’s always a potential conflict with