Fatal Odds by John F. Dobbyn

Author:John F. Dobbyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

I FOLLOWED NESTOR’S instructions to sit tight and wait. I have to admit, when I got back to my hotel, the Mayagüez Resort, it was no hardship to jump into a bathing suit, take a James Lee Burke novel, and just vegetate at the resort pool. I could feel the warming blanket of Puerto Rican sun baking knots out of nerves that had been strung like violin strings ever since that fourth race at Suffolk Downs. It would have been one of the most recuperative interludes of my life but for two things. I was wired to any cell phone sound that would bring Nestor and all that came with him back to the fore. The other thing was that try as I might, those haunting visions of animals, suffering just to feed the greed and ego of some level of humanity, kept penetrating the mental wall I was trying to erect.

By seven that evening, the dipping sun signaled time to change for dinner. I had actually dozed through the final two hours. When a slight chill in the air brought me back, I realized that the struggle between my white Irish pigment and darker Puerto Rican pigment had been won hands down by the former. Even the late afternoon sun had toasted my skin to a medium rare. When I managed to get vertical, my muscles were rebelling, my skin felt like a layer of fried bacon, my mind was fighting its reentry into the real world, and I think I felt better than I had at any time within any recent memory.

I dressed in pants and a shirt that would lay softly on skin cells that were exuding heat and pleading for gentleness. The hotel dining room was like an extension of the afternoon’s vacation. The Puerto Rican menu specialties could have been improved upon only by importing Chef Ben Capone from his nook in Roslindale.

By nine o’clock, I was surrendering my taste buds to the local version of dulce de leche cheesecake. By then, my only thread of connection to reality was the thought that the Mayagüez Resort might be in the running for a honeymoon site for Terry and me.

Then at seven minutes past nine, the grating rasp of my cell phone dispelled every healing balm of the afternoon. In six words, Nestor’s commanding tone brought me hurtling back.

“Where the hell are you, Michael?”

“In paradise, waiting for your infuriating summons back to hell.”

Actually, I showed restraint. What I really said was, “My hotel. What’s up?”

“Listen. Get this the first time. I have no time to repeat it.”

“Go.”

“Drive to the Plaza Colón, center of the city. Park on a side street. Statue of Christopher Columbus is in the middle of the plaza. There’s a church, Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria. It’s across the street behind the statue. Sit in the last pew on the right. Ten-thirty. Have you got that?”

“Yes. Plaza—”

Click. He was gone.

I got the impression that, like Mr. Devlin, he meant neither 10:29 nor 10:31.

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