He stepped out of the small boat to feel the cool blue water rush through his beach shoes. He turned back to the older man who had rowed him over from the larger island and tipped him another 50. "Is that enough to keep you here until sundown?" The older man nodded his head vigorously.
The younger man lifted up his cap and ran his fingers through his hair and stared up at the sun. Even with his oh so expensive sunglasses the glare was amazing. He closed his eyes against it and let the last of his motion sickness wash away from his features in the heat.
He looked the tourist with his floral shirt and his white shorts and his rubbery beach shoes and sunglasses. He stood out among the locals but blended in with the outsiders who came here by the hundreds. Not that it would fool the man he was looking for.
He made his way straight to the little club just off the beach. The front wall was a series of garage doors all opened against the heat. Ceiling fans jousted with each other - each one spinning in time to its own rhythm. Every bottle of beer in front of every customer was sweating profusely - a testament to cold in the heart of a sinful heat.
A young black man was behind the bar and greeted him with English flowing with a Caribbean lilt. He smiled back and ordered a beer. The bottle was beheaded - expertly - and placed before him. He sipped it and sat quietly. He turned his back to the bar, rested his elbows on it, and smiled. The Cool Man knew this was someone's idea of heaven.
Just not Ginger's. He would hate the heat and the smells. He would have preferred air conditioning and an excuse to wear a coat and tie. This place, this paradise, would be hell for Ginger.
Ginger walked in from the rear of the bar, away from the garage door wall that faced the beach. The years had not been kind. His skin was loose and wrinkled and his head was completely bald.
There was no coat and of course no tie. His khaki shorts and blue t-shirt would have been all wrong for the Ginger he remembered. But they suited this man just fine. His shoulders were slumped in a way that Ginger's never were. This really could have been a completely different person.
He ambled behind the bar, reached into the cooler and took out a beer. The younger man seemed surprised - like this never happened. The man who used to be Ginger pulled the opener from the back pocket of the younger bar tender, decapitated his beer, and took a long, long pull from it. He looked down at the bottle of beer in his hand with a wistfulness that gave the impression that it was the first he had had in too many years.
He smiled at the cool man. "How the hell have you been boy?"
The other bar tender's mouth dropped open at the sound of Ginger's English accent. He had never heard Vincent speak with anything other than a South Georgia drawl. And he had never seen Vincent drink an ounce of alcohol.
The cool man smiled a toothy grin at him. "How long has it been since you had an icy cold beer?"
"Since the day I ran from your mother. I like living more than drinking and there was no way in hell I was going to be impaired if she was looking for me."
The cool man stood a little straighter. "Ginger, she didn't send me and I am not going to tell her I found you."
Ginger laughed long and hard at that. "Boy, if you found me, it just means that she decided some where along the line to let me live. You may be good kid. Hell, you ARE good. But she is the best there is." He watched the younger man start to say something and then let it go.
Ginger sipped his beer again. "You coming here - its given me a little bit of ME back. I think maybe, as long as I stay here, in a place I hate, maybe I can relax a bit. Speak with my own voice. Have a pint once and again. Grow my hair back out. Be just a bit more me."
The younger man just stared at him. Ginger's fear of his mother was only matched by his reverence for her. "Ginger, you honestly think she's figured out where you are, decided its enough of a hell for you, that it is a suitable punishment for you? You really think she is that devious? That calculating?" The cool man said it with a laugh just out of his voice.
Ginger grew more serious in response. "Boy, it is the only thing that explains why I have lived this long."
The cool man shook his head at the man who had been like a father to him. Ginger smiled at him. "You know boy, for someone so smart, you..."the words seemed to leave him. "Your mother is a blind spot for you. You never have given her enough credit. Even going back to that business with Clay Diamond. She had it all worked out before you ever walked in and you never saw it."
"Not all of it," the younger man said with a wink.
"Just because she let you keep the money?" Ginger watched as the boy's face shrank into itself. "She knew that Diamond was your straw man. And she made him pay for it. What? You think that mugging was a mugging? Really? See? Blind spot."
They found a table after that. More beers were ordered and an early dinner too. They sat and talked about the old days and cards and money and the family business. Ginger let the boy have this moment. He let it play out like it really was just two old friends talking about the good old days. Finally, he sat his last beer down and asked, "Why did you come to find me, boy?"
"I need help. I think I know how to be free of her. I have an angle. More money than even she could hope to fight. I just have to get to it. For that, I need muscle. I need someone who isn't afraid to put a hole in somebody's head at a moment's notice. I need someone I can trust and who has resources of their own."
Ginger held his hands up. "Son, I don't have all the contacts I had ten years ago. And even I ain't ballsy enough to go up against your mother."
"Ginger, I know that. I respect that. I wasn't talking about you. I just need your advice. How do I track down my brother?"
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