The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [67]
He found a parking space near the bank and gathered his things from the passenger’s seat. Walking slowly, trying not to seem as paranoid as he was, Fred made his way to the bank while looking at the concrete beneath his feet. “She can’t hide from me,” he muttered. “I own this place.”
He reached the double glass doors and slid through them into the air-conditioned foyer, quickly passing an armed guard on his way to the manager. “I’ll teach her a lesson someone should have taught her years ago.”
The next thing he knew he was falling backward, grasping all of his papers to his chest, trying to see what had just hit him. When he looked up from the polished granite floor, he saw a beautiful young tourist rubbing her forehead and scowling at him. The jolt had shifted her white T-shirt only slightly, but enough to reveal a small portion of the coral pink bikini strap hugging her shoulder.
Hector, the owner of the hostel, let me eat from his kitchen and put it on a tab because he knew I was nearly out of cash. There were two others staying at the house, a guy from Australia (who I never saw due to all his energetic sightseeing), and a couple from Berlin (who only spoke German and had an annoying habit of laughing too loudly).
That first night in Billy’s Bay, I stayed in my room feeling sorry for myself while I unpacked. I put my shampoo in the shower, my toothpaste on the sink. I sorted through the now-wrinkled mix of clean and dirty clothing from my army bag and put the clean ones in the dresser in the room. I pulled out my little purse and counted my traveler’s checks. I made a small note, of how many I had left, on the envelope that held my return tickets. I unfolded and refolded my father’s shovel a few times. I tried to feel excited, but I couldn’t even leave the room. As I was attempting to fall asleep, the Germans laughed and laughed in the next room.
“Where are you?” I asked Emer, again.
She didn’t answer, so I skinned them sloppily just to spite her.
The next morning, I took a walk up and down the beach. It was wider now than it used to be, fifty extra yards at low tide. The beach I remembered was rockier, and covered in thick vegetation. Now it stood in a mixed state of erosion. They’d removed many trees, and then piled tons of extra sand to cure what they’d caused. The few homes that scattered the coast were set back into the remaining trees. Some had walls around long, well-groomed gardens that led onto the beach, and some had no barriers at all but groves of sea grape trees.
I walked until I found the village Hector had told me about. It wasn’t really a village—it was two tourist shops and a few beach-side food huts. In the short time I sat eating a plate of jerk chicken, three different women approached me aggressively, with their hands covered in aloe, commenting on my fair skin and my sunburn. Each time, I flinched and asked them to stop. It took me five minutes to explain to the last one that I didn’t owe her twenty dollars. I tried to stuff hot chicken wings up her nose and shove a boiled eel down her throat, but it was just no fun without Emer.
I returned to Billy’s Bay and spent the rest of day pacing the beach. It seemed simple. An even hundred paces from the rocky head on the western point led me to a grove of trees. Another hundred paces brought me past the trees to a glass mansion, half covered in blooming bougainvillea. My fortune lay between those two points—within those hundred yards—at the base of an incline.
As I walked, I tried to remember things that were long dead and gone with Emer Morrisey. I saw Seanie in my mind, lying dead on the beach, and my stomach tightened. I paced the length, one hundred fifty paces exactly, and