Chapter Fourteen
Mike Black
It was a little before noon when the car pulled up in front of Black’s Paradise. I had arrived early for lunch with Jacara so I could check the place out. It felt a little weird being there. Cassandra and I had built that place and ran it together.
I hadn’t been here since the day Cassandra was kidnapped and taken to New York by Diego Estabon’s men. To me, it was the day that started this whole thing in motion. You see, I believe in cause and effect. The theory that for every action there is a reaction. If certain things happened, it would cause other shit to happen. The shit usually works to my advantage ’cause I’m usually the one pullin’ the string. But now, there was another puppet master pullin’ the strings.
When Cassandra was freed, she wanted to stay in New York instead of coming back to the island. “I feel isolated and trapped on this rock,” Cassandra told me on more than one occasion. Cut off from the rest of the world, she’d say. So I decided to stay in the city. If I had listened to my better judgement and dragged her back to the Bahamas, maybe she’d still be alive.
I got out of the car and walked inside with my three bodyguards close behind. There were a lot of new faces working there; new bartenders, new waitresses, but Esmond, the cook, was still there. As soon as he saw me come through the door, he dropped whatever it was he had been chopping up and came out to greet me. I would have preferred that he drop the knife too, and so would my new bodyguards. “Whoa, mon,” one said, and pointed his weapon. “Where ya tink you go with that knife?”
Esmond stopped in his tracks, put the knife down on the table closest to him and raised his hands.
“Its okay,” I told him, and pushed the barrel of his gun down. “He’s all right.”
As soon as he felt it was safe to do so, Esmond rushed up and threw his big arms around me. “It’s good to see you again, Black.”
“It’s good to see you too my friend.”
“The minute me hear you come, me fix conch chowder for you.”
“I haven’t had any conch since the last time you made some for me and Cassandra.”
“I want to say how sorry I was to hear ’bout the lady,” Esmond said, referring to Cassandra. “You know me love her like she me own flesh and blood.”
“She loved you too.”
“I miss her as I know you do,” Esmond said and hugged me again. “You let me know when you ready for some conch.” Esmond let me go and returned to his kitchen. “Maybe while you're here, we can get up a game. Since you been gone there’s no one to challenge me at chess.”
“Why don’t you bring me a big bowl and set up the board,” I said and he smiled. Esmond loved to play chess and we had played many games and I had lost plenty of them because of careless mistakes.
Once I had gone though the place and met all the new employees, I settled down with a big bowl of conch chowder and wondered just exactly what I was doin’ there. I mean, I did want to check out the place, but I wasn’t pressed about it. To be honest, I was there for no other reason than to see Jacara, and I wondered why.
Okay, Jacara did have the type of body that made me want to play with it, so naturally I wanted to fuck her. But I had much more important things that I needed to be doing. The people responsible for Cassandra's death were still alive and thinkin’ that they got away with it. And on top of that, somebody had tried to kill me and I have no clue what that’s about.
The second that I finished my chowder, Esmond brought the chessboard over and began settin’ it up. I hadn’t played since I left the island, so I was looking forward to playing even though I knew I’d lose. The game wore on and I tried to stay focused, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something just wasn’t right. That something bad was about to happen.
I had just moved my queen’s bishop to king rook two when Jacara walked in to the paradise wearing a light blue sundress that hugged every delicious inch of her body. I watched her as she stood by the door and scanned the club looking for me. “Check,” Esmond said.
I looked at the board, and sure as shit, he had me in check and had left me with few options. “Shit. Didn’t see that,” I said, realizing that I had made one of those careless mistakes.
By that time, the hostess had told Jacara where to find me and she was moving in my direction. When she saw me sitting there, her beautiful smile broadened. I stood up to greet her and so did Esmond.
“Well, hello, Mr. Black. How are you on the beautiful island day?”
“I’m good. Jacara Delbridge. This is Esmond,” I pointed at the smiling chef.
“I must say that it is an honor to meet you, Miss Delbridge. I have seen your show and loved it, and have seen you in here many times.” Esmond paused and pulled out a chair for Jacara to join us. “You might go as far to say that me a fan of both your voice and your beauty.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Jacara said graciously and sat down. “I don’t mean to interrupt your game.” She picked up a menu.
“That is all right, pretty lady. It is not going to last much longer,” Esmond laughed while I studied the board trying to find a way to move out of check.
A waitress came to our table and placed a drink in front of me before turning her attention to Jacara. “Can I get you a cocktail from the bar?”
“Yes, I’ll have a Sea Breeze with a twist of lime,” Jacara answered.
What I needed now was to not only get myself out of check, but form a plan to turn this game around, mount some offense and win this game. I had planned to be done with the game before Jacara got there. But now there she was, and I had no intention of losing in front of her. But I heard somewhere that roads are paved with good intentions and three moves later I heard Esmond say, “Checkmate.”
Esmond stood up and collected the board and the pieces, while I sat there and wondered how I lost so badly again. “Can I fix you someting special? It would be an honor to prepare a meal for you,” Edmond said to Jacara before he headed off.
Jacara picked up the menu again and began flipping though it, deciding what she wanted to eat. “Bahamian crawfish with peas n' rice sounds tasty.”
“I will make it with love, my dear,” Esmond promised and turned toward the kitchen.
“You’re not having anything handsome?” she asked me.
I smiled. “He knows what I like. It’s sort of a tradition we have. He puts it in front of me and I eat what he cooks.”
“Isn’t that sort of risky? I mean, suppose you don’t like what he cooks?” Jacara asked and leaned forward, giving me a spectacular view of her cleavage. I couldn’t tell if she was wearing a bra, but I hoped she wasn’t.
“He has never let me down yet.”
“I just don’t know if I could do that,” Jacara smiled and touched my hand.
“Sure you can. Just think back to the days when your mother cooked for you. You ate whatever she put in front of you, no questions asked.”
“If you didn’t, you’d get beat and then have to go to bed hungry,” Jacara laughed and I enjoyed watching her titties bounce.
“Exactly.”
“Still, I would really have to trust your cooking.”
“He’s a great cook. That’s why I hired him.”
“And that’s another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Why didn’t you say that this was your place?”
“I thought you knew and that’s why you wanted to meet here.”
“No, I wanted to meet here because I like the atmosphere of this place and the food is good.”
“So you didn’t know this was my place and you didn’t know the name of it.”
“You know, as many time as I’ve been here, I never realized that the name of the place is Black’s Paradise. Everybody on the rock just calls it The Paradise.”
