Jules ran her hands over her hair. “I don’t know if the JDF will look for him, Lloyd. But is true, a Coast Guard boat go out to Pedro once a week. They take men out and bring men back; maybe they will ask some questions. Give me a minute to shower and change and make us go over there and ask them.”
“Them will take me with them to Pedro? Me can find him, Miss. Me know him is out there somewhere. Sea can’t kill my granddaddy.”
Jules shook her head. “I don’t think they will take you. But let’s ask. Soon come. You just sit here, eat up. Sorry is not better food, maybe we can get some fish in Port Royal after.” She got up, left her drink on the table and most of the cheese crunchies uneaten, and walked around the dining room behind them. Lloyd felt the bartender’s gaze. He was sure the bartender thought the likes of him should not be allowed to sit at a table at the Morgan’s Harbour Hotel.
He waited. He was anxious, sitting there alone, and he hoped Jules would come back quickly. He did not know how to talk to her. He wanted to ask her about her work with dolphins. Was she a scientist? He had seen scientists working in the Port Royal mangroves, with their wide-brimmed hats, their clipboards and rolls of tape. He did not know what they did there, but he saw them writing and taking pictures.
He knew the mangroves as a place where it was safe to moor a boat when a hurricane threatened, that somehow the sea remained much calmer inside their lagoons and channels. Many kinds of bird lived there—old joes, terns, gulls, herons—and some types of fish hid among the roots. He liked the strange shoots that grew downward from the plants. The strong smell of the swamp did not bother him.
If Maas Conrad was late coming back from sea, he always went into a channel through the mangroves to a place called Rosey’s Hole, where the leaves almost touched overhead and it was shady and quiet. Gramps would sling a line around one of the trees and pull the boat in close and there he would eat a bulla and an overripe pear and drink a hot Red Stripe beer. Sometimes he would lie back in the boat and sleep, while Lloyd slapped at mosquitoes and watched fallen leaves drift past.
They would motor out, as slowly as possible, so as not to send big waves surging through the mangroves, disrupting the order of things, and Gramps would get upset when he saw garbage tangled up in the roots and he would tell Lloyd it would affect the fishing, but he didn’t say how. He always said “fish-nin” instead of “fish-ing.” Lloyd thought Jules probably knew about mangroves and why they might affect fish-nin.
“You ready?” she said, from behind him. He got up. She was carrying her surfboard and paddle under one arm and held a backpack in the other. “Let’s go. Don’t want you to get your hopes up, though—I don’t know if Commander Peterson is even going to be there. But make us go and see what we can see.”
Her car was an old Jeep with a canvas top. She loaded the surfboard in the back and tied a red cloth to it to show where it stuck out. “Get in,” she said and there was a touch of impatience in her voice. Perhaps she was already sorry she had talked to him, perhaps she wished she could just take him back to the dock in Port Royal.
It took them less than a minute to get to the Coast Guard station. The gate was the cut off top of an old ship called the HMJS Cagway and there was a sign saying the base had been founded in 1963. The uniformed guard obviously knew Jules and smiled as she drove up to the guard post. “Commander here?” she asked.
“Him on Surrey,” said the guard. “But you can wait for him.” He didn’t seem to notice Lloyd.
“Awright, Phillips, thanks. Park in the usual place?” Jules didn’t wait for an answer.
They drove along a narrow road beside the Harbour. The Coast Guard base was a mix of new buildings and old—crumbling red brick and square concrete buildings. He saw a line of long wooden houses painted blue off to the left. They all had signs with the names of sea creatures—Shark, Barracuda, Dolphin.
She parked under a large willow tree. She turned to Lloyd and looked at him. “Let me do the talking, okay? What you granddaddy name again?”
“Conrad. Maas Conrad Saunders.”
They walked along a pathway toward the dock. Everything was very neat and painted, even the trunks of the coconut trees. The grass was brown and mowed. There was not a trace of litter. Lloyd could faintly hear the noise of some kind of machinery, perhaps a drill or a generator. They passed men in uniform, light blue shirts and dark blue trousers, who nodded to Jules and said, “Miss.” They passed a line of old willow trees, all leaning in one direction, making a soft sound in the sea breeze. They walked past an old concrete jetty, almost at sea level, covered with seagulls, also facing in one direction.
They walked onto the dock. The three big Coast Guard boats were moored together—the Surrey on one side of the
