Episode 1 – “Tropical Noir”
Man, I still clearly remember that night of the Monsoons in explicit detail. The wind was blowin’ so hard on Main Street it would suck your ass out of the side streets. The torrential rains literally turned streets into rivers and the taxi I caught to find that son of a bitch got washed over and rolled off Mountain Road. The driver and I barely made it out alive. We were both strapped in and I managed to kick out the windshield after the third rollover and pulled him out from behind the steering wheel that had him pinned. I had managed to let the top half of his seat back and sheer brute force and adrenaline did the rest and got us the hell out of there! We were both sliced up like street punks going at it with razour blades and choking on wind and rain with every breath. The damn car flipped over on its side one more time and must have started a mud-slide down the hill because, all of a sudden, the bloody thing was gone.
So here we are, Headley the cabbie and me, sprawled out and bleeding by the side of the road hoping nothing mortal or morbid was cut and realizing help was not going to arrive amid this turbulence; this impossible stir of exotic passions. Those fortunate souls that had made it home were battening down their hatches and the police or ambulances didn’t go out of their way much on a good night. It was easier to collect the bodies the next day, after certain extremes, than chance becoming one themselves and what their pay checks left to be desired only justified their willful neglect Just another Devil’s toss in paradise. Something the tourist brochures don’t even hint at Anyway, so just as we convinced ourselves of an awkward fate we had only each other to overcome, the bastard I was looking for shows up and puts three slugs into Headley. All I could see was a rain-drenched outline of the son of a bitch appearing out of nowhere and killing the cabbie, whom he must have mistaken for me, while I rolled and rolled myself over and over to create some distance and then pulled my revolver out of my boot and emptied it into that God-forsaken blurred image until I heard it slump over like a sack of potatoes.
That was one hell of a cab ride up Mountain Road and I don’t know how he knew I was coming for him but he showed up guns-blazing to take care of the problem. I do admire that. I scavenged both bloody corpses for any money or identifications that might prove useful and rolled them further away from the side of the road. After all that I began walking and slipping and sliding and falling down that long-ass river of a winding road still blinded by tempest winds and sheets of rain from all sides. About three hours later I hit Main Street on the waterfront; a little more than a puddle of my circumstances seeking a rapid departure from my Caribbean meltdown.
Now here I am weeks later at The Blue Iguana, many nautical miles away, sipping Stingers on the rocks and Mango Daiquiris and you’re telling me they flew you in because the man I shot was actually the man who ordered the hit and then changed his mind and came looking for me to stop me because the contract was on his twin brother?
Did I just hear you right?!
Claudio Oswald Niedworok©
www.ClaudioArts.com