Angels in Heaven

his leg bones.
    No one could think of anything else,
so we made our farewells and were just turning to leave when he said, “Oh,
there is one thing. There’s a chance something may come up and I may not be
able to make it.”
    That time I located the mot juste with no trouble at all.
     
     
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    “As far as I know, only one,” Big
Jeff said, lighting up one of his stogies with his flamethrower.
    We were in the cab driving back to Cancún.
    In light of the severe shock to my
system, already wobbly, delivered a few minutes previously by Cap’n Dan, I was
putting a few searching questions to Jeff about his erstwhile shipmate. The way
we had left things with Dan was like this—if whatever the hell it was that was
more important even than saving my life did come up, he’d try to keep our
rendezvous seven nights later at the same time or, failing that, seven
midnights after that. And that was the best we could get out of him.
    So what I was quizzing Jeff about
were such trifling matters as, was Dan reliable? If he didn’t show, would it be
because of something truly world shattering or merely some picayune get-out,
like his dog had the mumps or his horoscope in that day’s Puerto Morelos
Gazette said avoid sea trips? Jeff assured me his old pal was reliability
itself. What about his barnacle-hulled, bulkheaded, double electronic (whatever
that meant) clunker of a boat we didn’t even get to see? Extremely dependable
but a mite slow, said Jeff, max speed about twelve knots. I wondered aloud how
many boats Dan had already run on the reefs or scuppered or floundered, which
is when Jeff said, “Only one.”
    “Oh, is that all?” I said with
exaggerated relief. “That’s like dying only once. I suppose all hands were
lost, except him.”
    “Nope,” said Jeff calmly, puffing
away. “Ever heard of Morro Bay?”
    “Nope,” I said.
    “I have,” Sara piped up from beside
the other side of Benny. “It’s in California somewhere.”
    “Correct, darlin’,” said Jeff. “You
get real heavy surf in the harbor mouth there, sixteen-foot waves easy. You
also get about three deaths a year up there from boats capsizing, so Dan did
good just walkin’ away from it.”
    “More like dog-paddling away,” I
said, beginning to quiet down slightly. “Probably collecting seashells as he
swam. Oh, look, everyone,” I said, pointing, “a Bananias treus, you can
recognize it by those bunches of green, bananashaped things hanging all over
it.”
    Jeff chortled, then said, “It’s up to
you of course, darlin’, but I doubt you’ll do better than Dan Peel, not that
you have a lot of choice this late in the game.”
    “There is that,” said Benny from the
seat beside me. “Right on,” said the twerp.
    “You, I’ll get to later, Benny,” I
said.
    I got to him on the airplane on the
afternoon flight back to Mérida from Cancún, as soon as I’d opened my eyes
again after takeoff and had visited the bathroomette to wash my hands.
    “Benjamin,” I said. “Excuse me ever
so for disturbing you,” I said. “I can see that you are busy looking out the
Porthole at those fascinating white fluffy objects, but I was Wondering, if you
didn’t mind terribly, letting me in on how we are going to get ourselves from
M6rida down to Dan’s mud scow. Or if that’s too much to ask, perhaps you might
drop me a wee hint. Maybe we could make some kind of guessing game out of it to
while away the hours.”
    He grinned across the aisle at me.
    “OK,” he said. “I’ll give you a hint.
How does Jorge transport my hammocks to the shipper?”
    I thought back.
    “In his old truck,” I said.
    “Voila,” he said. “I already had a
word with him about it just in case. Who’s going to look for us under a pile of
hammocks in that old wreck of his?”
    “No one, I hope,” I said. “I also
hope we can breathe under all that close-weave.”
    “At least Benny came up with a way to
get to the boat, which is a lot more than you did,” Guess Who offered unnecessarily
from the seat adjoining mine.
    “The delegation of insignificant
details to trusted hirelings is surely the key to successful
leadership,” I reminded her, smiling at her fondly. “Do you really imagine
Caesar spent his time worrying over trifles like whether his elephants were
getting enough vitamin C in their diets? Of course not. His mind was on other,
larger matters.”
    “It’s the first I’ve heard that the
Romans used elephants,”