I WALKED BACK TO THE HOTEL AND TRIED THE DANE.
The waitress hadn’t been able to tell me any more than Leanne’s name and the fact that she was the owner’s girlfriend. The owner whose name was not Jason, but J.T. Which was close enough. She did not know where they lived. But she had pushed her hand in the direction of the Captain Suizo.
“Yes,” the Dane said when I asked if she knew the restaurant down the beach. She had been leaning on the reception desk, reading a newspaper. It was a tabloid newspaper, printed in Spanish, with lots of photos. She looked up, as if she actually were going to pay attention to me this time.
“You want a reservation?” Her tone said such a thing was unnecessary, maybe even unimaginable.
“No. I was hoping you could tell me something about the person who owns it.”
“The restaurant?”
I nodded, tried to look as though it was a perfectly innocent question.
“You mean J.T.?”
“J.T. what?”
“What?” the woman said back. She folded the newspaper without looking at what she was doing.
“You want to buy the restaurant?”
I was not sure why she cared, what business it was of hers, why she could not just answer my question. “Is it Stockover? Is that it?”
“Maybe.” She was looking at me peculiarly.
“Is that his girlfriend who works there—”
“You mean Leanne?” A slow smile crept over the woman’s face.
“You know her?”
She shrugged. The smile faded but did not disappear completely. “I know her.”
“Know where she lives?”
Slowly the smile grew back. “You want to see her?”
I suddenly felt like a lug, an oversized American with wet feet and sand all over his shorts. “Well,” I said, formulating excuses as I spoke, “I was just trying to figure out if I knew who her boyfriend was, if he was this guy I used to know named Jason Stockover. Back in the States.”
Something was going on with this woman. Everything I said, every question I asked, was making her think thoughts that were not in keeping with mine. “You like her?” she said.
“Who? Leanne?”
She nodded once and waited for me to answer.
“Yeah. She’s great.”
“You like her hair?” The Dane touched her own hair, mimicked cutting it off.
What was she telling me? That Leanne had just changed her appearance? That the strawberry blonde of Landry’s description had just become the nondescript brunette of Tamarindo?
I told her I didn’t think one way or another about her hair. I just wanted to know where she lived.
She pointed down the beach, away from town. “Get to the big rock. Go over it. Then one, two, three, maybe four houses. Look for the big table under the big tree.”
“Maybe I should drive there.”
“Is better to walk. No wachiman ask what you are doing.”
“I’m just going to visit a friend.”
“I could just go and ring the doorbell.”
“Only thing is,” the Dane said, “it’s got a big”—she demonstrated, sliding a hand up and down in front of her face—“gate. It’s like a big door. You can’t just go in there from the street. The door has to open up.” She put the backs of her hands together and then drew them apart as if she was doing the breaststroke. “No. Better to go the beach.”