Chapter 11 – Fort-De-France

MURPH TAXIED FOR WHAT seemed like an eternity. It was hotter than hell itself and the sun baked everything under the windshield. Ahead and to the left, Cole watched intently as a massive airliner lumbered up into the sky and disappeared into a scattered layer of clouds. Even over the two engines of Murph’s plane, Cole could hear the jet roaring up and away. After a few minutes more, the air conditioning was finally blowing cool air into the cockpit, and Cole could feel the temperature dropping. Murph continued on at a steady clip down the taxiway. He seemed busy talking with the ground controllers and running through his checklists, so Cole kept to himself and took in his surroundings. Jet fuel smelled remarkably different than the gasoline he burned in an outboard engine. He thought back to the P-3 that buzzed him weeks ago. It seemed like an eternity had passed since that night.

Looking back to his right, Cole saw that he was only a few feet from the propeller turning on the right wing. It seemed odd that he was so close to it, and for the life of him, Cole couldn’t figure out how it was going to lift this plane into the air. He’d flown commercial flights more times than he could count, but from the passenger seat of an airliner, he had always assumed things would work out. Now, in the copilot’s seat, he looked around at the gauges and needles that flickered back and forth and wondered what the hell was going to happen. He sat there looking down at the instruments until Murph punched him in the shoulder to snap Cole out of it.

Glancing over at Murph, Cole saw that he was pointing up ahead and to the right. “See that blue building over there?”

Cole looked ahead and could see a two-story structure that looked just as run down as everything else in Panama outside the main drag of the city. Antennas protruded from the top, but the grounds around it looked better maintained than most of Panama. It was most certainly military.

“Yeah, the two-story one. What is it?”

Murph grinned and said, “That’s the Panamanian military. That’s their air base. They’ll fuck you up if they catch you. Shoot you without thinking twice about it.”

As Murph taxied past, Cole had a good view of the base. There were a few old planes laying around on the sidelines, most worn down beyond recognition and certainly not in any flying condition. But there were two Hueys, straight out of a Vietnam War movie, with some guys in flight suits walking around them. For a moment, they looked straight at Cole as he looked back at them, only 40 or 50 yards away as Murph taxied past. All Cole could do was wave. One of the guys in a flight suit threw a wave back at Cole and went back to securing something inside the helicopter.

“Funny,” Murph said without looking at Cole.

Still looking out the window at the various planes and helicopters lining the ramp of the military base, Cole asked, “What’s funny?”

Murph took a 90 degree turn at the end of the taxiway and stopped the plane just short of the massive runway. “Funny that they’re gearing up to go look for you and you’re sitting right here in my damn plane.”

Cole was looking straight ahead now and settled back a bit in the seat. “I’m glad you find it entertaining, Murph.”

Murph punched Cole again. From inside the cramped cockpit, Murph practically had to lean all the way to his left against the cabin to get enough space to rear back his right hand and punch Cole, but still he did it again and laughed out loud.

“Seriously man, they’re stone cold killers. You’re lucky to get out of here alive.”

Before Cole could say anything back, Murph was talking to the tower and he popped the parking brake loose. Pushing the throttles up a bit, Cole felt the tail sway back and forth as the plane accelerated in a lazy turn to line up with the runway centerline. Before Murph even was aligned with it, he jammed the throttles up and the plane swerved hard as he turned it further left and they accelerated even more. The dashed centerline began to pass underneath the nose faster and faster.

Cole felt himself pressed into the seat as Murph pulled her up and with a subtle thump, they were in the air. The wings dipped back and forth for a moment or two and she swayed a few more times as Murph worked the rudder with his feet and the wings with his left hand on the yoke. It was uncomfortable at first, but soon Murph found the plane’s sweet spot and they were on their way.

Murph called out, “Gear up.” He had his left hand on the yoke and his right hand draped over the two throttles. Cole didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Gear up, you dumbass.” Murph was looking at Cole now with a stern face.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cole had no idea what Murph was looking for.

Murph reared back like he was going punch Cole again, but he stopped short of it and instead pointed with his finger to a handle with a round clear plastic knob on it just in front of Cole’s left knee.

“You see that knob there?” Murph was pointing straight at it.

“Yeah,” Cole replied.

“Well, flip it up, you retard.”

Cole reached down and flipped it up. A few clunks followed and the handle glowed red briefly before three indicators all displayed ‘up’ and the clunks stopped.

“Never flown before, huh?”

Murph was settled back into his seat as he flipped a few more switches and they climbed up into the setting sun. The Pacific was a sea of yellow sunlight reflecting off the surface below them and daylight was showing its first signs of retreat. Cole didn’t respond to Murph as he was consumed by the view of the vast sea in front of him. They were flying out into the Pacific and Cole leaned up and forward a bit to look down at it. No sooner had he caught a glimpse of the water below them when Murph checked in with air traffic controllers and started a turn to the left.

They climbed even higher, and as Murph came through 180 degrees of a turn, they were facing a giant wall of mountains on the nose. Cole looked down out the window to his right and saw nothing but green. He could make out some dirt roads leading in from the coast and the rusting metal roofs of houses dotting the landscape, but not much more. Most of the landscape was just a dark shade of green in the late afternoon light. Panama City was to his left across the cockpit, and he couldn’t make out any detail other than the mass of buildings and light reflecting off windows. But to his right was a part of the country he’d not yet explored. It looked different from the air. He was all at once entirely relieved to be out of the city and took a slow deep breath. Panama’s never-ending party wore him down more than anything, and now that he was out, he felt like he’d made the right decision. It was indeed time to get out.

In a few short months, Panama had chewed him up and spit him out. He was lucky to be alive, just as Murph had said. He thought for a moment about the gunfight, but now not even 24 hours later, it too was a blur and he struggled to remember the details. The muzzle blast from the car, the recoil from his gun as he ducked for cover and did his best to make his shots count, the brass clinking off the pavement, the smell of gunpowder in the humid thick air, and the silence afterwards when the shooting had finally stopped was stuck in his mind. His shoulder too was a reminder of how close he came to not making it out. He ran through it again in his head then just as quickly sent the thoughts away and stared out the window at the green country below.

With the air conditioning finally getting full control of the cockpit, it cooled off nicely and Cole sat forward for a second to pull his shirt off of his sweat-soaked back. The bandage felt like it was holding up all right. He sat back again, much more comfortable.

“I’ve never flown in the cockpit before.” Cole looked for a second at Murph then back ahead at the mountains in front of them.

“First time for everything,” replied Murph and he seemed more relaxed now that he was in the air.

Cole asked, “So what’s your story then?”

Murph grinned a bit and pushed a few more buttons before taking his hands off the yoke. “She’ll fly herself from here.”

“Autopilot?” Cole wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“Yup, this thing is the shit. King Air with all the bells and whistles,” Murph quipped as he settled back a bit more in his seat.

He went back to Cole’s question. “I’ve been flying down here for a little over ten years. Started running shit back and forth to Hispaniola when I was about your age. Never really done anything else.”

“Where’d you learn to fly?”

Murph took a deeper breath. “I started out in Florida at a flight school, but right about when I was ready to finish, I flew a little too low past a girl’s house and it kind of went downhill from there. I finally got my license but couldn’t really get a good job anywhere, so I packed up and made my way down here.”

Cole was quiet for a moment, realizing that Murph was just like him. He looked up ahead at the mountains and could see that the plane was climbing over them. The altimeter was spinning through 10,000 feet, that much he could understand. There were some dark buildups ahead at the peak of some of the mountains, and in line with where Murph was flying.

“Is that weather a problem?”

Murph looked up ahead and squinted before responding. “You worry a lot, you know that? I heard you’re some cowboy or something, shooting it out like the wild west and here you are asking me about puffy clouds and shit.”

Cole laughed. “Just seems a bit different in a plane, that’s all. And yeah, I guess I made a bit of a name for myself down here.”

Murph laughed too and seemed to ease up even more as their altitude increased and the cabin cooled. He seemed satisfied that Cole wasn’t all that bad of a guy. As they reached the top of the mountains and leveled out, the landscape disappeared beneath them. They were in the clouds and bounced around a bit more than Cole liked. Rain followed, and the plane jolted up and down at an alarming rate. When Cole had driven through a thunderstorm, he bounced around a bit, but a plane added a new uncomfortable dimension. Without seeing a thing in front of him, Cole felt the back end yaw left and right like it did on takeoff and he took a deep breath.

Cole mumbled, “Ain’t this some shit.”

Murph just sat there in his seat, occasionally twisting a knob on a small radar screen in front of him, but otherwise not seeming to give two shits about mountains or thunderstorms, or the rain that was pummeling the windshield. When the turbulence kicked them around even more, Murph pulled back on the throttles a bit, but just as soon as the plane settled again, he jammed them back up. Cole looked out at the propeller turning just feet away from him and saw the flicker of a strobe light every few seconds against the otherwise dark mass of clouds outside. He wanted to ask Murph about any more mountains since at that particular place and time neither of them could see shit in front of them, but knew Murph would just blow it off so he didn’t bother. Cole pressed his head against the seat and waited.

In a matter of minutes, they were through the worst of it. The clouds backed off and Cole caught his first glimpse of the Caribbean in front of him. From 17,000 feet, he could see clear across the coastline of Panama. The Caribbean shoreline, now darker with the sun behind the mountains and obscured by the clouds they’d just pushed through, was dotted with flickers of lights. Some were from ships at anchor, others from the small remote villages that dotted the north coast. The cockpit was cool and the plane settled in the undisturbed air, her propellers driving them eastward with a steady hum.

“Well, shit. This ain’t half bad,” Cole nodded.

“I’m glad it’s to your standard.” Murph reached behind his seat and pulled out a small collapsible travel cooler. Setting it down in his lap, he unzipped the top and pulled out two Dos Equis bottles, both sweating from a bath in ice.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Cole said in disbelief.

“Beverage service.” Murph passed one to Cole then opened his with a bottle opener that he pulled from the side pocket.

Passing the opener to Cole, Murph took a good long sip and set the beer between his legs before dialing in a new frequency and adjusting a few more switches in the plane.

“Is there a movie too?” Cole popped the top off his beer and held it out for Murph to toast.

Tipping the neck of his beer against Cole’s, Murph took another sip and talked to someone else on the radio before changing his course just a bit with the turn of a small wheel on the console between them.

Cole took another sip and asked, “So what do you move down here?”

Murph looked at him for a second then stared straight ahead at the dark night in front of them.

“Used to run drugs, like you. But the governments, Colombia mostly, got real good real quick at shooting planes down. Once they got their first taste of it, there was nothing stopping them. The U.S. was supplying them with equipment and it was a pretty lethal combo. This was right when I was getting into it. Guys were getting shot to shit and never heard of again.”

He took another sip from his beer and rubbed his lip with his thumb. “I figured what the hell, I’ll give it a try. I made two runs out of Colombia before they caught me. I had this crotch-rocket of a plane come up from behind and wag his wings right next to me. I mean, I could literally see the fucker’s face. I flicked the guy off and figured I was done. He was calling out on the radio for me to land, but I was getting pretty close to the beach line and figured I would make a run for open water, trying to get to twelve miles.”

Murph quit for a second, looked at one of the gauges, and took another sip. Cole kept quiet as he had a sense that this story was going somewhere and that his adventures to date paled in comparison.

“So anyway, sure as shit, he pulls behind in a loose trail and lights me up. I mean, I can hear bullets tearing into the plane. It was just a single engine Cessna, no match at all for whatever he was shooting me up with. And then the engine started smoking, fuel was leaking out of the wings, and I put her in a descent to the jungle. He blew right past me one more time as I was descending to rub it in my face. I killed the engine and lined up to ditch on a flat part of the landscape.”

Cole was struck by it. “Shit, man. That’s one hell of a story.”

They were both looking straight ahead and the silence was uncomfortable. Murph seemed like he was replaying it in his head.

Cole pressed. “You gotta tell me the ending. I mean you’re still here, so what the fuck happened?”

Murph paused and shook his head back and forth as if to say he didn’t even understand it himself. “I don’t really know. I put her down in the jungle and somehow walked away from it. The plane was a wreck, but I climbed out through the windshield that was busted out and waited.”

Cole was puzzled. “You waited? You just sat there and waited?”

Murph laughed and replied, “Yeah, I fucking waited. I was in the middle of the damn jungle wearing a pair of flip flops. What else was I gonna do?”

The two laughed. It was a hell of a story and the two seemed to appreciate each other’s company for the next two hours. Cole laid out his whole story about Delaney, the migrant runs, and his decision to press further south. Murph seemed somewhat impressed with Cole’s stories as well and before long they were starting a slow descent down into the island of Curacao.

Having never been there, Cole focused his attention outside the cockpit and strained to make out details about the island in front of him in the dark Caribbean sky. Murph took her off autopilot and handled the plane like a pro. He’d cut them both off at one beer for that leg, but had promised another once they were wheels up.

As they neared the airport, Murph called out, “Gear down.”

Taking that as his cue, Cole reached down and flopped the same lever down. Similar clunks followed and the plane surged just a bit before the three indicators all displayed ‘down’ and Cole was happy with his first flying lesson.

Murph eased the plane onto the runway and from a pilot’s view, Cole saw firsthand the balancing act of bringing a flying piece of metal back onto the ground with grace. He was impressed. The landing was far more involved and intricate than tying a ship up to a pier. They taxied clear of the runway and over to another empty ramp, where a lone blue van waited in a corner. Taxiing over towards it, Murph instructed Cole to hop out the back with both of the briefcases behind his seat and give them to the guy in the van.

Cole complied and in a matter of minutes they were taxiing again with Murph flipping switches and tuning radios. He paused briefly and pointed again up past the runway to a large hangar and some monstrous planes sitting on the dark ramp.

“See them, that’s a U.S. base down here. Those planes are the ones out looking for you every night.”

Cole squinted to make out the silhouettes of the planes, but in the darkness he couldn’t see clear enough to make much out of them. He wondered if that same P-3 wasn’t parked up there somewhere. It was an odd twist of fate that he was now practically kicked to the curb by David, and here he was twice in one day and in very different places looking practically eye to eye with the same guys trying every night to catch him.

The planes were huge, sitting quietly on the ramp as Murph taxied them past. It was asymmetric warfare in every sense of the term. Cole set out with a boat, a motor, and a GPS. In front of him was an array of some of the most technologically advanced warplanes in the U.S. inventory, all focused on finding guys just like him and slowing the flow of drugs to North America.

Murph spun the plane around again and lined up on the dark runway, this time waiting until he was lined up properly before gunning the engines. Seconds later they were accelerating. The plane’s landing lights lit the pavement in front of them and an array of different colored lights marked each side of the runway with a single row of lights down the centerline. Other than the runway, it was dark. Cole felt the nose pitch up briefly before the familiar thump indicating they were in the air.

Murph called for the gear and Cole flipped the same lever again without missing a beat. Once pointed east and on autopilot, Murph pulled out two more beers and the two of them toasted the evening. “I assume you didn’t want to stay in Curacao?”

Cole took a sip and replied, “No. Let’s see what else El Caribe has to offer.”

From 19,000 feet, it was total darkness below and above. There were some scattered thunderstorms along the route, but nothing like the ones they’d pushed through over Panama. Cole could see the stars above him and enough of the moon was out to bounce some light off the Caribbean below. Cole was now adjusted to the hum of the engines and compared to running a boat hundreds of miles, an airplane was certainly an easier ride.

The flight to Martinique was just about two hours, and Cole pressed Murph for more details. Murph in turn laid out the pros and cons of running drugs by air. It had taken the better part of a day for anyone to find him after he’d ditched the plane. By the time the Colombian military arrived, he’d burned the whole thing down to ashes and, from the story he told, he met the Colombians with open arms and a shit-eating grin on his face. Without evidence, they had nothing that could have proved Murph’s guilt, as it had all gone up in flames. The Colombians put him in jail anyway, but in a matter of months, he was out and on his way.

Since then, almost eight years ago, Murph had been moving mostly above-the-table shipments around the southern Caribbean. Sometimes he flew people from place to place, picking them up, dropping them off, and waiting for days at the nicest hotels money could buy. He told Cole that the two briefcases were nothing more than checks and documents as far as he knew. Like any other business, there was a paper trail. It was well guarded, but there was still a paper trail, and that was Murph’s niche in the business. If he wasn’t chauffeuring the middle management from meeting to meeting, he was moving their administrative necessities. From time to time he’d test out a new route or move cocaine if David was in a pinch, but it was a good life that Murph had carved out for himself.

Cole was relieved that the cartel had kept its word and hadn’t sent Murph on his way empty handed. He compared his situation to Murph’s and the two agreed that Cole still had a decent chance of making something of it. In the interim, Murph would show him a good time in Martinique once they landed. As they started their descent into Fort-de-France, Cole couldn’t help but smile.

Murph touched down again and taxied to a smaller ramp lined with planes similar to their King Air. He shut down quickly and the two stepped off the plane into the nighttime sky. Cole took a deep and long breath of the air. It was tropical just like Panama, but a strong steady breeze blew from the east and the air smelled fresh and full of salt. There was no city stench like Panama City nor was there the constant thumping of dance music from Habana’s. It was peaceful, at last. With his bag over his shoulder, Cole followed Murph inside the small terminal where Murph had a green Volkswagen rental car waiting, and the two were off.

Murph drove like a madman through the streets, entering and exiting rotary intersections like he’d been at it his whole life. He grinned and giggled with each hard turn. Cole couldn’t help but laugh as well with his window down and the cool evening air in his face. The local radio station played something in French and Murph cranked it up as he hit red line speeds on the straightaways then played the gears down in the turns.

Even though it was dark, Cole could sense the island was far different from the western side of the Caribbean. A refreshing breeze rolled in undisturbed from the Atlantic. The smell took him back to the first night he’d beached on the north coast of Cuba. The tops of palm trees moved with the wind, and the buildings were more spaced out and colorful than the congestion of Panama. It was getting late, but people were still lingering around the small cafes that lined the roads.

Murph pulled off the main highway, and Cole strained to read the street signs. It was all foreign to him, a new language. He hoped that enough time would pass here that he would come to learn a few phrases. With one last hard turn, Murph settled the car into a parking spot and the two hopped out and walked into the entrance of the Hotel Bakoua. The lobby was open-air and had smooth tile floors. Soft music played from a radio behind the desk. It was remarkably quiet and Cole was again struck by the contrast. In broken English, the woman at the counter checked both of them into their rooms and gave them keys. From the reception area, the two walked around a corner, down some steps, and to the bar that overlooked the pool and the bay below. They were elevated on a cliff and Cole fought for a moment to keep a smile from creeping across his face.

Murph saw Cole’s reaction, laughed, and pulled a stool up at the bar. Cole followed and the old man behind the bar brought them a plate of green olives and peanuts. They both drank rum punch and snacked on the peanuts for an hour or so, still swapping stories about wild nights, women, and the places they’d been. It was almost midnight when they turned in. Murph set off down towards his room and Cole found a sign pointing him to the left and down an open-air walkway to the end. To his left was a steep rock embankment covered in small flowers and brush. To the right was a single row of rooms with the beach on the far side. He found his number on the last room on the right and walked in, not knowing what to expect.

Like he always did, he set the thermostat a few degrees lower and walked over to the sliding glass doors. Opening them and stepping out onto his balcony, he saw a sand beach below and two dozen sailboats at anchor in the small cove to the left. He could hear the breeze whistle through their aluminum masts and halyards. Listening to it, he thought of Key West for a moment. So much had happened since he’d left the Conch Republic. He took one last deep breath and turned in for the evening.

g

He awoke the following morning later than usual. With nothing to do, he made some coffee in the room and went again out on his balcony. He’d missed it the night before, but the balcony wrapped around to the left and opened up onto a covered deck, almost hanging over the coral jetty below him. Taking a seat on a bench and throwing his bare feet up on the table, he shook his head and grinned at his fortune.

It wasn’t long before he heard Murph calling up to him from the beach below, “You lucky son of a bitch.”

Cole grinned even wider and quipped, “Better to be lucky than good Murph.”

Murph shook his head and looked away towards the water for a second before returning with a light-hearted smile. “Get down here, man. You gotta see this.”

Cole finished his coffee and made his way back through the room and down a set of wooden steps to the beach. He had on only a pair of board shorts and tucked the room key in a pocket. Murph walked quickly back down the beach, almost to the water, before motioning with his head for Cole to look out into the water behind him. There, two tanned and pretty girls were topless and lounging around in a foot or two of water. Cole stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at Murph, who was now the one with a smile on his face. “Welcome to France, buddy.”

From there, the two of them made their way out onto a small dock and walkway that led out to another bar jutting into the small cove. Once there they drank themselves quickly into a mess and recounted the previous 24 hours. The bartender again brought out peanuts and green olives, which did little to help manage the rum punch that soaked their bellies.

The bartender eventually gave them the cold shoulder, and with their cups empty and their minds clouded, they settled back into some chairs on the beach and set about watching the French girls that walked past. They were all beautiful and paid little attention to the two drunk Americans. At some point Cole had nodded off and woke around noon under the shade of a palm tree. Murph had found another drink somehow and was fidgeting in his chair, unable to sit still and appeared to be looking for mischief.

“What’s up, man?” Cole was still waking up from his nap.

Murph was scanning the cove and said, “I’m bored. There’s a drink for you on the table.”

Cole rolled over and sat up, reaching for the rum punch and he took a good long sip. It brought him back to life.

Beyond the bar, a young couple was seated in a pedal boat and they slowly chugged along out into the cove cutting a wide circular path. Even with the language barrier, it was clear the women was loudly nagging the man, who seemed to be trying to explain himself for some perceived transgression. Taking another sip from his punch, Murph set it down and spoke under his breath. “Watch this. I’ll give her something to bitch about.”

Cole said nothing, but watched Murph walk calmly out into the water and dive under for a moment before taking a few strokes out. He seemed to be lining himself up with the pedal boat and Cole chewed at his lip for a second trying to figure out what Murph was up to. He took another sip from his drink to finish it off and watched intently as the couple unknowingly made their way closer to Murph.

When he was within a few feet of them, he waved hello and they waved back, the woman stopping her tirade for just a moment, before Murph turned to make his way to the beach. As they passed him, Murph suddenly dove underwater again and emerged just inches from behind the pedal boat as it took a leisurely course further out into the cove. He was up to something and out of sight of the couple as they pedaled along. Seconds passed, and Murph finally slipped back under the water and emerged with some distance between him and the boat, this time making his way on in. Stepping out of the water, he again walked matter-of-factly back to his seat, dried off with a towel, and cleaned the rest of the melted ice and rum punch from his drink.

“What was that all about?” Cole had missed whatever Murph was up to.

Murph grinned and extended his right palm out with his fist closed before opening it and revealing the two hull plugs from the pedal boat. Cole looked for a second at the plugs then back out at the pedal boat making its way into the deeper water of the cove. The two young lovers were now giving each other silent treatment.

“No fucking way.”

Murph was now sitting back down on his chair and laughing hysterically. Cole followed suit. They both looked out at the cove to try and see if the boat was getting any lower in the water but couldn’t tell. But not more than a minute later, they heard the first yell. From its pitch, it must have been the woman, and she clearly had realized their boat was sinking. Cole and Murph looked out again, this time squinting harder and both giggling like little girls. The man driving was trying to turn the boat around, but it was now sinking lower and lower into the water and not responding to the two of them pedaling frantically.

The woman yelled some more towards shore and the man followed suit, both of them waving their hands in the air towards the beach. After a few seconds, the woman slapped the man and yelled at him once again. With the two of them yelling, Cole and Murph had to steady themselves so as not to fall out of their seats. The couple had caught the attention of the boy working the dock who was now yelling back at them and motioning with his hands for them to pedal faster. Guests on the beach were now standing up and talking as the couple on the boat yelled at the boy on the dock and the boy yelled back at them. It took a serious turn when the dock boy finally jumped in the water to swim after them.

Moments later, the pedal boat finally succumbed to Murph’s sabotage, and with a titanic-esque dramatic list to one side, it finally went under. The couple, now without a boat, swam back to shore and the woman was out of breath by the time she reached the shore, not so much from the swim, but more from her tirade against her man while they swam the 30 yards to shore. The dock boy swam out to the boat and was the only one left yelling after it had sunk before he realized the futility of it all and swam back to the dock.

It had caused quite a scene. Murph buried the two plugs in the sand and suggested that he and Cole make a run for some lunch at the bar by the lobby. Cole agreed. They both tried to contain their laughter, but could take no more than ten steps before one of them would start laughing again and it inevitably triggered the other to do the same. It was in this condition that the two of them made their way up the steps and sat at the bar, ordering sandwiches and another round of rum punch.

Cole had to wipe his eyes from the sweat and laughter, finally controlling himself when his drink arrived. Murph was still giggling, his forearms against the bar and his head bent low as he tried to regain his composure. Cole took a sip from his drink and as he set his glass back down on the bar, he saw a girl walk down from the lobby. Her long hair, dark and curly, bounced around her shoulders with each step and her skin was olive with a slight tan.

She walked up to the bartender and spoke in French with him, no more than five yards from Cole. Cole watched the words roll off her lips and wanted desperately to understand her language. She carried a clipboard with her and must have worked at the hotel from the way the two of them talked. A long green cotton dress hung from thin straps over her bare shoulders and she couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23, but she carried herself like she was older, or at least more mature than her age. Cole stared motionless. She was thin at the waist and through her dress Cole could see subtle but curved hips. The top of her dress hung low and Cole saw enough of her to lose his normally cool composure around beautiful girls. His mouth went dry. He bit down on his teeth, exhaled to steady himself, and just as he did, she looked away from the bartender and directly at Cole.

He was caught staring right at her and she knew it. He didn’t look away, nor could he at that moment even if he had tried. She held her gaze for a few seconds more, tilting her head just a bit as she did. Her eyes were dark and beautiful as they looked directly into Cole’s. For a moment, she looked as if she might smile just before she turned and walked back towards the lobby.