The wild boar, now minus its coarse hair and internal organs, turned on a battery-powered spit over a driftwood beach fire. JFK basted it with a paintbrush he dipped into a kettle of lava-colored liquid. His hands were long and delicate. Eddie stood beside him, tossing wood on the fire whenever JFK gave the signal. JFK was singing under his breath.
Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’
Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.
Over the flames and across the beach, Eddie could see the dinner party, sitting in the thatch-roofed bar. They looked good, all fresh tans and white cotton, linen, silk. The dinner party: Packer, Evelyn, Jack; and Mr. and Mrs. Trimble, moneyman and wife. Their voices carried in the still air.
Packer said: “You’ve never seen it?”
Mrs. Trimble said: “No, but I’m looking forward to it, aren’t you, Perry?”
Mr. Trimble replied inaudibly.
Packer said: “You’ve come to the right place, Mrs. T.” He refilled their glasses from a chilled pitcher of planter’s punch.
“They be talking about the green flash,” JFK said to Eddie. “Biggest lie in the islands. Bigger than we gonna have jobs for everybody or I won’t come in your mouth, baby.”
“There’s no green flash?”
“I be raised in this country, man. Seen so many sunsets to make me sick. But never not one time the notorious green flash.”
The sun set. Colors appeared and disappeared, but there was no flash, green or otherwise, not that Eddie saw. He heard Packer.
“There! Right then! Did you see it?” He was on the steps of the bar, gesturing with his cocktail glass. Planter’s punch slopped over the side, staining his white trousers; he didn’t seem to notice.
“I–I think I did,” said Mrs. Trimble, standing beside him. “I certainly saw something.” She turned to her husband, watching behind them. Mr. Trimble: tall, beaky nose, concave chest, crewcut. “Did you, Perry?”
Mr. Trimble shook his head.
“Oh, come on now, Mr. T,” said Packer. “Right there-” He pointed and slopped again. “As plain as the …”
Evelyn appeared. “I don’t think so, Brad.” Her voice was cold. “Not tonight.”
“Jesus Christ, Ev, what do you-”
She cut him off. “Why don’t you freshen our drinks, Brad.”
“No more for me, thank you,” said Mr. Trimble. He came down off the steps, over to the fire.
“Hello, gentlemen,” he said. “Perry Trimble.”
They shook hands with him, identified themselves.
“JFK,” Trimble said. “An interesting name.”
“That be my first name only,” said JFK.
“And your last name?” asked Trimble.
“Never be usin’ it,” said JFK, and turned to baste the pig.
Trimble gazed at it. Overhead the sky was darkening quickly; the reflection of the fire danced in the lenses of Trimble’s thick glasses. “Pig, I believe.”
“Wild boar,” said JFK. “Last of the big-game animals found in these islands. Ceptin’ for in the water, of course. Down there we got more creatures than my wife got excuses.”
“You’re married?” said Eddie.
“Formerly,” JFK replied, his eyes blank. “In the distant long long time ago.”
Trimble was still examining the pig. “You don’t mean to tell me someone shot it, do you?”
“Sure I do,” said JFK. “Ernesto Hemingway himself the great white hunter came to this very Galleon Beach fish camp to hunt the wild boar.”
“But this particular pig. Did someone shoot it?”
“The boss. He did shoot it. Mr. Packer he a sportsman, and a dead shot with the three-oh-three.”
“I don’t call that sport.”
“No?” said JFK. “What you be callin’ it then?”
“Butchery.”
JFK laughed. “Butchery be my job, man. Don’t need no three-oh-three for that. Just a cutlass and a dog to lick up all the lickins.” Still laughing, he dipped the brush in the kettle and swabbed lava-colored baste on the glistening carcass. The baste smelled of onions, garlic, pineapple, and something sweet and smokey that Eddie couldn’t identify. He was going to ask what it was when he noticed that Trimble was staring at him; at least, the twin reflections of the fire were angled his way.
“You’re Jack’s brother.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He seems like a take-charge type. Not afraid of getting his hands dirty.”
Eddie nodded.
“A project of this magnitude needs someone like that. Although a little seasoning doesn’t hurt either.”
Meaning he liked Jack or he didn’t? Eddie wasn’t sure and didn’t know enough about the project, or any kind of business for that matter, to know whether Trimble’s remark made sense. He said nothing.
“And how about you?” asked Trimble. “What do you think of it?”
“It’s a beautiful place.”
“I’ve seen better,” said Trimble. “And worse. Beauty isn’t really that high on the list of prerequisites. Ever been to Cancun?”
“No.”
“Or Florida, for that matter. Complete absence of beauty. But I wasn’t asking about the site. I was asking what you thought of the project.”
“I’m no expert.”
“I realize that. I don’t need an expert. I was interested in your opinion.”
“I’ve only seen the plans.”
“And?”
“It looks very … grand.”
There was a silence. Then Trimble nodded, the twin fires blurring in the darkness like taillights in a time-exposure photograph.
