“Damn man, it’s cooking out here.”

“Move the umbrella over then. You gonna get ashy in the sun anyway.”

“Even in the shade it’s hot. How am I gonna get ashy? When you ever seen me ashy motherfucker?”

“I just mean if you don’t cover up, forget it. Go in the water if you’re hot.”

“I didn’t bring no swimming trunks.”

“Go up to the room. What? You want me to get them?”

“No dog, I mean I didn’t bring any.”

“You come to a tropical fucking paradise without anything to swim in? Look at that water over there.”

The sand white as snow and fine as talc edged water clear as gin that ever so faintly lapped at the tide line. Bodies were spread across the blinding shingle on loungers, some tucked into the shade of umbrellas. Others directly in the sun were covered with oils and shone like cuts of grilling meat under the intense heat of the sun.

 

“I’m edgy man when we gonna get this job on?”

“We’re not ready, we don’t even know the particulars yet. Just relax for a while. That’s why we’re here right? Have a look at this menu. There’s some crazy shit on this. What a’you think this tastes like salad of sour papaya, vegetable and fermented crap? Huh? fermented crap?”

“I’m just sayin let’s go by where this dude is staying and you know feel it out, maybe just, you know walk up behind, and bam. Do him with a screwdriver like in Buffalo?”

“We’re not going to do him like in Buffalo. Does this look like fucking Buffalo? Is there four feet of snow on the ground? You see any rusted-out Camaros parked in front of pawn shops out here? This has got to look like an accident. The wife has got to be able to collect on the insurance or we don’t get our back end. Why else we come all this way to do a simple job?”

“I thought we were here ’cause it our anniversary?”

“That too, that and we do the job. We come here to do the job ’cause the locals, you know, aren’t too particular about postmortem details. If it looks like an accident that’s exactly what it’s going to go down on the paper as. What are you going to have?”

“Gonna have a burger, burger looks good.”

“A burger bro?”

Wait staff in immaculate uniforms moved through the open air dinning room holding platters aloft. Fist sized prawns, whole fish steamed served sizzling in lemon sauce. Dishes that intermingled squid with clams and shrimp tossed with transparent noodles pricked with fiery red chilis and the green of cilantro. Overhead ceiling fans whorled a cool breeze over guests from nearly every continent; speaking a dozen languages.

 

Alfonse had gone through a hundred scenarios in his mind but none were going to work. He took a bungalow at the mark’s resort for a night to recon the layout which wasn’t much different from where he and Dre were staying, just a little higher end, security a little tighter. The mark didn’t drive. He didn’t go into the sea. Reserving his swimming instead of one of four pools around the resort. He didn’t have any overnight company. The only time he left the grounds was after dinner when he walked for approximately ten minutes among the crowds of tourists to an exclusive club where he was entertained by a different hostess each night before returning to the resort for a night cap and bed. This routine went off like clockwork.

 

Dre didn’t do recon. He worked out in the gym, went shopping, and got pampered at the spa where a smallish woman gave him a free size cotton outfit to put on and then prodded, elbowed and kneed him. She popped his fingers and toes between her thumb and forefinger. She twisted and stretched his joints into painful positions and then slapped his wide back vigorously like a side of meat before bowing to finish off the two-hour massage.

In the evening, they planned among the red-faced holiday makers in the exaggerated elegance of the dining room. Alfonse worked his way through the exotic menu, sampling the delicacies and atrocities in turn while Dre never strayed from the international favorites page. They danced in the disco through the night and found the local taste in music aligned very closely to their own love of pop favorites and old diva standby’s. They awoke late in the morning and had breakfast in bed before separating to complete their day’s tasks.

 

The heat of the day was something just to be endured for the perfection of the nights. A sea breeze blew in through French doors open to the balcony cooling the room and mingling the fresh salt scent with that of cut flowers Dre had floated in bowls of water and placed around the silk dressed bed. Above the vast dark sea, a fat yellowish moon hung dripping its light across the rippling surface.

“What you gonna sleep in tonight?”

“How do you mean? Gonna sleep in the bed. What? I’m a fucking dog now? I gotta sleep on the floor?”

“Naw man, like what you going to wear.”

“I don’t know, what I usually wear, why?”

“Cause… Because man, I bought this, little like, you know sexy sarong this afternoon that I was going to wear but if I come out the bathroom with that shit on and you laying around in your nasty ass drawers, I’m gonna feel like a bitch.”

“What about I wear nothing?”

The two smiled at each other in the soft light. Both a little drunk on champagne ordered to celebrate their special day in style.

 

The mark came through the gates of the resort alone. The streets were bustling with tourists taking in the sights and sounds in the still stupefying heat of early evening. Touts tried to lure them into overpriced restaurants or sell them trips to places that never existed. Hawkers flaunted their worthless gee-gaws and gimcracks clogging up the walkway. He moved along with the crowd looking pleased, anticipating the night ahead.

It was easy for Dre to keep pace with him. His hulking mass stood out in every crowd but dressed like the rest of the squares he loped along, looking dumb, keeping the mark in his periphery until the first intersection where the timing was right. He could almost hear a soundtrack of the scene in his head, a single snare drum accelerating its patter to a crescendo.

Lights changed, motor scooters jumped the line, cars shot forward. It took little effort to hip check the mark into the front of a Honda Accord where he was bounced 6 or 7 feet to a bone cracking impact against the street. Dre was absorbed into the leering crowd that formed almost instantly, phones forward, recording the tragedy.

Alfonse stepped forward calling out urgently, ‘we need a doctor, we need a doctor here’ while he knelt at the marks side and went through the motions of checking the man’s condition while keeping his fingers pressed hard against those two vital spouts in his neck, the carotid arteries. It took almost two minutes for the rhythmic pulse to slow and finally stop altogether, an eternity to squat by his side urging for the spectator’s benefit ‘breathe man, breathe!’

By the time the volunteer emergency service, body snatchers as they’re locally known, had forced their way through stalled traffic, leaped from their pickup truck with lights flashing and rolled the mark onto their back board he’d been gone for ten minutes.

No need to run. There was no fear the stopping gap EMT’s would resuscitate him, and the Police questioning was rudimentary. As far as anyone in the crowd was concerned, Alfonse was a samaritan who had done his best. No one had noticed Dre do the dirty.

 

Their bags were packed and sat in front of the door waiting for the bell man to take them down. The room had been scoured for any little forgotten items incriminating or otherwise and the two men stood hand in hand on the balcony for a last look at the resort laid out below them.

“Week went fast. You feel alright man?”

“I’m alright. He went good, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, real quiet. I hope I go out easy as that.”

“Word.”

“You think we ought’a ever come back here?”

“No dog, I want to remember this just like it is. I don’t want nothing fucking with that picture in my head. Next year we go somewhere cold.”

“Maybe Buffalo?”

“Yeah, motherfucking Buffalo.”