Charlie drove the Peugeot into the parking garage, where the vehicle was less likely to be spotted than at the curb outside Chez Odelette’s. He found a space hidden from the street by a delivery van. Keeping himself and Drummond from detection posed a greater challenge.
“We need to blend in with the other tourists around here,” Charlie said, slipping on the fake-tortoiseshell reading glasses he’d taken from the counter at Sandy’s beach supply shack.
Eyeing Charlie’s image in the rearview mirror, Drummond said, “Since when do you wear glasses?”
“Since they make me look less like the guy on the wanted posters.”
Drummond nodded. “Interesting.”
Charlie had learned almost all he knew about impromptu disguise from Drummond. Foremost among the old man’s dictates was that bulky clothing veiled stature. Second was that individuals attempting to avoid notice should wear different styles and colors than when they were last seen. Accordingly, from his new Sandy’s tote bag, Charlie drew two cotton polo shirts, two baggy floral-print board shorts, two pairs of rubber flip-flops, and two baseball caps.
Hats draped faces in shadows and compressed hair, altering the shape of the head, but Drummond avoided them as a rule because they aroused surveillants’ suspicions. In the Caribbean, however, young men wore baseball caps as often as not, and Charlie believed that the old man could pass for a young man. Drummond was in better shape than most men half his age, present company included. Charlie hoped the two of them would appear to the occupants of a passing patrol car as just another couple of young guys in a neighborhood catering to that demographic, as opposed to the young guy/senior citizen duo for whom the authorities had their eyes peeled.
Wandering from the parking lot onto the sidewalk, Drummond indeed appeared much younger. His slight hunch vanished, his shoulders squared, and his chest appeared to inflate. His stride went from sluggish to a strut.
Finding himself standing and marveling, Charlie had to jog to catch up.
Chez Odelette’s front windows afforded a view of the saxophonist, a spindly native with a white beard. He stood on a pillbox platform, spotlit in a sultry blue whose wash illuminated the face of the bartender, a brown-skinned woman of about thirty with attractive, strong features.
“Is that her?” Charlie asked.
“Who?” said Drummond.
“Odelette.”
“How would I know?”
Jesus, Charlie thought. “She’s the only person working there, other than the sax player.”
“Probably it’s her.”
“That’s what I was thinking. What do you say we go find out?”
Hearing no reply from Drummond, Charlie turned to him. Drummond was no longer beside him. Or anywhere in sight.
How the-?
A pair of big brown hands fastened around Charlie’s collar and yanked him backward into a pitch-black alley.