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Another half a mile, and I reach the rundown outskirts of Port Mrei.
It’s dawn.
The scenery slowly changes.
Now, the air is thick with the pre-dawn ocean moisture and the smell of burnt rubber and grilled food—the sign of civilization as I walk through the back alleys. There is music coming from some open windows—no rest for the wicked.
Once upon a time, this was a cute tourist town. I would’ve loved to bring Callie here just to show her all the cool spots.
Now it’s a dump, at least the outskirts, slowly creeping up to the main streets that still keep the appearance of a decent tropical town and are clustered with shops and bars.
There are plenty of places I know in town. When I flew in during spring break, before I snuck to the Westside, I hung out here for several days. Later, when we were cast away to the Eastside, we used to come here every month—to barter with the locals and for some out-of-home entertainment.
But there isoneplace I’ve visited more than once. And though I haven’t been there in a year, the person in charge of it is the only one in town I know. She has a dark afro, wears bohemian dresses with ten-inch stilettos and almost as long nails and eyelashes. But she is one of the most sensible human beings I know. Sometimes, the most trusted things come in the shadiest packages.
I approach the street I know well and a colonial-style two-story building with chipped paint and a neon sign—“Venus Den” with a girl silhouette. Checking around for local guards and seeing no one, I walk in, past the intimidating bouncer who at this time is too lazy to double check my looks or the backpack hanging off my shoulders.
The dim bar is quiet, with only one guy chatting up a girl at a distant table, and the familiar figure of the bartender-slash-owner-slash-hostess with a cigarette in her hand. She sits on a tall stool behind the bar and watches the screen of an iPad, a technology I am not used to anymore.
I smile.
There were times when this place was booming with life even when the sun came up.
I walk up to the counter and lean on it, staring at the cloud of dark hair and the cigarette smoke coming from behind it as the woman has her back to me.
There are only a dozen or so bottles of booze on the shelves, mostly local. No AC. The lone fan, hanging from the middle of the wooden ceiling, rotates lazily just like everything does in this town these days. Dust, musty air, chipped furniture, lazy flies.
The woman starts turning slowly, her eyes still glued to some action movie on the screen, the long emerald-green nail of her forefinger flicking the cigarette ash on the floor. “Sweetie, you are in time for an early bird special—”
But when she finally lifts her eyes with a familiar business-like stare, her one brow goes up.
Memories of the good times in this place flicker in my mind as I smile into the so-familiar brown eyes under the outrageous green eyeshadow.
“Hello, Candy,” I say softly with a smile.
She looks tired and somehow much older than her mid-thirties. Her bright-pink lips give me a shocked lop-sided smile as her eyes narrow and she leans on the bar counter.
“Well, well,” she drawls, studying me up and down. “Long time no see, Kai.” Her voice is still that same low husky seduction with a trace of young Sade, but her cocky smile softens, growing wider. “What are you drinking? The usual?”
It’s been a year, and Candy still remembers my choice of booze. I grin. Her movements are slow though graceful as she sets a shot glass on the bar counter, her intrusive gaze on me taking in every detail. She is already reaching for a bottle of tequila when I stop her.
“No, no booze. Actually, I need help, Candy. I need info.”
She halts in surprise or suspicion—her head tilts back and her eyes on me narrow even more when she smacks her lips.
“Well”—she snaps out of it, noticing my apologetic look, pours the shot anyway, and pushes it toward me—“have this on the house, pretty boy, and then tell me what’s up.”
6
CALLIE
We getup a little past dawn. I don’t change into the clothes they brought us, but as I am washing my face in the bathroom, the feeling of being back in civilization is something from a distant past.
When I walk out, Katura is messing with the buttons on the espresso machine and cheers at the sizzling sound and the trickling of coffee into a cup.
“I see you feel at home,” I say with reproach.
She rummages through a mini fridge, pulls out tiny creamers, and slams the door shut, shrugging. “I am not a prisoner. I am a guest.”
