Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

the tip of the island as the sun finally disappeared into the ocean and dark blue took over. She didn’t head east for Bayshore Road, where foreigners likely strolled between resorts and restaurants without a care in the world. She stayed on Queens Highway until ramshackle houses materialised on either side, signalling a local neighbourhood.

Native Bahamians walked between overgrown yards, keeping to themselves, some of them crouching in the door frames of what had once been their homes, but were now skeletons stripped bare by the hurricane winds the previous September. A great deal of them hadn’t been fully repaired yet, maybe never would be. This was the unseen economic damage. Tourist zones recovered quickly out of the necessity to impress newcomers, but disaster relief in the residential suburbs was taking far longer.

And where there’s desperation, there’s crime.

Alexis parked the moped in front of a cluster of abandoned buildings and left it there, taking the key with her.

She passed several groups of locals and nodded politely to them. Most of them nodded back and kept minding their own business. A couple stared, but their gazes bore no hostility. They were simply curious that a white woman was strolling the back streets without concern. They weren’t going to capitalise on it. Alexis felt bad, aware that she’d stereotyped the local population, building an image of them in her head that didn’t match reality. These were pleasant people, trying their best to make a living, not predators.

But every neighbourhood on earth has bad eggs.

Which is in no way representative of a certain group.

Just the way of the world.

Poor, rich, doesn’t matter — there’s monsters everywhere.

She’d dressed in tiny jean shorts and a tube top that exposed her physique. She knew she was curvaceous, knew she was tanned, knew she was tantalising. It wasn’t bait. She’d wear the same thing to the beach. Why should she have to cover up out here?

As the last of the day’s light vanished from the sky, she turned left onto a dirt trail that led to the sea of swampy mangroves.

Two tall skinny men in singlets and shorts crossed the road and followed.

30

King and Slater exchanged a glance.

They both made a subtle, You first gesture.

Again, Teddy said, ‘What do you want from me?’

‘How’d you first get involved with Vince?’ King said.

‘Who are you people?’

Slater said, ‘We might be able to help you.’

Teddy looked at him. ‘I don’t need help, sir. I can handle my own business. I pride myself on that.’

‘We understand,’ King said. ‘But if you’re not going to open up to us out of some sort of misplaced pride, at least do it for the other victims.’

‘I’m not a victim,’ Teddy said. ‘I dug my own grave.’

‘How?’

Silence.

Slater said, ‘Do it as a gesture of goodwill.’

Teddy sighed. ‘I don’t drink much anymore. But I need a beer.’

He got up, went to the bar, and came back with a Modelo. Popped the top off, took a meagre sip, and put it down on the table between them all.

‘Do you two gentlemen owe Vince money?’ Teddy said. ‘Do you think you can get out of it? Is that what this is?’

‘Tell us about what Vince does and who he works for,’ King said.

Teddy’s eyes widened a touch. ‘Oh, so you don’t know him. Then I suggest you two stay out of it. You know, for your own good.’

‘Vince is nothing to us,’ Slater said, trying to instil confidence. ‘He’s a small-timer.’

‘Then what do you want with him? Who are you?’

King rolled his eyes. They were going round in circles, teasing each other with details, asking the same goddamn questions over and over…

King said, ‘We’re ex-military. We think we can sort this out without the involvement of the police. We know how bent law enforcement can be.’

Teddy stared.

Then he laughed. It was more of a soft chuckle, sorrowful instead of derisive. ‘Leave this place. I’m begging you. Let me pay for my mistakes.’

‘Teddy…’

‘I don’t need you.’

‘So we won’t help you,’ King said. ‘But we can help others. Lay it out for us. We know pieces. We don’t have the whole picture. Something tells me you’ve got most of it.’

Teddy shrugged. He reached for his beer, which was apparently an instinctive reflex because he immediately pulled his hand away and slumped his shoulders. King thought he saw those shoulders heave with a suppressed sob before the old man looked away, staring out at the water.

There was simplicity in the ocean.

Teddy knew the waves would come in, one by one, endlessly, as inevitable as the ticking hands of a clock.

Human beings were far more complicated, far messier.

King could see the gears whirring in Teddy’s brain. Firing off question after question, and finding no answers.

King thought he’d answer some of them before the old man could ask them.

‘Teddy,’ King said, ‘we have nothing to gain from you.’

Teddy tore his eyes away from the surf, scorned King with a long hard look. ‘Then why are you here, sir?’

Slater piped up, realising that the guy needed some serious convincing. ‘Our lives had phases. There was a phase where we both trained as hard as we could for as long as we could to become the best in our field. To stand out from the pack, separate ourselves from the rest of the grunts on the frontlines, which made our time exclusive. The government then paid us handsomely for our time and sent us to all kinds of places under the guise of patriotism. We pretended we were doing it for king and country, and there was a bit of that, as well as a genuine sentiment to want to help people, but we’d both be lying if we didn’t admit we wanted to make a whole lot of money for our troubles. Now that phase is over, too, and we’re left in this phase.’

‘What phase is that?’ Teddy said.

‘The phase where we both have more cash than we know what to do with,’ Slater said. ‘We couldn’t spend it all if we tried.