As in:
At least the first part of the voyage aboard the The Bluefin was pleasant enough. The three crew members who remained after the cook and his aide disembarked were all young, and obediently unobtrusive, and apparently spoke not a word of English. Solly spoke to them in hand signals or short commands of Spanish.
The boat was as fast as it was large and almost as soon as it was beyond the breakwater, Solly said “adelante!” and the small ship bombed south following the coast. As the distance piled up behind them, the matter of some small negotiables occurred to Ben. Like when are we going back toward Miami. Charisse had led him to expect a short outing, but although it was a beautiful day to be booking toward the Florida Keys, short was now out of the question.
Catching Solly’s eye, Ben asked, with a tight smile, “where are we going?”
Solly winked. “Toward the good fishing.”
It kind of annoyed Ben that Charisse seemed resigned to whatever the course would be, and that she was content to sunbathe on the rear deck.
Finally, after what seemed an hour and a half of uninterrupted rooster tail wake, Solly gave the order to cut the engines to half. As the noise subsided, he simply explained that it was time for lunch.
Two large platters emerged from below. One held the scampi, the other artisan cheeses, and tightly wrapped slices of prosciutto and roasted beef, held together with toothpicks tabbed with green olives.
The lunch conversation was pleasant enough. Solly downed a couple mojitos and explained how monks in Italy had created the cheese and why the best prosciutto came from undersized hogs who’d been serenaded regularly. And then he started name-dropping on ports throughout the Caribbean.
“So where are the best whorehouses?” Benny asked, mostly out of irritation with the uninterrupted supply of tropical buffet and travelogue.
Charisse quickly shot him a look that reprimanded him for being rude.
Solly caught the barb with his eyes, and registered a small offense in his momentary silence.
“Hey,” he replied, “you tell me kid. You tell me.”
Benny shrugged.
Charisse walked downstairs to gather another pitcher of water.
“You know you can’t just hijack us off to Jamaica,” Benny said, intending to tease. “There are rules about that.”
But he was struck that Solly didn’t receive it so lightly, and that maybe he’d been stung more than Benny wanted with the whorehouse quip.
“You know kid,” Solly replied. “Let me explain. Over here’s your shallow water, and over here’s your deep. This is the blue sky. And this is my boat. The rules are back from where we came. And it’s long way back there now.”
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