But Barns hadn’t stopped grinning since Remo had told him to take care of the Malagasy captain. He knew Barns had, but even a man of Remo’s experience didn’t want to hear the details. It was common knowledge that Dimitri had an affection for Barns, the way one had an affection for a half-witted dog who dropped mutilated chickens and small mangled rodents at your feet. He also knew that Dimitri often let Barns take care of employees on their way out. Dimitri didn’t believe in unemployment benefits.
“Let’s go,” he said briefly. “We’ll have them before sundown.”
Whitney had herself nestled comfortably between the packs. Lengthening shadows from cypress and eucalyptus fell on the dunes alongside the canal and on the thick brush on the opposing side. Thin brown reeds waved in the current. From time to time a startled egret folded in its legs and lifted off into the brush with a whoosh of wings and rush. Flowers poked out, profuse in places, red, orange, and melting yellow. Orchids grew as haphazardly as poppies in a meadow. Butterflies, sometimes alone, sometimes in troups, swooped and fluttered around the petals. Their color was a blaze against vegetation and the dung brown of the canal. Here and there crocodiles stretched on sloping banks and took in the sun. Most barely turned a head as the canoe rowed by. The fragrance lifting over the scent of the river was lazily rich.
With the brim of Jacques’s cap shielding her eyes, she lay crossways in the canoe, her feet resting on the edge. The long fishing pole Jacques had fashioned rested loosely in her hands as she half dozed.
She decided she’d discovered just what Huck Finn had found so appealing about floating down the Mississippi. A good deal of it was bone laziness and the rest was wide-eyed adventure. It was, Whitney reflected, a delightful combination.
“And just what do you plan to do if a fish reaches up and bites on that bent safety pin?”
Taking her time, Whitney stretched her shoulders. “Why I’d drop him right in your lap, Douglas. I’m sure you’d know exactly what to do with a fish.”
“You cook ′em up good.” Jacques paddled with the long steady strokes that would’ve made a Yale alumnus’s heart patter with pride. Tina Turner helped him keep the rhythm. “My cooking…” He shook his head. “Pretty bad. When I get married, I have to make sure my wife cooks good. Like my mama.”
Whitney made a snorting sound from under the cap. A fly landed on her knee but it was too much effort to brush it aside. “Another man whose heart’s in his stomach.”
“Look, the kid’s got a point. Eating’s important.”
“To you it’s more like a religion. Do it with the proper tradition and respect or not at all.” She shifted the brim of her cap so that she could see Jacques more clearly. Young, she thought, with a good-humored, good-looking face and well-muscled body. She didn’t think he’d have any trouble attracting the girls. “So, you’re putting your stomach on the same level with your heart. What happens if you fall for a girl who can’t cook?”
Jacques considered this. He was only twenty, and answers were as easy and basic as life. The smile he gave her was young, innocent, and cocky enough to make her chuckle. “I’d take her to my mother so she could learn.”
“Very sensible,” Doug agreed. He broke rhythm to pop a piece of coconut into his mouth.
“I don’t suppose you ever considered learning to cook.” Whitney watched Jacques mull this over while his lean, strong arms worked the paddles. Smiling at him, she ran a finger over the shell that nestled just above her breasts.
“A Malagasy wife cooks the meals.”
“In between the times she takes care of the house, the children, and tills the fields, I imagine,” Whitney put in.
Jacques nodded and grinned. “But she takes care of the money too.”
Whitney felt the lump of her wallet in her back pocket. “That’s very sensible,” she agreed, smiling at Doug.
He had the envelope secure in his own pocket. “I thought you’d like that.”
“Again, it’s a simple matter of people doing what they’re best suited for.” She started to settle back again when her line jerked. With her eyes wide, she sat straight up. “Oh God, I think I’ve got one.”
“One what?”
“A fish!” Gripping the pole fiercely, she watched the line bob. “A fish,” she said again. “A big goddamn fish.”