Dark moonlight lady black and white3/9/2023 ![]() He much preferred the south of France or Spain’s Costa del Sol. Of course Philip would never have come to Jamaica in the first place. He’d have adjusted his tie, straightened his tailor-made jacket, studied his manicured nails and, lighting one of his French cigarettes, would simply have waited to be rescued. Soft-spoken, well-mannered, impeccably dressed Philip, who even in a circumstance like this would not have sweat. She was hot, thirsty and cranky enough to wish she’d never left Miami.īut she had left, both Miami and Philip. Lisa flicked the sweat off the end of her nose. Nothing had come by since then, not a taxi or a car or a bus, not even a bicycle. With a nod and a smile that showed every one of his even white teeth, Moses had started up a small mountain path. When my taxi is fixed I will take your luggage to the hotel. However, since I do not know when that will be, should a car or another taxi pass by while I am gone perhaps it be best you ask for a ride. “But perhaps there be a village, madam, and if there is I will telephone for help and soon we will be rescued. “Alas, no.” He smiled as though to reassure her. Since then there had been nothing, not even a horse cart. In the last half hour they’d seen only one car. There were no houses, nothing to indicate help of any sort might be nearby. When nothing happened, he said, “I believe there is a small problem. Then he got back into the taxi and tried once more to start the motor. He jiggled a wire, patted the carburetor as though he were patting the head of his favorite dog and studied the battery. The number-one mechanic stood with his hands on his hips and frowned at the intricacies of the motor as if seeing it for the first time. “Be not worried, madam,” Moses said as he hurried to lift the hood. ![]() ![]() ![]() Gears grinding, they’d set off, driving as the English did, on what Lisa considered the wrong side of the road.Īn hour out of Kingston, on a winding twist of a mountain curve, the taxi had coughed, sputtered and wheezed its last wheeze. With a cheerful smile he’d loaded her luggage into the trunk and held the door open for her. The driver of the taxi she’d hired at the Kingston airport had assured her that he, Moses Begrande, was the most reliable driver in all of Jamaica and that he could get her to Ocho Rios in less than two hours, since it wasn’t high season and traffic would be light. She wasn’t English, so apparently that made her just the least bit mad. Noë Coward, who had lived here, had written a song about only mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the noonday sun. ![]() There were no trade winds, only the bright, blazing sun. Lisa Collier, who until a week ago had been Lisa Collier Matthews, took off the jacket of her pink suit and fanned herself with the brochure that extolled the beauty of Jamaica and told of the trade winds that almost always cooled the island. There was nothing in sight, only this long, lonely stretch of road with tall green mountains on both sides. The only things moving were the miragelike waves of heat floating up from the black asphalt. ![]()
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