Chapter Nine
“Is there any way to reach Cobbler?” asked Clarity. Tiffany moved her head, looking for a mirror.
“I don´t have any cell phone or communications equipment with me. I think he wants to catch Chubby Caddy delivering the liquor to the various resorts and bars. He´s also looking for the insider who provided all the liquor supplier information to the Shawab.” She stood in front of the cabin´s mirror, arranging her hair.
"I should have let Eve come instead of me." Tiffany refered to one of the ladies that Cobbler kept close to him for company and business advice.
"What do you mean?"
"Eve likes Bartleby, she met him at a party in Tortola when he and Cobbler were on good terms. She wanted to be her Sugar Baby, but Cobbler insisted that I go, because he wanted someone who had experienced initiation to lure Bartleby away from his dealings with the Shawab and Chubby Caddy."
"Is initiation that special?"
"It is Clarity, it´s wonderful, like freeing yourself from a heavy weight you´ve been carrying."
Clarity wasn´t carrying any particular heavy weight. She tried her symbolic decryptor to contact Cobbler, but the cell phone modality was not working inside the ship. The consciousness of the decryptor, Evans, wanted to know the reason for the call. Clarity typed the words Sugar Baby rescue, but there was not much time to explain the notion of a Sugar Baby to a supercomputing brain like that of Evans. The decryptor announced that its logic was ‘incomplete’ and refused any further processing of the call to Cobbler through the tracker left on the 'Lady Moura'.
Anton opened the cabin where Clarity and Tiffany were carrying out their conversation. He led them to the flybridge where Bartleby was speaking to several men who had boarded the ship using their own small boats. They were clients of the Shawab, rowdy bar owners who were members of Oleanne, coming to pick up their own Sugar Babies in exchange for buying liquor from Chubby Caddy. One of them was eyeing Sandy, another set his eyes on Belina, a third one opted for bringing to the attention of Virgy the fact that there were no resorts in his small Caribbean island off the island of St. Vincent, only a few huts for tourists without any trace of civilisation. The women were looking to settle with some sense of financial stability, and they were going to decide over a ‘Sugar Baby’ period, whether they liked the lifestyle of living in a Caribbean island, as co-owner of a bar.
Oleanne provided pussy liners to those clients who bought liquor, in order to enact loyalty from those customers. The women came from a crew of hostesses trained by the Shawab, women who had started their work working for adult film studio Telval, which was filming in the supertanker a new feature for Netflix, ‘Heavenly positions in a supertanker’. Clarity noticed several cameras brought to the flybridge, observing how Chubby Caddy was getting closer to Flower to let her know of her role, handling her a script that included a summer postcard from the Greek island of Santorini with twenty eight sexual positions between a man and a woman, some of them needing sophisticated gymnastics ability.
“I don´t want to be part of an adult film,” said Flower.
“I´ll be part of it as well,” said Chubby Caddy, “this is standard Oleanne procedure for shareholders of Telval like me. I need my own Sugar Baby, and you´re perfect. It´s our very Sugar Daddy Sugar Baby relationship made public and available on youtubenaked.com, and to bar owners in the Caribbean.”
Flower requested her contract to Bartleby, who said that Chubby Caddy was in charge of handling her agenda as actress and as Sugar Baby. Chubby Caddy took off his shirt and sat down on a chair in front of an electronic logistics board. His own professional career had started loading container boxes in the ports of Nassau and Miami. After coming into contact with Cobbler in a Nassau bar, Chubby Caddy had stolen a bottle of whisky from the merchant´s shipment, then a whole box, then finally a container, sufficient credentials for Bartleby to include him as a possible spirits wholesale 'settlement' representative for his company, if there ever was problems with any employees or union.
Chubby Caddy had met Bartleby at a party sponsored by Glenrothes Scotch whisky, Caddy's favorite drink, telling Bartleby that he was looking for customers for his liquor, liquor stolen from containers of legitimate brands who produced their alcohol in some of the Caribbean islands or boarded it onto ships in the main ports surrounding the Caribbean. Bartleby was working for Tambrera at the time, but things had changed now, making Chubby Caddy a valuable ally in his new plan, post-severance, post-Tambrera.
Bartleby was the middleman of operation-sort-of-flying-seagull. He knew the Shawab and he knew the Shawab had clients willing to buy liquor. He also knew how to get in touch with the Shawab, by calling his superyacht, a majestuous two hundred feet footer which motored somewhere in the Caribbean, never staying more than one day in the same spot. Bartleby´s role was to take the blame with authorities in case the transaction was spotted, and to arrange the delivery of the liquor, putting together spirit supply by Chubby Caddy, with retail demand by the Shawab. Bartleby jotted down the quantities and brands of alcohol ordered by the various bar owners, confirming the large order was aboard the supertanker. He turned to Anton, who was standing near Clarity, pointing at the woman with auburn hair and Tiffany.
“Take them to the docks, I want them involved in this transaction.”
He led them to the liquor storage area of the ship, where hundreds of boxes were laid out on top of each other, awaiting delivery. While Clarity and Tiffany counted boxes with Ribalaigua, Anton was instructing the crew. Yelling orders to the crew of the ship, he took position in a small control panel filled with handles and started handling the boxes, placing them in small containers. The hull of the ship had a small port inside, holding about thirty speedboats that were to be used for delivering the liquor to over seventy areas in the Caribbean, resorts, yachts and independent bar owners that the Shawab had gathered using Cobbler´s information.
Bartleby came to pick them up, his features denoting worry.
“We need more pussy liners, some new clients want alcohol by Cobbler.”
They walked to the flybridge where four bar owners were complaining of the strict conditions of ordering their spirits through the Shawab. The commission charged for the less expensive premium alcohol was too high, and the long term nature of the agreement with the Shawab was not sustainable.
“We´re breaking the agreement,” said one of the owners, who represented an important resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands, “we want Tambrera 8, Hayman´s reserve gin and Monkey 47 gin, they´re not on the list.”
Bartleby scrambled to find the brands chosen by the bar owners. It was important to please all customers, for the next order and delivery depended upon it. Word of mouth was everything in these operations done ‘behind the counter’, the official counter of Caribbean authorities controlling alcohol distribution licensing. Bartleby had no license to distribute alcohol in the Caribbean and the local bureaucracy made it impossible to own one. He looked at a file uploaded directly from the accounting wireless link with Oleanne. Payment was pending for the 'baby shower' transaction, and that meant that he would receive enough money to become a Sugar Daddy on his own.
He glanced at the inventory report printing on the small printer in the flybridge. Caorunn, Blackfriar´s Gin, Williams Chase Elegant Gin, Bushmills 1608 whisky, Jameson Limited Reserve whisky, and Madiraa Rum from Tilagnagar´s Industries. He traced the list with his finger to the end of the page. There was no sign of the brands requested by those bar owners who were breaking the agreement. Reluctantly, he took out his cell phone and dialed Cobbler´s number.
“Cobbler, yes, it´s Bartleby, I´ll put you in for twenty cases of Tambrera 8, forty cases of Heyman´s Gin and fifty cases of Monkey 47 Gin.” Chubby Caddy, carrying Flower on his back, complained that the ‘baby shower’, the transaction liquor to be delivered, had a lower sales volume than usual.
“Get me Tambrera 8, Heyman and Monkey 47 next time, customers have switched.” Chubby Caddy walked tow
ards the customer who had complained about the agreement with the Shawab. The customer had one more request. He wanted the bottle of alcohol which allowed him access to elegant sugar ladies, including one named Optesia.
“There are no sugar ladies here, there are pussy liners for those customers buying through us, you have to be a member of Oleanne.” Chubby Caddy glanced at Bartleby. The customer insisted on the term that Cobbler had spoke to them prior to informing them of the location of the supertanker, for the term sugar lady implied that Optesia and the ladies of Oleanne knew about high sex, and he´d never experienced high sex, an extraordinary sexual experience, according to Cobbler himself. That, knew Chubby Caddy, was not true. Sugar ladies only were initiated and they were not part of Oleanne, they were the exclusive seat girls, spiritual escorts and sugar babies of the Shawab. Some of the pussy liners were looking for initiation, Optesia had been one of them, but most just wanted to settle with a well-to-do husband, staying with Oleanne. What initiation exactly meant, Chubby Caddy ignored, but he knew he had to be in ‘Heavenly positions in a supertanker’ to find out, for initiation went through Telval Studios. He also knew that he didn´t want any problems with Cobbler, and that meant understanding where Optesia was.