Chapter Eleven
After confirming payment for the transaction, the group, Clarity and Flower and Tiffany, Bartleby and Chubby Caddy, and Anton, made its way back to the 'Lady Moura'. Bartleby´s features denoted excitement. He made calls to several Tambrera executives, mostly men, with a single idea: To get his job back. Bartleby wanted to show executives that his network of connections among retailers and resorts, and even among wealthy yacht owners cruising the Caribbean was unparalleled. He kept adding contacts to his 'party guest' iphone list for the evening. Most of the executives were in New York or Puerto Rico. It took some convincing by Bartleby to get them to fly to the Caribbean and board the 'Lady Moura' on such short notice.
"The Lady Moura will be ready," he said, "we´re anchored twenty miles off the island of Tortola, come in by plane to Virgin Gorda, and then take a boat to the party boat."
Ribalaigua took Clarity and Flower to various areas of the boat, while the pussy liners began choosing their dress for the evening, a few gathering around Bartleby´s uncle, Clive, who was showing that he could still talk smoothly to ladies. Clarity noticed that the 'Lady Moura' wasn´t new, but it was still unique and somewhat luxurious with its elegant chests and trunks, leathered covered handles and immaculate upholstery, and its ceiling panels displaying sensual mirrors. The main party area was the second deck, and Ribalaigua ensured that the fountain near the pool was flowing with a Tambrera cocktail, and that the sound system held the right sounds for each hour, starting with mellow bossa nova, and moving on to more lively salsa, rumba and merengue, and then to some dance, trance, rap and rave music for later in the evening.
Around nine PM, twelve pussy liners sent by Oleanne boarded Bartleby´s boat and began gathering around the jacuzzi and the pool of the second deck. Around eleven PM, the first guests began boarding the 'Lady Moura'. Bartleby greeted the executives, mostly from the public relations area of their respective liquor company, offering them drink and women simultaneously, knowing that nobody was impervious to sustained flattery by a woman.
Bartleby took aside the head of Human Resources of Tambrera and his manager, a high ranking executive named Blake, who had his eyes on becoming the head of the Caribbean area.
"How many resorts do you say you know?"
"Many, they want Tambrera Coconut, Tambrera Superior and Tambrera Limón, over one hundred resorts, these are all new places for us, a good twenty or twenty five percent rise in sales compared to last year." The executive eyed Bartleby and began reflecting upon the middleman´s contract, and whether Human Resources could delay the firing of Bartleby for a few months.
Chubby Caddy, wearing a large pair of chino´s and a cotton shirt, boarded the 'Lady Moura' around midnight, when Ribalaigua served a roasted chicken. He kept hovering around Flower, nervously looking at his watch every now and then.
"I can lift you upside down like a feather you know," said Chubby Caddy. He was referring to placing Flower upside down on him, her knees resting on his shoulders, her belly facing his belly." Flower could see herself in that position, but with Bartleby, not with Chubby Caddy.
To forget the not so subtle rejection by Flower, the corpulent liquor wholesaler tried the fountain several times, mixing Tambrera Piña Baby with authentic pineapple, and around three forty five AM, he fell asleep near the jacuzzi, feet and legs in the water.
Around four AM, Ribalaigua told Bartleby, who was busy charming Belina, that a pussy liner was there, wanting to board the 'Lady Moura'. Bartleby held on to Belina´s hand, moving towards her cabin, and said yes without really knowing what he was approving.
"Sure," said Bartleby. Ribalaigua knew that the name of the woman who was boarding was Optesia, and told Clarity, who told Tiffany. Clarity walked with him, curious to see Optesia again. Flower welcomed his Sugar Baby date, a wealthy impresario of sophisticated night events and light shows for resorts in the Caribbean, who owned a hundred foot yacht anchored by the 'Lady Moura'.
Clarity helped Optesia reach the stern platform of the 'Lady Moura', and began talking to her after Flower engaged his date in a lively debate about how diverse the Caribbean was in terms of cultures, taking his attention away from the woman who was with him.
"Do you remember me, Optesia? We met in the Bahamas, and then in Abu Dhabi," said Clarity.
Optesia, wearing an elegant dress, had difficulty remembering Clarity. Tiffany prompted her about her real name, but the woman could not remember.
"Your name is Fay, remember?" They moved to Tiffany´s cabin and Clarity turned on her decryptor, tuning it to the frequency of Cobbler´s tracker. His boat was anchored on the other side of Anegada, north of the island. Optesia kept saying that Fay was not her real name, that it was not a perfect name and that only the name Optesia fitted her. The name Cobbler reminded her of a drink, but not of a man.
"We need to bring her to the original situation, the one which made her forget her name," said Tiffany. Clarity offered a drink to Optesia, but she refused vehemently.
"I never have drinks, alcohol is not perfect," she said.
"The Shawab, do you remember the Shawab, Optesia, who is he?"
"The Shawab offered me the pamphlet of Elony, and Elony is the way to reach heaven in the Bahamas, Elony is a beauty lotion that acts like a potion." The words were streaming out of her memory, rehearsed.
"Elony´s just an expensive beauty lotion, Optesia, it´s not a potion and it´s not perfect, who introduced you to the Shawab?" The woman´s eyes turned to Clarity.
"A person from Oleanne," said Optesia, "the head of the call center, but I don´t remember her."
Optesia turned her head away. Her real name bothered her, it was clearly triggering memories unpleasant to the neophyte of Oleanne. Clarity changed the subject to drinks and Optesia began talking intensely, comparing various cocktails, the Brandy Fix, which included shaved ice, and the Brandy Sour, which included lemon juice instead of the lemon. She then spoke of the Soda Negus, the Rum Shrub, and the Aqua Romana, comparing it to Aqua del Paradiso, water of paradise, which included ground cocoa and cardammon seeds with alcohol. It was a drink that the Shawab had given her.
"He replaced cinnamon with a herb, hops, and it made me sleepy. Then, I woke up inside a plane headed for the Bahamas, where they told me of Elony," said Optesia.
"That´s where I met you, Optesia, in the Bahamas, I know the plane and the infomercial, but no one gave me anything to sleep."
"Rum Shrub, orange juice, sugar and rum, that´s Cobbler´s favorite drink," said Tiffany. The name Cobbler began to make an effect on Optesia.
"Cobbler, is he still angry at me?" she said.
"No, he´s not angry Fay," said Tiffany, "he´s looking for you, you disappeared a few months ago."
"Fay is a nice name," said Optesia, "take me to Cobbler, I want to see him, that conceited mongrel."
"She´s back to her senses, I think," said Clarity. Optesia rubbed her eyes, as though waking from a long dream, explaining that she had an argument with Cobbler a few months earlier, which led to their estrangement and her subsequent interest in spiritual development with the Shawab and the Church of the Holy Flower.
At four forty five, a zodiac from Cobbler´s yacht driven by Cathy, approached the 'Lady Moura' and picked up Optesia, who was eager to see Cobbler. She couldn´t remember the face of the Shawab, only that he lived in a luxurious yacht.
Clarity waved good bye from the platform and glanced at her watch. It was nearly five AM and she was ready to sleep. Ribalaigua, tired from serving cocktails and leading executives back to the boats to Virgin Gorda, walked towards Clarity. He showed her a key.
"I have the key to Bartleby´s cabin, that´s where he keeps all the information on Oleanne, including the location of its call center." According to Optesia, the call center was headed by a single person, the person who offered her the Elony pamphlet which led her to the 'spiritual' resort of Hexas Style in the Bahamas. Clarity walked past Belina´s cabin, hearing some noise. Bartleby was shagging Belina in h
er cabin, and they needed to find evidence of his shady dealings with liquor to avoid being labeled accomplices of operation sort-of-flying-seagull. It was time to investigate Bartleby´s own cabin.