Typhoon Island (6 page)

Rodrigo Lopez turned red. “I have spent a fortune building on this island,” he said angrily. “I have a right to make a profit. Who are you to judge me, Renee? Your hotel is hanging on by its fingertips.”

“Flinging recriminations won’t get you anywhere,” Frank interjected. “You all have to pull together.”

“What do
you
know,
turista?”
called someone in the crowd.

“We’re just trying to help,” Joe said.

“We don’t need your help,” another person
shouted. “We islanders can take care of this ourselves.”

A number of young men in the crowd began to jostle the Hardys and their friends. It looked to Frank and Joe as if these were the same kids they’d seen hanging around with Jamie Escobar. Escobar himself, though, was nowhere to be seen. Before things could get ugly, Jorge Tejeda spoke.

“What are you punks doing?” he said, glaring at the young men. “This is exactly the kind of behavior our island does not need.”

“Tejeda is right,” Renee Aranya said.

“We should welcome input from anyone if it will help us solve our problems.”

The soaked crowd mumbled their general agreement, and the young men slipped away. The Hardys and their girlfriends let out sighs of relief.

“We need to continue this meeting,” Tejeda said, “as soon as the weather is better. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“But where shall we meet?” the mayor asked. “The chamber of commerce office is too small, and we clearly cannot meet at the town hall.”

“I volunteer the ballroom at Casa Bonita,” Aranya said. “Everyone will be welcome.” Here she looked pointedly at Rodrigo Lopez. The rival hotel owner nodded grudgingly.

“Tomorrow, then,” Tejeda said.

“Shall we say noon?” the mayor asked. She gave
her best publicity-photo smile. The people standing in the rain in front of the dilapidated town hall agreed.

“Weather permitting, of course” Aranya said.

The rescheduling of the meeting seemed to satisfy the crowd. With the place and time settled, everyone quickly hustled to get out of the rain.

Frank, Joe, Iola, and Callie sought refuge under the awning in front of a nearby store. People hurriedly passed them on the street carrying storm supplies, like lanterns, bags of groceries, and boards for securing windows against the coming storm.

“I warned you to stay out of it,” said a gruff voice from behind them, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

The four teens turned and saw The Gringo, skulking in the shadows, smoking a cigarette.

“You seem oddly amused by all this,” Joe said, his temper rising.

“When you’ve lived away from America as long as I have,” The Gringo said, “you get used to being an outsider.”

“But we should still try to help one another, Mr. McGill,” Callie said.

The Gringo shrugged and flicked the butt of his cigarette into the rain-clogged gutter. “That’ll only bring you heartache, girlie. Take my advice: Keep to yourselves. Stay out of things you don’t understand.” He turned away, pulled the collar of his raincoat up, and walked off into the rain.

“For someone who keeps telling us to mind our own business,” Joe said, “he seems mighty interested in minding
our
business.”

Frank nodded. “I still can’t figure out what his angle is, though.”

“Maybe he
is
just looking out for fellow Americans,” Iola said.

The teens all looked at one another and laughed.

“I’ll call Angela,” Iola suggested. “Maybe we can meet her for an early dinner or something.”

“Sounds good,” replied Joe. “I don’t think we’ll be doing any sunbathing this afternoon.”

They found a local store with a public phone. The guys bought travel umbrellas while the girls called Iola’s cousin. The foldable umbrellas provided only a bit of protection against the weather but kept a little rain off them until they got back to the Jeep.

They saw few tourists on their way to the restaurant Angela had chosen. Huge puddles filled Nuevo Esteban’s rutted streets, but the Jeep splashed through most of them easily. Twice they had to take a detour because a street had been completely flooded.

When they arrived at the La Juliana restaurant, they found the staff already boarding up the windows.

“Yes, we are still open,” said a man wearing a poncho and pounding nails out front. “We are just getting ready for the typhoon.”

“Typhoon?” Callie said. “I thought they called them hurricanes in this hemisphere.”

The man nodded.
“Sí.
The weathermen do. But here on San Esteban the tradition is to call these big storms typhoons. Please, come inside. We are not very busy today, and my cook will be happy for the work.”

The La Juliana was a nice place on the fringe of downtown Nuevo Esteban. It had windows on three sides, but one of the sides had already been boarded up, and the staff was working on the second. As the winds hadn’t picked up yet, the Hardys and their friends asked for a seat near the remaining unboarded windows.

Based on recommendations from Angela, they ordered local dishes. The cuisine was a mix of Spanish and southwestern cooking. Spicy rice dishes and tortillas were the specialties. The wind howled outside, and the rain pelted the remaining unboarded windows. Lightning lit the sky and thunder echoed off of the nearby mountains. The streets of the small city became progressively more deserted.

“I know this isn’t what we had planned for a vacation,” Frank said after a loud clap of thunder, “but the weather
is
pretty spectacular.”

“You’re right,” Callie said, “but I’d still rather have sunshine.”

Even though it wasn’t yet evening, the sky was
very dark by the time they finished their meal.

As they stepped out into the rain and opened their flimsy umbrellas, something across the street caught Joe’s eye.

Seeing his troubled look, Iola asked, “What is it, Joe?”

Joe glanced at Frank. Frank nodded grimly.

“We didn’t want to mention it before,” Joe said, “but that guy has been following us around town.”

“Joe and I noticed him hanging around while we were eating,” Frank added.

On the other side of the street, about a half block away, a shadowy figure stood in the rain. It looked like a man, though none of them could see his features clearly through the dark shadows.

“I think we should go find out what he wants,” Joe said. He handed his umbrella to Iola and splashed across the street toward the lurking stranger. Frank gave his umbrella to Callie and followed Joe.

Before they could reach the mysterious figure, though, the man suddenly turned and dashed into a nearby alley.

Joe and Frank took off in hot pursuit of the man.

Driving rain pelted the brothers’ bodies as they dashed across the street and into the alley. In moments their clothes were completely soaked through. The wind, warm though it was, triggered goose bumps on their skin.

They spotted the mystery man at the far end of the alley just before he turned the corner. The rain, wind, and thunder made it nearly impossible to hear anything. As they darted out of the adjoining alley a passing flatbed truck nearly ran them over.

The truck honked, and the brothers stopped. Carefully they circled around behind it, and the truck lumbered past.

The Hardys’ sneakers quickly filled with water.
They felt as though they were running with lead weights attached to their feet. Their only comfort was that the man they were pursuing faced the same difficulties.

Whoever he was, he knew the streets of Nuevo Esteban better than the brothers did. He ducked into alleys that the Hardys didn’t even see.

The third time this happened, they almost lost him. A T intersection dead-ended behind some warehouses, and the culprit was nowhere to be seen. One direction ended in a high wooden fence; the other led to nothing but trees.

Joe pointed to a turned-over trash can near the fence. “Some of that garbage is still dry,” he said. “The guy we’re following must have knocked it over while running.”

Frank nodded, and the two of them sprinted to the dead end. Both brothers were athletic, having spent many hours training for sports at Bayport High. They scrambled over the wooden fence and down the other side with little difficulty.

“There he is!” Frank said. Their quarry splashed through a shin-high puddle in the next street.

The chase led them from the newer parts of the city into the older, more crowded sections of Nuevo Esteban. The alleys they ran through became progressively narrower and were clogged with garbage. The storm had driven most sensible folks indoors, and this worked to the Hardys’ advantage; the man
they were following was easy to spot on the deserted streets.

The man never stopped running, and not once did he turn back to face them. Because they didn’t know the area, the brothers were hard pressed to keep up.

Ten minutes into the chase the suspect disappeared down an alley leading to a four-way intersection. When the Hardys arrived at the crossroads, they found dead ends in all directions. One was a solid brick wall, another a boarded-up factory, and the third a locked door.

Joe looked from one dead end to the other. “Rats!”

Rain sprayed off of Frank’s short, dark hair as he whipped his head around, considering their options. He tried the door, but it didn’t budge. At the other end of the alley Joe found a loose board in the factory wall.

“Do you think he went in here?” the younger Hardy asked. He peered into the shadowy space beyond. “The roof’s leaking something awful, so there are no wet footprints to follow.”

Frank’s dark eyes strayed to a manhole cover he hadn’t noticed before in one street. He shook his head. “Whether he went in there or down the manhole, I’m afraid we’ve lost him.”

The brothers stood for a moment in the rain and wind, and caught their breath.

“Come on,” Frank said. “We better get back to the girls.”

The route they took back to the restaurant had far fewer twists and turns. Both brothers had studied maps of the city before coming on vacation, so they generally knew how to get back to where they’d started.

Still, it was the better part of twenty minutes before they spotted Callie, Iola, and Angela sitting in the Jeep by the curb outside the restaurant. A police officer stood next to the vehicle. The sight sent a chill up the brothers’ spines.

They dashed across the street to the car and the glowering officer. “Are these the boys you were waiting for?” he asked sternly.

“Yes,” Callie said.

“Good,” the officer replied. “I’ll tell our patrols to stop looking for them, then. All of you need to get to shelter. Typhoon Hilary is going to hit this island pretty hard. We don’t need any tourists getting swept away.” He gave them a grim half smile.

Frank and Joe got into the Jeep. With a nod to the policeman, Callie pulled the vehicle into the rain-swept street. Frank’s girlfriend looked relieved. “We were starting to worry,” she explained.

“That guy led us on quite a chase,” Frank replied. “We ended up down in the old South Village.”

“That’s a dangerous place,” Angela said. “Gangs hang out there.”

“The streets were pretty deserted,” Joe told the girls. “Even gangsters are smart enough to get out of the rain.”

“But not my boyfriend, apparently,” Iola said.

“So, you lost the guy?” Callie asked.

“Yeah, he disappeared into some alley or something,” Frank said.

“Whoever he was,” Joe added, “he knew his way around the back streets.”

Frank nodded. “I can think of only a couple of people here who might have any reason to follow us,” he said. “This guy was about the same size as Jamie Escobar—or Lucas McGill. But neither one of us got a good look at him.”

“He seemed too spry to be McGill,” Joe said.

“I don’t know,” Frank replied. “That old guy gets around pretty well. He’s popped up suddenly a couple of times and disappeared just as quickly. What do we really know about him, aside from the fact that he claims to be looking out for fellow Americans?”

“Okay, maybe it was him,” Joe agreed. “But Escobar’s a street kid. He’d know these alleys pretty well.”

“It could be just some local mugger,” Iola said.

“Why hang around across from the restaurant in the rain, then?” Frank asked.

Callie’s brown eyes quickly scanned the drenched group. “Look at us,” she said. “We don’t look rich
enough to be staked out for robbery.” She turned her eyes back to the road.

Everyone laughed.

“Angela,” Iola said, “do you know anything about McGill or Escobar?”

Iola’s cousin furrowed her brow. “Jamie Escobar hangs around the marketplace a lot, flirting with the pretty girls. He’s in one of the local gangs, so nobody messes with him.”

“What about Lucas McGill?” Joe asked.

“The Gringo?” Angela said. “Everybody in Nuevo Esteban knows him. He’s a
very
shady character. He’s been picked up by the police many times, but they have never been able to convict him. He’s a local black marketeer—has his hands in a lot of small criminal enterprises. If he’s following you, you must have something he wants.”

“But what?” Iola asked. She looked at Callie and the brothers, and they all shrugged.

“What I’m wondering,” Frank said, “is how he got away from us in those dead-end alleys.”

“There are a lot of old bootlegger tunnels in the South Village,” Angela said. “Smugglers used to operate out of there, too, during the world wars. Volcanic caves run under the whole island. Nobody really knows all the hidden crawl spaces in this old rock. Jorge Tejeda opened some of the tunnels to tourists. You should check them out when the weather clears up.”

“
If
it ever clears up,” Callie said.

The wind buffeted their Jeep from side to side as they drove, and rain cascading against the windshield made it difficult for Callie to see. They finally found their way to Angela’s small second-floor apartment and dropped her off, then headed for their bungalows.

As they drove Iola checked safety information from the hotel brochures. “Our designated emergency shelter is in the basement of Casa Bonita,” she said. She looked at the rain outside, which showed no sign of letting up. “Staying in a crowded basement with a bunch of other tourists is
not
my idea of paradise.”