Hurricane by Ken Douglas Page A

still all night. Any minute the police would break into the fabric shop. When they found it empty they’d come looking. He started toward Green Corner and the maxi taxi stand at a brisk walk.
    It was a hot night. People were out on their porches. Some said hello, others nodded their heads when he walked by. All would remember him. He was white, out after dark, downtown.
    He glanced at the sun-faded movie posters as he passed behind the Strand movie theater. A James Bond movie was playing. He hadn’t been to a movie in over a year.
    Around front two young boys were buying tickets at the box office and blue lights were coming down the street. Broxton groped in his pocket and pulled out some money. He bought a ticket and stepped into the theater as another police car whizzed by.
    The lobby was crowded and he felt the press of people as he moved toward the ticket taker. Inside the theater he fumbled forward waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark, finding a seat seconds before the screen was hit with bright words on a black backdrop.
     
    PLEASE DON’T SMOKE MARIJUANA IN THE THEATRE AUDITORIUM.
     
    And most of the first row lit up. Then others amid laughing giggles followed suit. Not everyone, but at least two or three in every row. Broxton tasted the pungent smoke as it wafted through the theater and repressed a laugh. The Rasta man next to him lit up a cigar sized joint and a young woman a few seats down was taking a small, tightly rolled one out of her purse. She couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, he thought, as she put the joint to her lips and lit it with the flick of a Bic.
    Then he did laugh.
    This is what he’d been fighting against. What he’d spent his life trying to stop. He glanced around the theater. No violence here. Just a theater full of people having a good time on a Saturday night.
    He shook his head in wry humor. Only last week the United States Marine Corps had been sweeping over the country in their fast helicopters, seeking out the marijuana fields. After two weeks of gathering up and burning the weed the new Prime Minister thanked them and accepted a gift of five speed boats to further the fight against drugs.
    Did the Prime Minister ever go to the movies, his cabinet, the senators, the police? Did any of them ever go to the movies?
    He laughed louder.
    “ Hey man,” the Rasta man said, smiling. He was holding the cigar between his fingers, offering it.
    “ Why not,” Broxton said.

Chapter Six
     
    The sky was still, clear and blue, and the tropical sun was torture. She felt the heat prickle her skin and she envied Meiko’s tan. Sweat rippled her brow and her mouth was dry.
    “ Don’t think about it, Mom,” Meiko whispered, but it was hard to think about anything else. The Germans had been searching the island for over three hours. She was roasting, she was thirsty, and her stomach was aching the way it always did when she missed breakfast. But at least for the moment, she wasn’t grieving.
    She fingered the coin. It had to be what they were searching for. The strange date on it had to have some significance or they would have given up the search long ago.
    “ I’m going to slip in the water and cool off,” Julie said, and she wondered why she didn’t think of it sooner. For the last three hours they’d been sitting in the dinghy, taking turns holding on to a scrub of a branch to keep the rubber boat from floating out to sea.
    And for the last three hours Julie had been worried about the tide going out. If the Germans saw the land bridge, they might cross it and search the smaller island as well, and then they would find them. For the first time since she’d been in Trinidad, Julie was glad that the water in the gulf was dark and murky and not crystal clean and clear like the rest of the Caribbean. The murky water hid the bridge.
    She raised her leg up and over the rubber tube and silently slipped over the side. The water cooled her hot skin.
    “ This is a lot better,”