Left at the Mango Tree by Stephanie Siciarz Page A

little cheering up.

    “Bastard! He’s making Raoul look like a real fool. Have you seen this?” Cougar stood, elbow propped on the bar’s edge, wide-brimmed whitish straw hat propped on his head, and thrust the
Morning Crier
into Bang’s hand.
    “Seen it? It’s all anybody’s talking about.” Bang knocked his knuckles on the bar and the bartender brought him water. “I know Raoul likes to get to the bottom of things, but this! He’s gonna get himself killed.”
    “Killed? What do you mean?”
    “Gustave, what else? If he had a hand in this...” (Bang lowered his voice.) “...and we know he must have, then Raoul’s just made himself a nasty little enemy, calling attention to the situation like he did. I told him to mind his business and to keep quiet, I told him.”
    “No one’s killing anybody.” Cougar began to light his nightly cigar and paused. “Are they? You don’t really think...?”
    Bang leaned close into Cougar’s chest. “Well, if he can magically impregnate a person, I don’t see why he can’t kill one.”
    “I guess.” Cougar lit the cigar now and tilted his head upward in reflection. “’Course, he really doesn’t have to. The whole island thinks Raoul’s mad. He keeps this up, no one will listen to a word he says, about Gustave or otherwise. We need to talk some sense into him.”
    “Well don’t look at me. I tried. I told him. Mind your business. Keep. Quiet.” Bang gargled softly and warmed his vocal chords with deep hums that rose and fell in pitch and volume.
    “There is always the possibility that Raoul knows what he’s doing and that someone will answer the ad,” Cougar suggested.
    Bang gargle-hum-choked an “Are you serious?!” He spat the water back into the glass and over a good portion of the bar. “Even if someone knows something...” (He lowered his voice again.) “... and I don’t think they do, who’s going to point a finger at someone like Vilder and maybe lose his job or his wife or his money or his fishing rod, or even fall down and die? Would you? If you knew something about Edda, would you tell Raoul?”
    “No. No I don’t suppose I would.” Cougar sent out a cloud of perfumed smoke and caught sight of Nat, who had just walked into the Belly.
    “Over here, Nat,” Cougar shouted. “Two doubles,” he told the bartender. “Yellow rum.”
    “’Evening,” Nat said and slid onto a barstool. “I just brought you a hotel guest. Lady from Belgium. Had a suitcase full of hazelnuts.”
    “No need for those around here. There’s plenty of nuts on Oh already,” Cougar said.
    Bang handed Nat the newspaper. “Poor Raoul has gone a little mad, I’m afraid.”
    Nat put the paper on the bar and sighed. “Raoul says there’s an explanation for everything. Says there must be a witness. I told him to mind his own business—”
    “That’s exactly what I said!” Bang interrupted.
    “You know what I think of Gustave,” Nat went on. “Creepy. But I told Raoul to leave well enough alone. Almondine’s healthy,Edda’s happy, Wilbur’s too in love to know the difference. Funny things happen around here. It’s nothing new. But you know Raoul.”
    They did, of course, know Raoul, and they also knew that nothing they could say or do would dissuade him from ruffling feathers or looking foolish or doing whatever else might be required to find the explanation he was certain must exist.
That
was nothing new either. It’s true that Raoul had never resorted to newspaper ads before now, so the particulars were a bit out of the ordinary, but in general he had long been known to noodle. There was no matter on Oh too trivial, no minutia too minute, to escape elucidation by Raoul.
    This time, though, the noodling was different. It was public. Normally, Bang, Cougar, and Nat were the extent of the audience to Raoul’s follies, and his three pals preferred it that way. They could affectionately chuckle behind his back (There he goes again, man!), pat him on it