By edRogers
[Reviewed here on the novel’s publication day, October 6, 2018: “Coming soon to a Barnes & Noble store near you?”]
What with Edgar and Rufino up north looking at a boat, Charlie felt as though he could breathe again. The tension of being around those two had worn him out. He was relaxing in the lobby with another beer and chatting with Eric. He needed someone to talk to and Eric seemed like a good sounding board for him. After his meeting with Mr. Tai, he knew it was time to cut his ties with Edgar and Rufino. He might be able to stall them about the money for a while longer, but that Taiwanese bastard scared him even more than he scared Edgar.
He wasn’t sure how much detail he should go into with Eric, but he knew Eric wasn’t going to be relaying what he said to Rufino or Edgar, so he decided to level with him. “Eric, my friends are in the finning business, and I’ve led them to believe that I want to buy in, but I didn’t really come down here to get into shark finning. I’m a writer and I was looking for a good story, but it has gotten a little out of hand. Those two friends of mine will be back tomorrow looking for the twenty K I promised them for my share of the boat. The problem is I don’t have that kind of money.”
Eric laughed. “If you are wanting to borrow it from me, you are digging in a dry hole.”
“Hell no. I don’t plan on giving them a dine. But I did come looking for a story. What I have so far is that the enabling of the shark finning business seems to come from the highest posts in the government. This guy, Mr. Tai, he spoke about providing protection as though it was the most common thing in the world. Are things that corrupt in Costa Rica?”
“There are corrupt people everywhere. Costa Rica is a small and poor country, so it isn’t hard to find people with their hands out. But not everybody’s on the take, there are also good people in the government. I have a friend, a French lady, who has been trying to stop shark finning for years. Would you like to meet her?”
Charlie had just taken a mouthful of beer and almost choked at this. “Sure, I would love to meet her!”
Eric stood and removed his cell phone from his pocket. “Let me call her and we’ll see if she can get together with you.” He walked away dialing the number.
As far as Charlie could tell, the environmentalists were in a battle they couldn’t win. The yearning of the Asian countries for any and all exotic foods was sounding the death knell for a large number of aminals, and now sharks and whales. The Asian economies were booming and huge amounts of monies were being transferred to people who only a few years ago were less than the middle class. With that much more buying power, it was going to get worse. But he wasn’t here to save the world. He would leave that to the do-gooders. He was only looking for an angle, and maybe this lady could be it.
Eric returned and said, “She will meet you tonight at 6 p.m. Do you know where the seafood restaurant is?”
“I think so. Are you talking about the one across from the long cruise ship pier?”
“That’s the one.”
“How will I recognize her?”
Eric smiled. “Believe me, you won’t have any problem recognizing Margot. She will be the first person you notice.”
Eric put his phone away and turned to leave. “I’ve got work to do, have a good time tonight and give Margot my love.”
“I’ll do that.”
Margot Rosenburg was born in Le Mans, France, into a well-to-do family. Her father was a German industrialist and her mother was a French housewife. She attended the best private schools and graduated from the University of Sciences Po Paris at the top of her class.
Her first trip to Costa Rica was on her honeymoon. She had just turned twenty. After graduation she married a research student by the name of Ames Devere. Ames was writing his thesis on the extinction of many species of sharks. He had a small grant from the University to study the sharks of Isla del Coco. So between drinking and making love on the beach, and a large number of other places, they traveled to Cocos Island, where Ames dove with and photographed the sharks. On one of his trips, Margot wasn’t feeling well and didn’t go. Upon returning, Ames told her about running into a fishing boat that was killing sharks for their fins and throwing the fish back into the water still alive.
Ames was determined to get pictures and expose the barbaric nature in which the sharks were being killed. What he didn’t know was that the fishermen weren’t doing anything illegal in Costa Rica at that time.
Margot went with him on that fateful day. She had a camera and was going to capture it all on film for the world to see. How naive and in love they had been. Their blood flowed hot in anticipation of confronting these destroyers of mother nature, never giving a second thought to how the other party might react.
After the long trip across the open sea from Puntarenas, they spotted the fishing boat almost at once. Ames directed the captain of their boat, which they had chartered for the month, to get in close, but the captain refused. He said it would be asking for trouble.
There was much arguing and cursing, but in the end Ames offered more money and the captain agreed to approach the fishermen’s boat. As they got close, Margot began taking pictures. She didn’t notice that Ames had moved out onto the bow of the charter boat. They were so close, Margot was getting pictures of the shark fins laid out on the deck. But suddenly the fishing boat made a sharp turn to the right and slammed into the side of the charter boat. Margot lost her footing and fell to the deck, and Ames was thrown overboard. His head struck the aft part of the other boat and he bounced into the water.
By the time Margot got to her feet, the fishing boat was racing away. The charter boat captain was screaming, “Man overboard, man overboard!” as he turned the wheel hard left to bring it back around to where Ames’s body bobbed on the waves. What they discovered next became a nightmare that haunted Margot for years. Ames had been dead before he hit the water. Striking the other boat had broken his neck.
On their trip back to Puntarenas their boat was stopped by the Costa Rican Coast Guard, and they were placed under arrest as pirates. The fishermen had reported being attacked and fleeing from people trying to board their boat.
Three months later the charges were dropped and Margot and Ames’s ashes were escorted to the airport in San Jose, where she was told she was no longer welcome in Costa Rica.
During the following five years, Margot changed her name back to Rosenburg and became an advocate for sharks. Using friends she had met in Costa Rica, she made all the right contacts for her return. One week after turning twenty-five, she was on her way back to Costa Rica.
She had been fighting the good fight for ten years when she met Charlie. In those ten years, she had learned a lot but changed little. It seemed for every step forward there were two backward. Young people were always coming to join the fight, and they were all as naive as she and Ames had been. She lost track of the names that came and went. Some had left because they were discouraged, others because they were afraid, but she kept the hope that somewhere, at some time, the right person would show up. So when Eric asked her to meet with this Charlie person she thought, Why not?
Charlie shaved, showered, and changed clothes, and then caught a cab, but the driver spoke no English and he didn’t know the Spanish word for seafood. The driver took him to two different restaurants before he found the one he wanted. Charlie got out of the cab right at 6 o’clock. He paid the driver and took the stairs leading up to the eating area two at a time.
At the top of the stairs were a few tables for outside dining. He checked them out but saw no one that looked French – whatever that looked like.
He walked into the restaurant and a waiter ran toward him with a menu in his hand. But he immediately spotted her and waved the waiter off and strolled to her table.
“Hi, I’m Charlie. I’m sorry if I’m late.”
“You’re right on time, Charlie. I’m Margot.”
My God, he thought, smitten. The way she said his name sounded like music to his ears. “May I sit down?”
“Unless you wish to eat standing – by all means.”
“I’m afraid you’re not what I was expecting.”
“What were you expecting, Charlie?”
There it was again. He could have sat there all night listening to her say his name. “A little heavier set with a ponytail and no makeup.”
“I’m sorry, are you disappointed?”
He almost screamed it, “Hell, no!”
Thankfully, the waiter came to ask if they wanted a drink and hand them the menus. Charlie ordered a beer and Margot ordered white wine.
“Charlie, may I suggest the Red Snapper. It is always fresh and they do a wonderful job preparing it.”
When the waiter came back she ordered for them both. “Now that that is out of the way, I understand you have got yourself into a bit of a problem.”
“Not so much a problem as an inconvenience. I came here looking for a story and it looks like I will need to be leaving before I can get what I came for.”
Margot was looking at Charlie over the top of her glass. As she had watched the tall, good-looking man approach her table, she had thought, Well, at least it’s not one of those kids with the idea they can conquer the world. This one has some miles on him. He had a quick smile and a warm handshake, but his hand was hard and said he was a man used to working. Also, he didn’t seem full of himself like most Americans. But she wasn’t sure what he wanted from her and that made her unconformable.
“Charlie, what do you need from me?”
He picked up his beer and took a drink before answering. “I’m really not sure. I came away from Mr. Tai thinking everybody in Costa Rica was behind this shark finning. But Eric said that wasn’t true and offered to call you.”
She moved her glass for her fish to be placed in front of her. An idea had been floating around in her head ever since the call from Eric, but she wasn’t sure how to present it to Charlie. “I understand you are or were going to buy into a fishing boat and go finning for Mr. Tai. Is that correct?”
She watched him put a bit of fish into his mouth and try to wash it down in order to answer her. “No, I never intended to buy into the boat. I don’t have that kind of money, for one thing. Another thing is I don’t believe in killing these sharks for their fins.”
She smiled and sipped her wine. There it was, the words she had been hoping to hear: I don’t believe in killing sharks.
“I can help you get your story, but maybe not the story you are looking for. Finish your dinner and we will go back to my place. There are things about this finning business you need to know before you get too involved in it.”
| Copyright © 2018 by Ed Rogers |
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