Jaco Tours Read online

  Jaco Tours

  By Cat Rambo

  Copyright 2015 Cat Rambo

  Published by Cat Rambo at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Jaco Tours

  Joshua had not meant to offend the American lady. Or her companion, for that matter, although the companion seemed less offended than amused by the whole thing.

  At the time, though, everything had seemed fine. He was out in front of the tour offices, handing out flyers and coaxing tourists into coming in to see what marvelous outings Jaco Tours (the finest in Costa Rica!) could offer them.

  It wasn’t quite rainy season, but it was edging up on it, and already most of the tourists had gone, unwilling to face the rains that came in every evening, full of thunder and lightning. In the dry season, you didn’t have to go looking for tourists – there were plenty of them, all down in Jaco and ready to spend money on learning to surf or visiting Manuel Antonio Park or going out sportfishing. But this time of year, you grabbed them while you could, because soon enough you’d be settling down to wait out the rainy days, living on whatever you’d managed to put away while the putting was good.

  So there they were, the American couple. She looked like the kind who’d like the monkey tour, so he’d stopped them, described how they would give them fruit, how the white-faced monkeys would come and eat from their hands, and he’d seen her eyes light up the way some people’s did at the thought of monkeys. They had no monkeys in America, he knew, and there was something about them that made Americans crazy about them, at least the ones who hadn’t learned better from going to Manuel Antonio and leaving their lunch on the beach while they swam, only to come back and find the monkeys and raccoons had gone through all their belongings.

  Her companion was slender, narrow-hipped. A handsome man, Joshua ruefully acknowledged, mentally comparing the man’s expensive, well-groomed clothes and golden pene on a chain around his neck with Joshua’s own cut-offs, fading flowered shirt, and shark’s tooth on a leather thong.

  The woman was older, surely, and Joshua gave her a smile. She was hooked. Now to persuade Mr. Handsome to buy the tour to please her.

  “This is your mother?” he said to the man. Maybe grandmother or aunt, he thought, because there wasn’t anything maternal in her stance when she looked at the young man.

  The fact of his mistake hit him as her smiling face froze, lost the smile as quickly as coins sliding out of his pocket. He backtracked immediately. “I mean your wife.” But she was already stepping away.

  “I’m done,” she said, and turned on her heel. Her companion shrugged at Joshua and they walked on.

  Angél was laughing as Joshua called after them. “Wait, lady, I’m sorry!” The big man had been standing there talking to him, the conversation at a usual leisurely Tico pace, letting him stop to coax tourists. Joshua prided himself on his ability to charm them, to persuade them to step inside the office and see all the possibilities, so he’d been happy enough to have his friend there witnessing his prowess. Now he was less enchanted by having Angél there. At least the big man had the grace not to laugh too loud, but his belly was rumbling with laughter.

  “Smooth,” Angél said. “Very smooth.”

  Joshua frowned. He’d hurt the lady’s feelings and that was the sort of thing that could lead to trouble – in any case meant that they wouldn’t come back, and he knew from an earlier conversation with them that they were staying in Jaco for a month. He’d been looking forward to coaxing them into going with his tour service rather than anyone else’s and his scowl deepened as he watched them turn into King Tours. He wished he could run after them – King Tours was too expensive, and his tour was cheaper as well as better, with Encenio the college student as a guide, who knew everything about nature, and could answer even the most complicated question.

  “She looked more like his mother than his wife,” he said.

  “They had matching rings,” Angél pointed out.

  Chagrin filled Joshua. He’d been so sure that he hadn’t even looked at that.

  “Just let it go,” Angél advised.

  ***

  But that was easier said than done. Joshua kept seeing the couple – Jaco wasn’t that big after all, and his offices were across the street from the Mas X Menos, the largest grocery store. They were usually across the street, and he thought that perhaps they crossed deliberately, to avoid him.

  It hurt his perception of himself, more than anything else. He was outgoing, he was charming – tourists liked him, liked the tours he arranged for them. If the couple would just let him arrange one, they’d see it had all been a silly mistake. Surely they’d understand he hadn’t meant to offend anyone. He rehearsed what he’d say, a funny little line about American women and he’d ask what the woman did. Women in America all had jobs, they did things, and they liked to be identified by that, he knew that from years of experience.

  And it was worth pursuing them – they’d said they’d be here a month, and that meant weeks of possible tours: to the mangroves, or waterfalls or ziplining through the tree canopies, or longer, costlier trips to the Arenal volcano, or even the biggest cost of all: sportfishing.

  So when he saw them coming towards him, he put on his biggest smile, and rushed forward to impress them with how sorry he was, and how they should take advantage of his apologetic nature forcing him to offer them great deals. He’d start with something small and show them they could trust him.

  Maybe they knew what he was thinking already – the woman wore the smallest, slyest of smiles, as though she’d already taken advantage of him in some way that he didn’t realize. It unnerved him a little, that smile, and made him stammer out the apology.

  She shrugged. It was disconcerting, the way she stepped forward, and her companion deferred. American women were odd.

  “We want to go to the butterfly garden,” she said. “Is that possible?”

  That was a terrible choice. This time of year, there would be only a few kinds of butterflies. And the garden at Los Suenos would be closed, so he would have to steer them towards Neo Fauna, which they surely would not find very impressive. But he put on his biggest smile, trying to show good will and his obliging nature.

  “I will help you go there,” he said. “Where are you staying?”

  At the northern end of the beach, it turned out, which he wasn’t sure was a good sign or not. Cheaper to stay up there, outside all the usual bustle of southern Jaco, but that might mean they had more money to spend.

  “I send a guy to pick you up,” he declared. He mentally calculated in his head what he could pay a taxi, and how much he should add. “For the tour, forty five dollars each, and you go in the morning, when it is not hot. And for the taxi, sixteen dollars, there and back, and he will wait while you tour, bring you back when you are ready.”

  “We want you to go with us,” she said. “Will you do that?”

  An odd request, but certainly he could do that, though he wasn’t fond of the morning hours. But it would be worth it to secure their good will.

  He smiled more broadly. “De cierto. Of course.”

  She was a prettier woman than he had thought. Her hair was silver, and she was tall, but she had generous breasts and not skinny, enough for a man to hang onto. Her eyes were the color of morning sun on seawater, green-gray,
and you could not tell how deep they were, or what was lurking underneath. He thought of tiburones, sharks lurking, and made himself smile and nod.

  ***

  The gate guard went up to fetch them when Joshua arrived at the hotel. They came out smelling of sun tan oil and expensive shampoo, looking like they were off to a photo shoot. Now that he looked at her closely, Joshua had to admit that the woman was truly sexy, in her own way, particularly with a week’s worth of deep tan on her long limbs, wearing a pink tank top that read “Tinkerbell wasn’t a real fairy” tight across her chest, black bra straps sewn with tiny pearls visible below the spaghetti-thin, flamingo-colored straps.

  The day was bright and sunny as her smile at him when she got in, but she was just a little too toothy, too polished.

  He tried to chat with them along the road.

  “See that gas station?” he said, gesturing left. “Very famous.”

  The man flicked a look over, the woman examined a nail. “Why famous?”

  “The man who started it, he starts with a big promotion. Come in, fill up, get ticket maybe win a free car. Lots and lots come. Day that they draw for the car, he is gone, and no more car.” He laughed. The story made him laugh every time, imagining the smugness of the man as he drove away in the new car, the surprise of people arriving the next day to see the drawing, finding the station closed. A fine trick.

  The man looked unimpressed and the woman only yawned, teeth clicking together. Why didn’t he remember their names?

  Neo Fauna on a hot and sticky day. Luis outside, a straight-faced, thin boy with legs pitted from snake bites. Joshua handed the couple off. He had a joint and a magazine, and shade in which to enjoy them both.

  But the woman looked at him. “You want to come with us, don’t you?” Her voice an almost-purr, a silver fishing-line hooked tight on his crotch, tugging him along with a little thrill of shame and anticipation mingled. Her companion cat-eyed with amusement, his sinewy arms marked with Celtic tattoos of deer and fish and birds.

  He nodded, and drifted in their wake.

  Luis gave him an odd look, but said nothing. He showed the couple the baby owl and orphaned monkey in a cage before he led them out to the cages of snakes, starting with a harmless brown snake that the woman held. It coiled around her hand, tranquil and unalarmed, and she laughed, a sound like a calling bird, silver as her shaggy hair. Joshua noticed she had a strand of turquoise in her hair, a metallic line of glitter like a thread tied into the strands.

  Luis asked her, “Do you know how to tell which snakes are poisonous and which are not?”

  She shook her head. A butterfly drifted to land in her hair, perched there like a little cap. Its wings fluttered, a brilliant blue on the top, a sombered shadow filled with the illusion of owl eyes on the bottom. Back and forth: a glimmer of marine blue, an intimation of eyes filled with a dark certainty. “How?” she said.

  “If they are dull, they are deadly,” Luis said. “Shiny things are illusionists, trying to trick predators into believing they are poison.”

  “Here in Costa Rica,” she said. “Other places sometimes there are shiny predators.” Her eyes were challenging; sunshine caught the rhinestones on her shirt, sent refractions across the green depths of the shadows.

  “Sometimes,” Luis said.

  He showed them other snakes, the poisonous ones like a young viper and a fer-de-lance. A boa, its skin tattered, rescued recently, hissing hostility coiled in a cage corner. And poison arrow frogs, tiny as jewelry, painted with bright clown paint. The butterfly garden, full of flowers and the drifting butterflies, towards the back a board of cocoons, each held in place with a pearl-headed pin.

  Luis took up a butterfly, held it to force the wings open so they could see the blue on the top side. Underneath it was all camouflage, the illusion of an owl’s beak and eyes to scare away any flying predators. The butterfly trembled, its wings dipping. When Luis released it, he rubbed away the tiny shining scales it had left on his fingers and it wobbled away to join a crowd of its fellows, clustered around decaying slices of bananas.

  Joshua floated behind the couple. It was hot and his head throbbed. He felt befuddled and confused, dull as a stone tumbled in a stream bed, edges worn away.

  The woman was a little flirtatious with Luis, her manner odd, alternating come on and then an edge of menace. She put her hand on Luis’s arm as he was showing them turtles.

  “How do you tell the male turtles from the female?” Her tone held mockery and invitation.

  “To the Indians here,” Luis said, ignoring her question, “the turtle was a sacred animal. It had thirteen pieces to its shell, one for each moon of the year.”

  “Do you know a lot about sacred things?” the woman pressed. Her companion cleared his throat, but she ignored him.

  “I know enough,” Luis said. His look flickered over Joshua, and a little smile tugged at his lips.

  Somehow that cast a pall over it all. Luis said, “The turtles are the last thing I have to show you, but if you should wish to donate to the preserve, you will help the animals here.”

  The woman turned away towards the car, but the man pressed a few blue bills into Luis’s hand.

  “Good luck,” Luis said to Joshua under his breath as he tucked them away.

  The air inside the car was sticky and hot. Joshua shifted it into gear, took them down the rattling gravel road. His head had begun to hurt and the woman was humming under her breath, a song that itched at him, ran its fingers needle to follow the trail of sweat down his spine.

  “Pull over,” the woman said and Joshua pulled over before they reached the highway, in the shade of banana trees. The light glittered in his eyes, splinters of glass in his skull.

  “Must you?” the man said. “We’ll have to move on.”

  “That’s no problem,” she said. “Nowadays we can travel anywhere. People think we’re rich Americans. Not fae.”

  The man shrugged. Joshua sat in the front seat, watching them in the mirror and struggling to breathe.

  “I like to keep my touch,” she said. Her voice was languid and unconcerned. “And he made me angry.” Her voice whispered in his head, “Little humans should never make fairies angry.”

  Her fingernail traced the vein in his neck, point threatening to open the skin.

  He didn’t think, just reacted. Opened himself up, let the façade fall away, and watched her recoil, shrinking back against the seat, a small shark suddenly perceiving the gulf around it was an open mouth, a predator’s maw.

  By the time he was done, the back seat was covered with blood and a few shreds of flesh. The Joshua-façade slowly reasserted itself. He could feel that personality, that dull outer coating that hid so much, gibbering in the back of his head. And he let it slide back, and whispered, forget, forget, and faded back into his long sleep, like a great and terrible thing, camouflaged by dullness, buried beneath a heap of rotting leaves.

  About the Author

  Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches in the Pacific Northwest, with occasional excursions elsewhere. Her 200+ fiction publications include over 150 original stories, as well as audio and foreign reprints in over a dozen languages. She has been nominated for the Nebula and World Fantasy Award, and has served as the editor of award-winning Fantasy Magazine. She is the current Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Find out more about Cat, her work, and her online classes at http://www.kittywumpus.net

  Other books & stories by this author

  Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books and stories by Cat Rambo:

  Books:

  Near + Far (SF collection)

  Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight (fantasy collection)

  A Seed on the Wind (SF novella)

  A Halloween Quartet (fantasy collection)

  Creating An Online Presence for Writers (nonfiction)

  Short Story Series:

  Altered America (steampunk)

  Her W
indowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart

  Rappacini’s Crow

  Snakes on A Train

  The Towering Monarch of His Mighty Race

  Clockwork Fairies

  Rare Pears and Greengages

  A Frame of Mother-of-Pearl

  Closer Than You Think (near future SF)

  Memories of Moments, Bright As Falling Stars

  The Mermaids Singing, Each to Each

  English Muffin, Devotion on the Side

  Tortoiseshell Cats Are Not Refundable

  All the Pretty Little Mermaids

  Zeppelin Follies

  On the Bigfisted Circuit

  Therapy Buddha

  A Man and His Parasite

  Boys and Grlz Come Out To Play

  Flicka

  Legends of the Gone

  Mother’s World

  Not Waving, Drowning

  Peaches of Immortality

  Farther Than Tomorrow (slipstream & space opera)

  Bus Ride to Mars

  Grandmother

  Elsewhen, Within, Elsewhen

  Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain

  Angry Rose’s Lament

  Bots d’Amor

  Seeking Nothing

  Surrogates

  Worm Within

  Fire on the Water’s Heart

  Superlives (superheroes)

  Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut

  Acquainted with the Night

  Superhero Art

  Tales of Tabat (secondary world fantasy)

  Narrative of a Beast’s Life

  How Dogs Came to the New Continent

  Events at Fort Plentitude

  Sugar

  Love, Resurrected

  A Frame of Mother-Of-Pearl

  In the Lesser Southern Isles