Page 3 of Tropical Vice
“Chili, the brown streaky one, likes attention. Mango’s the small white one. Miso’s under the fridge. Geng, you met.”
Blake looked down. Mango, true to form, had inched closer, one paw tucked under, eyes wary.
“They all yours?”
“They’re here,” Kit said, as though that answered it.
Blake took another sip, then set the tumbler down carefully. He looked around, he stood out in an otherwise homogeneous group. “You don’t get many walk-ins.”
“I don’t advertise.”
“Why not?”
Kit tilted his head. “You think I want tourists climbing over Mango to get a photo of their smoothie?”
Blake let out a low laugh. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
A soft breeze stirred the paper napkins. Somewhere behind the café, something sizzled on a pan. Kit didn’t move to check it.
Blake rested his arms on the table, watching him. “What made you start this place?”
Kit picked up a cloth and began wiping a clean counter. “The last owner left. The dogs wouldn’t leave.”
“So you just stayed.”
Kit looked up then, finally meeting Blake’s gaze for more than a second. His eyes were darker than they first seemed, and Blake thought he could almost see something swirling behind them. “Some people leave. Some don’t.”
Blake held that look longer than he meant to. He nodded, once, unsure what he was agreeing to.
Kit turned back to the counter. “If you’re going to write, don’t mention the dogs.”
“I’m not writing yet.”
“Yet,” Kit repeated. “But you will.”
Blake didn’t reply.
He finished the lassi slowly, reluctant to leave though he had no reason to stay. Kit busied himself with tidying other tables, and the dogs had settled again, their breathing syncopated with the fan’s steady whirr. Somewhere in the back, a pot rattled on a low flame. Kit didn’t speak again.
When Blake finally stood, he left a note beside the tumbler along with some cash. Kit didn’t reach for it.
As Blake stepped outside, Geng gave a soft chuff. Chili opened one eye. Mango did not stir.
The road back to the resort was dusty and uneven. He walked it slowly, phone and tablet untouched in his satchel.
He would need to speak to Leon soon. There was something here. Not just for the report. Something else.
He didn’t look back. But he would return.
Kit wiped the counter again,though there was nothing left to clean. The glass that the man—Blake—had used left a faint ring of condensation that caught the light like a thumbprint. It would fade in a minute, maybe two. He didn’t know why he hadn’t already wiped it away.
Blake was tall. Not stiff, not slouched, balanced. Shirt sleeves rolled, not neatly, not careless. A plain outfit, but chosen. As if he’d stood in front of the mirror that morning longer than he meant to.
Kit noticed his hands. Clean, with long fingers and a way of holding things like they were all breakable. He had crouched by Geng without hesitation and spoken to him with real voice, not a tourist’s coo. Geng didn’t try to bite his hand off, and that said something.
He watched. Quietly, without needing to be invited. Not like a journalist, Kit had met a few, but like someone used to moving through places alone. Someone who expected not to be noticed but noticed everything in turn.
Kit had felt it. The attention. The kind of awareness that crept under the skin if you let it. When he was at the stove, when he turned his head. When he said almost nothing. The man had watched him as if silence itself were a kind of reply.
