A Fierce and Subtle Poison Read Free Page A

this coffee?”
    “Just before you came in, señor,” Juan replied. “As we usually do.”
    “It doesn’t taste very fresh. Please brew another pot.”
    The waiter shuffled away mumbling a half-hearted apology. My dad abandoned the first question he asked me—because the answer was obvious—and shot me another.
    “Have you thought any more about where you want to do your college visits?”
    I hadn’t. He knew I hadn’t. We both had a common understanding that so long as I didn’t prove myself totally incompetent, upon graduation from wherever I went, where I would get whatever GPA, I’d be handed a position at my dad’s firm in Houston, quickly rise through the ranks, and be able to spend my summers out here in the Antilles. I wanted a shack on some remote beach where I could spend my days alone. Very infrequently, I would leave my shack, drive around the island with my assistant, and say things like, “Build a resort there. Make sure the decor is chic and modern. Make sure it’s eco-conscious. People love that kind of thing these days.”
    Ignoring my dad, I looked back to my plate, picked up a slice of cantaloupe, nibbled the flesh, and then tossed it back down.
    “Lucas.”
    My dad had placed his folded paper across his empty plate. This meant it was time for him to impart some of his precious wisdom upon me.
    “What happened to your face?”
    My face. Right. I reached up, felt around gingerly with the pads of my fingers, and winced at a sore spot just above my eye. I remembered more of last night: the stones, the shape perched at the top of the wall. I took a sip of water; it had a metallic tang.
    “I fell near El Morro,” I replied, poorly covering up a gag.
    My dad sighed. “I’m all for you having a good time with your friends, Lucas, but let’s try to bring it down a notch.” A fly buzzed around his head, probably attracted by the sweet smell of his pomade. “Jorge told me about you coming home at three-thirty in the morning, tripping over your own feet and ranting about some girl who cursed you.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I don’t know what it is you do all night long, aside from hang out with local kids and get drunk on
my
rum, but I’m warning you about getting into personal relationships with island girls, if you understand what I’m saying.”
    Oh, I understood what he was saying. And if I’d had a clearer head, what I said next might never have left my lips.
    “Mom was an ‘island girl.’ You got into a ‘personal relationship’ with her.”
    My dad responded in slow motion. First, he set his porcelain coffee cup back on its saucer. Then he placed the saucer on the glass top of the table. Leaning back in his seat, he fingered the brim of his hat as he decided what to say. He could tell me to watch my smart mouth. He could laugh and say
touché.
He could brush it off, blaming my hangover. Or he could change the subject to one less off limits.
    “I’m looking out for you.” He grimaced as he pinched a minuscule piece of lint from his hat. “I only wish that someone would’ve cared enough to give me that same bit of advice before it was too late.”
    While my dad took his hat off his knee and rose to standing, I tried to not interpret his remark as him regretting my very existence. He pulled his mirrored Ray-Ban aviators from his jacket pocket and slid them on before checking his reflection in the glass of the table and giving himself a satisfied smirk.
    El patrón.
    “I’m going to Rincón tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be gone for the night and most of the next day. I’ll leave the address with the front desk before I go if you decide you want to take a car and meet me. I know you’ve always liked it out there, though I still can’t understand why.”
    Rincón was less than a hundred miles from San Juan, but seemingly another world. To me, it was beautiful just as it was, all trees and big, big waves. My dad thought differently, though. To him, Rincón