Grand Cayman Slam Read online

  “Or more honest.”

  “You struck me as being very intelligent, Mr. MacMorgan. Please don’t tell me I was mistaken.” She purred the next words. “I would be very, very disappointed.”

  “There’s always the butler. You do have a butler, don’t you?”

  Her delicate face hardened momentarily. She slid off the bed and poured herself another glass of wine with the calculated movements of someone who is slightly tight. The nightgown came down to her thighs and moonlight filtered through it. Her ribs were shadows swelling into the ripe curvature of hips and the curled blond mane of sheath.

  She sipped at the wine, her lips wet. She smiled that same remote smile. “Then let me be plain, Dusky. You are very big and very strong, and I would like you to take off your clothes and make love to me. You may treat me as you will—like the lowest whore in creation, if you like. I want you to love me as if it will be our first and only time—because it most assuredly will be.” There was a wryness to her smile now. “And if you came here looking for information, information you shall have. But afterward. And only afterward. . . . ”

  9

  In one motion, she put down the wineglass and stripped the gown up over her head. There was a brief flattening of breasts as she lifted her arms, then she shook her hair back into place.

  “Those are my conditions,” she said.

  She walked through the moonlight toward me and took me in her arms. I found my head tilting downward, finding her mouth with mine, feeling her thighs spread to push herself against me while her fingernails traced their way up and down on the inside of my leg.

  She was pulling me backward, backward toward the bed. And then I was lying beside her as she worked feverishly to unclip my belt. She smelled faintly of perfume, and her tongue tasted like the wine. There was an animal wanting about her; that uncontrollable drive to couple, seed, and be done with it.

  She was having trouble with the belt. It gave me some much needed time to think. I’ve got this pious streak in me. Maybe it’s there to help me think I’m a little more moral than I really am. Or maybe it helps me rationalize the on-and-off loves I’ve indulged in over the last few years. Whatever the reason, it’s there. It was the source of the wave of self-disgust I felt welling up inside me now.

  Sure, it would have been very, very easy to bed the pretty aristocrat and moan and groan in fleeting ecstasy—then somberly shake hands afterward. Another job well done by yours truly, Dusky MacMorgan. And wasn’t it part of the job? She had said as much. If I wanted information then I damn well had to please her first. Just put it on the voucher; that expense account of conscience to be filed away and forgotten.

  And the thought of that revolted me even more.

  I found myself disentangling myself from her arms for the same reason I work out every day and meditate every day and watch the diet: because the mile swim makes the beer taste even colder, and the meditation makes the world seem a little more orderly, and the diet makes the allotted steak and potatoes seem better deserved.

  The Playboy philosophy of sex for sex’s sake only serves to deaden the bedmanship with one you really care for.

  And going a few rounds with the beautiful Lady James would have cost me a hell of a lot more than I would have profited, because it would have poked a hole in that thin veneer of self—the fragile armor we all wear to keep out the cold, cold universe and the uncomfortable truth that we all are nothing more than the briefest fleck on the endless flow of humanity.

  I stood up. There were candles on the stand beside the bed. I stood in the flickering light and slowly unbuttoned my shirt. She lay back naked on the bed, touching herself, watching me.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  She sat up quickly. “You what? My God, what can you possibly . . . ”

  I had the shirt unbuttoned. I pulled it back, turning the scarred side toward her. One long-gone night in the Pacific, I had had a neardeadly run-in with an oceangoing dusky shark. He wasn’t supposed to be in those waters and he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to attack.

  But he did. I made it to shore with the help of a friend, and lived to wear a massive half-moon scar that circled from pelvis down toward my thigh; that and a new nickname.

  I saw her face contort when she saw the sheen of the white mauled flesh.

  “Do you understand?” I repeated. “I can’t.”

  “My God,” she said in a small voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “I was stupid to let it get this far.”

  “But isn’t there anyway you could . . . you could just please me?”

  And suddenly the naked Lady James, all moist and perfumed, was no longer beautiful. Or even passably attractive. The selfishness of her last question made me see her as she was: a pathetic, lonely creature in a woman’s body. And to her, I was nothing more than a vehicle of pleasure. A nonentity. A life-support system for the phallus cure-all she desperately wanted.

  “Sorry,” I said. “If I tried, I’d be miserable for a week.”

  Her disappointment was plain to read. “Oh. Beastly awful—a man as lovely as you in such a fix.” She got quickly to her feet, went to the massive closet, and wrapped herself in a bathrobe.

  “I’m not too wild about it myself.”

  “How did it . . . happen?” The question couldn’t hide her sudden boredom.

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  So I was trading one lie for another: the lie that I was physically unable to serve as her medicinal stud. She fiddled with a box on the nightstand, found a cigarette, and lit it, inhaling deeply. “Would you like a glass of wine before you leave?”

  “No. But I would like to ask you a few questions.”

  The ash of her cigarette glowed bright orange. She studied her watch suddenly as if she were late for an appointment—or as if gauging how much time she had to find a replacement for me. “Yes. Of course. But couldn’t it wait until the morning?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Sure. Your son has been kidnapped by a person or people who think nothing of slitting a woman’s throat, and you want to wait until tomorrow to help.”

  She glowered at me through the candlelight. There was a new coarseness in her voice. “Who do you think you are, talking to me in that fashion? Who do you think you are!”

  I waited and said nothing.

  She gulped down the rest of her drink, then poured another. She looked at me unsteadily, her eyes burning. “You feel contempt for me. Isn’t that right? My poor little Tommy is gone, and you think I should be wringing my hands and crying and praying—well, I have been! But rest assured I will never lower myself to perform in front of your kind! So I tried to get you into my bed. And why not?” She inhaled savagely on the cigarette. “I am familiar with your type, MacMorgan. You can be useful—in bed or in war. But for what else? Men! You men have such inflated opinions of yourselves. But what am I saying? I called you a man. You can’t even claim to be that. Can you? You’re nothing but a big beautiful eunuch. And a detective, no less. Why, you should have become a hairdresser!”

  I wasn’t exactly prepared for the sudden hysteria. It showed on her face and in her eyes.

  “Apparently, your husband isn’t much better—if you have to invite total strangers to your bed.”

  Her grin was malicious. “Ah, clever ploy, MacMorgan. Such a clever way to spur me into conversation about my dear Jimmy. That was your intent?”

  “That’s right.”

  She nodded and slopped more wine into her glass. “Excellent. All right. I’ll tell you. Sir Conan James. Another beautiful man—like yourself. Only much smarter. And with much loftier antecedents. Impeccable breeding. Sterling background. A very old English family, always looked upon with trust and favor by the Court.”

  “So why the sarcasm?”

  “Sarcasm indeed!” She snickered merrily. “And what could prompt such sarcasm? He was a picture student at Sandhurst when we met. Brave on the rugby field, and t
hen fearless in the service of our country. He did all the proper things in the proper ways with never a breath of scandal to soil his precious family name.”

  “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  She smacked her hand down on the nightstand. “It means he has been very bloody shrewd! Don’t pretend you don’t know, MacMorgan! Everyone on this whole bloody island knows about my husband! He likes the ladies—that’s what they all say. And such innocent wording: ‘He likes the ladies,’ indeed!”

  “And you like men.”

  Her face described wonder. “Can you blame me for cuckolding him? Can you? You have no idea what it has been like. Every place we have ever been, he has had a half-dozen mistresses. Or more. He gives them presents, he pays them—whatever it takes.” Her voice lowered. “And then he has to buy them off.”

  “Blackmail?”

  She lit another cigarette, her voice even wilder. “I wish. How bloody easy that would be! Can’t you understand—my husband likes to hurt them. He builds up to it. Just as he built up to it with me! It is his sexual technique; the only way he can be fully satisfied.” She used her hands theatrically. “Ah, but you haven’t seen my scars, have you? Actually, I have only a few—on my back, mostly. He at least had the good grace to wait until after Tommy was born. That is why I have my own room. And my own locks. And my own lovers.” She took a gulp from the wineglass, her hand trembling. “Do you see, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan? My husband, the much honored Sir Conan James, is quite totally insane.”

  “Does your son know?”

  “Who can understand what a child knows? My God, I hope . . . I hope . . . ” Her voice trailed off in sadness. And then: “I used to worry, you know. I used to have this awful dread Tommy would grow up to be like his father.”

  “And what makes you think he won’t?”

  For a second I thought she was going to throw the glass at me. Instead, her voice took on a new hoarseness. “Because my son is perfect. Perfect, do you understand? There is a gentleness in him. A kindness that would forever forbid such madness.”

  “I see.”

  She stood up unsteadily and walked across the room. “Now, dear eunuch, if you have learned quite enough, please leave me.” She swung the door open, a frail pale-haired woman with skull-like eyes in the strange combination of moon and candlelight.

  “One more thing, Lady James.”

  “Yes?”

  “Your husband’s women—are you even the least bit jealous?”

  She snorted with sarcasm. “Jealous? And what wife wouldn’t be?” And then she shook her head. “Mr. MacMorgan, all I feel for those women is pity. A very great pity. The thought of my husband makes me feel ill. . . . ”

  And suddenly, I was in a very great hurry to get to Seven Mile Beach and the Sea Mist Apartments where Diacona Ebanks lived.

  If what Lady James said was true, Sir Conan James had more than a touch of the sadist in him. And he had called asking if he could talk with Dia, and Dia was all too alone. . . .

  I floored the Fiat, skidded through the open gate and out onto the road. I had to keep reminding myself to drive on the left side. The Fiat started missing and popping and complaining when the speedometer hit fifty.

  I checked my Rolex. Nine forty-seven.

  Traffic seemed heavy. And then I realized that it was Saturday night.

  Drivers on Grand Cayman are always erratic. Every curve in the road is a challenge, and every hill a promise of something exciting just over the rim.

  But with the added number of drunks on the road, driving was an honest-to-God war.

  I took my time maneuvering through Georgetown, almost collided once with an old Volvo speeding through a stop sign, then floored the Fiat north on the seaside road which parallels Seven Mile Beach. All the tourist traps and gaudy hotels and restaurants were alive with neon and parking lots jammed with cars. Back in America’s Midwest, it was still a sloppy, freezing spring. But here in the tropics, it was vacation time; the months for Ohio’s and Indiana’s mass of diving and fishing enthusiasts to head for the Caribbean.

  I roared down the road—and right past Dia’s apartment complex.

  A small green sign proclaimed: Sea Mist Apartments.

  I ground the Fiat into reverse, backed up, and then spun into the visitors’ parking space.

  We all have premonitions and unspoken dreads. We see tragedies that are about to happen—but usually don’t.

  But on those rare occasions when our premonitions are right, we congratulate ourselves on our perception, and assure ourselves in our deepest heart of hearts that we can see into the future; that the course of our lives is all preordained.

  And I didn’t like the premonition I was getting now.

  I slammed the door of the Fiat behind me and went running up the stairs, three steps at a time.

  I pounded on the door once. Twice. And still no answer.

  “Damn!”

  And I was just about to run for a telephone and the police, when someone’s eye covered the peephole, and the door swung open.

  “Dusky!”

  It was Diacona. Her smoke-brown hair was parted in the middle and hung down over her shoulders. She wore soft bleached jeans and a gray blouse. There was a paperback book in her hand.

  “Dusky, what is it? You look flushed.”

  I moved past her as she shut the door behind. “Must be the tropical climate.”

  She smiled and hugged me. Her hair smelled of shampoo. She demanded a kiss before any conversation. I was happy to oblige. I had felt emotionally grimy after my near miss with Lady James. All the hatred in her, all the madness, seemed to cling to me like a bad odor.

  But now I felt better again. Dia looked fresh and unspoiled; free of the psychological wear so many women crumble under.

  “I guess I was worried about you.”

  “Um ... that’s a good sign. It means you care for me. I offer this as a token of my appreciation.”

  Her lips were full and moist.

  “You taste fine,” I said.

  “And you do, too,” she answered sleepily. But then her eyes blinked wide open. “You . . . you taste like lipstick! And not the kind I wear!”

  I laughed. There was such a look of childish outrage on her face that I couldn’t help it. “That’s because I was kissing another woman earlier.”

  She backed away from me, hands on her hips. “What a nerve you have. The least you could do is lie about it!”

  “Did I ever tell you that I love your Cayman accent? It’s like a combination of French and Scottish. It might be the prettiest accent I’ve ever heard.”

  She kept backing away. “No, no . . . don’t you try to flatter me now.”

  “You don’t want me to tell the truth and you don’t want me to flatter. Then how about if I just tell you a story?”

  She stopped and looked at me seriously. “Dusky, what’s this all about?”

  So I told her. I told her why I had come to Grand Cayman—without going into the specifics. And I told her how I knew Sir Conan James and about my earlier meeting with his wife.

  And when I had finished, she was stunned. She sat on the couch with her hands folded in her lap for a long moment. “And he always told me that she was the crazy one,” she said incredulously.

  “He was right. She is. But maybe he is, too.” I hesitated, then decided to tell her what had been worrying me. “Do you remember hearing or reading about the woman who was murdered a few days ago?”

  “Yes,” she said, her mahogany skin growing suddenly pale. “It was just awful. She had had her . . . ”

  “Throat cut,” I finished. “She was the friend of a friend of mine. He says she wasn’t involved with Sir Conan. I’m beginning to suspect otherwise.”

  “But Jimmy . . . Jimmy is no murderer!”

  “You don’t know that, Dia. How long did you say you’ve known him? Only a few months?”

  She nodded.

  “Was he ever . . . unusually rough with you? Did
he ever seem to enjoy hurting you?”

  “Dusky, that’s very embarrassing . . . me telling you about the way it was with him.”

  I put my arm around her. “I know. But believe me when I say it doesn’t matter. I need to know.”

  She thought for a moment. “There were times when he seemed to go a bit far. But I . . . I . . . ” She turned her head away from me. “You know, I rather like it that way sometimes.”

  “No, Dia. There’s fun. And then there’s cruelty.”

  She wiped at her forehead. “Now that I think about it, it seems he had been getting a little more extreme—but only lately. I had to ask him to be gentler a few times. And then the way he talked to me the other night while you were here. That seemed very unlike him.” She looked at me quickly. “But Dusky! You don’t really think Jimmy killed that poor woman, do you?”

  “The police have no suspects, Dia. He’s the only one who even comes close.”

  “But what could that possibly have to do with the kidnapping?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing is making any sense. I do know that under no circumstances should you let Sir James into your apartment again. Understand?”

  She nodded, close to tears. “To think . . . ”

  “Do you have a weapon? A gun around the apartment?”

  “Why, no. I’ve always hated the things. Don’t even know how to operate one.”

  I went outside to the Fiat and got the Walther O’Davis had given me. With the clip out, I showed her how to use it. I made her fire a dozen dry rounds. Then I demonstrated how to arm it.

  And when I stood to leave, she fell into my arms. “Dusky, stay. Please stay. I’m so frightened. . . . ”

  I kissed her softly on the forehead. “I can’t. Not tonight.”

  She wrapped her small hands in my hair and pulled my face down to hers. Her lips parted, tongue searching, delicately exploring.

  “I need you,” she whispered.

  The buttons of her blouse strained as my right hand moved up her ribs, cupping the weight of her.

  “But I can’t.”

  Her hands began to move. There was the slow metallic sound of a zipper.