Grand Cayman Slam Page 9

  “I won’t keep you. Not for long. If you say you have business, I believe you. And if you say you escaped Lady James, I believe that too.” She moaned softly. “Why is it I believe everything you say?”

  My left hand stroked her hair. I turned my wrist and checked the Rolex. It was ten twenty-three. I was supposed to meet O’Davis at eleven.

  “Must be my honest face.”

  She tugged at my belt, and the khaki pants began to slide toward the floor.

  “Oh,” she whispered, “look what’s happening.”

  “I have to leave in a half hour. I mean that. No matter what.”

  “Then we had better hurry, Dusky darling,” she said huskily. “I moved some cushions out onto the patio. There’s a party going on down in the harbor, and we’ll be able to see the lights and hear the music from the patio. Hurry, Dusky. Please. We don’t have much time. . . . ”

  10

  As planned, I met the Irishman in Hell.

  But despite my promise, I was twenty minutes late. Diacona Ebanks had a way of making you forget time. With boat lights throwing yellow paths across the night harbor, we had joined again in a frenzy of love and wanting. She was the best of lovers: a woman whose reserve fell away with her clothes.

  “Oh, Dusky, that was wonderful. It’s never been like that before.”

  “And you are one very special lady.”

  “Then promise me you will come again.”

  “Is this a new game of puns?”

  And she had laughed softly in the harbor quiet. “Yes. I feel so delicious and wicked. Promise me—you will return tonight.”

  “It may be very, very late.”

  “I’ll give you a key. Just slide into my bed beside me. Promise?”

  “Okay, Dia. I promise. No matter how late. . . .”

  So I raced the little Fiat along the seaside road of Seven Mile Beach toward West Bay. The road narrowed, the Miami Beach–style hotels slowly thinned out and became small island houses. Huge land crabs moved with ghostly precision across the asphalt as my car lights funneled through the darkness.

  At a giant bend, the road diverged. Rocks jutted from beneath the brush and undergrowth in the moonswept night. A white sign acknowledged I had arrived:HELL

  I smiled in spite of myself. I always knew this day would come—but I never expected to be at the wheel of a Fiat with thoughts of love fresh in my mind.

  Ragged houses lined the road. There were coconut palms in the yards. Windfall mangos added a cloying sweetness to the warm March night.

  The club Inferno was a gray-and-white concrete building built on a slab. A dozen cars sat in a jumble upon the shell parking lot. A neon sign in the window promised Red Stripe beer. A handpainted sign at the door warned: Enter at Your Own Risk—It’s Hell Inside.

  At least the people of the little Grand Cayman settlement had a sense of humor.

  The windows of the club vibrated with music. The jukebox was turned up high. I went through the door into the loud laughter and the haze of cigarette smoke. The record playing was a clatter of steel drums and island voices: Work all day, work all night—daylight come an’ me wanna go home. . . .

  Black and mulatto faces turned to stare as I entered. A couple of them nodded their welcome, then went back to their laughter and their conversations.

  The Irishman sat at a table by an artificial fireplace. There were photographs of cricket teams on the wall, and a wide-eyed devil mask. Across from him was an older black man with huge shoulders. The black man wore baggy clothes and the kind of sweat-stained hat you see in 1930s detective films.

  O’Davis checked his watch as I took a seat. “Bit late, aren’t we, brother MacMorgan? Did ya get waylaid, now?” He cackled at his own joke, and the black man laughed.

  “Business, you big ugly Irishman. Strictly business.”

  “Ah, course it was. Course it was. Dusky, I’d like ya to meet me neighbor and friend, Mr. Hubbard MacDonnel.”

  He had huge hard hands, knobby with labor. “I was askin’ him about the night poor little Cynthia was murdered,” O’Davis said. “Tell Dusky what ya told me, Hubbard.”

  Hubbard MacDonnel had a thick Cayman lilt. He was given to wide gestures and an infectious grin. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes—he had pale-blue eyes, evidence of Grand Cayman’s tolerance of all the early sea-blown races which had taken harbor on its shores.

  “Didn’ hear much, mon. Not much. An’ ol’ Hubbard don’ miss a trick, neither.” He wiped his mouth with the back of a huge hand, then took a gulp of his Red Stripe. “Heard a car slow, then turn inta Mr. O’Davis’ drive. An’ I thought, ‘Well now, this is very fine. Westy’s gettin’ home early for once, maybe done with all the crazy weekday drinkin’. Kill a mon, it will.’ ”

  “And that’s all you heard?”

  He shook his big head and smiled. “Ain’t done with the story, see? Then I heard another car comin’. But this don’ sound like Westy’s car. Sound deeper. Bigger engine. This car turn, and I think, ‘That big Irishman, he given up the liquor for a pretty island lady. An’ that worse for a mon than strong drink!’ ” He laughed gaily.

  Hubbard MacDonnel finished his beer with another long gulp and gave the bartender a circular wave of the hand, asking for another round. When it arrived, he continued. “Few minutes later, I hear somethin’ else. Maybe a cat lookin’ for romance. Maybe a scream. Then I hear the car with the deep engine race back toward Georgetown. Next mornin’, constable comes. Says this English woman has been murdered. He asks me the same questions as you.” The old Cayman man smiled again. “I figures Westy done kilt her, so I tell the constable nothin’. Didn’ want to get so crazy an Irishman in jail over a woman!”

  “Ah, kind of you, Hubbard, kind of you—but I didn’t kill the lass.”

  “Know that now, man. Didn’ know it then!”

  O’Davis checked his watch. “Dusky, I’m thinkin’ it’s time fer us to get goin’.”

  “One more thing,” I said. I looked at Hubbard. “You know anything about a Jamaican named Onard Cribbs?”

  He looked at O’Davis, as if he preferred the question came from him. The Irishman nodded. “Cribbs,” said MacDonnel, the contempt easy to read in his voice. “Yeah, I know that Onard Cribbs, mon. Flathead Jamaican nigger, what he is. Jamaicans hate the Queen.” He tapped himself on the chest proudly. “We here love the Queen—that the difference, mon. Onard come to dah island maybe year ago. Runnin’ ganja. Marijuana. Cocaine. Who knows what else. Bad mon, that Jamaican nigger. Constable get him once, then let him go.”

  “Why?”

  Hubbard shrugged. “Don’ know, mon. Constable tell him get a decent job or get the hell off Cayman. Onard get a job as caretaker up the road a piece at some big estate. He come in here sometime, but not for long. Us islanders run him out. Even so, we stay away from that estate he care for, mon. Onard one nasty flathead nigger!”

  Hubbard insisted on paying the bar tab, and the Irishman and I left throwing promises over our shoulders that we would come to his house one afternoon for plantain and green-turtle stew.

  Outside, O’Davis and I climbed into the cramped Fiat. He backed out onto the shoulder and headed down the twisting road toward North Sound.

  “That’s a pretty loyal friend you have there,” I said.

  “Hubbard is a fine old man. Salt of the earth, ol’ Hubbard. Employed him aboard me old ship when I had a spot o’ work ta do fer the government. Very handy with his hands, and knows how ta keep ’is mouth closed. Fancied ’imself somethin’ of a secret agent after the job. An’ he’s my eyes an’ ears when it comes to the island folk. Come ta look upon him as me second father.”

  “Good choice,” I said. “It always surprises me when you show good taste, O’Davis.”

  “Hah! An’ how kin I argue that when I have the likes o’ you sittin’ beside me, ya dirty little snit!”

  While we headed for his boat, which he had brought around from Gun Bay Village to the west end of the is
land, I told him about my visit with Lady James, and about my suspicions concerning Sir Conan James.

  “Some of it adds up when you think about it,” I said. “Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that Sir Conan was having an affair with his son’s nanny, Cynthia Rothchild. Then you came along. He gets jealous. And then he follows her. It just so happens that you’re not home. He goes inside and there’s an argument. Sir Conan has a sadistic streak in him. But this time it goes too far. He rips her blouse. She grabs a knife to protect herself, but he takes it away and uses it to murder her.”

  “But Yank, she tol’ me she wasn’t havin’ an affair with him.”

  “Some women lie as good as or better than men. Sir Conan wasn’t home that night—remember? He was away when his son was kidnapped.”

  “But what about the fella in the Jaguar? How would Sir Conan get hold of Cynthia’s stolen car? If he’s as crazy as his wife says he is, I kin understand why he would take shots at me—but how did he get the bloody car?”

  I wiped my face with an open hand. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe the murder and the kidnapping and the attempt on your life are all separate occurrences. Maybe one doesn’t have anything at all to do with the other. Or . . . damn . . . I don’t know.” I looked at O’Davis. “I should have known that if you wanted help it wouldn’t be anything easy.”

  “An’ would I need help if ’twas?”

  “One thing’s for sure—tomorrow, we have to tell your police friend to put a tail on Sir Conan. I don’t like him running around loose.”

  “Yer worried about yer stewardess friend?”

  “And wouldn’t you be? There’s somebody on this island with snakes for brains—and, so far, the arrow points to him.”

  “I’ll tell him,” O’Davis said with a shrug, “but Sir Conan is a very powerful man, brother MacMorgan. They’ll not be pickin’ him up on jest my say-so. They’re goin’ ta need some proof.”

  “Just so long as they watch him.”

  The road took us east across the narrow peninsula of island. There were shapes of small houses and stone fences. A night heron flapped off through the blaze of headlights, a crab squirming in its beak. The roadsigns were round and plain, peppered with buckshot. Australian pines leaned feathered and frail by moonlight. Through a crevice of trees, the water of North Sound spread away from the land, silver and swollen.

  “You brought my gear?”

  “Aye, that I did.”

  “The knife, too?”

  The Irishman nodded. “Yer nasty-lookin’ Randall knife, too. . . . ”

  Bota Bano is a little fishing settlement which, for four hundred years, has watched the explorers and the pirates and the green-turtle hunters come and go. Wooden piers reeled drunkenly into the night sea. Commercial boats were black smudges on the harbor. House lights shimmered across the bay. The place smelled of diesel and hemp. While the Irishman changed clothes, I tested his handheld 200,000-candlepower light. The beam knifed through ten feet of clear water to the coral sand bottom. Sergeant major fish froze in the white glare at the base of a piling. There were beer bottles on the bottom and a rusted fifty-gallon drum. Amber antenna of a half-dozen lobsters protruded from the drum, and a large strawberry grouper rested with heaving gills and malicious eyes.

  “We’ll not be needin’ the light, I’m thinkin’.” O’Davis came out of the cabin, pulling at the zipper of his black wet suit.

  “You’re going to run that little reef cut blind?”

  “It’s either that, Yank, or let them know we’re comin’.”

  “In that case, I’ll say a few Hail Marys while I dress.”

  “Didna know you were Catholic, Yank.”

  “I’m not—but I figure you are. Or once were.”

  Traveling across the night water at forty miles an hour, the shoreline seemed to move—not the boat. I wore my lucky Limey knickers, rubber dive boots, and a black watch sweater. O’Davis hummed his strange Irish tune as he stood at the wheel. The moonlight added a rusty halo to his red hair, and his beard fluttered in the wind.

  We rounded Head of Barkers staying well away from the reef. There were no house lights now, and the shore was a dark haze of coconut palms and Australian pines in the distance.

  “Should be the Canadian’s estate jest ahead.”

  “And the cut through the reef?”

  “Up another quarter mile, I should think.”

  “You think? Christ, you’re going to kill us on the coral before we even have a chance to search the house.”

  O’Davis cackled gaily. “Hah! Wurra, wurra—ye’ve got more Irish in ya than Scotch, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan! Jest leave the drivin’ to me.”

  “But you can’t see a damn thing!”

  “I can hear, Yank. I can hear. Now jest give me a few minutes’ silence!”

  Surf breaking over the reef was a writhing gray line in the moonlight. The ratty cruiser, Rogue, lifted, paused, and nose-dived in the stern sea as we powered toward shore, twin props cavitating at the peak of every wave. Then, suddenly, I could see the narrow surf break of the channel.

  And O’Davis was right—you could hear the difference. Even so, it wasn’t something I would have tried with my beloved Sniper.

  He drove the wheel hard to port, banking west, brought her halfway back, then hard a-starboard.

  The cruiser took a wave over the bow in a warm sheet, there was a heart-stopping jolt as a staghorn crushed beneath us, and then we were free, on the landward side of the reef.

  “By sound, huh?”

  “We made it, didna we?”

  “I’ll go below and see how big the hole is.”

  “Hole? Hah!”

  O’Davis was right. The coral had not damaged the hull. In the weak cabin light, I checked the planking for leaks and found none. Upon the vee-berth rested the two Thompson machine guns, oiled and lethal.

  A quarter mile from the Canadian’s estate, the Irishman dropped the cruiser off plane. The sound of the surf was off to our right now. I got the anchor ready and dropped it when ordered. In the new silence, you could hear the wind in the pines. It leached a warm citric odor from the land.

  You could barely see the neat geometrics of fence and well-kept lawn in the moonlight. There were no lights on in the house.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, Yank.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “We’ll see.”

  “We’ve got a short swim ta shore—maybe two hundred yards.”

  “Good. We’ll swim on our backs and carry the weapons. Remember, if something goes wrong and we can’t make it back to the boat, we’ll meet at the car.”

  “Aye.”

  The Irishman wore mask and snorkel. I opted for just the good Dacor fins. The water was warm, with a current that swept east toward the point. Far off, I could hear the diesel rumble of a boat headed toward North Sound. It ran without lights. I swam on my back, propelling myself with long languid strokes of fin. Ahead, there was a loud swirl and watery whoof as some predatory fish crashed bait.

  I remembered the sharks we had seen earlier. But my Navy SEAL training had long ago dulled my fear of night diving. We had done almost all our patrols in Nam at night. You become a fatalist: If a shark wants you, he’s going to get you. So why worry?

  It had taken me a long two months after recovering from my own shark attack to regain the relaxed attitude of the fatalist and be comfortable again.

  Even so, night is the time for the blue-water killers to come feeding on the reefs. Everything fears them. And they fear nothing.

  We made it to shore okay. My clothes were wet and warm and soggy. I waded backward over the jagged rocks, checking each step before putting full weight down because of the poisonous black-spined sea urchins.

  We hid our dive gear in the brush by a line of coconut palms. I had my knife, a small narrow-beam flashlight, and the Thompson. O’Davis carried two extra clips in a waterproof pouch. He removed the clips and hid the pouch with the rest of our gear.

  �
��Should we spread out when we get ta the fence, Yank?” O’Davis asked in a whisper.

  “No. We’ve got plenty of time. Besides, I don’t want to take the chance of you shooting me by mistake.”

  He snorted in the darkness. “If I shoot ye, Yank, it won’t be by mistake!” His soft laughter blended with the sound of the surf.

  11

  The boat surprised me.

  O’Davis saw it first.

  We had made our way through the moonlight down the rocky stretch of coast. The estate was perched upon a bluff with a twenty-foot sheer ledge. We were looking for a place with plenty of handholds so we could make the climb.

  And that’s when he saw it. He grabbed me by the shoulder. “Looks like we might have company, brother MacMorgan,” he whispered.

  I followed his finger toward the dim shape anchored off a set of wooden steps that led up the bluff. It looked to be a small powerboat, sleek with the common flat racing design of ski boats.

  “That wasn’t there this afternoon.”

  “Yer a smart one, MacMorgan.”

  “If I was smart, I’d be back in Key West having my third cold beer after a supper at the El Cacique.”

  “I’ll buy ya a better supper and colder beer when we’re done here, mate.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  We stood motionless and watched the boat for a long time. When we were sure no one was aboard, I slung the Thompson over my shoulder and climbed the bluff, digging into salt-damp crevices with knees and toes. The steps that led to the sea would have been easier to climb—but also a hell of a lot easier to see in the moonlight.

  I pulled myself over the ledge and crawled to the nearest clump of trees before standing. Across the lawn, the house was huge and pale in the shadows. A wrought-iron fence lined both sides, stopping at the seaward bluff.

  There were still no lights.

  We stayed close together, moving from tree to tree in the milky light. Night birds squawked and palmetto rats scurried high in the trees. There was the distant whine of a jet and a starry spasm of flight beacons as a commercial airliner descended toward the island, bringing more tourists on a late flight from Miami.