Inside the house Evan Shook encountered two squatters, an attractive woman with frosted blond pigtails and a flabby guy who looked younger.
“Please don’t get mad,” the woman began.
“Clear out right now, before I call the cops.”
The man said, “Bro, we took a major hit. This is not where we want to be.”
It was the woman doing most of the talking, some hard-luck story about her purse being stolen, all their cash and credit cards. Evan Shook wasn’t even pretending to listen.
“And this was supposed to be our second honeymoon,” she concluded sadly.
That part Evan Shook heard, with vexation; the woman was way too hot to be sleeping with such a zero. Evan Shook was unaware that people said the same thing about his mistress. Recently she’d been harping at him to leave his wife, demands inflicted at the cruelest bedroom moments. He couldn’t afford a messy divorce, just as he couldn’t afford to diddle for another six months with the Big Pine spec house. Between the construction loan and the property mortgage, the bank had him by the short and curlies.
“We tried camping,” the male squatter piped up, “but, dude, the fuckin’ skeeters!”
Evan Shook checked around. Except for the strange couple’s tent, the place was in good shape for the Lipscombs. The menacing pentagram on the floor had been painted over by a select member of the construction crew, a Sikh carpenter who took no stock in silly Western superstitions. It was also he who’d disposed of the icky Santeria artifacts, lobbing the stiffened rooster into the canal and granulating the rodent skull with a belt sander.
The cute woman in pigtails said, “We weren’t trying to make trouble. We just needed somewhere dry and safe.”
“This’ll be a cool-ass crib when it’s done,” her companion added for ingratiation.
Evan Shook nodded brusquely. “Yup. A real cool-ass crib.”
Over the phone the Lipscombs had sounded like long shots. The guy claimed to be a retired hedge funder who was now raising trotters. He said he was driving all the way to Florida because the wife refused to fly ever since their Lear 45 had clipped a cow elk on the runway at Jackson Hole. He said they already owned a seaside spread at Hilton Head and a cottage up on the Boundary Waters. Evan Shook responded with cordiality but not gushing enthusiasm. It was his experience that people with serious money didn’t broadcast their real estate portfolios to strangers who were angling to peddle them another property.
But maybe the Lipscombs were real. Maybe his luck would change.
The woman said, “I’m begging you, don’t call the police. We have nowhere else to go.”
Evan Shook opened his billfold and peeled off two, three, four hundred dollars. “Pack up your stuff and go get a room.”
When the woman leaned forward to kiss his cheek, Evan Shook caught a heartbreaking glimpse down her blouse. “God bless you,” she said.
What God? he thought. In half an hour she’ll be balling this slob in a hotel I’m paying for.
Her lump-faced boyfriend solemnly took his hand. “Thanks, dude. I mean, duuuuude.”
It’s so tragic, thought Evan Shook. So wrong.
· · ·
The phone number for Christopher Grunion obtained by Rosa—the last number dialed by Dr. Gomez O’Peele—was disconnected. Yancy had planned to call Grunion out of the blue, pretending to be an insurance broker or maybe a Republican pollster. He’d just wanted to hear what the prick who tried to kill him sounded like.
His room on Lizard Cay was fine; the AC was anemic but he had a striking view of the white flats, veined with tidal channels shining sapphire and indigo. Offshore Yancy could see a slow-chugging mail boat; otherwise the horizon was empty. He heard the Caravan lift off from Moxey’s airstrip and pass over the motel on a slow turn toward Nassau. The pilot seemed like an okay guy although his bullet-headed passenger was bad news. Apparently the thug was connected to Grunion in a capacity of sufficient importance to warrant use of the seaplane for a dental crisis.
Yancy checked his phone and found a snide message from Caitlin Cox:
“Listen, Inspector, I think you oughta know what just happened. That judge in Miami declared my dad officially dead, whatever, so can you please leave us all alone and get back to your annoying life?”
The court’s decision didn’t surprise Yancy. Nick Stripling’s mangled arm was sufficient evidence of death. That it had been unearthed later from the grave and then ejected from a stolen vehicle would have no bearing on the judge’s ruling as to whether or not Stripling was in fact deceased. How he got that way—by mishap or homicide—was likewise irrelevant. Yancy wondered how long it would take Caitlin to get her slice of the insurance payoff, and whatever else Eve Stripling had promised.
He picked out a bicycle from the motel’s rusty selection and rode to Rocky Town. It was critical to avoid Eve and her boyfriend, either of whom might recognize Yancy even in yuppie fishing garb. Unfortunately, he was the only white man on the streets, and the only white man at the seafood shack where he stopped to eat. A woman dicing conch behind the bar was so friendly that Yancy took a chance and said he was looking for a fellow American named Christopher. She gave a roll of the eyes and then one of those fabulous island laughs. Before long she was telling Yancy all about Grunion’s ambitious project, the Curly Tail Lane Resort.
“Yeah, mon, dey gon have a spa and clay tennis and a chef dot’s from some five-star hotel in Sowt Beach.”
“Sounds spectacular,” Yancy said.
“You friends with Mistuh Grunion back in Miami?”
“I am. Where does he usually hang out around here?”
“Ha, he dont hang no place. You see ’im drive sometime tru town but mostly he stay at Bannister Point. ’Im and his lady rent dot Gibson place. She come by every now ’n’ then to pick up some chowder. Wot’s your name, mon? Have another rum.”
Yancy ordered one more Barbancourt with his meal. He dealt with the conch salad painstakingly; each incoming bite was picked apart by fork and then scrutinized for insect pieces. The locals who were witnessing this dour procedure snickered among themselves, but Yancy carried on. It seemed unlikely that Rocky Town was large enough to have a full-time health inspector, if such a job even existed on Andros. The conch shack was just that, an open-air bar next to a hill of gutted mollusk shells. No government health certificate was posted on the plywood menu board, only the boozy jottings of sailboaters and tourists.
Still, the food was excellent. After he finished eating, Yancy climbed on the clattering bike and set off in the starless night for the motel. At the bottom of a hill his front tire caught a pothole and he spilled sideways, landing on his back. He was sitting on the broken pavement and swearing aloud when he heard a motor.
From the crest of the roadway a single white light descended slowly. It was too small to be the headlamp of a motorcycle. Yancy leaned his bike against a utility pole. The white light weaved on its approach, the hum of the squat vehicle growing louder. Yancy still wasn’t sure what he was looking at, though now he could hear a smoky voice, singing and laughing.
It was a woman piloting some sort of souped-up wheelchair, which she braked to a halt when its narrow beam fell upon Yancy. She was dressed flamboyantly and followed by heavy-lidded matrons who clapped softly and rolled their heads. On the steering bar of the motorized scooter perched a monkey wearing a doll’s plastic tiara and an ill-fitted disposable diaper.
“You hoyt, suh?” the throned woman asked Yancy.
“I’m good. Took a tumble off the bike is all.”
“You a white fella? Don’t lie. Where you from?”
She looked bony and harmless, yet Yancy experienced a spidery chill. The woman wore a wrap of pink batik on her head and swigged from a tall glass that barely fit in the cup holder. Although it was too dark on the road for Yancy to see her features, the gleam of a gapped smile was unmistakable. Something about her pet monkey didn’t seem right.
She said, “Dot’s Prince Driggs. He’s a
movie star! You two handsome boys shake honds.”
“No, that’s okay.”
The monkey growled and thrust out a brown paw.
“Better do it,” the woman warned Yancy, “or he fuck you up bod.”
Yancy shook the moist little fist and said, “Well, I’d better be going.”
“Take a ride wit me, suh. I’ll sit on dot strong monnish lap a yours.”
“Thanks, anyway. That’s a spiffy wheelchair, though.”
“Ain’t no fuckin’ wheelchair! You tink I’m a cripple?” To display her agility she hopped up, causing her attendants to flutter and fuss.
Indignantly the woman said to Yancy, “Wot dis ting is, boy, is lux’ry transport. Even got a iPod dock!”
“Sweet.” He leaned closer to read the label on the mobile chair. It was a Super Rollie, the same brand that Nick Stripling’s company had billed to Medicare in imaginary numbers.
“Can I ask where you got this?”
“From a friend. Woman like me has plenny friends.” She resettled herself in the contoured seat and smoothed the folds of her colorful skirt.
Yancy said, “I’d really like to have a scooter like this.”
“Maybe you lucky. Let’s talk sum bidness.”
The woman seized the fly of Yancy’s pants and tugged him halfway on top of her. Zestfully she began to grope, her husky grunts reeking of rum and stale cigars. Yancy was shocked to feel the wiry old drunk fishing for his balls. He fought to get free but the monkey hooked three sinewy fingers through one of his belt loops. Only when Yancy pinched the hairless web of its armpit did the beast let go, screeching.
“No, no, don’t hoyt my prince!” the woman cried. “Bey, I gon pudda black coyse on your soul! Black as det!”
Yancy pulled out of her grasp and jumped back from the scooter chair. The riled monkey hurled first his tiara and then the diaper, which landed in a sodden lump at Yancy’s feet. As the matrons rumbled toward him, he kicked off his flip-flops and ran.
The last leg of the crossing got rough, and a few passengers began to throw up. Neville watched tall clouds building in the east as the breeze strengthened. The captain of the mail boat said a tropical storm was heading up from Hispaniola, which wasn’t uncommon that time of year. He said the storm was called Françoise, which meant nobody would take it seriously. He said the hurricane forecasters in Miami should give scarier names to the storms—like Brutus or Thor—if they wanted people to pay proper attention.
Neville didn’t own a television so his weather news came from the waterfront. Usually it was reliable. Some of the guides and fishermen had programmed their cellular phones to receive NOAA bulletins and radar loops; whenever they started moving their boats into the mangroves, Neville knew something big was coming. His own boat ran skinny, and he could take it up almost any creek on a low tide and tie off to the trees.
Still, he wasn’t worrying about the tropical storm when the mail boat docked. Françoise could slide north or south, or fizzle to a squall line by the time it touched Andros. Neville was more concerned by what was happening at the family property on Green Beach. He needed a new strategy for halting the construction of Curly Tail Lane, his voodoo scheme having failed. By seducing Christopher’s henchman the Dragon Queen had placed her own lustful urges ahead of her professional commitment to Neville. No crippling curse would be unleashed against the white devil; Christopher would have to be brought down by worldly means.
Neville’s bike was at the airport so he passed on foot through Rocky Town, keeping a wary eye out for Egg. Still bruised from the beating, Neville longed to sleep on a real mattress instead of a boat deck. Among his three girlfriends the one named Joyous owned the softest bed but the hardest attitude. Neville decided he could endure another nagging if the payoff was a good night’s rest. Joyous slept like a stump and seldom snored.
She lived near Victoria Creek, and the walk brought Neville close to the property on Bannister Point where Christopher and the woman were staying. On a whim he left the road and made his way to the shoreline. The wind had swung southeast, pushing white-topped surf. Neville sat down on a coral outcrop with a rear view of the Gibson place. From behind him came a soft rustle in the bushes—two plump lizards humping in the last of daylight.
Neville was thirsty and tired from the slow rolling ride on the mail boat. His chin dropped to his chest and his eyelids closed as he pondered the difficult path he’d chosen. People said he was mad not to walk away from Green Beach and take the money. They laughed about it at the conch shack and called him a simpleton, which stung. By nature Neville wasn’t a troublemaker; just the opposite. Never in his life had he thrown a punch in anger or caused a scene, but here was a fight from which he couldn’t turn away.
What would he ever do as a rich man that he couldn’t do now? Where would he go, and for God’s sake why? He already lived in the loveliest place imaginable and, besides, he didn’t like to fly. That’s why he took the mail boat back from Nassau, seven hours by sea being more tolerable than twenty minutes by air.
Neville couldn’t think of anything to buy with all that dirty wealth. His old bicycle carried him everywhere a car could go, and it didn’t cost six damn dollars a gallon. Nor did he need a new fishing boat. The one he owned ran like a champ; the motor was a Yahama 150, way past warranty, but never had it stranded him, not once. He wondered if something was mentally wrong with him for being content with what he had …
When he opened his eyes, night cloaked the shore. The lights were on inside Christopher’s house. Neville got up from the rock and crept closer, approaching the landscaped edge of the lawn. Music came from speakers on the screened veranda—American rock. Baby, we were born to run! Neville brushed a mosquito from his nose. Through the windows he saw no movement inside the rooms. By an outside wall stood the plastic garbage can from which he’d pilfered the items he’d given to the Dragon Queen for use in her curses.
Something soft brushed against Neville’s legs and he hopped backward. It was a young tabby cat, probably a stray. As he leaned down to pet it, a man spoke from the darkness behind him: “Don’t move, nigger, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off.”
Neville rose slowly and turned. “Don’t do dot please.” The gun pointed at him had a long double barrel.
“Who the hell are you? Why you sneakin’ around here?” Christopher’s face was difficult to see in the shadows though his orange poncho practically cast its own light. It made him appear tall and caped and spirit-like.
“I juss chasin’ offer my cot,” Neville said.
“That’s not your fuckin’ cat.”
“Respeckfully, sir, it looks true like ’im.”
Unfortunately, the tabby wouldn’t play along. It ran off when Neville reached to pick it up. Christopher laughed.
Neville could see the whites of the man’s eyeballs but not his nose or mouth. He perceived that Christopher was wearing a clinging fabric mask similar to what the local bonefish guides used to protect their faces from sunburn.
“Okay, beach nigger, what’s your name?”
“Neville Stafford.”
“Where you from? How old are you?”
“I’m sickty-four.”
“No shit? You’re in pretty good shape for an old fart.”
“Dot I cont say.” Neville wished he was younger and quick enough to grab for the gun. Then he would have pressed the muzzle to the man’s forehead and told him to take his goddamn earthmoving machines back to Florida.
Now all Neville could do was stand still and plead for his life. In his head he said a prayer; then he asked Christopher to please kindly let him go.
“So you wanna make it to your next birthday, is that right?”
“Yah, mon,” said Neville.
“My country, you get free insurance when you hit the big six-five. Government pays damn near all the bills, you get sick. They got the same deal here in the islands?”
“Dot I cont say. I ain’t been sick.”
Again
Christopher laughed through the mask. “Good for you, nigger.” He raised the barrel of the gun. “That means you can still run like a goddamn chicken.”
He aimed five feet above Neville’s head and a bolt of blue-gold fire punched a hole in the night. Neville ran and ran.
Seventeen
Nobody on Andros seemed especially worried about Tropical Storm Françoise. For a day the system had stalled down near Grand Turk; now it was sidling northwest again. The National Hurricane Center said atmospheric conditions were favorable for cyclonic growth. At this announcement, a TV weatherman in Miami began jabbing in febrile excitement at the floridly rendered “cone of doom”—a forecast map illustrating multiple possible pathways of the storm through the Bahamas chain and across toward Florida.
Yancy was watching on a flat-screen television in a second-story restaurant overlooking the Tongue of the Ocean. After the weather update he turned his attention to a bowl of chunky red chowder; submerged insect fragments would be hard to detect among the diced onions and celery. Yancy probed with a teaspoon. The night before he’d squashed seven adult-phase German cockroaches in his motel room; the largest was a flier that had alighted on his forehead as he slept.
The restaurant owner, an American expat with a white-streaked ponytail, asked, “What are you doing, mister?”
“Taking my time,” Yancy said.
“It’s only the best soup on the island. I use fresh-growed tomatoes.”
Eventually Yancy took a sip. He bowed at the man and said, “Outstanding.”
“Damn right.”
“How’s the bonefishing?”
“Super, if you can stand the heat.”
“I love the heat,” Yancy said.
A plane passed overhead, the pitch of the engine dropping during descent. Yancy hurried from the restaurant and pedaled his borrowed bicycle through gusty winds to the airstrip, where he found the white seaplane parked near the small terminal building. Claspers, the pilot, was talking on a cell phone while he set the wheel chocks. Standing alone by the fence was the beefy pinhead with the crumpled ears. He wore a brown guayabera, wet moons under the armpits. One side of his mug was shiny and swollen, testifying to an eventful dental appointment.