Gone Bamboo

  She smiled and let the gun drop a little. The safety was still off, though, and he remembered that she had a round in the hole, ready to go. He poured himself a drink. Fuck it. New rules.

  "You broke your radio," she said, referring to his VHF; its plastic housing shattered, in his chest pocket.

  She had to know. She'd been sitting there watching Henry, watching Tommy, Charlie Wagons, the chase boat. The whole pretense falling to bits around him, Burke took a big gulp of Bloody Mary, blinking into the sun.

  "Those your friends in the speedboat?" she asked. It was not really a question but an observation. "Hope they didn't pay over a hundred for it. If they did, they got robbed."

  In fact, Burke knew, the boat had cost them two hundred for the day. He had used his own Visa card for the deposit; the boat's owner was a rummy-looking Frenchman with no love for Americans.

  "Fuel line's fucked," the woman said. "They'll be lucky if they get in without a tow." She came over, poured herself a drink, and left the Glock on the table next to the pitcher.

  "What happens now, lady?" asked Burke. "I'm sorry, really sorry about this. I guess I got the wrong room. That's all I can say."

  "Donald Burke," she said. "That's your name?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'm Frances." She pulled over a chair and sat down. Together they watched the two boats for a while. The Chris-Craft was around a half mile offshore now, drifting slowly in the water, lines out, Charlie's seated figure just visible in the aft, Henry and Tommy nearby. The speedboat was a few hundred yards away, idling in the sun. "Nothing sinister about my husband if that's what you were looking for," said Frances, casually. "Relax. Whoever the rich guy on the boat is . . . he's got nothing to worry about. You really shouldn't have bothered."

  "Sorry," said Burke, rubbing the bump on his head.

  "That looks like it hurts," she observed, not terribly sympathetic.

  "It's okay," said Burke. The bleeding had stopped at least. With luck, nobody at the house would notice. "You gonna call the cops?" he asked.

  "I don't know. I guess not."

  "I appreciate it, really."

  "What the fuck, right?" she said, raising her glass. "Cheers."

  He was going to survive this. No disgrace. No investigation. No younger agents snickering at him in the hallways. He'd still have a job.

  She got up, and he forced himself to think about something other than what he'd felt when he'd reached for his wallet.

  She went into the bathroom and was in there a long time. When she came out she was dressed.

  "You still here?" she said. "I figured you'd be gone by now."

  "No . . . sorry . . . I . . .," Burke stammered.

  "No, that's okay, finish your drink. I'm just going out. I have to do some shopping in town. If it'll settle your mind, you can search the room. There's nothing to see. No body parts in the fridge, no codebooks. We're both registered Democrats. Henry's a well-respected, well-liked member of the community down here. Ask around if you like. Maybe you mistook him for someone else. Actually, we're a very boring couple."

  Burke doubted that very much. He got up to leave, retrieving his wallet from the floor on the way out.

  He got behind the wheel of the jeep, his head aching, his shirt, drenched through with sweat, stuck to the vinyl seat. He felt a million things at once. He felt relieved. He felt humiliated. He was a little drunk. How much vodka had she put in that pitcher of Bloody Marys? He was worried and anxious, more curious than ever about Henry. There had to be something to a man with a wife like that. And more troublesome still, worse even than the glimpse he got of himself in the rearview mirror - an aging, defeated, frightened man - was the tightening in his throat, the feeling, which he hadn't had since adolescence, of having been somehow . . . jilted.

  21

  As soon as they'd cut the engine, Henry came back to sit on the gunwale and smoke a cigarette. Charlie's line was limp in the water, the old man looking uncomfortable in the sun.

  "Does it hurt?" Henry asked Charlie, giving him a long, meaningful look.

  "It hurts," said Charlie. "Every day it hurts."

  "I'm sorry," said Henry, shaking his head.

  "I gotta take pills," said Charlie.

  "I gotta take pills," said "That's a bitch."

  Charlie held up a hand to stop Henry from saying more and undipped the VHF radio from his hip.

  "Tommy, baby, take this thing downstairs there. Maybe those guys . . . they got a bug innit maybe. I don't want them findin' out any fishin' secrets." He looked disdainfully over at the speedboat, a few hundred yards off the port bow, drifting aimlessly, Rick and Woody, their shirts off, lying back in their seats, watching though binoculars.

  When Henry and he were alone, Charlie looked at him hard and said, "It was you, wasn't it? You shot me."

  "Yeah," said Henry. "It was me."

  "I always thought so," said Charlie. "Soon as I come around there, I think, Henry. Henry was up there somewheres. He done this."

  "I figured you'd know. If you lived . . ."

  "You fucked up big time," said Charlie.

  "Yeah."

  "I guess Pazz is pretty pissed off at you. He prolly wants a piece a' you almost as bad as he wants me. You get paid in advance?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then you can count on it. Jimmy don't like to pay for nothing he can't wear. Especially things don't work the way they supposed to."

  Henry shrugged and looked out at the water.

  "Danny . . . Now that, that was good shootin'. I saw it happen. I seen that, I started to haul ass, I can tell you. Almost made it too." Charlie played with his reel for a second, winding it in, then letting it out again. "I shit in a bag now," he said. "They . . . the doctors there, they gave me a colostomy. You know what that is?"

  "Yeah. I heard. I'm sorry, Charlie, really. I felt bad as soon as I read about it."

  "They cut me a new asshole," said Charlie, a bitter chuckle escaping.

  "You mad at me?" asked Henry.

  Charlie only shrugged. "He hadn't got you, he woulda got somebody else."

  Tommy returned and sat down, protectively near Charlie, on a cushioned seat by the helm, his jaw set in a look of enforced seriousness. Henry took Charlie's fishing pole, reeled in the hook, and baited it with a piece of turkey dog from an open can.

  "They like that, the fish?" said Charlie. "That works?"

  "Yeah," said Henry. "They love it. Some friends a' mine down here, they run a sea walk on the other side of the island. They take people out with like diving bells over their heads, weight belts, and they look at the fishes. They've been hand-feeding the fish turkey dogs for years. To keep them around. Give the tourists something to look at for their money."

  "Pazz gonna want to feed you to some fish," said Charlie, taking back the pole. "He must figure you brought him all kindsa trouble with me testifyin' and all."

  Henry looked over at Tommy, uncomfortable about talking in front of him.

  "You don't gotta be shy about Tommy," said Charlie. "He knows. He knows what you do. He ain't prejudiced."

  Tommy looked away, avoiding Henry's eyes.

  "You gotta be livin' in the worst place inna world, my friend," said Charlie. "Right down the street from me." He laughed out loud. "That fat fuck Jimmy. He's sittin' up there right now, tryin' to find me, tryin' to figure out a way to shut my mouth for good . . . and here you are. His whole fuckin' hit parade, livin' in one place." He adjusted his sunglasses and relaxed in his chair a little. Taking one foot out of its sandal, he rested it on the gunwale and wiggled his toes. "This feels nice."

  "Think he'll come looking?" asked Henry.

  "Oh, yeah," said Charlie. "He'll send somebody around, eventually. You know Jimmy had his own brother whacked? D'you know that?"

  "No, I didn't," said Henry.

  "Well, he did. His brother made fun of him at a party. For dressin' up. Most people didn't know back then. Jimmy was still just a skipper, and his brother got drunk and told a
bunch a' people at a party. They found him 'bout a month later upstate. He had a size fourteen woman's shoe stuffed in his mouth. What kinda animal kills his own brother?"

  "The feds treating you okay?" asked Henry.

  "Far as it goes. What can you expect from cops? I'm still inna hospital when they start to pile on. Say they're gonna transfer me to Bellevue I don't cooperate, let Jimmy finish the job. I'm lyin' there, half outta my fuckin' mind on the dope they give you. I got tubes runnin' in, runnin' out, I don't know if I'm even gonna walk again, and these fucks are sittin' there, askin' this, askin' that. Every time I wake up, this one guy is sayin', 'Charlie, Charlie. You tole us this and that an' the other thing. How about you just fill in a few more little details?' Course, I go, 'What the fuck you mean? I didn't say boo!' But they got me believin' it. They're tellin' me, 'Charlie, you just said . . . when you was a little woozy back there . . . Maybe, maybe you don't remember.'"

  Charlie let out a deep breath, the memory clearly painful. "Course, what they was doin' was just readin' from the fuckin' files they got. They'd read up the wiretaps they had, other stuff people was tellin' 'em. And then they'd make like it was me that said it. This one guy, he's alone with me for a while, and he leans over an' says, 'Charlie, Charlie . . . we gonna tell the papers. They gonna be sayin' you fuckin' blabbed anyways. Let it go. You're a sick man . . . very sick. Even if you make it out the hospital, whaddya think it's gonna be like for you, gettin' pushed aroun' Marion like Raymond Burr? Some nigger gonna come at you with a shank, you can't even run away?'"

  "Fucked up," said Henry, feeling genuinely bad for the old man.

  "No shit." His thin lips trembling slightly, Charlie said, "So I did what they wanted. I fuckin' ratted on Jimmy fuckin' Pazz an' every yellow, mutt cocksucker in his crew. I didn't say nothin' about Dogs, but I told 'em all I ever knew about Danny. I figured he was dead anyways, so I put a lot a' stuff on him. They prolly dug up Danny's cellar lookin' for fuckin' Hoffa, time I was through talkin'. . . They don't care. They don't give a shit about nothin' but makin' a case against Pazz. I help put Jimmy away and my deal is finished. Spend the rest of my life fishin' . . . Where are the fuckin' fish anyways?"

  "Jesus, Charlie, I don't know. This the first time I've been."

  "That figures. Well, I hope I catch somethin'. I was shootin' my mouth off, tellin' everybody I was gonna land the fuckin' big one. I better get somethin'. It'll look bad. You sure about these turkey dogs?"

  "The fish I saw sure seemed to like them," said Henry. "Tear the things right out of your hands."

  "I hope so."

  "So . . . you liking it down here? All things considered?"

  "Yeah," said Charlie. "Funny thing. I am. The kids. You know . . . you met Cheryl . . . it's nice bein' around. The weather . . . I bought the place back inna fifties. Before Castro. Everybody else was in Cuba. I got this. Never got down here much. It was always one thing or the other. Always somethin'. Twenny years - couldn't talk onna phone, even pay phones. Always lookin' over my shoulder. I was spendin' more time with the fuckin' lawyers than I was with my friends . . . and half a' my friends are either talkin' with the cops or they was talkin' with Jimmy. Fuck it. I ain't sad I turned my back on it."

  "You didn't have a lot of choices," said Henry.

  "Yeah," said Charlie. "I always used to see you. All tan, lookin' relaxed. I'd say to myself, This guy's got it all figured out. Come into town for some work, make a little money, and poof! Gone. Off there somewhere's where they got sun and the beach."

  Charlie looked up suddenly, remembering something. "How's that wife a' yours? Frances. Howzat crazy broad? Tommy here says you still together."

  "She's good, thanks. She sends her love."

  "Does she? Does she?" Charlie laughed. "That crazy bitch. Good! Good! I'm glad youse still together. That's great . . . Tommy, you met Frances, right?"

  "Yeah," said Tommy, still looking morose, pretending to concentrate on his cigarette.

  "Yeah, yeah," said Charlie. "Cheryl and Frances. Two a' my favorite women. They should know each other. They should be friends."

  "They are friends," said Henry.

  Tommy snorted with disgust.

  "Hey," said Charlie. "Don't be like that. You're actin' like some girl somebody forgot to call." To Henry, he said, "So, Henry . . . what do you want?"

  "I just wanted to have a talk. Now that we're neighbors and all. . . see if we could bury the hatchet. Sensible thing . . . sensible thing as soon as I found out you were here, was to just pick up and run away. I didn't want to do that. Frances doesn't. For once, I thought, fuck sensible."

  "Now you seen me, the marshals, they gonna be in your fuckin' shorts."

  "I imagined they would be," said Henry.

  "How hard can they look before you got a problem?" asked Charlie.

  "I don't know. Pretty hard, I guess."

  "So. Another thing we got in common," said Charlie, slapping Henry's knee. "We both got a lotta people interested in us."

  "What's the other thing?" asked Henry.

  "The other thing? The other thing is, some a' the things we done, we feel bad about now. Am I right?"

  "You're right," said Henry, his smile disappearing.

  The reel on Charlie's fishing pole started to spin, fast and hard, surprising the three men. Tommy jumped to his feet, startled.

  "Holy shit!" cried Charlie, overjoyed. "I got one! Son of a bitch!"

  22

  Something less than a full moon illuminated the grassy crest of Crystal Mountain, the windy bluff that guarded the mouth of the Oyster Pond, opposite the hotel. Frances stubbed her toe on a rock and grunted with pain.

  "Hurt yourself?" inquired Henry, moving past her in the dark.

  "You could say that," said Frances, limping after him.

  "No flashlight yet, okay?" said Henry. "Sorry."

  "Yeah, yeah."

  Below them, at the bottom of a steep slope, waves exploded against the rock and coral. The churning white water almost glowed in the moonlight. Gusts of wind combed the tall, silver-peaked grass, whipping it one way, then another. Here and there, little round humps of cactus poked out of the grass, and a dark pile of boulders at the very top of the hill threw long, black shadows.

  Henry found the spot, just beyond the drop-off, and began to dig, using his folding field shovel. Frances, sitting on a rock, swatted a mosquito on her neck and said, "What could I do? I was thinking about shooting the guy but, really, right in the hotel? I didn't know who knew he was there. The noise would have been ridiculous."

  "You did exactly the right thing," said Henry, still digging.

  "I just figured, what's the point?"

  "We have to assume we're blown. I mean, if the one guy is so interested, others will be too. It's really just a matter of time."

  "If I thought we had to split the island 'cause of him, I would have killed him," said Frances. "That's not going to happen, is it?"

  "Not yet," said Henry. "Really. You did the right thing. Shooting federal marshals is not something we should be doing right now. Too bad he didn't die of embarrassment."

  "He came close, I think. You should have seen the poor guy, trying to walk with his pants around his ankles."

  Henry's shovel hit something solid.

  "The flashlight," he said. "Just for a second."

  Frances played the beam over the freshly dug hole. Henry plunged his fingers into the soft, sandy earth and tugged on a plastic parcel until it came free. "Okay, turn it off," he said.

  He fiddled with the package for a few minutes, unwinding layers of hurricane tape and plastic trash bag from around a Tupperware container.

  "Your weapon, ma'am," he announced, finally. He tossed a Walther P-5 automatic over to Frances.

  He kept the Heckler and Koch VP70 for himself, then stuffed boxes of 9-millimeter shells into the pockets of his windbreaker.

  "So, who are we planning on shooting?" asked Frances, kicking dirt back into the hole while Henry shoveled.
She slid the Walther into her pants in front, under her sweater. Henry had his weapon in the back pocket of his jeans, sticking out. "I mean, do we have a plan here?"

  "Proper prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance," said Henry, quoting his old drill sergeant. "Be prepared," he added. "That's what the Boy Scouts say."

  "Henry . . ."

  "We were smart, we'd leave. Now. That would be the smart thing," said Henry sadly, the hole filled. "We could pop off to another island, move to one of the other places. The place in Belize would be perfect, for instance. We have no tenant there now . . . There's the place in Antigua that's not too shabby. We could do that."

  "Who has to get shot for us to stay here?" said Frances, impatiently.

  "Don't know, baby," said Henry. "Maybe nobody gets shot."

  "We're not going to leave unless and until it's absolutely, absolutely necessary," said Frances.

  Henry came over and wrapped his arms around her. She hugged him back. Hard. "I don't want to go either," he said.

  "I'm not going," insisted Frances.

  "I got a call from Anguilla the other day," Henry confessed. "From Angus at the real estate office."

  "Yes?"

  "A very suspicious-looking American was asking for the pro­prietor."

  "Meaning you, of course."

  "One would assume so."

  "More cops?"

  "I don't think so. Angus said he came in a car he knew. Hotel car from the Tropica. He thought he should mention it. I have a pretty good idea who owns the Tropica."

  "Thanks for mentioning it to me," said Frances, bitterly. She started back down the hill.

  "I was thinking about what to do," said Henry, catching up to her.

  "I would've liked to have known."

  "Yeah, sorry. I should have said something."

  "So, what you're telling me is Jimmy knows where we are."

  "Not yet, I don't think," said Henry, with less than complete confidence. "He's looking. We can be sure of that. And he's getting close. Like Charlie said, Jimmy's not a forgive-and-forget sort of a guy."