heard from Tucker?” There “It’s all right, lad. Have you was an urgency
in Hanley’s rapidly asked question.
“No. He hasn’t checked in. I thought you might have something.”
“I have, indeed, and I don’t like it at all. I flew back to MO’Bay a
couple of hours ago, and these damn fools here tell me that two black
men picked up Sam’s belongings, paid the bill, and walked out without a
word.”
“Can they do that?”
“This isn’t the Hilton, lad. They had the money and they did it.”
“Then where are you?”
“Goddammit, I took the same room for the afternoon. In case Sam tries
to get in touch, he’ll start here, I figured. in the meantime, I’ve got
some friends asking around town.
You still don’t want the police?”
McAuliff hesitated. He had agreed to Hammond’s command not to go to the
Jamaican police for anything until he had checked with a contact first
and received clearance.
“Not yet, Bob.”
“We’re talking about an old friend!
“He’s still not overdue, Robert. I can’t legitimately report y him
missing. And, knowing our old friend, I wouldn’t want him embarrassed.”
“I’d sure as hell raise a stink over two strangers picking up his
belongings!” Hanley was angry, and McAuliff could not fault him for it.
“We’re not sure they’re strangers. You know Tuck; he hires attendants
like he’s the court of Eric the Red. Especially if he’s got some money
and he can spread it around the outback. Remember Kimberleys, Bob.” A
statement “Sam blew two months’ wages setting up an agricultural
commune, for Christ’s sake.”
Hanley chuckled. “Aye, lad, I do. He was going to put the hairy
bastards in the wine business. He’s a one-man Peace Corps with a
vibrating crotch…. All right, Alex. We’ll wait until tomorrow. I
have to get back to Port Antone’. I’ll phone you in the morning.”
“If he’s not here by then, I’ll call the police and you can activate
your subterranean network-which I’m sure you’ve developed by now.”
“Goddamn right. We old travelers have to protect ourselves. And stick
together.”
The blinding sun on the hot, dirty Caribbean street and the stench of
the telephone mouthpiece was enough to convince McAuliff to return to
Courtleigh Manor, Later, perhaps early this evening, he would find the
fish store called Tallon’s and his arthritic contact.
He walked north on Matthew Lane and found a taxi on Barry Street; a
half-demolished touring car of indeterminate -4 mpg make, and certainly
not of this decade, or the last. As he stepped in, the odor of vanilla
assaulted his nostrils. Vanilla and bay rum, the scents of Jamaica:
delightful in the evening, oppressive during the day under the fiery
equatorial sun.
As the cab headed out of Old Kingston-harbor-front Kingston-where
man-made decay and cascading tropical flora struggled to coexist, Alex
found himself staring with uncomfortable wonder at the suddenly emerging
new buildings of New Kingston. There was something obscene about the
proximity of such bland, clean structures of stone and tinted glass to
the rows of filthy, tin, corrugated shacks-the houses of gaunt children
who played slowly, without energy, with bony dogs, and of pregnant
young-old women hanging rags on ropes salvaged from the waterfront,
their eyes filled with the bleak, hated prospect of getting through
another day. And the new, bland, scrubbed obscenities were less than
two hundred yards from even more terrible places of human habitation:
rotted rat7infested barges, housing those who had reached the last
cellars of dignity. Two dred yards.
McAuliff suddenly realized what these buildings were: banks. Three,
four, five … six banks. Next to, and across from one another, all
within an easy throw of a safedeposit box.
Banks.
Clean, bland, tinted glass.
Two hundred yards.
Eight minutes later, the odd, ancient touring car entered the palm-lined
drive of Courtleigh Manor. Ten yards in from the gates, the driver
stopped, briefly, with a jerk. Alex, who was sitting forward, taking
out his wallet, braced himself against the front seat as the driver
quickly apologized.
Then McAuliff saw what the Jamaican was doing. He was removing a
lethal, thirty-inch machete from the worn felt next to him, and putting
it under the seat. The driver grinned.
“I take a fare into old town, mon. Shack town. I keep long knife by me
alla time there.”
:,Is it necessary?”
“Oh, mon! True, mon. Bad people; dirty people. Not Kingston, Union.
Better to shoot alla dirty people. No good, mon. Put ‘ein in boats
back to Aftica. Sink boats; yes, mon!”
“That’s quite a solution.” The car pulled up to the curb, and McAuliff
got out. The driver smiled obsequiously as he stated an inflated
charge. Alex handed him the precise amount. “I’m sure you included the
tip,” he said as he dropped the bills through the window.
At the front desk, McAuliff took the messages handed to him; there ‘was
an addition. Mr. Latham of the Ministry of Education had telephoned
again.
Alison was on the small balcony, taking the afternoon sun in her bathing
suit. McAuliff entered the room from his connecting door.
She reached out and he took her hand. “Have you any idea what a lovely
lady you are, lovely lady?”
“Thank you, lovely man.”
He gently released her hand. “Tell me about Piersall,” he said.
“He’s at the Sheraton.”
“I know. Room fifty-one.”
“You spoke to him.” Alison obviously was concerned.
“No. That was his message. Phone him in room fifty-one.
Very urgent.”
“He may be there now; he wasn’t when you called.”
“Oh? I got the message just before I talked to you. @9 “Then he must
have left it downstairs. Or used a pay phone in the lobby. Within
minutes.”
Why?”
“Because he was here. I talked with him.”
“Do tell.”
She did, Alison had finished sorting out research notes she had prepared
for the north coast, and was about to take her shower, when she heard a
rapid knocking.from Alex’s room. Thinking it was one of their party,
Alison opened her own door and looked out in the corridor. A tall, thin
man in a white Palm Beach suit seemed startled at her appearance. It
was an awkward moment for both. Alison volunteered that she had heard
the knocking and knew McAuliff was out; would the gentleman care to
leave a message?
“He seemed very nervous. He stuttered slightly, and said he’d been
trying to reach you since eleven o’clock. able asked if he could trust
me. Would I speak only to you? He was really quite upset. I invited
him into my room, but he said no, he was in a hurry. Then he blurted it
out. He had news of named Sam Tucker. Isn’t he the American who’s to a
man join us here?”
Alex did not bother to conceal his alarm. He bolted from his reclining
position and stood up. “What about Tucker?”
“He didn’t go into it. Just that he had word from him or about him. He
wasn’t really clear.”
“Why didn’t you tell me on the phone?”
“He asked me not to. He said I was to tell you when I saw you, not over
the telephone. He implied that you’d be angry, but you should get in
touch with him before you went to anyone else. Then he left. Alex,
what the hell was he talking about?”
McAuliff did not answer; he was on his way to her telephone. He picked
up the receiver, glanced at the connecting door, and quickly replaced
the phone. He walked rapidly to the open door, closed it, and returned
to the telephone. He gave the Sheraton’s number and waited.
“Mr. Piersall, room fifty-one, please.”
The interim of silence was infuriating to McAuliff. It was broken by
the soothing tones of a subdued English voice, asking first the identity
of the caller and then whether the caller was a friend or, perhaps, a
relative of Dr. Piersall’s.
Upon hearing Alex’s replies, the unctuous voice continued, and as it did
so, McAuliff remembered a cold night on a Soho street outside The Owl of
Saint George. And the flickering of a neon light that saved his life
and condemned his would-be killer to death.
Dr. Walter Piersall had been involved in a terrible, tragic accident. 1
2 He had been run down by a speeding automobile in a Kingston street.
He was dead.
alter Piersall, American, Ph.D., anthropologist, student of the
Caribbean, author of a definitive study
@V on Jamaica’s first known inhabitants, the Arawak Indians, and the
owner of a house called High Hill near Car rick Foyle in the parish of
Trelawny.
That was the essence of the information supplied by the Ministry’s Mr.
Latham.
“A tragedy, Mr. McAuliff. He was an honored man, a titled man. Jamaica
will miss him greatly.”
“Miss him! Who killed him, Mr. Latham?”
“As I understand it, there is very little to go on: the vehicle sped
away, the description is contradictory.”
“It was broad daylight, Mr. Latham.”