was not listening. He was staring out the rear window, watching the
traffic behind them.
It was there.
A green Chevrolet sedan, several years old. It stayed two to three cars
behind, but whenever the taxi turned or sped ahead of other vehicles,
the green Chevrolet did the same.
The driver saw it too.
“You got trouble, mon?”
There was no point in lying. “I don’t know.”
“I know, mon. Lousy green car ben d’ere all time. It stay in big
parking lot at Courtleigh Manor. Two block sons of a bitch driving’.”
McAuliff looked at the driver. The Jamaican’s last statement triggered
his memory of Robert Hanley’s words from Montego Bay. Two black men
picked up Sam’s things. Alex knew the connection was far-fetched,
coincidental at best in a black country, but it was all he had to go on.
“You can earn twenty dollars, friend,” he said quickly to the driver,
“if you can do two things.”
“You tell me, mon!”
“First, let the green car get close enough so I can read the license
plate, and when I’ve got it, lose them. Can you do that?”
“You watch, mon!” The Jamaican swung the wheel to the right; the taxi
veered briefly into the right lane, narrowly missing an oncoming bus,
then lurched back into the left, behind a Volkswagen. McAuliff crouched
against the seat, his head pressed to the right of the rear window. The
green Chevrolet duplicated the taxi’s movements, taking up a position
two cars behind.
Suddenly the cabdriver accelerated again, passing the Volks and speeding
ahead to a traffic light that flashed the yellow caution signal. He
swung the car into the left intersection; Alex read the street sign and
the wording on the large shield-shaped sign beneath:
TORRINGTON ROAD
ENTRANCE GEORGE VI MEMORIAL PARK
“We head into a racecourse, mon!” shouted the driver.
“Green son of a bitch have to stop at Snipe Street light. He come out’a
d’ere fast. You watch good now!”
The cab sped down Torrington, swerving twice out of the left lane to
pass three vehicles, and through the wide-gated entrance into the park.
once inside, the driver slammed on the brakes, backed the taxi into what
looked like a bridle path, spun the wheel, and lurched forward Into the
exit side of the street. – “You catch ’em good now, mon! “yelled the
Jamaican as he slowed the car down and entered the flow of traffic
leaving the George VI Memorial Park.
Within seconds the green Chevrolet came into view, hemmed between
automobiles entering the park. And then McAuliff realized precisely
what the driver had done. It was early track time; George VI Memorial
Park housed the sport of kings. Gambling Kingston was on the way to the
races.
Alex wrote down the license number, keeping himself out of sight but
seeing clearly enough to know that the two black men in the Chevrolet
did not realize that they had passed within feet of the car they were
following.
“Them sons of bitches got to drive all way ’round, mon!
Them dumb block sons of bitches! … Where you want to go, mon? Plenty
of time, now. They don’t catch us.”
McAuliff smiled. He wondered if the Jamaican’s talents were listed in
Hammond’s manual somewhere. “You just earned yourself an extra five
dollars. Take me to the corner of Queen and Hanover Streets, please. No
sense wasting time, now.”
“Hey, mon! You hire my taxi alla time in Kingston. I do what you say.
I don’ ask questions, mon.”
Alex looked at the identification behind the dirty plastic frame above
the dashboard. “This isn’t a private cab …
Rodney.”
“You make a deal with me, mon; I make a deal with the taxi boss.” The
driver grinned in the rearview mirror.
“I’ll think about it. Do you have a telephone number?”
The Jamaican quickly produced an outsized business card and handed it
back to McAuliff. It was the taxi company’s card, the type that was
left on hotel counters. Rodney’s name was printed childishly in ink
across the bottom. “You telephone company, say you gotta have Rodney.
Only Rodney, mon. I get the message real quick. Alla time they know
where Rodney is. I work hotels and Palisados. Them get me quick.”
:’Suppose I don’t care to leave my name-” ‘No name, mon!” broke in the
Jamaican, grinning in the mirror. “I got lousy son-of-a-bitch memory.
Don’t want no name! You tell taxi phone … you the fella at the
racecourse. Give place; I get to you, mon.”
Rodney accelerated south to North Street, left to Duke, and south again
past the Gordon House, the huge new complex of the Kingston legislature.
Out on the sidewalk, McAuliff straightened his jacket and his tie and
tried to assume the image of an average white businessman not entirely
sure of which government entrance he should use. Tallon’s was not
listed in any telephone or shopping directory; Hammond had indicated
that it was below the row of government houses, which meant below Queen,
but he was not specific.
As he looked for the fish store, he checked the people around him,
across the street, and in the automobiles that seemed to go slower than
the traffic allowed.
For a few minutes he felt himself in the pocket of fear again; afraid
that the unseen had their eyes on him.
He reached Queen Street and hurried across with the last contingent
making the light. On the curb he turned swiftly to watch those behind
on the other side.
The orange sun was low on the horizon, throwing a corridor of blinding
light from the area of Victoria Park several hundred yards to the west.
The rest of the street was in dark, sharply defined shadows cast from
the structures of stone and wood all around. Automobiles passed east
and west, blocking a clear vision of those on the north corner.
Corners.
He could tell nothing. He turned and proceeded down the block.
He saw the sign first. It was filthy, streaked with runny print that
had not been refinished in months, perhaps years:
TALLON’S FINE FISH AND NATIVE DELICACIES
3111/2 QUEEN’S ALLEY
I BLOCK-DUKE ST. WEST
He walked the block. The entrance to Queen’s Alley was barely ten feet
high, cut off by grillwork covered with tropical flowers. The
cobblestone passage did not go through to the next street as is common
in Paris and Rome and Greenwich Village. Although it was in the middle
of a commercial market area, there was a personal quality about its
appearance, as though an unwritten sign proclaimed this section private:
residents only, keys required, not for public usage. All that was
needed, thought McAuliff, was a gate.
In Paris and Rome and Greenwich Village, such wide alleys held some of
the best restaurants in the world, known only to those who cared.
In Shenzen and Macao and Hong Kong, they were the recesses where
anything could be had for a price.
In Kingston, this one housed a man with arthritis who worked for British
Intelligence.
Queen’s Alley was no more than fifty feet long. On the right was a
bookstore with subdued lighting in the windows, illuminating a variety
of wares from heavy academic leather to nonglossy pornography. On the
left was Tallon’s.
He had pictured casements of crushed ice supporting rows of wide-eyed
dead fish, and men in soiled, cheap white aprons running around scales,
arguing with customers.
The crushed ice was in the window; so were several rows of lassy-e ed
fish. But what impressed him was the other . forms of ocean
merchandise placed artistically: squid, octopus, shark, and exotic
shellfish.
Tallon’s was no Fulton Market.
As if to add confirmation to his thoughts, a uniformed chauffeur emerged
from Tallon’s entrance carrying a plastic shopping bag, insulated, Alex
was sure, with crushed ice.
The double doors were thick, difficult to open. Inside, the counters
were spotless; the sawdust on the floor was white.
The two attendants were just that: attendants, not countermen. Their
full-length aprons were striped blue and white and made of expensive
linen. The scales behind the chromeframed glass cases had shiny brass
trimmings. Around the shop, stacked shelves lighted by tiny spotlights
in the ceiling, were hundreds of tins of imported delicacies from all
parts of the world.
It was not quite real.
There were three other customers: a couple and a single woman. The
couple was at the far end of the store, studying labels on the shelves;
the woman was ordering from a list, being overly precise, arrogant.
McAuliff approached the counter and spoke the words he had been
instructed to speak.
“A friend in Santo Domingo told me you had north-coast trout.
The light-skinned black man behind the white wall barely looked at Alex,
but within that instant there was recognition. He bent down, separating
shellfish inside the case, and
OFPWM answered casually. Correctly. “We have some freshwater trout
from Martha Brae, sir.”
“I prefer saltwater trout. Are you sure you can’t help me?”