‘Happy, David?’ There was the faintest note of enquiry in her voice, and she guessed his answer before he had spoken. Her cigarette stub dropped to the ash-tray and she leaned forward until, once again, they were locked in a long, searing embrace. Her limbs gripped him in a scissor-like vice and then she whispered softly in his ear. ‘Some French ideas are real good, David.’ It was a promise and an invitation. The steel band was now playing a Trinidadian Shambo and Krystelle writhed in tempo as, once again, they both forgot everything excepting the need to satisfy the other.
Time was forgotten, and it seemed a life-time later that she rolled beside him, stretched herself like a dog and broke into a broad grin of satisfaction. ‘You sure are better, man. Right back on form. So now it’s Kaftan time and you got fifteen minutes to dress.’
Grant followed her into the shower. She had laid out his evening kit while he had been sleeping and they made the restaurant on time. His high, cutaway midnight blue dinner jacket suddenly seemed appropriate. The embroidered shirt became acceptable and even his slightly raised heels were no longer out of place. In St. Thomas anything could go. As for Krystelle! Not even a professionally dead-pan head waiter could disguise his admiration as he led them to a reserved table just above the pool.
Harry and Frank were now sitting in a corner almost below them. Their companions were laughing and Harry seemed less sinister in the shimmering light which surrounded them. They were drinking Planter’s Punch and nibbling a plate of small chow, though Krystelle knew that for once Harry had beaten Grant off the mark. His own contact man in the Virgins had already fixed a meal with the captain of a private yacht and Harry expected the evening to pay dividends—in something.
‘See what I mean,’ said Krystelle softly, as she watched Grant take in the whole little cameo with one glance. ‘They are organised. Nothing to worry about.’
Grant knew that Professor Juin would have told her almost nothing and that she expected to be briefed by himself. It was a fantastic gesture of confidence which had made these three people come at a nod from Paris to the Virgins and wait until he chose to wise them up. It was also a tribute to the self-discipline which they had all trained themselves to accept that they were content to leave everything to him, Krystelle realised only that the mission was important, that it was a man hunt, that it was dangerous and that he needed help. Which was another way of saying that A.D.S.A.D. needed help, and that there was a chance to clean up on some racket or other which would be explained in due course.
But Grant also knew that Harry could put two and two together more accurately than most and that he must have read of Grant’s part in the Ferguson affair. The press had given it full treatment, and there had been a special mention of his own death. Harry had even sent a wreath to the crematorium, and this was his way of saying that he knew something was cooking. Harry would be way out ahead in speculation. If there was a new drug on the markets of the underworld then both Frank and Harry would be genned up. And it was a thousand bucks to a dud brass button that they knew Maya had hit trouble in Rio. Harry’s organisation had a knack of keeping a watchful eye on people who mattered and they could hardly have slipped up with Maya. So all in all it was pretty certain that they suspected a drug ring, war against some top man, an operation to recapture Ferguson and tied up with all this some sort of unknown factor which would spell hard cash—or something.
Krystelle was watching him carefully as he studied the menu, and he knew that she must be bursting with curiosity. The fact that she had gone to so much trouble to restore him to normal showed that she was taking things seriously. And her few questions on the balcony of their room showed that one part of even her mind was ranging over all the possibilities.
A party of tourists arrived while they were sipping an apéritif. The men seemed, at first sight, to be a shower of freaks dressed in everything from Bermuda shorts to full evening kit with white tuxedos, but their women were even worse, some flaunting slacks, others with cocktail off-the-hook cotton prints, and others resplendent in Oxford Street twenty-guinea ankle lengths with imitation fur or rabbit stoles. Grant eyed them curiously. It was ten to one that the majority were square as a cube at home, and why they felt it necessary to dress like that when playing tourist was more than he could understand.
Krystelle, too, was amused. And her eyes hardened. He waited, taut with a sense of impending drama, until at last the group made for Bébé’s boutique and she turned again to her glass. ‘Ever study lip-reading? Well, there’s a woman there who caught my eye. Her name is Rita. Got it when she was introduced to another member of the group. The press published pix of Mary Ferguson and there’s something about the girl that reminds me of her. Care to take a look?’
She produced a press cutting filling at least a quarter page. Grant had never met the Ferguson woman but he did know that she had two sisters. If Ferguson was planning something it was on the cards that he might send his sisters-in-law on a Caribbean cruise to tie up lines of communication. And this had now become one of these times when he felt short staffed. The resemblance was striking and would have to be followed up but both Harry and Frank were occupied and Krystelle had said that they had a heavy date with business angles that night.
‘Right, honey chile.’ He handed over a lady’s cigarette case and kissed her hand as he stood up. ‘An electronic camera for use even in pretty near darkness. Shoot every contact she makes and I’ll see you later.’
She laughed and snecked it open, took out a cigarette and kissed him warmly on both cheeks. People at nearby tables watched, smiling, as she covered him with lip stick and her voice could be heard twenty paces away. ‘Largo, you sweetie pie, that’s the most gorgeous t’ing you given me in a month. Better even than the ruby. Gee! But it mus’ be nice to be a millionaire!’
He bowed as she slinked towards the main block and then cautiously daubed his face with a fresh linen handkerchief embroidered with his own initials until a dead-pan waiter suddenly stood beside him. He was holding a small sponge. ‘Like quick wash, sir?’
Grant held back his head and allowed the waiter to wipe his face clean. A boy mopped him dry and he handed over two American dollars. It was the least they would expect from a man in his position. He thickened his accent and recalled his voice training. Spanish with a heavy English inflexion! ‘You are very kind. The lady is sometimes enthusiastic.’
The men bowed professionally. His dollar bills disappeared as though by magic, and Grant caught a glimpse of Harry watching cynically from the chair below. Harry knew that only something urgent could have broken up the party and Grant accepted that he was waiting for a signal. But he turned abruptly and walked towards Bluebeard’s Tower, that round hangover from the past which had once been part of a sugar refinery but which looked like a watch tower and which most tourists accepted as part of Edward Teach’s original castle. Few knew that Teach was an English pirate who had really made few visits to St. Thomas and whose normal hunting ground had been between Carolina and Jamaica. But the man’s name had been resurrected and now helped to ‘sell’ a quality hotel in one of the most glorious parts of the world.
Actually, thought Grant cynically, as he strolled around the grounds, they could have made more of him and rigged up some sort of small museum, because Teach had been a man of parts. He had married at least fourteen times and during one phase twelve of his wives were alive at the same time. Born in Bristol he had begun as a privateer under licence from the Governor of North Carolina, but, like so many others of his kind had found straight piracy more profitable. By 1716 he was in command of a sloop, and working with a Captain Hornigold who was at least as dangerous as his junior. And it was about 1716 that he had married for the fourteenth time. The girl was sixteen and said to have been a beauty, but Teach had broken not only her heart, but her body, and one of his more printable perversions had been to throw parties at which she had been forced to prostitute herself to six or seven of the crew before his eyes before the party broke up at dawn.
But though Teach didn’t last long, at least he went out with the flag flying after a ferocious pirate style traditional battle with ball shot and cutlasses in 1718 when a certain English Lieutenant Maynard took him on single-handed and gave him a terrific wound in neck and throat. Though even then old Teach continued to fight until he had received five more gun-shot wounds and over twenty cutlass slashes. But, thought Grant sourly, Maynard might have called it a day at that! Instead he had decapitated his enemy and stuck his head on the bowsprit of his own ship until he rounded off matters by hanging no less than fifteen of Teach’s men who had been taken prisoner.
But Teach’s beard had made an impression throughout the whole Caribbean area in the old days. It had been jet black, styled with ribbons and twisted into small tails like a so-called Ramillies wig which ended over and above his ears. Before going into action he had always first carried out his toilet, ending with titivating his beard and then slinging no less than six pistols over his shoulder. Slow burning lighted matches were then struck under the rim of his hat for touching off the priming pans of muskets or smaller arms until one historian had described him as looking like a Fury from Hell.
And Hell had been a good description, because Teach himself had been interested to know what Hell would be like, and with a view to finding out there had been one memorable day when, with three cronies he had gone into the hold of his own ship, caused the crew to batten the hatches and ignited pots of brimstone plus other flammable material and suffered it out until one of his companions had shrieked for air. Only then did he order hatches to be opened and emerge grinning because he had lasted longest.
Only one mystery remained unsolved! Why had the hoteliers corrupted the name to Bluebeard? So far as Grant knew no such pirate had ever lived, and Bluebeard had been the famous French mass murderer executed by that very Deibler whom Ferguson had wished to meet. In a complicated way it pleased Grant that a sort of circle had been completed, and that he was now back on Bluebeard territory. It tied up with Ferguson, and he accepted it as an omen. His Celtic blood had made him superstitious, and writings on the wall like this made him feel that things might be going his way, that he was on the right track.
Krystelle had passed him while he was savouring a lobster Thermidor. She was now dressed in a slate-grey cotton frock with hair piled in beehive style and wearing sandals. There was a slash of crimson lipstick and she was carrying several dozen strings of coral or shell beads. She was obviously a street girl trying out a touch on the tourists and had ignored him completely. It was the ideal rig for approaching anyone other than a native and he guessed that she would return with a close-up of the suspect Rita before dawn.
He finished an ice, changed seats to sit beside the pool for a final daiquiri and then returned to his room. It seemed very empty. Everything was empty without either Krystelle or Maya.
And then his phone rang.
‘Si. Yes.’
‘Call, sir.’
The voice was husky but familiar.
‘That you, honey? Pumpsi here.’
His manner became very snob. ‘I do not know you, señorita. The name Pumpsi is nothing.’
The girl laughed. ‘Have ah gotten a wrong number?’
‘Zis is the suite of Señor Largo Fabregas. Who are you?’
‘For crissake, man, you talk fancy. Come offa dat high hoss. Ah was jes tellin’ someone ah wouldn’t be homeside till dawn.’
‘’omeside?’ Grant nodded puzzled. ‘You have the wrong number. This is Hotel Bluebeard.’
The voice again laughed. ‘Man, Pumpsi knows dat’s Bluebeard’s. Second home to me! You like maybe we go dancin’ some night. Huh?’
Grant got the message. She was in Cha-Cha Town and would be late. He sighed gently. ‘Sorry, Señorita. I am already married to a very lovely lady. I ’ave my own Pumpsi.’ He hung up and relaxed. A long night lay ahead and Krystelle was right. When there was nothing better to do one could always sleep.
He soaked in a bath, ordered avocado pear and a half bottle of wine, switched on the bedside radio and fell asleep to the sound of Mary Ann sung by Emile Straker.
Krystelle returned five hours later, soused herself in a cold spray and wriggled in beside him. Her news could wait till morning and they both needed sleep. The porter had been ordered to send breakfast at nine thirty, and by then she calculated that she would be ready, once more, for anything.
Which, as matters seemed presently to stand, might be plenty.
Chapter Five – ‘That egg thing was more sinister than it looked’
Grant believed, with the late Sir Winston Churchill, that breakfast should be taken alone. So it was another tribute to Krystelle’s personality that she could make him feel satisfied in advance with an unknown day which lay ahead and that he always made her the exception. It was even his pleasure to lie back and allow her to shave him before he rose, showered, and changed into slacks with polo neck and canvas slippers.
Krystelle knew his tastes and had chosen well. Pineapple juice, porridge with salt—a recipe unknown to Bluebeard until Krystelle had educated a thunderstruck chef—boiled eggs and thin slivers of toast followed by snow white, handmade morning rolls with a vintage orange marmalade. That and a pot of blended coffee with a small portion of double cream and malty brown sugar.
They ate in silence broken only by soft pop music from the radio. Mike d’Abo was singing Ha said the Clown and Manfred Mann showing his usual genius at the organ. He liked that disc. And he liked the Mann Group. Especially did he like the girls. Susan Mann and Mrs. d’Abo—Miss Maggie London that once was—were among his favourite women, even although it was unfair to single out any girl in particular from a group which was an example to show biz. And it pleased him that the disc was still selling in the Caribbean after two years or more. ‘But not a cha-cha-cha’ he said at last as the disc jockey introduced another number.
Krystelle took the hint and opened her handbag. ‘Photographs of Rita plus all her contacts: a gigolo type at the Beach Club: a woman in the powder room at the Left Bank —you know, that restaurant place which makes a thing of Haiti cooking—and two men at the Sundowner. Satisfied?’
Grant began to see light. The Sundowner was a bistro near Gallows Hill and on the edge of Cha-Cha Town. All sorts went there, but it probably specialised in sailors, and for sure it was that which had led Krystelle into the shanty town nearby. Or was it?
She nodded. ‘And something tells me this isn’t gonna be too funny. Here’s the set-up.
‘First remember that I lip-read and that I lip-read good both in French and English. It was a pushover to see what the woman was saying. I was usin’ a reversible skirt and top, so it was also dead easy to ring the changes, and when I dropped my hair that made it a cinch. She never recognised me. But Rita is Mary Ferguson’s sister and Ferguson’s gone to earth on an islet somewhere around. He’s got some sort of H.Q. there because it seems the place doesn’t attract much traffic.
‘Second. There was talk about issuing a new supply of dope. And if that makes sense you’re welcome.
‘Third. Harry’s local man introduced him to a sailor, captain of a private yacht. And Harry picked up a li’l box ’bout the size of a thimble lying on the gunn’l near the gang-plank. They had figured on feeding shoreside but the owner decided on a last minute night out at the Hilton, so since the place was free the old man decided to play it big and show his pals the sort of dive he lived in by feeding at the owner’s expense. So Harry lifted the li’l box and gave it me when I tried to sell him some beads.’
Grant lifted one hand. ‘Sorry. But how come you met Harry? And how does your code work?’
Krystelle eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You haven’t told us too much yet. But we’re asking no questions. Why don’t you do the same?’ And then she relaxed. ‘Codes are kinda private, but I’ll tell you a little. We got a buzz gimmick like that Man from Uncle programme used to show. Says buzz-buzz when you send a signal. I carry mine as a hair clip and
it goes so soft you can’t hear it. But it just means “attention”. As they say in French,’ she added. ‘Now we had decided to be in one or two places, ringing the changes every four hours from midnight to dawn and Harry was dozin’ by the pool at dawn along with his popsy. I tried to flog her some beads and Harry slipped me the box when he was givin’ me change.’ She laughed. ‘That dame was shuah glad when Harry decided to hit the hay and whipped her up to his room. His excuse was that he wanted to watch the sun rise, but since he was payin’ her well that popsy wouldn’t mind watching mos’ anyt’ing rise.’
Grant knew efficiency when he met it. And Harry looked like he was really switched on. ‘Then say thanks next time you see him. Anything else?’ He slipped the box into his rear trouser pocket and lit a first cigarette. Cigarettes had become all the more enjoyable since he had to chain smoke cigars in public as part of the act.
‘Yes, man.’ Krystelle beamed with satisfaction. ‘Rita contacted these sailors at the Sundowner. She spoke French. Bits of what they said seemed kinda dialect, but the thing added up. Rita and another woman are going to the Ferguson hide out sometime today. And,’ she said quietly, ‘there’s at least one li’l thing off-beat, ’cause they’ve been told to take a snorkel and flippers. Does that make sense?’
Grant nodded slowly. It might. The waters around St. Thomas were a skin-diver’s paradise, more beautiful than anywhere else in the world. Captain Cook’s Glass Bottom Boat might not be the only glass bottom vessel in the area and Grant knew that operating from a glass bottom boat under correct light an expert skin-diver might have been able to dig a cache into solid coral which would be more secure than any Bank of England safe deposit.
Black Champagne Page 8
