Black Champagne

by George B Mair

  Krystelle shrugged her shoulders. She was a complete fatalist. ‘Move, David. This time things “feel” right. We’re really going over the top and it’s a hap-hap-happy day—— The end of the beginning.’

  Chapter Eight – ‘Do you believe in God?’

  An air-conditioned Cadillac coasted almost noiselessly across to the Dorothea Beach Club on the north shore and Grant relaxed as it eased between the palm trees and lush cottages to reception. They had reserved a duplex suite with maiding for Krystelle but aimed to play the whole thing by ear. The situation was now too complicated to make firm plans, though it was good to know that they had a hideout in two strategic areas.

  They had checked out from Bluebeard’s wearing full fig and Krystelle was a sensation as she handed her overnight case to a bell hop before joining Grant for a sling in the Driftwood Bar. He suspected that the Dorothea would still be safe and on balance was inclined to relax before changing into slacks for action later in the evening.

  He had ordered dinner in the Grill and felt that they both deserved a second meal. It also gave them a sense of a ‘new beginning’ which they needed. Cruzan rum as an aperitif. Pigeon pea soup, a local specialty which would be new to Krystelle, though most hotels preferred to offer it to favoured guests on the night before departure . . . since it was a traditional way of saying ‘we’ve enjoyed your visit and hope you’ll come back.’ But for all that anyone knew this would be their only night before departure at the Dorothea, and Grant had squared things with a slightly bothered chef in the only way possible. Greenbacks, he brooded, could still solve almost any problem. Turtle steaks would follow and then fresh pineapple with black coffee. Simple, but suited to a mood which preferred for the present at least, to avoid mouth-watering creole dishes which deserved a full evening of attention. With luck, he whispered to Krystelle, these would come later. Possibly much later! But right now they would keep it simple.

  She smiled politely and he saw that she was thinking as she lit a cigarette and sat for more than ten minutes staring over his shoulder into space. Then her eyes lightened and she flashed a smile. ‘Just thinkin’ a code, David. Phonin’ Frank. Back in minutes.’

  He watched her silhouette against the light and followed her to within a few paces of the kiosk. It was no time for allowing margins which might complicate life. And things moved more smoothly when they were together. He was subconsciously nursing the lapel of his jacket and easing his shoulder holster while he watched her dial Charlotte Amalie, but the place was almost deserted and the very quietness began to be oppressive as he played sentry, while the girl spoke with a seriousness which was new to him. Her eyes were taut with concentration and even her chin seemed to set with determination as she spoke slowly into the mouthpiece.

  Time seemed to have stood still and the phone message seemed as though it would never end. Krystelle was standing almost motionless and the crackling rustle of cicadas in the distance jarred his longing for silence, but he forced himself still to watch until at last, he saw her lips break into a smile as she hung up.

  ‘Thanks, David,’ she said softly and laid her hand on his elbow. ‘Codes are thirsty things and this one works kinda slow. Needs a lot of thinking. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I breathed easier just for seeing your shadow.’

  The Driftwood Bar was still empty as Grant lifted their drinks. ‘To us, honey chile. And to all our tomorrows.’

  She laughed. ‘And to you, man, with thanks for all our yesterdays.’

  Grant looked at her curiously. She was not only multi-caste, but multilingual. At times her West Indian patois could grate like a knife, yet, when she cared, she could speak almost faultless English, not forgetting Parisian French, Catalan Spanish—a legacy of her days in Barcelona—plus Italian, Portuguese, Swiss German, and better Arabic than his own.

  Which reminded him. Better safe than sorry. And since bugging was still not impossible even in Dorothea Arabic would fox most people for long enough until it didn’t matter.

  Krystelle listened to the suggestion and smiled with genuine pleasure. She liked Arabic. It was a language which leant itself to expressions which came with difficulty even in French. And its cuss words were so colourful that she often swore in Arabic just for the heck of it when she was angry. But David still spoke almost school room stuff and his stilted grammar was out of keeping with the man she knew. Though she took the point and clicked out a quotation which made Grant pause in his drink.

  ‘“Son of a wise father,

  God drew the oval of your eyes

  with night

  On his white dawn.

  You slept a free man on my bed

  and I waked

  when love held a silk whip above me.

  I come telling a tale of torture

  written with tears

  on the white sands of your pity.

  I send my soul as a present,

  come to me”’

  He smiled. She had thrown a few lines from Rose in the Bud and World’s Delight, taken from the Thousand Nights and One Night.

  ‘“You are a coloured shadow of delight,

  Going before me in the dark of night,

  Burning my pains away.

  My only water streams were tears for love,

  But they were cool and sparkling and enough,

  With you to love me.”’

  He said quietly, ‘I too knew Sheherezade.’

  Krystelle still spoke Arabic. ‘But you miss the point, effendi. I used the line “I come telling a tale of torture.”’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Frank is worried about Harry. No news from anywhere. His name is on the passenger list, but the airline claims that he didn’t report.’

  The girl’s face was anxious, but Grant knew that nothing he could say would make any difference. She was sufficiently professional to form her own judgement. ‘Any ideas?’

  She shook her head. Her smile when hanging up the receiver had simply been part of the act. She always operated giving nothing away and at the Dorothea she had no means of knowing who might have been watching her. But Frank had rounded off with a few cryptic words. Harry had probably never even checked in with Inter-Island or any other airline, and Frank’s estimate was that he was still around, since disguise was out of keeping with Harry’s normal technique.

  Which also meant, Grant recalled, that the precious drug container was also around. ‘What about your contact man locally. Any news?’

  Krystelle nodded. ‘That was also part of the tears and torture. He was found a short time ago outside Bluebeard’s. His face showed that he suffered a lot before he died.’

  Grant ventured a question which was verging upon a trespass on Krystelle’s very private property. Like Harry and Frank, even she hesitated before giving away top secrets to close friends. All had learned that the friends of today might be on the other side tomorrow. ‘How do you estimate Harry’s chances? Did he carry any secret weapons which could be used as an ace of trumps?’

  Krystelle automatically eyed him with suspicion and then her expression cleared as she smiled and laid a hand affectionately on Grant’s wrist. ‘I prickle when people ask questions,’ she said at last. ‘But Harry took few chances and was always well protected.’

  And of course the man had been left at Bluebeard’s so that Frank would know that the opposition had him ‘taped.’ Grant’s mind was moving at fast speed. And then something clicked. Was the yacht of last night still in the harbour?

  Krystelle shook her head. ‘Pulled out early this morning according to Frank. It wasn’t there when he dumped the two men into that shoal of sharks.’

  ‘And Rita. The Ferguson woman’s sister?’

  ‘Her ship also pulled out this afternoon. But there’s no way of knowing whether or not she was still aboard.’

  None, short of a phone call, thought Grant, who knew that calls to sea would be a waste of time since shipping companies avoided giving offence and seldom discussed the private movements of passenger
s. He made up his mind. ‘Dinner, honey. And then action. Let’s keep to the programme. Cha-Cha Town tomorrow morning. I’ve a hunch that action begins around these shacks somewhere, some time.’

  Krystelle looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Not too much time,’ she said at last. ‘These people are real dangerous.’

  Grant shook his head. Harry was either dead, escaped and lying low, or else a prisoner and ready for use as a bargaining point when the time came.

  ‘Maybe.’ Krystelle forced herself to smile and followed Grant to the Grill. Like him she also had the gift of dropping a curtain and shutting out events which could disturb. For the moment it was wise to relax and eat. After that the curtain would rise and they would move into another world where battles of wits, a little luck and a deal of skill would solve the mystery. Maybe!

  Both remained quiet during a midnight meal which was served under torch light—one of the Grill’s more romantic gimmicks which never failed to please tourists. The place also remained quiet, and not more than four people had passed since they arrived, while only one other young couple flirted in a distant corner.

  Grant finally laid down his cup and lit one more cigar. ‘Say when you’re ready, honey. But I figure battle kit in ten minutes or so.’

  He eyed her curiously. On the surface she was still a dazzling socialite, but he marked a shade of anxiety now creasing her right cheek and knew that she was tensing up for action. She was allowing the curtain to lift, just a little, and thoughts of Harry were now beginning to filter through to her consciousness. ‘I’ve told the office that we’re going to have a few days’ cruise around Tortola and St. John. They’ll keep the suite for us and forward mail to Bluebeard’s—which might be more convenient in some respects.’

  She remembered Interflora and knew that Grant still expected to be kept in the picture by his boss men homeside. Roses might spell life or death for several people in the near future and she handed it to the genius who had devised the Interflora code . . . so simple and practical and foolproof that she wondered she had never thought of it herself. ‘But we stick to programme and go to Cha-Cha Town?’

  They were still speaking Arabic and the construction of that sentence sounded curious even to Grant’s less sensitive ears as the gutturals clicked out an idiom which was hardy suited to the curious sing song mellifluous speech of the desert. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said with a slight American accent which Krystelle found utterly charming, although she had never told him so. ‘And I figure to walk. It’s only five miles maximal and the night is one of these tropic things one dreams of. So how about it?’

  She stretched herself like a cat as she stood up and pointed for the door. ‘I hope the pigeon pea soup really does mean something, David,’ she said. ‘You told me it shows a wish by the host for the guest to return. You still mean it? When things settle a bit.’

  Grant took her arm and whispered into her ear. ‘If we come through this intact we’ll round off with a week on the sands.’

  ‘Celebration.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And if we don’t make it?’

  Grant was surprised. Success came only to agents who believed they were immortal. Doubts brought bad luck. They sapped confidence. He was surprised to find a campaigner like Krystelle who didn’t remember that elementary superstition and the first rule of undercover war. Whoever dies it won’t be me.

  She squeezed his hand against her ribs and her words were very quiet. ‘You forget that multi-caste mixed breeds like me don’t tick like your people. I go by hunches and instincts.’

  They were now entering the duplex suite and Grant rose to the bait. ‘Your hunch is bad?’

  She eyed him seriously. ‘Kind of. It says we go near the edge this time.’

  ‘But we make it in the end.’ Grant’s own Celtic blood was also superstitious and he was in sympathy with hunches.

  Something of his mood communicated itself to Krystelle and she stared at him with an intensity which was a new experience. Her eyes had become pools of deep brownness which were totally inscrutable, and her lips were tautened into a blenched line which altered her entire personality. Yet Grant knew that this was another milestone, and that if she chose to speak or take him into her confidence she would bind him still closer by another link in that mysterious chain of passion and mystery which had been forged almost weekly since the day they first met.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’ she said at last.

  Grant nodded almost automatically. ‘One kind of God. But not a man with a beard who puts some people to death and promotes others to celestial bliss with trumpet sounding angels.’

  ‘And you believe in Satan?’

  Grant smiled slightly. ‘It’s easier to believe in evil than goodness. Evil stands at every street corner but one has to look twice for the other thing.’

  ‘Do you believe that one can get in touch with either God or Satan?’

  Grant hesitated. ‘Maybe,’ he said at last. ‘But they’ve both been out any time I tried to get through myself.’

  The girl sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘But that means you’ve tried. What did you do?’

  Grant wriggled slightly. With any other person he would have switched off the conversation at source and probably only Krystelle could have made him continue to stand still or listen. ‘Maybe I kind of prayed. Involuntary. Just a deep hope that God would give me a break.’

  The girl smiled. It was difficult to imagine Grant on his knees before anyone, and she had never once heard him refer to church or known of him enter a cathedral. ‘You didn’t get through because you didn’t know the drill. There are ways of contacting God. And other ways of seeing the Devil. My people in the Guianas were expert at both. And don’t forget that I’ve spent weeks in Haiti where they know even more than my folk. These islands hold a lot of powerful forces born from mixing the religions of Africa with the essence of Rome before it became corrupted. The most powerful religions in the world lie between Haiti and the Amazon.’

  ‘So what have you in mind?’

  The girl eased herself on the bed and stretched her legs. ‘I’m curious to see a little of the future. I want to get a slant on how we’ll make out.’ She had switched to English and her accent was almost flat neutral.

  ‘Black magic?’ Grant tried to be offhanded.

  She shook her head. ‘White magic. I’m going to show you a little of what some people call the right hand path. And if we’re lucky we should learn more than you may get, even with your roses from Interflora.’

  Grant slipped out of his tuxedo and lay back on his own bed watching her. ‘Then show me.’

  ‘First,’ she said quietly, ‘what is the most powerful instinct in either man or woman?’

  He smiled slightly. ‘Lust for life.’

  ‘Not only for life,’ she corrected, ‘but also to make life. And when a couple come to thinking of both wanting and making life they are conditioned to see some things which are hidden at other times. Which is sometimes why a woman almost blacks out at a peak of fulfilment.’ She paused, ‘But carry on, David. What is the next great human need?’

  For Grant the answer was obvious. ‘To know that one is on top of the job.’

  ‘In other words, to have power,’ said Krystelle dryly. ‘Exactly. But so much depends on why a person needs power, or wants it. And it is at that point that the two paths separate. If you want it for selfish or bad reasons you follow the left handed path of a black magician. But if you want it for the benefit of others you automatically take the right hand path of the white magician. All clear?’

  Grant was restless to get away. Yet one part of him knew that he must stay and see this through. ‘And how about price?’

  The girl nodded seriously. ‘So you do know a little, or have a hunch about a little. The black magician ends at Satan while the white one lives under God.’

  Grant hated phrases which meant nothing, and this was platitudinous rubbish. ‘Explain. What do you mean “under God” or “ends at
Satan”.’

  Krystelle shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ends at Satan’ means what it says. The person becomes more and more evil until, when he dies he becomes a part of the Devil himself and so increases his power, while the white magician discovers how to destroy bad things until he drifts into being a sort of right hand of Goodness—of God, if you like—and becomes part of the great force of Goodness when he dies.’

  ‘Which takes us where?’

  Grant was becoming impatient and Krystelle saw that she must get to the point. Her eyes sparked into enthusiasm and she spoke with a precision which was unexpected.

  During her childhood in the Guianas she had been used by village priests and ‘sorts of’ witchdoctors as a ‘kind of’ priestess or medium.

  She had discovered a power to throw herself into trances.

  Sometimes she used that power to escape from a difficult situation, and someone had discovered that when in a trance the young girl didn’t seem to feel any pain.

  An Indian had then trained her in Yoga and she had used Yoga as she grew older to try and compose all sorts of rebellions or tensions which had developed inside her. Rebellions at having to live in such a jungle slum and fear that she could never escape.

  Yoga had shown her the power of mind over body and taught her to control her moods.

  Yet she could still throw herself into trances, and witchdoctors still tried to use her in services which were a mixture of masses from Rome and orgies from the African bush. She had slowly learned that there was no pure religion in the entire Caribbean area, that every religion had absorbed something of others until it had become twisted out of recognition.

  But each and everyone wanted to see the future, to know either God or the Devil and buy power from one or the other.

  On balance all religions which had a powerful African background were more powerful than those which had swung towards orthodox Christianity, but in those very few where a pure African folk religion persisted real power for Evil had developed through the use of human sacrifices or other taboo rites. It even seemed that without sacrifice there could be no power.