A Penny for the Hangman

by Tom Savage

  The sudden shadow falling on her brought her out of her reverie, back to the hotel lobby. She and Don Price looked up to see a big man standing before them. Just over six feet tall, he was powerfully built, thick and muscular. He was dark-haired, bearded, and deeply tanned, and his dark eyes were widely spaced above his wide nose. There was little indication where his neck ended and his head began. She guessed he was in his mid-fifties, but it was hard to tell; there was something oddly youthful about him. The massive quality of his body was tempered by his clothing—jeans, sneakers, and a loud Hawaiian shirt festooned with palm fronds—and by the wide smile as he leaned down to her.

  “Ms. Tyler? I’m Carl Graves. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes, I’m ready,” she replied. “This is Don Price, from the Daily News. He’s coming, too.”

  The man glanced over at Don Price, noting the camera, and nodded. He extended a meaty hand, and the two men shook.

  “Well, we’re off,” Graves said. “Your host is waiting.”

  “And who is our host?” Karen asked as she picked up her shoulder bag and followed him across the lobby.

  The big man smiled.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  —

  Rodney Harper’s Diary

  JUNE 3, 1958

  The Hit List

  LUCINDA FRANCES LAWSON HARPER—Queen Lucy of Tamarind, so fancy in her Coco Chanel dresses and Mainbocher gowns and Cartier diamonds and White Shoulders perfume, with her daddy the Boston banker and her mother the opera singer and her great-great-great-great-grandfather who came over on the MAYFLOWER that I’m so sick of hearing about. She’s crazy about Toby, getting him ready for his graduation in 3 weeks and his first semester at Haaahhhvahd in September, and she went to Radcliffe, Radcliffe, RADCLIFFE, don’t you know. She hasn’t said 2 words to me in I don’t know how long, and she’s half crocked all the time. Sometimes she falls asleep at the dinner table. Queen Lucy, long may she reign! Parasite. No wonder Dad’s laying Mrs. Anderman. And speaking of Dad:

  TOBIAS EDWARD HARPER—the King of Tamarind. Ha-ha-ha! More like the knave, stealing the tarts. That tart, Mrs. Anderman, for instance. He’s been laying her for years now, and Mom and Dr. Anderman don’t even know about it. But I do, and so does Wulfie. We saw them once; we watched them through the window at Wulf’s house. My father struts around this island, buying and selling everything in sight, like he really is a king. Harper Real Estate, “Building Tomorrow Today!” That’s what the ads say in the Home Journal. And if Mom’s crazy about Toby, he’s even crazier. Toby this and Toby that and why can’t Roddy be like Toby???? I’ve told them a million times not to call me Roddy; I REALLY hate that. Except when Wulf calls me that. That’s okay. If Mom has said 2 words to me, Dad’s said, like, ½ a word. “Humph.” That’s what it sounds like he says whenever I say hi to him. He doesn’t even look up from the newspaper. Then he runs off to buy and sell properties, or to get crocked and lay Mrs. Anderman, whose full name is:

  HJORDIS CHRISTINA OLAND ANDERMAN—the Mistress of Danemann Haus. I ask you, what kind of a name is HJORDIS, for God’s sake? Sounds like a racehorse. I’ll say this for her: She’s gorgeous. Very, very beautiful, just like Wulf. Tall and blond and golden-skinned. She’s always polite to me, but she’s being a whore with Dad, so I hate her, and Wulf has a real, real, real reason to hate her. He thinks she knows all about what’s going on in her house, and she’s been looking the other way for years. Which brings us to the last name on the list:

  FELIX GRIGORY ANDERMAN—the Doctor. He’s been our family’s doctor since—well, he delivered me back in ’43. I was his first delivery, as he always reminds everyone when he’s drunk, which is most of the time. Wulf used to be crazy about him but now hates him. It isn’t because of what he gets up to with Dr. Stevens from the hospital and Mr. Bertram the hairstylist downtown, or even the navy sailors and the native boys. What Wulf hates is what he’s been doing to him for the last 2 years, once a month or so, always when he’s drunk.

  These are the four people I hate most in all the world.

  Dinnertime. More later.

  —

  Officer Rick “Brick” Wall of the Virgin Islands Police Department sat in his unmarked Ford sedan in the crowded parking lot of the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef hotel, watching the gray Chevy Cavalier. On the seat beside him was a photo of the woman he was to watch for, Karen Tyler. Lieutenant Faison’s instructions had been clear: If this woman got into that car, Officer Brick was to follow, observe, and report her actions. Brick didn’t want to disappoint Lieutenant Faison, who was also his cousin by marriage.

  The woman in the photo was very pretty. She had a nice smile. No, Brick wouldn’t miss this vision if she came out of the hotel and got into her car. This was going to be an easy assignment, and he wondered if it would lead to other, more exciting ones. Brick was bucking for sergeant….

  The hotel was busy, with people constantly arriving and leaving in cars and tour buses, but he kept his eyes glued to that car. He made a point of not being too distracted by the crowd piling into a bus or the young honeymoon couple emerging from a taxi or two dark-haired men and a blond woman getting into a Land Rover on the far side of the lot and pulling away. Oh no, that Cavalier wasn’t going anywhere without Officer Rick “Brick” Wall in hot pursuit.

  Smiling to himself and dreaming of his eventual promotion, he settled in for a long wait.

  —

  Rodney Harper’s Diary

  JUNE 5, 1958

  I still haven’t told Wulf. I almost did today at the Secret Place, over the chessboard, but I decided to wait a bit longer. We played two games, and I won both times, as usual. Poor Wulfie. He just doesn’t have a real feel for chess.

  I made the board myself two years ago, and all the pieces, too. It is supremely satisfying to play chess with my own creations. I think I love chess more than anything else. It takes possession of my brain, shutting out everything else, all extraneous noise and light and stimulus. It is all about the moves and strategies, a single, perfect thing on which to focus. It is thought and reason and logic magnified, logic times ten, logic as only such as I can experience and appreciate it.

  —

  The Land Rover followed the same route that Karen had taken yesterday, past rows of condo units near the hotel, around the ravine, and up the steep incline to the hilltop crossroads. On their left was the now-familiar entrance to Tamarind, and for one tense moment she wondered if Mr. Graves was going to turn in there. Was the interview going to be conducted at the scene of the crime?

  Of course not, she assured herself as the car turned in the opposite direction. They proceeded up another winding road lined with well-appointed houses. She remembered the map she’d studied yesterday, deciding that this must be the section called Flag Hill. They crowned a rise and descended sharply, past the entrance to a school and turnoffs to various hotels.

  “Excuse me,” Mr. Graves said, reaching in front of her and opening the glove compartment. He withdrew a pair of sunglasses and put them on. Karen looked down at the open compartment, and her gaze fastened on a white envelope that lay inside it. She noted the address on the front: Mr. T. H. Huxley, followed by a post office box number, St. Thomas, VI 00802. She glanced at the return address: Franklin T. Macy Investigations, 547 W. 32nd Street, Suite 412, New York, NY 10001. Macy, she thought, like the department store. She was wondering what business Mr. Huxley—that name again!—would have with a private investigator in New York when Mr. Graves closed the glove compartment.

  “Are we going far?” she asked the man beside her.

  He smiled through his thick black beard.

  “You’ll see,” he said again.

  —

  Rodney Harper’s Diary

  JUNE 5, 1958 (CONTINUED)

  Wulf. Sometimes I watch him, his head bowed over the board in concentration, and I wonder at how handsome he is. Nobody should be that beautiful. He is my best friend, my only friend, and when we’re here in the Se
cret Place it seems as if we’re the only people in the world. He likes it here as much as I do, and for the same reason: It is a sanctuary, a respite from his dad the PERVERT and his mom the SLUT and all the STUPID kids and A-HOLE teachers in school. We are here, away from them all, because only we are worthy. We deserve each other, and no one else deserves us.

  He’s going to love The Plan.

  —

  Sidney Singleton looked around at the landscape from the backseat of the Land Rover as they headed toward the east end of the island. Karen was in front beside Mr. Graves, who’d barely said a word since they’d left the hotel. The car glided along the hilly tropical roads, and Sid could almost hear Karen thinking, arranging the pending interview in her journalist’s mind.

  Now that he’d seen Karen Tyler up close, spoken with her, he revised his opinion of her. It surprised him that this woman had chosen journalism of all professions, because she wasn’t the type. Oh, she was bright enough, but she was so disconcertingly sexy. Women like Gwen were one thing, but a woman like Karen Tyler was a catch.

  Sid prided himself on his sexual prowess, and this one was a definite babe. Off limits, of course, as long as Gwen was still useful, with her connections and occasional financial largesse. Karen would inform Gwen the moment she learned that he was really—

  He paused here, studying the back of the head of the woman in the seat in front of him. At some point in the near future Karen would see his article and realize who he was and what he’d done. That would be the end of Gwen Levene, Sidney Singleton’s well-placed meal ticket. He considered this for about ten seconds, then dismissed it as unimportant.

  He indulged himself in his favorite daydream. After this little adventure, he wouldn’t need anyone else’s contacts, to say nothing of their spare change. This meeting with one of the actual legends of American crime would put him on the map for good! There’d be a book, of course, with his own photos from today’s shoot: The Killer Beside Me by Sidney Singleton. He’d get an agent, and the agent would hold an auction. All the big publishing houses would kill to get their hands on it.

  It was a long trip, longer than he’d expected. He thought they’d go into Charlotte Amalie or, barring that, up a steep road into the hills above it. But at the top of the rise near the hotel, the Land Rover had turned right, moving through hills and valleys, past a private school and several resort hotels into the countryside. Another turnoff, another long stretch of road, and they arrived at American Yacht Harbor, a sprawling complex of docks, stores, and businesses that took up a sizable portion of Red Hook in the eastern end of the island.

  “What’s this?” Karen asked.

  Mr. Graves chuckled as he parked the Rover in the lot. “You’ll see.”

  Karen glanced at Sid as they got out of the car, and he shrugged. No big deal, he tried to convey to her as they followed Graves into the complex at the water’s edge. Graves forged ahead, and Karen and Sid hurried to keep up with him. They passed through a series of buildings and patios, new shops and restaurants tarted up to look like an old West Indian village in a plastic, Disney sort of way that was clearly intended to make the tourists swoon with delight, toward the docks beyond them.

  The place was bustling with people—boat people, Sid noted, most of them Caucasian, tanned, and probably island residents, judging from their casual attire and laid-back attitude. Many of these sailor types smiled and nodded a greeting at the little party as they passed. Sid was just beginning to wonder if their destination was one of the yachts that surrounded them—if, perhaps, the mystery man actually lived on one of them—when Mr. Graves abruptly stopped beside a berth that didn’t house a yacht at all but something far less impressive.

  The medium-size Chris-Craft was considerably smaller than nearly everything else around here—a classic cabin cruiser from the ’60s or ’70s, old and sun-faded, incongruous in the glittering array. It had an inboard diesel motor, a small, windshielded bridge for the pilot, a hatchway leading down to a cabin, a plastic-cushioned bench at the stern, and two swivel chairs riveted to the center of the wood deck, the high chairs used by sport fishermen. A Boston Whaler trailing at the stern served as a dinghy.

  He and Karen Tyler came to a halt beside the craft, and she looked expectantly at their large escort. Mr. Graves smiled at them, turned, and called, “Ahoy, the Turnabout!”

  The small native man did not arrive from the boat; he simply materialized on the dock beside them. He was as little as Mr. Graves was big. He was very dark—nearly the gorgeous bluish-ebony of true Africans—with close-cropped gray hair and beard, and his face was deeply lined. Weathered, Sid thought. This man is a sailor of long standing. He wore a gray T-shirt, jean shorts, and gum-soled boat shoes, all of which were as old and faded as the boat and the man himself. He was probably in his fifties, but he gave the impression of being an ancient salt with all the wisdom of the sea.

  “Ah, there you are,” Mr. Graves said. “And here we are. Karen Tyler, Don Price, this is Gabby.”

  The man didn’t speak but looked briefly at them and nodded once. He stepped onto the Turnabout and reached out a hand to Karen, holding her arm in firm support as she followed him.

  “A boat?” Karen said as she arrived on the deck. “Where on earth—?”

  Sid thought this was turning into something of an adventure. He reminded himself to remain nonchalant—as an ostensible resident of St. Thomas, he’d be used to the ubiquity of water transports. Still, he could barely suppress his enthusiasm.

  “Cool!” he murmured, cutting off Karen’s question as the silent man named Gabby manned the controls. With a low hum and a soothing vibration, the craft came to life. Mr. Graves untied them fore and aft, tossing the lines onto the decks before stepping on to join them. He took one of the fishing chairs, and his guests sat on the cushioned bench. Now Karen Tyler turned to look at Sid.

  “What do you suppose this is all about?” she asked him.

  He grinned. “Welcome to the Islands!”

  After a moment, Karen nodded and relaxed beside him on the bench. The Chris-Craft glided smoothly away from the dock, maneuvered effortlessly between the yachts in the marina, and headed out into the sea, toward the eastern horizon. As they picked up speed, the cool wind arrived on his face, and Sid looked up into the early afternoon sky, noticing for the first time the dark clouds that had begun to gather there.

  —

  Rodney Harper’s Diary

  JUNE 14, 1958

  Today was Toby’s high school graduation. Crown Prince Toby, beloved son of King Tobias and Queen Lucinda. The ceremony went on forever, speeches and photographs and flying mortarboards. Throughout the ordeal, I thought about The Plan.

  I haven’t decided on a date yet, but it’ll probably be early next year, when Toby’s away at college. Toby doesn’t usually notice me, but he always seems to know when I’m “up to something,” as he says. I think it will be best to do it when he’s not around. I wouldn’t mind adding him to my list, but he might try to stop me if he figured out what I was planning.

  I can just imagine Toby’s rotting head impaled on a spike on the battlements of my castle, his mangled body sprawled beneath it, carrion, a meal for the crows. Now, there’s a beautiful picture!

  —

  Karen looked out over the ocean, then up at the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in, obscuring the sun, turning the choppy sea a deep blue-gray color. The breeze was cooler than before, moist, almost chilly, and the seagulls that passed by in intermittent flocks seemed anxious, intent on reaching shelter before the inevitable rain arrived, calling out in alarm as they hurried toward the big island behind her.

  Looking back over her shoulder, she was surprised to see just how far away St. Thomas already was. It seemed only minutes since they’d left the yacht harbor for the open sea, but the marina had disappeared. All she saw of St. Thomas now was a distant faint smudge of green beyond the long white wake of the boat, and even that was vanishing as she watched.

  On the
seat beside her, Don Price was straining around to see everything, and now and then he took a photo of the birds. He lit a cigarette with a silver Zippo lighter—no mean feat in the strong breeze—and Karen noticed that even on this overcast day his pale skin was taking on a bright pink hue. She thought again that he must spend an awful lot of time in darkrooms. He caught her looking his way and grinned.

  “Sorry, I should have asked,” he called, holding up the cigarette and fairly shouting over the roar of the engine beneath the bench. “Do you mind?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Would you like one?”

  “No, thanks, I don’t smoke.” She pointed to the embossed red monogram on the lighter in his other hand. “What does the S stand for?”

  He followed her gaze, then shrugged and returned the lighter to his shirt pocket. “Superman!”

  Karen laughed.

  “Actually, I kind of found it,” he went on quickly, “at the newspaper office. I don’t know whose it was, and no one ever claimed it, so…” With another grin, he lapsed into silence and turned back to the view.

  She looked at her watch: 1:20. They’d been on the Turnabout for more than half an hour now. They’d passed St. John on their right—starboard?—side and one or two smaller islands. She scanned the water ahead, but so far there was nothing in sight. Where could her contact possibly live? Not St. Thomas, obviously, but how far from it? The other two men aboard were clearly unconcerned; they knew the boat’s destination. Mr. Graves was relaxed in his fishing chair, apparently dozing, and the quiet man named Gabby stood at the wheel, his back to her, steering them onward.

  She noticed a rather tattered, faded photograph taped to the dash beside the wheel. Gabby and a pretty, friendly-looking native woman about his age were seated on a couch, flanked by two young couples. One of the young women held an infant, and three children sat on the floor in front of the group. Everyone grinned into the camera with the wide, unaffected smiles Karen had already noted in the hotel and Market Square yesterday, the smile of the Islands. The family portrait was charming, a gentle reminder of the real world back on shore.