“How about wading in? How are the beaches?”
“Yeah, a lot of good beaches. I could get you in that way, sure. The problem is, Customs impounded my boat.”
“Why’d they do that?”
“See, they suspected I was smuggling. But they didn’t find any evidence. Seized the boat anyhow. It’s my living. How am I supposed to make a living?”
“What would you charge to run somebody down to Mustique? If you had your boat, I mean?”
“Figure a hundred miles, more or less. Have to come back. Four hundred dollars, say. If I had my boat. I don’t want to fool with this, but what choice do I got?”
“Is there a way to get your boat out of Customs? Pay a fine or something?”
“No, that won’t do it. These Frenchies want me off the water. They haven’t set a fine yet, they haven’t even heard my case. They’ll keep my boat as long as they can. Here’s an idea. Supposing you was to force me to take my boat off the Customs dock, at gunpoint, say? Sure, that’ll work. Then they couldn’t blame me, see? On account of you forced me to do it.”
“I hold a gun on you, and you get your boat, and you take me down to Mustique? You really think we could get away with it?”
“My boat’s tied up at the Customs dock. We go over there, and when the guard goes to the other end of his round, that’ll give us enough time. You want to do this tonight? It’ll get dark soon, then we’ll go over there.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this, and if you’ve got to do it, you’ve got to do it,” I said.
The Customs building and its dock filled a stretch along the harbor. Harry Morgan led me to a slip where the Customs boats—patrol craft and runabouts—were tied up. His boat, an old cruiser, was off by its lonesome. It had been through the mill. The paint was scratched, faded and mismatched. Rust trailed off metalwork. Bullet holes scarred the cabin and the cockpit. We lurked behind a shed while the guard passed by the boat and continued away, his shadow jumping and shifting from dock light to dock light as he ambled along below them in the sultry night air. “Here’s how it’ll go,” Harry whispered. “I’ll come out on the dock in plain view with my hands up, see, and you’ll be right behind me with the gun in my back. And you better have the safety on. You’ll tell me to get in and start the boat, and then you’ll cast off the lines. Once we get clear, I’ll douse the lights and we’ll run in the dark. We’ll be at Mustique before daybreak, sure.”
We waited until the guard left the dock and disappeared around the Customs building, then took up our act. It went fine, Harry making a quick check of the boat and starting the engine. I’d cast off the bow line and the spring, and was bending over the stern line when a slug hit the cabin bulkhead as a pistol shot popped. “Hey, take it easy,” Harry growled. “She’s taken enough damage already.”
“It wasn’t me; it was him,” I said. A man had burst out of the shadows, running along the dock toward us, pistol in hand. He fired another shot. Good luck hitting anything, firing on the run. I unwound the line off the cleat, threw it in a pile on the cockpit floor and jumped into the boat. Harry gunned it away from the dock. I took the silencer off my gun, flipped off the safety and fired a shot back at the wharf for effect. And then we were beyond pistol range.
“Who was that, the guard?” Harry asked. “I thought he’d gone.”
“Some other guy, coming from the other direction. I told you people were after me.”
“Do they have boats? They going to follow us?”
“For all I know, they have ICBMs and stealth bombers. It’s a big and varied band of brothers.”
“We’ll take the Caribbean side of the islands and skirt around St. Lucia and St. Vincent,” Harry said. “On the lee side it’s calmer. You can spell me on the helm for a while once we reach open water. You’re hungry, there’s food in the galley, stuff in cans and packages, nothin’ fancy. Beer in the ice box, warm by now. Take it easy, relax. If you want anything,” he concluded, “just whistle.”
Off the island, we rode in a fresh breeze and a three-foot swell. Taking it on the quarter, it wasn’t bad. A bright moon rose, getting close to full, fading the lesser stars out of the night sky. It laid a lustrous path across the water toward the east and backlit the Pitons as we passed St. Lucia. We ran along at a good clip for several hours and were breasting St. Vincent Island when we heard a boat off our port bow. Harry cut back the engine, and we listened as the sound drew nearer. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I had them on the radar. They come out of Kingstown and picked us up. Take the wheel.” He went below and came up with a rifle. “Okay, bring it back up to 15 knots.” When I advanced the throttle, a searchlight flashed on about 100 yards away and began sweeping its beam. Couldn’t make out the other boat, just saw their light. “It’s not Coastal Patrol,” Harry said. “That light’s too close to the water. It’s private, something fast, I think. They’ll spot us in a second.” He stepped out into the cockpit and shot the rifle, a lever-action shark gun, from the hip. He handled it deftly, firing three shots, operating the lever one-handed by flipping the rifle up and catching it after the ejects for the first two. The searchlight went out. Whether he hit it or they just turned it off, I couldn’t say. At that range, with a one-armed shooter firing a rifle free-handed, I’d bet on the latter. “Alter course 15 points to starboard,” he breathed. “That’s to the right,” he added. I did so. He went toward the stern and opened the engine hatch, returned to the cabin a moment later with a tommy gun. “I had it stashed there for a another job,” he explained. “I guess Customs didn’t search too well, or they’d have confiscated it. What a fucking mess that was,” he mused. “Blood all over the gunwales. Last time I ever haul Cubans. Live and learn. You know how to handle automatic weapons?” he asked me. I allowed as how I did. “This has a 50 round drum,” he said. “The range isn’t much better than a .45 automatic, but that’s good enough if they close up to board us. Alter course 15 points to port and hold that heading. I’ll ride shotgun with the rifle, but be ready to grab the Thompson and let ‘em have it if they approach.”
We rode on for a spell. “Oh shit,” Harry said. “They’re still out there, creeping up on us. Listen…” he cut the throttle and we heard the other boat astern off our port quarter. “Could you take care of it? It’s awkward for me, a tommy gun.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just fire a burst in their direction. Nobody sticks around after that.”
I’d never used a vintage tommy gun. Interesting. Aiming low, I let a few rounds go—BapBapBapBapBapBapBap! Me and Machine Gun Kelly. It was a piece suitable for mobsters—simple and brutal. You could clear out an alley with one of those, but give me an M-16 for jungle work any day.
Harry estimated right. The other boat trailed off behind us for us for a while and finally called it a night. My various pursuers seemed to be professionals, not psychopathic serial murderers like the villains in crime thriller books. They wanted my books and disks, but not badly enough to take on automatic weapons in the dark. And so we continued on our way. No other suspicious boats showed up on Harry’s radar. Along about dawn he pointed to a dark outline just visible against the sunrise sky and said it was Mustique. I didn’t see how he could tell it from all the other islands out there. I put on my black clothes and stowed my shoes. I’d signed over t-cheques to cover the trip. My signature would alert the world when he cashed them at a bank, but I asked him to put that off for a day or two. I hoped to be somewhere far away by the time the word got around.
He eased the boat into a quiet bay on the north coast of Mustique. An easterly breeze sent catspaw ripples skittering across the smooth surface in the early morning calm. The air was cool and crisp, the sea smell pure. Sea birds had started their daybreak activities. We crept along until the bow touched bottom. “It’s up to your waist,” he told me. “There’s no sand bar or drop-off here. You can wade straight in up the beach.” I slipped
over the side into the warm water. He handed me my backpack and I balanced it atop my head. “Good luck to you, Jake,” he said.
“Good luck to you, Harry,” I retorted. He’d need more of it than I did. All I had to do was figure out a way back to Malibu unharmed. Whereas he had to continue living his mess of a life.
Harry backed off the ground, swung his boat around and headed her back out. And I launched my amphibious assault on Mustique Island.
9 | Many Rivers to Cross
A hard sand bottom sloped gently up to the water’s edge, with no surf and no surprises. I sloshed ashore on a crescent of bay, maybe a half mile point to point. I crept up to the embankment and took a cautious look beyond. No nearby buildings, nothing stirring on shore but a big grey-green iguana staring back at me. I went back down on the sand and stripped off my clothes. My night-black outfit hadn’t been necessary and certainly wouldn’t be a good idea now. I let the air dry my body, then put on the most subdued tourist duds in my pack. Desert boots would do for footwear, and my Panama hat should be right in fashion. I rearranged everything back into my duffle bag, which had more room. But out in public, I’d be just another vacationer out for an early morning stroll. Who would tote a black duffle bag on an early morning stroll? I stashed it in a spot I’d easily locate but undetectable to anyone but professional trackers, and set out.
I’d come ashore on an undeveloped stretch of land. Off to my left, I saw trees planted in rows, some kind of orchard or plantation. Otherwise, the terrain was Caribbean island scrub—brush, cacti, low trees. I bushwhacked west and came upon a paved road. I went to my right. It looped around, bringing me to a posh resort compound, Cotton House Hotel, fronting on the sea. A slow-turning windmill stuck up above palm trees and low, colonial-style buildings. Unlike Club Med, it wasn’t overflowing with youthful energy unleashed by the break of day, in fact, it showed little activity at all. I continued around the loop, passing some substantial houses, and it joined back into a road going south. A half mile beyond the junction, I found the end of a short-takeoff airstrip running cross-wise on the island. It looked well-maintained, but I couldn’t make out much by way of terminal or support buildings along the tarmac. Obviously no major airlines used Mustique as an international hub.
I walked through a little settlement and presently came upon a larger bay bending toward the south. Several yachts and a couple big catamarans lolled at anchor, people moving about on them, enjoying morning coffee. A restaurant, Basil’s, sat up on stilts over the water. I saw working boats and buildings in a cove at the northern end, and from an outcrop a jetty with docking facilities and a loading area reached out to boat-depth water. I continued further. The main road veered toward the center of the island and walking further I came upon what Harry Morgan had been talking about. The better parts along the shore resembled outskirts of Santa Barbara, but the middle of Mustique was as though Beverly Hills had been picked up and dropped here, and then supersized: bungalows (spacious), villas (elegant), and compounds (extensive). As I walked along, I found that the east coast of the island remained mostly undeveloped. The British upper crust didn’t fancy surfing, so they preferred the more subdued lee side of the island. In Los Angeles, the wealthy paid dearly to build shoulder-to-shoulder along any stretch of beach front, whereas the Mustique shoreline boasted few of the island’s big dwellings. But then, Southern California had millions more people within driving distance and relatively little available waterfront. Having to fly thousands of miles to your holiday pad dictated a different scheme of development.
In less than two hours, I’d scouted what there was of Mustique to see. The scant number of businesses offered not the standard tropical tourist array of souvenir shops, vacation clothing boutiques, smoothie stands and tiki bars, but rather existed for the regulars. Some shops provided everyday necessities for the locals—food, clothing and the like, but most catered to the British toffs who owned island property and the seasonal sojourners. Many properties seemed self-contained, no doubt with live-in cooks, gardeners and servants. At this early hour, none of the upscale shops had yet opened, so I made my way to the cove with the working boats. Indig housing here was distinctly better than what I’d seen on other islands. I found a café putting out breakfast for the local working class. Most customers were West Indians, but they were hospitable enough to a strange Anglo man, and everyone spoke good English. I found a table, sat down to chow and was soon conversing over coffee with some fellows seated nearby. They knew I hadn’t come off one of the anchored boats but didn’t question me closely.
What I wanted was intel about Mustique, and like people the world over they were eager to tell an amiable stranger what harmless information they knew about their home town. No ferry service connected Mustique to other islands; the jetty was for boats bringing supplies. A man might possibly get a ride on a supply boat. Most everybody on the island worked for the Mustique Company, which for all practical purposes ran the island for the benefit of the property owners. The palatial, landscaped villas and compounds belonged to Queens, Princesses, Earls, Dukes and Lords, as well as captains of industry, commerce, finance and sources of income best left unprobed. I later learned that some acquaintances, Sir Mick Jagger and Sir Paul McCartney, bought in when they could afford it, but that was years later than it would have done me any good. The winter season, which saw the bulk of visitors, was several weeks from commencing. Most villa owners let out their properties, at least for part of the season. The Mustique Company arranged rentals and provided security.
Following breakfast, I located the Mustique Company office and told the receptionist I wished to inquire about renting a villa for the coming season. She put me in the hands of an assistant manager, one of whose job qualifications must have been that BBC accent designed to keep commoners in their proper place. My explanation of arriving in a passing yacht probably didn’t fool him for a minute, but I had Malibu and Pacific Palisades bona fides, and I dropped enough Hollywood names and international sojourns to keep alive his skeptical hopes. With disdainful reserve, he explained that the season verged on commencing, and several excellent villas were still available. Owners preferred seasonal leases, but some could consider monthly stays. Generally a property came with full support staff. I pressed him for details, and he showed me pictures of several listed properties and their locations. I told him I would very definitely be getting back to him after the conclusion of my yachting holiday. He dubiously passed me his card and some sales literature and ushered me out.
I came away from the Mustique Company with what I wanted—a line on vacant villas where I could crash for a night or two. I plainly couldn’t check into Cotton House, the only hotel on Mustique. I needed an anonymous refuge where I could call a time out and spend some time thinking. Because, as I reconned this rarified, exclusive little tropical paradise, I realized that I had thoroughly screwed myself by coming here. Ever since that fateful morning in George Town I’d been winging it, grabbing at floating straws, plunging ahead with inadequate intel. So far, I’d gotten away with it and managed to reach Mustique, safe and secure for the moment. But, now what? The island received no scheduled air service nor regular boat rides to other islands. However I contrived to reach another destination I’d need a passport, and I couldn’t obtain one here. I was stuck with no crowd to blend into and no backup. Quite the contrary, I was an alien to an exclusive tribe highly resistant to outsiders. The only Brit I knew who might have clout on Mustique was Maggie Thatcher. So I could ring her up, explain the situation and enlist her help? Sure, and then I’d flap my arms and fly home to Malibu.
One possibility would be to call Evanston again and see if he could arrange a pickup or something. Even if I could find a phone, that would take time, and how long was I going to stay out of trouble on this tight little island, where everybody knew everybody and everything that went on? They might not have a secret police force, but with most everybody employed by the Mustique Company, they didn’t n
eed one. Anything untoward or out of place would reach the people who mattered. So far I may not have attracted much notice—just another American wandered ashore from a yacht—but if I stayed in circulation as the day’s business progressed, I’d be noticed; if I were still visible tomorrow they’d be wondering about me, and beyond that they’d be demanding answers.
I walked back down the road and into the heart of the island, armed with a list of places the rental agent said were immediately available. The best prospects clustered on the southern side of the airstrip. One on my list had an obscured guest house across a large formal garden from its mansion. From concealment I observed it for an hour. No activity. I checked out several other piles in the neighborhood. Crashing a main house was a no-go as servants would probably be on site. That guest house was my target.
I returned to the settlement on the road above Britannia Bay, as the bay with the jetty was called and hit a provisioner’s shop for enough portable food—sausage, cheese, bread, fresh fruit, bottled beer—to last a couple meals. I had to inconspicuously kill time until dark, so I bought a canvas tote, carried everything a couple hundred yards through the brush over to a beach, and took a leisurely lunch in the shade of some coconut palms. A downright pleasant way to while away a balmy afternoon were I not wracking my brain for an escape plan. Mustique’s beaches did not teem with day-trippers. A few people came, strolled the shingle, splashed a bit in the shallows, went their way. If anyone noticed me, they didn’t let on.
As the sun dropped toward the horizon, I rose from my reverie and headed back up the road to where I’d left my duffle. It hadn’t been disturbed. I shouldered the strap and retraced one more time the road toward Britannia Bay. Shortly after I passed the little settlement, I took a side road in toward the villas. I located the one with the guest house and came at it through the vegetation behind it, using garden features and the guest house itself as a blind to avoid detection from the main manse. Unless spies lurked in the surrounding cover, no one saw me as I tested the back door. It was not locked. On an island controlled by one company, with no way for miscreants to get on or off easily, burglary didn’t pose a serious threat. Or it could mean that the building was in use. I stowed my duffle and tote of food in one of the two bedrooms and positioned myself where I could keep an eye on movement between the two buildings. Nothing much happened. After dark, a light went on in a rear window on the ground floor of the main house. And then another, toward the other end of the ground floor. The kitchen? Servants’ quarters? Electricity must come from generators on the properties—I hadn’t seen any central power plants or transmission lines anywhere in my walk. Would they send juice to an unoccupied outbuilding?
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 16
