The Sun Place

by Ray Connolly

  Willem Brummer had been less certain, and very carefully went over the details of the pickup and drop-off points with the stranger until Brummer was satisfied that the degree of risk was acceptable.

  Neither Brummer nor Hillman had any idea how many other units were involved in the ferrying process, but by the size of the trawler they guessed it was considerable. In this way the shippers maximized their chances of success, and minimized the risk of losing the whole cargo to some exceptionally zealous narcotics agent.

  Once the Bayliner was well clear of the harbor Brummer opened the throttle and set off in a southwesterly direction. Hillman took a quiet toot from the end of last month’s supplies, and, feeling thus invigorated, went back to musing about his new friend Michel.

  The rendezvous point selected for the pickup was thirteen miles north, northeast of Pink Cay, one of the most southerly of the Great Exuma Cays. It was so titled because it boasted hardly a blade of grass on its entire horseshoe-shaped mile length, and appeared to sailors as a pink mound floating on the surface of the water.

  Brummer saw the trawler first, waiting, as ever, with only a couple of weak fishing lights to point it out. It was a long, low vessel, which might easily be mistaken for a legitimate fishing boat.

  As the Bayliner neared the mother ship Hillman felt a grip of panic. The death of Pagett had frightened him. Was it possible that Pagett had fallen foul of the syndicate in some way? Nervously, he squeezed a pimple on his left shoulder, enjoying the moment of pain as it exploded into his T-shirt.

  Neither man spoke as Brummer cut the engine and allowed the boat to drift alongside the ship. Suddenly a rope ladder was hurled down from the darkness of the deck above, together with a couple of mooring ropes. This was the way it always was. They had both learned not to expect conviviality from their business associates. Quickly, a figure clambered down the ladder and jumped onto the deck of the Bayliner. He was a dark, unshaven Colombian with a dirty sweatshirt and a two-thousand-dollar watch. They didn’t even know his name, although they saw him every time they made a pickup.

  “Okay?” the man asked, his eyes darting sharply around the deck of the Bayliner. Hillman glanced upward at the trawler. He knew they would have been watched ever since they came into sight.

  “Ready when you are,” said Brummer.

  The Colombian took one last look around and then shouted something which might have been garbled Spanish or even an Indian dialect. Within seconds six five-pound bags of cocaine were lowered to the deck of the Bayliner. Last came a small plastic bag, which Hillman knew would be his own personal supply. He reached up and grabbed it, then gave himself a bit of pleasure.

  Brummer watched him with disdain. Hillman’s fondness for coke was the one major danger area in their whole venture. He would have preferred giving the whole consignment over to the distributors in Miami. As long as Hillman kept tooting up in the village, there was always the chance of someone finding out. Brummer even suspected that Hillman used his endless supply of coke as a way of currying favor with those he wished to impress. He had tried to dissuade the suppliers from giving Hillman his little monthly treat, but without success. The Colombians expected their runners to like dope, and in this way they were able to ensure that no one was tempted to pilfer from the main cargo.

  Within a few minutes the loading was complete and the Colombian shinned quickly up the rope ladder, which was hauled up after him. Hillman unfastened the mooring ropes and he and Brummer sailed away.

  “So far, so good,” said Brummer, as he started the engine and pulled the Bayliner away from the trawler.

  “The load is too big,” said Hillman, viewing the cargo with consternation.

  Brummer pulled a panatella out of his pocket and lit it. Now he was thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right, fella,” he said. “Maybe this should be our last trip.”

  “You’re going to tell them?” Hillman saw danger lurking.

  “Let me think about it. We’ll get rid of this lot tomorrow when the meat shipment comes in. Then we’ll figure a way of extricating ourselves and getting the hell out of here.”

  Hillman breathed a sigh of relief. Brummer was a much more positive person than he was, a natural leader. If Brummer was beginning to feel uneasy, then it sure as hell was time they began to think of their escape route.

  Twenty-Seven

  A piebald junkie from New York was not Cassandra Mallinson’s idea of the perfect roommate.

  It had taken the piebald girl several hours of stumbling around the village before she had finally decided that B23 was her room. But it was not until late in the evening that Cassandra returned to her cabin and met the girl.

  It was not a happy surprise. When Cassandra had left the room at around six it had been neat and organized, with her clothes all tucked neatly into the shallow drawers and her dresses hanging smartly in the closet. But her first thought on opening her door was that she had entered the wrong room. She was about to apologize and leave when she noticed that the strange girl with the two-tone hair was wearing a suit that looked suspiciously like one of hers.

  “Excuse me,” Cassandra said.

  The girl was standing in front of the single six-foot mirror, her fingers across her eyes, peeping at herself in a gesture which was both self-adulatory and coy, as though she were watching another person in the mirror. Spread around her were all of Cassandra’s dresses, bikinis, slips, and shoes.

  Cassandra stepped into the room. “What the hell are you doing in my clothes?” she shouted.

  The girl’s beatific expression never left her eyes as she slowly panned to face Cassandra. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Jane. You know,” Jane continued, scooping up her hair at the nape of her neck so that the blond ends fell forward over her pretty, pale face, “you know, if you were about five inches smaller, you would have been the perfect roommate. Nothing you have fits me. But the style is wonderful. You have wonderful taste … er, I don’t think you told me your name.”

  “Will you please take off my suit,” said Cassandra, beginning to clear up her clothes. There was something casually friendly, almost warm, about this lunatic of a girl, and Cassandra could feel her temper subsiding into bewilderment even as she stood there.

  “Sure. It’s really very pretty, you know. Are you English?”

  “Yes,” said Cassandra.

  “And your name?”

  “Cassandra.”

  “Great. You know, I can tell we’re gonna be great friends. I just have that feeling that we were put together for a purpose. I think it was fate. Pity you’re so tall, though.”

  “Yes,” Cassandra said.

  “My sister was tall like you, but they had to remove her gallstones.”

  “What?” Cassandra couldn’t follow.

  “It left a great long scar right down her middle … she can’t ever wear a bikini now,” the piebald girl rambled. “She’s still tall, though. She looks great in a one-piece. Black’s her favorite color, scooped away at the thighs, right up to the hips. You have a suit like that … me, I always wear bikinis.”

  Cassandra picked up her one-piece blue bathing suit from the floor and shoved it into the drawer. She hated to think of this strange girl trying it on and she resolved to wash it first thing in the morning. Picking up three pairs of her shoes, she pushed them into the closet.

  “If there’s anything of mine you’d like to try …” Jane was smiling at her.

  “No, thank you,” said Cassandra haughtily.

  Jane smiled. “Don’t blame you,” she said, and then, without warning, she suddenly stepped out of the suit she had been wearing and handed the clothes back to Cassandra to put away. She was naked now. her body small and round, her breasts disproportionately large.

  Cassandra looked away in embarrassment. There was something disturbingly intimate about this small room and the presence of a strange naked girl.

  Jane didn’t notice Cassandra’s awkwardness. Still naked she sat down on the edge of her bed and searched thro
ugh a pair of jeans for a stick of chewing gum. “You know,” Jane said casually and with disarming friendliness, “when I was told I’d have to share a room here with another woman, I almost canceled my reservation. I mean, I’ve always liked men for roommates. This is a new experience.”

  Cassandra was about to come back with some tart reply, but she was beaten to it by Jane’s candor.

  “I think I’m going to like it. I know I’m going to like you,” said Jane, and, climbing over her bed, slipped between the sheets, leaving Cassandra to do all the tidying up. “Do you think you’re going to like me?”

  Cassandra stared at the strange little piebald head which lay, like a chipmunk, on the pillow. “I’m sure we’re going to get along famously,” she said wearily, but whether Jane recognized the sarcasm she had no way of knowing, because by this time the blue-coated eyelids had closed and the pale little face was expressionless.

  Tomorrow, Cassandra thought, I’ll go and see Hardin and demand a single room. Fifteen days of this and I’ll be begging to be taken out of this Technicolor concentration camp.

  Twenty-Eight

  Trouble for Willem Brummer and Matt Hillman began almost immediately. In the early hours of Sunday morning they slipped the Bayliner back into the marina unobserved and, before dawn, installed some of their bags of cocaine in the false bottom of a refrigerated metal box used to transport meat from Florida. The system had worked before, but both men were now unnerved by the very size of the load they were being asked to ship. It was possible to hide ten or twenty pounds, but thirty pounds was too much, and there was only one container in which it could be concealed. When they had finished there were still two bags left over.

  “We’ll have to find some place to store this, and make another run later in the month,” said Brummer, now staring anxiously at the plastic covers that protected the heavy white sacks.

  “We should have told them it was too much,” said Hillman, cursing himself.

  “Too late now,” said Brummer.

  Hillman delved into his personal supply, and, with the aid of a crisp bill, tooted up.

  Brummer watched him scornfully. “I hope to God you’re going to keep that stuff well hidden,” he said.

  Hillman sniffed, and then rubbed his nose, which was numb. He wanted to giggle at Brummer’s steadfast, old-fashioned attitude. “What about hiding the rest of it?” he asked.

  Brummer frowned. The trouble with Club Village was that everything was so open.

  “The best place is the library,” said Hillman. “No one ever goes in there … under one of those big cupboards where they keep the books no one ever reads.”

  Since this was actually the first bright idea Hillman had ever had, Brummer was almost congratulatory.

  “Not bad, little fairy, not bad,” he said.

  Hillman winced. He did not like being reminded of his homosexuality. “Let’s go take a look,” he spat. “One bag each.”

  Brummer grinned to himself. He enjoyed getting a rise out of Hillman. It disguised his own fears and reestablished his command over the younger man.

  One at a time, they slipped out of the kitchen warehouse and crossed to the wooden, boxlike building. Carefully, Brummer opened the screen door to the library. Hillman followed.

  By the light of the new day they stared at the rows of French and English paperbacks, books bought at foreign airports and left behind by readers who did not wish to add to their luggage.

  “There’s a whole lot of wasted effort here,” said Hillman, surveying the banks of pulp literature. He was not a reader, and could never understand the obsession that forced some people to write and others to read.

  Brummer grunted and began examining the shelves and floorboards. After a few moments he felt a floorboard creak just below an electric plug. It had obviously been lifted at some time in the recent past when rewiring had been necessary, and was never screwed down again. Taking a penknife from his pocket, he prised a two-foot length of board upward. Carefully Brummer dropped his bag into the hole and pushed the bag under the floor. Hillman waited for him to step aside, and then dropped his bag into the hole. Together they replaced the plank.

  “I’ll go to Miami on the Tuesday flight and explain what’s happened,” said Brummer. “We’ll be able to get it out next week sometime.”

  Hillman nodded. “And then?” he asked.

  “And then I think we should take our winnings and get the fuck off this island before that bastard Hardin starts asking too many questions.”

  Hillman nodded and made for the door. For the moment, danger was past. His mind was now back on the young gypsy-looking boy. Michel. Hillman was wondering whether he had scored with one of the young girls, and a pang of jealousy and hate lanced him. He had to think of some way of getting Michel’s affection.

  Twenty-Nine

  John Arrowsmith woke at seven o’clock on Sunday morning, with a hangover, a laser beam of a headache, and a decidedly delicate stomach. Disorientation befuddled him. No sounds came from the bathroom, so, pulling himself clear of the bed, he stumbled toward Alka-Seltzer and a shower.

  He couldn’t imagine where Ruth was so early in the morning. The previous night she had complained of tiredness after dinner and she and Joanna had retired early, leaving Arrowsmith and Roeg sitting at the outside bar watching the dancers, drinking, and listening to the reggae band. Despite himself, Arrowsmith was beginning to see how this summer camp for grown-ups could actually be enjoyable. In New York he felt like forty going on fifty, a middle-aged lawyer, but here in the Bahamas he suddenly had the enthusiasm of a twenty-five-year-old.

  Stepping out of the shower, he slipped into his jeans and sweatshirt just as Ruth came panting in through the cabin door. She was wearing her white Adidas track suit and had a white band around her dark hair. She was, he had to admit, still a very handsome woman.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked as she flopped down on the bed.

  “Running along the beach. It’s beautiful at this time. You should try it, John.”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I had a skinful last night. Did Joanna go with you?”

  Ruth nodded.

  “I was just about to go down to breakfast … I’ll wait while you shower,” he said.

  “No. That’s okay. You go ahead. I’ll come on later.”

  “No, I don’t mind,” he insisted. “I’ll just sit here and read the Club Village rules and regulations again.”

  “I might be half an hour.”

  “So I’ll read them twice.”

  Slowly Ruth stretched and sat up. “What I’m trying to say, John, is that I want you to go to breakfast now. And I want to go later. Do you understand? I don’t think we should be each other’s watchdogs in a place like this. I think we both should have our own space while we’re here. Do you understand? I don’t want to be an imposition on you, and I don’t want to have to feel responsible for you every hour of the day. That’s the only way a vacation like this can work. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and I think we’ll probably both enjoy ourselves a lot more if we don’t hang around each other the whole time.”

  Arrowsmith sat down suddenly. This most certainly did not sound like his Ruth. “You mean you want us to behave like a couple of geriatric singles?” he asked.

  “Don’t be silly. Joanna and I were talking about it last night, and we decided that there was nothing as boring as married couples hanging onto each other all through a vacation. You want to get to know more people, new people, and so do I. Every vacation we’ve ever had we’ve spent the whole time with each other or with the children. Now let’s do something different.”

  Arrowsmith was already agreeing with her. There were all kinds of people here he would like to get to know—the piebald girl, the boutique queen called Florinda. A man could have a wonderful time just flirting. All the same, he was surprised to have this thrown at him on his first day on vacation. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before we got out here?” he asked.

  “I
t didn’t really hit me until last night, if you want to know,” she said. “I think we probably miss a lot in life when we stick so close together.”

  Arrowsmith pulled himself to his feet. By now Ruth had begun to do her exercises, pulling her legs back over her head and then releasing them again. She was determined to grow old as slowly and gracefully as possible. “Okay, it’s a deal,” he said. “See you later … maybe.”

  “See you later, for sure,” said Ruth and gave him a wide grin.

  Arrowsmith grinned back. Years of reading his wife’s smiles told him that before the day was out, he was going to be rewarded for being so understanding. But instantly he was saddened again. Fifteen years earlier he would not have considered it a reward.

  Thirty

  A trough of low pressure centered just south of Miami swung the winds around to the west that Sunday afternoon, and the newcomers to Elixir found themselves sunbathing on a beach whipped by brisk winds and flying spray. The Bahamas look even more beautiful in a wind, palm trees bowing gracefully and whitecaps chasing the waves to shore, the sand on the beach gathering in white drifts.

  Joanna Roeg and Ruth Arrowsmith sunbathed together by the pool. At first Ruth had refused to take off her bra, but after most of the other women went topless she joined them. Joanna, of course, had been topless and bottomless since breakfast.

  John Arrowsmith and Michael Roeg were amusing themselves in quite different ways. Roeg was hanging around the bar, chatting to anyone who would listen, and leaning over for a quick, furtive grope whenever the opportunity presented itself. Arrowsmith had joined the New York soccer team and was training under the guidance of an instructor from Yonkers. Ever since Pele had gone to New York, Arrowsmith had fancied himself as something of a soccer player and had become an enthusiastic Cosmos supporter. But the reality of ball control, trapping, and tackling was giving difficulty to his forty-year-old limbs.

  Hardin’s first Sunday as head of Elixir was spent reinforcing the hard line he had already begun. He was everywhere, watching everyone, rebuking CVs he thought had not taken his warnings seriously enough, prowling the kitchens for signs of dirt or waste, demanding that CV quarters be tidied up, viewing the boats in the marina with the stern eyes of an admiral, and arranging the entertainments and games departments. He was, it seemed to the CVs, in five places at the same time, snooping into their work and homes. The lazy good-timers hated him, but the old Club Village employees and the enthusiastic young workers were grateful.