Staghorn shadows on white sand… cone shells burrowing-venomous hunters. Reef fish. Prismatic scales: yellow, blue, chrome. There were parrotfish… sergeant majors… snappers.. . barracudas dark on the rim of visibility, horizontal observers like rungs on a ladder… medusa jellies dragging rainsquall tentacles.
I’d brought the spear gun, but continued downward along the canyon wall. Ledges… brain corals… mouth of a cave?
I surfaced, took several breaths, then dived again.
Yes, a cave. It was wider than my shoulders; a natural opening in the wall. I looked to the surface thirty feet above-barracuda over me now- then peeked into the cave. Expected a moray eel… instead, saw a forest of antennas.
Spiny lobsters.
I surfaced, traded spear gun for gloves and a net bag, and returned to the ledge.
A couple of minutes later, the bag was alive with kicking, creaking lobsters.
The women were scattered among hammocks and porch rockers as I approached the house. Lost in books, fresh drinks, conversation. Carol was saying to Mattie, “… but why waste time with another tourist when we can meet people who actually live here-” then stopped when she noticed me.
Instead of pretending I hadn’t heard, I said, “I agree. Getting to know the locals is the best part of travel.” I held up the bag. “Let me introduce you to some locals.”
Mattie and the twins surrounded me as I spread the lobsters out on a banana leaf. Six biggies, no eggs-I’d checked.
“Where are their claws?” one of the twins asked.
“New England lobster are a different species. I like these better. Melted butter, fresh limes, sea salt. Tomorrow night, you could build a fire on the beach and steam them.”
Mattie said, “How does that sound, Carol? Do it like the islanders do it.”
I said, “You should-but stay smart. Trust the wrong islanders, you’re in big trouble. It could be fatal.”
Carol placed her book on the chair as she stood. “I hope you’re not talking about the wonderful people who live here.”
I let her see that I was confused before saying, “Oh, you thought I was talking about…? No, I meant the lagoon. Not everything’s safe to eat. I saw cone shells-their sting’s venomous. Probably wouldn’t kill you, but it would put you in the hospital. Certain fish-barracuda, some reef fish-can be toxic.” I thought about it as I rebagged the lobster. “On the other hand, maybe I accidentally made a good point. Resorts attract con men. Crooks hustle tourists. They slip drugs into women’s drinks. It’s rare-like a black jellyfish I saw in the lagoon. But the poisonous ones are around.”
Carol didn’t soften. “It must be nice to be so well-traveled that you can pass judgment on people you’ve never met.”
I smiled as I replied, “If I sound overly critical, it’s probably because I’m overly sober,” thinking the woman would loosen up and offer me a margarita. She didn’t.
As I left, Mattie walked me to the beach and said, “Doc, you have to come back tomorrow night and have lobster. We’ll build a fire.”
I said, “Maybe. I’d have to boat back to Saint Lucia after dark-pretty scary. Think it would be safe?”
The woman sent a signal with her eyes as she said, “Not necessarily,” having fun with the double meaning. “We have plenty of room-and we also have two bottles of rum and half a bottle of tequila to drink before we leave on Tuesday. And, uh-” She lowered her voice. “-even Carol agreed that what happens on this island stays on the island. We’re here to have fun. Three days from now, we’ll be back where everyone knows us.”
What I wanted to do was take the woman by the shoulders, look her in the eyes, and unload the truth. Share a couple of the nasty jokes from the camera blind so she knew the kind of men she’d be dealing with.
Instead, I said, “Don’t hold dinner-but don’t be surprised if I show up, either. It might be late. Okay?”
The possibility of my showing up might make it less likely that she and the others would follow the blackmailer’s script.
“Just bang on the door,” Mattie told me. “Or come around back to the pool if you hear music. We’ll be here.”
15
SUNDAY, JUNE 23RD
That night, I watched Mattie and Carol from my hidden spot above the beach house. They had their backs to the bar when the guy with the pirate bandanna-Bandanna Man-slipped the drug into the pitcher of margaritas. Something poured from an envelope. Powder. He crumpled the envelope, jammed it into his shorts, and hit the blender button as Carol turned.
“Bob Marley okay with you? Or something better for dancing?” Mattie was flipping through CDs while Carol did the talking, already sounding eager to please these three young guys wearing baggies and open shirts as they shared a cigar-sized joint in the glow of tiki torches and blue pool lights.
“Or maybe Marley’s too commercial. Whatever you say-in the States that’s all we hear, commercial garbage. But we’re not typical tourists, okay? Traditional reggae, steel drums-I love it. But what are islanders really into?”
Now the guys were sharing private smiles, too-funny, this straight-looking woman already drunk, trying to sound hip before she’d even tasted the special margaritas. Embarrassed, maybe, by the cornstalk twins who didn’t want to dance, who didn’t want to invite strangers to the pool, so they’d split, leaving these two wide-bodied ladies on their own.
“Carol? Carol. What’s wrong with Bob Marley? We don’t have to dance. I don’t even feel like dancing.” Mattie made a show of yawning, a CD in her hand. “In fact, it’s getting late. And these fellas probably have better things to do.”
Bandanna Man’s face reacted: Christ, now she’s scared. The evening would be a bust if he didn’t act fast, so he held up the blender and said, “Man, there ain’t nothin’ better than hanging with pretty ladies. Why you want us to go ’way now? It’s not yet eight-thirty.”
Flashing Mattie a look, Carol said, “We don’t want you to leave.”
Ritchie was Bandanna Man with his dreadlocks and pirate scarf.. . his pals were Dutch and Peter Lorre-that’s the way I thought of them even though I’d heard their names. Shay had said two looked European, possibly Dutch. What the hell did that mean? I finally saw it in Dirk, the biggest of the three: square jaw, square shoulders, square blond side-burns. A few years back, an Alabama high school girl disappeared on Aruba after partying with locals. He resembled one of the suspectsDutch.
Clovis was Peter Lorre because he looked like the old-time actor from the Bogart films. Same slumped shoulders and protuberant eyes. He struck poses and moved like a weasel. Smooth, quiet, black hair slicked back with busy hands.
Clovis struck a pose now-mock deference-when Ritchie said, “What these ladies need is a drink. Why are you gentlemen standing there when you should be lookin’ after refreshments for our new friends?”
He began filling plastic beer cups from the blender, saying, “Bob Marley-nothin’ ever wrong with listenin’ to brother Bob. But you serious about not wantin’ the same junk music every tourist wants?”
“Yes! I told you, we’re not tourists, we’re travelers. We didn’t come to buy trinkets and get a tan.”
“No ‘Yellow Bird’? No ‘Jamaica Farewell’?” Big grin.
“My God,” Carol said, “spare me! Mattie and I study cultures. It must be horrible for you, putting up with a bunch of idiotic tourists, the same music, the same questions day after day. Ritchie, don’t let the age difference throw you. We’re open to new experiences.”
“Age? Carol darlin’, age don’t mean nothing. It’s a woman’s soul what matters.”
“That’s so sweet; like poetry-and it’s so true! Mattie, isn’t that wonderful?”
Now Mattie flashed Carol a look, but Carol didn’t catch it because Ritchie was handing them margaritas as he danced past.
Carol took a sip, then another before saying, “Here… this is exactly what I’m talking about. A real margarita, not that awful Kool-Aid crap they serve in the States. Fresh lime a
nd damn good tequila.” She touched the rim with her finger. “Real sea salt.”
Resigned, Mattie took a long gulp, looking at the door. She said, “Yeah, sea salt,” as if thinking about the lobster they hadn’t cooked, and maybe about a marine biologist who’d failed to arrive.
Then the music started. Marley and the Wailers, Jammin’. I couldn’t hear them clearly anymore.
Wolfie, the Bagman, was also the cameraman.
From my platform on the rock, through an opening in the ferns, I watched him move through the forest toward the blind, a canvas bag on his shoulder. Huge, round, stocky man with an oversized round head, wearing the Italian sunglasses even though it was dark-a man committed to fashion. Beside him, walking at heel, was a dog. Well-trained but alert-Doberman and pit bull mix, it looked like-tall as a greyhound, all muscle beneath brown brindle hide.
Geezus.
Shay’s father had been in the dogfight business and raised pit bulls. They were as nasty as Dexter Money. My uncle Tucker had owned one, too, a surly animal named Gator. But Wolfie had obviously spent a lot of time or money training his dog-a man who worked alone and needed protection.
I got ready to retreat when I saw the dog, my hand on the little Colt pistol. But then I got a whiff of the cigarillo Wolfie was smoking and relaxed a little. Wind was out of the west, blowing my scent away from the dog. Because of the ferns, and because I was wearing dark pants, a black T-shirt, and an old Navy watch cap, it was unlikely they’d see me. Stay quiet, remain hidden, and the dog would be as unaware as Wolfie that I was doing countersurveillance.
Even so, I felt uneasy. It was one big damn dog.
Sunset on the island was at 6:30 p.m., and the two had arrived shortly afterward. Now it was nearly nine, and Wolfie still hadn’t shot anything worth a damn.
I had. That morning, I’d bought a palm-sized Kodak plus a mini shotgun mic, so I could film and record from a distance. The camera shot HDV, and it had infrared mode for filming at night.
I didn’t need a tripod. I’d packed a military-grade spotlight with an infrared cap-a Golight. Cap off, you could see the beam from miles away. Cap on, you couldn’t see the beam from a foot away-unless you were wearing night-vision optics.
I was. The green-eye monocular over my right eye.
It was almost funny. Countersurveillance occasionally is. Wolfie was in the spotlight and didn’t know it. The infrared Golight lit up the blind like a stage, and my camera captured it all. No reaction from behind the camera blind, either, where the dog was.
I got close-ups of Wolfie’s face as he focused his camera. I did slow zoom-outs to show the viewing window and camouflaged blind… then panned to the swimming pool where Bandanna Man, Dutch, and Clovis were working the tourist ladies.
No cuts-if you cut from scene to scene, it’s useless in court. Same’s true of digital memory. Too easily manipulated. That’s why I was using videotape.
I got a close-up of Ritchie looking sneaky as he opened the envelope, then poured powder into the blender, making margaritas. Kept shooting as he poured drinks and handed them to the ladies. Got close-ups of the ladies drinking, then did another slow zoom-out and panned to Wolfie in the camera blind. He was standing beside the camera, not shooting, but the shotgun mic recorded him saying in French, “Finally!”
The earbud I was wearing amplified it nicely. Good sound-until Carol turned the music loud.
Because I thought Wolfie might bail when the twins left, I’d burned through four tapes, getting it all down while I had the chance. The brides-to-be weren’t coming back-it’d taken the twins a long time to find their New York farmers. They were devoted ladies; no interest in a last fling.
But blackmail targets didn’t have to be prospective brides, because Wolfie hadn’t given up. Humiliation is a broad-spectrum weapon. In lieu of husbands, grown children could be leveraged. Or careers. Mattie was a mother; Carol owned her own business.
Finally!
Wolfie said it again.
He was right. Down by the swimming pool, it was starting to happen.
I got a shot of Wolfie putting an eye to his camera as he began to film Mattie and Carol dancing with Ritchie and Dutch. They’d finished their drinks and were working on seconds. Good dancers for big women, loosening up fast, feeling tequila along with the unexpected rush of the drug.
“Mattie? Mattie!” Carol was laughing, talking loud enough to hear without the shotgun mic. “Do you know what this terrible young man just suggested? He wants to…”
I couldn’t hear the rest. But Ritchie was taking off his shirt as they danced, big grin, doing a slow striptease.
I paused long enough to load a fresh cassette into the Kodak… and felt a familiar surge of revulsion. It was unlikely the stuff I was shooting would get to court-but, if I worked it right, the video could cost tiny Saint Arc millions in tourism if this blacklist story was leaked to news agencies or hit the Internet.
Make the Saint Arc power structure aware of the tape, and the island’s money people would do my work for me. Local authorities would react with shock and indignation before arresting the blackmailer, then crucifying him publicly. Reassure the tourists-the island’s economy came first.
There was another angle I could work, too. The island was a member of the French Commonwealth. According to my research, it was one of only four French overseas departments in the Caribbean. People born on the island were French citizens, entitled to French passports. France seldom interfered with the local government, but her laws could be applied-if I twisted enough arms.
The video of Shay and her friends could damage their lives for years to come. The video I was shooting could put their extortionist in jail for a lifetime.
Blackmail the blackmailer. He was ruthless, but no dummy. He would either cooperate eagerly, or eagerly try to have me killed. Either approach would be time-consuming. Shay would have her wedding.
Yet, I was reluctant to continue shooting as Dutch, who’d stripped his shirt off, began goading Mattie to dance, taking her in his arms and turning her in slow circles as Carol shrieked, “My God, I wish I had a camera. This man could make poor ol’ Lucy Hunt smile. No, wait! I take that back-no one can know about this!” as she laughed and danced with Bandanna Man, then reached to touch his face. “Ritchie? You are the sweetest, dearest young man I’ve ever met. I mean that. I think you’re just… a beautiful person.”
I was remembering what I’d read about the drug called Icebreaker.
It is common in group MDA experiences for people to explore mutual touching and the pleasures of physical closeness. Participants may feel very loving toward one another. They describe a “warm glow” that radiates gradually…
I told myself it wasn’t my concern. Mattie and Carol were adults. I was here to gather evidence, not make moral judgments.
I put the camera to my eye and touched record.
Carol was feeling it now, drunk but more than that, judging from the way she lifted her arms, sleepy-eyed, cooperating as Ritchie began unbuttoning her dress, his hands pausing on her breasts as she arched her back in invitation…
But Dutch wasn’t getting the same cooperation from Mattie at the other end of the pool, where he’d danced her into the shadows. I heard Mattie yell, “Hey, that’s enough, damn it. Please quit!” She pushed his hands away as he tried to slide the straps of the yellow dress off her shoulders.
… for a small percentage of users the drug has the opposite effect, causing paranoia…
I remembered reading that, too.
Mattie was having a bad reaction, but Dutch wouldn’t stop. He was forcing it, holding the woman close, kissing her neck as she tried to fight him off-“Get your hands off me. I’m serious.”-and now Peter Lorre was there, too, sandwiching her from behind as she tried to wrestle free until the spaghetti straps broke, both men grinning as they peeled the yellow dress to her ankles… then began to laugh at her oversized white panties and bra.
“Hey… hey!” Carol had finally noticed.
“What are you doing over there? Stop that!” She turned, holding her unbuttoned dress together, speaking to the sweetest man she’d ever met. “Ritchie-look what they’re doing! Are your friends drunk? Make them stop. Please.”
Bandanna Man’s grin turned nasty. “You on our island, why should we be the ones got to leave? Most old women, they’d love a chance to party with me and my boys.” When she started to reply, he cupped his hand behind her neck, laughing.
I’d already stowed the camera and Golight in my backpack. I was moving downhill when Carol screamed.
16
Someone was following me as I jogged down the trail. Who? How?
I stopped, listened. The reflective tape I’d tied to the bushes was only visible through night-vision optics, infrared switched on. Because I was wearing the green-eye, strips of tape glowed like road signs as I turned to look uphill.
I heard a faint, rhythmic crashing of brush in the distance. A man running through ferns? No, not a man… but something.
Wait…
A beam of light was now scanning the tree canopy, but there was something odd about the light.
Experimentally, I killed the night-vision monocular and the beam vanished… vanished into a night hollowed by tree shadow and stars. I flipped the power switch and the monocular glowed green-and the light beam reappeared, sweeping along the ridge above me.
Someone was up there with an infrared spotlight. I wasn’t the only one wearing night vision.
Wolfie?
No, the light was farther up the mountain, to the east of the camera blind. Whoever it was had found my trail, but continued to pan back and forth over a single section as if they’d spotted something of interest.
Then I saw it… two coal-red eyes dolphining in rhythm to the crashing noise that was closer now, coming fast.
A dog.
Wolfie’s pit bull was after me. Had he sent it after me, or had the dog reacted to the noise of me descending the trail? No way of knowing. But some unknown person was up there using an infrared spotlight to follow the animal as it charged downhill, scenting my trail.
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