A Wild & Lonely Place (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  “Did Ripinsky tell you why I’m here?” I asked.

  Connors set the bag down, motioned at a chair, and shook his head. “He just asked me to give you whatever you need and advised me not to cross you because you’ve got a temper and are stubborn as hell.”

  “I can always count on him to present me in my best light.” I sank onto the chair, weariness creeping up on me.

  “Actually he said some flattering things.” Connors sat opposite me. “Sounded smitten, to tell the truth.”

  I smiled. “You’ve known him a long time?”

  “We go back to the seventies when we both flew for K-Air in Bangkok.”

  “Ah, so you also worked for Dan Kessell.”

  “Yeah, my bad luck. Ripinsky said you’re on a job for Kessell’s firm. How is the old bastard?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve only met him once; he keeps a very low profile.”

  “Smart of him, considering his past.” Connors’s gaze lost its edge and muddied a bit. I’d seen that same expression in Hy’s eyes when he talked about those days in Thailand.

  I said, “The partner I’ve been dealing with is Gage Renshaw. You know him?”

  “Sure, we’re old drinking buddies.”

  “Then you probably understand him better than I. I can’t get a handle on him.”

  “Nobody can.” Connors paused, reflective. “I think what it boils down to with Gage is compartments. He’s made up of hundreds of little boxes, all strictly segregated. This person or this experience goes in here, that concept or that emotion goes in there. It’s a good way to avoid personal conflict, but it doesn’t make for much consistency,”

  “Interesting take on him. I’ll have to remember that.” I turned the conversation back to my host. “So you flew in Southeast Asia during the seventies and then…?”

  “Well, Ripinsky’s probably told you how ugly it was over there. After a while, if you had any conscience at all, you got sick of the profiteering and the trafficking, and heartily sick of death. I was on a roller coaster that was about to jump the tracks when Ripinsky decided to bail out.”

  “That was around nineteen eighty?”

  He nodded. “I remember it very clearly: we were in a bar in Hong Kong. This Chinese asshole was singing country-and-western and smirking at all us Americans who they were ripping off with their cover charge and watered drinks. Ripinsky took one look at him and said, ‘Man, I’ve got to get out of this life and back to the high desert where I can feel clean again. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll get out, too; otherwise you’ve got no future.’

  “Now, the high desert’s one thing, but me, I was raised in Gary, Indiana. Talk about dirty! I told him, ‘No way. I’m making a fortune over here, and there isn’t any place I want to go back to.’ He said, ‘You don’t want to end up like Dan Kessell. Or dead.’ And for the next couple of weeks he kept after me about it. When he finally wore me down, I spun a mental globe. It stopped and I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to the Caribbean.’”

  “And obviously it worked out.”

  “Took a while. First I headed down to Trinidad, flew for another charter service. I didn’t much like it there, so I worked my way up through the Windwards—St. Lucia, Martinique. They were okay places, but I didn’t feel enough of a connection to settle down. Then one day I hitched a ride on a freighter and when it sailed into Marigot Bay, I knew I was home. I’ve been here ten years. Used the money I stashed away while I was in Bangkok to buy a seaplane and started ferrying tourists around; later I branched out into interisland freight. Now I’ve got a fleet of seven planes and twenty-one employees.”

  “Not bad, for only ten years.”

  “Not bad, for a guy who by all rights shouldn’t’ve seen his thirtieth birthday.” The muddy look returned, but he quickly snapped back to the present. “No more about me now. You’re down here on business. I’ll get us a couple of beers, you tell me about it.”

  Connors left the room and I leaned my head against the back of the chair, watching the ceiling fans make their lazy orbit. They didn’t do much good; I was damp with sweat. When Cam came back with a pair of ice-cold Beck’s, I rolled the bottle against my forehead before sipping. Then I explained what I was after as best I could without going into unnecessary detail. “What I need now is more information about Jumbie Cay and Klaus Schechtmann,” I finished.

  Connors frowned and set his empty bottle on the floor; steepled his fingers and thought for a minute. “Well, something’s wrong on that island, that’s for sure. The natives talk about it in whispers. Of course, they’ve always been superstitious about the place—its name, you know.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “A jumbie’s an evil spirit. Can be either a person or an animal. It’s said to walk at night.”

  “Why would anyone give an island a name like that?”

  “Well, it isn’t the most hospitable place.”

  “The people?”

  “No, the land. Rocky shores, barren hills, bad water. About the only thing that can scratch out much of a living on it is a goat.”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  He shook his head.

  “The people who left the San Francisco area by ship—how would they get there, and how long would it take?”

  “Tough question.” He got up to fetch more beers. When he came back he said, “A lot depends on how fast they want to get there. They could stay on the ship they rendezvoused with, sail down the Pacific Coast and through the Panama Canal. But if this Schechtmann has made the trip often, he’d probably choose a quicker way. They might put into a small Mexican port where the officials’re easily bribed, travel overland, and fly out of Mexico City. Or they might arrange to be picked up at the ship by helicopter or seaplane, then catch a commercial or charter flight at any number of airports. You say Schechtmann’s rich; if money’s no object, there’re plenty of combinations he could use.”

  “Okay—assuming the fastest way, how long would it take them to reach Jumbie Cay?”

  He calculated. “They’re probably there now.”

  No time to waste, then. “How can I get to the island?”

  “You’re really determined to go there?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Why?”

  “Well, the kid is with her father. And there’re things…that you probably shouldn’t be getting involved in.”

  “Such as?”

  He shook his head, looked away. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, that’s all.”

  “Cam, I need your help.”

  “…Yeah, all right.” He thought for a moment. “There’s a fellow I know, gambler by the name of Zeff Lash, who might’ve been over there.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “He lives in the Quarter over near Philipsburg—you probably bypassed through there on your way from the airport.”

  “If you’ll give me his address and point me at someplace where I can rent a car—”

  “Whoa! Ripinsky asked me to give you what you need. I’m going with you.”

  “That’s not necessary. I don’t want to take up any more of your time—”

  “I’ve got nothing doing tonight, and you don’t want to go to the Quarter alone.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “You speak French or Dutch?”

  “No.”

  “You carrying a piece?”

  I’d left the.38 at home; there was no way that someone with only a California carry permit could bring a weapon over international boundaries. “No,” I admitted.

  “Well, tourists’ve had some problems in that area recently. Besides, I doubt Lash’ll talk with you alone. Me, he owes a favor.”

  The remark was reminiscent of Hy; sometimes I pictured him and his old buddies as points on a global diagram of interlocking obligations that resembled an airline’s route map. “Okay,” I said, “can we go now?”

  “Not till at least eleven tonight. Zeff Lash is what you’d call a late riser.”

&n
bsp; I chafed a little at the delay, but my impatience was quickly overridden by weariness. “Then if you’ll recommend a hotel—”

  “I’ve got a guest room.”

  “Cam, you don’t have to put me up, too.”

  “I want to.”

  “You must owe Hy big time.”

  His expression grew uncomfortable. “Well, I told you about that night in Hong Kong.”

  “Then I accept your hospitality. And I thank you.”

  “Why don’t you get some rest now? Around nine we’ll go to dinner at my friend Ben’s restaurant. He makes a great curried conch that’ll set us up fine for tackling Zeff Lash.”

  * * *

  The potholed streets of the Quarter throbbed with a rhythmic beat emanating from a hundred different sources. The night was inky dark, warm, and velvety soft; the air caressed my bare skin and carried the scent of unidentifiable blossoms. Unfortunately, the bugs were out in force, and even the organic repellent Cam had made me rub on my face, arms, and legs didn’t discourage them. I swatted furiously as we walked past a closed lottery shack toward a cluster of pale cinder-block houses.

  Voices surged through the darkness—quick lilting talk, high-pitched laughter, angry shouts. Dogs barked, a child wailed, a woman sobbed. A cat screeched, and another answered. In spite of the lateness of the hour, the Quarter seethed with life—hidden, intense, vaguely dangerous. My body responded to it, adrenaline building and flowing.

  Connors guided me to a pink house whose door and windows were shuttered; slanting shafts of light striped the packed dirt below them. He knocked, and abruptly the voices inside grew still. Footsteps came up to the door and a man with Medusa-like dreadlocks looked out. Cam spoke lengthily to him in French, and he stared at me, frowning deeper and deeper.

  “Jus’so?” he asked when Connors finished.

  “Jus’so.”

  “But, mon, I holdin’ aces.”

  His words brought a bittersweet taste to my mouth as I remembered Hy folding at the RKI data-search section poker game last night. I swallowed, tucked the memory away for now.

  Cam spoke in French again. The man—Zeff Lash, I assumed—looked irritated, then chastened. He shrugged and turned away, shutting the door on us.

  “No?” I asked.

  “Yes. He’s cashing in, will meet us at Eudoxie’s. That’s a bar around the corner.”

  * * *

  Eudoxie’s was one small room crammed with white plastic furniture of the kind that appears worldwide at hardware and garden-supply stores on the day spring takes its first tentative breath. There was a pair of slot machines against one wall next to a pass-through window where you placed your drink orders. A middle-aged couple talking quietly at a corner table were the only customers.

  While Cam went to order, I sat down, instantly recognizing the chair’s contours from previous encounters with its American relatives. He returned from the window with three glasses, set one on the table, and handed me another. “What’s this?” I asked, regarding the colorless liquid warily.

  “Gin.”

  “I thought rum was the drink of choice in the Caribbean.”

  “But you’re also in the Netherlands Antilles.”

  “I see.” I remembered the cab driver’s story about the Frenchman and the Dutchman. The gin was warm and raw; quickly I set the glass down.

  Cam smiled at my grimace, his eyes moving toward the door. Zeff Lash had just come in; he nodded to us, his bony face creasing in a wide grin as he spotted his waiting drink. He picked it up, knocked it back, and handed the glass to Cam. Cam went to the window for a refill.

  Lash sat down and looked me over. “You a dick, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Dick, like on TV.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Connors say you want to ask me about Jumbie Cay. Little girl got snatched, they take her there.”

  “Yes. She’s only nine years old. Her mother was killed when they took her.”

  He scowled fiercely. “I got girls of my own. Somebody messes with them…”

  Connors came back with Lash’s drink and sat on the other side of him. He asked, “So, mon, can you help the lady?”

  Lash ran his tongue over his lips. “I don’ know. The folks out there, they not just kicksin’—they mean business.”

  “Remember what I told you earlier.” There was a warning note in Connors’s voice.

  “Yeah, mon, okay.” Lash turned back to me. “Start at the beginning, huh? For a long time Jumbie Cay belong to the British, but it really be owned by the Altagracia family. Don’ suppose you know them.”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’ matter. Zebediah, he be the only one left out there now. Regina, his oldest girl, live over here in Princes Quarter, keep goats on a little farm. She hate the old man, won’t have nothin’ to do with him, and the rest, they all in the States, think they havin’ the good life, but what d’they know? Anyways, maybe twenty-five years ago old Zeb got a wild hair up his butt about the Brits. I don’ remember what they done to him, but he wasn’t takin’ any more of it. So he rip a page out of your country’s history book and declare independence. And you know what? The Brits don’ even care. That island got no fresh water, not even weeds grow right. What the Brits want with it anyhow?

  “Okay, months go by. Then Zeb get a letter from the Prime Minister at St. Kitts-Nevis—that be the seat of government for those islands. It say, ‘We understand you unhappy with your status as a British dependency.’ He answer back, ‘You damn right. I want my independence.’ And the Brits say, ‘Okay, good luck.’ So there was Zeb with no fight on his hands. I don’ know what made him madder— belongin’ to the Brits or bein’ let go so easy.” Lash laughed, smacking the table with his hand. He finished his drink, looked expectantly at Cam.

  Cam went for yet another refill.

  “Okay,” Lash went on, “nothing much happen after that. Zeb bring up his kids, they go off, his wife die. The island kind of fall apart ’cause now the Brits ain’t around to keep up the roads and such. Zeb, he always be a gambler, but eight, ten years ago he get into betting sports on this toll-free number. You know about that kind of book?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Zeb, he get himself in big, and jus’so, he owe a lot of money. But he think they can’t touch him on his island. Then this fella from the States show up, tell him to settle or else, and Zeb can’t.”

  “Was the fellow Speed—Klaus Schechtmann?”

  “Yeah, that the one. Anyways, Zeb work a deal with him. He sell him Jumbie Cay, and Schechtmann let him keep his house and some land.”

  “What did Schechtmann want with the island?” I was reasonably sure my information was correct, but I wanted Lash to confirm it.

  He smiled slyly as he extended his hand for the full glass Connors brought him. “It a damned good place to run a sports book from.”

  “You know for sure that’s what he’s doing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you been to Jumbie Cay since Schechtmann bought it?”

  “Sure. Zeb and me’re friends, go back a long ways. Sometimes I visit him.”

  “Have you ever seen Schechtmann?”

  “Uh-uh. He got a compound out on Goat Point. Never leave it.”

  “What about a man named Dawud Hamid? Have you heard of him?”

  Lash glanced at Connors. “Hamid. That the Arab. I hear about him, but I never see him.”

  “Okay, Mr. Lash, how can I get onto Jumbie Cay without attracting the attention of the people at the compound?”

  Again he glanced at Cam. “Bad idea.”

  I suspected he was right, but I merely repeated the question.

  He asked, “You just goin’ to the island, or you want into the compound?”

  “The compound.”

  “Bad, bad idea.”

  “I’ll worry about that.”

  “Sharon,” Cam said, “you ought to listen to Zeff.”

  “Maybe I ought, but there’s a
little girl on that island who needs my help.”

  “You said she was with her father.”

  “I also said that’s the wrong place for her.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Good question, but I couldn’t explain to him the violent stirrings of the gut-level instinct I’d always relied on. “I am sure—that’s all I can tell you.”

  Connors compressed his lips. After a moment he said, “Ripinsky warned me you were stubborn.”

  “Too damn stubborn for her own good, maybe,” Lash muttered.

  I turned toward him. “Why?”

  “That compound, it got guards, army of them. They using assault weapons, AK-forty-sevens. Then there’s the Dobermans. You ever tangle with a Doberman?”

  He was trying to scare me. It worked, but I wasn’t going to back down. “Mr. Lash, for the last time—how can I get onto Jumbie Cay?”

  He spoke swiftly in French to Connors.

  “What?” I snapped, fed up with their cryptic conversations.

  Connors shrugged, eyes troubled. “He’s concerned for you, Sharon. So am I.”

  “I’m through with arguing, Cam. If the two of you can’t help me—”

  He sighed and nodded to Lash. “You better help her.”

  Lash studied me for a moment. “Okay—you a good swimmer?”

  “Yes.” It was the one form of exercise I really enjoyed, and recently I’d been swimming laps at the health club Adah had talked me into joining.

  “Then you get somebody to fly you there in a seaplane. Drop you off at night off Marlin Landing. There be a restaurant, Nel’s Place. Belong to Nel Simpson, friend of mine. You swim towards the orange lights on his dock.”

  “And he’ll get me into the compound?”

  Lash’s lips tightened.

  “Look,” I said, “the little girl’s mother was an American, and she was born on American soil; that makes her a U.S. citizen. I don’t want to bring our State Department in on this because of some complicated circumstances surrounding it, but if I have to, I will. That might cause trouble for your friend Zeb.”

  Two two men exchanged glances that contained both reluctance and, on Connors’s part, a warning. After a moment Lash said, “Okay, I tell Nel. Maybe he find a way to get you in there.”