Otee stopped by the edge of the pool. I pulled alongside him and watched as Darlene and her partner shot out from the flume. For an instant the acrobatic duo hung there, conjoined like alley cats. Darlene threw up her arms in a perfect V, and the guy matched it from beneath her—a brilliant piece of choreography that was greeted with tumultuous cheers and applause from the crowd as the couple splash-landed, wrenched apart upon impact.
Otee nodded his admiration.
“Now dat’s a flying fuck,” he said.
19
Back in the golf cart, we putted away from Libido’s glitzy reception hall and followed a narrow road marked “Staff Only.” It led us past several squat stucco buildings and storage sheds before coming to an enormous pile of rubble—charred timber and crumbled blocks.
“What happened there?”
“Used to be the maintenance building,” Otee said. “Had a fire took it down a few weeks back.”
Otee pulled the golf cart alongside a long concrete block building. A couple of off-duty security guards sat out front playing cards. We got out.
Otee spoke to the guards, and we stepped inside, passing a control room where a bank of monitors flashed sequences of shots from security cameras placed around the resort. One of them offered interesting angles on activity in the lagoon area. Others showed similar goings-on elsewhere on the property.
A guard sat in a swivel chair watching the monitors. He yawned.
“How da show?” Otee asked him as we walked past.
“Same ol’,” said the guard. “Sell tickets, I’d be a rich man.”
We walked through a small locker room and stopped at a steel door with a digital lockbox on it. Otee punched in a code, opened the door, and we stepped inside.
Otee flipped on a light. The room wasn’t much bigger than a good-size closet, and it was filled with guns—rifles in racks along one wall, pistols on shelves along another.
Otee closed the door behind us.
“Just got a new door and lock,” Otee said. “Someone got in here a couple weeks back. Took five of the AR-15s, half dozen of the Glocks.”
“Any idea who it was?”
“Could have been anyone. One of the guards, someone else,” Otee said. “Mr. Whitehall, him no like the regular guards carrying guns. It scare the guests. But they here if they need them. You mek a choice what you want. Got Glock, the G36. Got Beretta, the 92 full or compact. Me, I like the Browning.”
He patted the pistol in his waistband.
“I’m alright, thanks,” I said.
“What you say?”
“I don’t want a gun.”
Otee considered me as if I had just told him I ate mud for breakfast and crapped brownies for lunch.
“You don’t want a gun?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“You watch out for Mr. Whitehall, you need a gun, mon.”
“Not me.”
“Dis Jamaica. Mon get in a jam he need a gun.”
“I get in a jam, I’ll figure something out.”
Otee studied me for a long moment, then he nodded me out of the room, pulled the door shut behind.
“Dead man want to do what a walking dog can,” he muttered.
“What’s that mean?”
“Means if you die you can’t even lick yer own ass. Dat’s what it mean.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Otee said, “Yeah, you’ll damn sure be doing that.”
20
We got back in the golf cart, continuing our way up a steep hill, the golf cart straining against the incline, finally stopping at a cluster of wood-frame duplex cottages.
“Dat where you mek a bed. Numbah five,” said Otee, pointing at a door on one of the cottages.
“This where Monk stayed?”
“Numbah six,” said Otee. He nodded at the adjoining door. “All his tings still inside.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the cottage.
“Go look at da place, see if it suits ya.”
The door on number five was unlocked. I went inside and flipped on a light and looked around. Nothing fancy. A tiny sitting room out front, a tinier bedroom in the back, and in between, a narrow galley kitchen. The furniture was worn and the mattress was thin, but the paint was new and the place smelled clean. It would do.
When I stepped outside, Otee was on the porch, holding two leather pouches. He reached into one of the pouches and sprinkled whatever was inside it along the edge of the porch. Then he sprinkled some more in front of my door.
“What’s that?”
“Tobacco seed,” he said. “Keep Monk duppy away.”
I knew about duppies, what folks of the Caribbean call the wandering souls of the dead. And I knew better than to disrespect such beliefs. Duppy lore is firmly entrenched on all the islands. To mock it is to engender all sorts of bad ju-ju. Not worth it. Besides, when it comes to wandering souls and the spiritual world and things that go bump in the night, I figure it makes sense to pay tribute on all fronts, just to cover your butt.
“Tobacco seed, huh. Why’s that keep duppies away?”
“A duppy, him ain’t good with figures,” Otee said as he continued sprinkling. “Can’t count past nine. Duppy get to the porch, see all dis tobacco seed, and him want it, him want it bad. Him pick it up and start counting it, and when him gets to nine him have to stop and start counting all over again. It vex him. Sooner-later him just go way.”
He opened the second pouch and began sprinkling something from it, something white.
“Salt?”
Otee nodded.
“Duppy no like salt. Mek him heavy so he cannot fly.” He finished sprinkling the salt. “Used to be all us Africans could fly. You know dat?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yah, mon, true-true. We could fly like hell we could. Could fly everywhere, free like bird. But da white man, da slavers, dey gave us salt and when we get off de boats in Jamaica we could not fly home to Africa.”
Otee finished spreading the salt, then tucked away the two pouches.
He said, “Duppy got nine days.”
“Nine days?”
“Someone die, they duppy got nine days to roam around, do what they want, take what they want with them to the grave. Dat ninth night, the duppy he finally rest.”
Otee got in the golf cart. He punched the pedal and it rocked forward.
“Thanks for that,” I said.
“Yah, mon,” he said. “But you gonna wish you had one dem guns.”
21
I spent nearly an hour on the phone in the living room. I tried calling Barbara. On her cell, at her house, at her office just in case she was working late. No luck. I left messages on all of them, telling her I was OK and not to worry.
After half a dozen calls to various far-flung friends and God knows how much in long-distance tolls, I finally found Rina Murray, Darcy’s first wife. She was still living in New Orleans and now had her own real estate business.
“Christ, I wouldn’t wish something like that on anyone,” she said after I’d told her what had happened. “Not even Monk.”
I didn’t say anything.
“That sounds awful, I know, but he stuck me with a lot when he left, Zack. I spent the first five years paying off debts that were in both of our names, the next five getting out from under things he hadn’t even told me about. Man had more secrets than the CIA. Can’t imagine what kind of shape those other two wives of his are in, not if he did them like he did me.”
“You know how I’d get in touch with them?”
“Yeah, I’ve got their numbers laying around here somewhere. Might take me a while to put my fingers on them. They both used to call me every now and again, asking if I’d seen him after he’d run out on them. We should have formed a club or something.”
“Monk have any kids that you know of?”
“Think he had a couple by the last one. Annie, her name is. Lives somewhere around Tampa. The two of them w
ere still married, I think. She called here a few months ago, wondered if I might have heard from Monk. Poor thing was broke. I wound up sending her a little something just so she could make her bills.”
“Anyone else I need to get in touch with?”
“Not that I can think of,” Rina said. “I mean, besides his old teammates, but you know most of them. Then there were some of his old Army buddies. Monk was still pretty tight with one of them back when we were married. Connigan. Scotty Connigan. That was his name. But I wouldn’t know how to find him.”
“Well, you come across any numbers, keep ’em handy. I’ll get back in touch with you so I can notify folks about it,” I said.
“Look, Zack, don’t you worry about that. I’ll make the calls,” she said. “Sounds like you’ve got enough on your hands.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. And I’ll see about a memorial service or something. Guess it should be in Florida, with his wife and kids,” Rina said, her voice breaking. “Hold on, let me get some goddam Kleenex.”
When she came back on, she said: “Never thought I could shed tears again over that son of a bitch. But no one deserves to go like that, Zack. No one. Not even Monk DeVane.”
We said our good-byes and I told her I would call in the next day or two, as soon as I knew anything more.
It was late and I knew I should sleep, but I was wound tighter than the knob on a cheap alarm clock. I thought a shower might do some good, relax me a little bit.
I got undressed and stepped in the tub and turned on the spigot full blast. When things got steamy I yanked on the shower valve and let the needles of water beat against my neck and shoulders. Not as good as a deep-tissue massage, but not bad.
I stretched and got out the kinks and did some yoga neck rolls that Barbara had shown me. Said they were good for relieving stress. They worked. Sorta. But if Barbara had been in the shower with me then we could have engaged ourselves in a stress-reliever that would have worked a whole lot better.
I dried off, stepped into the living room, and tried all of Barbara’s numbers again. Nothing doing.
I went back to the bedroom. There was an AC unit in one of the windows, but I didn’t turn it on. It was warm out but not unbearable, with a breeze off the ocean coming through the front screen door, moving through the cottage, feeling almost cool against my just-out-of-the-shower skin.
The lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling was confounding a couple of moths. I turned it off and the moths flitted away.
I lay on the bed in the dark, face up, arms at my side. I closed my eyes. I thought tranquil thoughts. I visualized Redfish Lagoon, behind my house in LaDonna, its surface smooth and unruffled.
So calm. So peaceful.
Such a load of horseshit.
I got out of bed, wrapped a towel around me, and stepped next door, to check out Monk’s place.
22
The layout on the other side was just like on mine—same generic furniture, same color curtains and paint on the walls—but it bore Monk’s presence. A pair of worn running shoes just inside the door, a T-shirt and gym shorts draped on the doorknob, as if Monk had gone for a run and was letting things air out for the next time. A quart bottle of drinking water sat on the coffee table, uncapped, a few swallows left in it.
Monk had just stepped away. And then he was gone for good. Poor bastard.
There wasn’t much to see. No books or magazines scattered about. Monk had never been much of a reader. In the kitchen, dishes were washed and stacked neatly in the drying rack. A towel was folded over the faucet.
I looked inside the refrigerator. Empty, except for more bottles of water, a carton of eggs, a withered mango, and a plateful of something covered with aluminum foil. I decided it didn’t bear investigating.
I stepped into Monk’s bedroom and turned on the light. The bed was made, its corners tucked tight. The room was tidy as could be.
I opened the closet door. There were shirts and pants on hangers, including two pink Libido polos, like the one Monk was wearing the last time I saw him. I found a couple of white polos that looked as if they’d fit me, along with one of his old scrimmage jerseys from the Saints, and took them off the hangers. I tried on a pair of khaki pants. A bit loose around the waist but they’d do. I took one of Monk’s leather belts, too. A blue Kelty backpack hung on the clothes rack. It was empty. I stuck everything in it.
I rummaged around in a wooden dresser that sat at one end of the closet and found a pair of khaki shorts and some bathing trunks. I added them to my borrowed wardrobe. I let Monk’s underwear stay where it was. It didn’t really creep me out to wear the shirts and pants of a dead man, but I drew the line at underwear whether the guy was dead or alive. I’d free-ball it until I could get to a store and buy some of my own.
The bottom drawer of the dresser doubled as Monk’s filing cabinet. It was filled with manila folders and crammed with papers. I saw old bank notices and car-payment booklets. I’d go through it later. Maybe I’d come across something that would be helpful in settling Monk’s affairs, a life-insurance policy or a secret savings account that might help out that ex-wife of his in Tampa. I really wasn’t counting on finding anything like that. Still, it couldn’t hurt to sort through things.
I peeked in the bathroom. Monk’s Dopp kit sat open on the formica bureau. I recalled reading somewhere that the Dopp in Dopp kit came from the name of a German immigrant to Chicago in the early 1900s, Charles Doppelt, whose nephew was in the leather-goods business and named that particular style of small zippered bag after his beloved uncle. Then again, maybe the nephew didn’t really think too much of the old guy. Why else would he attach his moniker to something made to carry everything from jock-itch salve to hemorrhoid cream.
I wondered what Charles Doppelt might think of someone who went snooping in someone else’s Dopp kit. He’d probably turn up his German immigrant nose at it. Screw him. I fingered my way through Monk’s private stuff: dental floss, tweezers, toenail clipper, travel-size containers of talcum powder and aftershave, aspirin, Maalox. The usual.
I stepped into the bedroom and stopped at a small desk by the door. I hadn’t noticed it on my way in, but sitting square in the middle of the desk was a black, faux-leather organizer, one of those day-by-day calendar/journal things. Gold letters, embossed on the front cover, read “Ideal Executive Daybook.”
I picked it up and flipped through it. A newspaper clipping fell out. It was a month old, from the Jamaica Gleaner, a page of legal ads. Someone, Monk I presumed, had circled one of the announcements in black ink. Under the heading “Notice of Ownership,” it read: “Regarding Township 14, Range 7 West, Section 24, Trelawney Parish, 254 hectares, as bounded by Old Dutch Road and Fishkill Morass; notice is hereby given that said parcel is fully and lawfully owned by Libido Resorts, LLC, in accordance with all covenants of the Commonwealth. All other claims hereupon are rendered null and void, and all unlawful occupants therein are hereby instructed to vacate said parcel.”
Sounded like fancy language for an eviction notice. I stuck the clipping in the back of the daybook and finished flipping through it. The pages were stiff, as if the organizer had been seldom used. There were only a dozen or so entries, dating back to early May, which would have been shortly after Monk first arrived at Libido. They were written in a neat, deliberate hand, in the same black ink that had circled the legal ad in the Gleaner. Phone numbers, to-do lists, that sort of thing.
Two entries caught my eye, if for no other reason than Monk had marked them in big letters and set them off with asterisks. One was for just a couple of days earlier:
****K.O.****
MARTHA BRAE
1019 CHRIST CHURCH LANE
K.O. The only thing I knew that that stood for was knockout. And who was Martha Brae?
The last entry was for today, September 6. It listed my flight number and arrival time. Beneath that was written:
****EQUINOX INVESTMENTS****
&nbs
p; 314 DOVER RD MB
I’d never heard of Equinox Investments, but I was guessing MB stood for Montego Bay. Brilliant deduction, Zacklock. I stuck the daybook in the blue Kelty backpack along with the clothes I had taken from Monk’s closet.
Maybe the entries meant something, maybe they didn’t. They were strings, the only strings I had. Might as well tug on them and see if they unraveled something.
23
I slept better than I had any right to and woke up feeling like a new man. A new man who was famished.
Darcy Whitehall had mentioned something about breakfast. Wonder when he liked to eat it. I glanced at the clock. A little after six. A tad early for civilized dining. How to kill time until mealtime? Life’s most pertinent question.
I put on Monk’s bathing trunks and the old Saints scrimmage jersey, slipped into his running shoes, and set out on a slow jog across the Libido grounds. Ten minutes later, after following a dirt path that wound down a hill, I reached a secluded stretch of sand along a pocket-sized cove. It was separated from the rest of the resort by VW Bug–sized boulders that jutted out from the shore. The sun was still low, the water dark and opaque, not yet flaunting its tropical striations.
A stately arc of coconut palms rimmed the beach just beyond the high-tide line. Contrary to Boggy’s assessment of my taxonomical knowledge, I was slowly learning which kinds of palm trees were which. I couldn’t spout off genus and species, but I could look at the trees along the beach and know that they were not just any coconut palms. They were Jamaica Tall Palms.
Used to be Jamaica Talls flourished throughout Florida, but lethal yellowing disease has pretty much done them in. Nowadays when you see a coconut palm in Florida it is most likely the shorter, stubbier Malayan Greens or Malayan Golds, perfectly decent palm trees, but lacking the oh-wow factor enjoyed by the statuesque eighty-foot-tall beauties along this beach.
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