“So that was you and your friends by the wall at Libido last week when we came rolling up in the car.”
Terrance nodded.
“Where was Cuddy Banks?”
“He be waiting for us down the road.”
“You the one who threw the rock at the windshield?”
Terrance took a moment, then nodded again.
“Nice shot,” I said.
I smiled. The boy relaxed a little.
He said, “I gave dat money to me muthah. She have to give it back?”
“No, your mother can keep the money,” I said. “But what else can you tell me about Cuddy Banks, Terrance? Who gave him the money to give to you? You know who he was working for?”
Terrance shook his head.
“Your brothers never talked to you about that, never said why they were doing what they were doing?”
Terrance looked at the floor, spoke low: “Yah, dey talked about dat some.”
“What did they say?”
“Dey say Cuddy Banks he knew some people who had a mountain a money, kept it locked up in a house in da hills. Me bruddas and Cuddy dey all da time talking about how dey gonna get da money from deez people, be rich forever.”
“You know where we can find Cuddy Banks, Terrance?”
The boy cut a look at his mother. She gave him a nod.
“He stay just up the road,” Terrance said.
73
We drew our share of looks, walking through Camp Hill—a thirteen-year-old black boy leading a short, round Taino shaman and a tall white-on-the-outside man. Rain had set in, a steady drizzle, and few people were on the street. Mean-looking men watched us from rum shops. Sullen souls eyed us from the doorways of their shacks. Camp Hill was not the sort of place where one might reasonably consider opening a Welcome Wagon franchise.
The rain came down harder. Terrance grabbed a cardboard box from the side of the street, tore its corners, flattened it, and held it over his head, trying to keep dry. Boggy produced a poncho from his satchel and put it on. I got wet.
As we rounded a corner and headed down a muddy street, three young men edged out from the shadows, moving in our direction, malice written all over them. Boggy leveled a look their way. The three stopped dead in their tracks, then backed off. Hell, maybe Boggy really could throw heat. It was no time for being a skeptic about such things.
My stomach growled. It seemed like days since lunch at the Bird’s Nest, when I’d been unable to finish all my curried goat. What I wouldn’t have given for the leftovers. My stomach growled again, this time loud enough for Boggy to hear.
“Been a long damn day,” I said.
“You have much night left, Zachary.”
“Yeah, many miles to go before I sleep and all that. But I’m starting to fade.”
Boggy reached a hand under the poncho, into his satchel, and came out holding something about the size and shape of a carrot, only it was white with smudges of dirt. A root of some kind. He wiped it off, snapped it in two, and gave the larger portion to me.
“Chew on this,” he said. “A little bit now, a little bit later as you need it.”
He nibbled on his end of the root, then stuffed it away.
“What is it?” I said.
“Taino call it Ama Aji. I know it from Hispaniola, where it grows near waterfalls. I found this at the resort, near that false river where the naked people ride. A strange place for Ama Aji, but there it was.”
“What does it do?”
“It does what it is supposed to do, Zachary. As do we all.”
“Yeah, yeah, cut the horseshit. What I mean is—it’s not going to make me slip off into some trance and see things, is it?”
“No,” said Boggy. “Ama Aji it is not like that. The old Taino, from long ago, they would chew it when they had to make long journeys and could not take time to sleep. It will make sure that you do not fade.”
I took a small bite of the root and chewed it slowly as we continued down the street, navigating past table-sized potholes as we went. The taste was bitter, but not unpleasant, with a finish of cloves and pepper. Might go well with a hearty zin or a big rioja. I took another bite and tucked it away, my tongue beginning to tingle.
Terrance turned down a street, narrower and even gloomier than the others. At the end of the street, slightly removed from a cul-de-sac, sat a ratty plywood-and-clapboard house. The front door was closed and a low amber light glowed through a sheet of thick plastic that served as a window.
A small black sedan, a Honda it looked like, was parked in the cul-de-sac. And under a blue tarpaulin that served as a carport sat a gray Toyota pickup. Couldn’t be sure it was the same gray Toyota pickup that had waylaid us on the road from Benton Town, but there it sat.
Terrance stopped and pointed at the house.
“Dat Cuddy place,” he said.
I looked at Boggy.
“So what now?” I said, only it came out sounding funny, like I was drunk. My tongue wasn’t working the way I was used to it working. It was numb and seemed to occupy my entire mouth. Must have been the damn Ama Aji. A moment’s panic as I envisioned my throat swelling shut, unable to swallow, choking . . .
Bam-bam!
Two gunshots sounded from the house.
Then two more—bam-bam!
I grabbed Terrance by the arm and darted behind a pile of rubbish heaped in front of another shack. Boggy ran to the other side of the street, taking cover behind a junked car.
Beside me, Terrance wiggled from my grasp. I didn’t realize how hard I’d been squeezing his bony arm.
I peeked over the top of the rubbish pile and saw the front door of the house open. Out walked a slender figure, his head ducked down against the rain, holding something under his raincoat, something that looked like a shotgun. He got into the Honda, cranked it, and eased away from the house.
As the car drove past, I caught just enough of the man’s profile to ID him, and then I saw Boggy moving toward the house.
“Stay right here,” I told Terrance.
I caught up with Boggy by the front door. We stepped inside, stopping as we saw the two bodies on the floor. I don’t know which one of them was Cuddy Banks, don’t know that anyone could have recognized either of the two men. The scene would have kept a team of blood splatter technicians busy for hours. I’d seen all I needed to see, and I backed out the door. So did Boggy.
He said, “The one who left in the car, he is the friend of Monk DeVane?”
“Yeah, Scotty Connigan, Monk’s old army buddy,” I said. “I’m guessing that second body in there belongs to whoever it was helped Cuddy Banks shoot those two guards at Libido last night. Connigan probably came here under the guise of paying them, but decided to cover the trail instead.”
We collected Terrance and hurried away, none of us speaking until we were back at Terrance’s house. His mother watched us from the doorway as we stood by my car.
“Sorry you had to be there for that,” I told Terrance.
The boy looked scared.
“That man, he be coming after me, too?”
I hadn’t considered that. Didn’t think it was a likelihood. Still . . .
Boggy said, “I’ll stay here for the night. Just to watch things.”
Terrance seemed to like that idea. He stepped toward his house.
“You sure about this?” I asked Boggy.
He nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “I am not so much worried about that man Connigan. But the boy, I think there is more that he can tell us.”
74
I was totally wired by the time I got back to Libido. And it wasn’t just a result of seeing two bodies lying dead on the floor. The Ama Aji was working a number on me.
I was wide awake, had all the energy in the world. Stimulation presented itself on another front, too. There’s no delicate way to explain it, except to say: I had an erection that would not quit, a hard-on that kept on keeping on. It had presented itself shortly after I got i
n the Mercedes at Camp Hill and was still with me an hour later when I rolled up to my cottage.
Some guys pay good money for such results, and as much as I appreciated the stand-up performance—indeed, my member seemed to have taken on a life of its own—I couldn’t put it to good use, and I was getting a little tired of it. Nothing I hate worse than a show-off.
I took off my clothes, got in the shower, and kept it on cold, the showerhead aimed directly at its target. Three minutes of shivering and grinding teeth, and my manhood was still at full mast.
I lay down on the bed, but that didn’t work because I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Damn thing was grinning, mocking me. A terrible, terrible waste. I tried rolling onto my stomach, but that was, well, painful.
So I got out of bed and stepped into a pair of shorts. They were snug enough already—Christ, I was putting on the pounds—but I finally got myself squeezed in, zipped up without injury, then slipped into a long baggy T-shirt that provided some camouflage for my personal, portable tent pole.
A nice brisk walk in the evening air, that’s what I had in mind. I was hoping exertion would lead to exhaustion and with that a return to a less aroused state.
I set out down a path that wound its way to the beach. I walked ten minutes in one direction, all the way to the promontory upon which sat Alan Whitehall’s house. Then I turned around and walked in the other direction, all the way to Ali’s house. The rain had stopped, and the moon was poking out from behind the clouds. I looked down at my shorts. I was poking out, too.
I cut back through the resort, staying well clear of the bars and nightclubs, eventually finding myself at a swimming pool in a far corner of the property. The pool had a hot tub attached, a halo of steam above it.
Maybe it was just a matter of relaxing, I thought. What the cold water hadn’t wilted, maybe the warm water would soothe into submission.
There was no one else around. I took off the T-shirt and eased into the hot tub, inching lower and lower, until my chin was just above the water. I felt myself wind down a notch. I closed my eyes, leaned back, rested my head on the edge of the hot tub.
Ahhh . . .
And that’s when I felt the chain collar slip over my head and go tight around my neck.
I jerked forward, and something jerked me back. I flailed behind, grabbing a leash attached to the collar. It was one of those choke collars, like they use in dog obedience school, no way to get out of it when it was pulled tight.
“Heel, boy!”
Darlene looked down at me, leash in one hand and a whip—a whip?—in the other. She wore thigh-high leather boots, leather panties, and a sleeveless leather vest that she hadn’t bothered to button, with nothing on underneath.
Lynette stood beside her, decked out in an identical outfit. At the end of her leash, a brass stud collar around his neck, stood a lanky young fellow in a black Speedo. His skin was shiny and smooth, like he’d been shaved of all body hair and rubbed down with baby oil.
Lynette looked at the guy. She gave her whip a snap.
“Rex, sit,” she said. And the guy rested on his haunches, panting, his tongue dangling from a corner of his mouth as he mooned his eyes at her, looking like he enjoyed it. It was some kind of sick, I’m telling you.
Darlene eased off the leash a bit and grinned at me.
“We been out looking for you,” she said. “Don’t you know it’s Pet Night?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I’ve been out of the loop.”
“Well, now that I’ve got you collared that means you officially belong to me and have to do everything I tell you to do. And if you don’t behave, I am going to punish you. Now heel, boy,” she said and gave the leash a mighty tug.
I climbed out of the hot tub and stood dripping on the pool deck. The trauma of the moment had not nullified the effects of the Ama Aji. Wet shorts made my predicament all the more apparent.
“Whoa,” said Darlene. “A good man is hard to find.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” said Lynette.
“Whatever,” said Darlene. “You won’t be hearing me say, ‘Down, boy.’”
Lynette snapped her whip and yanked her leash and Rex, or whatever his name was, leapt up and let out a bark. I kept a wary eye on him, lest he start sniffing my butt.
“We’ve got ourselves a couple of pedigreed studs,” Darlene said to Lynette. “Think we ought to head down to Club Libido and make them do tricks for the crowd? They’re handing out prizes for Best in Show.”
Lynette looked at me, said: “You could be a real contender in the pointer group.”
I smiled. They smiled. Then I gave the leash a yank and it jerked free from Darlene’s grip.
Darlene snapped her whip at me.
“Bad dog!” she said.
And I took off running toward my cottage, cutting a path through the foliage. I couldn’t get the collar off, but I gathered up the leash so I wouldn’t trip over it as I hurdled a heliconia and made my escape.
There was no way they were going to catch me, but they were faster than I gave them credit for. And I could hear Rex, letting out howls like a hound on scent.
I was at the cottage steps when headlights lit the road and a car horn blared. I turned to see a taxi swerve, narrowly missing the pack on my tail as they emerged from the bushes. Darlene had busted free of her leather vest and was waving it overhead as she whooped and hollered, her boobs bouncing to beat the band.
The taxi cut between me and them and came to a stop. A back door opened and someone got out.
It was Barbara.
She looked at me. I looked at her.
“Nice leash,” she said.
75
There are many reasons why I love Barbara Pickering. And just one of them is that after seeing what she saw—about as incriminating a scene as I can imagine without being caught in the actual act—she didn’t get back in the taxi and drive away.
After unloading her luggage—being temporarily paralyzed on the cottage steps, I wasn’t any help—she paid the driver and sent him off. Then she turned to Darlene and Lynette and said: “You must be the two Zack told me about.”
“And you must be the girlfriend,” Darlene said.
Barbara smiled.
God bless women. They possess an innate knack for slicing through bullshit and immediately assessing the rank and order of things. It’s an intuitive gift. And to their everlasting credit, Darlene and Lynette immediately assessed that Barbara far outranked them and they needed to put their things in order.
“It’s not what it looks like,” said Lynette. “He was running away from us.”
“So I saw,” Barbara said.
“We didn’t do anything, I swear to God, he wouldn’t let us,” said Darlene. “I don’t think he even likes us. We have been after him and after him, but he won’t have nothing to do with us. First, I thought he might be gay, but . . .”
Barbara put up a hand. Then she gave them a dismissive wave.
“Bye-bye,” she said.
Darlene and Lynette turned away and headed down the road, Rex dragging his leash behind them. If he’d had a tail to tuck between his legs he would have done it.
I got the collar off my neck, tossed it and the leash aside. I walked to Barbara and put out my arms. She put up her hand again.
“Not just yet,” she said. “You really do need to explain.”
She walked past me to the cottage. I grabbed her luggage and took it inside while she checked out the place. She wasn’t impressed. I couldn’t blame her.
She sat down in a chair on the porch. I sat down beside her.
“OK,” she said. “Start talking.”
I dispensed with Darlene and Lynette right away, starting with how I’d been trying to walk off the effects of the Ama Aji. Then I told her about everything that had happened since we’d last spoken. It had been three days, since before I’d returned to Florida for Monk’s funeral. So much to tell.
And then it was Barbara’s turn
. For starters, the deal was off with Aaron Hockelmann. At least for the time being.
“The money was dazzling, but beyond that it all seemed rather hollow,” Barbara said. “I think he wanted to buy Tropics just for window dressing, another pretty mare in his big stable. He would have taken the heart out of it. And then probably turned around and sold it to someone else.”
“So how did he react to you jilting him?”
“Oh, he was quite the gentleman about it. I mean, he did make use of his private jet so that I might fly directly here.”
“Helluva guy,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry the accommodations aren’t any better. I mean, they’ve been fine for me, but I know they aren’t much, so tomorrow I’ll see about getting us one of the villas.”
“Oh, Zack, that’s sweet, but don’t bother. You have far more important matters to deal with tomorrow. Besides, I’ve already booked a place down in Negril, at Tensing Pen. You remember the last time we stayed there.”
“The smoked marlin and ackee quesadilla,” I said. “Hard to forget a place that serves something like that. Ranks among the top-ten best things I’ve ever eaten.”
“And might I ask what’s number one?”
I didn’t bother to answer. I got out of my chair. I knelt on the porch in front of her. I took her hand.
“I’ve missed hell out of you,” I said.
Her gaze drifted downward to my shorts.
“So it appears,” she said. “And I know the cure for that.”
Yes, there are many reasons why I love Barbara Pickering.
76
Barbara was up long before me the next morning, her clock still running on European time. When I stepped onto the porch of the cottage, I found her sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a tray of fruit that she had brought back from the resort’s breakfast buffet.
I came up from behind, leaned over, and kissed her on the forehead, then helped myself to a slice of mango. Then I tried some of the pineapple. I felt the self-righteous glow that comes from eating fresh fruit first thing in the morning. When this is all over, I told myself, I will be a paragon of healthy living. I will cut out the drinking. Stay away from heavy foods. Knock off the pounds and get back to my old playing weight. I had another slice of mango. I wondered: Didn’t the breakfast buffet have bacon?
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