by K. T. Tomb
“Man, that’s the poh-lice station. Dem guys in green are the volunteer army, y’know. They don’t do much, just ceremonial things when the Governor is in town yeah? See here,” he gestured at the men alighting from the military vehicle, “Dat white man is the governor, and that big fella there is Eze. He’s a good man, he’s usually a farmer up by Central Hills.”
Manny observed the men as they came out of the SUV. He didn’t like the look of the Governor much, he looked like he’d fit in quite well with the more rabid members of Congress and Manny did not like politicians.
“Who’s the Asian guy?”
“Don’t know, man. I nevah seen him before, he not from aroun’ ‘ere den. We don’t get too much of di Chineses dem or di Japaneses dem here.”
The green-clad volunteers were frogmarching the Asian guy who seemed calm as a cucumber about the whole affair,into the police station
“Is funny you ask ‘bout di station,” the driver added.“dat place was di office for the E.I.C. long time ago before they close up and move to Plymouth.”
Manny paid the driver, took his bag from the back seat of the beaten-up cab, and decided to check out this old building. If it was a police station, he should be able to just walk in and have a look around. The front of the building still bore a slightly grey tinge from the huge quantities of ash thrown into the sky nearly twenty years before, but it was clear at one time that it had been the sturdiest and most expensive building on the island. The flagpole on the roof was flying the same insignia as was painted on the SUV, ripping in the warm breeze of the Caribbean Sea. Manny nearly whooped for joy as the flag was whipped around the pole, revealing the top of the building where, carved in stone , the foot high letters, still read:
EAST INDIA CO. EST. 1749
Taking the front steps two at a time, he reached the door where a burly man holding a rifle and standing at attention, blocked his path to the door of the building.
“Oh…er…” Manny fumbled for his words, and the soldier spoke as he ruminated.
“You can’t come in here. If you have a crime to report, use the telephone in your hotel,” he said.
There was a hint of disdain in his voice as he said the words, denoting Manny’s status as a tourist. He decided now would not be the right time to discuss discrimination in the Caribbean Islands, and went with playing dumb instead.
“Oh no, I’m just interested in the building. It looks old, I’m a big fan of old buildings, can’t get enough of them, what with the States not having many, could I just… take a look around?”
He finished with what he hoped was a tourist’s dopey expression between innocence and pleasure at being on holiday.
“No, please leave,” the policeman insisted. “This police station is currently occupied by the Governor of Montserrat, and is off limits. There are other police stations in other towns you can look at, but not this one.”
Manny thanked the man, and went back down the stone steps. He needed a way to get past this guy, and get into the building behind him. He didn’t fancy trying to force his way past an armed guard, that’s for sure. He was going to need a plan, and a really smart one, if he was going to find any clue as to the location of Captain Marlowe’s treasure. He walked around the police station twice and found that there was no rear exit, no open windows he might slip through. The walk had not helped him come up with any ideas, and the soldier was still watching him, squinting his eyes against the sun. Manny was getting thirsty. He walked back to the road, and looked up and down the street, where there were a few shops, most of which had living accommodations right on top of them. There was also a dental practice, a supermarket and a bar. Manny had an idea; maybe even a plan. It probably wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best he had. First, he needed a place to prepare.
Chapter Five
Perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but as close to it as he was going to get with the resources that he had.
He looked ridiculous, like a henchman from a John Shaft movie, but as far as Manny could tell, the combination of his giant 1970s afro wig, the moustache that came with it, and an overly liberal application of theatrical glue, Manny no longer looked like himself. Back in New York, whilst considering the task in hand, he had not seriously anticipated having to use a disguise to get anywhere, especially not one that was quite so conspicuous, but he had gone with instinct and packed the costume he’d worn to his sister’s Halloween party the previous year. The truth was that Manny’s plan was not a result of any higher cognitive functions or planning skills, but more from turning his bag out on the table behind the bar and seeing what he had that might be useful. He was smart enough to discount any possibility of fighting his way in. He didn’t fancy going home with a bullet wound after being in Montserrat for only one afternoon. His possessions comprised of his wallet, a couple of changes of clothes, some assorted practical joke supplies, the wig and the mustache and a can of pepper spray that he had bought after being mugged a couple of years back. He had never used it and was not even sure if it would still work.
Manny looked at himself.
“Yeah, I’m a bad mother, shut your mouth!” He looked ridiculous.
He loaded his pockets with the scant non-lethal arsenal and swaggered into the bar, looking to get arrested. The bar was named The Wide Awake Club. At four in the afternoon, the first thing that Manny noticed about the place was that it was deserted, and the bartender was asleep. Manny rapped on the bar.
“Hey, my fine Nubian brother. What’s a black man gotta do to get a drink around here?”
The bartender remained asleep. Manny repeated himself, very loudly. The bartender’s eyes opened. He did not seem perturbed by the sight of Manny in the slightest.
“Wha’ you want, boy?” he slurred.
Manny didn’t think he was drunk, just half asleep, but he couldn’t be sure. Manny tried to make his exaggerated New York City accent even more pronounced.
“Hey man, I just come in this fine establishment to see if anyone was wide awake enough to serve a baller some gin and juice. This island is hotter the cast iron skillet at grandma’s house.”
Manny had no idea where that had come from, so he threw his arms out in an exaggerated “gangsta” pose. The bartender, with all the alacrity of a particularly motivated sloth, said nothing, but reached into an ice bucket under the bar counter. His hand returned with a beer, popped the cap, again one handed, which Manny found particularly impressive, and after an eon, during which Manny was still posing, slid it on to the bar.
“I’ve got beer, and water, also mango juice; pay when you leave.” The bartender went back to his seat, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and immediately began to snore. This was not going to be as easy as he thought. He sat down at one of the small plastic tables, by a barely functional air conditioning machine that was surely twice his own age. Manny was about to resort to plan ‘B’, or rather, he was about to invent plan ‘B’; when his luck changed. A group of Caucasian tourists entered the bar. The four of them, two guys and two girls, all very blond, were excited and chattering to each other about the turtles they had seen on a scuba diving trip that had taken place earlier that day. Not that he was an expert on accents, but Manny thought they sounded Scandinavian, possibly Swedish, based on the language they spoke and of course their pale coloration. He realized he had been staring at them too long when their conversation died out, and the four turtle watchers eyed him warily as they passed his table. Normally he would give them back a look that said “What’s your problem?” but he knew that he had on a preposterous disguise that belonged in a 1960’s Richard Pryor movie.
The tourists made their way to the bar, and were greeted in good time by the bartender. That crazy bastard had been faking the whole time, Manny knew it. Probably because they look like they have money. A particularly cruel idea crossed his mind;he would find the treasure and come back here, buy the bar and kick this guy out on the curb. But it was a passing moment of aggravation. Manny wasn’t that kind o
f person.
The four Swedes, or whatever they were, collected their drinks and moved over to the antiquated pool table that sat in dappled shade on the veranda. Racking up the balls, one of the men set his drink down. Manny swiftly walked over, swept up the glass, ignoring the protests of its former owner, and sipped, ensuring that he maintained eye contact with the now drinkless pool player.
“Was ist los, mein freund?” the larger of the two blond men said.
Manny privately congratulated himself; totally Swedish. He knew it.
“What is the what-what?” he replied, dropping the glass so it fell to the floor, and smashed.
One of the girls gave a startled yelp. Manny didn’t like being this obnoxious, but it was all part of his master plan.
“I tell you what, you Viking bastards, that bartender just served me beer, but you guys get gin and juice! Does that sound like some racist bullshit to you or what?”
Manny was always good at making things up on the spot, and he could feel his flow coming along.
“I come here, all the way to my motherland from New York City, and my own kin are treating me like a field slave! And then you,” he wildly gesticulated at the Swedes, “Walk in here, into my house, and get served like you’re royalty! That’s some bullshit!”
The bartender was on his feet now. “Why are you saying this stuff, man? I didn’t serve you any spirits because you look like a crazy person. I’m not a racist, I’m one twentieth-irish, and a black man of Montserrat, how can I be racist against you?”
Manny countered quickly, “Because you want to be white like them, you want to be their friend, when these Swedes hate people like you! Don’t you see the struggle?”
The blond girls started talking together in their language, and one spoke to Manny in very reasonable English.
“We’re not Swedish, we are from Germany, and we don’t want any trouble here, we’ll just go, ok?”
Manny felt unstoppable, and he wouldn’t give up the ruse, unstoppable even if he had wanted to.
“Oh, of course!” exaggerating his actions to show sarcasm, “The nice little Germans are just coming in to stay for a while, and then they’ll leave. Where have we heard that one before? Hmm…”
Manny spun on his heel and goose-stepped around the bar, throwing his right arm out in a high roman salute and clamping it back to his chest. The German tourists gasped in shock. No one of any decency would impersonate him, at least not in front of actual Germans. Both of the men in the party began to shout at him angrily, it was clear that Manny’s actions translated very well across the boundaries of language. Manny stopped goose-stepping and leapt onto the pool table, scattering the balls. He kicked a drink that rested on the lip of the table, showering everyone in fruity alcohol. One of the men tried to grab his legs, but he leapt off the far side of the table, and threw a beer over their heads and onto the bar, where it smashed.
“Hey! Stop this at once!” cried the bartender, furious. “Or I’ll call the police! My brother is a policeman, and he’ll beat you!”
The Germans were also bellowing furiously, and chasing Manny around the pool table trying to catch him as he continued to add to the din by singing an anti-German song of his own devising. He wouldn’t remember entirely how it went when he tried to recount the story, but it had something to do with Hitler, a goat, and a compromising position involving a bratwurst sausage and lederhosen. These were just about the only things about Germany that Manny knew.
One of the German men finally caught him, and all six of them, the bartender, the four Germans , and Manny, were still throwing punches at each other on the floor when the police arrived, and decided to make things simple. They decided to just arrest everybody and sort out whose fault it was later.
Chapter Six
The bartender was released immediately, but due to the confusing nature of the bar brawl Manny and the Germans were taken in for questioning. The police hadn’t brought enough handcuffs for everyone, but the police station was less than fifty yards up the street so the officers felt comfortable escorting the disturbers of the peace on foot and unfettered. The tourists looked crestfallen, and shot angry glances at the young black man with the fake moustache hanging from his cheek that had started all the trouble.
Manny felt bad for them. It wasn’t like he meant for them to get arrested too, but an angry six foot German is a very formidable thing, as Manny’s rapidly swelling right eye and busted lip could attest. Carrying his left shoe that was dislodged in the ruckus, he was kept separate from his opponents in pugilism by two of the green shirted military volunteers. It looked like the Salem Police Force was barely equipped to handle shoplifting and paperwork, let alone a full-fledged wrestling match. A pair of blue shirted police officers took the front and back of the group so they could keep an eye on things, leaving the escort duty to the additional strength borrowed from the Governors’ guard. Shopkeepers stood at the front of their stalls, and children hung out of upper windows, making cat calls and laughing at the high drama in the small town.
This time, the soldier who had barred Manny’s entry earlier in the day stood aside, and showed no sign of recognizing him; either this was due to the combination of his beaten face and huge wig, or else the scene of young white tourists being arrested was more interesting. Inside the police station was considerably cooler than it had been outside. Manny was seated in an annex to the entrance hall to keep him somewhat apart from his co-accused. The Germans began to make their case to the desk sergeant, with some difficulty. Manny supposed that learning English as a second language in school had not adequately prepared them for describing someone acting like a lunatic and impersonating Hitler. Left alone, Manny looked around to see if he could find anything that would lead him to the next clue. This building must be important, somehow, if it merited the first mention on Marlowe’s map. From his seat, he couldn’t see much, so he decided to risk a peek round the corner. In the main entrance, the desk sergeant sat behind a cheap table, looking vaguely perplexed as the Germans told their story in their language, and then the girl who had spoken the best English in the bar translated it for the sergeant. It was not an easy job for him to make sense of it all. Behind him were two signs, an arrow pointing diagonally down and to the left, over a heavy, ancient door which read ‘Cells’ in block letters. Next to a flight of stairs going up, the sign read ‘offices’, and pointed up. Manny reasoned that the clue was unlikely to be in the offices, with trained police officers in them every day for a century; the clue would surely have been discovered. There was a door on both sides of the corridor, between where Manny sat and the desk sergeant. He could see into the one on the far side; the door was open, but it was empty, with a blank blackboard on the wall which he could see. The door on the side where Manny sat was closed. In his little annex by the front door, there was nothing save the bench he was on, and an open window which was too small to climb out of. He had examined the size of it from his exterior reconnaissance earlier that day. The front door was opposite him, and was wide open. It struck Manny that albeit this was his first time being arrested in any country, things were done quite a bit differently back home.
Home seemed a long way away now. What was he doing here, on this island where his ancestors had been immigrant workers, then freemen and landowners and then emigrants? If anything, he felt less sure than ever that he was on the right track. He’d probably just end up being deported and be right back where he started; disgraced, penniless and at the mercy of his family for the rest of his life. Maybe his plan wasn’t quite the stroke of genius he’d thought it to be. What was the law like here? Maybe getting into a fight in a bar in Montserrat carried a heavier penalty than back home. His mind was racing with terrible images of being waterboarded, or electrocuted, or beaten with clubs. He realized he was staring into space when movement on the stairs from the offices above shook him from his paranoid reverie. It was the fat white guy the taxi driver had called the Governor, with the man named Eze and two others, b
oth dressed in the now familiar green uniform of the volunteer army. Manny tucked his head back around his corner, and heard their footsteps clacking on the stone floor towards him.
The group of men didn’t pass him, however. He heard them stop, and some keys jangling as they were produced from their bunch. The door to the room immediately behind him opened, and closed, and then he heard the clunk of a bolt being thrown into place. Whatever the men wanted to do, they didn’t want to be overheard doing it. With little else to do but give in to his urge to eavesdrop, Manny slid along the bench towards the open window, and stood up to look out. He could just about stick his head out of the small opening if he craned his neck, and stood on tip toes. He saw the window of the locked room, a mere six feet or so away, and much lower. It was closed, and just as he was about give up on the idea, it slid open, and voices came so clearly from it that it seemed as if there was no wall between them at all. He relaxed and stood casually beside the window with his back to the wall, listening intently.
He could hear an English accent that sounded more than a little funny to Manny’s ear.
“Thank you, Eze, it’s far too hot today for my taste. Our guest hasn’t said anything yet, has he?”
Eze replied, in a deep baritone rumble.
“Nah, Mr. Quincy. These boys worked him good, but no telling what he knows. Maybe he don’t know anything at all.”
“He knows something, of that I have no doubt. I don’t have the time to wait for him to break. If we keep him for too long, Beijing will play hell with the Foreign Office, and that will cause us problems for the future of our operations here. We can’t let him go, either. If the Columbians really are looking for this fellow, they’re probably on their way here as we speak. You can see our predicament, Eze.”
