“Not that much,” said Lex. “Besides, I didn’t wreck it. He did.” He indicated Posh Boy #3. “So he can pay for it.”
A quick search of the boy’s pockets unearthed a wallet stuffed with currency—dollars, both US and Manzanillan. Lex fished out enough of the latter to buy a new table and also a round of drinks for everyone, which seemed only fair.
THE POSH BOYS slunk off along the beach, sheepish and sobered. Timbo had recovered enough that he and Posh Boy #2 were able to drag Posh Boy #3 between them, although he was clearly in a great deal of pain and Lex predicted he would have a dire headache for the next couple of days. Over his shoulder Posh Boy #2 muttered about calling the police and getting Daddy’s lawyers to sue, but Lex brushed aside the threats. The three of them knew they’d been lucky to get off as lightly as they had. They wouldn’t stir things up any further. It was a humiliating incident they would rather forget than have to explain to others and account for.
“One thing’s for sure,” said Wilberforce. “They won’t be coming back to Manzanilla any time soon. And good riddance, I say. We’re better off without them.”
“No argument here,” said Lex, settling himself back on his usual stool at the bar. “If you ask me, this island started going to the dogs the day they started letting tourists in.”
“Not just tourists, white folk.” Wilberforce looked pointedly at Lex.
Lex frowned, then tapped his chest. “Ohhh,” he said disingenuously. “Oh, I see. That’s a dig at me, is it?”
“Been downhill all the way since you came, Lex,” Wilberforce said with a grin. “Used to be this was a respectable country. Law-abiding. Then you turn up, and...” He sucked his teeth in disapproval.
“Respectable? Law-abiding?” Lex snorted. “Manzanilla was a shithole. It’s been a shithole as long as anyone can remember. In the olden days it was teeming with pirates, whores and runaway slaves, and you could get your throat slit in any dockside tavern just for looking the wrong way at someone’s pint of grog. Nobody wanted it for a colony. The Spanish gave it to the French—didn’t surrender it or anything, gave it like an unwanted Christmas sweater—and the French passed it on to the British with barely a murmur, and when you finally asked for independence from us in 1968, did you have to fight for it? No. We let you have it. Couldn’t have been happier about it. The Wilson government virtually begged to be shot of the place. I think the governor at the time said something like, ‘If the Manzanillans want to run their country themselves, they’re welcome to. I certainly can’t.’”
“And now,” said Wilberforce, his grin widening, “now it’s a damn paradise.”
It wasn’t, not really. Manzanilla remained a speck in the middle of the ocean, more or less equidistant between Cuba and Haiti. It had a few beaches, but none that could compare with the sweeping white strands of Barbados or Antigua. It had mountains and rainforest, but not on the scale of Martinique or Tobago. It grew sugarcane and pineapples, but was too small and remote to compete as an agricultural exporter.
Up until five years ago, in fact, Manzanilla had been the forgotten Caribbean island, the one few people had ever heard of. Tourists seldom came, and if they did, the conditions at the island’s only hotel, the inaptly named Grand, deterred them from ever returning.
Added to that, most of the coastline was a no-go zone back then, thanks to a combination of dense mangrove swamp and, worse, thick outcrops of manchineel tree. The manchineel, with its poisonous fruit and toxic sap, formed a shaggy defensive ring around the island’s perimeter. The tree was so hazardous to human health that it was unwise even to stand under one for shelter during a storm. Drops of rainwater made caustic by contact with the bark and leaves could burn your skin. Manzanilla took its name from the Spanish for manchineel—manzanilla de la muerte, ‘little apple of death’—and seemed destined to be forever defined by this noisome arboreal guardian, until the government instituted a programme of felling and burning and cleared the entire island of manchineels in under a year.
At a stroke, Manzanilla was open for business.
Hotels and an airport were built. Tourists flocked in their droves. Jet-ski, windsurfer and scuba hire companies sprang up. The local economy boomed. From pariah destination, Manzanilla was suddenly ‘the undiscovered gem of the West Indies,’ ‘the new hot place to go,’ ‘the island everyone’s talking about,”’and tour operators were doing a roaring trade in package deals for people who liked to think they were both hip and not entirely without a sense of adventure.
Manzanilla today was not the Manzanilla that Lex had adopted as his homeland seven years ago, nor the Manzanilla on which Wilberforce had been born thirty-two years ago. And if anything, incomer Lex was less pleased about the change than native Wilberforce was.
“Yes, paradise,” Wilberforce repeated, and he wasn’t being ironic. Wilberforce was doing okay out of Manzanilla’s rise in the world. Holidaymakers liked to drink, and Wilberforce’s Rum Shack prospered.
And he had dreams. Ambitions.
The photo of a forty-two-foot Sealine F-series flybridge sports cruiser tacked up behind the bar was testament to that.
Fishing expeditions. Wealthy white westerners keen on catching marlin and tarpon out at sea.
There was big money to be made there. And one day soon, when he had saved up enough for a down payment on the boat, Wilberforce would be making it.
Wilberforce blew the picture a kiss, as was his wont, and ambled off to take an order from a newly arrived couple.
Lex, meanwhile, hunched over his rum sour, stirring the swizzle stick aimlessly round and round. At times like this, in the aftermath of violence, he tried not to think about anything. His life now. His former life. The man he had once been and the man he was striving his hardest to become. He tried not to think at all.
Then his phone went off in his pocket.
The caller’s voice was one he hadn’t heard in years.
One he had hoped never to hear again.
TWO
SERAPHINA
“LEX.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Lex, Dove.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what you’re calling yourself these days, right?”
Those soft, husky tones. Those neutral, accentless cadences. That beguiling touch of primness.
“Seraphina,” he said.
It wasn’t her real name, any more than Lex Dove was his. He had never known her real name, or cared to know. Seraphina had been his link to his former paymasters, the sole point of contact between them and him, nothing more than that, nothing less.
But, oh, hearing her speak, it was as though the years hadn’t passed. As though Lex had never quit the dark, clandestine world he used to inhabit. As though he hadn’t managed to put a wedge of time and distance between past and present.
He stood up and strode away from the rum shack, away from the music and the glow of the overhanging fairy lights and Chinese lanterns. He went to where the surf ruffled the shore, surging and effervescing like champagne. The moon was a shaving of gold. The stars bristled. His legs were trembling. Phone to ear, he exhaled heavily to steady himself.
“How did you find me?”
“Wasn’t hard,” said Seraphina. “We’ve known where you are for some time now.”
“Been keeping tabs?”
“Why would we? You made it very clear you were out of the game. We were willing to respect your wishes.”
“But still...”
“But still, we’d be remiss in our duties if we didn’t have some idea of the whereabouts of our erstwhile operatives. Think of it as a mother keeping an eye on her grown-up children after they’ve left home. We were aware you’d holed up somewhere in the Caribbean. Narrowing your location down wasn’t difficult. Satellite data, voice analysis, facial recognition... No one’s ever truly anonymous these days. No one can ever truly hide. Not even if they get their nose done.”
“It was broken anyway,” said Lex. “Needed fixing and ne
atening.”
“Software doesn’t just map facial features any more. Gait, posture, the speed at which you walk, your range of common gestures. The whole head-to-toe biometric package. There’s one ATM in Port Sebastian that you frequent, at the Banque de Caribbée on Palm Boulevard. We’ve got numerous shots of you taking cash out from it. Baseball cap and Aviators don’t do enough to disguise you, darling. Don’t suit you much, either.”
“What’s the use in keeping track of us once we’re retired?” Lex asked, although he thought he knew the answer to the question.
“One can never tell what you might get up to,” said Seraphina. “Or who might approach you. The things you lot know—the secrets in your heads—could be very valuable to the right people, or the wrong people. You can’t blame us for wanting to be sure that our ex-assets don’t become someone else’s new assets, can you?”
“I suppose not.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m calling, Lex?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re bound to tell me anyway, so why bother?”
“How are you, Lex dear?” Seraphina’s voice dipped to a solicitous purr. He had had fantasies about this woman—what she looked like, what she wore while she was at work, what she wore when she wasn’t working. He had built up a mental image of her. She was blonde, but not naturally. She had voluptuous lips and a crooked smile. She had a penchant for pencil skirts and stiletto heels. Her bra and panties were always black and always matched.
In reality she was probably nothing like that. But the Seraphina he imagined, the Seraphina her voice conjured up in his mind’s eye, was a seductive, sultry creature with a hint of the dominatrix about her. Predatory and irresistible, a modern-day Veronica Lake.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Life’s treating me well.”
“Retirement agreeing with you?”
“I saved up enough money to be comfortable. I’m frugal, and the interest on my nest egg goes a whole lot further here than it would back in England. The weather’s great, the girls are pretty, the booze is cheap. Can’t complain.”
“What could make it even better for you?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even a hundred grand?”
Lex hesitated briefly—but not briefly enough—before replying. “Not interested. No deal. I’m out. You know I’m out. I can’t be brought back in, not for any amount.”
“It’s a tidy sum,” said Seraphina. “And it’s not for a Code Crimson, either.”
“I don’t care.”
“I think you do. We’re talking sterling here, not US dollars, definitely not Manzanillan dollars. For a couple of days’ work. Nothing that’ll demand your old skills. Friends of ours need a little help, that’s all.”
“Friends with stars on their shoulders and stripes on their chests?”
“Well put. Yes. They asked for you specifically. I think you impressed them, way back when. Left a lasting impression, at any rate.”
“Is it local, the job?”
“Very. They need a man on the ground, someone who knows the game, someone they can trust. A hundred K, Lex. Not to be sneezed at. Even if you yourself don’t need the money, you might know someone who does. Your chum Wilberforce Allen, for instance.”
“You have done your homework, haven’t you?”
Seraphina let out a crackly laugh. He pictured her holding a long, thin, lavender-coloured cigarette in her free hand, throwing her head back in amusement.
“We’re thorough when it’s required,” she said. “Mr Allen has his heart set on opening up a deep-sea sports fishing business, does he not? He’s talked to you about going into partnership with him. For the sort of money that’s lying on the table, you and he could buy that boat, along with all the equipment you need—get the ball rolling so that Wilberforce doesn’t have to spend his evenings slinging rum cocktails at sunburned holiday rabble and you don’t have to spend yours being his unpaid, unofficial bouncer. How does that sound, Lex, my love? To me it sounds like the future, a departure, a way forward. Or would you rather stay as you are—bored, a little bit lonely, drinking more than is good for you and trying to live down all you’ve done? Up to you.”
With a wrench, Lex said, “The answer’s still no. I made a promise to myself. I’ve—I’ve put all that behind me. I can’t go back, not for any reason.”
“Lex...”
“No, listen to me, Seraphina. I have blood on my hands, so much blood, and I’ve only just begun to believe that they’re clean again. You, you of all people, know what I’ve done, the acts I was ordered to commit. It leaves a stain. Inside. However I try to justify or compartmentalise, it’s always with me, always. I’m not returning there. I’m not even going close. You understand? I’m not dredging all that up again. Thank you, it’s a generous offer, but—and please don’t take this the wrong way—you can shove it up your arse.”
If Seraphina was affronted, it didn’t come through in her voice. “Well, Lex, it’s been a pleasure talking to you regardless. Lovely to hear you again. I always liked collaborating with you. Of all my operatives, you were easily my favourite. A shame we couldn’t make it work this time.”
“Yeah, a real pity.”
“Should you reconsider...”
“I won’t.”
“But should you, feel free to call me back. There’s a window of about fourteen hours. This number’s fine for me, any time of day or night. If anything comes along that helps you change your mind, I’ll be right here. The next fourteen hours. That’s noon tomorrow your time, the deadline. Midday Saturday. I do hope you’ll be in touch before then.”
“Unlikely,” Lex said, and jabbed the disconnect button.
He trudged back up the beach to the rum shack and resumed his seat.
“Freshen that for you?” Wilberforce had studied Hollywood movies and picked up some bar-service-speak from them, in order to ingratiate himself with his American clientele.
“Go on, then.”
“You look out of sorts, my friend, if I may say. Your expression—like you’ve had bad news. Who was it just phoned?”
“Double glazing company. I told them I live in a cave.”
“Ha ha. No, really.”
“Ghost from the past.”
“No wonder you’re so spooked. Want to talk about it?” Wilberforce was being sincere now. “A problem shared is a problem halved.”
Lex stared at his drink.
“Come on. We’re pals,” Wilberforce said. “You’ve been a regular for three years. We have those long chats after closing time, just two guys bullshitting, you know? I tell you everything about me and about the women in my life who drive me crazy and about my plans, and you... Well, you listen. You don’t give much in return, but I figure that’s just your way. So now I’m prepared to do the listening for a change. It’s only fair. I’ve never seen you like this. What’s going on in that rainy grey English heart of yours?”
“It’s...”
Lex glanced up at the picture of the Sealine F-series. Somewhere, Wilberforce had a sales brochure about the boat, so well thumbed it was falling apart.
All at once he felt inexpressibly guilty.
“It’s nothing,” he said. He stood. “I’m tired. I’m going to head home. Goodnight, Wilb.”
Wilberforce held out a hand to him. They shook, Wilberforce a little ruefully.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“And thanks for earlier.” The posh boys. “I could have dealt with them, you know.”
“Of course. But I’m here to do the nasty stuff, so no one else has to.”
THREE
CROSSROADS
IT WAS A three-mile walk from the rum shack to his house. Streetlights were few and far between in Manzanilla, but on most nights under the bright stars, Lex had no difficulty seeing. Palms whispered on either side of the road, swayed by a
humid onshore breeze. Now and then a taxi or a pickup truck swept past, very occasionally one of the puttering minibuses that were the island’s sole form of public transport and were as reliable as a horoscope.
He came to the crossroads where he would turn off the coastal highway and head inland, uphill, to his house.
As usual, the old beggar was there, sitting cross-legged beside the junction. With him were his dogs, a pair of mongrels of the type known locally as cane dogs—all breeds and none, the end-products of a dozen generations of casual back-alley couplings. They panted in the night heat, heads on forepaws, tongues lolling.
Lex lofted a hand as he went past. “Hey there, Gable.”
“Mr Dove,” replied Gable. He puffed on his corncob pipe, releasing a cloud of aromatic fumes. It wasn’t just tobacco he was smoking. “Gorgeous night, huh?”
“Yeah.”
One of the cane dogs wagged a listless tail while the other, wishing to add something to the conversation, woofed softly.
“Same to you, you lazy mutt,” said Lex.
Gable rose clumsily, supporting himself on a rusty hospital crutch. There was something wrong with his feet, though Lex had never been able to ascertain what. Some kind of birth defect, perhaps. Polio?
“Me don’ suppose...?”
Lex halted and fished in his pocket for some spare change. He handed over a wad of Manzanillan dollars, about M$70 in all, the equivalent of a fiver.
“Much obliged, boss.” Gable tucked the money away under his battered straw hat. “You a good fellow, Mr Dove. Don’ let anyone tell you otherwise, ’specially not you’self.”
“You have a nice evening, Gable.” Lex made to walk on, but the beggar reached out and grabbed his elbow with a bony but startlingly strong hand.
Lex tensed, old instincts readying him to retaliate.
He told himself to relax. Stand down. Gable was just a harmless tramp who lived at the crossroads, panhandling most of the day and sleeping in a camp he had made for himself in a nearby thicket, just out of sight of the highway. He wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a threat. Neither were his dogs, both of them too scrawny and nondescript to be intimidating.
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