by Len Maynard
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Reprobate?’
‘How else would you describe yourself?’ Kim asked with a smile. ‘Well, Stevie? What do you think? It might be fun to get to know each other better.’
Stevie was hesitant, shifting from foot to foot, glancing first at me, then at Billie and Sam. Finally, she said, ‘Yes. I think I’d like that.’
She must have noticed the surprise registering in my eyes. She added quickly, ‘That’s if you don’t mind, Harry. To be quite honest, with everything that’s happened over the past few days, I could use the down time.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I think it’s a great idea.’
‘But I’ll hold you responsible if anything happens to The Lady. Oh, and watch that bearing on the starboard drive shaft. It needs some TLC. Be gentle with it.’
‘I will,’ I promised.
They all came down to the jetty to wave me off. Stevie cast off the stern line and stood, scuffing the toe of her trainers on the wooden slats. There was a hint of regret in her eyes as I pulled away from them, but not as much as I expected to see.
As they became dots in the distance I had to shake myself out of a melancholy that was settling over me like a shroud. For the first time in years I felt totally alone, like I had a mountain to climb, and it was very much a solo ascent. I tried to focus my mind back on the job in hand. Until this mess was cleaned up I could no longer have the luxury of the laid-back lifestyle I had enjoyed up until now. I set a course and headed back to Grand Bahama.
34
‘I’m sorry, Harry. Jack won’t be back ’til tomorrow.’
Pilar, the barmaid at the Jolly Tar, finished drying a beer glass and set it in line with the thirty or so others on a shelf behind her.
‘Where’s he gone?’ I said.
‘He didn’t say where. Just said he had some business to attend to and asked me to hold the fort.’
Pilar was in her early forties and married to her job. She was more than capable of running the bar, and Jack knew it and exploited it. ‘You’re too good to him,’ I said. ‘Jack takes advantage of your good nature.’
She smiled and, picking up another glass, began drying. ‘Quite the reverse, Harry. Jack was there for me when I needed him most; when that lowlife of a husband ran out on me for that blonde slut from Abaco. If he hadn’t offered me this job I would have probably blown my brains out. So I don’t mind if he takes liberties now and then.’
It was obvious from the way she spoke about him that Pilar’s affection for Jack ran deep.
‘And he didn’t say where he was going?’
She shook her head.
I left The Tar and set off back to the hotel.
Ray Burgess met me in the foyer. ‘Ah, the wanderer returns,’ he said. ‘You’re getting very popular. People in and out here all the time asking for you, dear boy.’
‘Oh?’ I said. ‘Who exactly?’
‘Reynolds for one, breathing fire. He was ranting about the illegal discharge of firearms down at your harbor last night. Seems to think you had something to do with it.’
‘Only in as much that we were the targets. Go on, who else?’
‘Well, there were three of them. Cubans, I think. They seemed very keen to find you. They even wanted to search your room.’
‘And of course you let them,’ I said with a smile.
‘Normally, Harry, I would have done,’ Ray said with heavy irony. ‘But Reynolds arrived just as they were making the request – quite forcibly, I might add – and they ran out of steam and seemed to melt into the walls. One minute they were there and then they’d gone. Great disappearing trick. I might sign them up for the Saturday cabaret. My guests could do with something new to watch.’
‘Anyone else?’ I said.
‘I saved the best ’til last. The Lady of Pain herself.’
‘Katy?’
‘Correct. In fact, you’ve not long missed her.’
‘How long?’
‘Ten minutes. No more.’
‘Did she say if she’d be back?’
Ray shrugged. ‘She may have done. I was called away before she left. You could ask Jill in reception. She was talking to her last time I looked.’
‘No, I’ll pass. It’s not important.’
I made my way to my room feeling even gloomier than I had on The Lady. The Cubans were still after me; Reynolds would probably arrest me the next time he saw me; and now Katy was back. She was the last person I wanted to see, and yet I couldn’t suppress a stab of disappointment that I’d missed her.
I took an ice-cold shower. It didn’t help.
Ray Burgess knew that as far as anyone else was concerned I wasn’t there. I’d found a mooring for The Lady in the Port Lucaya Marina, tucked between a seventy-foot Vitech and a Lagoon 620 catamaran, unimaginatively named Ocean Spray. I hoped the larger hulls would hide The Lady from view, even though the bullet holes were something of a talking point; but I’d take my chances. Mooring her at my private harbor would have been the equivalent of announcing my presence back on the island with flashing neon lights, multi-colored bunting, and a marching band.
I rummaged through the clothes I had left and found a pair of dun colored chinos and an ancient Guns n’ Roses tee shirt. I dressed quickly and left the hotel by the rear exit. My route took me via the kitchens, and I had to endure some curious stares from the staff as I made my way through, but I was out of there soon enough and heading down to Louis’ Oyster Bar.
I hadn’t gone there to eat, but I knew Louis’ was the hang-out of Leo Diamond, a one-time business associate of Alan’s until they’d had a falling out over money. I’d never liked Diamond, and suspected the feeling was mutual. These days he was little more than a petty criminal, acting as a fence mostly for many of the other petty criminals on the Islands, but his intelligence network was huge. It needed to be to keep him one step ahead of the authorities.
35
I spotted him at once, standing at a slot machine, feeding in coins and hitting buttons, his face illuminated by the flashing lights. He had a thin, bony frame and a pointed, weasel face with eyes that were never still, flicking this way and that, always alert, always on the lookout for the next angle, the next scam, or the next knife in the back.
I came up beside him. ‘Hello, Leo. Can we talk?’
‘What have we got to talk about?’ he said as he slid another coin into the slot.
‘This and that. What are you drinking?’
‘Scotch,’ he said. ‘A large one. And a real one, not one of those God-awful blends.’
‘Okay. And then can we talk?’
He turned his weaselly face towards me and smiled thinly. ‘Yeah. Why the hell not?’
I managed to peel him away from the money-hungry machine and found us a booth at the back of the bar. When a waitress approached, he called her over and ordered clam chowder. ‘He’s paying,’ he said, nodding in my direction.
Alice, the waitress, scowled. ‘Is that right, Harry?’ she said, not taking her eyes off him for a second.
‘It’s okay, Alice. I’ll get this.’
‘You eating, Harry?’ she said.
‘Not this time.’
As she wheeled away from the table she leaned into me. ‘He’d put me off my food too,’ she whispered.
‘You don’t seem very popular around here,’ I said when we were alone again.
Diamond took a sip of his whisky and shrugged. ‘Do I give a fuck?’ he said. ‘So, what do you want to talk about? As if I couldn’t guess.’
‘Then you heard about Alan Lancaster’s family?’
‘I heard.’
‘Any thoughts?’
‘Anna Lancaster was a bitch. She had it coming.’
‘And did their seven-year old daughter ‘have it coming’ as well?’
He didn’t look in any way repentant, but he kept his tongue.
‘And Alan?’ I said.
‘What about him?’
‘Any idea where he might be?’
>
Diamond shrugged. ‘Who the hell cares?’ His whisky arrived and he took a sip. ‘Good scotch,’ he said.
‘You and Alan used to have quite a close working relationship. You must have known him well.’
Diamond smiled. ‘Better than most.’
‘Then what can you tell me about him that will help me track him down?’
He stared deep into the bottom of his whisky glass. ‘You two have been the best of friends for years,’ he said. ‘Why are you asking me?’
‘You have contacts. You hear things.’
He took another mouthful of scotch, savoring it for a moment before swallowing, and then he drained the glass. ‘I’ll have another,’ he said.
I called Alice over. She took his glass and scowled at him.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I hear things; useful things. Things that can make me money. All information has a price.’
‘So you do know something.’
He leaned back in his seat, narrowing his eyes to look at me. I could almost see the wheels of his crooked little brain spinning, calculating how much I was prepared to pay for what he knew.
‘I know lots of things,’ he said. ‘But why the hell should I tell you any of them? I’ll put my cards on the table. I’ve never liked you, Beck. In fact I’d go so far as to say I hate your guts. When I was doing business with Alan I got sick of hearing your name. The great Harry Beck, Alan Lancaster’s moral compass. I lost count of the number of deals that either went belly up or never got off the ground in the first place, all because he didn’t want to do anything you might disapprove of. Saint fucking Harry! I would have made a fortune if it wasn’t for you.’
‘My heart bleeds,’ I said. ‘But you overestimate my influence. Alan would use me as a sounding board sometimes, that’s all; but all the decisions he made were his own.’
‘That’s a crock of shit, and you know it,’ Diamond said.
Alice brought the chowder and another scotch. ‘Sure I can’t get you anything, Harry?’ she said.
‘No. I’m fine.’ I watched him eat. ‘How much?’ I said.
The spoon hovered at his lips for a moment, and then he shook his head and took another mouthful of clam. ‘Not for sale,’ he said once he’d swallowed. ‘Not to you anyway.’
‘A hundred dollars,’ I said.
He smiled and dabbed at his lips with a napkin.
‘Two?’
He dropped the napkin on the table and took another mouthful of the chowder.
‘I know things about Alan Lancaster that would take your breath away. You think you know him? I tell you; you know squat. You know fuck about the great Alan Lancaster.’
‘But you’re not prepared to tell me?’
‘I’ll eat your food; I’ll drink your liquor. But don’t think you’ve entered into some kind of contract with me. I owe you nothing…less than nothing.’
‘The other day,’ I said. ‘I watched a young girl and her mother blown to bits in their car.’
‘What would you like me to do? Weep? Tear my hair out? It’s your problem. Deal with it.’
I picked up a fork from the table and rammed it into the back of his hand, pinning it down. ‘Tell me what you know,’ I said, bringing my face to within inches of his and leaning down heavily on the fork.
Leo Diamond squealed, like a pig rutting. ‘You crazy fuck!’ he gasped.
I pressed harder.
Louis was at the table in seconds, summoned by the noise. He looked at Leo Diamond’s face, contorted in agony, and then at the fork, drawing blood now from Diamond’s hand. Finally, he looked at me.
‘Do you want fries with that, Harry?’
I nearly laughed out loud. ‘Leo here seems reluctant to talk to me.’ I twisted the fork. Diamond squirmed in his seat and squealed again.
‘Do you want to take this outside, Harry?’ Louis said. ‘He’s upsetting my customers.’
‘In a moment. Once he tells me what he knows about Alan.’ I could feel the tines of the fork grinding against bone.
Leo stared up at Louis, tears moistening his eyes. ‘Make him stop, man.’
‘If I were you, I’d start talking,’ Louis said.
Sweat was beading on Leo Diamond’s forehead and trickling down his face. ‘Serena Carr,’ he gasped.
‘The singer? How does she figure in all this?’
‘She’s Alan’s mistress.’
I felt the blood rushing to my face. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s crap.’ I pressed down harder.
‘It’s true,’ Diamond said, his hand clamping on mine, trying to pull it away. ‘He was fucking her. She’ll know where he is.’
I held on to the fork for a few seconds more, pressing it as hard as I could before finally letting it go. It pinned his hand to the table. Leo Diamond threw himself back in his seat, cradling his bloodied hand with his good one. His eyes were wild and curses were flying from his lips in a torrent.
I got to my feet. ‘Sorry about that, Louis,’ I said. Louis shrugged. ‘He might need a Band-Aid.’
‘I’ll deal with it, Harry.’
I pulled out a couple of bills and pushed them into the pocket of Louis’ shirt. ‘For the food and drink,’ I said.
Once outside I leaned against the wall of the bar, feeling nauseous, but I couldn’t say now whether it was because of the damage I’d inflicted on Leo Diamond’s hand, or because I’d unearthed yet another revelation about Alan. I lit a cigarette and smoked it through before pushing myself away from the wall and heading back to the hotel. I needed to sleep on this.
36
The next morning, as I walked through the thrumming streets of Freeport, I thought about Serena Carr.
I had seen her perform a couple of times when she was providing the cabaret at Alan’s Blue Moonlight hotel. She was a striking-looking woman, almost six feet tall and built like a gazelle. Her parentage was mixed, which showed in her coffee colored skin and the tight black curls of her hair, and she had a voice that dripped honey. Her style when performing was that of a nineteen thirties torch singer; the way she moved around the stage and caressed the microphone stand was lazily seductive. When I met her off stage she was completely different; warm and open, with a ready laugh and a very quick wit. If it was true that she was Alan’s mistress, then I could certainly understand the attraction.
Tracking her down was fairly easy. She had a residency at the Scarlet Parrot, a nightspot on Count Basie Square in Port Lucaya. I grabbed a taxi to take me there. I didn’t want to be a target out on the streets any more than I had to be. I had no idea if it was just the three Cubans that were after me, or if there were others.
The Scarlet Parrot was set in a colonial style building overlooking the square, with décor that really only came into its own at night. During the daylight hours it looked too bright and garish.
A piano was playing a jazzy rendition of Night and Day. Serena Carr was draped across the piano dressed in a khaki tee shirt and green shorts, a crimson bandana covering her hair. A cigarette was smoldering in an ashtray at her elbow, and next to it a long glass half filled with ice and rum. Any of her fans used to seeing her in the sophisticated, slinky silk outfits she wore for her act wouldn’t have recognized her…until she started to sing, which she did a few seconds after I entered.
I sat down at one of the empty tables and let her run through the song. My questions could wait until she had finished. Even in rehearsal she was a mesmerizing performer, moving smoothly through the key changes. Finding a new interpretation of the lyrics to such an old standard seemed effortless, and she made the song her own.
When she finished, I applauded. Two hands clapping in an empty club during the day was probably not the ovation she was used to. She looked across at me sharply. ‘This is a private rehearsal,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’
The piano player got to his feet. He was huge, biceps bulging through the thin cotton of his white shirt. ‘Want me to get rid of him for you,
Serena?’
Serena was looking at me closely. ‘It’s okay, Jerry. I think I know him. Harry, right? Harry Beck?’
‘I didn’t think you’d remember.’
She stepped down from the stage and crossed the room in three quick strides; not only built like a gazelle, but she moved like one as well. She pulled out a chair and sat down at my table, crossing her long legs.
‘What can I do for you, Harry?’ she said.
‘I’m looking for Alan.’
She didn’t ask which Alan I meant…she knew. She glanced back at the piano player. ‘Take five, Jerry. And can you get me another rum? What are you drinking, Harry?’
‘Too early for me,’ I said.
‘Club soda? I don’t like drinking alone.’
‘Yeah, fine.’
She relayed the order to Jerry, who strolled across to the bar, went behind it, and helped himself to the drinks.
Once he’d set them down on the table and made himself scarce, she focused all her attention on me, her chocolate brown eyes boring into mine. ‘So what makes you think I know where he is?’
‘Someone told me you two were an item.’
‘Were being the operative word in that sentence.’
‘You mean you’re no longer together?’
She picked up her glass and raised it to her lips, taking a sip of the rum. ‘This is really none of your business, you know.’
‘He’s in trouble, Serena.’
‘Serious?’
‘About as serious as it gets. I think some people are trying to kill him.’
‘You’re kidding me.’ She pulled a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her shorts, lit one, and let the smoke trickle out of her nostrils. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.
I told her everything that had happened so far. When I’d finished there were tears in her eyes. ‘That poor child,’ she said. ‘He adored Sally. He always carried a picture of her in his wallet. She meant everything to him.’