Ashes From A Burning Corpse (An American True Crime Reporter in the 20th Century Book 3)

by Noel Hynd

  De Marigny sold his chicken farm to his foreman, John Anderson, who owed him several grand from gambling debts. They settled for pennies on the pound sterling. The Count and Nancy started to discuss their options for getting out of the Bahamas and beyond British jurisdiction.

  I tried to wrap up my business in Nassau as quickly as possible. I did not see my acquaintance from the bar again, the police thug who’d put out his cigarette on the back of my hand. But I felt an uneasy presence near me. Just as I had when I arrived, I knew I was under surveillance. I tried to be careful and be conspicuous in public. I stayed away from my friends of color on the island lest I bring the wrath of the powers in Nassau down upon them.

  I made an air reservation to leave, and then the airline called me back and said my seat was no longer available. They had had to give it to a military man, they said. I made a new reservation. The same thing happened. Then it happened a third time.

  Something was up. O’Neil and Keeler were already off the island, but Ray Schindler was still here, wrapping up and keeping company with Alfred and Nancy as they pondered their next moves and as Baroness af Tolle and Schindler made phone calls on their behalf.

  De Marigny maybe have escaped the noose, but enemies were still out there and his troubles were far from over. I was starting to feel as if I were in a similar situation, myself.

  Four nights after the trial ended, at around three a.m., there was a loud thump somewhere near where I slept. It was followed by a louder bang and the sound of the door to my hotel room jumping off its locking mechanism. I came awake fast but not quite fast enough. Or maybe it would never have mattered.

  Harsh light slashed into my room from the hallway, accompanied by two figures moving quickly, one big, one small. The intruding yellow light from the hallway silhouetted. I couldn’t see faces, but didn’t need to.

  The big heavy one was on me first. He was nimble for a large man. Worse, he’d gotten the drop on me. I tried to sit up quickly but he came right at me, pushed my shoulders back down, then jumped onto the bed. He shook me hard, violently slamming me against the mattress, then pressed his knee at the center of my chest to keep me pinned down. He said nothing but stank of whiskey, cigarettes and sweat.

  The smaller man moved at a slower pace: much like a barracuda following in the wake of an oafish not-too-bright giant sea tortoise, looking for the chum that the bigger creature had missed. The silhouette told me everything: the ferret figure, the straw hat pushed back. The glasses. A sliver of reflected light caught the tone of the ever-present yellow tie.

  “What the—?”

  McBruey and Graywater. The Hardy and Laurel of nocturnal visits.

  “Shut the hell up!” McBruey said. He slapped me across the face.

  “We’ll tell you when you can talk,” Graywater said. “Right now, you listen!”

  As ugly as it was, it was about to get uglier. With a fumbling motion, McBruey groped for something in a belt or a pocket. He kept his other hand on my throat. I had trouble breathing. His knee was on my heart, no coincidence, and most of his three hundred pounds was on it.

  I figured the hand was going to come up with the truncheon and I was about to be treated to a few skull fractures and some dental work. Instead—worse. There was a flick, a snap and I could see the outline of a blade. He pressed the point of the knife to my right nostril and gave enough of a little tug to show he was ready to cut.

  “Okay, listen up, you stupid nosy son-of-a-bitch!” McBruey grunted.

  I didn’t have much choice. Graywater came to me. He stooped down right next to me, his face a foot away from mine. He too stank of booze, tobacco and sweat. His breath was like gasoline. He glared. He studied me.

  “Well, well, well,” Graywater finally said. “Mr. Alan, our no-good friend. How are you sleeping?”

  I grunted. “Just fine,” I said. “Up until a minute ago.”

  “But you’re a nosy fellow, aren’t you?” Graywater asked. The tip of the dagger played with my nose again. I thought McBruey was ready to cut. I knew he wanted to. My arms were pinned. I was helpless. I was aware of rain hitting the glass of my slightly-opened window. There was a distant rumble of thunder and an even more distant sparkle of lightning. Tropical weather, the accoutrements of sudden death. On such a night was Sir Harry Oakes murdered.

  “Let’s maybe get to the issue,” Graywater said. “You leave soon. Maybe. If we let you. You go home and write, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What are you going to write?”

  “De Marigny was acquitted. What else? That’s the story.”

  “Guilty man, de Marigny. Guilty man acquitted,” he said. “That’s your story. That’s what you write.”

  “That’s not how it looked,” I said.

  The bear on top of me moved his hand. The blade of the knife was now at my throat, keeping the jugular vein close company. With his other hand, he started to squeeze my throat.

  “You be goddamned careful what you write, you stupid Yank bastard!” Graywater barked at me. He was livid. “We have ways in these islands! We find you. You write what’s good for the islands or you never write anything again! You understand, you dumb American fuck? Yes?”

  My brow exploded with sweat. The blade was pressing hard against my skin. I felt my pulse in the back of my mouth. My chest bone could barely support McBruey’s suet-laden frame much longer.

  “Yes,” I sputtered. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “You write what we want, goddamn you!”

  “I write what you want. Like you say, Graywater,” I said. “What do I care, anyway, right? I get paid no matter what I write. Okay?”

  The big man’s head turned slowly toward his keeper. Through the round lenses of his glasses, Graywater glowered at me a few seconds longer. Then his dark eyes slid to the right and connected with his enforcer. There was a slight nod. I didn’t know what it meant. It could just as easily have meant kill him as go get him a cup of coffee.

  McBruey burped and grunted. He pulled back the knife. With effort, he steadied himself and hulked off me. My chest still ached. My cheeks stung from where he had wailed on me. My heart felt like a giant fan spinning in a hot room.

  The yellow tie withdrew a little as the slim man leaned back. “Graywater? Who?” he asked me. “Who am I?” He slapped me. Hard.

  “Mister Graywater,” I said.

  “Don’t you ever fucking forget!” he barked. “We find you.”

  Graywater backed toward the door. His smelly ape gave me a final shove and followed him. They both withdrew while facing me, just in case, I suppose, that I caught a case of the crazies and tried to pull a gun. Yellow Tie disappeared first, then his brutal Hibernian. They left the door wide open, the hinges and lock shattered.

  CHAPTER 28

  Still shaken the next morning, I found Ray Schindler in the hotel dining room. In low confiding ones, out of earshot of any other tables, I told him what had happened. He listened quietly and attentively.

  “Be casual about how you look around, Alan,” he said softly. “But study the room.”

  I scanned. There was a team of security people watching us from a near corner. Another single cop was at a bar. Police shoes. I was good at spotting them and tired of seeing them.

  “They’re everywhere,” Ray said.

  I might have made visible pretenses of talking to Ray on a more casual subject, but that wasn’t the way I was thinking. The way I calculated, Ray was one of the few people who could possibly bring pressure on the power structure of the Bahamas. He had the political swat, the American media adored him, he knew people in the New York-Miami-Palm Beach social circuits. Ray had juice. He also had balls.

  “What are you planning to write?” he asked me.

  I was too rattled for food. I was having a Chesterfield for breakfast. The calming blast of nicotine was good.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll decide when I get back to a free country. And I’ll write what I damned w
ell want to write.”

  “Be careful,” he said. “They have short attention spans but long memories. Stupid but stubborn.”

  “For a ‘free world’ place,” I said, “these islands bear a pretty good resemblance to a fascist state.”

  My comment made Ray laugh softly. “You noticed, did you? I suppose you can blame Windsor for that, too,” he said. “God damn Bosch sympathizer. What should we expect, right?” He looked at me. “When are you planning to get out of here?” he asked very softly.

  “I’m already packed and ready,” I said. “I’ve got an air ticket for this afternoon.”

  “What time?” he asked. “To where?”

  “Three thirty,” I said. “To Miami.”

  “Do they know?”

  “They? Graywater and his bull?”

  “Them. The others. Anyone,” Schindler said.

  “They know I’m leaving. Exactly when and to where, I don’t know if they know.”

  “They’ve probably checked with the airlines,” Ray said routinely. “They do it all the time. That way they know when to ambush people. I heard one story… Know how those small Eastern Airlines planes to Florida have straw mesh seats? There was someone who made himself unpopular down here. The man boarded and went to his seat. Someone came in, sat down behind him and put an icepick into his heart through the back of the seat. Then the killer left the aircraft. They didn’t know someone was dead until they landed in the Keys. Or they didn’t care to know. You choose.” He paused. “A couple of other times, small planes departing have mysteriously exploded. Engine failure, also known as a bomb. Kill a dozen innocent people to get one victim. It happens, Alan.”

  I shuddered.

  “But, good,” Ray said, not skipping a beat. “We’ll play along. We’ll let them know. Now listen to me, Alan,” he said softly, “and listen like you’ve never listened to anyone in your life.”

  I leaned forward.

  “Keep your reservation and don’t take it,” he advised. “I’m paranoid, too, which is a healthy thing. I have a private flight arranged to the United States this afternoon at the same time from a private airfield. It’s a small plane. It’s cramped. Smuggler stuff. There’s one extra place if you squeeze. Be on it with me. We’ll get out of this damned place before these fools here know what happened. Do you trust me?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You should.”

  “Not that I have much of a choice,” I said with relief.

  Ray gave me a friendly punch on the arm.

  “You’ve been threatened before, you’ll be threatened again,” he said. “It’s all grist for the mill. Writers need experiences, don’t they? That’s what our pal Hemingway says. Fitzgerald, too.”

  Ray picked up a copy of The Nassau Tribune and scanned it for a moment. He turned to the sports pages, found an American football story and pointed to the paper, as if he were indicating something interesting on the page.

  He leaned close to me and raised a hand so that his lips couldn’t be read across the room.

  “Check out of the hotel at your normal time,” he said. “How much luggage do you have?”

  “Three bags. Two medium size, one small,” I said.

  “Good again. Put everything you need in the small bag. Your notes. Toiletries. Change of clothes,” he said. “Passport too, even though you probably won’t use it on the route we’re going. When you check out, ask for a taxi. Put your two big bags in the lobby. Then tell them you need to visit the washroom. There’s a washroom in the rear of the lobby. It’s near the exit that the colored kitchen staff uses. Goes to an alley.”

  “I’ve seen it,” I said.

  “Take your small bag with you. Head to the lavatory and then bolt out the door to the alley. If you turn left it takes you to Cumberland Street. Speed is important, but don’t run. It will attract attention. Go directly to the southwest corner of Cumberland and Marlborough, but for God’s sake make sure your back is clean. I have a private driver. Carlos. He’s a Cuban. Black as the ace of spades. A dear soul. He has a 1934 Chrysler. Dark green. I’ll be in the back seat. We leave for the private airfield at 2:30. If you’re not there, I leave without you. Our driver is also our pilot. Should be in the air by a few minutes past three. By the time Graywater’s posse of homicidal imbeciles realizes they been skunked we’ll be five thousand feet above the ocean, assuming the wings stay attached to the plane. We’re flying in a fifteen-year-old taildragger and we’re going to a private field on the coast near Orlando. Not many lights on the coastline. Wartime restrictions. We need to take off in daylight. Not sure our man Carlos has lights on his plane, by the way. Know what I mean? But he’s a genius with a compass. We’re skipping the whole obvious Miami and Palm Beach scene. Bring booze. You’ll want it. Evening skies are choppy and visibility sometimes is a laugh. There’ll be a barf bag under your seat.”

  I drew a breath and pointed to something else on the sports page, maintaining the ruse of a sports discussion.

  “Got it?” Ray asked.

  “Looking forward it,” he said.

  “You should be. Ever read Vol de Nuit. Night Flight. By the French guy, de Saint-Exupéry?”

  “I saw Selznick’s movie,” I said. “Haven’t read the book.” He looked at me with disapproval. “Not yet, anyway,” I corrected.

  “You’re still part philistine, Alan,” he said. “That’s what I like. Now wait here while I share our escape plan with our murderously corrupt pals.”

  “What?”

  “Just play along.”

  He folded away the newspaper. We both put money on the table.

  Ray lumbered to his feet and buttoned his sports jacket. He went toward the door, never looking at his followers, both of whom watched him. Near the door, he turned toward me. “Oh! Hey, Alan!” he called. “Same flight as me this afternoon? Three thirty to Miami?”

  “That’s the one,” I said.

  “I’ll see you at the airport!” he said.

  I gave him a wave. He gave me a nod.

  CHAPTER 29

  The late morning lumbered. I checked out of my room. I found my friend Felipe at his usual spot at the taxi stand. I tipped him twenty-five American dollars for his help and shook his hand. In his way, he was as fine a man as I’d met in Nassau, brimming with personal integrity and a sense of honor. I apologized for not using him to the airport that day, but told him that a friend had insisted on taking me. Felipe accepted graciously. I think he knew something was up.

  I passed the interim time in the hotel lobby. The desk staff stashed my bags in a corner of the lobby near a porter. I was not inclined to be privately visited in my bedchamber again.

  The hotel was happy to have the room free earlier for other arrivals, so that part was fine. A second wave of journalists was pouring in. I couldn’t wait to pour myself out.

  I counted two more teams of police shoes in the hotel lobby. They seemed as numerous as rats in the alley; sometimes the distinction was vague. Whether they were watching me, watching everyone or just watching, I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. The powers that prevailed in Nassau liked to operate under darkness or in closed spaces. They could be blatant when they had to, but out in clear view I felt I was safe, at least to a degree.

  Time crept along. Noon arrived. Then one o’clock. The slowest tick tocks I’d ever lived in my life. The humidity accelerated. Finally, it was near two p.m. I began the check-out charade.

  I went to the desk and told them I was expecting a friend to pick me up in a brown Plymouth. “Tell me again where the men’s room is,” I asked.

  They indicated down the back hall to the left. I thanked them.

  “If my friend arrives, tell him he can load my bags,” I said.

  I indicated my two bags of luggage and had a porter bring them to the front entrance. I picked up my small bag. I noticed that one set of police shoes had followed me to the lobby. Coincidence? Like hell. So that’s the way it is, huh? I was high up on their list, whe
ther I wanted to be or not.

  I walked calmly down the corridor toward the wash room. There was a final corner to turn where I would be out of view. I thanked God. I opened the men’s room door and let it slam shut without entering. Then I ran. I passed the kitchen and then hit the service door, almost knocking over a pair of dishwashers.

  I excused myself to their surprise, then was out into an alley that festered in the afternoon sun. I ran to the end of the alley. Some gulls squawked and fluttered aloft. I knew where I was on Cumberland Street. I caught my breath. I tried to slow to an inconspicuous walk. I looked at my watch. It was two minutes after two. I was good on time but still wondered if I’d ever see my wife and daughter again.

  I went down the block toward the hack stand. I didn’t see anyone.

  No Carlos. No Thirty-four Chrysler. No dammed nothing.

  I cursed. I suddenly realized I had no fallback plan.

  I crossed to the designated corner at Marlborough. Sweat was pouring off me. Then I noticed a battered dark green Chrysler sliding into a spot away from the curb. I could see no passenger, only the driver.

  The driver was a dark man with an applejack cap. Right hand drive. It was pick-up time but this didn’t look quite right.

  Cuban? Maybe.

  I walked to the curb. He took pains to ignore me. I could smell rum and sweat.

  I took a gamble. I leaned to his window.

  “Carlos?” I asked.

  He looked at me. I heard a voice from the back seat.

  “Get in, damn it, Alan,” said the voice. “Be quick now and let’s move.”

  There was Schindler, squeezed low to one side. The car was a two-door. I hustled in.