by Ace Atkins
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
“French Foreign Legion,” Hawk said. “Not British Army.”
“Excuse moi.”
“Name’s Godfrey,” Hawk said. “Grew up here. He’s good. One of the best I’ve ever known.”
“Better than me?” I said.
Hawk waffled his hand.
“My Man Godfrey,” I said. I couldn’t resist.
“Godfrey’s his own man,” Hawk said. “And he’ll see to it we get on and off that goddamn island.”
“I like him already.”
52
We met Godfrey at a restaurant called the Hot Spot in Arthur’s Town.
He sat in a back booth sipping some rum from a jelly jar. I assumed it was rum, but it might’ve been Gautier cognac for all I knew. He was a thin, hard-looking black man of indeterminate age. He had dark eyes and a short Afro with a substantial beard. There were the faintest traces of gray in the beard.
Hawk introduced us. Godfrey, much taller than I expected, stood up and wrapped Hawk in a bear hug. He had on khaki cargo shorts and a loose blue Hawaiian shirt.
“It’s good to see you, my friend.”
Godfrey offered a hand. It overlapped mine with a grip that could crack walnuts. The room was cool and quiet. Twinkling white lights crisscrossed lattice that stood in place of walls. Both a front and back door were wide open, offering a little light into the darkened space. A big poster for something called the Rake and Scrape Festival hung by the bathrooms.
“This him?” Godfrey said.
Hawk nodded.
“Heard about you, Spenser,” Godfrey said. “Hawk said one day you’d come to Cat Island.”
“I wish it were under more leisurely circumstances.”
Hawk joined Godfrey in the booth, and I found a nearby chair to sit. The booth wasn’t meant for three men of our size. A woman walked up to the table, bringing two more glasses of the dark liquid. Godfrey smiled at her.
The woman was very beautiful, with sleepy eyes and full lips. Her nails were long enough to help us dig a tunnel down to China. She smiled at Godfrey and then Hawk and wandered back wordlessly to the bar.
Godfrey lifted the glass. We clinked them together, and I took a drink.
I was right. It was dark, very good, sweet rum.
“Relax, gentlemen,” Godfrey said. “We have you covered.”
I thanked him for his hospitality. For the car, the cottage, and the good rum.
“I’ve heard of this man, Steiner,” Godfrey said. “And I’ve made some inquiries. I know some people who’ve been on his cay and seen many things.”
I liked the small restaurant made of clapboard, tin, and concrete block. The daily specials were listed on a chalkboard. Conch burgers, cracked conch, cracked lobster, conch fritters, and conch salad. Godfrey caught me staring at the menu.
“I wonder if they have any conch?” I said.
Godfrey smiled and motioned to the waitress. Hawk ordered two lobster tails with black beans and rice and plantains. I ordered one of everything and two beers.
“Beer for me, too,” Hawk said.
The woman looked back at me.
“Planning ahead,” I said.
Hawk and I finished the rum at the same time and placed the jelly jars onto the center of the table. Godfrey leaned forward, looking up at us and nodding. “I know some people who’d worked for this man,” he said. “It’s not a large island. But big enough to employ security. I heard there are cameras everywhere. Even the beaches.”
“Can you get us ashore at night?” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “No problem.”
“Can you get us guns?” Hawk said.
Godfrey just smiled. “Already waiting for you back at the cottage.”
Hawk nodded his approval.
“Do you mind telling me the purpose of your visit there?” Godfrey said.
The waitress returned with three beers. Hawk tried to take two. I intercepted them both. He again smiled at the woman. She smiled back and went away. Something personal and intense passed between them.
“Karena hasn’t forgotten about you,” Godfrey said.
“Or I her,” Hawk said.
I drank some of the beer. More Kalik. I wondered if there were any more breweries in the Bahamas or if rival beers were outlawed.
“We’re looking for a young woman,” I said. “Her name is Carly Ly. She’s from Boston, of Asian descent, and fifteen years old.”
“I know about the girls,” Godfrey said. “Some people call it Pedo Island. It’s an island of pleasure for old men. All the workers must sign an agreement. If they talk too much, they’re fired. Or worse.”
“What’s worse?” I said, already knowing the answer but wanting to know more.
“There was a cook,” Godfrey said, scratching at his beard. He leaned back into the ragged vinyl booth. “Some years ago. He took some photographs. Possibly tried to sell them.”
“And then?” I said.
Godfrey threw up his hands. “No one knows,” he said. “One day he went to work. And never came home.”
“Do you know someone there now?” Hawk said.
Godfrey nodded.
“We will need to speak with them,” he said.
“I don’t know what they’ll tell you,” Godfrey said. “But I do know you will need more men.”
“You’ve never seen me and Hawk in action.”
“I have seen Hawk,” Godfrey said. “And even if you are half as good, you will need at least two others.”
“Half as good?” I said, pointing at myself.
“Maybe a quarter,” Hawk said.
Soon the food arrived, and we took a break to eat. Mine was served on a platter the size of a manhole, with both cracked conch and cracked lobster with sides of beans and rice and plantains. I ordered another beer.
When we finished, Godfrey and I walked out to an open courtyard where people had started to gather for a karaoke night. Hawk had wandered up to the bar to chat with Karena.
“Hawk is a brother to me,” he said.
“And to me as well,” I said.
“You shall have whatever you need,” he said. “Guns, assistance. People like Peter Steiner are like a cancer on our islands. They are no different than the plantation owners from a hundred years ago. They destroy the natural beauty and use our people to do it.”
I watched as he pulled a very large cigar from his Hawaiian shirt and set fire to it with a lighter that resembled a grenade. The cigar had a big fancy band on it that looked expensive. I waited until he had it going.
“There’s another man who may be there,” I said. “I don’t know his real name, but he often goes by Ruger. He has gray hair and gray eyes. He only wears gray clothing.”
“Sounds like a very strange man.”
“If he’s there,” I said. “I would like to know.”
“Of course,” Godfrey said. “Anything. Anything at all.”
Hawk walked out and clasped Godfrey on the shoulder. He looked at me and said he’d be back to the cottage by midnight.
“Some unfinished business?” I said.
“Don’t wait up,” Hawk said.
53
The next morning, we were on a fishing boat captained by a very large man named Rex. I learned that ten years ago, he had been the strongest man in the Bahamas and had twice competed in the Olympics.
Watching him pilot the Hatteras named The Dead Reckoning with arms the size of howitzers, I decided against a mutiny.
The sky was a light blue and nearly cloudless. I considered the subtleness of the sea, knowing there was treachery hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.
We were more than halfway to the Exumas, the ship making good time at forty knots an hour, which I understood
meant fifty miles. Hawk and I had taken a run on the beach that morning. He didn’t mention his night, and I didn’t ask. We did one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and a series of squat jumps on and off a concrete piling. We finished with a fast three-mile jog along the beach and back along the one-lane road. Stay sharp. Be sharp.
I cooked us bacon and eggs with black coffee before we met up with Godfrey and Rex. Rex wasn’t much of a talker, more of a grunter, as I assisted untying the ropes from the moorings and pushed us off. Hawk went below, where we’d stowed our guns, and returned, handing me a Browning nine-millimeter. It was nearly identical to the one I had back home, although this one didn’t appear to have ever been fired. Hawk had a Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum pistol slung over his shoulder.
“Any grizzlies on these islands?” I said.
“Never know.”
“Steiner better not whip it out,” I said. “Only a smoking crater would be left.”
“Damn shame.”
“Think we’ll learn anything today?”
“Nope,” Hawk said. “Big house. Nice beach. We shouldn’t get too close.”
“I’d hate to ruin the surprise.”
“Ain’t no surprise,” Hawk said. “Me and you know that. Only surprise is us showing up with Godfrey and his people.”
“How good is Godfrey?”
“Remember me telling you about the Sudan?”
I nodded. Hawk rarely shared details of what he did outside Boston.
“Godfrey was there,” Hawk said.
“What about Rex?”
“Don’t know about Captain Rex,” Hawk said, looking up to the pilothouse. “I heard he could bench-press this boat.”
“Might be useful,” I said.
“No doubt,” Hawk said.
I ejected the magazine from the Browning. I checked the rounds, slammed it home, and racked the slide to chamber a round, then placed it into a side compartment in my shorts. Susan had always hated the shorts, saying I looked like a suburban dad. I always told her only if suburban dads were holding extra bullets.
The closer we got to Bonnet’s Cut, AKA Pedo Island, the choppiness intensified. It reminded me of why after I left Holy Cross, I’d enlisted in the Army and not the Navy. Seated across from me, Hawk grinned as my face possibly turned green.
I held firm and tried to find land. If I could see land, I knew my stomach would settle.
“Godfrey packed us some sandwiches,” he said.
“No, thanks.”
“Nice and calm out here,” Hawk said. “Barely feel a thing.”
The bow cut into the waves, rocking the ship up and down. Hawk continued to smile.
I saw land. My stomach settled. Twenty minutes later, Godfrey appeared from belowdeck and handed me a pair of binoculars.
“Rex will get as close as he can,” he said. “There’s a long pier and a small marina for pleasure crafts. Steiner keeps a yacht in Nassau. He brings his guests in from there.”
“Do you know if he’s back now?” I said.
Godfrey nodded. “He’s back,” Godfrey said. “With a white woman with short black hair.”
“Poppy,” Hawk said.
Rex slowed the engines to a chug, maybe three or four hundred meters from shore. The beach stretched the entire length of the skinny cay. The cay had a humped back full of vegetation and the round house on top with a blue dome, as we’d been told. I could see the shimmer off a large oval-shaped pool and four smaller houses descending from the main house. All of them fashioned of stucco and mosaic tile, appearing more Greek than Caribbean. We continued south along the western shore and away from the island for thirty minutes before cutting through another string of small islands and doubling back.
Rex kept the Hatteras moving slow and easy, just some businessmen from Milwaukee out for a nice day of fishing, as we headed north again, this time along the eastern shore of Bonnet’s Cut. On this side of the island, we got within a few hundred yards of the long wooden pier and four boat slips. There was a stone staircase with several terraced gardens on the way up to the main house. From this side, I saw two more outbuildings, making six in total.
I didn’t use the binoculars until we’d gone well past. Godfrey pointed out the rocky tip that would make the best landing. It was a jagged jetty of sharp rocks but far enough from the pier and main house to slip onto the grounds.
“You can take a dinghy ashore and stow it just beyond the rocks,” Godfrey said. “I’m also working on getting us some help on the island.”
“What’s the layout inside the house and the outbuildings?” I said. “Where are the guards?”
“Patience, my friend,” Godfrey said. “Have someone for you to meet tonight.”
I looked to Hawk. He nodded.
Godfrey waved to Rex, and he pulled hard on the throttle. The engines whined and hummed as we headed from whence we came.
“You in a rush to get back to Cat Island?” I said.
“I always take my time,” Hawk said.
“If Ruger’s there,” I said. “He’s mine. Okay?”
Hawk grinned. The boat rocked up at time. “Wouldn’t have it no other way.”
54
Back at the cottage and lying in bed, I still felt the rocking of the boat.
Hawk was off reconnoitering with Karena while I rested and checked in with Susan. The jalousie windows were cranked open and the back door ajar. You could hear the ebb and flow of the surf. Wind chimes tinkled from the back porch.
“Your dog ate another shoe,” Susan said.
“Was it a good one?”
“All my shoes are good ones,” she said. “This one was a Jimmy Choo.”
“Thank God she didn’t get both.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “I can’t wait to hobble out to an expensive dinner when you get home.”
“Just hold on to my arm,” I said. “No one will notice.”
“Other than her appetite for fashion, Pearl’s been a sweetheart,” she said. “She whines and whimpers, keeps walking to the door waiting for your return.”
“The sound of her master’s voice.”
“Or maybe it’s because you feed her while you cook.”
“Just a nibble here and there.”
We were set to meet Godfrey and his contact late that afternoon. I planned to spend the hours in between on a towel by the water’s edge. I had found a Styrofoam cooler under the sink and packed it with ice and a six-pack of Kalik. There was no reason Hawk should have all the fun.
“Any luck?” Susan said.
I told her about meeting up with Godfrey and the stout Captain Rex, who may or may not be able to bend metal bars in his teeth. I left out the part about me getting seasick. I didn’t wish to burden her with my maladies.
“When will you go?”
“Soon,” I said. “I hope. Until then I plan to rest and drink beer.”
“That’s very selfless of you.”
Susan was quiet for a moment. I closed my eyes and the bed stopped moving up and down.
“I hope this doesn’t cross any boundaries,” she said. “But in your absence, Mattie and I did some further checking into Steiner’s friend, Poppy Palmer.”
“And you learned she’s actually a kind and giving person.”
“Um, no,” Susan said. “She seems to be a fucking train wreck.”
“Was that a headline in Psychology Today?”
“Did you know her father committed suicide?”
“No,” I said. “I did not.”
“He was a self-made man,” she said. “Born to an impoverished family in London, he made his fortune in real estate but ended up losing it all. Owned a string of resorts in Portugal and a professional football club. That’s soccer to the ugly American. Oh, and he also hung himself at their country estate at Christmas. Poppy was there. Sh
e was thirteen.”
“And that made her susceptible to Steiner?”
“No,” Susan said. “I think that made Steiner susceptible to her.”
“Come again?”
“After I read about her father, I went to a message board and reached out to some therapists in Boston,” she said. “This is sometimes done in cases of someone being a threat to themselves or others.”
“And what did you find?”
“I heard back from a therapist who would not confirm or deny she worked with Poppy,” Susan said. “But apparently, if we were talking about Poppy, there was an indication of years of physical and sexual abuse by the father. This goes back to what we’ve already discussed.”
“Poppy wants to master that time,” I said. “By creating it again and again.”
“Wow,” Susan said. “You were paying attention.”
“And what about Peter Steiner?” I said. “What makes him do what he does?”
“Oh,” Susan said. “I just think he’s plainly fucked up.”
“Do you mind speaking slower?” I said. “Your fancy terminology confuses me.”
“Of course it does.”
“Did the therapist think that’s why Poppy’s father killed himself?”
There was silence between Cat Island and Cambridge. A small yip on the other end of the line. And then more barking.
“No,” Susan said. “She thinks Poppy may have had something to do with it.”
“At thirteen?” I said.
“Never too young to kill your sexually abusive father.”
We spoke for another minute or so or until Pearl insisted on getting one of her many daily walks. I hung up, changed into my swim trunks, grabbed the cooler and a pair of sunglasses, and walked to the small back porch.
I looked out at the cool blue ocean and dialed Epstein’s number in Miami. After two rings, he picked up.
“I have a theoretical question for you,” I said.
“For which I will give you a theoretical reply.”
“If I happened to help free an American citizen in a foreign land, would Uncle Sam assist me with the paperwork needed to get her home?”