The Moon Always Rising

by Alice C. Early

  Tony tapped the screws into place and hurried down the drive. Els lingered in the court to take a long look at the house; a lick of breeze carrying the scent of gardenia played at her shoulders.

  Tony drove toward the Resort in such a hurry that Els braced her feet under the dash.

  “How is it for you, living here?” she asked.

  “Christ, Lauretta and I could go to a party every night during the season,” he said. “The same little knot of expats, same old pigs-ina-blanket hors d’oeuvres. Only thing that changes is who’s sleeping with whom. No wonder we all drink.” He turned in at the Resort gate.

  “Is there any restriction on foreigners owning real estate?”

  “It’s encouraged,” he said. He described the licenses, background checks, taxes, and fees associated with each.

  “You call levies of sixteen percent encouragement?”

  “The government sometimes throws in economic citizenship for buyers spending at least three hundred fifty thousand U.S. dollars.” He slowed to let a golf cart pass. “Jack’s wouldn’t qualify. Economic citizenship in the Federation goes only with new developments, most of them on St. Kitts. You’d have to petition.”

  “And the chances?”

  “Any dealing with the government’s a minefield.” He stopped in front of the Great House and turned off the engine. The heat closed in immediately.

  She opened her door. The air smelled of cut grass. “Remind me of the asking price.”

  “Seven hundred ninety-five thousand US dollars, all-inclusive.”

  “Offer them three fifty.”

  “They’ll never take less than seven hundred.”

  “You forgot the ghost, not to mention the porn.” Els flashed her deal smile. “The place doesn’t have one intact roof. Lord knows what I’d find on proper inspection.”

  Tony started the engine. The vents spewed hot air that gradually cooled.

  “Three fifty,” she said. “Cash. No contingencies, except the license. Closing ASAP.”

  Tony leaned back and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “The license could take months.”

  “Assuming we cut a deal, I’ll want to sign everything possible before I leave on Friday. You can handle any remaining details later. I’ll wire the money.”

  Tony shook his head, but Els caught that broker’s glint in his eye. She fished out a business card and scribbled the phone number at her flat. “And do inquire about that citizenship.”

  He studied the card before sticking it into a clip on the visor. “You’ll hear from me.”

  “My breath is bated,” she said.

  The same fisherman had been on the Resort beach the previous afternoon, following the pelicans and scanning the shallows where they dove. His cast net dangled like a crinoline from his hand, the hem weighted all around with leaden teardrops. His dark skin was grayed with dried salt, his back broad, his legs bowed.

  He stood thigh deep and peered into the water. A minute, two. When he swung his arm in a wide arc, the net sailed and landed in a perfect circle. He tugged the mesh closed, lifted it from the water, and carried it back to shore as tenderly as a small child. The low sun glinted on flashes of silver caught in its folds when he shook the catch into his bucket.

  Els took out her camera and stood up. “Toss that again.”

  He looked at her. “Five dollars. US.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Local color ain’t free.” He slung the net over his shoulder. “It take years scraping for a livin’ to make me this pictureful.”

  She lowered her camera and squinted at him. “Cheeky bugger.”

  He stared back, then smiled, a broad, generous grin. “Damn right.” He moved a few feet away, cast another perfect circle, and let the net sink. She could have sworn he was posing.

  After bringing in his last catch, the fisherman gathered up his gear and sat on a chaise at the end of the long rank. Tybee, the attendant whose job it was to adjust Els’s umbrella, spritz her with spring water, and bring her drinks, dropped an armload of used towels and hurried to the foot of the fisherman’s chaise.

  “I should ’a guess this a you sorry ass again,” he said, arms akimbo. He cut his eyes in Els’s direction. She pretended to read. “Move along, man. The chairs for the guests dem.”

  “If you think there is one local that doan know the Resort policy on these fuckin’ chairs,” the fisherman said, “you even more chupit dan people say.”

  Tybee responded in rapid-fire dialect; all Els could understand was, “Don’t interfere with me.” Tybee’s head was shaven; his stud earring sparkled.

  “Where all you guests, anyway,” the fisherman said. “Havin’ a cocktail whilst you pick up they laundry?”

  “I na kay wha’ you say. I done with fishin’,” Tybee said. “This job make more in a week dan you make in a month haulin’ dem stinkin’ pots.”

  “At least me ain’ wukking fuh no white man.”

  “Zat true? Who you sellin’ them fish to?”

  “De white man my customer, fool, not my boss.”

  “You got to go. Now.” Tybee grabbed the fisherman’s arm and pulled him off the chair.

  “Tybee, something wrong?” a man called from the water sports pavilion.

  Tybee glanced at Els. “I got it, Boss,” he called back, then said in a low voice, “Doan mess me up, man.”

  Els stood up and walked over to them. “Tybee, would you be kind enough to bring sparkling water for me and my guest?”

  Tybee hesitated.

  “You heard me,” Els said.

  Tybee looked from her to the fisherman, then started toward the drinks kiosk. The fisherman sat down again and called after him, “Hey, Mr. Clean, ask the lady if she want you picture in you pressy uniform. Or maybe you make a better souvenir when you was haulin’ them pots.”

  Els sat on the chaise next to the fisherman’s.

  “What you want with me, miss?” he asked.

  “I want to know how living here is for you.”

  “You mean outside the gates a’ this little paradise? You best ask a real local. I’m Anguillan. Been here only twenty-three years.”

  “That’s local enough,” she said. “How is the economy, from your perspective? Is the government competent?”

  Tybee arrived with a tray. He poured a Perrier and handed it to Els, then set the tray down on the table between the chaises. “Watch that mouth a’ yours, Uncle,” he said, and walked away.

  Els handed her glass to the fisherman and poured the other for herself. “A relative?”

  “Uncle and Auntie are terms of respect for you elders, but never coming from him,” he said. “He my wife’s brother son.”

  “That sounded like a threat.”

  “No secret I disrespect dis gorment,” he said. “Bunch a crooks and fools, including my wife’s family. Especially my wife’s family.” His speech was peppered with a sort of nasal “anh?” but not as if to solicit her agreement or reply.

  “I read about a secessionist movement,” she said. Little Nevis trying to separate from the bigger St. Kitts, which dominated the Federation’s decisions and sucked up most of its wealth, made her think of Scotland and England, perhaps equally disaffected and equally bound.

  “We gon’ win, too, maybe next time around,” he said.

  “What’s your response to people who say this little rock is too small to be a country?”

  “Way I see it, we more or less on our own anyway. Sinkits only do what good for Sinkits.”

  She raised her glass. “Here’s to independence,” she said, and felt a stab of passion for the Scottish cause that had cost her so dearly. She took a sip and tried to swallow that buzz of excitement along with the Perrier bubbles. “Call me Els,” she said.

  “Finney,” her companion said, and sipped with his pinkie raised. He settled into the chaise.

  “Did you know Jack Griggs?” she asked.

  He watched a pelican glide by, its wing tips nearly grazing t
he water. “Sea claim the best a’ them,” he said. The pelican rose up, dove, surfaced facing the other way, twitched its tail feathers, and gulped down its catch.

  “Indulge me with a little information,” she said.

  “Why you interested in ol’ Horseshoe Jack?”

  “He’s intriguing,” she said. “His house even more so. I’m a bit obsessed with it.”

  Finney looked at the yachts. “He a good friend. American. Here about twenty years. He about fifty when he take his leave.”

  “A serious drinker, I hear.”

  “When he wasn’t sweetin’ up the ladies?” He smiled at the memory. “He cherish every kind a’ women. Old days, he sometimes keep several goin’ at the same time, and somehow they doan claw each other up.” His smile faded. “Near the end, though, things get messy.”

  “Catfights?”

  “Last gyull he hook up wid, very young. Treat her bad.”

  “Violent?”

  Finney looked away. “Gotta bounce,” he said. He put his glass on the table and swung his feet off the chaise. “He was unbeatable at darts. Even blind drunk.” When he stood up, his hand went to his lower back. He bent slowly to lift his bucket.

  “Why ‘Horseshoe Jack’?”

  “He excel at horseshoes too,” he said. “Enjoy you holiday, Miss Els.” He settled his cap and walked toward the fishing shacks at Jessups. As he passed Tybee, who was lounging against the drinks kiosk, he walked taller and gave him the finger.

  After sunset, Els ambled to the Resort’s entrance circle. When Sparrow, who was waiting in the taxi queue, spotted her, he climbed hastily into his van.

  She walked over to his window. “I could have your license pulled.”

  “I done tell you doan go up dere, interfere wid dat jumbie,” he said, his eyes darting about as if to make sure the jumbie wasn’t hiding behind her. “I gotta get outta dere. Sparrow doan mess wid spirits.”

  “Stranding me in a strange place when it was nearly dark?” she said. “I’ll forgive you if you come talk with me for a minute.”

  After a few moments’ hesitation, he followed her to a bowered bench and sat as far away as possible.

  “I’m not infected,” she said. “No jumbie came anywhere near me last evening.”

  He hugged his elbows. He was wearing a yellow bowling shirt with “Samson’s Garage, Brooklyn’s Finest” embroidered above the pocket. “They sneaky,” he said. “You doan know if they right in the room wid you.”

  “They can’t be scary if you don’t know they’re there.”

  “You not taking this serious.”

  “If I saw a ghosty thing, all white and floaty, I’d take it plenty seriously.”

  He hunched forward, his hands kneading each other. “Jumbies doan look like Casper,” he said to the ground. “They got eyes like fire, no feet.”

  She leaned closer to hear him.

  “They mostly go about in the dark, very quiet. They miserable spirits, can’t rest no place, like to interfere wid people.”

  “Pranksters?”

  “Demons,” he said. “They come into you house, slide into you body, mess up you mind. My auntie husband jumbie take she over, and she went crazy and drink poison, kill sheself.”

  “So is her jumbie out there, too, united with her husband’s in jumbie land?”

  He looked at her. “Me not makin’ joke.”

  “That was a serious question,” she said. “Do jumbies harm people the way zombies do?”

  “People say zombie and jumbie is spirit wha’ can’t join the good Lord in heaven ’cause they kill deyself,” he said. “Me ain’ really know bout zombie.” He sat taller, spoke more loudly. “I hear dey got movies bout zombie eating people. Dat sound like stupidness.”

  Though zombies as suicides didn’t jive with Els’s dim concept of them, she just nodded.

  Near the front door, a uniformed attendant stood motionless and observant, and Els wondered if a black cabbie and a white female guest engaged in intimate conversation had crossed some boundary.

  “If I wanted to protect myself from a jumbie, Sparrow, what would I do?”

  “Doan buy dat jumbie house,” he said. He threw a pebble over the queue of vans and onto the grass beyond. This appeared to release some of his anxiety; after repeating the move twice more, he sat back in a more relaxed pose. “If you just can’t live no place else, at least you got to pile sand in front all a’ you door. Jumbie goin’ stop to count every grain. Take dem all night. Dey forget all ’bout you.”

  A cab pulled forward and picked up a waiting couple.

  “And put salt on the end a’ you broom, but doan sweep at night,” he said.

  “I take you for a religious man, Sparrow. Surely your faith doesn’t hold with all that superstitious voodoo.”

  “You could say what you want, miss, you doan know nothin’ ’bout how it all work. But if people put obeah pon you or jumbie haunt you, you got to know how to deal wid dem.” He put his hand over his heart. “I know I been saved by Jesus, but I still got to protect myself from evil spirits. You call dat superstition. I call it insurance.”

  Imagining the sultry air full of spirits, as thick and evanescent as the aromas of flowers, amused and comforted her.

  Els started up the steps to the Great Room.

  “Ms. Gordon!” a voice called from the car park.

  She looked back over her shoulder and saw Tony Hallowell hurrying toward her. He motioned her to a secluded table near the pool and held her chair. Frangipani perfumed the air.

  “Having fun?” he asked as she settled into her seat.

  “I’ve read one tome of a romance novel. Nice escape, but that’s all the sitting about I can handle,” she said. “I’ve seen the sights and bought my obligatory piece of Nevis pottery. Any suggestions on how to keep sane for a few more days?” She caught herself in a lie; she’d become content just to stare at the sea for hours.

  He dropped into the opposite chair. “A hard charger like you shouldn’t leave here without climbing Nevis Peak,” he said.

  “I didn’t pack my crampons.”

  “All you need is trainers and stamina,” he said. “The trail starts over by Golden Rock in Gingerland. But don’t attempt it without a proper guide.”

  She mused on the coincidence that this island’s peak was the namesake of Ben Nevis back home, the mountain she’d climbed with her father when she was fourteen, its spectacular views being the reward for braving its icy hazards. Imagining her father’s reaction to the news that she’d summited tropical Nevis Peak, she knew she had no choice but to attempt it.

  Tony fixed her with his rheumy blue gaze. “The heir has countered at six fifty.”

  “She’s keen, then,” she said. She looked over Tony’s shoulder at the peak, now dark against a pearly sky. “Go to four seventy-five,” she said. “Still cash, same contingencies.”

  “That won’t nearly do it.”

  “How the hell do you know?” she said. “I’m not going to negotiate against myself.” She stood up. “I plan on exploring this little rock from stem to stern—maybe even to peak—for the next three days. You’ve got until Thursday evening, or the deal’s off.”

  Els paid her guide and watched his beat-up Jeep pull away, glad to see the back of him as he’d talked incessantly for the five hours they’d spent climbing the mountain. But she’d been fascinated with his encyclopedic knowledge of Nevis and glad of his expertise and encouragement on the tough parts of the rocky and muddy ascent as she’d clambered from tree root to tree root and struggled for footing. They’d had only a few sunny minutes at the summit; during that window, she’d snapped a photo of the rainforest falling away to the distant sea and a small plane flying lower than where they stood. Then a thick mist had obscured the view, and she’d marveled that she was standing inside a cloud. Though she looked as if she’d spent the day mud wrestling, she was elated—pumped up with a kind of achievement she hadn’t felt in years and eager to share her photos with her
father.

  The desk clerk handed her an urgent message to call Franklin Burgess at her office. Burgess, that younger VP whose cunning had been so apparent to Salustrio. The human loud hailer whose booming voice invaded all the cubbies and was known behind his back as “Foghorn.”

  She took a shower before ringing him. It was 22:15 London time, and he was still at his desk.

  He announced he was taking over her transaction for Invicta’s acquisition of Cornerstone and had a few questions. “Coxe’s idea,” he said. Even with the receiver as far from her ear as she could hold it, his voice assaulted her like a speakerphone on full volume. “He wants this kind of deal under my belt when I go up for MD.”

  “You scheming bastard,” she hollered toward the distant receiver. “I’ve been gone all of four days, and you scoop a deal I brought in.”

  “He thinks you’ve lost your edge,” Burgess said. “Fat chance; you’re edgier than ever. It’s your mind you seem to have misplaced. Besides, you can’t be lounging in paradise and protecting your ass at the same time.”

  Nobody there’s ever protected it for me, she thought. “If you’re so smart, answer your own fucking questions.” She slammed down the phone.

  She sat on the balcony and drank a nip of Dewar’s out of the bottle as the sun set behind the cloud-banked horizon. The sky took on bands of gray and lemon, and the day entered that half hour of luminous suspension she was coming to treasure.

  She pulled out Resort stationery and began to write. Only after ripping up three drafts did she strike the tone she intended. Pithy, irreversible:

  I RESIGN, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. APPLY VACATION AND SICK LEAVE TO REMAINDER OF 1999. IF YOU DON’T PAY REASONABLE BONUS, I HAVE THE GOODS ON YOUR F---ING WANKER ASS.

  She drank another nip of scotch, took the memo to the front desk, and demanded that it be faxed immediately to Coxe. The clerk scanned the page and said, “You might want to sleep on this, miss.”

  “I won’t sleep unless it’s gone,” she said, her giddiness too great to blame on two nips of scotch.