Bob Morris_Zack Chasteen 02 (9 page)

“What about Monk? Didn’t the two of you talk about who might have planted that fake bomb in the skybox? Didn’t he have his suspicions?”

Whitehall sipped his drink. He held my gaze.

“No,” he said. “We never discussed that at all.”

I didn’t believe him. I looked at Alan Whitehall. He seemed to be studying his father with the same skepticism I felt, but he didn’t say anything.

“OK,” I said. “What about these Nanny’s People characters? They obviously don’t have warm, fuzzy feelings about you.”

“No, they don’t. If I had to suspect anyone, then it would be them. Not only do they have their grievances with me, they are fielding a candidate to oppose Alan in the parliamentary
election,” said Whitehall. “However, my son, the politician, disagrees.”

“I don’t think they had anything to do with it,” Alan said. “The NPU has been vocal, but it hasn’t been violent.”

“Not yet, anyway,” said Whitehall. “But this is Jamaica. Politics leads to bloodshed like honey to the bee. Which is where you come in, Mr. Chasteen.”

I took a sip of my drink. The twenty-one-year-old rum is the oldest that Appleton puts on the market. They make a forty-year-old batch, but don’t let us riff-raff have any, saving it as gifts for presidents and prime ministers and heads of state.

“I know you came here as a favor to Monk DeVane, not out of any allegiance to me,” said Whitehall. “But I would be greatly obliged if you stayed. Just to help out for the short term, until all this gets settled.”

I took another sip of my drink. Wonder how often any of those presidents and prime ministers and heads of state ever pour a big glass of the good stuff, kick back and enjoy it. The world would be a better place . . .

“I am fully aware that you don’t have any particular expertise in such matters,” Whitehall said.

No denying that. I was completely out of my league. But I saw no need to second my shortcomings. I sipped some more rum. I let it puddle in my mouth before I swallowed it. It burnt good going down.

“Monk held you in high regard and that’s quite good enough for me,” Whitehall said. “Still, please know that I forgive you should you choose to walk away from all this.”

I drained the last of the rum.

“Appreciate that,” I said. “But if I were to walk away, then I couldn’t forgive myself.”

Darcy Whitehall smiled. He took my glass.

“Let me get you a refill,” he said.

We all had another drink. Darcy Whitehall offered a toast to Monk’s memory. We talked and talked, but I didn’t learn much more about who might be running around setting off bombs and killing people.

I did learn a lot about Libido. Darcy Whitehall steered the conversation away from Monk’s death and toward the resort business. He gave me an overview of his operation—about two hundred and fifty acres at the Jamaica property, the largest in his chain of resorts, with a maximum occupancy of three hundred guests and a staff of four hundred. Then he and Alan started talking about amortization of capital outlays and tax-deferment strategies, and unable to hold up my end of the conversation, or even wanting to fake it, I called it a night.

“Meet me for breakfast,” said Darcy Whitehall, “and we’ll decide where we go from here.”

He told Otee to take me to where I would be staying.

“Give him a quick tour of the place,” said Whitehall. “Then stop at the main guardhouse and make sure Mr. Chasteen has everything he needs.”

Several golf carts were parked outside. Otee pointed at one and we got in it and drove off, zipping down the hill that created a buffer zone between Whitehall’s house and the resort proper.

We passed thickets of bamboo and ginger, heliconia and antherium. The sweet smell of frangipani was thick on the air. Giant philodendrons arched overhead with fronds the size of market umbrellas. Tree frogs croaked a racket.

The guest villas were so well hidden behind all the plants that I could barely make them out. Idyllic, open-air affairs, they gave their occupants the impression of bunking down in a private Eden.

Otee pulled the golf cart into a mulched parking lot and got out.

“Dis where all de action is come night,” said Otee.

He set out down a footpath and I followed him. I heard music and the throbbing beat of a bass line coming from the direction of the beach. As we drew nearer, I spotted a long pavilion, a low glow silhouetting the people dancing inside. At least, I think they were dancing. A few of the couples appeared to have progressed to more intimate rhythmic diversions. It was hard to tell in the dim light.

Ahead of me, Otee stopped on a wooden footbridge. Squeals of laughter cut through the night.

I joined Otee and looked down on an artificial stream that rushed out of a shrub-luscious glade. It was a flume ride, like you’d find at a water park, made of poured concrete, its smooth sides painted turquoise. Big round lights lined the bottom, and the shallow water sparkled as it whooshed under the bridge.

The squeals of laughter drew closer.

“Here come da show,” said Otee.

They came in groups of twos and threes and fours and more, shooting down the flume, all of them naked and all of them having a wild old time. Most of them were just in it for the ride, whooping and hollering as they went. For others it was a grope-fest, and they had latched on to each other in wonderfully creative ways as they negotiated the flume’s banks and turns.

Some went down on their bellies with partners riding their backs. Some went down sitting upright in long human chains, their legs wrapped around each other. I spotted one guy gleefully coursing along in tandem with a slim brunette woman, his hands clutching her perky boobs, manipulating them as if they were steering knobs.

There was a brief lull in the parade. And then another couple came into view.

“Oh, yah,” said Otee. “Dose two got it figured out.”

The man was riding on his back, hands behind his head, comfy as could be. The woman was straddling his lap, facing forward. She worked her hips with intensity of purpose, leaving little doubt what the two of them were up to.

All in all, it was an impressive display. The woman’s blond hair was plastered down her back. She smiled and waved as they shot under the bridge.

“Hey, there!” she called out.

It was Darlene, the friendly woman from Tennessee who had sat next to me on the plane. I waved back as she and her partner disappeared around a bend in the stream.

Otee gave my arm a tug and took off down the path ahead.

“Got to see how dose two finish it,” he called out as I hurried after him.

We passed a sign that said “Libido Lagoon” as the footpath opened onto a free-form pool the size of three tennis courts. It had been designed to look like some tropical version of aquatic paradise—water trickling down limestone walls, lots of ferns, and lots of naked people lounging on terraced ledges and paddling around in the pool.

A faux volcano belched smoke and kept the pool enshrouded in a haze of watery mist. Small caves honeycombed the limestone walls. They were dark but I could catch an occasional glimpse of movement from within and could well imagine what was going on in there.

A few dozen people were gathered at one end of the pool, by a broad waterfall with a ten-foot drop. It was fed by the flume we’d crossed just moments before. Bodies were spilling over the lip of the waterfall to the delight of the people in the pool.

Otee stopped by the edge of the pool. I pulled alongside him and watched as Darlene and her partner shot out from the flume. For an instant the acrobatic duo hung there, conjoined like alley cats. Darlene threw up her arms in a perfect V, and the guy matched it from beneath her—a brilliant piece of choreography that was greeted with tumultuous cheers and applause
from the crowd as the couple splash-landed, wrenched apart upon impact.

Otee nodded his admiration.

“Now dat’s a flying fuck,” he said.

Back in the golf cart, we putted away from Libido’s glitzy reception hall and followed a narrow road marked “Staff Only.” It led us past several squat stucco buildings and storage sheds before coming to an enormous pile of rubble—charred timber and crumbled blocks.

“What happened there?”

“Used to be the maintenance building,” Otee said. “Had a fire took it down a few weeks back.”

Otee pulled the golf cart alongside a long concrete block building. A couple of off-duty security guards sat out front playing cards. We got out.

Otee spoke to the guards, and we stepped inside, passing a control room where a bank of monitors flashed sequences of shots from security cameras placed around the resort. One of them offered interesting angles on activity in the lagoon area. Others showed similar goings-on elsewhere on the property.

A guard sat in a swivel chair watching the monitors. He yawned.

“How da show?” Otee asked him as we walked past.

“Same ol’,” said the guard. “Sell tickets, I’d be a rich man.”

We walked through a small locker room and stopped at a
steel door with a digital lockbox on it. Otee punched in a code, opened the door, and we stepped inside.

Otee flipped on a light. The room wasn’t much bigger than a good-size closet, and it was filled with guns—rifles in racks along one wall, pistols on shelves along another.

Otee closed the door behind us.

“Just got a new door and lock,” Otee said. “Someone got in here a couple weeks back. Took five of the AR-15s, half dozen of the Glocks.”

“Any idea who it was?”

“Could have been anyone. One of the guards, someone else,” Otee said. “Mr. Whitehall, him no like the regular guards carrying guns. It scare the guests. But they here if they need them. You mek a choice what you want. Got Glock, the G36. Got Beretta, the 92 full or compact. Me, I like the Browning.”

He patted the pistol in his waistband.

“I’m alright, thanks,” I said.

“What you say?”

“I don’t want a gun.”

Otee considered me as if I had just told him I ate mud for breakfast and crapped brownies for lunch.

“You don’t want a gun?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“You watch out for Mr. Whitehall, you need a gun, mon.”

“Not me.”

“Dis Jamaica. Mon get in a jam he need a gun.”

“I get in a jam, I’ll figure something out.”

Otee studied me for a long moment, then he nodded me out of the room, pulled the door shut behind.

“Dead man want to do what a walking dog can,” he muttered.

“What’s that mean?”

“Means if you die you can’t even lick yer own ass. Dat’s what it mean.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Otee said, “Yeah, you’ll damn sure be doing that.”

We got back in the golf cart, continuing our way up a steep hill, the golf cart straining against the incline, finally stopping at a cluster of wood-frame duplex cottages.

“Dat where you mek a bed. Numbah five,” said Otee, pointing at a door on one of the cottages.

“This where Monk stayed?”

“Numbah six,” said Otee. He nodded at the adjoining door. “All his tings still inside.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the cottage.

“Go look at da place, see if it suits ya.”

The door on number five was unlocked. I went inside and flipped on a light and looked around. Nothing fancy. A tiny sitting room out front, a tinier bedroom in the back, and in between, a narrow galley kitchen. The furniture was worn and the mattress was thin, but the paint was new and the place smelled clean. It would do.

When I stepped outside, Otee was on the porch, holding two leather pouches. He reached into one of the pouches and sprinkled whatever was inside it along the edge of the porch. Then he sprinkled some more in front of my door.

“What’s that?”

“Tobacco seed,” he said. “Keep Monk duppy away.”

I knew about duppies, what folks of the Caribbean call the wandering souls of the dead. And I knew better than to disrespect such beliefs. Duppy lore is firmly entrenched on all the islands. To mock it is to engender all sorts of bad ju-ju. Not worth it. Besides, when it comes to wandering souls and the spiritual world and things that go bump in the night, I figure it makes sense to pay tribute on all fronts, just to cover your butt.

“Tobacco seed, huh. Why’s that keep duppies away?”

“A duppy, him ain’t good with figures,” Otee said as he continued sprinkling. “Can’t count past nine. Duppy get to the porch, see all dis tobacco seed, and him want it, him want it bad. Him pick it up and start counting it, and when him gets to nine him have to stop and start counting all over again. It vex him. Sooner-later him just go way.”

He opened the second pouch and began sprinkling something from it, something white.

“Salt?”

Otee nodded.

“Duppy no like salt. Mek him heavy so he cannot fly.” He finished sprinkling the salt. “Used to be all us Africans could fly. You know dat?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yah, mon, true-true. We could fly like hell we could. Could fly everywhere, free like bird. But da white man, da slavers, dey gave us salt and when we get off de boats in Jamaica we could not fly home to Africa.”

Otee finished spreading the salt, then tucked away the two pouches.

He said, “Duppy got nine days.”

“Nine days?”

“Someone die, they duppy got nine days to roam around, do what they want, take what they want with them to the grave. Dat ninth night, the duppy he finally rest.”

Otee got in the golf cart. He punched the pedal and it rocked forward.

“Thanks for that,” I said.

“Yah, mon,” he said. “But you gonna wish you had one dem guns.”

I spent nearly an hour on the phone in the living room. I tried calling Barbara. On her cell, at her house, at her office just in case she was working late. No luck. I left messages on all of them, telling her I was OK and not to worry.

After half a dozen calls to various far-flung friends and God knows how much in long-distance tolls, I finally found Rina Murray, Darcy’s first wife. She was still living in New Orleans and now had her own real estate business.

“Christ, I wouldn’t wish something like that on anyone,” she said after I’d told her what had happened. “Not even Monk.”