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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] once questioned. Even the bitterest of police-world cynics wouldn't speculate and couldn't come up with what had actually happened in the Caribbean. By early night of the first day, the hunt had turned up eight tall blond men. Two-thirds of the twelve. Looking in on the eight-all blond, all handsome as hell, all between six feet two and six feet fourFederal Marshal Stuart Leedman of lose Angeles got the feeling that somebody wasn't telling him everything he needed to know about this grisly case. Something was as fishy as San Diego Sea World, Stu Leedman was thinking. "Now what do you do for a living?" he asked Antoine Coffey, a wispy blond who had listed his address as the World of Free Spirits. The blond model seemed confused by the question. "A living?" "Yeah," Stu Leedman said. "What do you do for money, Antoine? How do you pay the rent? Get money to go to the movies?" Coffey smiled suddenly. "Oh, that," he whispered. "thhodomy, you mean." Marshal Stuart Leedman stood up in the quiet examination room and screamed at the open door. "Who ordered in all these blond faggots?" His voice carried up and down the serene, dignified hallway of the U.S. embassy. "What thefuck, Jesus Christ, shit is going on around this pisshole?" It was every bit as maddening and confusing as the machete murders themselves. More so, because it cwne on top of them... which was exactly the way Damian wanted it. Port Gerry, San Dominica Tuesday Evening. His nose pressed against the cool green glass of the number 9 bus window, Page 80 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Peter watched a row of flowered shirts drift by on Station Street. Stranger in Paradise, he thought. He saw pink-and-purple shirts like the Spanish in big cities always wore. Leather mushroom caps and tiny fedoras. Black wraparound sunglasses. San Dominican country boys trying to look like the Tonton Macoutes. People seemed to be forever waiting for buses around San Dominica, Peter had begun to notice. The Elizabeth's Fancy bus massacre was mindblowing when you thought about it like that. It was like attacking an interstate highway in the United States. Severing a main artery. Black women in homemade dresses and sandals were pressed up closer to the station. A nest of young conchie girls. "Queen bees," they called them around Coastown. As the number 9 bus started to brake, Macdonald put his hand on the Colt.44 under his shirt. His heart started to thump.... Peter had begun to imagine the tall blond man waiting around every corner, behind every palm tree. Like some slick, handsome bogeyman. Waiting just for him.... The bus station was a wooden shack covered with antique beer and Coke signs worth more than the building itself. Stopping in front, the number 9 bucked and shivered like an old belly dancer. All the people and livestock being transported inside woke up suddenly. Chickens squawked and flapped red-and-white wings like fans. A goat started kicking the seats, and an old black man started. kicking the goat. "Ay maum in dat blue dress!" a Rude Boy shouted out a bus window. There was a loud whooshing of steaming hot air, and the driver said something Macdonald couldn't follow. People started walking off the bus, though, and Peter guessed that he was there. This hole-in-the-wall must be the summer capital of Port Gen-y. Eating a thirty-cent meat pie from the station canteen, Peter climbed a dark street with no sidewalks. With dreary two- and three-story limestone buildings on either side. The pie smelled like bad breath, the street smelled like human sweat. Peter's body felt as if it would collapse pretty soon.... The last time he remembered feeling so bad was when he'd had dysentery in Thailand. He was feeling lonely as hell, too. Thought about Jane constantly. The first time he'd seen her at the Plantation Inn, 'd thought she was trouble. Quiet-only with a bad dose of New York city smug... quick wiseass front. Shooting down every guy who said hello to her at the inn. In Peter's mind she was a blond version of Ali MacGraw. Trouble.... One week- end, though, he'd asked her if she wanted to go on a cross-island trip with him. See the West Hills' jungle. See the beaches on the other side. And surprise! She'd said sure.... Twenty-four hours later the two of them still hadn't stopped talking. An amazing day of straight talk about each other. Striking chords in each other like crazy. Strangers, practically. Crying together before the first day was over. Huddled together on a dark, deserted beach called Runaway... because they'd both been so damn lonely. Because there'd been so many things they'd wanted to tell somebody.... Halfway up the hill, Peter saw a sign: RENT. Another sign: ROOMS; it showed a Page 81 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html little black angel sleeping on folded hands. A doorway, at the crest of the hill read WELCOME, and that seemed just about right to Peter. A tall goateed man and a boy sat at a buckling table covered with dominoes, in the foyer. "Yes, mon?" The older fellow spoke. A soft, serious voice, much more businesslike than Peter expected from the look of the place from outside. "I need a room, please. I'm very tired." The black man looked at Peter strangely. Shrugged. Then he went to a little school desk, where he scrawled a line in a red ledger. He took six dollars in advance for the room. "Dis bway will take yo' up. Yo' be served breakfas' in de momin', mon. " The young boy pointed to a dark stairway. Then he walked ahead of Macdonald, holding a candle in a soup dish. The boy began to whisper to Peter as they climbed the stairs. His small candle slowly revealed the hotel, like in a murder mystery. "T'marra yo' cum fishin' in me fadder boat, mon. Catch grouper. Lotsa big snappers, too." Peter suddenly started to laugh when they reached the top of the stairs. "I'm sorry. " He turned to the boy. "I'm not laughing at you. I can't go fishing tomorrow, though." "Too bad, mon. Yo' missin' good shit." Peter and the black boy turned into a slanting, lopsided hallway with unpainted doors on both sides of a long, tattered runner. A dim light shone at the other end of the hall. A black telephone sat on the floor under the light. Suddenly Peter understood that this was an all-black hotel. Welcome. Inside his room, he hid his wallet between the rusty pipes of the sink. He bumped his head hard on the pipes and felt strangely, ridiculously exhilarated. For a minute he even forgot about the tall blond man. The butcher. Then he just sat on the bed with his head propped up so he faced the door. With the Colt revolver lying across his boxer shorts. Listening to the rickytick rhythms of reggae out in the streets; listening to pigs rooting in the hotel's backyard. Before he could sleep, he had the urge to go back out into the moldy hallway. He picked up the black telephone and asked for number 107. He got through to a night operator with a beautiful lilting voice. Nighthird. Then to a groggy, very distant-sounding woman. Then to Jane. "Hiya, Laurel." Peter's face lit up with a sleepy smile. "This is Oliver Hardy speaking. I think I'm going crazy, babe. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Our strategy for Brooks Campbell was a simple one: we tried to give him too many choices and produce decision stress. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |