Bermuda Schwartz (16 page)

“Nope. Did you do everything I asked you to?”

“Yes, but I can't say that I like it any more than when we first spoke.”

“You don't have to like it, Denton. When can we do this?”

He sighs.

“I'm available after three
P.M.
”

I tell him where to meet me.

 

As soon as I hang up the phone with Denton, I round up Boggy. Together, we figure out how to lower the top on the Morris Minor and set out down the coast.

The morning's rainstorm is long gone. It's a lovely afternoon. The air is warm but not too warm, the sky a flawless blue.

As we drive along, I bring Boggy up to speed on everything, from Fiona's meeting with the coroner to our encounter with Janeen Hill.

“This book the man Peach wrote, and the one the woman Janeen is writing,” says Boggy. “They are books I would like very much to read.”

“Oh, really. And why is that?”

“Is like some Taino stories. This search for the cross, it reminds me of how we Taino always hope to find Yaya's gourd.”

“Yaya's gourd?”

Boggy nods.

“Yes, for Taino, it is our creation story. Yaya, the father of the world, had a son, Yayael. And Yayael, jealous of his father's power, plotted to kill him. But Yaya caught him at this and he killed his son instead.”

“Jeez,” I say. “Why is it that so many religions get started by families from Dysfunction Junction? The whole Cain and Abel thing. God cuckolding Joseph and then sending Jesus on a suicide mission. This guy Yayael trying to kill his old man.”

“You want to hear how the story ends, Zachary?”

“Is it a happy ending?” I say. “I could really use a happy ending for a change.”

Boggy ignores me.

“So after Yaya killed his son, he put the bones into a gourd and hung the gourd in his house.”

“Sick bastard,” I say.

Boggy cuts his eyes my way, keeps talking.

“Then one day, wanting to see his son again, Yaya asked his wife to fetch the gourd and pour out the bones. She did this. Only, it was not bones that came out, but water and fish. Enough water and fish to cover the world.”

I look at Boggy.

“That the end of the story?”

Boggy nods.

“It is a happy ending, Zachary, no?”

“What's so happy about it?”

“Yaya and his wife, they get to eat the fish.”

“Gee, nothing at all whacked-out about that, seeing as how those fish were once their son's bones.”

“Yes, but death creates life, Zachary. That is the story of all religion. And just as there are people who would want to find this Lost Cross, so, among the Taino, we have always dreamed of finding Yaya's gourd. Is out there. Is real. He who finds the gourd finds everlasting life.” He looks at me. “Why is it that you are smiling, Zachary?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“No, Zachary. It is something. What is it?”

“I was just thinking that maybe the Taino religion is the most honest of them all. It admits that it's based on someone being out of their gourd.”

Boggy looks at me.

“I do not understand this,” he says. “Please explain.”

“Never mind. You believe what you believe. And I believe what I believe.”

“Very well then, Zachary. And what do you believe?”

“I believe we are getting close to the place I want to see.”

We're outside of Tucker's Town, near a bluff overlooking the ocean.
There's a small sign just ahead. Back in Florida, where billboards grow wild, it would be a giant sign with Day-Glo lettering and a stop-traffic headline. But this one is fairly tasteful as such things go.

FUTURE SITE OF GOVERNOR'S POINTE
, it reads.
EXCLUSIVE RESIDENCES. PRECONSTRUCTIONS PRICES.

I pull onto the side of the road.

Below us sits a tiny cove. The green-blue water is so clear that you can make out the outline of sea fans waving atop coral heads twenty feet below the surface. Pelicans dive-bomb schools of fish. The beach is a glistening strand of pinkish sand.

“Only one thing could improve a view like this.”

“What is that, Zachary?”

“A bunch of condos stuck on the side of the hill.”

Boggy smiles.

“And maybe a golf course, too,” he says.

“With a clubhouse and a spa.”

“It's the way of man,” Boggy says.

“What? To improve something that doesn't need improving?”

“Yes, that. And to think that he can own the land. Man cannot own the land, Zachary.”

I look at him.

“OK,” I say. “I'm waiting for the next part.”

“Next part?”

“Yeah, you know, something like: Man cannot own the land because the land will wind up owning him.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Also, man cannot own the land because, long after man is gone, the land endures.”

“Wise words, Zachary,” says Boggy. “It is the way of the Taino.”

“Well, don't go thinking you've got a convert. Because I'm looking at that land right there in front of us and I'm thinking that someone has taken a big chunk of my money so that he can own a tiny part of it. And I don't get any comfort out of knowing it will endure long after I'm gone. I'd like my money now.”

“You are very attached to your money, Zachary.”

“Yes, I am.”

Boggy doesn't say anything. I start the car.

“It's not that I'm greedy,” I say.

“You only wish to have that which is yours. Eh, Guamikeni?” “Right,” I say. “And maybe just a little something extra to go along with it.”

 

Brewster Trimmingham is sitting up in bed, doing much better than the day before.

“Umph-emmph,” he says.

With his jaw wired shut, it's hard to make out exactly what he's saying, but I'm pretty sure he's cussing me.

“Easy there, Brew,” I say. “I'm doing you a big favor.”

“Oddy-astad,” Trimmingham says.

“I am not a sorry bastard. I'm the guy who rescued you after you got your head cracked. And I'm the guy who is going to relieve you of your financial responsibilities to whomever did the cracking. Plus, I intend to make sure it doesn't happen again. You should be thanking me.”

I turn to Daniel Denton. He's sixtyish, a tall man with a patrician's bearing. He wears a good suit and an expression that says he would rather be anywhere else but here.

“You're up,” I tell him.

Denton edges to Trimmingham's bed and presents him with a thick stack of papers.

“Now, please listen very carefully, Mr. Trimmingham, as I explain in more detail the proposition that Mr. Chasteen has just laid out,” says Denton.

Denton launches into a protracted lawyerly lecture that boils down to this: For the token amount of one dollar per unit, I will become the
proud owner of six condominium residences at Governor's Pointe. I will assume the mortgages with the National Bank of Bermuda. And I will further assume, as Denton has so craftily phrased it, “any prior debts to parties mentioned or unmentioned herein that are directly or indirectly related to the purchase of said units.”

There's also a lot of legal rigmarole that I interpret to mean that neither Daniel Denton nor his firm can be held liable in the event that this whole deal blows up in our faces. It's all so guardedly worded that I'm surprised Denton isn't wearing gloves out of fear his fingerprints might be traced back to these documents.

Denton hands Trimmingham a pen.

“Now, sir, if you would just sign your name at those places which I have highlighted.”

Trimmingham slings the pen across the room. It almost hits Boggy, who is standing by a window.

I tap Denton on the shoulder.

“If you don't mind,” I say, “I'd like a few moments alone with Mr. Trimmingham.”

Denton steps away from the bed. On his way to the door, he leans close to me and speaks low.

“I will not be a party to coercion,” he says.

“Coercion sounds so harsh, don't you think? I prefer to think of it as playtime.”

The moment Denton leaves the room, Trimmingham launches into a tirade. I can't make out a word he says.

When he's done, I pick up the pen from the floor and grab a notepad from the bedside table. I hand them to Trimmingham.

“Might help if you wrote down what it is you're trying to tell me,” I say.

Trimmingham scribbles something on the pad and shoves it at me.

I LOSE
$200,000!!!, it says.

“Sorry, but I'm afraid that's the cost of doing business, Brew. Consider that two hundred thousand dollars your payment for my services. The way I look at it, you're getting off pretty cheap.”

Trimmingham rips the sheet off the notepad. He wads it up and throws it at me. He writes something else.

not fair!!!!

“Not fair? Come on, Brew. You took two million dollars of mine and it's sitting out there. You want not fair? That's not fair. So I am assuming
my role as majority partner in this little enterprise you've gotten us into. And I'm calling in the chits.”

Trimmingham starts in on another rant. I grab a pillow from the bed and shove it down on his face. Trimmingham shuts up. I remove the pillow.

Trimmingham glares at me. But at least he has the good sense to be quiet.

“Look at it this way,” I say. “Sign these papers and you're home free. No overhead to worry about. No bad guys on your tail. Everything is on my shoulders. All you have to do is take it easy and get well.”

“Goosh-gotumpph,” Trimmingham says. “Izznot-tokus …”

I move in with the pillow. Trimmingham shuts up.

“Of course,” I continue, “if you refuse to sign then that means your ass is in a sling. You still owe all that money. To the bad guys. And to me. And I'm a whole lot badder than they are. You might as well take up permanent residence in this hospital. That's if you're lucky.”

Trimmingham seethes. He starts to say something, thinks better of it. He scribbles on the notepad and holds it up so I can see.

I WANT ALL MY MONEY!!!!

“Sure, no problem.” I take out my wallet, pull six dollar bills from it. I put them on the bed. “There you go. Now sign the papers.”

I pick up the pen and hold it out to Trimmingham.

“Gafuk yusef,” he says.

I fluff the pillow, move in with it again.

He reaches for the pen.

 

Despite my success in getting Brewster Trimmingham to sign the papers, I have no luck on another front: Getting him to tell me who beat him up.

He stonewalls. And keeps stonewalling. And when his blood pressure spikes so much that a buzzer goes off, a nurse comes in and asks Boggy and me to leave.

“These people, the ones Trimmingham owes money to, don't you think they will soon reveal themselves?” asks Boggy as we leave the hospital.

“Yeah, I do. But I prefer they reveal themselves on my terms. And I prefer they do it sooner rather than later.”

I drive to downtown Hamilton and park in the alley behind Benny's Lounge. We step inside. Not much of a crowd. A few people occupying booths. No one sitting at the bar.

The same bartender from a couple of days earlier is wiping down the bar, talking on his cell phone. Boggy and I take stools near him. If he recognizes me, he doesn't show it. He flips shut his phone.

“What can I get you?” he asks.

“A name.”

Blank stare from the bartender. He's a big, pig-faced guy, clearly not hired for his looks.

“What name is that?”

“Whoever it was you called the other afternoon when Brewster Trimmingham got his butt kicked in the alley.”

“Don't know what you're talking about,” says the bartender.

He gives me his bad-ass look. It's a good one, as looks like that go. I'd rate it about number 713 out of the 10,000 or so I've been given in my life. I hope he doesn't see me quivering in my sandals.

“Gee,” I say. “I must have made a mistake.”

“Yeah,” says the bartender. “You must have.”

I smile.

“In that case,” I say, “my friend and I will each take a pint of Guinness and review our options.”

The bartender isn't sure he likes the sound of that, but he draws our pints anyway. He sets them down in front of us.

I pick up my mug and study it. There's at least three inches of brown foam sitting on top of the black stout.

“You know, you really rushed this one,” I say.

“Oh, yeah?” says the bartender. “How's that?”

“Well, the right way to draw a Guinness, it takes time. You pour a little, let it sit. Then pour a little more, and let it sit. Maybe scrape off the head with a knife. I don't like it when my Guinness is rushed,” I say. “I can't possibly drink this.”

I toss the Guinness in the bartender's face.

As he sputters, I grab Boggy's mug.

“You mind?” I ask Boggy.

“I hate Guinness,” he says. “Gives me gas.”

“Then ‘tis a far, far better thing I do.”

I give the bartender another faceful of stout.

He reaches across the bar to grab me and I slam the mug against the side of his head. He drops like a bag of bricks.

The people in the booths eye me with no small degree of alarm. Can't say that I blame them.

“Big guy like him,” I say, “you'd think he could hold his liquor.”

I vault over the bar. The bartender lies groaning on a plastic mat. I roll him onto his back. I sit down on his chest.

There's a red welt near his temple. He'll be all right.

I give his right cheek a slap.

“A name,” I say.

“No way, I can't.”

“Oh, but you can.”

A backhand slap to his left cheek. Then another to his right.

“I'm just getting into my rhythm,” I say. “Maybe you'd like to hum along.”