Buzzard Bay (28 page)

An hour later, something woke her up again. It was pitch black in the room except for a window high on one wall. There was just enough light for her to make out the glass on the table. “It must be night,” she thought, “how long have I been sleeping?” Her thirst was overwhelming; “I emptied the glass,” she thought but reached for it anyway. “Maybe I didn’t drink it,” she thought, finding the glass full. She drank it, and then fell back asleep.

This went on hour after hour. She didn’t know if it was night or day and whether she slept all night or all day. As the time went on, she became more and more confused, breaking down at times, eyes wide open and insomniac at others.

“She’s coming around much faster than I thought, Manly,” the interrogation expert told him. “I think you should talk with her.”

Manly sat and held her hand. She was crying. She sat up and hugged him. He could feel the heat from her bosom against his chest.

“I’ll help you,” he told her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He looked up at the camera and smiled.

“I think we’re peaking here too early,” Manly’s man told him. “I think we’d better cut back the dosage and ease up a bit. You don’t want her to be a zombie, do you?”

“No,” Manly answered. “I want her to know exactly what’s happening.”

The second day, Manly came to see her again. Then a woman came to see her. She gave her a shirt to wear and combed her hair.

“Thank you,” July said.

“Manly told me to help you. He’s very nice, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” July said, “he’s very good to me

“Manly loves you very much,” she told July. “He wants you to live with him so he can look after you.”

“Yes,” July said, “I need him to help me.”

On the fourth day, Manly and the expert watched July on the TV screen. She sat with her head down very passively.

“I want her to be at her very best tonight,” Manly said.

His expert smiled, “I have some different drugs to administer today, and she’ll spread her legs as soon as she sees you.”

Manly tried not to show it, but he was shaking with excitement.

July hadn’t eaten for a long time. Now the black woman brought July some soup and made her eat it. She couldn’t really taste it, but she ate it anyway. She began to feel better. Manly came to see her.

“I will take you away from all this,” he told her. “You will come with me, and I will look after you.”

“Thank you,” was all she could say.

“Tonight you will come to me, and we will be one.” Then he left.

July felt confused. “Am I going away?” she asked the black woman.

“Yes.” The black woman began combing her hair, “We must make you look pretty for tonight. Many years ago, before the white man, these islands were owned by the black man. They had kings who ruled their own people and their lands. That was a long time ago, but some people still believe in witchcraft and voodoo and follow the old ways. Manly is the king of his people, and they follow him through the power of his ancestors.”

July’s mind somehow parted the curtain hung over her memory. She remembered the raw savagery she saw in Waddell, the primitive sexuality he exuded, and she knew what the woman was telling her.

“Who are you?” July saw this woman for the first time. She was beautiful, not young but not old.

“I am his queen,” she told July.

July looked at her, “Then why is he to be with me?”

The woman looked at July; the smile disappeared from her face, “Because until now he could not have you. Now he is consumed by your beauty. He wants you to have his child.”

July thought this was so beautiful. It would be so nice to be with Manly, to feel his body on hers, to feel him in her. She felt the wetness between her legs.

The black woman made her drink her medicine, and then another woman came and they bathed her. Afterward they began to rub July’s body with oil.

It felt so good, July giggled. She felt the anticipation build up in her like she was sixteen again. The two women oiled her body till it shone. They fixed her face and hair. She felt beautiful.

“It’s time,” the black woman said, and they guided her out of the room.

he felt the fresh air hit her face as they led her out of the building. It was very dark, but she could see the glow of light ahead. July turned to the black woman beside her who said, “If you are his queen, then you should have his baby.”

“I have his children” she told July. “But that doesn’t matter now, he wants you.”

omething tugged at July’s mind. “That’s not right,” she heard herself say.

They came into the torch light, the fire bothered her eyes like the white light she remembered. The drums; she’d heard these drums once before a long time ago. She’d been with a man; they were on a beach, and they were listening to the drums. Her mind came back to the present.

There was Manly straight ahead. She felt her heart skip. He was standing in front of a wall that was painted with many different scenes. He was naked, but his face was painted as well as his chest. Then her eyes riveted to his huge phallus. It stood hard and strong in front of him, its ebony knob shining in the flickering light.

he stopped, the drums again pounding in her head; her mind was like a fog that was clearing. Now she heard the chanting, and she was becoming confused again, “Who was that man I was with on the beach?” She shut her eyes trying to remember.

The two women left her. She opened her eyes again seeing Manly standing there so inviting. On each side of him hung a brightly colored red and yellow rooster.

“Voodoo,” the black woman had said.

he had called him a king, but if she was his queen, shouldn’t she be the one to do this? July’s mind tried to reason. But his beautiful body beckoned to her. She walked toward him smiling, knowing what she wanted now.

he stood in front of him, her nipples puckered in anticipation. She reached down and ran her hand up and down his hard phallus. He spread his legs slightly as she cupped his balls. She moved closer, rubbing her breasts against his chest. The sound of the drums and chanting grew louder in her ears as she suddenly brought her knee up to his balls. The air went out of him, and he dropped like a rock. On his way down, she kneed him in the face seeing blood spurt from his nose. Then she turned and ran.

omeone put their arms around her, but the oil made her slippery, and they slid off behind her. She ran and suddenly it was dark, and she felt trees slap and scratch her body as she flew by. Her mind cleared as she ran; it was like a fog lifting and then settling again, each wave a little clearer. She ran until she came to a wall. She could almost reach the top, but she didn’t have the strength to pull herself over.

he leaned against the wall shivering, her breath coming in short gasps. She could see the torches coming through the trees, getting brighter, bright enough for her to see a garden fork stuck in the middle of a freshly dug flower bed. She took the fork and leaned it against the wall. July stepped up on the top of the fork and then put her toe in the handle and pushed herself up, grabbing the top of the wall and pulling herself over. She landed and rolled flat on the ground. She as much felt the asphalt as she saw it; road, she realized, and began running down it toward some lights. She didn’t run far before she came to a residential area.

“I’m sure this is Nassau,” she spoke to herself. It was very late at night, she decided; no one was around. It was a very rundown part of town. She heard a horn in the distance. “I’m in the harbor district,” she thought.

In a backyard, she saw a huge pair of pants hanging from a clothesline. She took them and ran just as a dog came around the corner of the house and barked at her. She kept going trying to put the pants on as she ran. The pants were big enough for three of her, the only advantage being she could pull them right up under her armpits, covering more of her body.

he came to a crossroad she recognized. Two blocks up lived her friend, Sir Harry Chamberlain, from the British embassy. For a long time after she had left him standing in the Crystal Palace, he wouldn’t talk to her. Then one night after a photo shoot for the Bahamian Travel Bureau, she went with some people who were invited to his house for a party. She’d taken him aside and told him the whole story. They had both laughed. He had thought it hilarious that he had unwittingly outfoxed Waddell, whom he had absolutely no use for. After that night, they had become fast friends, although she’d seen little of him.

he knocked on the door pulling her pants up expecting to have to try to explain to a servant why she wanted in. She was surprised to see Sir Harry answer it himself.

“I don’t suppose I could borrow a cup of sugar,” she said to him.

He tried to smile, but the look of her scared him. “Whatever happened to you?” He guided her through the doorway.

“I need a place to stay,” she leaned against him.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Sir Harry told her, turning her back toward him and putting his dressing gown over her shoulders.

he thanked him. “Our mutual friend has been spinning his fan of shit again,” she told him.

“You’re asleep on your feet,” Sir Harry told her, “you can tell me about it in the morning.”

He showed July to his guest room and then came back down to his den. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. A voice answered the other end of the line.

“Guess who just came to visit me?” he said.

EIGHTEEN

I
COME FLYING OUT
of bed; the dreams are getting worse instead of better. Damn it, Arthur, you have to call me soon, or I’m going to go out of my mind. The more I sit and wait, the more my memories bother me. Every night I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s always the same dream; I see a face and then it explodes, pieces flying everywhere, but the face still looks at me laughing. I tell myself I have no remorse. He would have killed me given the chance. Killing a man is very traumatic. It works on my mind. If only Arthur would call then my mind would be busy again, hopefully too busy to remember.

Yesterday as I laid on the beach, two cops walked by carefully looking at all the people. I didn’t see them coming, and I laid very still watching as they passed by. They were definitely looking for someone, it could well be me.

Every night I make my excursion to the phone booth. When it rings tonight, it startles me. I’m not sure I can handle much more if Arthur has bad news for me.

“Hello,” I say into the phone.

“It’s on for tonight,” he tells me. “Be at the dredger by midnight.”

“What about July and Rikker?” I ask.

“My brother will tell you when you reach his boat,” then he hung up.

omething’s not right, I can feel it. Maybe it’s just in my mind. I have to shrug it off, get rid of my depression.

That evening I take a bus to the edge of Pompano Beach. It’s a good two-mile walk to where the dredger is, but it’s a cloudy night and few people are around, the walk will kill time. I stand and watch the dredger work, pumping sand out of its excursion pipes. There are no lights on the barge; it just appears out of the night. A black man jumps off and walks toward me.

“Hello,” is all he says and holds out his hand. I reach out to shake it, but he pulls it back.

“Money,” he says.

“I give him his money, and he waves me aboard his barge.”

He heads the barge straight out to sea. The shore lights get smaller and smaller. I realize we are getting a long way out, at least two miles, maybe more. Suddenly, the moon shows its face through the clouds, and I can see the old fishing trawler that I had traveled on between Andros and Nassau many times before.

I climb on board with the help of Arthur’s brother, and we leave the barge behind. The moon has gone behind the clouds again, but the sky is broken and it threatens to break out at any time.

He invites me to join him in a cup of coffee up in the wheelhouse. His helper leaves to go out on deck leaving us alone.

“It’s been a long time,” I tell him.

“I would have thought you’d lived long enough in the Bahamas to get the hang of waiting, Mr. Green. Waiting always makes time go slowly. I spend half of my time waiting, waiting for the fish, waiting for my boat to be fixed, and waiting for the right time to move men where they want to go. Patience is something you learn in this business,” he smiles, “or you don’t stay in it long.”

He is right, it really hadn’t been such a long time since I saw him last, not in Bahamian time anyway. Everything would get done in time, tomorrow was just another day to their way of thinking.

“I apologize, it’s just that I’m worried about July and Rikker. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic.”

“You have a right to be worried about your wife, Mr. Green. We believe Mr. Waddell is holding her.”

omehow, this news does not surprise me. “Why would he want her?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Arthur’s brother shrugs. “Maybe because he knows you’ll come for her, so he can kill you.”

This does not totally make sense, or Waddell would not have tried to have me killed up in Canada. This is really irrelevant right now, I decide.

“Did they take Rikker too?” I ask.

“No, Rikker’s been staying at Skinny’s.” He relates the story just as Rikker had told it to him. “After they took July, he hid out on the project for a few days then came down the creek at night. He’s been at Skinny’s waiting for you to show up at Buzzard Bay.”

“Why there?” I ask.

“Because they’re watching everywhere else like hawks, but at Buzzard Bay everyone minds their own business, if they want to stay healthy.”

“That’s got to stop!” I hit the table with my fist. “There’s one man who is the key to all this, and he has to be stopped.”

“It’s much deeper than that,” Arthur’s brother tells me. “You can cut off an arm, but the monster will survive. You have to go deeper than that. You are the key, not the man you’re after, but you can’t do it alone. We will do all we can to help you because we believe in you. You know how the drugs are coming in, and you know how they go out. You know too much and the drug people want you dead. Their tentacles are everywhere. Did you ever think that they’re willing to sacrifice Waddell to get you?”

I took a long drink from my coffee cup. How often we underestimate the common people of the world. From them come the words, ‘common sense’.

Until now, my mind has been obsessed with one man. He is a danger to my family, but deep down I know that once I get to him I have no plan, no idea what I would do.

“It’s good you’re here,” he tells me, “your son reminds me of you, and he’s ready to go after Manly Waddell too. If you didn’t get here soon, I don’t think we could have controlled him much longer. That’s why we wanted to get him involved, so we could get his mind off Waddell. We weren’t happy with the idea that it’s him meeting you at Buzzard Bay. We know it’s dangerous, but he needs to feel important right now, I hope you understand.”

“I’m beginning to understand a lot of things,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

We had caught up on a lot of things when the deck hand broke in.

“Boss,” he sounds excited, “there’s a boat closing in fast. It could be the Coast Guard.”

Arthur’s brother looks at me, “Okay, you’re going to have to go over the side. On the left side of the boat under the gunnel is a handle, it’s just under the water line. Hang on to it until they leave.”

I am just over the side when our boat is bathed in light. First, I can hear a siren, and then a voice over a loudspeaker telling us they are coming aboard. Minutes later a boat pulls up beside ours and I hear the Coast Guard come aboard. Arthur’s brother skillfully keeps the boat’s other side turned toward their ship’s bright light.

“What are you doing in American waters?” I can hear the officer ask.

Arthur’s brother explains to him that he had found a reef with good fishing just inside the Bahamian waters. He shows the officer on his chart, “We came around from the American side and then drifted over the reef.”

“You’re a long way into American waters for that,” the officer tells him.

Arthur’s brother explains that the clouds had made it difficult to navigate, and they had lost their way, but they were back on course now. “As you can see, we are only about five miles from the reef,” he shows the officer by drawing on the chart.

A flashlight beam suddenly appears in the water on my side of the boat. I watch as the beam comes toward me, submerging my head at the last second as the flashlight focuses on where I had been. Whoever is holding the flashlight has to lean way out to see in under the bow where I am hiding.

He is very thorough, taking his time; my lungs are bursting before the beam disappears.

“All right,” I hear someone say, “you can continue on, we’ll escort you into Bahamian waters.”

Arthur’s brother comes and stands over to where I am hiding. “I’ve got to start moving,” he says in a low voice. “I’ll try to go as slow as I can without raising suspicion. Hang on, it’s going to be tough, but hopefully they’ll tire of us soon.”

The wake from the water hitting the bow makes the waves explode over my head, making it hard to breathe. I hang on to the handle for dear life, but there is tremendous pressure on my arms, and I don’t know how long I can hang on.

omething black heads toward me. “A shark,” I scream. It comes at me hitting my face; it feels soft and cold like plastic. I open my eyes; there are lots of black objects all around me. Garbage bags, I realize as my heart slows down and I begin to breathe again. I can’t hang on any longer, I tell myself it’s over. The boat is not bathed in light anymore, and I feel it slow down.

I hear a voice, “Are you still with us?”

“Just barely,” I tell him, “I can’t hang on any longer.”

The boat doesn’t stop completely, but a rope appears over the bow and I grab it. “Try to slip the loop over your body,” I hear him say. Slowly, they pull me up and over the edge of the boat. I lay totally exhausted.

“Lucky for us, the Americans were interested in that garbage. They stopped to pick some up. If they can find out which cruise ship dropped it in American waters, they’ll be in deep shit.”Arthur’s brother is grinning.

“I thought the bags were sharks,” I confess. “I’m sure I pissed my pants.”

He starts to laugh as he tells me to get out of my wet clothes handing me dry ones. I curl up under a tarp and fall asleep.

Arthur’s brother shakes me awake. “I was hoping to get here before daylight,” he tells me, “but the Coast Guard slowed us down too much.”

I look up over the side of the boat. I recognize the shore line of Buzzard Bay.

“We’ll go in and fuel up. Stay under the tarp until we’re docked. I’ll make sure it’s clear before you leave.”

I feel the boat hit the dock; a minute later, he tells me it’s time to go.

“I hope Rikker is patient enough to have waited for you. Just stay to the trees along the road, he’s supposed to be waiting for you somewhere along the way.”

I shake his hand and quickly make a run for the trees, anxious to see Rikker again. I haven’t gone far, when from behind me I hear a “Yo!” I turn around; in my eyes I see a young man, not the boy I remember. I’m suddenly very proud.

“How you doing?” He embraces me and tears come to my eyes. I try not to let him see.

“How’s it going?” I don’t know what to say.

“It’s going great now that you are back.” He goes into the edge of the trees and pushes out a motorbike.

“So where’d you get a bike?” I ask.

“It belongs to Peter Norton, you know, the police captain’s son.”

This is getting more bizarre all the time. “You just borrow it?” I ask.

“No, his dad told me to use it to pick you up,” Rikker tells me as he tosses me a helmet.

“For Christ’s sake, Rikker, I haven’t fought my way across a continent to have myself arrested riding a local yokel cop’s motorcycle.”

“Settle down, Pops, the old cholesterol’s getting pretty high.”

“What the hell are you doing talking to him anyway? It’s amazing he didn’t arrest you too,” I fume.

“Nope,” he says, “they forgot to name me on the deportation order. As far as Captain Norton’s concerned, I don’t even exist. He’d have picked you up himself except he’s in enough trouble for letting Mom get away.”

“He knew I’d come through Andros on my way to Nassau, didn’t he?”

“Well, he’s not stupid, you know!” Rikker responds. “He asked me to ask you what you planned to do when you got to Nassau.” I don’t get a chance to answer because Rikker keeps right on talking. “I told him you were fucking well going to cut Manly Waddell’s throat, or I would do it for you.”

I look at him feeling the same hate he does, yet blaming myself for being so immature. Now I have to play the part of the wise old dad.

“You realize, Rikker, that if we just go and kill him, that would be the end of us. We’d rot in jail, no good to anyone especially your mother.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what Captain Norton told me too, but you didn’t see them take Mom,” he was mad and almost in tears. “Mr. Norton told me you’ve got one chance. A man by the name of Sir Harry Chamberlain can help you get Waddell.”

“I remember Mom talking about him,” I tell Rikker, “Seems to me he works for the British embassy.”

“Mr. Norton also told me that this guy knows where Mom is, but I don’t know, it could be a trap,” Rikker states.

“Do you think Captain Norton would lead us into a trap?” I ask Rikker.

“We’ll find out riding this motorbike back to Skinny’s,” Rikker grins. Rikker sees I have the same idea and that I am a little hesitant.

“Put your helmet on, Dad, there are lots of tourists on the island this week. That’s the nice thing about these helmets, nobody recognizes you.”

I look out the sun-tinted helmet visor. “Let’s hope you’re right,” I tell him.

It’s a long ride across the island from Buzzard Bay to French Creek. My ass is pretty sore by the time we get to Skinny’s, but I don’t let Rikker know that. It’s one thing for your kid to call you old , but it’s another thing to admit it.

I have a good visit with Skinny and his family. They fill me in on a lot of things that are happening in the islands, but after a good night’s sleep, I am anxious to find my way to Nassau.

“Arthur’s brother says it’s impossible for him to take you. They check him every time he goes to Nassau,” Skinny tells me. “He didn’t want me to tell you, but his boat was ransacked last night, and he was roughed up.”

“By who?” I ask.

“It’s pretty obvious they were looking for you, so you tell me, who isn’t after you?” Skinny says, looking perturbed.

“Well, that does leave the door open,” I realize. “I can’t think of anyone who isn’t looking for me.”

“I think we are going to have to move you,” Skinny tells me. “I’m sure there were eyes and ears at Buzzard Bay. It won’t be long till someone shows up here nosing around.”

Just then Rikker shows up with one of his friends. “Hi Pops, this is Peter Norton.”

I stand up and shake hands with Rikker’s young friend.

“I know your dad quite well,” I tell him.

“Yes, my father speaks of you a lot, that’s why we are here to help.”

I smile, “We’ll need lots of that. Right now I need a place to hide.”

“No, you don’t, Pops, you need to get to Nassau right away, and I’m going to drive you.”

“What, you stole a boat?” I ask him.

“No, we’re taking the Sea-Doo and don’t say no, you have no choice. There’s a car in town right now with four men in it. They’re checking out the town, and they’ll find out you’re here, it’s only a matter of time.”