Masquerade (12 page)

T
hat night there is no moon. The islanders call it the dark night. A perfect time to catch land crabs. We go to the other side of the island where there are mangrove trees to hunt for some.

To catch them, Jaron lies on his side on the sand and sticks his whole arm up to his shoulder down into a hole in the ground while I shine the torchlight into the hole. It looks really dodgy to me, putting one’s arm into random holes in the ground, but Jaron tells me that even though the crabs are very skittish and sensitive they are blinded by the glare of the torch. They will stop in their tracks and only move again when the light is no longer on them.

‘What if it’s the home of a snake or something?’ I ask worriedly.

‘Snakes don’t live in crab holes,’ he says totally undeterred by my reasoning.

‘You have done this before, haven’t you?’

‘All the time. There’s an art to it.’

The first hole is empty. He reaches all the way into the other end of the second tunnel we find and comes up with his first catch. I scream. The crab’s body is the size of a fucking softball and its legs are about twelve inches long. And it also has a very large fighting claw. The claw alone is bigger than my hand.

‘Want to try?’ he offers.

‘No fucking way. I need both my hands.’ I shudder at the thought.

He laughs.

‘How many do you plan to catch?’

‘Maybe six.’

‘They are so big. Why do we need so many?’

‘I want to give them to Noel. Gwen makes a mean crab rice.’

‘Right. Will she kill them?’

‘Yup, after she has purged them. She keeps them in a cage and feeds them water and cornmeal until all the poisonous leaves and disgusting things they have eaten have come out of their system and then they are ready for eating.’

I nod and point the flashlight at another hole in the ground.

When we have six in our sack we return to the house.

‘Want to join me in the shower?’ he asks.

‘No.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah. I’ll just sit here and wait for you.’ He goes in to wash and I sit watching the movements the crabs make in their sack. They seem pitiful, and doomed, crawling helplessly over each other. In the end I can bear it no longer—I take them to the end of the beach and upend the bag. They crawl out, seemingly dazed for a few seconds, but they recover quickly and crawl off in different directions. I sit on the beach and stare at the waves. It’s very peaceful.

Jaron comes to sit beside me.

‘What happened to my crabs?’

‘I let them loose.’

‘I see.’

‘I guess I am one of those proper hypocrites. Give me an indistinguishable packet of crab flesh in the shape of a dumpling in a Chinese restaurant and I’ll chow it down, but show me a live crab and I become Mother Theresa.’

‘I always secretly fancied Mother Theresa.’

‘Even her tree roots feet?’

‘Maybe not those.’

I smile. There is something tight about his mouth. He doesn’t want us to carry on with the conversation I started. I hate prying. I’ve always minded my own business and never been nosy or even wanted to know what other people were doing. Even while they were telling me their business I was bored and often told them to quit it. And now for the first time in my life I want to know about someone else’s business and he doesn’t want to share it. Serves me right, I suppose.

‘Are you hiding something from me, Jaron?’

He winces. ‘Maybe. But it’s not important.’

‘OK.’

He hugs me. Hard. And suddenly I know: it is important. His secret is important.

‘Has it got something to do with Ebony?’

Silence.

‘Maybe.’ His voice is very quiet.

‘Can’t you tell me?’

‘I will. But not yet. I need to trust you.’ My stomach descends in my body. I know with every fiber in my body that he is not sneaky, but I don’t like the sound of any of this at all.

‘OK.’

‘Want to try the Jacuzzi? I switched it on.’

I feel heavy-hearted, but you know what? I’m not about to lose my shit. I’m just here for the sex. Everything else is whatever! For some strange goddamn reason tears are gathering at the backs of my eyes. Why?

‘Let’s go,’ I say in a high, bright voice and stand. A little voice says, what’s the matter, Billie? You jealous? No, I fucking am not. I’m not devastated. I’m not gutted. I’m just pissed off. And pissed off sex I can do. Until his dick rots off.

So we go to the Jacuzzi and the sex is wild and angry and, in spite of the way I feel, explosively good. By the time we get out Jaron is looking at me funny.

‘Billie?’

‘Fuck you.’

I stomp to the kitchen and pour myself a massive glass of rum. I drink it down like milk. And the breath that exists in my mouth could burn a rat to ash.

He stands at the doorway.

‘What’s eating you?’

‘Nothing’s
eating
me.’ Asshole. And then something comes to rest upon my heart. It’s not his fault. It’s me. I thought I was liberated—that I could do the sex thing without wanting to get possessive and jealous and crazy. But the truth is I can’t. I want to call him mine. I fucking hate that Ebony is in the picture. ‘Just leave me alone.’

‘Is it the crabs?’

‘Go fuck yourself. Stop irritating me. I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Well, what do you know? I want to talk to you.’

I start pouring another glass. He comes and takes the glass from my hand. I glare at him.

‘You don’t need this.’

‘How dare you!’ I literally scream at him.

‘I dare because I care.’

Something! Something vibrant and alive, something stronger than the best chemical high happens in my head. It shines. It illuminates. On the mainland a man is fucking a prostitute, a dog is foraging in the bins, a taxi swerves to avoid a bus, a man buys a woman a drink. I look into Jaron’s green, green eyes. They are festering with splendor.

You’ll regret this, Billie Black.

Yeah? Maybe. Maybe he is duping me, but from where I am standing his eyes are transparent windows into his soul. Just reams and reams of honesty. He grabs my arm. Brings me to his hard body. Strange how I can’t even imagine a soft body now.

‘I want to be inside you all the time,’ he says.

‘And I want you inside me all the time,’ I confess. The wound closes up, stops bleeding. Ah, that is how you heal the damn thing.

He kisses me. I come up gasping for air. I should leave it alone. But I can’t. I’m not made like that. I have to know the truth even if it hurts me.

‘Who is Ebony?’

‘Are you jealous?’

‘No, I’m fucking not.’

‘Then it doesn’t matter.’

I scowl at him. ‘I don’t want to go out with someone who has a girlfriend.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean why? Do you know of any other woman who would put up with that shit?’

‘But you’re not like other women. You’re unconventional. That’s what first attracted me to you.’

‘All right, I’m jealous,’ I shout. ‘Blindingly jealous. Jealous enough to rip your fucking eyes out. Now who the hell is she to you?’

‘She’s not my girlfriend. I work with her.’

‘Not selling real estate, you don’t.’

He smiles, but it is a sad smile. ‘No flies on you.’

‘Erin told me that they have a really cool saying here—don’t let your mouth carry you where your foot can’t bring you back from. Why do you introduce her as your girlfriend, Jaron?’

‘She makes for good cover.’

I swallow hard. I have wanted to know for a long time now. And now I will. ‘Why do you need cover?’

‘I’m a jewel thief, Billie.’

I
blink. ‘You’re fucking what?’

‘I’m a jewel thief,’ he says slowly and clearly.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ I demand.

‘It means I target and steal the rarest, most precious stones on earth.’

‘So if you rob a safe and there is cash in there you won’t take that as well?’

He shrugs. ‘I would but it would not have been the cash that drew me there in the first place.’

I shake my head wonderingly. ‘So you’re a criminal? A common criminal.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ he says totally unfazed.

‘What other way is there?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s a semi-conscious form of social revenge.’

‘Social revenge? Semi-conscious?’ What the hell is he on about? I am so stunned it kind of all goes over my head.

‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that the distribution of wealth in society is wrong to begin with? The outrageously rich are outrageously rich only because they have employed a variety of legal and illegal ways to steal from the rest of us. All I’m doing is righting the balance.’

The breath comes out of me in a rush. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, perfectly. I
am
a predator, but only to the ultra ritzy, rich vein of society. The ones that surpass me at thievery. Coming down to wine and dine at magnificent tables laden with silverware and fine food they sometimes find I have set a place for myself.’

‘So it’s not like, why work when I can steal?’ I ask sarcastically.

He spreads his hands out. ‘There is an element of that.’

‘This is a profession where you can’t keep the pot boiling too long. Sooner or later you will get caught. You do know that, don’t you?’

He smiles. ‘I know that. Master criminals are the stuff of fiction. They don’t exist in real life. But in the end, it is just the one life. What’s more important? How many breaths you take? Or how many moments take your breath away? My conscience is clear. I will die a peaceful man.’

‘It’s wrong. You’re stealing from people.’

‘Believe me, I choose my targets very carefully. The reason I have never been caught is I always leave a souvenir, a little tape of them misbehaving, behind. Catch me and the souvenir becomes public. These people are liars and cheats and pedophiles for whom the loss of a piece of jewelry is equivalent to you dropping a glove in the park. Sometimes they stage their own break-ins many months or even years later and collect the insurance anyway.’

I frown. ‘Shouldn’t you be giving this information to the police, especially about the pedophiles?’

He laughs bitterly. ‘When I made the first tape I was still young. It shocked and horrified me and I thought the world should know what this world leader was up to. I sent copies of the disgusting tape anonymously to the police and the media. I waited for days, and guess what? Nothing happened. Everything went on as before. We live in a sado-masochistic culture, Billie. It is a curious paradox of our society that no section of it is more addicted to sadistic behavior than those entrusted to prevent it: the judge, the police commissioner, the cop, the prosecutor, the politician, the industry leader, the media mogul… They cover for each other.’

‘So you are like some sort of Robin Hood?’

‘That’s one aspect. There is another more compelling aspect. I do it because danger is a compulsion for me. Even as a child I was always what the psychologist would term chronically bored. I needed more stimulation than others. I was glue sniffing, smoking, drinking, fucking anything in a skirt, taking drugs, fighting, indulging in random acts of vandalism, and motorbike racing just to chase away the boredom. The first time I stole I was sixteen. There was a very large house at the end of my street where a widow had lived alone. When she died her children began fighting over the will and it had been empty for some years. I broke into it one evening.

‘It was as if I had entered Miss Havisham’s house in
Great Expectations
. All dust, drawn blinds, silver candelabras and antimacassars. But I can never forget the thrill of that first plunder. My mouth was dry, my heart was racing: the rush of larceny is like an orgasm, only better, so much better. I grabbed a bottle of brandy, a crystal ornament, and rushed up the stairs. The first door I opened was a bedroom. I opened a drawer and rifled through a woman’s silken underwear and felt almost dizzy with excitement. The sexual stimulation combined with plunder was indescribable, a feeling that was to stay with me all my life.’

‘And that’s it? You just became a thief at sixteen?’

‘Stealing is like any other profession. There is an art to it. It’s not all shinning up drainpipes and creeping into gutters. You’ve got to master the craft and use your brains. I learned very quickly that I had to fit in perfectly with my victims’ backgrounds—Mayfair, Belgravia, the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, 41st to 43rd Street in New York, an English stately home, the Sydney Opera House, Ascot Races… You are never a suspect. You blend in with the wealthy, the famous and the greedy. Finding the right victim is paramount. The anticipation of the heist is like an imminent orgasm. The frisson of excitement before, during and immediately after a coup is indescribable.’

‘And you made all your money by stealing?’

‘No, I made a great deal of it by investing in the right properties. Mostly in London.’

A thought occurs to me. ‘So you stole the blue diamonds you gave me?’

‘No, I bought those.’

‘Why buy when you can just steal?’ I ask suspiciously.

‘There is a protocol attached to selling stolen jewelry. Pieces have to be broken down to their parts so they are unrecognizable. In fact, offloading rare gems will soon become impossible once they are laser printed with their own signature markers.’

‘How does Ebony come into the picture?’

‘I almost always work alone, but occasionally she will undertake some small part.’

‘So she’s not your girlfriend?’

‘For a while she was. For a very short while. It was a mistake. Pleasure and business don’t mix… You’re the first person I’ve ever told this to. I know it must be very hard for you to understand.’

‘I once stole a rocking horse from Mamas & Papas,’ I say quietly.

He frowns. ‘Why?’

‘At that time I couldn’t afford to buy it and I wanted it for my godson. I didn’t feel bad doing it—I knew that big companies like that have an allowance for pilferage. It didn’t have a security tag on it so I just picked it up and walked out with it.’

‘Ah, the most important trick of larceny. Bottle! The more blatant you are the more lawful it looks. Do it in broad daylight and carry a card that identifies you as a Fire Prevention Officer.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘I don’t know. Meeting you has confused me.’

‘Confused you how?’

‘I haven’t worked it out yet. Let’s just take it one step at a time, OK?’

‘OK,’ I say quietly, but joy is bubbling up inside me like a little fountain of water that has found its way from deep underground into the sunshine.