The Cry of the Halidon (33 page)

He walked to the edge of the bed and sat down beside her. “I was long-winded, wasn’t I?”

“I couldn’t shut you up; there was simply no way. You drank a great deal of Scotch—how’s your head, incidentally?”

“Fine. As though I’d had Ovaltine.”

“… straight alcohol wouldn’t have stayed with you either. I’ve seen that kind of reaction before, too—–Sorry. I forgot you object to my British pronouncements.”

“I made a few myself last night. I withdraw my objections.”

“Do you still believe them? Your pronouncements? As they say … in the cold logic of the morning?”

“I think I do; the thrust of my argument being that no one
fights better for his own turf than he who lives on it, depends on it.… Yes, I believe it. I’d feel more confident if Barak hadn’t been hurt.”

“Strange name, Barak.”

“Strange man. And very strong. He’s needed, Alison. Boys can become men quickly, but they’re still not seasoned. His ken is needed.”

“By whom?”

McAuliff looked at her, at the lovely way her eyebrows rose quizzically above her clear, light blue eyes. “By his own side,” he answered simply.

“Which is not Charles Whitehall’s side.” There was no question implied.

“No. They’re very different. And I think it’s necessary … at this point, under these circumstances … that Barak’s faction be as viable as Charley-mon’s.”

“That concern strikes me as dangerously close to interference, darling.”

“I know. It’s just that everything seems so complicated to me. But it doesn’t to Whitehall. And it doesn’t to Barak Moore. They see a simple division muddled up by second and third parties.… Don’t you see? They’re not distracted. They first go after one objective, then another, and another, knowing ultimately they’ll have to deal with each other. Neither one loses sight of that. Each stores his apples as he goes along.”

“What?” Alison leaned back on the pillow, watching McAuliff as he stared blankly at the wall. “I don’t follow that.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it. A wolf pack surrounds its victims, who huddle into the center. The dogs set up an erratic rhythm of attack, taking turns lunging in and out around the circle until the quarry’s confused to the point of exhaustion. Then the wolves close in.” Alex stopped; he was uncertain.

“I gather Charles and this Barak are the victims,” said Alison, trying to help him.

“Jamaica’s the victim, and they’re Jamaica. The wolves—the enemies—are Dunstone and all it represents: Warfield
and his crowd of … global manipulators—the Chatelleraults of this world; British Intelligence, with its elitists, like Tallon and
his
crowd of opportunists; the Crafts of this island … internal bleeders, you could call them. Finally, maybe even this Halidon, because you can’t control what you can’t find; and even if you find it, it may not be controllable.… There are a lot of wolves.”

“There’s a lot of confusion,” added Alison.

McAuliff turned and looked at her. “For
us
. Not for
them
. That’s what’s remarkable. The victims have worked out a strategy: Take each wolf as it lunges. Destroy it.”

“What’s that got to do with apples?”

“I jumped out of the circle and went into a straight line.”

“Aren’t we abstract,” stated Alison Booth.

“It’s valid. As any army—and don’t kid yourself, Charles Whitehall and Barak Moore have their armies—as any army moves forward, it maintains its lines of supply. In this case, support. Remember. When all the wolves have been killed, they face each other. Whitehall and Moore both are piling up apples … support.” McAuliff stopped again and got up from the bed. He walked toward the window to the right of the terrace doors, pulled the curtain, and looked out at the beach. “Does any of this make sense to you?” he asked softly.

“It’s very political, I think, and I’m not much at that sort of thing. But you’re describing a rather familiar pattern. I’d say—”

“You bet your
life
I am,” interrupted Alex, speaking slowly and turning from the windows. “Historical precedents unlimited … and
I’m
no goddamn historian. Hell, where do you want to start? Caesar’s Gaul? Rome’s Ferrara? China in the thirties? The Koreas, the Vietnams, the Cambodias? Half a dozen African countries? The words are there, over and over again. Exploitation from the outside, inside revolt—insurgence and counterinsurgence. Chaos, bloodbath, expulsion. Ultimately reconstruction in so-called compromise. That’s the pattern. That’s what Barak and Charley expect to play out. And each knows that while he’s joining the other to kill a wolf, he’s got to entrench himself
further in the turf at the same time. Because when the compromise comes … as it must … he wants it more
his
way than less.”

“What you’re saying—getting away from circles and straight lines—is that you don’t approve of Barak’s ‘army’ being weakened. Is that it?”

“Not
now
. Not at this moment.”

“Then you
are
interfering. You’re an outsider taking an inside position. It’s not your … turf, my darling.”

“But I brought Charley here. I gave him his respectability, his cover. Charley’s a son of a bitch.”

“Is Barak Moore a saint?”

“Not for a second. He’s a son of a bitch, too. And it’s important that he is.” McAuliff returned to the window. The morning sun was striking the panes of glass, causing tiny nodules of condensation. It was going to be a hot day.

“What are you going to do?” Alison sat forward, prepared to get up as she looked over at Alex.

“Do?” he asked quietly, his eyes concentrating on something outside the window. “What I was sent here to do; what I’m being paid two million dollars to do. Complete the survey or find this Halidon. Whichever comes first. Then get us out of here … on our terms.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Alison, rising from the bed. “What is that sickening odor?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. They were going to spray down your room, get rid of the medicine smells.” McAuliff stepped closer to the window and shaded his eyes from the rays of the morning sun.

“The ether or disinfectant or whatever it was was far more palatable. My bathing suit’s in there. May I get it?”

“What?” Alex was not listening, his attention on the object of his gaze outside.

“My bathing suit, darling. It’s in my room.”

McAuliff turned from the window, oblivious to her words. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He walked rapidly to the terrace door, opened it, and ran out.

Alison looked after him, bewildered. She crossed to the window to see what Alex had seen. It took several seconds
to understand; she was helped by watching McAuliff run across the sand toward the water. In the distance, down at the beach, was the lone figure of a large black man staring out at the ocean. It was Lawrence.

Alex approached the tall Jamaican, wondering if he should call out. Instinctively, he did not. Instead, he cleared his throat when he was within ten yards; cleared it loud enough to be heard over the sound of the lapping small waves.

Lawrence turned around. Tears were in his eyes, but he did not blink or change the muscles of his face. He was a child-man accepting the agonies of a very personal torment.

“What happened?” asked McAuliff softly, walking up to the shirtless boy-giant.

“I should have listened to you, mon. Not to him. He was wrong, mon.”

“Tell me what happened,” repeated Alex.

“Barak is dead. I did what he ordered me to do and he is dead. I listened to him and he is dead, mon.”

“He knew the risk; he had to take it. I think he was probably right.”

“No. He was wrong because he is dead. That makes him wrong, mon.”

“Floyd’s gone … Barak. Who is there now?”

Lawrence’s eyes bored into McAuliff’s; they were red from silent weeping, and beyond the pride and summoned strength, there was the anguish of a child. And the pleading of a boy. “You and me, mon. There is no one else.… You will help me, mon?”

Alex returned the rebel’s stare; he did not speak.

Welcome to the seat of revolution, McAuliff thought to himself.

T
he Trelawny police made Floyd’s identification at 7:02 in the morning. The delay was caused by the lack of any print facilities in Falmouth and the further lack of cooperation on the part of several dozen residents who were systematically routed from their beds during the night to observe the corpse. The captain was convinced that any number of them recognized the bullet-pierced body, but it was not until two minutes past seven when one old man—a gardener from Carrick Foyle—had reacted sufficiently to the face of the bloody mess on the table for the captain to decide to apply sterner methods. He held a lighted cigarette millimeters in front of the old man’s left eye, which he stretched open with his free hand. He told the trembling gardener that he would burn the gelatin of his eyeball unless he told the truth.

The ancient gardener screamed and told the truth. The man who was the corpse on the table had worked for Walter Piersall. His name was Floyd Cotter.

The captain then telephoned several parish precincts for further information on one Cotter, Floyd. There was nothing; they had never heard of him. But the captain had persisted; Kingston’s interest in Dr. Walter Piersall, before and after his death, was all-inclusive. Even to the point of around-the-clock patrols at the house on the hill in Carrick Foyle. The captain did not know why; it was not his province to question, much less analyze, Kingston’s commands. That they were was enough. Whatever the motives that resulted in the harassment of the white scholar before
his death, and the continued concern about his residence after, was Kingston’s bailiwick, not his. He simply followed orders. He followed them well, even enthusiastically. That was why he was the prefect captain of the parish police in Falmouth.

And that was why he kept making telephone calls about one Floyd Cotter, deceased, whose corpse lay on the table and whose blood would not stop oozing out of the punctures on his face and in his chest and stomach and legs; blood that dried on the pages of
The Gleamer
, hastily scattered about the floor.

At five minutes to eight, as the captain was about to lift the receiver off its base and call the precinct in Sherwood Content, the telephone rang. It was his counterpart in Puerto Seco, near Discovery Bay, whom he had contacted twenty minutes ago. The man said that after their conversation, he had talked with his deputies on the early shift. One of the men reported that there was a Floyd with a survey team, headed by an American named McAuliff, who had begun work about ten days ago on the shoreline. The survey had hired a carrier crew out of Ocho Rios. The Government Employment Office had been involved.

The captain then woke up the director of the G.E.O. in Ochee. The man was thoroughly awake by the time he got on the line, because he had no telephone and consequently had had to leave his house and walk to a Johnny Canoe store where he—and most of the neighborhood—took calls. The employment chief recalled that among the crewmen hired by the American named McAuliff, there had been a Floyd, but he did not remember the last name. This Floyd had simply shown up with other applicants who had heard of the available work from the Ochee grapevine. He had not been listed in the employment files; neither had one or two others eventually hired.

The captain listened to the director, thanked him, and said nothing to contradict or enlighten him. But after hanging up the phone, he put in a call to Gordon House in Kingston. To the inspector who headed the search teams that had meticulously gone over Piersall’s house in Carrick Foyle.

The inspector’s conclusion was the same as the captain’s: The deceased Floyd Cotter—former employee of Walter Piersall—had returned with friends to loot the house and been interrupted.

Was anything missing?

Digging in the cellar? In an old cistern out of use for years?

The inspector would fly back to Falmouth by noon. In the meantime, the captain might discreetly interrogate Mr. McAuliff. If nothing else, ascertain his whereabouts.

At twenty minutes past nine, the captain and his first deputy drove through the gates of Bengal Court.

Alexander was convincingly agitated. He was appalled—and naturally sorry—that Floyd Cotter had lost his life, but goddammit, the episode answered several questions. Some very expensive equipment was missing from the supply truck, equipment that could bring high prices in a thieves’ market. This Floyd Cotter obviously had been the perpetrator; he was a thief, had been a thief.

Did the captain want a list of the missing items? There was a geodometer, a water scope, half a dozen jeweled compasses, three Polaroid filter screens, five brand-new medicine kits in Royal Society cases, a Rolleiflex camera, and a number of other things of lesser value—but not inexpensive. The captain’s deputy wrote as rapidly as he could on a notepad as Alex rattled off the “missing” items. Twice he asked for spellings; once the point of his pencil broke. It was a harried few minutes.

After the interview was over, the captain and his deputy shook hands with the American geologist and thanked him for his cooperation. McAuliff watched them get into the police car and waved a friendly good-bye as the vehicle sped out of the parking lot through the gates.

A quarter of a mile down the road, the captain braked the patrol car to a stop. He spoke quietly to his deputy.

“Go back through the woods to the beach, mon. Find out who he is with, who comes to see him.”

The deputy removed his visor cap and the creased khaki shirt of his uniform with the yellow insignias of his rank,
and reached into the back for a green T-shirt. He slipped it over his head and got out of the car. He stood on the tarred pavement, unbuckled his belt, and slid his holster off the leather strip. He handed it through the window to the captain.

The captain reached down below the dashboard and pulled out a rumpled black baseball cap that was discolored with age and human sweat. He gave it to his deputy and laughed.

“We all look alike, mon. Aren’t you the fella who alla time sell
cocoruru
?”