The Sea Grape Tree (24 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

A
craving for Danny had come on that morning after she'd forced herself awake
from yet another in the series of terrifying dreams. In this one, the strong fingers
of brickies had been holding her, dragging her up the stairs in front of a Gothic
church, probing under her blue coat, all the while calling her name.

Think yer too good for us, don't yer, Sarah
Louise?

Think we're dirty jobbies, don't yer?

We're going to fuck yer brains out, Sarah Louise,
and I bet yer a bloody virgin.

She'd awakened, heart pounding, and the rest had appeared like the gradual
lifting of fog from warm earth. Memories, fresh in their rawness, blocked for two
decades, had emerged. She remembered first the smell of greasy hair and beer, felt
the press of the metal fence against her spine, saw the leering brown face inches
from hers.

She remembered the shock of his rough hands and fingers making her breath
catch and freezing her tongue, and how they'd cursed her, all of them, throwing out
her name, laughing as she struggled in dumb silence. And then it came suddenly, the
memory of one of them, the one who had thumped her, trying to have sex with her
against the fence, holding up her coat, pulling down her pants, and pushing into her
pubic area with his limp penis, and how the others had laughed at him. And she
remembered him cursing her again and shoving her to the ground and the damp coldness
of the earth under her fingers after they'd left. And she remembered standing up and
pulling up her panties. She'd brushed herself off, watching the boys walking down
the road, two of them still guffawing, and she'd felt bruised, her privates
throbbing and huge. Then her mother's car had come from the other direction even
before the boys had turned the corner. She'd run to the car and jumped in, looking
straight ahead.

“You're late,” she'd said, still shaking, wanting her mother to know.

“I'm sorry, darling. I forgot, to tell the truth, but when Aunt Phyllis
asked about you I suddenly remembered. Terrible of me, I know.”

She'd hugged herself, lips shut tight.

“You're all right, are you, Sarah Louise?” her mother had inquired when
they rounded the corner, the boys nowhere in sight. “You're looking a little—”

“I'm fine, Mum, I'm fine,” she'd said, knowing that her cheeks were red
and the car was dark. Her mother had started talking about Aunt Phyllis's latest
boyfriend and how he'd popped in while they were having tea. Nothing more had been
said, nothing, nothing to anyone, although she'd asked her parents never to call her
Sarah Louise ever again and they hadn't. She'd stopped taking ballet and buried
herself in the quiet of art classes.

When she was fully awake and the dream-reality of probing fingers and her
mother's indifference had been pushed aside, she'd lain quiet for a few minutes,
hugging her ribs, staring at the white ceiling with its stupid spackling, and it
came to her that this position, this familiar hugging of herself, she'd been doing
for a long, long time. And it all started to make sense. The dreams were her
history, rejected and blocked. She could now understand the hollowness inside, the
walls thickening each year, keeping everyone out, keeping them away from her soft
insides, an awareness followed by a yearning for the one person who'd refused to be
kept at a distance.

“Danny,” she'd whispered. “Come for me, please, please, please.” It wasn't
about sex, every sexual impulse having died since Batsman held on to her beside the
road. It was instead a yearning to be found, to matter to someone.

Half an hour later she was sitting on the floor, her upper body extended
over her straight legs, stretching her body, trying to escape the mental jumble.
She'd felt a compulsion to stretch and made a couple forward bends. The memories
uncaged by the last dream had left her in turmoil and called for pacifying. Outside
her window, the unseen dog started scratching, whining with pleasure as he
scratched. She was about to stand up and attempt a headstand, when the memories
started forming themselves into an organized procession. Pausing with her hands on
her knees, she allowed the images to fully materialize, allowed the feelings to
emerge along with them.

After the assault, she remembered, she'd only felt shame, embarrassment
that these crude young men with their accents and rough hands had found her
attractive, had touched her. She'd smothered the memory into obliteration, blaming
herself. Thirteen years old, and she'd never mentioned the incident to any living
being, not even to Penny. Her silence had been meant as a punishment to her mother
for being late. It was deeper even. It was anger with her mother for being
self-centered, a woman who had to have the floor, whose turn it always was to make a
fuss.

She stared at the blue sky outside the bars. Yet again, she had Man-Up to
thank for bringing back the worst of the memories. He'd come into her bedroom the
evening before, talking as he entered.

“Where you passport?” he'd demanded, no mention of the painting.

Her mouth was full of toothpaste and she'd stood with the brush in one
hand, pulling her nightgown close with the other. “I don't know.”

“What you mean?”

She'd spat out the toothpaste into the bathroom sink. “I'm telling you. I
don't have it. Whoever packed the bags didn't put it in.”

Man-Up had walked to her suitcase and looked down at it. “Where it is
then?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don't lie to me.”

“It was with all my stuff, and it's not here.”

He hadn't taken her word for it, knelt down and plowed through her
clothes, threw some papers and a map of Jamaica on the floor, went through her pads
and papers one by one. He looked up at her, still on one knee, his face suddenly
like a spurned lover's.

“Look how we treating you good and you lying to me. You hiding the
passport.”

“I'm not.”

Sauntering over to her, his eyebrows hanging like thunderclouds over his
eyes, Man-Up balled up his fists. “Give me the passport!” he shouted, and slapped
her, shocking her, snapping her head back. “This is your
one
chance to get out! You better take it.”

She held her cheek. “I—I told you—I don't have it.”

He'd held on to her upper arms and shaken her, his calluses scratching her
skin. “Like you don't understand. If you want to leave Jamaica alive, you have to
tell me where the
blood claat
passport is and you have
to do it now.”

“It wa—was—on a sh—shelf—in Roper's house,” she'd stammered as he shook
her again.

“What shelf?”

“In the closet—in my room.”

Man-Up had stalked out, slamming the bolts back into place behind him. He
was
vexed,
Danny would have said, proven by the loud
discussion in the living room afterward­—three men's voices shouting,
interrupting, contradicting. She'd made out bits and pieces, an argument about the
passport, and she'd sat on the floor beside the door, crying with dry eyes, holding
on to her ribs.

“Two shots and everything over,” Man-Up had declared, his vicious voice
stabbing through the gap, uncaring if she was listening.

“—the woman named Holloway, the one in Aruba?” the thin man had
responded.

“No, man,” Batsman interjected, his voice lower than the other two. “The
woman don't do nutten.”

When the argument had died down and there was silence again, she'd crawled
to the bed and lain under the sheet, whimpering, praying, eventually drifting off to
the dream and the memories, the imprint of sandpaper hands still on her arms and
swollen face.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

S
had stopped the Jeep on the weed-packed road leading up to the house, well away from the gate. “This is it.”

“Janet's brother lives here?” Danny slid both hands over his head, his fingers interlocked. His hands came to rest behind his head. “That's a big fucking house, man.”

“So the dons like they houses big-big. I wanted you to see for yourself.”

The American sighed and shook his head. “She never mentioned it. She don't seem like the kind of person—”

“I tell you, nothing in Jamaica seem like what it is, star.”

“You think the brother is involved?”

“It seem like too much coincidence that Janet hate Sarah, Janet's brother is a don, then Sarah disappear. I seeing a
pattern
here, you get me? You never can tell, maybe he kidnap her for money.”

“Or she just took off on her own, moved into a hotel or something.”

“She didn't have no money, plus she left her passport.”

“Okay, if it's a kidnapping, maybe it's somebody else.”

“Is only a couple of people. Carthena, the maid who work for Mistah Roper. She don't seem to like Sarah either.”

“But why would she want to harm her?”

“Jealousy, maybe.”

“I don't get it—”

“And Mistah Roper could be another suspect”—the delicious word Elliot used on
Law & Order: SVU
—“or his girlfriend.”

“Because she didn't do the painting? I don't think so.”

“We don't know that, star. People have all kind of motive.”

“Anybody else?”

“You.”

“Me, a
suspect
?” Danny yelled. An artery on his forehead bulged. “You can get that out of your head right now, man. Why would I come back to find her?”

Shad shrugged and gave a half smile. “You could be pretending. Who knows? But to tell the truth, I believe you, because I know if you had any problem you can jump on a plane and leave. You don't have to hurt nobody.”

“I'm glad you remember that.” Moving his shoulders around a little, Danny got back to business. “Who else?”

“Somebody in England might want her out of the way.”

“From what she says, she has a pretty quiet life in En­gland.”

“You call her roommate again?”

“Yes, she said Sarah's still not home and her mother hasn't seen her either. I told her about the passport, and she said she wouldn't be surprised if Sarah had gone off somewhere on the island. She kept saying
I'm sure she's having a great adventure.
”
Danny's attempt at a British accent, complete with wagging head, tempted Shad to laugh. “She said if I come down and still can't find her, to get back in touch, so they could notify the police.”

“Then is not a kidnapping for money. They would have heard from the kidnappers by this.”

“Why are we here then?”

Shad shrugged. “We have to start somewhere. Janet have a motive and her brother have the means. And another thing,” Shad said, stroking the sides of his chin, “I don't like how Janet suddenly change her tune from getting a green card to a visitor's visa. She always talking about getting married and getting a green card, and now she suddenly happy with a visitor's visa. Like she would do anything to get to America and don't care about the getting-married part. I don't understand that—Beth would never switch up like that. Something not right there—I don't trust her.”

“But I'm just not seeing Janet—”

“You right, you not seeing her,” Shad said, and lifted a warning index finger. “Like how you tell her you coming back to get her the visitor's visa.”

Danny shook his head hard. “Is that what she told you? No way. I told her I was coming back to check on the hotel. She said something about a visa, but I didn't want to get into that on the phone. I'd been trying to call you and Eric, but all I kept getting was a busy signal, so I asked her to tell you I was coming. But I came down to find Sarah, you know that, I swear to you.”

“Wake up, star, Miss Janet have big plans for you.”

“She's in for a bigger surprise then.”

Shad stared at the yellow fortress ahead, creaking the gearshift into reverse. “Two things we know: Janet still planning to trap you, and the artist lady still on the island.”

On the drive from Port Maria to Largo, it was agreed that they should take action. “We need to ask Lambert to come with us,” Shad said. “He have a gun. And if Lambert come, the boss have to come, is a package deal.”

“Shit, we going to guns now?”

“I going to bring mine, too.”

“
You
have a gun?”

“Short life, long story.”

Danny brought out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “I guess I'm still getting to know my partners.”

“You right, even after you tie the knot, still plenty to find out.”

As soon as they drove up the driveway, Miss Mac emerged onto her verandah. “Nice to see you again, Mistah Caines,” she said while the men mounted the stairs. Danny greeted her warmly and went into the house with his suit bag, and she looked at Shad behind him and made a funny mouth.

After they deposited the luggage, the men went in search of Eric next door. He was kneeling on the grass outside the bar fixing a water faucet, his white hair hanging like a curtain over the wrench.

“Boss, we have a job for you,” Shad announced.

“And I have a job for you,” Eric answered, wiping sweat from his forehead. He banged the faucet's rusty spigot. “Damn salt air. Everything rusts in a year.” He stood up slowly, holding on to one knee, and shook hands with Danny. “Hey, man, good to see you. Sorry I haven't called since you left, but the phone's been dead. It's back now, though. I got that hooked up this morning.”

“Did you tell them about the Internet?” Shad asked him.

“Next month, they said. They'll put us on the list.”

“That's great,” Danny put in. “You'll be online and we can email—”

“Right,” Eric said. “But it's always better doing business in person, you know.”

“It's good to be back, I can't lie,” Danny said, wiping his hand on his jeans. “Largo feels almost like home now.”

“Glad to hear that.” Eric nodded. He swung the wrench toward Shad. “So what's this job you're talking about?”