Gimme More (40 page)

‘Then Barry needs to be zapped before it gets any further. One way or the other we've got to get involved. Don't you see? We can't let him run around like some renegade. We've got to know what he's up to.'

Playing both sides wasn't a game for amateurs, he decided. Make one little mistake and both teams would come down on you like a ton of rubble. And now, on hands and knees, sloshing around in spilled milk, he seriously considered packing it all in and heading for home.

Devon was my error, he thought. The old bloody boyfriend in Devon.

‘Devon?' Mr Stears said, perking up. ‘Are you sure? Why didn't you tell me before?'

‘I didn't know what you were thinking,' Alec said. ‘And besides I only just heard about it.'

‘An old boyfriend? Does she go regularly? How long does she stay?' Mr Stears seemed excited. ‘Good work Alec. See what else you can find out.'

But a day later he said, ‘Absurd, what on earth made you think Devon was the target? Don't you know anything about Birdie yet? If she says south-west, the best place to start looking is north-east.'

I bet you didn't come up with that one all by yourself, Alec thought, annoyed. He said, ‘But she does go to Devon, Mr Stears. Grace is sure of it.'

‘Well, of course she does,' Mr Stears said tetchily. ‘Homer Webb has a farm there.'

‘Who's Homer Webb?'

‘He's one of Birdie's old boyfriends,' Mr Stears explained with exaggerated patience. ‘But he's the wrong old boyfriend.'

You might've remembered that yesterday, Alec thought.

‘I know there are a lot to choose from,' Mr Stears said, ‘but you'll have to do better than Homer Webb.'

Like this whole Jack-hunt was my idea, Alec thought. But he did come up with something better. And it was something that had been staring him in the face ever since he came to stay in Grace's house. Every morning. It was one of the things that was so different from his own lumpen family. Mrs Emerson made coffee with real beans and, here's the cruncher, she juiced real fresh oranges – the Produce of the State of Florida, USA.

‘I'm glad you like it,' she said when he complimented her – as he was always careful to do. ‘They're the best juice oranges in the world. Lin sends me crates of them.'

It was an unremarkable tit-bit of information which went unremarked for weeks while Alec was supposed to be tracking down old movies, film labs and sound-tracks. But suddenly bells rang when he began to search for traces of Jack.

Florida oranges. Crates of them sent by Birdie to her sister in England. Why would Birdie go to Florida? Not for Disney World, that was for sure. He wanted to ask her but she wasn't around to be asked. She'd abandoned him, got herself arrested and made him feel he'd picked the losing side.

One morning after breakfast, without any purpose in mind, Alec examined the box of oranges and discovered that the original order had come from an insignificant little island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. More to revive Mr Stears's flagging approval than anything else, Alec suggested the notion of a secret island hideaway. A really ace idea. It should've put Alec on Mr Zalisky's plane, not Mrs Emerson. A move like that deserved a better reward than milk-soaked trousers.

The car was huge. Alicia, the driver, was tiny. She sat on a cushion, but even so Robin worried that she couldn't see over the dash-
board. Robin worried about a lot of things – the heat, the glare, not having dark glasses, Alicia driving with only one hand on the wheel. She didn't want to die on the Tamiami Trail in the company of a dwarf and a slug. Tiny people shouldn't be put in charge of outsize cars. Slugs with jet lag shouldn't be put in charge of conversations.

After a stop for coffee and doughnuts, Robin moved to the front of the car to get away from Barry. Alicia talked non-stop and Robin found her hard to follow. But she gathered that Alicia was the agent's wife. The agent was on the island and he worked real hard. There was this phonecall at three in the morning, and Guido had been workin' on it ever since. Alicia hadn't seen Guido for days. Presumably because he was on the island. A big agency in Tallahassee called Guido. Or was it a big legal firm who did stuff for Disney in Orlando? Anyways, with Guido on the island, there was no one else to hire the car and meet the non-scheduled flight in Tampa except Alicia. But, hey, that was cool, she liked driving, and they were going to the island, so, what the heck, she just put a coupla clean shirts for Guido in the trunk and here she was. Neat, huh? England was neat too. Alicia went there once when her older sister's husband, who was in the air force, was stationed in Essex.

Robin smiled. Barry had been under the impression that Nash would lay on a chauffeur-driven limo, and he couldn't come to grips with this tiny woman who insisted on eating her chocolate doughnut at his table and who talked a blue streak. He slumped in the back seat and tried to maintain a dignified silence.

‘This glare's killing me,' Robin said. ‘I forgot to bring dark glasses.'

‘No problem,' Alicia said. ‘There's a Wal-Mart in the next plaza. We'll do some shopping.'

Robin bought a black T-shirt which said ‘Oh shit, sharks!' for Grace, and another one for Jimmy which said ‘And now I'm going straight to hell' in gothic script. Then she bought a straw hat and dark glasses for herself. Buying presents for the kids made her feel more normal.

‘What's the matter with you, Robin?' Barry snarled from the back seat. ‘We aren't on holiday, you know.'

* * *

‘You've got to come home,' Grace said to Jimmy on the phone. ‘Everyone's gone crazy. Auntie Lin's in trouble. Mum's flipping out. She just ran off without telling me. Some stupid, stupid bastard's gone and convinced her that Jack might …'

‘That's why I'm ringing,' Jimmy said through a lot of static. ‘There was a picture of Auntie Lin being arrested in one of the Italian gossip mags. I couldn't believe it, sis. What's the old raver been up to now?'

‘She was set up by a bunch of rock-biz dirt-bags. And she won't come home ‘cos of the tabloids door-stepping this place. It's like the old days, Jimmy. It sucks, it really sucks.'

‘Oh for God's sake, Grace,' Jimmy said. ‘What're you talking about? You don't remember the old days – you were just a baby.'

‘You'd be surprised,' Grace said loftily. But in spite of what she told Alec, Jimmy was right. She couldn't remember Jack at all. She didn't want to admit it, though. Jack was her one and only claim to glamour and she wouldn't let him go without a fight.

‘Anyway,' she said, ‘that's what Mum told me. She said history was repeating itself. And now she's freaked out and gone to the States to look for Jack …'

‘She's done
what?
'

‘I told you. This fat creepo Alec works for turned up and gave her a song and dance about Jack being alive and Auntie Lin hiding him out on an island, and she fell for it. She
fell
for it, Jimmy, and she pushed off to the States while Alec and I were at the movies. Please, Jimmy, you've got to come home.'

‘Maybe I'd better,' Jimmy said. ‘It sounds like you've all lost your marbles. Does Lin know what's happening? Or is she still in chokey?'

‘She's undercover somewhere. I can't talk to her because the phones are all bugged.'

‘Oh Grace,' Jimmy said wearily, ‘please tell me you're joking.'

‘They're bugged,' she said firmly. ‘Alec did it himself.'

‘Then tell him to undo it. Is this the guy Mum put in my room?'

‘Sort of,' Grace said. She felt stupid and depressed. She shouldn't have mentioned the bugged phones, not on the phone. Things were falling apart.

‘Where is he? I want to talk to him.'

‘He's out.' Where? Alec was in a foul mood. That's why she was so glad Jimmy had called. She was in need of someone to talk to. She was feeling unusually insecure.

‘This stinks,' Jimmy said with authority. ‘Go out to a public phone box and try to get hold of Auntie Lin. She's a tough old bird – she'll know what to do.'

‘She'll freak.'

‘She's nowhere near as fragile and romantic as you think she is. She's survived all sorts of shit.'

‘But they're trying to turn Jack into Elvis. It's horrible and grotesque.'

‘They probably think it'll sell more records. I'm sorry they've sucked Mum in, though. She's the one who'll freak.'

‘Are you coming home?'

‘Hell, yes,' Jimmy said. ‘You're making a right dog's dinner of this. Anyway, I only rang to see if Mum would send me some dosh. Italian campsites suck and I'm going broke.'

Thank God, Grace thought, someone's coming. It was only Jimmy, but it broke the isolation. It occurred to her that she'd never been alone in the house for more than an hour or two. It was her home and her mother was always there. Always. She worked in the attic and she rarely went out, except to go shopping or make deliveries. This was her mother's domain. She was never more than a yell away. Everyone else came and went, but Mum was a constant.

It never occurred to her that her mother might even own a suitcase. Now she was gone, and without her, oddly, Alec seemed to lose his charm. He suddenly became a stranger. Nice-looking, yes, but a bit self-centred and sort of unsafe. Like, she could trust him when Mum or Lin was there, but alone, she felt weird about him – like, she couldn't see the point any more.

The place was extraordinary, Robin thought. You drove down a long straight road behind all the slowly cruising Chevies and Buicks. On either side of you were golf courses and condominiums with names like The Beach Place, The Verandah, Buttonwood
Harbor, all sticking up clean and white like false teeth. Behind the false teeth, the Astro Turf grass and sprinklers, the sea winked and glared.

Then you turned right into Bowsprit Lane, past a line of tidy bungalows with mail boxes shooting laser beams of reflected sunlight straight into your eyes. The lane petered out into a turning circle and then became a sandy track which disappeared into dense dark undergrowth.

She was barely a hundred yards from the main road, scarcely five hundred feet from the twin rows of holiday bungalows and, without warning, she was about to step into a tangle of wild oak, unrecognisable tropical trees and vines.

The sun couldn't penetrate the twisted unrestrained greenery. It was dark. She took off her new sunglasses and peered into the gloom. She could just distinguish the outline of a screened porch. The timber was the same grey colour as the tree trunks, and thick exotic foliage pressed up against the mosquito netting, making it look like a forgotten, overgrown aviary.

‘This can't be it,' she said out loud, almost making herself jump. ‘Lin would never own a place like this. Not here. It's all wrong. Just not Lin at all.'

She turned back to Barry and Guido. ‘Really,' she said, ‘this just isn't Lin. There's been a mistake.' Guido said, ‘Yes, m'am.'

Barry said nothing. He was looking extremely unsure of himself. Guido said, ‘Shall we go sit in the car? I'll get a coupla cans from the cooler. I got beer, Diet Coke or Sprite.'

‘Sprite,' said Barry.

‘Beer, please,' said Robin. She needed a drink. There was something unnerving about the coiling distorted vines and trees – the unexpected darkness. It was a vestige of primeval forest, forgotten by the planners and architects and landscape designers. Forgotten by progress.

Guido was only an inch or so taller than his wife, but poking out from the sleeves of his crisp short-sleeved shirt was a pair of arms which would have made Popeye the Sailor Man proud. He and Alicia drank Diet Coke. After a pause he said, ‘See, I was surprised
as you. But I checked twice at the Land Registry
and
the post office.'

Alicia said, ‘He always double-checks, Robin. He's known by it.'

‘I didn't mean to be rude,' Robin said. ‘It's just… well, I know my sister.'

‘Sure you do,' Alicia said.

Guido cleared his throat politely. ‘The property was purchased twenty-seven years ago and it's registered to the Eagle Holding Company, sole proprietor, Ms Linnet Walker.'

‘Who pays the property tax?' Barry asked, sounding confident again.

‘Eagle Holding.'

‘No, no,' Robin said. Lin pay property tax? Surely not. Lin didn't
do
taxes. Lin wasn't a resident anywhere. She never even had a place to hang her hat unless it was Robin's house.

‘Have you spoken to the neighbours?'

Neighbours? Robin looked round vaguely. Of course there were neighbours, close neighbours, on this tacky,
nouveau riche
playground of an island. But this corner of nightmare jungle seemed to have been picked up from the set of a film about mad swamp dwellers. The darkness, the silence, argued for total isolation.

‘See, there's a problem,' Guido said. ‘This part of the key ain't residential. People own property, sure, but, like, it's vacationers – they just come for the season to play tennis or golf or for the sailing. Hardly no one lives here all year round except the people who work here. And most of them come in daily from the mainland.'

‘Regular folks wouldn't live here and raise families,' Alicia concurred. ‘No regular folks, no regular neighbours.'

‘But I talked to the Quaker lady at the post office,' Guido said, ‘and a guy who's been at the pharmacy in the Avenue Mall for years. They say there's a guy here who was wounded in ‘Nam. He don't never come off the property, never shows his face. He don't get no deliveries and he doesn't own an automobile. They say there used to be a black woman came a coupla times a week but nobody's seen her in years.'

‘Are you listening, Robin?' Barry said pompously. ‘Doesn't ever show his face. Maybe wounded in Vietnam. Or maybe suffered serious burns in a fire twenty-five years ago. It adds up.'