Grand Cayman Slam (12 page)

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Authors: Randy Striker

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BOOK: Grand Cayman Slam
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I roared down the road—and right past Dia’s apartment complex.
A small green sign proclaimed:
Sea Mist Apartments.
I ground the Fiat into reverse, backed up, and then spun into the visitors’ parking space.
We all have premonitions and unspoken dreads. We see tragedies that are about to happen—but usually don’t.
But on those rare occasions when our premonitions are right, we congratulate ourselves on our perception, and assure ourselves in our deepest heart of hearts that we
can
see into the future; that the course of our lives is all preordained.
And I didn’t like the premonition I was getting now.
I slammed the door of the Fiat behind me and went running up the stairs, three steps at a time.
I pounded on the door once. Twice. And still no answer.
“Damn!”
And I was just about to run for a telephone and the police, when someone’s eye covered the peephole, and the door swung open.
“Dusky!”
It was Diacona. Her smoke-brown hair was parted in the middle and hung down over her shoulders. She wore soft bleached jeans and a gray blouse. There was a paperback book in her hand.
“Dusky, what is it? You look flushed.”
I moved past her as she shut the door behind. “Must be the tropical climate.”
She smiled and hugged me. Her hair smelled of shampoo. She demanded a kiss before any conversation. I was happy to oblige. I had felt emotionally grimy after my near miss with Lady James. All the hatred in her, all the madness, seemed to cling to me like a bad odor.
But now I felt better again. Dia looked fresh and unspoiled; free of the psychological wear so many women crumble under.
“I guess I was worried about you.”
“Um ... that’s a good sign. It means you care for me. I offer this as a token of my appreciation.”
Her lips were full and moist.
“You taste fine,” I said.
“And you do, too,” she answered sleepily. But then her eyes blinked wide open. “You . . . you taste like lipstick! And not the kind I wear!”
I laughed. There was such a look of childish outrage on her face that I couldn’t help it. “That’s because I was kissing another woman earlier.”
She backed away from me, hands on her hips. “What a nerve you have. The least you could do is lie about it!”
“Did I ever tell you that I love your Cayman accent? It’s like a combination of French and Scottish. It might be the prettiest accent I’ve ever heard.”
She kept backing away. “No, no . . . don’t you try to flatter me now.”
“You don’t want me to tell the truth and you don’t want me to flatter. Then how about if I just tell you a story?”
She stopped and looked at me seriously. “Dusky, what’s this all about?”
So I told her. I told her why I had come to Grand Cayman—without going into the specifics. And I told her how I knew Sir Conan James and about my earlier meeting with his wife.
And when I had finished, she was stunned. She sat on the couch with her hands folded in her lap for a long moment. “And he always told me that
she
was the crazy one,” she said incredulously.
“He was right. She is. But maybe he is, too.” I hesitated, then decided to tell her what had been worrying me. “Do you remember hearing or reading about the woman who was murdered a few days ago?”
“Yes,” she said, her mahogany skin growing suddenly pale. “It was just awful. She had had her . . . ”
“Throat cut,” I finished. “She was the friend of a friend of mine. He says she wasn’t involved with Sir Conan. I’m beginning to suspect otherwise.”
“But Jimmy . . . Jimmy is no murderer!”
“You don’t know that, Dia. How long did you say you’ve known him? Only a few months?”
She nodded.
“Was he ever . . . unusually rough with you? Did he ever seem to enjoy hurting you?”
“Dusky, that’s very embarrassing . . . me telling you about the way it was with him.”
I put my arm around her. “I know. But believe me when I say it doesn’t matter. I need to know.”
She thought for a moment. “There were times when he seemed to go a bit far. But I . . . I . . . ” She turned her head away from me. “You know, I rather like it that way sometimes.”
“No, Dia. There’s fun. And then there’s cruelty.”
She wiped at her forehead. “Now that I think about it, it seems he had been getting a little more extreme—but only lately. I had to ask him to be gentler a few times. And then the way he talked to me the other night while you were here. That seemed very unlike him.” She looked at me quickly. “But Dusky! You don’t really think Jimmy killed that poor woman, do you?”
“The police have no suspects, Dia. He’s the only one who even comes close.”
“But what could that possibly have to do with the kidnapping?”
“I don’t know. Nothing is making any sense. I do know that under no circumstances should you let Sir James into your apartment again. Understand?”
She nodded, close to tears. “To think . . . ”
“Do you have a weapon? A gun around the apartment?”
“Why, no. I’ve always hated the things. Don’t even know how to operate one.”
I went outside to the Fiat and got the Walther O’Davis had given me. With the clip out, I showed her how to use it. I made her fire a dozen dry rounds. Then I demonstrated how to arm it.
And when I stood to leave, she fell into my arms. “Dusky, stay. Please stay. I’m so frightened. . . . ”
I kissed her softly on the forehead. “I can’t. Not tonight.”
She wrapped her small hands in my hair and pulled my face down to hers. Her lips parted, tongue searching, delicately exploring.
“I need you,” she whispered.
The buttons of her blouse strained as my right hand moved up her ribs, cupping the weight of her.
“But I can’t.”
Her hands began to move. There was the slow metallic sound of a zipper.
“I won’t keep you. Not for long. If you say you have business, I believe you. And if you say you escaped Lady James, I believe that too.” She moaned softly. “Why is it I believe everything you say?”
My left hand stroked her hair. I turned my wrist and checked the Rolex. It was ten twenty-three. I was supposed to meet O’Davis at eleven.
“Must be my honest face.”
She tugged at my belt, and the khaki pants began to slide toward the floor.
“Oh,” she whispered, “look what’s happening.”
“I have to leave in a half hour. I mean that. No matter what.”
“Then we had better hurry, Dusky darling,” she said huskily. “I moved some cushions out onto the patio. There’s a party going on down in the harbor, and we’ll be able to see the lights and hear the music from the patio. Hurry, Dusky. Please. We don’t have much time. . . . ”
10
 
As planned, I met the Irishman in Hell.
But despite my promise, I was twenty minutes late. Diacona Ebanks had a way of making you forget time. With boat lights throwing yellow paths across the night harbor, we had joined again in a frenzy of love and wanting. She was the best of lovers: a woman whose reserve fell away with her clothes.
“Oh, Dusky, that was wonderful. It’s never been like that before.”
“And you are one very special lady.”
“Then promise me you will come again.”
“Is this a new game of puns?”
And she had laughed softly in the harbor quiet.
“Yes. I feel so delicious and wicked. Promise me—you will return tonight.”
“It may be very, very late.”
“I’ll give you a key. Just slide into my bed beside me. Promise?”
“Okay, Dia. I promise. No matter how late. . . .
”
So I raced the little Fiat along the seaside road of Seven Mile Beach toward West Bay. The road narrowed, the Miami Beach–style hotels slowly thinned out and became small island houses. Huge land crabs moved with ghostly precision across the asphalt as my car lights funneled through the darkness.
At a giant bend, the road diverged. Rocks jutted from beneath the brush and undergrowth in the moonswept night. A white sign acknowledged I had arrived:
HELL
 
I smiled in spite of myself. I always knew this day would come—but I never expected to be at the wheel of a Fiat with thoughts of love fresh in my mind.
Ragged houses lined the road. There were coconut palms in the yards. Windfall mangos added a cloying sweetness to the warm March night.
The club Inferno was a gray-and-white concrete building built on a slab. A dozen cars sat in a jumble upon the shell parking lot. A neon sign in the window promised Red Stripe beer. A handpainted sign at the door warned:
Enter at Your Own Risk—It’s Hell Inside.
At least the people of the little Grand Cayman settlement had a sense of humor.
The windows of the club vibrated with music. The jukebox was turned up high. I went through the door into the loud laughter and the haze of cigarette smoke. The record playing was a clatter of steel drums and island voices:
Work all day, work all night—daylight come an’ me wanna go home. . . .
Black and mulatto faces turned to stare as I entered. A couple of them nodded their welcome, then went back to their laughter and their conversations.
The Irishman sat at a table by an artificial fireplace. There were photographs of cricket teams on the wall, and a wide-eyed devil mask. Across from him was an older black man with huge shoulders. The black man wore baggy clothes and the kind of sweat-stained hat you see in 1930s detective films.
O’Davis checked his watch as I took a seat. “Bit late, aren’t we, brother MacMorgan? Did ya get waylaid, now?” He cackled at his own joke, and the black man laughed.
“Business, you big ugly Irishman. Strictly business.”
“Ah, course it was. Course it was. Dusky, I’d like ya to meet me neighbor and friend, Mr. Hubbard MacDonnel.”
He had huge hard hands, knobby with labor. “I was askin’ him about the night poor little Cynthia was murdered,” O’Davis said. “Tell Dusky what ya told me, Hubbard.”
Hubbard MacDonnel had a thick Cayman lilt. He was given to wide gestures and an infectious grin. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes—he had pale-blue eyes, evidence of Grand Cayman’s tolerance of all the early sea-blown races which had taken harbor on its shores.
“Didn’ hear much, mon. Not much. An’ ol’ Hubbard don’ miss a trick, neither.” He wiped his mouth with the back of a huge hand, then took a gulp of his Red Stripe. “Heard a car slow, then turn inta Mr. O’Davis’ drive. An’ I thought, ‘Well now, this is very fine. Westy’s gettin’ home early for once, maybe done with all the crazy weekday drinkin’. Kill a mon, it will.’ ”
“And that’s all you heard?”
He shook his big head and smiled. “Ain’t done with the story, see? Then I heard
another
car comin’. But this don’ sound like Westy’s car. Sound deeper. Bigger engine. This car turn, and I think, ‘That big Irishman, he given up the liquor for a pretty island lady. An’ that worse for a mon than strong drink!’ ” He laughed gaily.
Hubbard MacDonnel finished his beer with another long gulp and gave the bartender a circular wave of the hand, asking for another round. When it arrived, he continued. “Few minutes later, I hear somethin’ else. Maybe a cat lookin’ for romance. Maybe a scream. Then I hear the car with the deep engine race back toward Georgetown. Next mornin’, constable comes. Says this English woman has been murdered. He asks me the same questions as you.” The old Cayman man smiled again. “I figures Westy done kilt her, so I tell the constable nothin’. Didn’ want to get so crazy an Irishman in jail over a woman!”
“Ah, kind of you, Hubbard, kind of you—but I didn’t kill the lass.”
“Know that now, man. Didn’ know it then!”
O’Davis checked his watch. “Dusky, I’m thinkin’ it’s time fer us to get goin’.”
“One more thing,” I said. I looked at Hubbard. “You know anything about a Jamaican named Onard Cribbs?”
He looked at O’Davis, as if he preferred the question came from him. The Irishman nodded. “Cribbs,” said MacDonnel, the contempt easy to read in his voice. “Yeah, I know that Onard Cribbs, mon. Flathead Jamaican nigger, what he is. Jamaicans hate the Queen.” He tapped himself on the chest proudly. “We here love the Queen—that the difference, mon. Onard come to dah island maybe year ago. Runnin’ ganja. Marijuana. Cocaine. Who knows what else. Bad mon, that Jamaican nigger. Constable get him once, then let him go.”
“Why?”
Hubbard shrugged. “Don’ know, mon. Constable tell him get a decent job or get the hell off Cayman. Onard get a job as caretaker up the road a piece at some big estate. He come in here sometime, but not for long. Us islanders run him out. Even so, we stay away from that estate he care for, mon. Onard one nasty flathead nigger!”

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