The Crimes of Jordan Wise

Copyright © 2006 by Bill Pronzini

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First published in the United States of America in 2006 by
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eISBN: 978-0-802-71825-9

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Jocko's isn't much. Just your standard back-island roadside bar and grill, mostly frequented by locals black and white and a few slumming tourists; on the southeastern tip of St. John, the smallest of the U.S. Virgins. The road that loops around from Coral Bay ends fifty yards from Jocko's dirt parking lot. End of the line.

The building is two-storied, made of pink stucco, flanked by palmettos and elephant ears; bar and food service downstairs, Jocko's quarters upstairs. Pocked plaster walls hung with nautical paintings, none of them very good. Dozens of color snapshots of customers with and without Jocko. Old, mismatched furniture. A couple of ceiling fans, a bleached steer head mounted above the bar, a dartboard, and a blackboard with the daily menu chalked on it. Today's specials are every day's specials—conch chowder and callaloo, a pair of West Indian dishes.

This is because Jocko is West Indian, a native of St. Croix. Plump, hairless, skin as sleek and shiny as a seal's. In one ear he wears a big gold hoop that gives him a lopsided, faintly piratical appearance. He smiles a lot, laughs often. Jocko is a happy man.

The open-air window frames a view of the narrow inlet, where a handful of fishing boats and catamarans bob at anchor, and the broad expanse of Long Bay and Round Bay beyond. If you sit at the table in the exact center of the window, you can also see much of the far shore—the villa-spotted hills above Coral Bay and the jungly slopes of Bordeaux Mountain, the highest point on St. John at 1,277 feet. That table and chair are mine by tacit agreement. On the rare occasions when I'm not in the cafe, Jocko refuses to let anybody else sit there. My seat, my window, my view.

In front of me on the scarred tabletop is a double shot of Arundel Cane Rum. I won't drink anything else. Jocko imports it for me from Tortola in the neighboring British Virgins, once the largest pirate community in the Caribbean. He does it because he likes me. And he likes me for the same reason he reserves my table: I'm his best customer.

We are the only two people there when the big, belly-fat man in the yachting cap comes in. About time. I've been waiting for him. He has been in twice before this week, once to eat lunch and once to drink a beer and cast curious looks in my direction. I know that look. It was only a matter of time until he came back again.

This visit, he doesn't sit at the bar. Thirty seconds after he walks in, he is standing between me and the window, smiling in a tentative way. His rough-textured face is like something sculpted out of wet sand. The yachting cap has no significance; he isn't off any of the pleasure craft anchored in the inlet or up at Coral Bay.

I say, "You're blocking my view."

"Oh, sorry." He gestures at one of the empty chairs. "Mind if I join you?"

"Why?"

"No particular reason. I've seen you here three times now—always alone. I thought you might like some company."

"As long as you don't block the view."

He positions the chair carefully to my left, sits down, and fans himself with his hand. "Hot."

"Not so bad today. You should be here during hurricane season."

"I'd rather not, thanks. My name's Talley, John Talley."

I already know this, but I don't admit it. I say, "Richard Laidlaw. No.

Jordan Wise."

"Which is it?"

"Take your pick."

"How about the one you were born with?"

"Then it's Jordan Wise."

He gives me a penetrating look. "Buy you a drink, Jordan?"

"I wouldn't say no. Arundel Cane Rum, a double, neat."

"I'll just have a cold beer. Too early and too hot for rum." He calls out the order to Jocko. "I'm a writer," he says to me.

I know this, too, but I say, "Is that right?"

"Books, stories, magazine articles.
The Man in the Glass Coffin
was a modest best-seller a few years ago, maybe you heard of it?"

"I don't read much."

"You're not alone there," Talley says ruefully. "I'm between projects now. Down here on vacation and to soak up a little local color."

"And you think I might qualify in the color department. Rumpled, unshaven, rumsoaked—an old character."

"Well, I'll admit you interest me. My sixth sense says you might have a story to tell."

"Everybody's got a story to tell."

"But only a few are worth listening to."

Jocko brings the drinks and I taste some of mine. Out of the corner of my eye I see a sleek blue-and-white ketch tack in from the sea, her Dacron sails fat with wind. Forty-footer with a clipper bow and enough beam to handle weather in blue water. She reminds me of
Windrunner. A
little larger, and
Windrunner
was a yawl, but the two types are similarly rigged. It'd be cool out there on her foredeck. The trades are blowing today.

"I'm staying up at Coral Bay," Talley says. "I like St. John better than St. Thomas and this side of the island better than Cruz Bay. Fewer people, none of the conventional tourist atmosphere."

"So do I. For the same reasons."

"Been in the Virgins a long time, have you?"

"Twenty-seven years."

"Practically a native. You live out here on the tip?"

"That's right. A saltbox not far away"

"What's a saltbox?"

"Small square house. Cheap rent."

"Mind if I ask what you do for a living?"

"I don't do anything," I say.

"You mean you're out of work?"

"No. I mean I don't do anything. Except come here to Jocko's most days."

"Retired?"

"No."

"Independent means?"

"No."

"Then how do you make ends meet?"

I empty my glass. The blue-and-white ketch glides up toward Hurricane Hole, passing a big motor sailer flying the British flag. Her sails and bright work gleam in the hard glare of the sun.

After a time I say, "You want to know about me? All right, I'll tell you. Here's the short version: I moved down here after committing a crime, a perfect crime. Later on, I committed two more. Three perfect crimes over a period of about six years."

Talley sits still, his beer bottle poised halfway between us. His eyes reflect sharp interest for a few seconds. Then his mouth quirks and he lowers the bottle to the table.

"You're putting me on," he says.

"Am I?"

"Three perfect crimes?"

"That's right."

"One would be a hell of a trick. But
three?"

I smile. "Damn few people can make that claim."

"If it's the truth. What kind of crimes?"

"Oh, they were all major felonies."

"And you got away with them?"

"I wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't. That's what 'perfect crime' means, doesn't it?"

"You must've been born lucky, then," Talley says.

"Lucky? Well, luck had something to do with it. Other factors, too. But mainly it was ingenuity All three, in one way or another, were creative as hell. If I do say so myself."

"You made money from these crimes?"

"Just the first one. A small fortune."

"But the money ran out, is that it? Or you squandered it."

"Wrong on both counts. I still have a fair amount left. That's how I make ends meet."

He frowns. "Then what're you doing living way out here on the cheap, spending your days drinking in a place like this?"

"That's the long version of the story."

"And I suppose you wouldn't care to provide details."

"I didn't say that."

"So you are willing? Why?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, I get it," Talley says. "After more than twenty years, the statutes of limitation on your crimes have run out."

I don't answer. The motor sailer has cought my eye again. I watch it move down the bay, cleaving the water smoothly, her wake a long smear of cream on the dark blue surface. I have always preferred sailing vessels—ketches, yawls, schooners—to those big power yachts, but there is something majestic about any boat taking the sun on her way out to sea. For a few seconds, I feel a stir of the old yearning. But it doesn't last long. It never does.

"Wise? Did you hear me?"

I look at Talley again. He taps a small device he has taken from the pocket of his shirt. "Voice-activated tape recorder," he says. "Of course I won't use anything you say without your permission. I'll give you a signed statement to that effect—"

I wave that away. "Go ahead and turn it on. But it'll take a while to tell it the way it needs to be told."

"I've got plenty of time. And a spare cassette."

"Talking's thirsty work."

Talley says, "So's listening," and signals to Jocko for another round.

When I have a full glass in front of me, I say, "From the beginning, then. The summer of 1977, when I met Annalise . . ."