The Crimes of Jordan Wise (20 page)

It's long gone now. In the early eighties it was staggering along on its last legs, catering to small package-tour groups and individuals who wanted a little island ambiance on the relative cheap. Naturally Fred Coder had gravitated there; it was the only inexpensive hotel in the downtown area.

The lobby was crowded when I walked in at ten o'clock. It was my first visit to the hotel, so there was little danger of my being recognized as Richard Laidlaw. Shaved, hair trimmed, talcum powder lightening my sun-weathered skin, wearing a Madras shirt and white slacks, I blended right in with the snowbirds. I was even blue-eyed that morning, the first time I'd been out in public without the tinted contacts since I'd been on St. Thomas—unnecessary, but I was still feeling bold. I crossed straight to the elevators as if I belonged there and rode up to the second floor.

Cotler's room was at the rear. I let myself in with the tagged key. Stuffy little box, its single window overlooking a corner of the hotel garden and most of the gravel parking lot—probably the cheapest accommodations the Hotel Caribbean had to offer. The maid hadn't been there yet that day; the bed was rumpled, the glass-topped teak nightstand littered with cigar ash, an ashtray cradling a couple of cheroot butts, and an empty beer bottle and several wet-rings. The room stank of stale cigar smoke.

I looked in the nightstand drawer first. Empty except for the usual Gideon Bible. In the closet, half a dozen shirts and pants on hangers and an imitation leather suitcase. I opened the suitcase on the bed, checked through all the pockets inside and out. Coder's American Airlines return ticket was in one of them. Economy fare, the cheapest available judging from the rate. From what I knew of airline practices, economy fares were nonrefundable; if a ticket wasn't used, it was immediately canceled, the passenger's seat was given to somebody else, and no permanent record of the cancellation was kept. I called the American counter at the airport later to make sure.

The rest of Coder's clothing was in one of the bureau drawers—underwear, socks, T-shirts, an extra belt. The only personal item in the bathroom was his toilet kit, and it contained nothing other than his ring of keys and the usual travel items. The only other place in the room to look was under the bed; I found nothing there but a freshly dead roach. I was satisfied then that Coder hadn't brought anything with him that pointed to Jordan Wise or Richard Laidlaw. Or to Annalise.

Had he told anyone other than Annalise that he was going to St. Thomas? Probably not. You don't advertise a trip you're making for the sole purpose of extorting money from a fugitive. He could be traced here, of course, once his disappearance was reported, but only if someone cared enough about him to pursue an investigation—someone other than Annalise. The police in places like Yonkers don't have enough manpower to run thorough backchecks on every missing-person case. If Cotler was traced to the island, the odds were good that his trail would lead no farther than the Hotel Caribbean. And I was about to make those odds even better.

I gathered up Coder's belongings and packed them into the suitcase, double-checking to make sure I had everything before I left the room. Tourists often carry their own bags in a hotel like the Caribbean; I attracted no attention on my way to the desk.

Both clerks, a man and a woman, were native blacks. All to the good. The woman waited on me. Professional smile, and only the briefest of eye contact when I put the key down and said, "Checking out, please."

She got the bill from the file, studied it for a few seconds before making eye contact again. "Is anything wrong, Mr. Cotler?"

"Wrong?"

"Your room is reserved for two more days."

She said it without suspicion. That and her calling me Mr. Cotler put me at ease. There'd been only a slight chance that any of the hotel staff would know I wasn't Fred Cotler; too many tourists come and go for them to equate names with faces. And West Indian blacks tend to regard snowbirds the same way Annalise had regarded natives, though not necessarily for the same reason—not as individuals but as see-through members of a class and race to be dealt with and immediately forgotten. If by some quirk the woman had noticed I wasn't Cotler, I would have told her he'd asked me to check out for him. As it was, I said, "No, no, nothing wrong. Just have to cut the vacation short, is all. Business reasons."

"I'm sorry you'll be leaving us so soon." taught to say that, and the next by-rote sentence: "Will you need help with your luggage?"

"Not necessary."

She slid the bill around for me to look at. The only charges on it other than the room rate were a $38 bar and room service tab—no long-distance phone calls. The total came to just under $300.

"Will you be paying by credit card, sir?"

"No," I said, "traveler's checks."

I signed all seven left in the folder. She glanced at the top one to make sure the signatures matched—just a glance—and after that looked only at the denomination on the rest as she counted them. She shuffled the checks together, put them into a cash drawer. Gave me another see-through smile along with the change and a copy of the bill.

"Please come and see us again, Mr. Cotler."

Not in this life, I thought, and smiled back at her, and walked out carrying all that was left of Fred Coder's short visit to St. Thomas.

Annalise.

I let myself think about her then. The anger had gone cold. For the time being I could consider her and her role in all this with unemotional detachment.

I tried to put myself in her position, to think as she would think. She would probably call the Hotel Caribbean eventually, and when she was told that Cotler had checked out, she might call the airline to ask if he'd used his ticket or taken another flight. But they wouldn't tell her anything. Airline passenger manifests are confidential as far as the general public is concerned; government and law enforcement agencies could get the information, no one else. I'd checked on that, too, when I called American and verified their economy cancellation policy.

What would she think then? The obvious was that Cotler had gotten the payoff, maybe even a bigger payoff than they'd planned, and run out on her with it. She might believe that, if she wasn't too sure of him and if he had little money and no other valuables or ties in Yonkers. Even if she had doubts, it wouldn't occur to her that I could be responsible. To her I would always be Jordan Wise, accountant—a passive personality in spite of the Amthor crime and the Richard Laidlaw persona, a man incapable of violence. I would have said the same about myself before Cotler. She wouldn't contact me. Still wouldn't want me to know she was in on the extortion. And she wouldn't go to the police. For all her craving for excitement and danger, and all her drunken antics, Annalise was fiercely self-protective. The same as I was.

Still, she had an unpredictable side. Her sudden disappearance the previous year proved that. It was possible she'd do something unexpected, something brazen and foolish and threatening to both of us.

Time would tell. All I could do was wait and see.

The course I'd set was for Laidlaw Cay. I anchored just inside the reef on the lee side. Swam, fished, watched the nesting terns and frigate birds, napped under one of the screw palms. An hour before sunset I rowed back to the yawl, ate my supper on deck while the rainbow colors appeared and shifted and blended like patterns in a kaleidoscope. After dark, I sat with my back to the deckhouse and sipped Arundel and watched the constellations in the night sky. It was so clear the stars in the Milky Way burned like points of white fire.

Two more days and nights at sea, and the restlessness was gone and I was poison-free again.

Shortly after docking, I talked to Bone. He was the best source I knew of local news. Nothing had happened in the three-plus days I'd been gone that I didn't want to hear about. Later I read through recent issues of the
Virgin Islands Daily News
and the
St. Thomas Source,
just to make sure.

A week passed.

Two weeks.

Still no mention in the papers or on the radio of anything amiss at the old French cemetery. Or of a missing snowbird named Fred Cotler. No one called, or wrote, or came to see me except Bone.

I moved out of the Quartz Gade villa the first week in December. If the cleaning crew noted the gouge in the floor tile or the blood spots on the chair fabric, they didn't report it; I heard nothing from the real estate agent or the absentee owners. A short time later, I received a check for the full amount of the cleaning deposit.

By then I knew I was going to get away with the Cotler crime, too.

The answers are all no.

My emotional state, once the initial dose of blackmailer's poison had been flushed out, was no different than it had been before Cotler showed up on the island.

I told you I'm not religious; I don't believe in mortal sin or any of the other biblical covenants, or in divine punishment. I do believe that morality, like love, is a private thing defined by and suited to each individual. I've freely admitted to my dark side, but like Bone, I also have my own code of ethics. I've always adhered to that code, and within its boundaries I was and still am a moral man.

No, I
don't
consider myself a murderer. How many of those who have taken a human life, for any reason, ever look at themselves in the mirror and think that they've committed a mortal sin? Damn few. No man, unless he's a homicidal psychotic, ever thinks of himself as an evildoer. If you called him one to his face, chances are he'd be shocked. So would I.

I killed Fred Cotler in a fit of blind rage, for a perfectly justifiable reason. It was an act of self-preservation, not one of murder. How can anyone be expected to feel sorry for having killed to save his own life?

Yes, of course I know the law, the churches, many individuals would consider that a rationalization. Everyone who has killed in hot or cold blood has a reason or an excuse. The human mind is capable of bending and shaping any act to fit any preconceived set of beliefs, of justifying even the most heinous crime. But in most cases, that bending and shaping is the result of the mind's inability to cope with the magnitude of the act; it can continue to function only through a process of denial and self-delusion. I knew exactly what I'd done, and why. I was not self-deluded. I have a very clear understanding of the differences between right and wrong.

I'm not a sociopath. Maybe you think so, but you're wrong. Sociopaths care about no one but themselves, have no empathy for others or capacity for love or belief in the sanctity of human life. I cared about others, good people like Bone; I'd loved Annalise with all my heart; I would never willingly harm anyone who was not a direct threat to my safety and well-being, and then only as a last resort.

Murderer? Evildoer? Sociopath? No. Just a man with a dark side, nothing more and nothing less.

Oh, I gave some thought to flying up to New York, tracking her down, confronting her. I could have done that without too much difficulty, I think. But to what purpose? Threats were useless unless I told her what I'd done to Cotler, and that was out of the question. If she believed that I'd killed him, it would only give her a greater hold over me.

Yes, I could have destroyed her as I'd destroyed her lover, but I told you, I couldn't harm anyone except as a last resort. Not even Annalise, as much as I hated her—from love to indifference to hate, full turn. It was a cold hate, locked away and shackled. I could no more have gone hunting her than I could have gone hunting an animal, even a loathsome animal. I'm not made that way.

As I settled back into my day-to-day life, I was able to keep from dwelling on Annalise and her duplicity. With some difficulty at first, then more easily behind a wall of passing days. Only one thing continued to bother me, a nagging worry like a splinter that had worked itself in too deep for extraction.

What if she hooked up with somebody else like Fred Cotler?

What if another blue-eyed bastard showed up someday to bleed me dry?

If I had to describe myself in a single sentence, that would be it.

I didn't realize it until I came to St. Thomas. The simple tastes, I mean. I thought the quiet life I'd led in San Francisco was a result of my job, of lack of funds and resources, of circumstances. What I wanted, I believed then, was what Annalise wanted: all the luxuries and material possessions money could buy. Not so. I didn't miss the Quartz Gade villa or the Royal Bay Club or the company of the elite white community or the parties and nightclubs and expensive restaurants or the dress-up clothes or the trips to far-flung places. The only material possession that really meant anything to me was
Windrunner.
If it hadn't been for Annalise and the misunderstanding of my needs, I wouldn't have had to steal $600,000 from Amthor Associates to finance a new life in the Virgin Islands; I could have done it on not much more than $100,000, and to hell with the stock portfolio and the Cayman Islands bank accounts.

As it was, except for an occasional small draw, what was left of the initial bankroll, plus all the dividends, just sat over there accumulating interest. There was nothing I cared to spend money on other than the yawl, no place I cared to go that the yawl couldn't take me.

I liked living on
Windrunner.
The major reason was that she was Annalise-free. The villa had had her taint in it, a faint residue of our life together trapped within its walls. I hadn't felt it so much while I was occupying the place, but once I moved out I realized how subtly oppressive it had been the past year. I was glad I hadn't given it up sooner, because of the nature of the Cotler crime, but to be rid of it finally was like the removal of a weight.

The yawl's main cabin had never seemed cramped when I was out to sea, nor did it seem cramped in port. There was room enough for everything I owned, and it was easy to keep clean and tidy. I kept the galley well stocked and I didn't mind cooking, learned to enjoy it enough so that I ate most of my evening meals on board. Simple meals. West Indian dishes like chowders and bouillabaisses, fried fish, crab sandwiches, an occasional chicken or meat course. I slept better on her, too, than I ever had in the villa. You couldn't ask for a more soothing soporific than the movement of the harbor water, the creak of rigging and old timbers, the farniliar odors of salt and creosote.

Once a week or so I took
Windrunner
out for a sail, sometimes on a day trip over by St. John or another nearby island, sometimes on longer cruises. Days when I was in port, I followed the same routine and enjoyed the same small pleasures as I had before the blackmailer's arrival. Evenings were the same, too—the best part of any day for me. Quiet time. Sunsets, Arundel, Calypso and Fungi rhythms, harbor sounds, the boom and cabin lights on the berthed boats like a bright jeweled chain around the marina's dark throat.

I'd gotten to know some of the other residents and now and then one of them would drop by to socialize, or invite me over for a drink or a meal. Other evenings, Bone would show up and we'd drink rum and talk some while he perfumed the darkness with his molasses-sweet pipe tobacco. Or we'd just sit quiet together, absorbing the night. They were all the company I needed or wanted.

Fred Cotler gradually faded out of my consciousness, until it was as if he'd never come to the island in the first place, never dirtied my hands with his blood. I couldn't entirely forget Annalise, but sometimes a full week would go by without a single thought of her entering my head. I felt I couldn't ask for any more than that.

Somewhere along the way we picked up a couple of women, or the women picked us up—I'm not sure which. They were both native West Indians. One—big, bawdy, skin the color of melted licorice—knew Bone and latched on to him. I can't remember her name. The other one, Pearl, was younger, slimmer, lighter skinned, shy until she took in enough rum to loosen her inhibitions. She was a singer, or wanted to be a singer, and in one of the clubs she joined a loud steel band and sang an old Calypso song called "Don't Stop the Carnival" in a husky Antilles patois.

At some point after midnight we all piled into the Mini, four sardines in a can, and drove down to the Sub Base harbor marina so I could show off
Windrunner.
We partied on board, Pearl singing another song, to radio accompaniment this time, Bone and his woman joining in—the first time I'd heard Bone sing. He didn't have much of a voice, but he made up for it with energy and a high-stepping island dance. They got me up and dancing, something I would not have done if I'd been sober. The rum went down like water, very fast, and time got lost in a heady, rollicking swirl. We were all pretty drunk by then.

I don't remember Bone and the big woman leaving. The four of us were dancing, laughing, drinking, and the next thing I knew, Pearl and I were alone on deck, snuggled together in the moonlight, and I was shaking the last bottle of Arundel and it was empty. She said, "We doan need any more," and kissed me, and murmured snatches of another song in my ear, something soft and intimate, and kissed me again, and pretty soon we were down in the cabin, naked on my bunk.

Mistake.

I wanted her, all right, and I wasn't too far gone, and she was willing and eager. She had a good body, hard and soft at the same time. And pubic hair that was sensuously abrasive, like a fine grade of steel wool. With her help I managed to get an erection, but it was only a three-quarters salute, and neither it nor I lasted very long. Thin, almost painful little spurts.

Afterward I kept telling her how sorry I was, and she held me and said, "Doan worry, doan fret," in a crooning voice. More lost time. Then we were trying again, but it was no use, I was impotent. I apologized again and I think I might have gotten a little maudlin. The last words I remember her saying before I passed out were "It's all right, honey, it's all right." But it wasn't all right, for her or for me. In the morning, when I woke up, she was gone.

I lay in the bunk with my head throbbing, berating myself for getting too drunk to do either of us any good. And not believing the Ue, even then. It wasn't the rum. It wasn't Pearl, and it wasn't me.

It was Annalise.

As usual we stood watch and watch, four on and four off, except when there was a weather helm to be held. On clear nights, when one or the other of us wasn't tired enough to sleep, we'd hang out on deck together. Bone still used words sparingly, but at sea he was a little more voluble than on land. Some subjects opened him up more than others. One was boats and sailing, another was the destructive effects on the Virgins of tourism and overpopulation.

St. Thomas was becoming a shadow of the island it had been twenty years ago, he said, when he first came there. The changes were evident to me after just five years. More cruise ships clogging the harbor every season; big new resorts going up and more planned where once there had been quiet bays and pristine beachfront; fancy vilias springing up on the north shore and the mountainsides of the West End, to spoil undeveloped forests and fields. Crime, racial friction, environmental problems. The island was losing its appeal for Bone. One day he'd have his fill of the new St. Thomas and move away, he said. He could feel the time coming.

"Where will you go?" I asked him. "Back to the Bahamas?"

"Same things happening there."

"Entire Caribbean's changing, they say. All the islands."

"Not all yet. Some still pretty much the way they were."

"Such as?"

"St. Lucia. The Grenadines—Carriacou."

"How long since you were down there?"

"Two years," Bone said. "Going out again next summer."

"Why next summer?"

"Promised Isola a three-month cruise when her graduates from college. Just the two of us, get to know each other better."

He'd told me once that his dalighter was studying to be a marine biologist. I said, "You must be proud of her, Bone."

"Yeah, mon. Her mama be too, if she still here."