The Cry of the Halidon (34 page)

“Alla time John Crow, mon. Mongoose him not.”

The deputy grinned and started toward the woods beyond the bank of the pavement, where there was a rusty, torn wire fence. It was the demarcation of the Bengal Court property.

The patrol car roared off down the road. The prefect captain of the Falmouth police was in a hurry. He had to drive to Halfmoon Bay and meet a seaplane that was flying in from Kingston.

Charles Whitehall stood in the tall grass on a ridge overlooking the road from Priory-on-the-Sea. Under his arm was the black archive case, clamped shut and held together with three-inch strips of adhesive. It was shortly after twelve noon, and McAuliff would be driving up the road soon.

Alone.

Charles had insisted on it. That is, he had insisted before he had heard McAuliff’s words—spoken curtly, defensively—that Barak Moore was dead.

Bramwell Moore, schoolboy chum from so many years ago in Savanna-la-Mar, dead from Jamaican bullets.

Jamaican
bullets.

Jamaican
police
bullets. That was better. In adding the establishmentarian, there was a touch of compassionate logic—a contradiction in terms, thought Whitehall; logic was neither good nor evil, merely logic. Still, words defined logic and words could be interpreted—thus
the mendacity of all official statistics: self-serving logic.

His mind was wandering and he was annoyed with himself. Barak had known, as he knew, that they were not playing chicken-in-de-kitchen any longer. There was no bandanna-headed mother wielding a straw broom, chasing child and fowl out into the yard, laughing and scolding simultaneously. This was a different sort of insurgence. Bandanna-headed mothers were replaced by visor-capped men of the state; straw brooms became high-powered rifles. The chickens were ideas … far more deadly to the uniformed servants of the state than the loose feathers were to the bandanna-headed servants of the family.

Barak dead.

It seemed incredible. Yet not without its positive effect. Barak had not understood the problems of their island; therefore, he had not understood the proper solutions. Barak’s solutions were decades away.

First there had to be strength. The many led by a very strong, militant few.

Perhaps one.

In the downhill distance there was a billow of dust; a station wagon was traveling much too fast over the old dirt road.

McAuliff was anxious too.

Charles stared back across the field to the entrance drive of the house. He had requested that his Drax Hall host be absent between the hours of twelve and three. No explanations were given, and no questions asked.

A messiah had returned. That was enough.

“Here it is,” said McAuliff, standing in front of Whitehall in the cool toolshed, holding the smaller archive case in his left hand. “But before you start fiddling around, I want a couple of things clear.”

Charles Whitehall stared at the American. “Conditions are superfluous. We both know what must be done.”

“What’s not superfluous,” countered Alex, “is that you
understand there’ll be no … unilateral decisions. This isn’t your private war,
Charley-mon
.”

“Are you trying to sound like Barak?”

“Let’s say I’m looking after his interests. And mine.”

“Yours I can comprehend. Why his? They’re not compatible, you know.”

“They’re not even connected.”

“So why concern yourself?” Whitehall shifted his eyes to the archive case. He realized that his breathing had become audible; his anxiety was showing, and again he was annoyed with himself. “Let me have that, please.”

“You asked me a question. I’m going to answer it first,” replied McAuliff. “I don’t trust you, Charley. You’ll use anyone. Anything. Your kind always does. You make pacts and agreements with anything that moves, and you do it very well. You’re so flexible you meet yourself around corners. But all the time it’s Sturm und Drang, and I’m not much for that.”

“Oh, I see. You subscribe to Barak’s canefield paratroopers. The chaos of the Fidelisti, where the corporals spit and chew cigars and rape the generals’ daughters so society is balanced. Three-year plans and five-year plans and crude uneducated bullies managing the affairs of state. Into disaster, I might add. Don’t be a fool, McAuliff. You’re better than that.”

“Cut it out, Charley. You’re not on a podium addressing your chiefs of staff,” said Alex wearily. “I don’t believe in that oversimplification any more than I believe in your two-plus-two solutions. Pull in your hardware. I’m still the head of this survey. I can fire you in a minute. Very publicly. Now, that might not get you off the island, but your situation won’t be the same.”

“What guarantee do I have that you won’t force me out?”

“Not much of one. You’ll just have to take my word that I want those bastards off my back as badly as you do. For entirely different reasons.”

“Somehow I think you’re lying.”

“I wouldn’t gamble on that.”

Whitehall searched McAuliff’s eyes. “I won’t. I said this conversation was superfluous, and it is. Your conditions are accepted because of what must be done.… Now, may I have that case, please?”

Sam Tucker sat on the terrace, alternately reading the newspaper and glancing over the sea wall to the beach, where Alison and James Ferguson were in deck chairs near the water. Every now and then, when the dazzling Caribbean sun had heated their skin temperatures sufficiently, Alison and the young botanist waded into the water. They did not splash or jump or dive; they simply fell onto the calm surface, as though exhausted. It seemed to be an exercise of weariness for both of them.

There was no joy
sur la plage
, thought Sam, who nevertheless picked up a pair of binoculars whenever Alison began paddling about and scanned the immediate vicinity around which she swam. He focused on any swimmer who came near her; there were not many, and all were recognizable as guests of Bengal Court.

None was a threat, and that’s what Sam Tucker was looking for.

Ferguson had returned from Montego Bay a little before noon, just after Alex had driven off to Drax Hall. He had wandered onto the connecting terraces, startling Sam and the temporarily disoriented Lawrence, who had been sitting on the sea wall talking quietly about the dead Barak Moore. They had been stunned because Ferguson had been expansive about his day-off plans in Mo’Bay.

Ferguson arrived looking haggard, a nervous wreck. The assumption was that he had overindulged and was hung to his fuzzy-cheeked gills; the jokes were along this line, and he accepted them with a singular lack of humor. But Sam Tucker did not subscribe to the explanation. James Ferguson was not ravaged by the whiskey input of the night before; he was a frightened young man who had not slept. His fear, thought Sam, was not anything he cared to discuss;
indeed, he would not even talk about his night in Montego, brushing it off as a dull, unrewarding interlude. He appeared only to want company, as if there was immediate security in the familiar. He seemed to cling to the presence of Alison Booth, offering to fetch and carry.… A schoolboy’s crush or a gay’s devotion? Neither fit, for he was neither.

He was afraid.

Very inconsistent behavior, concluded Sam Tucker.

Tucker suddenly heard the quiet, rapid footsteps behind him and turned. Lawrence, fully clothed now, came across the terrace from the west lawn. The black revolutionary walked over to Sam and knelt—not in fealty, but in a conscious attempt to conceal his large frame behind the sea wall. He spoke urgently.

“I don’t like what I see and hear, mon.”

“What’s the matter?”

“John Crow hide wid’ block chicken!”

“We’re being watched?” Tucker put down the newspaper and sat forward.

“Yes, mon. Three, four hours now.”

“Who?”

“A digger been walking on the sand since morning. Him keep circling the west-cove beach too long for tourist leave-behinds. I watch him good. His trouser pants rolled up, look too new, mon. I go behind in the woods and find his shoes. Then I know the trouser pants, mon. Him policeman.”

Sam’s gnarled features creased in thought. “Alex spoke with the Falmouth police around nine-thirty. In the lobby. He said there were two: a chief and an Indian.”

“What, mon?”

“Nothing … That’s what you saw. What did you hear?”

“Not all I saw.” Lawrence looked over the sea wall, east toward the center beach. Satisfied, he returned his attention to Sam. “I follow the digger to the kitchen alley, where he waits for a man to come outside to speak with him. It is the clerk from the lobby desk. Him shake his head many times. The policeman angry, mon.”

“But what did you
hear
, boy?”

“A porter fella was plenty near, cleaning snapper in his buckets. When the digger-policeman left I ask him hard, mon. He tells me this digger kep asking where the American fella went, who had telephoned him.”

“And the clerk didn’t know.”

“That’s right, mon. The policeman was angry.”

“Where is he now?”

“Him wait down at the east shore.” Lawrence pointed over the sea wall, across the dunes to a point on the other side of the central beach. “See? In front of the sunfish boats, mon.”

Tucker picked up the binoculars and focused on the figure near the shallow-bottomed sailboats by the water. The man and boats were about four hundred yards away. The man was in a torn green T-shirt and rumpled baseball cap; the trousers were a contradiction. They were rolled up to the knees, like most scavengers of the beach wore them, but Lawrence was right, they were creased, too clean. The man was chatting with a
cocoruru
peddler, a thin, very dark Jamaican who rolled a wheelbarrow filled with coconuts up and down the beach, selling them to the bathers, cracking them open with a murderous-looking machete. From time to time the man glanced over toward the west-wing terraces, directly into the binoculars, thought Sam. Tucker knew the man did not realize he was being observed; if he did, the reaction would appear on his face. The only reaction was one of irritation, nothing else.

“We’d better supply him with the proper information, son,” said Sam, putting down the binoculars.

“What, mon?”

“Give him something to soothe that anger … so he won’t think about it too much.”

Lawrence grinned. “We make up a story, eh, mon?

“McAuliff went shopping Ochee, maybe? Ochee is six, seven miles from Drax Hall, mon. Same road.”

“Why didn’t Mrs. Booth—Alison go with him?”

“Him buy the lady a present. Why not, mon?”

Sam looked at Lawrence, then down at the beach, where Alison was standing up, prepared to go back into the water.
“It’s possible, boy. We should make it a little festive, though.” Tucker got out of the chair and walked to the sea wall. “I think Alison should have a birthday.”

The telephone rang in McAuliff’s room. The doors were closed against the heat, and the harsh bell echoed from beyond the slatted panels. Tucker and Lawrence looked at each other, each knowing the other’s thoughts. Although McAuliff had not elaborated on his late-morning departure from Bengal Court, neither had he concealed it. Actually, he had asked the desk for a road map, explaining only that he was going for a drive. Therefore, the front desk knew that he was not in his room.

Tucker crossed rapidly to the double doors, opened them, and went inside to the telephone.

“Mr. McAuliff?” The soft, precise Jamaican voice was that of the switchboard operator.

“No, Mr. McAuliff is out. May I give him a message?”

“Please, sir, I have a call from Kingston. From a Mr. Latham. Will you hold the line, please?”

“Certainly. Tell Mr. Latham you’ve got Sam Tucker on the phone. He may want to speak with me.”

Sam held the telephone under his wrinkled chin as he struck a match to a thin cigar. He had barely drawn the first smoke when he heard the double click of the connecting line. The voice was now Latham’s. Latham, the proper bureaucrat from the Ministry, who was also committed to the cause of Barak Moore. As Latham spoke, Tucker made the decision not to tell him of Barak’s death.

“Mr. Tucker?”

“Yes, Mr. Latham. Alex drove into Ocho Rios.”

“Very well. You can handle this, I’m sure. We were able to comply with McAuliff’s request. He’s got his interior runners several days early. They’re in Duanvale and will be driving on Route Eleven into Queenhythe later this afternoon.”

“Queenhythe’s near here, isn’t it?”

“Three or four miles from your motel, that’s all. They’ll telephone when they get in.”

“What are their names?”

“They’re brothers. Marcus and Justice Hedrik. They’re Maroons, of course. Two of the best runners in Jamaica; they know the Cock Pit extremely well, and they’re trustworthy.”

“That’s good to hear. Alexander will be delighted.”

Latham paused but obviously was not finished. “Mr. Tucker?”

“Yes, Mr. Latham?”

“McAuliff’s altered the survey’s schedule, it would appear. I’m not sure we understand …”

“Nothing to understand, Mr. Latham. Alex decided to work from a geographical midpoint. Less room for error that way; like bisecting a triangle from semicircular coordinates. I agree with him.” Tucker inhaled on his thin cigar while Latham’s silence conveyed his bewilderment. “Also,” continued Sam, “it gives everyone a lot more to do.”

“I see.… The reasons, then, are quite compatible with … let us say, professional techniques?”

“Very professional, Mr. Latham.” Tucker realized that Latham would not speak freely on the telephone. Or felt he could not. “Beyond criticism, if you’re worried about the Ministry’s concerns. Actually, Alexander could be saving you considerable sums of money. You’ll get a lot more data much quicker.”

Latham paused again, as though to telegraph the importance of the following statement. “Naturally, we’re always interested in conserving funds … and I assume you all agree with the decision to go in so quickly. Into the Cock Pit, that is.”

Sam knew that Latham’s statement could be translated into the question:
Does Barak Moore agree?

“We
all
agree, Mr. Latham. We’re all professionals.”