Circle of Bones (48 page)

“Thanks for your time.”

When she reached the street, Cole crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Is that it?”

She looked across the street at the yellow house, then up the street with houses that stretched for another quarter mile before giving way to the jungle on the side of the mountain. Hidden in the clouds above them was Dominica’s Soufriere volcano. She didn’t answer him. She understood his urgency, but she couldn’t explain it to him. James Thatcher had been so precise about everything else, he would not have sent them to search a five square mile area for a submarine. He wanted them in Scott’s Head, not Soufriere Bay. And Mikey did, too.

“Riley,” he said. “Priest has got access to satellites, for Pete’s sake. He can phone up to Washington and ask them to point the cameras at the islands to look for my boat. They’re probably en route from the Saintes while we’re wandering around town having tea with the locals.
Come on
.” He turned and started walking back down the hill. 

Riley was about to follow him when she could have sworn she heard her brother’s voice. “Look,” he said.

At what? Across the street, a cat stood up and stretched on the porch of the tidy yellow house with a red tin roof. The house looked more like those in the Saintes with the neat whitewashed railing around the porch and the lacy gingerbread cornices where the roof supports met the eaves. Next to the open door was a hand painted sign. It said
Le p’tit coco
in bright green letters
.
 

“Cole!” she called out. “Come here.”

He must have heard something in her voice. He stopped and retraced his steps. She had crossed the street and she now pointed up the porch steps at the sign. “Look. What do you think?”

“What?” 

“The song in your dad’s journal.
Le p’tit coco
.”

“I don’t know, Riley.” He pointed down the hill to the dark blue waters of the bay. “My gut’s telling me the answer’s out there.”

And my brother is telling me to keep looking here, she thought. Riley climbed the steps. No one responded to her knock, but she heard voices around back. She descended the steps and waved at Cole to follow her on the dirt driveway that led alongside the house. As she neared the back, she heard a woman’s voice speaking in Dominica’s unique Creole patois. 

“Hello?” she said.

The voices stopped.

When she came around the corner, she saw an old man sitting in a plastic chair just outside the back door of the cottage. He had a towel wrapped around his shoulders and a full head of straight, white hair.  The old man’s features were Caucasian, but his skin was so dark and wrinkled from decades in the sun, his eyes were mere slits in the folds of skin. On his right cheek, a mottled red shape looked as though it might be melanoma. Next to him stood a lovely coffee-colored woman, a pair of scissors poised above the old man’s head. 

“Excuse me,” Riley said. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. I’m looking for Mr. Jules?”

The young woman lowered her scissors and stared. When the old man tried to stand, she placed one hand on his shoulder, restraining him. She spoke to him so softly Riley couldn’t hear the words, then she said, “How may I help you?” 

Riley heard Cole come up behind her. The old man’s eyes grew wider. They were a very pale shade of blue, perhaps made even lighter by cataracts. “This is my friend Cole and I’m Riley. We wondered,” she said, “if we could ask you a few questions about the history of Scott’s Head.”

The woman rested one hand on the old man’s shoulder. “My great-grandfather’s health is not good. It distresses him to speak with strangers.”

The old man pulled the towel off his shoulders and leaned forward to stand. This time when she tried to restrain him, he shook her off. Once on his feet, he stood hunched forward, teetering a bit. The woman grabbed a cane that rested against the back of the house and put it in his hand. She leaned down, and he whispered in her ear. She nodded, collected the towel and scissors and went into the house without another word. The old man indicated some chairs in the center of the yard.

“Please sit,” he said, then he stepped across the grass to the wooden chairs. Riley was surprised to hear his French accent. 

When Cole approached, the man reached out and motioned for him to come closer. The old man pointed to the coin on the chain round Cole’s neck and said, “May I see it?” 

Cole surprised Riley when he lifted the chain over his head and passed the French Angel coin to the old man. He turned the gold piece over, held it close to his eyes and carefully examined both sides. When he looked up, he was smiling. He handed the coin back to Cole.

“Welcome,” the old man said. “I’ve been waiting for you. Your father said you would come.” He stretched out his thin, boney hand. “My real name is Henri Michaut.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

Îles des Saintes

March 30, 2008

12:15 p.m.

It was another bitch of a hot day and Spyder’s fucking head was killing him. He’d managed to swipe a wallet out of a tourist’s beach bag yesterday, and he’d used the hundred euros he’d found inside to score some weed from the French wannabe Rastas with their blond dreads who hung out on the town beach. They’d passed around their jug of rum, too. It was some kind of island-made shit. Even the last doobie he smoked when he got up this morning hadn’t made the steel spikes in his brain go away. The Polaroid glasses he’d found on the boat were too big, and they did a lousy job of keeping out the sun’s glare. Spyder was getting sick and tired of hauling his ass up this hill and over to Marigot Bay to check on the fucking boats. They had the GPS tracker inside the bitch’s oars, but that asshole Thor wanted a phoned-in visual report on all three boats twice a day. He lit a cigarette, drew in a lungful of smoke, and blew it out through his nostrils. He woke up late this morning and dashed ashore to try to make his midday report. Didn’t matter. Nothing never changed. 

Spyder reached the small dock and walked out to the end where he could see beyond the fishermen’s boats that were moored close in to shore. He saw the big white yacht that had entered the bay the day before — but the two boats he was supposed to be watching were gone.

“Shit,” he said, throwing the smoldering butt of his cigarette into the water. He ran off the dock and hurried farther down the beach for a better look into all the coves around the bay, but the change in vantage point did not change the facts. The doc and the bitch had got back to the island somehow and now they were gone.

Spyder turned around and started to run.

The inflatable dinghy was where Spyder had left it tied up at the town dock. He stepped into the boat, untied the painter, and yanked the cord to start the engine. He revved the engine and turned to round the big ferry boat at the end of the dock. That was when he saw the sleek, black Donzi tied alongside
Fish n’ Chicks
. 

“Fuck,” he said aloud as he throttled back on the outboard. An ocean racing boat like that could only mean one thing. That asshole Thor or one of his goons was here. If it was Thor, he’d like to see what his face looked like after docking that sucker. Boat’s name was
Fast Eddie
and he could believe that baby was fast with her twin Merc sterndrives. Whoever came on that boat was already aboard
Fish n’ Chicks
and Pinky was in there, too. Much as Spyder wanted to turn around and wait ’til somebody left, he figured he couldn’t do that to his brother. 

Spyder cut the engine and glided alongside the swim step. After tying up the dinghy, he climbed up to the aft deck. When he slid open the door to the main salon, he was already thinking that whoever it was should have money, and maybe he could get a cold beer.

Thor was sitting on the couch with his arms spread on either side atop the cushions.  His hair was messed up and his face looked a little white, so Spyder figured he’d driven the boat over from the big island on his own. He was lucky he made it. The dude was dressed like one of those guys in the ads for fancy watches that cost as much as a good boat. When Spyder came through the door, Thor lifted his left wrist and glanced at his own fancy watch. 

Pinky stood in the galley holding a towel to the side of his face. Towel looked like it was full of ice cubes, and the skin under the towel was bright pink. His brother wouldn’t meet his eyes.

On the low glass coffee table in front of Thor he saw the black GPS box. The screen glowed blue, but Thor’s eyes were on him, not the screen.

“Nice boat you got out there,” Spyder said. “That your boat or a charter? You drive that here all by yourself?”

Thor crossed his legs and there wasn’t but one wrinkle on his pants – the crease straight down the front. For a minute Spyder wondered what Thor had looked like driving that black Donzi across the channel. Bet he almost crapped his fancy fuckin’ pants.

“Were you born a complete moron or did your mother drop you on your head?” 

“What the –”

“Shut up. That was a rhetorical question. One only need look at your brother to know the answer. So, both boats are gone?” Thor asked.

Spyder nodded. He wanted more than anything to smash his fist into the asshole’s face, but this asshole owed him money, and Spyder knew from experience that men had a tendency not to pay after you hit them.

“I assumed as much. Half the day is gone, and you are just now returning with this news. You have no idea when they left, I assume.”

“Hey, you didn’t say we had to sit up all fucking night watching ‘em. We checked yesterday before dark and they was both there.”

Thor leaned forward and adjusted the screen on his GPS tracker. “We know she’s down at the south end of Dominica. Odds are he is, too.” He snapped the lid of the box closed and stood. “Let’s get moving.”

Spyder stood his ground in the middle of the salon. “We ain’t going nowhere ‛til we see some money,” he said.

Thor stepped out from behind the table and faced Spyder. “You are going to do what I tell you to do.”

“Hey man, it’s been four days since we bought that last food. It’s gone. We got no food, no beer, and none of your fancy wine neither. Boat’s gonna need both fuel and water. Me and my brother been working for you and your friends for more than a week now, and we ain’t been paid nothing. ‘Fore you go telling us what to do, you got to pony up, man.”

“Working?” Thor looked around the salon. A pair of jeans lay across the glass coffee table next to the GPS tracker, the ashtrays overflowed, and the galley countertops were invisible beneath the double layer of dirty dishes. “This boat looks like a garbage dump and judging from the smell in here, you’ve spent all your money on illegal drugs. I don’t pay for that kind of stupidity.”

“Fuck you,” Spyder yelled. “I ain’t stupid and I ain’t your boat nigger.”  Asshole could do his own work. Spyder headed for the sliding glass door.

He had no warning before something slammed into the back of his head. His knees buckled. He sprawled face first onto the carpet. Before he really understood what was happening, Thor’s fancy loafer slammed into his kidney. Spyder tried to yell
fuck you
again, but all that came out was another “ugh” as air was forced from his mouth by another kick. Spittle slid down his chin dripping onto the carpet. He started to push himself up onto his knees, when he felt hands come from behind and close around his neck. The hands yanked him up, straightening his back, though he was still on his knees. 

Spyder had a perfect view out the glass door, blue water and white yachts, dark birds circling the sky. He had no air in him and those hands had cut off any hope of getting more. He struggled at first, flailing his arms, trying to strike at the body behind him, the body attached to the hands that now held his life in their iron grip. As he grew weaker he focused on those birds, vultures probably, circling over some dead thing. Flying away like he wished –

Then, he heard a thunderous
bang
and the hands released his throat as Thor was flung sideways. He heard the crash when Thor hit the glass coffee table, knocking it off the stand and shattering the glass. Then it was quiet except for the sound Spyder made as he gasped for air, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Over and above the noise of his own breathing, he heard a
click.
Followed by another
click.

Spyder turned around. From the stairs that led down to the forward staterooms, Pinky came walking past the galley holding the stainless steel pistol in both hands, continuing to pull the trigger on the empty chambers. When he came within reach, Spyder stretched out his arm and took the weapon from his brother’s hands. He’d never checked to see if the magazine carried a full load.

Thor lay still on his right side next to the broken glass, and a pool of blood darkened the rug under his shoulder. The side of his face that had struck the table was covered with blood. The man’s eyes were closed, and Spyder hoped the fucker was dead.

Pinky got an arm under Spyder’s elbow and helped him to his feet. Spyder shrugged off Pinky’s assistance. His whole body hurt like a son of a bitch, but he’d had the shit kicked out of him before. It wasn’t the first time. And they needed to get the hell out of there. He knew that cops weren’t far off after the sound of a gunshot.

“I can walk. Let’s go,” he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. Spyder stepped over Thor’s legs and headed for the sliding door. He turned to look for his brother. Pinky had stopped in the middle of the main salon and he was staring down at Thor. Spyder watched as Pinky slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out another magazine. He offered it to his brother.

Spyder shook his head. No more noise. The dude wasn’t going anywhere.  If he wasn’t dead already, he was gonna bleed out. It was time to get moving before the fucking French cops arrived. His brother reached down then and pulled the wallet from Thor’s back pocket. Then Pinky picked up the GPS black box off the glass covered carpet.

“Hey bro,” Spyder said as he slid open the glass door. “Come on. I always wanted to drive one of these fucking Cigarette boats.”