The Far Side of the Sun (23 page)

‘Mr Spencer,’ Flynn whispered, so close he could smell his breath, ‘time for an exchange of views. Get up.’

He eased back the knife from Spencer’s throat and felt him shudder. The bedroom lay in darkness, the shutters closed, but dimly he could make out the black shape of a head on the next pillow and hear its slow regular breathing, undisturbed by the silent presence of an intruder. He flicked the sheet off and Spencer rolled out of bed obediently. But now the arrogance and disdain that he’d displayed when Flynn met him in the bar the other day lay in tatters.

He was wearing only pyjama bottoms and Flynn kept a hand on his shoulder, guiding him out of the bedroom and into the room next to it. Spencer switched on the light. It was a small dressing room that stank of hair oil and narrow enough to mean they couldn’t get away from each other.

‘What the blazes are you doing in my house?’ Spencer hissed at him, cheeks flaming as he struggled to take control of the situation. ‘Get out of —’

Flynn thudded him back against the wall of closets, his hand jammed on his bare chest.

‘Don’t,’ Flynn growled in his face, ‘ever lay a finger on Dodie Wyatt again.’

‘Good God, that’s ridiculous. I haven’t been anywhere near her.’

‘You set your filthy dogs on her, you bastard.’

‘No.’

‘One of them now has a broken leg.’

‘Fuck you, Hudson. It was you, wasn’t it? I should have guessed. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Now get your hands off me.’

Flynn withdrew the few steps to the opposite wall to stop himself snapping the guy’s neck.

‘Have you gone mad?’ Spencer demanded. ‘Coming here like this. This is not what you were sent here to do. You’re supposed to be reporting back to Lansky in Miami and explaining exactly what went wrong here and why you messed up the job you were meant to —’

‘Shut up.’

‘Don’t you speak to me like —’

‘Shut. Up.’

Flynn didn’t raise his voice. He stared across the room at the man until the small space seemed to fill up with the unspoken threat that lay between them.

‘Leave Dodie Wyatt alone.’

‘You fool,’ Spencer responded, his voice more under control. ‘She will implicate you in the murder.’

‘No.’

‘She’s been warned. That should be enough. You should be thanking me. You can skip Nassau now and —’

‘I’ll be thanking you.’ Flynn said it softly.

Spencer folded his arms tight across his bare chest. The look of panic in his eyes right now told Flynn what kind of man Spencer was. Flynn had seen it happen before. When you kick a guy’s props away, it dawns on him how much he has to lose.

‘Listen good,’ Flynn told Spencer now that he had his full attention. ‘I’ll skip Nassau. But only when I’m done here. Don’t get it into your head that I don’t have…⁠’ he paused and he saw sweat on Spencer’s upper lip glistening between the stubble, ‘… leeway. Because I have all the leeway I need.’

‘You’re bluffing.’

They both knew what
leeway
meant when it came to the mob. It meant elbow room. Room to elbow guys out, even one of your own.

He
was
bluffing. But Spencer didn’t know that. Yet there was something about the guy that was dangerous, Flynn could sense it. He was the kind of person only a fool would turn his back on.

‘So,’ Flynn said, ‘now that’s clear, I’ll leave you to climb back in bed with your wife.’ He took a step towards the door. ‘It is your wife, I take it?’

‘Of course she is.’

‘Tell her from me she lives in a nice house.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Just being polite.’

Spencer untied his arms and balled his hands into fists at his sides. Flynn saw his glance flick to the top drawer of a fancy tallboy and away again.

‘You know, don’t you, Hudson, that the Wyatt girl is a common slut. Wags it in your face given half a chance.’

Flynn grew very still.

‘Don’t look like that, Hudson, it’s true. Ask anybody. She’s well known for it. Used to work up at one of the factories until she set her cap at the son of the owner. Pestered him worse than a damn mosquito. He’s a happily married man and wanted none of it, so she ran around screaming rape. Bloody menace, the girl is. Not to be trusted. Probably finished off Morrell herself and then went crying to the police to —’

Flynn’s hand was around his throat.

The panic-eyes bulged but there was no fight in them. Flynn was fiercely tempted to lean on the pressure just a fraction more until he heard the click that brought silence, and Nassau would be rid of one more of its rats. But the image of the dark head still asleep on the pillow in the next room flickered through his mind and abruptly he released his grip and stepped back.

Spencer clutched at his throat, doubled over, fighting for air, as Flynn calmly reached into the top drawer of the tallboy and unearthed the Colt revolver that lay under the neatly folded socks. He slid it into his waistband. From the top of the tallboy he removed a man’s tortoiseshell-backed hairbrush and put it in his pocket. He waited patiently till Spencer got himself upright again, eyes and nose streaming, his cheeks vermillion.

‘Don’t,’ Flynn said, ‘think for one minute that this is over. When the mob’s business with Sir Harry Oakes is settled, you and I will finish this.’

‘I’ll report this,’ Spencer croaked angrily, ‘to Lansky in America.’

‘Report what you like.’

‘The mob doesn’t treat turncoats well.’

Flynn gave him a thin cold smile. ‘So remember not to turn your coat, unless you want its pockets filled with concrete.’

He strode out of the room and this time made no secret of his footsteps down the stairs.

‘Well now, Mr Hudson, I’m lookin’ at you and wonderin’ what on earth you doin’ here.’ Mama Keel peered over Flynn’s shoulder, as if expecting Dodie to materialise out of the strands of dawn mist. ‘Where’s that Dodie child?’

‘She’s up in Bain Town. She’s been hurt.’

The woman’s lovely face tumbled into a multitude of creases and her fingers seized his forearm.

‘Is it bad?’

‘Bad enough.’

Without releasing her hold, she dragged him into the house and set him down on a chair. The simplicity of the place pleased him and reminded him of his childhood when bare boards were the norm and running water a luxury. One scant room for his parents and himself. A freezing attic in the slums of Chicago where the slope of the low ceiling would deposit spiders and cockroaches in his hair that his mother would pick out with an easy laugh, telling him not to be so squeamish. Well, he sure learned not to be squeamish. His father made certain of that.

‘Mama Keel, she needs something to shift the pain.’

They spoke in soft tones, so as not to disturb the sleeping infant in the cardboard box.

‘What happened?’ Mama asked.

‘She got jumped last night. Knocked down and hammered with fists. Two guys.’

‘Dear Lord in heaven, poor child. How bad?’

‘I don’t think anything is broken, but can’t tell for sure. She doesn’t want to check into the hospital.’

‘And where were you?’

‘Looking for her. I was searching Nassau, Mama, like a dumb hound-dog.’

‘And the men who attacked her? Who were they?’

‘I don’t rightly know. But they’re not in one piece any more.’

The tall woman nodded. She leaned down over him, so that her large black eyes with their shimmering purple lights could peer right into him, and it felt like she was opening him up with a can-opener.

‘Listen to me, Mr Hudson, I got stuff I want to say to you and you ain’t goin’ to appreciate a bunch of it.’

He sat back in the chair. ‘That’s fine by me, Mama. Shoot.’

She started gathering together pots and ointments, giving him instructions and grinding seeds with a pestle made of coconut wood. ‘You know what I think, Mr Hudson? I think you are livin’ in a world that’s whirling in a state of chaos.’

He couldn’t argue with that.

‘Some days, Mr Hudson, you wake in the mornin’ and see nothin’ but an ocean of black oil and dead things around you. It’s true, I see it in your shadows. You been with people whose greed is more real and more solid than rocks or stones, and their desires know no limits. You seen it, Mr Hudson. How they fornicate with pretty young things and they crush life with no more thought than a cat chewing wings off a butterfly.’ She lifted her head and stared at him. ‘Ain’t that so, Mr Hudson?’

‘Yes, it’s so.’

Her hands were placing packages into a straw basket.

‘You got dark shadows,’ she commented, ‘real dark. But you got white lights too, so bright they hurt my eyes.’ She grinned at him, taking him by surprise, and he grinned back like a fool.

‘Mama Keel, you got eyes like a hawk.’

‘And I’m watchin’ you, Mr Hudson.’

‘Dodie won’t let go of this Morrell business,’ he said. ‘She has sunk her teeth into it. Now she’s been hurt, Mama, and I don’t want it to happen again.’

‘No,’ she put the basket on his lap, so that he couldn’t rise from the chair. A white kitten crawled out from the cardboard box and mountaineered up his trouser leg, needle-claws working overtime. ‘Neither of us wants Dodie hurt again.’ Her tall fleshless figure was clothed in a shapeless khaki wrap that looked as though it had been scavenged from one of the military bases, and she rested one hand over her heart. ‘Bad things happened to her on our island and her heart closed down. Nailed tighter than a coffin.’

He stroked the kitten’s fluff as if it were Dodie.

‘But the other night, Mr Hudson, when you came here together like a couple of strays, the pair of you, she was lookin’ a whole lot different that night.’

‘Why was that, Mama?’

‘You tell me, Mr Hudson. That was a girl who had just watched a man die and just seen her house burn down, but there was no darkness in her that night.’ She stepped back. ‘You take good care of her, mind, young man.’

‘I’m trying.’ He stood up and placed the kitten on the seat.

‘Mama, I have something to ask you.’

‘What might that be?’

An early ray of sunlight nipped through the window and shuffled round the room, as though looking for something.

‘Dodie told me you are gifted with the powers of obeah.’

Mama Keel folded her long arms and stared at him, nostrils flared. ‘And what does a white body like you know about Bahamian obeah?’

‘Not much. But I know it’s like Cuba’s voodoo. A way of connecting to the universe that gives people like you a power to influence things… or people.’

‘And you believe in this?’

‘Sure, ma’am, I do.’ His mouth curved into a warm smile. ‘If you do.’

Mama frowned. ‘This ain’t a subject to be taken lightly, Mr Hudson.’

‘I understand that. But it might help Dodie, Mama. It might.’

She exhaled heavily. ‘What you want from me?’

‘There’s a guy who lives here in Nassau. He plans harm to Dodie. I’m keeping him away from her as best I can, but…⁠’ He shrugged.

‘But you want me to interfere?’ She looked angry.

From his pocket he drew the hairbrush he had taken from Spencer’s dressing room, threads of brown hair caught in its bristles. He placed it carefully on the table before her.

‘You decide, Mama.’

He picked up the basket and set off up to Bain Town, the island’s sun warming his back.

Dodie was somewhere dark. She didn’t know where. Lights came and went like shooting stars.

‘Dodie.’

Instantly her eyes opened. She was lying face down on the mattress, Flynn’s hand touching her shoulder. She noticed his knuckles were skinned and abruptly she recalled the fight in the street.

‘You were moaning,’ Flynn said.

Moaning? She tried to move. ‘I have to go to work,’ she whispered, but she made no attempt to sit up. Every part of her was sore and throbbing.

‘No,’ Flynn said firmly. ‘I’ve told Miss Quinn you won’t be in today.’

Relief rolled through her. ‘Thank you.’

‘Dodie, I have ointments from Mama Keel for your back and something for you to drink. It will help. But I need to lift your dress over your head, so that I can rub it on.’

Her body jerked. The painful spasm shocked her. Each muscle was hoarding its own memory of what a man had done to her, so that even if she forgot, they would not. Flynn must have seen it because he added quickly, ‘Or shall I get one of the women from further down the street to do it for you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

She was sure. Even if her muscles were not.

The dress slid off easily as she lay on her stomach, naked under the sheet, but still she didn’t turn her head to look at him. If she looked at him, she might say,
No, don’t touch me
. Or she might see on his face something she dreaded to see, an awareness that she was dirty. Not the clean and decent person he thought her to be. It might show on her skin like Minnie’s acne. He rolled the sheet down to her waist.

The ointment was warm and his hands were warmer. They spread out over her bruised back and she felt her skin tingle, smelt the pineapple aroma of bromelain drench the small room. Slowly, gently, Flynn massaged her back. His strong fingers worked across her shoulder blades, thumbs weaving down her spine until her flesh seemed to break free from the pain in her body.