The Island (11 page)

“You want to go back today?”

“If you are.”

“Damn right.” Whitey looked at his watch. “It’s eleven now. It’ll take ’em an hour to unload, then an hour for lunch, then another hour to load her up again. We’ll leave here at two.”

“We’ll be here.”

“I won’t wait for you.”

“Where will you be till then?”

Whitey pointed at the building. “Inside. Cyril’s Conch and Turtle Palace.” He smiled and put on his hat. “It’s out of the sun.” Completely covered in white, his face hidden by hat and sunglasses, Whitey looked like the Invisible Man.

Maynard said kindly, “This climate must be terrible for you.”

Whitey shrugged. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Us freaks get all the kinky broads.” He squeezed down the aisle between crates and cartons and opened the door.

Maynard and Justin walked across the apron and into the building, following a man who had been the first to meet the plane and had taken from Whitey a single copy of Sunday’s Miami
Herald.
Inside the building, the man sat on a bench and read the comics.

A young police officer, his uniform impeccably clean except for a coating of dust on his black shoes, stood behind the customs desk. He held out his hand to Maynard. “Passport, visa, return ticket.”

Holding his satchel close to his body with his left hand, Maynard used his right to fish for his wallet and thumb through it until he found his
Today
identification card, which he passed to the officer. “We’re not staying,” he said, as if explaining everything.

The policeman examined the card and held it up to Maynard’s face. “You come to a foreign country with
this?”
he said. “What you think we are?”

Maynard was sweating. “You see, I called last night from Miami, and—”

“What you think we
are!?”

Unnerved, Maynard hurried to deflect the policeman’s outrage before it could lead to an arrest and, ultimately, a search. He leaned on the desk and said confidentially, “I think you’re smarter than you’re letting on.”

“What?”

“Listen . . . you know what a press card is. I’m down here on a story for
Today.
I’m trying to keep it kind of quiet, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything.”

“What story?”

“Just between us?” Maynard raised his eyebrows and looked furtively from side to side. “We hear from a pretty good source that an American millionaire is about to buy up a whole island down here. Wants to turn it into a health spa. A lot of folks could get rich, but only if everyone can be kept honest. That’s what I’m here to see to.”

Maynard had been thinking so fast that by the time he was finished, he had forgotten most of what he had said.

The policeman seemed impressed. “And how long this take?”

“Just till two o’clock. See? No bags, no nothing.”

“And who’s that?” The policeman pointed at Justin.

“My researcher.” Maynard added in a whisper, “He has a glandular problem. Don’t say anything to him; he’s sensitive.”

“That so?” The policeman looked perplexed.

“Anyhow, I called last night to make an appointment with Mr. Makepeace, but I’m not sure he got the message. How can I find out?”

The policeman turned to the man sitting on the bench. “Hey, Birds.”

“Hmmmmm?” The man didn’t look up from the comics.

“This the fella. He been feedin’ me some line about a story.”

“It’s no line!” Maynard said.

“Sure. You got anything to declare?”

“Well . . .” Remembering Baxter’s advice, Maynard tried to look abashed. “Yes, now that you mention it.”

“Like what?”

Very carefully, Maynard reached into his satchel. “I had no idea it was illegal until the pilot told me.” He handed over a copy of
Hustler.
“I hope you don’t think I meant to violate your laws.”

“You lucky you told me,” said the policeman. “If I’d’ve found it in your bag, would’ve been a fifty-dollar fine.”

“Yes, sir,” Maynard said.

The commissioner finished reading the comics, unfolded his lanky frame from the bench, and stood up. He was roughly Maynard’s age and height, and he was built like a fork. If Maynard was correct in thinking of himself as slender, then Makepeace was emaciated. His face was a skull wrapped in black skin, his hands a gathering of bones. He wore his hair in an enormous Afro; Maynard thought that if the Afro were ever caught in a crosswind, it would surely capsize the man.

“How do you do, sir? My name is Blair Maynard.”

Makepeace extended his hand gingerly, as if fearful that a too-hearty greeting would snap his fingers. “Burrud Makepeace,” he said. “Birds is easier.” He looked at Justin. “Your researcher?”

“Justin.”

Makepeace shook hands with the boy.

“Evvy didn’t tell me your business down here.”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell her. The line went dead.”

“Press isn’t always welcome.”

“Oh?”

“They can come. Don’t misunderstand. But we don’t go out of our way any more. A few times we did, and all we got was a slap in the face.”

“I can’t believe . . .”

“Believe it. They come down here, all friendly and polite, like you, and tell us they’re going to write a story about this unspoiled paradise—like each one is discovering us for the first time. They take free food and free boat rides and free you-name-it, and they go back and write a story about poverty and bugs and pickaninnies. To hell with them. They can go to Nassau.” Makepeace checked his anger. “So, reporter man, what’s your story?”

“First,” Maynard said, “I’m not doing a tourist story. Second, I don’t want anything for free.”

“The only way you can make me believe that,” Makepeace said, and he smiled, “is if you buy me lunch.”

They rode in Makepeace’s open Jeep. The road had once been paved, but by now it was arguable whether there were potholes in the pavement or splotches of pavement surrounding dirt-filled potholes. Whenever a car passed in the opposite direction, the Jeep was covered by a swirling cloud of dust.

Makepeace turned off the main road and followed a pair of parallel ruts up a hill to a complex of bungalows identified by a sign as the Crow’s Nest Motel. The largest of the bungalows advertised a bar and dining room.

Makepeace led them through the dining room to an outdoor terrace that overlooked a half-moon cove. “I thought your . . . researcher . . . might like a swim.”

Maynard said to Justin, “What do you say?”

“Sure. Can I have a cheeseburger?”

Maynard handed him the satchel.

“Changing room around the corner,” Makepeace said. “Rafts on the beach.”

When Justin had scurried away and they had ordered drinks, Maynard told Makepeace why he he had come to the islands. He recited the figures about the missing boats and the explanations offered by the Coast Guard. Finally, he said that of the more than a hundred vessels still unaccounted for, most seemed to have vanished in the general area of Turks and Caicos. “And nobody has any idea how or why.” Wary of giving offense, Maynard decided not to repeat Florio’s supposition that someone was taking the boats.

Makepeace was neither surprised nor concerned. His interest was polite. “That’s a riddle, all right,” he said. “I can see that.”

“What do you think the answer is?”

“Me?” Makepeace was amused that the question was put to him. “Why ask me? I have no idea.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Should it?”

“You’re getting a reputation . . .” Maynard paused, then added carefully, “. . . not you, but this area . . . as a dangerous part of the world. That can’t do any good.”

Makepeace laughed. “We have been dangerous for three hundred and fifty years. We have had rumrunners and gunrunners and pirates and poachers and now the drug people.
We
have not changed; the yachtsmen, they have changed. They think this is a playground. Well, they are damned fools. I can give you a simple answer to your question: The boats are gone and the people are dead.”

“Don’t you care how?”

“No. It makes no difference how you die. You are dead. It’s like asking me if I care whether Russia and the States go to war. Why should I care? I can do nothing about it, and it will affect us in no important way. If the States blew up tomorrow, a lot of us would starve. We have starved before. Somebody always survives.”

“But it’s your responsibility . . .”

“What is? To see that a man in a sailor suit has a nice holiday? No. I am in charge
here.
One tiny island.” Makepeace tapped his foot on the floor. “Like the flies are in charge of the dungheap. That’s what we are, you know, a dungheap. Most of the world doesn’t know we exist, and the ones that do think we’re ignorant jungle bunnies. It’s not our fault. We came here as slaves, and they kept us slaves and beat it into us that that is our destiny. I escaped as a boy; my mama sent me up to Nassau, to learn. I learned. I learned that the best job I could hope to get was as a waiter or a bartender or a taxi driver or, if I had influence, a construction laborer. Then the Bahamas got free and everybody got hope. Hope!” Makepeace smirked. “White-power people were replaced by black-power people, who had to prove how proud they were, how independent. They nearly sank the whole country.

“So I said to myself, ‘Birds, you go back to the Caicos and show them how it can be done.’ I came back and rounded up some chummies. We threw Molotov cocktails here and there, and the British they said ‘Good-by.’ So here I am, a commissioner, chief fly on one small patty. I have a few hundred people. Most can’t read. Them that don’t work for the government, they fish—so many that the grounds are being fished out, and in a few years that will be gone, too. They got no hope of anything better, not ever, not anywhere. We give them the vote, and they vote, but they got nothing to vote for. They got all the freedoms they want, but you can’t eat freedom.” Makepeace paused. “And you would have me care whether some fat-ass Yankee gets himself killed?”

“Tourism,” Maynard said. “It’s an old answer, but you
can
eat off that.”

“It is happening, a little bit, but we don’t have much to offer. Loneliness and clear water. Bugs. We are a hundred years in the past.”

“People will pay for that, that alone.”

“I know.” Makepeace smiled. “We get a few. And there is always talk of the big Yankee companies coming down and building golf courses and tennis courts and beach clubs. If it ever happens, there will be money for a little while, and then someone will take over the government and kick out the Yankees and put locals in charge of everything. In five years, it will be a dungheap once again.”

“You have a cheerful perspective.”

“Realistic. This place has no business being populated, let alone being a nation. Nature didn’t populate it, except with bugs.”

The waitress brought their food—fish chowder and conch fritters and, for Justin, a thin gray square of chopped meat topped with a smear of cream cheese and enveloped in bread.

Maynard looked to the beach and saw Justin appear around a corner of the cove and paddle a rubber raft swiftly toward shore. He whistled through his teeth, and Justin waved.

“You won’t get answers about your missing boats,” Makepeace said, “not down here. Most everybody either don’t know or don’t care to know. It does not pay to ask about things you cannot do anything about. I don’t say that a few folks might not suspicion, but they got no reason to talk to you. If a couple people
do
know something, they know because they got a stake in it, whatever it is, and they get nothing from telling you. Personally, I doubt there is anything to know. Things happen. Good things, bad things, things no one understands. They happen.” Makepeace shrugged. “Life goes on.”

Justin came to the table wrapped in a beach towel. He gazed, horrified, at the slimy puck on the plate before him. He whispered to his father, “What’s
that?”

“You asked for a cheeseburger.”

“It’s
gross!”

“Eat.”

“I’m gonna starve to death, and it’ll be your fault.”

“Eat.”

“I’ll probably get diarrhea.” Justin prodded the doughy bread. He looked at Makepeace. “What’s the boat down there?”

“I don’t know. Where?”

“Around the corner. There’s a boat half buried in the sand.”

Makepeace called the waitress to the table. As he spoke to her, he let his diction slip into the singsong cadence of the out-islands. “What de boat down de beach?”

“Don’t know, mon. Been dere month or more.”

“Anyt’ing good on ’er?”

“Stripped clean, mon. Must be t’rowed-away boat.”

“Nobody t’row boat away.”

“Somebody t’row dat one away. Beat her up and t’row her away.”

“Okay.” Makepeace dismissed the waitress and said to Maynard, “We can look at it.”

After lunch, they walked down to the cove and picked their way across the rocky promontory to a long, straight stretch of white sand.

The wreckage of the boat was above the high-water mark, jammed into the dunes. The surf had washed it ashore broadside and buried its keel in the sand. It lay on its side, its deck tilted toward the sea. Once, it had been a thirty- or thirty-five-foot sailboat, with a deckhouse (now gone) and a single mast (gone, too). The forward hatch had been torn away and the deck around it splintered by an ax—by scavengers, Maynard assumed, after the boat had come to rest on the beach.

Maynard brushed sand from the cockpit. The steering wheel was gone, all the brass and chrome fittings had been removed, and even the cleats had been unscrewed from the deck. The hull was pocked with screw holes. Maynard turned away, but his eyes flickered over something irregular, and he looked again. One of the screw holes was larger than the others and was not empty. He said to Justin, “Got your knife? See if you can get whatever it is out of there.”

Justin knelt in the cockpit and dug in the wood with his jacknife. It took him a few minutes to widen and deepen the hole and a few more to pry the object free from the wood. He worked steadily and patiently, never trying to do too much too fast. “It’s a ball,” he said, and he dropped it in his father’s hand. “It’s heavy.”

Maynard nodded. “It’s lead.” He turned to Makepeace. “What are your laws about firearms?”