The Styx (33 page)
Marjory blushed slightly. “You are correct. It was something my father and I spoke about several times, giving the workers a sort of holiday, something to lift their spirits.
“As for attending, I thought it would be an intrusion, akin to the lordly master overseeing the dance of his slaves. It was supposed to be an event for them, not for us.”
“I see,” Faustus said, dipping his head as if begging her pardon. But his next question had no ring of begging in it.
“And, if I may, did you know Mr. Bingham? I mean through your travels or when you may have been visiting in West Palm?”
“The name wasn’t familiar. And I certainly didn’t recognize the man I saw that night.”
Marjory turned her head away as if the grisly sight was revisiting.
“Do forgive me, Miss,” Faustus said in reaction.
Byrne found the crack in McAdams’ usual hardened core curious, but said nothing. Seeing his own brother burned and dead had put a vise around his heart that nearly squeezed him to unconsciousness.
“I would like to employ your help, Mr. Faustus, as representation for Mizz Carver. I will gladly pay the going rate for a criminal attorney. I believe there is expected to be an arraignment on Friday. Would you be willing?”
Coffee had arrived, real coffee, and Faustus took a long luxurious sip before answering.
“It has been several years, but my licensing in the state of Florida is up to date and I shall be willing to aid in Miss Carver’s defense. In fact, if we are allowed to present our findings to the judge on Friday, it is quite possible that the charges will be dropped altogether.
“I would, however, have to visit with the woman tomorrow, gain her approval, and hear her side of the story.”
“I’ll be more than pleased to introduce you,” Marjory said, her instant smile lightening the heretofore dark and moody room. “I will of course ask to sit in during your discussions. I mean, I would suppose someone other than a stranger, someone with a woman’s touch, might reassure Mizz Carver of our intentions.”
Faustus again seemed to hold Marjory’s eyes for an extra few seconds. “We’ll have to see what the sheriff’s policy is on that matter. It is not usual for such discussions to be witnessed by anyone other than a client and their attorney. Privilege, of course. But certainly it is a possibility.”
With all manners and pleasantries to the host concluded, the dinner broke up. On the porch outside Faustus bid good evening and walked quickly into the night, headed for the bridge to West Palm Beach. Byrne lingered for an uncomfortable minute and was rewarded for his hesitation.
Marjory was staring up at the sky, her head tilted, her pinned-up hair in danger of unraveling and falling in cascades down her back.
“Oh, look at the stars, Michael. Isn’t it a gorgeous night?”
The sound of his first name in her voice struck Byrne mute.
“Or do you not like the stars?” she said to his silence.
“Uh, no. I mean absolutely,” he mumbled.
She took a step toward him, hooked her arm through the crook of his elbow. “Then you will walk me back to my hotel?”
He knew she was out there, deeper in the water, though her teasing and laughter had abated. Somewhere she was floating, perhaps lying on her back in the motion of the swells, tingling in the warm ocean water while she held that curious smile on her face.
She was enticing him, luring. He knew this to be true. But he also knew that his reaction to seeing her inexplicably disappear into the beachside bushes and then come running out stark naked and sprint into the ocean was going to override any question of her motives.
On the walk back from dinner she’d used his first name three times, each one sounding like a wonderful note of music. But they’d walked mostly in silence, she lightly holding his arm and he trying not to show his enthusiasm or nervousness. When they reached the turnoff to the Breakers, she’d pulled him in the opposite direction.
“It’s much too lovely a night to go in,” she said. “And the beach is beautiful in the moonlight.”
The moonlit sand made Byrne recall Harris’ tale of once mistaking it as snow. Marjory removed her shoes and they walked near the tide mark, she pointing out the sprinkling lights of phosphorescence being washed up on the shore, he being too thrilled by both the sight of the living organisms’ glow and the fact that she had taken his hand in hers as they moved south.
Then she’d stopped and stared out at the ocean and the beam of moonlight that appeared as a silver arrow to the horizon. “I have to swim. It’s too gorgeous not to swim,” she said and made a break for the bushes. He was still puzzled by her actions when she came bolting from cover, her long legs and torso flashing white in the light and her flowing hair catching and throwing glimmers of red.
“Come on then, Byrne! Where’s the Irish in you!” she called out, launching herself like a spear into the sea. He watched the hole into which she’d disappeared, no doubt his mouth agape, and then five feet farther out her head appeared and then her arms like an amphibious butterfly’s wing swooped up from her sides, reformed into a point, and without losing forward motion she again speared into the water. She repeated her dolphin-like move three or four more times, growing smaller with each piece of yardage gained and then was gone into the darkness.
It took him more time than he cared to remove all of his clothes and dump them in a stack and then run in after her. He shivered only once, when the water, perhaps seventy-eight degrees but still well below body temperature, reached his groin, but he copied Marjory’s motion and dove forward. He was not nearly as graceful as she, and after a couple of attempts he stopped and gained his feet on the sandy bottom. Now he knew she was out here, but where? A collection of clouds had moved in front of the moon and the path of light had diminished. He waited until the gauzy gray passed and then spotted her, breast-stroking toward him.
“My God, isn’t it marvelous,” she said, stopping an arm’s length away. Her auburn hair was slicked back on her head, her face pale on the side where the moonlight struck it. Droplets of water clung to her eyelashes.
“Yes. I should say it is,” Byrne said, amazed that his voice even worked.
She spun and jumped high into the air, her arms going up as if trying to slap the moon itself, and exposing herself to where her hips widened slightly from her tiny waist. She disappeared again when she came down and Byrne was left looking around again until she surfaced, directly in front of him, this time closer than an arm’s length. He could feel the wavelets. Both of them were holding their breaths when she moved up against him and her hard nipples brushed his skin. Then her breasts flattened against him as he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. He moved his lips to hers, and when they touched they were cold and salty until he felt the warmth of air come from inside her mouth. He felt the tip of her tongue flirt at the seam of his own lips, but when he opened them he got a mouthful of salt water and she laughed in her throat and bent back her head to look in his eyes. He felt himself hard against her hips.
“You are absolutely unpredictable,” Byrne whispered, still quite flustered.
She laughed. “You, though, are highly predictable,” she said and moved again against him.
“I won’t deny that.”
“Ha! Not that you could.” She rolled her hip against his hardness and then broke from his embrace. She floated there for a moment, her chin just in the water, her eyes dancing a bit above it.
“Are you sure you can swim? I’d hate to leave you floundering out here.”
“Well, I just might need some help,” Byrne said, sensing in her words that she was either going to leave or challenge him to a race and wanting neither one. “And to be completely honest, no, I can’t swim.”
The look on Marjory’s face suddenly turned from impish to something thoughtful, like a decision was being made.
“Neither could your brother,” she said, averting her eyes. “But neither could Daniel be completely honest.”
At that she quickly performed another of her dolphin-like plunges and was heading out to sea, to deeper water. After a second, Byrne recovered his voice and called several times for her. But he heard her strokes diminish as they faded in the distance.
“Christ!” he said, growing instantly flaccid and colder than when he first walked into this idiot sea. Harris was right. Out of your league. Not a chance in hell for immigrants like us. He made it back to the beach, to his clothes, dressed and sat on the sand in a direct line between Marjory’s footsteps and the bushes where she’d stashed her own clothes. He sat an hour, until nine o’clock, and then gave up. If she knew Danny, then she’d have recognized his body the night she saw him dead in the Styx. If she knew they were brothers, then why the ruse? Why the game? What the hell makes sense in Florida, he thought, and put on his brogans, took one last look out to sea and walked away.
T
HE
next morning he was up, standing ready at the rail station next to Flagler’s newly washed car long before Harris made an appearance. “Morning, sir,” he said when the big man approached. Harris was in his standard working attire. But his reluctance to make eye contact alerted Byrne that something was up.
“Mornin’.”
“She’s looking good, eh?” Byrne said and instantly felt like a stable boy asking for a compliment.
“Aye, a fine job.”
“Will we be hooking up here and going across the bridge to pick up Mr. Flagler then?”
“Aye, we will. But not you, Mr. Byrne.”
The use of Byrne’s proper name was a step back from Harris’ now familiar “lad.” Byrne said nothing and let his silence force whatever it was out of Harris’ mouth.
“I’ll be accompanying Mr. Flagler to Miami. But we’ve another job for you,” he said. “We need you to go with a group of gentlemen from the hotel on a bit of an expedition this morning.”
Byrne let the query in his face do the asking.
“Mr. McAdams and some regular guests are taking in a round of hunting in the Everglades and they’d like you as some kind of security I suppose. You’ll be taking a rail dingy down south a ways.”
“Security?”
“Yeah, security.”
“For how many?
“Three. Plus a guide.”
“Hunting?”
“Yeah. Deer and wild hogs and such. Maybe even a panther, which would be a sight, eh?”
“Four armed men who need security?” Byrne said, his voice cynical.
“Look, Byrne,” Harris said, finally letting the frustration and a touch of anger slip into his own voice. “This is a request by the powers that be. Mr. McAdams works directly for our boss. If he asks for one of us to go out on the road with him, we go.”
“So this is a direct request from Mr. Flagler?” Byrne said. He’d played this game with the Tammany group in New York. You ask where the orders came from, ask how high up the line the responsibility lies and hope you know when to stop asking before you cross that line and become a liability.
“Mr. McAdams came to me and asked for you,” Harris said, looking Byrne in the eye. “When I balked and went straight to Mr. Flagler, he didn’t object. That’s what I know and that’s all I know. You wait here until they fetch you.”
For a moment, the two men studied each other. Harris was not going to offer more, even though more was running around in his head, Byrne knew. Harris had taken on the role of the sergeants in New York, unsatisfied with their own superiors, but unwilling to challenge them. Yet the big Irishman still couldn’t help himself. He stepped forward to Byrne’s side and whispered conspiratorially: “There’s a stink in the air, lad. The high and mighty are talking about the fire in the Styx, askin’ each other who set the damn thing. Everybody knows the land value was shootin’ too high on the island to have a bunch of Negro workers livin’ on it. Now they’re all watchin’ each other to see who comes up with the title to the piece. Somebody knows somthin’ and somebody’s gonna get rich.”
Harris backed away. “It ain’t a game a tenement kid wants to get in on, lad.”
Byrne climbed up onto the railroad platform, took a seat in one of the wooden straight-backed chairs and watched the rising sun. The red orb had cleared the palms and gumbo limbo trees of the island to the east, and he could feel the heat build by degrees. The pores of his skin opened and the inevitable moisture of sweat sought a cooling breeze. He thought of the chill of the ocean water last night and then the heat between Marjory McAdams’ thighs and he closed his eyes and forced his head to logic.