A Million Tears (62 page)

When we staggered outside the air was fresh after the fog in the inn, but it was still hot and humid. I recalled reeling along with my arm around Bonny, my hand cupping her breast. Back on the boat I paid her three dollars and she told me I could use her anyway I wanted.

I sat on the edge of my bunk and more roughly than I intended, pulled her dress off her shoulders. I got my mouth around a nipple, which was in proportion to her large breasts and I felt it rising hard in my mouth. I lay back on the bunk, the rum took hold on the last of my senses and I passed out.

When I awoke or, rather, regained consciousness, I felt like death warmed up. My mouth and throat were dry and felt as if they were filled with cotton wool, my eyes ached, the cabin was spinning and I cursed Jake for leading me astray. Memory of the previous night forced its way into my brain and I wondered where the girl was. I lay back with a groan, trying to remember what had happened. I did not feel as though I had been through a night of gratifying sex. Quite the reverse in fact.

I felt sick and fumbled my way to the upper deck. The blazing sun intensified my headache tenfold and I hung over the guard rail trying to vomit, to no avail. I got a bucket, filled it with sea water, sat next to the rail and forced myself to drink as quickly as I could. My stomach contracted in protest, I heaved and then puked until I thought my insides were coming out. I can’t say it left me in my prime or even a degree better. I made my way back down to my bunk and collapsed onto it with a groan of relief, happy not to have to hold my head up any longer.

‘Until the next time,’ he said knowingly. ‘Come on, let’s go and get something to eat. We’ll have coffee then. How did the night go?’

‘It didn’t. At least I don’t remember it going. I think I passed out,’ I admitted sheepishly.

‘What a waste. If I’d known that was going to happen I would have had her as well, especially as she was all paid for.’ Then he added as an after thought, ‘Nothing gone, is there?’

‘Gone? Why should there be?’ I asked dopily. But I knew the answer and so I checked under the mattress. I checked again and sank back with a groan.

‘Jeesus. What a little bitch. We needed your share for the rum. Come on we’ll go and find her. Either she’s one hell of a stupid woman or else she’s got a lot of protection here.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She took too much. If she had taken fifty, then we probably wouldn’t bother looking for her and that’s why their pimps tell them to keep the amounts small. They don’t want any trouble either. But with so much missing we have to find her. If she’s got any sense she’ll be half way across the island by now. On the other hand she just might have gone back to her protector, hoping for the best. Come on, let’s go.’

Despondently I followed Jake onto the Quay. Each step fired my anger, which swamped my headache and by the time we got back to the bar where we had met her I was ready to kill.

It was as packed as the night before and it took us about fifteen minutes to check all the corners and make sure neither girl was there.

We went to a few more places asking the bartenders if they knew Bonny and Lulu. Some of them knew the girls but could not tell us where to find them. Then in the sixth or seventh place we had some luck.

‘Yeah, I know who you mean,’ said the bartender. ‘Their pimp is Cat Ball.’

‘Do you know where we can find him?’ asked Jake, slipping him a five dollar bill.

He palmed it like a magician and said, ‘Sure, at the end of town. He’s got a big house there with nine or ten girls. It’s painted pink with a white roof.’ He suddenly leaned forward and dropped his voice. ‘He’s a mean son of a bitch, real mean. Got a couple of hands there to help protect the place and take care of any suckers who create too much fuss over the prices.’

‘Yeah,’ said Jake. ‘I know something about him.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ I said. ‘Come on, Jake.’

‘Hang on, David lad. Let’s go and get some coffee and something to eat first and maybe in a few hours we’ll go down there and see what we can find out.’

‘Why wait?’

‘Because we need to repair our wits, that’s why. And food and coffee is the only way. Believe me, I know what I’m doing.’

I believed him and we went to find one of the lousiest steaks I could remember eating. It was nearly four in the morning when we finally returned to the
Lucky Lady
and then went on to Cat Ball’s house. Like most of the houses, it was next to the road. A balcony ran around the house at the second floor where most of the windows were open. The door looked stout, and from the sounds of laughter and screeching going on inside I guessed there was an orgy going on.

‘I’ve been trying to think what I’ve heard about Ball,’ said Jake. ‘He carries a knife between his shoulder blades and pretends to yawn and stretch when he goes for it. I’m sure I saw him kill a man with it a few years back. He’s got a hell of a reputation. He’s mostly white but part black and never goes into the sun so his skin doesn’t tan. Still want to go in?’

‘You’re damned right I do. If he so much as blinks I’ll blow him in two with this,’ I waved the shotgun. The sawn off barrel would cut down two men easily at four yards.

‘All right. We’ll go in over the balcony and look for his room. If he ain’t there we’ll wait for him to come up and take him nice and quiet. Then we’ll have a little talk with him.’

43

Jake cupped his hands, I stepped into them, straightened my leg and at the same time he lifted. I grabbed the top of the balcony and climbed over. I reached down; Jake jumped for my hands and within seconds he was alongside me, the noise minimal.

I looked through one of the windows but could see nothing in the darkness. I climbed over the sill. From the smell of perfume and the clothes I found in the closet it belonged on one of the ladies of the house. The bed was huge, one of the biggest I had ever seen. The sheets were silk and I could feel the thickness of the carpet beneath my feet. Ball ran a rich place.

I opened the door and looked out onto an internal balcony, six feet wide, which surrounded a large lounge. The room was crowded with men and women in various stages of undress.

Opposite this room there were four doors and to the left, near the stairs, another three. There was only one door in the wall to the right. I crept out of the bedroom on all fours, keeping close to the wall. Jake followed, closing the door behind him. I opened the door in the right hand wall.

We were in a lamp-lit room that ran the width of the house. The walls were hung with rich velvet curtains and the floor was covered with the deepest pile carpet I could imagine. The bed must have been eight feet wide and ten long.

He grinned back and went over to the door. I started on the drawers and cupboards all of which were filled with the frilliest of shirts and the softest of linen; Cat Ball liked to do himself well. I did not, however, find a single dollar bill or piece of gold. Apart from a few pieces of jewellery there was nothing of value. In the back of one of the wardrobes I found a loose board and for a moment thought I had found where he kept his money. But there was nothing except leather clothing, some nasty looking whips and lengths of rope.

Quickly we crammed into the largest cupboard and closed the door just as somebody walked into the room. I knelt down and through a crack in the door saw two men enter. I realised the big fat man, dressed in bright red trousers and a black, frilly shirt, must be Cat Ball. The short, skinny man with him looked silly with nothing on except his shirt. They spent some time on their own until three girls, two black and one white, joined in the fun. One of the girls was Bonny. Loathe though I was to break up their party, I pushed open the door and stepped out. The room was so opulent and they were making so much noise they did not hear us until we stood on either side of the bed and Jake drew their attention by cocking his pistol. I aimed my scattergun in the general direction of the bed and they froze. Ball looked from one gun to the next, his calmness unnerving me a little. I was gratified to see the fear in Bonny’s rolling eyes.

They stopped wriggling. ‘What the hell goes on?’ asked Ball, showing indignant anger. ‘I suggest for your own good you get out of here and we’ll forget this little intrusion. One word from me and I can have a dozen men in here.’

‘That would be very, very stupid, because long before then you’d be very, very dead. Bonny, my dear,’ I looked down at her, ‘what did you do with the money you stole from under my bunk last night?’

There was silence. ‘Crawl out from there slowly, honey,’ I said. ‘Jake is going to tie you up.’

Using the rope from the wardrobe Jake quickly tied all three girls and left them lying on the floor. He then tied up the little man whose reaction to the events was startling. The man began to get excited again.

That left Ball, unmoving, his shirt still on but with no pants.

‘You men are a bore. You don’t think you’re going to get away with this, do you?’ He yawned and stretched to prove his boredom but even as his hand was reaching behind his back I rammed the barrel of the shotgun as hard as I could into his stomach. There was an explosion of air from his lungs and he curled up, his face distorted with pain. He was in bad condition, like most fat men, and had difficulty breathing. I leant down, reached behind him and removed a small, two barrelled Derringer.

When I showed it to Jake he shrugged. ‘Can’t be right all the time,’ he said.

I looked at the others, their astonishment clear. The little man was wriggling and I thought he was in pain until I realised he was enjoying himself.

Jake roughly spread-eagled Ball and tied his hands and feet to each corner of the bed, the knots digging into his flesh.

‘Do you still say you know nothing about my money? Because if you don’t tell me where it is I’ll extract eleven hundred dollars worth of pain from you.’ I saw the look of malevolence he cast at Bonny. ‘Oh, oh, so she didn’t give it all to you? Now wasn’t that silly of her?’

‘Thank you, Bonny. That was exactly what I wanted to know. I don’t care how much she gave you Ball, I want my eleven hundred from you and I want it fast.’ In the light from the lamps I saw he was going to make a move. A move? That was impossible. He was about to yell. I was holding the shotgun across my chest and when I swung it into his guts it was with more force than I had intended.

Ball gasped horribly and gave a weird grunt but said nothing. His hands and legs convulsed as he tried to cradle the ache. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water but he did not seem to be taking in any air. I wondered for a second whether he would die somehow, but slowly he recovered.

He whispered painfully, ‘I’ll kill you for that.’

‘You stupid bastard. At the moment there is very little between your life and your death. Your woman took what was mine and I want it back. I’ll hit you again, in the same way, if you so much as think of yelling. Now where’s the money?’

‘It . . . it’s downstairs in my office. In a safe. You can’t get to it because I have four men down below looking after my interests,’ he spoke slowly and with difficulty.

I did not believe him. What would he want an office for? He would not be keeping books in order to pay taxes. I looked at Jake who shrugged.

‘Give me a hand, Jake.’ I pulled the pillows from the end of the bed and with Jake’s help shoved them under Ball’s back. From the cupboard I took a leather whip with a long handle, the thong tapering to a single strand.

‘I don’t believe you, Ball, and I’m going to gamble on you being a liar.’ I took one of his frilly shirts, ripped a sleeve off and stuffed it into his mouth. He had difficulty breathing through his nose but that was his problem. I put the handle of the whip just outside his anus.

‘I’m going to ram this about twelve inches in if you don’t nod to tell me you’ll show me where your money really is. After that, if you still don’t talk it’s going all the way in.’ The sweat was standing out on Ball’s forehead, his face ashen.

I gripped the end of the whip more firmly and suddenly rammed the knobbed end into him. His body bent up into the air, straining, trying to get away from the pain. I turned away, trying hard not to vomit.

I was disgusted with myself and I grabbed hold of Ball by the throat, tore the gag from his mouth and squeezed. ‘That was a warning. Now if you don’t talk I’m going to throttle you.’ I squeezed harder, the folds of his chins almost covering my fingers. ‘Talk, damn you, talk!’ I said harshly.