Lights Out (9 page)

The plug was pulled at once.

“I see you two have already met.”

Eddie jerked around, saw Jack standing on the beach.

“Adios,” said Mandy, and slipped away.

Eddie swam in. Jack was smiling. “I’ve been waiting all my life to say that.” He put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, walked him toward the cabin. Eddie glanced back, saw Mandy about twenty yards out, swimming parallel to the beach.

Jack said: “Bro?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Stay away from her.”

Eddie didn’t say anything: he wondered if Jack was interested in her himself.

“You weren’t with her last night or anything, were you?” Jack said as they entered the cabin. The cockroach, or another one, was feeling its way across Eddie’s pillow. He flicked it on the floor, raised his foot to stamp on it. The cockroach was too quick: it skittered under his bed, out of sight.

“Of course not,” Eddie said. “We just went for a swim at the same time, that’s all.”

“Good,” said Jack.

“Why good? Is there something wrong with her?”

“Far from it. She’s taken, that’s all.”

“By you?”

“I’m not that dumb. She belongs to Brad.”

That should have been obvious as soon as he’d seen them come out of the same cabin; for some reason the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“Don’t look so surprised, Eddie. This is the grown-up world.”

“You mean Mrs. Packer knows?”

“Not that grown-up,” Jack said. He smiled to himself. “But close. The fact is, Evelyn doesn’t know Mandy’s here. Brad’s careful. He hides her at the fish camp when Evelyn’s on the island, moves her down to cottage six as soon as she’s back on the plane to Lauderdale.”

“How can he hide her? She’s the secretary.”

“Was. Evelyn fired her two months ago.”

“Because she was suspicious?”

“Because she found a better typist. She said. The new one looks like that funny little actor. You know.”

“Peter Lorre?”

“Yeah. Except Peter Lorre didn’t have a mustache, did he?”

Outside, Mandy was still swimming, farther out now, probably pulled by the tide. Eddie watched until she looked up, saw where she was, swam in closer.

“Packer’s not as careful as he thinks,” Eddie said.

“No?”

“He wasn’t careful this morning.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Did he go jogging?”

Eddie nodded.

“One day Evelyn’ll start wondering why he never gets in shape. That’s the way this whole thing’s going to unravel.”

“What whole thing?”

“Galleon Beach. The treasure of.”

“What treasure?”

“You saw the plans.” Jack gazed out the window at Mandy. “No feel for the water,” he said.

“She could be all right.”

Jack turned, gave him a look. “He didn’t see you, did he?”

“No. But what difference would it make? Does he know you know?”

The expression in Jack’s eyes changed, as though he was thinking about something. “I don’t know what he knows.”

“How can he expect to keep it a secret, in a little place like this?” Eddie asked. “What happens when the staff gets here?”

“I guess he’ll worry about that when he has to.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“Isn’t that when the cook arrives?”

“The cook won’t be a problem.”

“Why not?”

Jack didn’t answer. Out on the water, Mandy kept swimming.

7

“I
nterested in herb, man?”

Eddie, screwing new planks on
Fearless
’s dive platform, looked up at the dock. A man on a bicycle was watching him, keeping his balance with one bare foot.

“No, thanks.”

“With your hair like that, I could only aks myself.”

“I’m not in the market.”

“Market? Who be speaking of market? I just want to show you somet’ing interesting, man, if you be interested in herb. In the most friendliest way, since you and me be colleagues.”

“Colleagues?”

“Sure. Meet JFK, the new cook.”

JFK leaned down, extended his hand, fingers pointing up for a black handshake. They shook hands.

“I didn’t hear your plane.”

“Was no plane. I carry myself on this fine made-in-Japan bicycle.”

“From where?”

“All the way down to Cotton Town, on the very tip of this earthly paradise,” said JFK, waving toward the south. “The famous Cotton Town Hotel and Villas. Diving. Tennis. Sailing. Happy hour. Goombay smash. Push-push. When there be guests. Not now.”

“You work there?”

“Formerly, man. Now Mr. Packer has sweetened my pot.” He chuckled. “You Jack’s brother.”

“Right.”

“I have two brothers. They both’s in jail. Franco in Miami, Dime in Fox Hill.”

“What did they do?”

“Lost their trials.” There was a pause while JFK stared out to sea and Eddie waited for elaboration. Then JFK spoke: “Destiny, man. Destiny be rulin’ the fates of humanity.” He raised his hands slightly, as though summoning divine forces.

A black dot appeared in the northwestern sky, grew, formed the shape of a plane, turned white. It flew overhead, lost its whiteness, lost its shape, became a black dot again and disappeared.

“Don’t trust no planes,” said JFK. “Boats for me.” He scanned the shoreline, taking in the six cottages, the thatched bar, the main building, the overgrown shuffleboard court.

“This place gonna make it, man?”

“It’s a nice spot,” Eddie said.

“Nice spot. These islands is not’ing but nice spots. Except no one be making it.” He took a penny from his pocket, flicked it in the air, caught it. “Takes luck, man,” he said. “Make a wish.”

“You make it.”

JFK shook his head. “You look lucky to me.”

Eddie thought. He knew there must be things he should wish for, but all he could think was: fun in the sun.

“Ready?” asked JFK.

Eddie nodded. He wished for fun in the sun.

JFK spun the penny off the dock. It made a coppery arc and a tiny splash, then vanished.

JFK smiled. He had a big smile, with gaps here and there. “Maybe I can make your wish come true,” he said.

“How?”

“Come. I show you.”

Eddie tightened the last screw, climbed onto the dock. JFK made a wobbly circle on his bike—he had a big suitcase, tied with twine, on the rear carrier—and pedaled away. Eddie followed.

JFK rode at a walking pace, up the conch-lined path, past the cottages and the main building, onto the dusty road linking Galleon Beach to Cotton Town. “Feel the heat,” he said. “We got nice spots. We got heat.”

Eddie felt the heat on his bare shoulders, felt how it made him conscious of every breath.

“We got the heat here, that’s for sure,” said JFK after a while. “You got heat like this where you come from?”

“No.”

“Where is that you come from?”

Eddie named the town.

“That be near L.A.?”

“No.”

“I want to go to L.A. That my number-one goal in this earthly life.”

“I’ll be there in the fall.”

The bike wobbled. “Whoa. You tellin’ me the trut’?”

“I’m starting college—USC,” Eddie said. He added: “That’s the plan.”

“Then what you be makin’ wishes for? You already got everyt’ing a heart desires.”

The road went past the fish camp, past a cracked, dried-out red-clay tennis court and its sun-bleached backboard, partly screened by scrub pines, then swung inland. The temperature rose at once; in seconds, a drop of sweat rolled off Eddie’s chin, landed on his dusty sneaker, making a damp star.

“Easy, man,” said JFK, pedaling more slowly; so slowly Eddie was surprised he could keep the bicycle steady. “You on island time now.”

They came to a flamboyant tree—Eddie knew the name now—by the side of the road. Not far ahead lay the turnoff to the airstrip. JFK leaned his bike against the tree, set off on a narrow path through the bush. Eddie followed. Something bit him on the ankle. He slapped at it, received bites on the other ankle, back, and face.

“No-see-ums,” said JFK. “Not’ing to be done.”

The path narrowed; vegetation brushed Eddie’s skin at every step. He began to itch all over. The sweat was dripping off him now. He thought of
Muskets and Doubloons
. Hadn’t there been a scene where One-Eye’s band of buccaneers chopped through the bush with cutlasses in search of buried treasure? The treasure chest had contained nothing but the severed head of Captain Something-or-other.

Ahead, JFK seemed to be moving faster. His thin calves
knotted and lengthened in smooth motions, like water going back and forth in a tube. He began to sing.

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’
Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

A no-see-um bit Eddie on the nose.

They mounted a long rise, came down in a clearing. It was filled with head-high plants growing in rows. JFK stopped, laid a hand on Eddie’s arm. JFK wasn’t sweating at all, hardly seemed to be breathing, but his pulse beat fast and shallow, like faraway tom-toms.

“You understandin’ what you see?” he said.

“Marijuana,” Eddie replied.

“You got a smart brain. A college brain. Only here we say
herb
. That’s the friendly name.”

A slow, heavy breeze blew through the clearing. The herb leaves rustled and then were still. The sun was high overhead. It seemed to have lost its shape, expanding to fill the sky, the way stars were supposed to do, Eddie recalled, at some point in their evolution. There wasn’t a sound until JFK spoke again.

“I don’t like no planes,” he said. “Give me a boat every time.”

“You said that before. Give you a boat for what?”

“A boat like
Fearless
. Best name I ever heard for a boat. Except maybe
Lot-O-Bucks
, and she be sinking off Bimini last year.”

“Fearless
belongs to Mr. Packer. Jack and I just have the use of it.”

“Perfecto,” said JFK. “If you want to be earnin’ a little extra bonus.”

“What do you mean?”

JFK smiled. He laid his hand on Eddie’s arm again and was about to answer when something brown burst out of the clearing and crashed by. Too big for a dog: Eddie had time to think that thought. Then there was a blast that knocked the top off the marijuana plant beside him. JFK yanked him to the ground.

Eddie looked up in time to see the tall green plants part and Brad Packer stumble out in front of them, a rifle in his hands. He saw them, saw, that is, living animals, and raised the gun.

“Boss!” said JFK.

Packer checked himself, lowered the gun. “Christ,” he said, “I thought you were a fucking pig. What the hell are you two doing here? You’re supposed to be working.”

JFK picked himself up. “Looking for guava, boss. I be plannin’ guava duff for dessert.”

Packer glanced around the clearing. “There’s probably some around. This island’s a goddamn greenhouse.”

“Plenty around boss, plenty,” said JFK. “Mrs. Packer, I know she like it.”

“She doesn’t need it, not with those thighs. Neither do I, for that matter.” Packer turned to Eddie. “Him I pay to look for guava. You I don’t.”

“He be helping me, boss,” said JFK.

“Yeah? Well, he can help me now. There’s a dead pig the other side of this clearing. They like it in here, fuck knows why. You can carry him back to the hotel while I go after the other one.” He started for the path, stopped, indicated Eddie with the muzzle of his gun. “And get a haircut.” Packer disappeared in the bush.

Eddie and JFK found the dead pig. It lay on its stomach in a circle of marijuana plants, legs splayed, bleeding from a hole in the side of its flattened snout.

“He be tense, man,” said JFK.

“Rigor mortis,” Eddie told him. “It’s normal.”

JFK laughed softly. “Too soon for rigor mortis. We know all about rigor mortis in these islands, my friend. But I be talkin’ about Mr. Packer. He the tense one.”

“Why?” asked Eddie. An ant crawled across the bared eyeball of the pig.

“The investor, man. Big investor coming from the giant to the north.”

“To buy the place?”

“To supply the cash, man. Some friend of Mrs. Packer’s daddy. Gonna make Mr. Packer’s dream come true. The hotel
eight stories, the restaurants, the condos, the time shares. Golf, tennis, a waterfall. Maybe Shecky Greene.”

“Who’s Shecky Greene?”

“You never been to Vegas, man?”

“Have you?”

“Not the question. The question be is I hip to Shecky Greene? And I most surely be. I plugged into the happenings of the world, man.”

The ant stopped in the center of the eyeball, antennae trembling. JFK gazed down at the animal and sighed.

“I could handle it, man, but not on the bike.”

“I’ll do it,” Eddie said, realizing that there was some presumption that if heavy work awaited, the black man was expected to do it. He squatted down, got a grip on one front and one rear foot, and rose, swinging the animal onto his shoulders.

“Ooo,” said JFK. “Great white hunter.”

“Packer’s the great white hunter.”

“He be white, white as white can be. No offense.”

They walked back through the marijuana plants, Eddie carrying the pig. The coarse hairs of its underbelly prickled his bare skin; blood dripped down on his chest, diluting itself with his sweat. They found the path, mounted the rise. Eddie felt the burden now, not so much the weight of the pig, but the weight of anything in that heat. By the time they reached the flamboyant tree by the side of the road, his heart was beating the way it would in the last length of the four-hundred free.

JFK got on his bike. “Don’t be calling it a pig if you run into any tourists. That be the famous wild boar of the islands. Ernest Hemingway he come to hunt them.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie said.

JFK laughed and started pedaling. Not slowly this time. Eddie realized that JFK wasn’t intending that he keep up. “Where do I take it?” Eddie called.

The answer came back, faint: “The kitchen, man. You be bringin’ home the bacon.” JFK was soon out of sight.

Eddie started walking. There were no tourists, no people at all. There was just the sun, the dust, the pig, still warm. After a while it stopped bleeding and Eddie stopped thinking about
how soon he could be in the shower. On that empty road on the edge of the banana-shaped island he lost his revulsion for the touch of the pig and began to enjoy what he was doing, began to feel strong—absurdly strong, like a white hunter, he supposed, master of the wild. He ceased to feel the weight of the beast at all; by the time he approached the desiccated clay court he was striding.