Thai Horse (8 page)

It was two months before he asked her to dinner, a dinner he cooked and served a mile offshore, anchored over what since had become their favorite reef. They sat on the floor and ate dinner and watched the sea creatures at play through the glass bottom and drank a lot of wine, and when she finally left the boat two days later, she knew nothing more about him than she had known when she came on board
—
except for his taste in furniture, clothes and art, all of which were impeccable
—
not what he did for a living or where he came from or what he had done before he came to the island or whether he had ever married, had children, was wanted by the police r was dying of an incurable disease. Now, nine months later, she still didn’t know. And she didn’t care. He was a tender lover, an experimenter, considerate, unhurried, aware of her wants, unthreatened, funny, and she responded in the same way. Sex had remained a joy rather than a task. He never showed anger, never judged anyone, and he treated her with uncommon respect. That was good enough for her.

It was around noon when the Lear jet whistled over the island, banking sharply to the east, circling out over the Atlantic and sweeping back over the island a second time.

Sloan studied the island as the pilot circled it. It was shaped like the island of Manhattan, but there the similarity ended. Ten miles long and barely two miles wide, it was little more than a thin strip of hard land surrounded on three sides by a sprawling marsh and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.

A tiny village squatted at the southern point of the island, its fishing pier pointing a hundred yards out into the ocean like a finger pointing toward Florida. A whitewashed old lighthouse seemed to guard the three-block- square shopping area, which was surrounded by moss- laden oak trees that hid most of the inland houses populating the south end. Weathered old homes of tabby and wood lined the ocean like sentinels, defying the unpredictable Atlantic.

On its leeward side was a shopping center and a handsome new redwood marina, where several large yachts were moored among the smaller sailboats and fishing boats. A small jetport was located just north of the village, and north of it the upper half of the island was heavily forested and uninhabited
-
You could walk the inhabited part of the island in an hour, thought Sloan.

A tall man slender as a reed and wearing a battered captain’s hat pulled up in the fuel truck as the Lear howled to a stop near the low-slung terminal.

‘Anyplace to get some good home cooking?’ Sloan asked, climbing out of the plane.

The man, who seemed to be on about a ten-second delay, stared at him and then said, ‘Might try Birdie’s over in the village.’

‘Can I get a cab?’

He thought about that for another ten seconds.

‘No cab out here.’

‘How can I
get over there?’

‘Well,’ the man in the peaked cap said after some thought, ‘you can walk, takes ten or fifteen minutes.’ Another delay. ‘Or you can rent a car inside.’

‘Actually I’m looking for a friend
o
f mine. Maybe you know him
—
Christian Hatcher?’

After half a minute: ‘Wouldn’t know.’

‘Birdie’s you say?’

‘Uh-huh.’

It was a beautiful day, the temperature in the eighties and a cool breeze hustling through the trees from the beach.

‘We’ll walk.’

The island, a quaint bit of Americana worthy of a Rockwell painting, had changed little in twenty years. Its charm lured the big cruise ships from Miami and Charleston. They came once or twice a week, tied up at the pier and spent the night. The cruisers, as its passengers were called by locals, ambled down the fishing pier and checked out Tim’s gift store, pored over Nancy’s used books, stocked up on T-shirts and stuffed a
ni
mals at the Island Hop, got the latest magazines and paperbacks at Doc Bryant’s drugstore, had a drink at Murphy’s Tavern or homemade ice cream at Clifton’s an
d
then wandered off the Main Drag
—
the only drag, since the village was a single street a mere three blocks lo
n
g
—
and did some sightseeing. In that short main stretch, the cruisers could eat home cooking at Birdie’s, hamburgers at the Big T, barbecue at the Rib Shack or seafood at Mallory’s before returning to their ship for the night. By the next morning they were gone.

As Sloan stood looking over the minuscule hamlet, his smile broadened. This is it? he
thought
. This is what he calls home.

He would be casual and cautious in asking questions. He walked down to the city pier, where the locals were crabbing and fishing or taking in the sun, watching the shrimp boats come and go and the big brown pelicans dive-bombing for lunch.

Roland Smith, who regarded himself as the unofficial mayor of the island, appeared at the pier each morning dressed in sports jacket and tie with a fresh flower in his lapel to do his rounds. He petted dogs, babbled over babies,
fl
irted with all females over sixteen, and slowly worked his way up to a niche of a restaurant called the Bowrider to have breakfast and trade gossip with the locals. He was never without a s
m
ile and spent his days simply being pleasant. He had co
m
e to the island ten years ago on vacation with his wife, who had dropped dead on the beach of a heart attack. Smith, a window dresser for a New York department store, had sent a letter to his boss announcing his retirement and never left.

Sloan watched Roland stroll the pier and its nearby park, smiling and chatting. Sloan. knew a talker when he saw one. He wandered to the edge of the park and sat on a bench until Smith ambled by.

‘Morning,’ Smith said with a smile. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

‘Perfect,’ said Sloan, matching the smile.

‘I do love this island,’ Smith said, which was his standard greeting to tourists.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Sloan agreed.

‘You vacationing here?’ Smith asked innocently.

‘Well, kind of. Actually I’m
loo
king for an old friend of mine. We were army buddies. But I lost his address and I can’t find him in the phone book.’

‘Maybe he moved,’ offered the putative mayor.

‘Perhaps you know him. Chris Hatcher? I just thought I’d surprise him.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t like surprises,’ Smith said pleasantly, his grin fading only slightly.
h
e nodded, and strolled away.

Sloan wandered in and out of the shops, striking up conversations in his easy, smiling way, finally getting around to the big question. Nobody said, ‘I don’t know him’ or ‘I never heard of him’; they simply generalized the question into oblivion with answers like ‘Lots of folks on this old island’ or ‘Where did you say you were
from?’

Typical small town, thought Sloan, everybody on the island was as closemouthed as they were pleasant. But Sloan was gifted with infinite patience. Hatcher was on this island somewhere. Somebody on. this island had to know Hatcher, it was just a matter
of
time before somebody owned up.

Sloan went into Birdie’s. It was a pleasant, unintrusive restaurant, which smelled of fresh vegetables and seafood, its fare listed on a large blackboard on the wall. He found a table next to a group of men who looked as if they belonged.

When he had first come to the island, Hatcher had chosen to become a recluse, avoiding people and living a solitary life on his boat. His only friend was Cirillo. But gradually he became close to these people. They were nonjudgmental, warm, and simply supportive of one another. Like Hatcher, they had escaped to the island, leaving behind bad memories or shattered careers or the abuses of Establishment phonies.

All the men at the adjoining table were Hatcher’s friends. One was an enormous Santa Claus of a man with white hair and a thick white beard wham the others called Bear. Then there was a slender, quiet man, his gray-white beard tickling his chest, who was reading a paperback novel as he ate, and another gentle-faced man who was jotting lines of poetry in a tattered notebook. Sloan listened to their choppy conversation, hoping for clues. He got none, although it was obvious they
were
islanders. The reader’s name was Bob Hill. He had been a thoroughbred horse trainer, a circus clown, a schoolteacher, and he now owned his own shrimp boat. The poet, whose name was Frank, worked as a night clerk in o
n
e of the mainland motels and spent his days on the beach, writing poetry. Bear was an architect. The fourth man at the table, trim and weathered, whom they called Judge, had fallen from the bench in disfavor, a victim of the bottle. He was now the maître d at the island’s premier hotel and had not had a drink in fourteen years.

‘Haven’t had food this good since I left home,’ Sloan said pleasantly.

‘That’s the truth,’ Bear answered. ‘And almost as cheap.’

They chatted amiably back and forth during the meal. Finally Sloan popped the quest
io
n and was greeted with the same vague response.

‘Probably end up here eating sooner or later,’ said Bear. ‘Everybody does.’

Sloan was undaunted. Hatcher had no listing in the city directory or phone book. No aut
o
registration. But since he lived on this island and he was ex-Navy and he loved the sea, it seemed reasonable that Hatcher had a boat. The process of elimination ultimately led Sloan to the marina.

By this time everybody in the village knew he was looking for Hatcher.

He tried to strike up a conversation with Cap Fendig, who operated the marina itself. Fendig’s roots were dug deep in the black soil of the island. His father and grandfather and great-grandfathe
r
were the harbor pilots who captained the big cargo vessels from the ocean through the sound to the state doc
k
s on the mainland.

‘Actually I’m looking for an
old
friend of mine, Chris Hatcher. We were in the Army together.’

‘That a fact.’

‘He’s big on sailing. Thought perhaps he might have a boat down here.’

‘Well, this would be the place t, keep a boat.’

Fendig moved up the pier.

‘Name’s Chris Hatcher,’ Sloan called after him.

‘Wasn’t born here. Lived here all my life, nobody by that name was born on this island.’

‘No, he would have moved here about a year and a half ago.’

‘Oh.’

End of discussion.

Sloan changed his tack. He approached a kid working the gas pumps.

‘What time’s Chris Hatcher due back?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Never know,’ the kid answered.

Bingo.

‘Does he live on the boat?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ the kid answered and vanished into the small pumping station.

Sloan went back up to the marina, got a beer, and went back down to the pier and waited.

The sharp bleat of a boat’s horn snapped Hatcher back to reality.

‘Oh God,’ he groaned. He got up, arranging the bulge in his skimpy bathing suit as best he could and went topside; he peered cautiously over the bulkhead.

A shrimp boat called the
Breeze-E
was idling nearby, its engines muttering as it rocked gently in the calm sea. Its captain, a tall, leathery string
-
bean of a man with a neatly trimmed gray-white beard, was standing in the stern. He cupped his mouth with his hands and yelled, ‘This fella’s wandering all over the island asking after you. Been to Birdie’s, Po Stephens. Murphy’s. The marina. Even tried to pry information out of old Roland.’

‘What’d he want?’ Hatcher yelled back in the harsh voice that was part growl, part whisper.

‘Said he was an old friend of yours from the Army.’

Hatcher shook his head. ‘What’s he look like?’

‘Big guy, built like a lobster pot, real broad in the shoulder. Looks to be in his late forties. Real friendly sort.’

‘Talks real soft and smiles all the tune. Little scar on his cheek?’ He drew an imaginary line from his eye to the corner of his mouth.

‘That’s him. Friend of yours?’

‘I wouldn’t say that. What’d you tell him?’

‘Not a damn thing.’

‘Thanks, Bob.’

‘Anytime. Fishing?’

‘Kinda.’

‘See ya.’

Bob Hill waved, returned to the bridge and shoved the throttles, veering out towards the open sea. Hatcher heard a sound behind him and, turning, saw Ginia looking at him over the rail.

‘What was that all about?’ she asked.

‘Bob Hill. Says somebody’s asking about me in town. You know how islanders are, they get a little overly protective sometimes.’

‘I think that’s nice,’ she said, jumping over the rail from the Jacob’s ladder, grabbing a towel off a chair and wrapping it around her like a sarong. ‘It’s nice to know your friends care that much about you.’