Harry & the Bikini Bandits Page 12

  But she never did. Next day the radio was full of the news that the girl shot outside the casino had died during the night.

  CHAPTER 23

  I GOT TO SEE GROGAN TOO. SORT OF BY accident. Because of the bananas. I was eating nothing but bananas then, because they were the cheapest thing I could find. There was a little fruit stand down near the post office where I went to buy them. There was a very pretty white building across the street, and I did not even know it was the courthouse and jail until I cut across the grass and sat down under a tree to eat and saw Grogan. He was behind a barred window on the upper floor and his head was bent over and he looked like he might be praying. Maybe he was praying for Charity.

  I wanted in the worst way to signal to him but I did not dare. Nor did I dare hang around there much longer. Cops kept zinging back and forth through the doorway, and I figured it was only a question of time until someone began to wonder what I was doing there. So I took my bananas and strolled past the building as if it could not have interested me less, trying hard all the while not to look up at Grogan’s window.

  But just before I went around the corner of the building I saw a flicker of movement from his window and something like a small white moth fluttered down into the bushes. I realized then that he had been watching me all the time and had tossed down a bit of paper. My impulse was to make a grab at it right then, but I controlled my impatience and went around the building and strolled back the other way. I dropped a banana, bent down to pick it up, and retrieved the tiny slip of paper at the same time. I risked a quick glance up at the window and saw him with his head just above the sill. He gave me a kind of grim little smile and then was gone.

  I kept the paper crumpled in my hand until I was well away from the building and then risked a look. He had torn it out of a book. The printed words were all about primitive religions but scrawled over them was a kind of crude little map drawn very roughly in pencil. There were half a dozen circular spots that I finally concluded were islands. One of them was marked Wardrick Wells and another Galliot Cut. The others were unmarked. An arrow pointed toward the middle one. There was nothing more.

  It was enough. I knew right off what he was trying to tell me. That dot marked by the arrow was where Harry had gone. Or at least it was where he was supposed to have gone—the place he and Grogan had picked out ahead of time. But where was it? The names meant nothing to me. They sounded Bahamian all right, but then again they might have been West Indian. Chances were they were Bahamian. Jezebel was a handful in sloppy weather and a man alone on her would probably not elect to go too far. And if he was not being chased, there was no need for it. All he required was some isolated spot where he could hole up with his hundred and fifty thousand until the excitement died down.

  For the first time in two days my life seemed to have some direction. I would go over the charts until I found the names Grogan had scrawled on the slip of paper, and then I would find Harry.

  Why? I mean why find him?

  I no longer knew.

  At first I had felt that he had betrayed us all and had in some way been responsible for Charity’s death and Grogan’s capture. But I could see now that I had been unfair. He could not have known that Charity would be attacked on the boat and come running to the casino. Nor could he have known that Grogan would turn back for her. On the other hand, I was still convinced that he had seen me in the water and had deliberately refused to pick me up. What’s more I had a hunch that he had planned all along to ditch both Miss Wong and myself as soon as we had played our parts in the casino holdup. By doing that he would have just about doubled his own take. Was it possible that my father had been right about him all along? If so, I would get my share of that money if I had to chase him all over the ocean.

  Still thinking I might have been seen picking up Grogan’s note, I doubled through Dogflea Lane to Angelfish Road to Conchshell Avenue and finally back to the Yacht Haven. I remembered having seen a copy of the Yachtsman’s Guide to the Bahamas in the skin diving shop where Grogan had stored the tanks and I thought it would be as good a place as any from which to start my search.

  It worked so simply I could hardly believe it. I did not even have to search through the charts. The place names were indexed at the back of the book and it took me only about half a minute to find Wardrick Wells and Galliot Cut. They were about halfway down the chain of islands which led to George Town in the Exumas. There were a lot of other little cays indicated on the chart, and Jezebel might be anywhere in among them. The best way to locate her would be from the air, but there was no way in the world I could afford to hire a plane. I would have to do it from the water and it might be a long search with nothing but disappointment at the end, but I was determined to go ahead with it anyway.

  I told myself it was crazy. Harry was probably five hundred miles away in a different direction by this time. Even if that had been the original plan, why would he stick to it in view of the way everything had changed?

  On the other hand, what choice did I have? Any American coming into the Bahamas was supposed to have a round-trip ticket. Even if I could somehow raise the money for a plane ticket home they would never let me out without wanting to know how I had arrived in the first place. I could of course simply tell them the truth, which was that I had come in on Jezebel, and they probably would not have given it a second thought until they began to compare the dates and find that she had been at Nassau on the same day the casino was robbed.

  But if I went the other way—south—further into the islands, no one would be asking me anything.

  I remembered, in leafing through the guide, that there had been some mention of a mail boat leaving once or twice a week for a round of the out-islands. I did not want to attract attention at the shop by going back again—they might have remembered seeing me there with Grogan—so I cut back along Bay Street to the Prince George Dock. There were several big cruise ships tied up there with a steady flow of sunburned tourists coming and going, and a lot of little native sloops anchored offshore, their decks knee-deep in pigs, kids, Coca Cola bottles, and crates of tomatoes. At the far end of the pier, pretty well hidden by the seagoing monsters around it, was a kind of scruffy-looking motor vessel about fifty feet long. Its dark green paint was peeling off and even from a distance the smell was enough to curl your hair. I figured it was probably the mail boat. It was. They agreed to take me to Highbourne Cay, about halfway down the Exuma chain, for ten dollars. I emptied my pockets and showed the skipper that I had exactly eight fifty. He agreed to take me for eight, leaving me with fifty cents. He asked if I had any luggage and I told him I was standing in it.

  The mailboat was named Cockburn Queen. This was a name that afforded the passengers a lot of amusement and, since she was a very old boat, had apparently done so for a good many years. There were about fifteen passengers besides myself, all of them black, bound home to the islands after a buying spree on New Providence. Most had come provided with food and drink. When they saw that I had nothing, they were very generous about sharing. Since I had eaten nothing but bananas for the past two days, I must have wolfed down the equivalent of three loaves of bread in the hour or so before our departure.

  We sailed at last, on the tide. The big old diesel had plenty of thrust, but it shook that boat like a dog with a rat. All conversation came to a standstill since the only way anyone could have been heard above the roar of the diesel would have been with a bullhorn.

  I was very glad to be moving. For one thing I could hardly believe my good luck at getting away from Nassau without so much as a hard look from a policeman, and for another the stench that inhabited the old tub was soon carried aft by the sea breezes. We thundered along at about seven knots past Salt Cay and Sapphire Cay and Porgee Rock and a lot of other equally pretty places, but I saw nothing of them because I was asleep. The weariness and excitement of the past couple of days hit me like a club. I lay down on the deck and closed my eyes and when I opened them again there was nothing to be s
een but a cloudy night sky and the running lights of an occasional vessel.

  At dawn we were passing over the Yellow Bank and it was a little scary because of the way the coral heads grew up from the bottom like giant mushrooms. The Cockburn Queen’s skipper plunged straight ahead and I could swear that at times we had no more than six inches of water under our keel. I wondered if Jezebel had come this way and if so how Harry had managed, without a lookout, to thread his way between the heads.

  Since there was nothing I could do about it in any case, and since I had eaten the last of my bananas, I went back to sleep.

  By noon we were approaching the first islands of the Exuma chain, and I sat up on the bow hoping to catch a glimpse of Jezebel’s masts. As we went down the chain of islands I did see a couple of sailboats here and there, but none had her peculiarly raked spars.

  Shortly before dark we came to Highbourne Cay and that was where the skipper put me off. He said that was as close as he came to the area I was interested in, and in any case that was as far as my fare would take me.

  I stepped out onto the rickety dock and watched the Cockburn Queen depart. Miserable old tub that she was, I hated to see her go. I was lonely and hungry and as the night wind came up I began to feel cold. The only sign of habitation was a house far up on the hill about a mile off, and there was no light showing from it. There was the beginning of a road and a mass of rusty junk that might once have been a tractor. A bunch of old oil drums lay scattered at the base of the pier. I went over and thumped them, thinking that if they still contained fuel it might indicate that boats stopped there, but they were empty. The only good thing was that I found two coconuts washed up on the beach near the drums. They seemed pretty old, but I broke them open and got a little meat out of them and a few swallows of coconut milk. After that I sat down and waited to see what would happen.

  CHAPTER 24

  AT MIDNIGHT A LIGHT WENT ON IN THE HOUSE on the hill. At first I thought it was a star, but it was too yellow for that and it flickered the way a kerosene light will. I had been sleeping and it was just luck that I saw the light. It was on for about ten minutes and then went out. At least I knew I was not alone on the island.

  I wanted to start up the hill right then, but it would be a bad time to come crunching in on somebody. In addition, there was no moon. Even if there was a road, I could not have found it. So I sat there and shivered and dozed through the rest of the night.

  I was up at first light and climbing the hill. The house was further away than I had thought, and I was glad I had not attempted it at night. The road soon petered out to nothing more than a track. I was very thirsty. Wild orchids bloomed along the way. Far below I could see the surf beating on the reefs.

  The house had looked imposing from a distance, but as I approached I could see that it was rundown and the windows were broken. It was hard to believe anybody really lived there, but I was sure I had seen a light. Then I saw a couple of chickens and I knew that chickens did not grow wild.

  The door hung crazily from broken hinges. I banged on it a couple of times and heard movement inside, and then a very old black man came to meet me. He wore nothing but a pair of dungarees, and his body was covered with white fuzz. He was bent over with age, but his shoulders and arms were still immense. He said nothing, only stared at me in amazement. I asked if I could have a drink of water, and he pointed to a tin dipper hanging from the side of a well at the corner of the house. I let down the bucket and brought up some water that did not look too healthy. Since it was obviously the only source of water in the place, I could not afford to be too particular. I gestured toward him with the dipper but he shook his head. I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was a deaf mute.

  Then he spoke in a voice that rumbled out of his chest like the roll of drums. “I am Gideon Albury.”

  “Glad to know you, Mr. Albury. I’m Clay Bullmore.”

  “What is your purpose here on Highbourne Cay?” That was the way he spoke, like some Shakespearean actor but with the soft Bahamian accent that is almost like music.

  “Well I’m just looking around.”

  He seemed to find that an acceptable answer and nodded without comment.

  “You haven’t seen a blue thirty-five-foot ketch named Jezebel, have you?”

  “It would be most difficult to make out the name of a passing vessel from here.”

  I could see what he meant. From up there on the hill the sea spread out on both sides like a great flat sheet of metal and to the southeast I could see a whole chain of islands. Many miles off to the west I could make out the grayish wedge of sail that marked a passing Bahamian sloop.

  “How did you arrive?” said the old man.

  “I came in on the mailboat yesterday afternoon.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “To be alone at your age is difficult. At mine it is a pleasure. Come into the house, Mr. Bullmore.”

  There was nothing much inside. An old bed, one chair, a cooking pot, some dishes. And books. This old man was a great reader. No radio. Obviously no fear that he might know anything about the casino. Anyway he wasn’t nosy. Asked me no questions about myself. Just talked nicely and quietly about the Exumas, the changes in the weather, fishing, his two chickens, the land developers who had tried to chop up his island into building lots and had gone broke, people on the neighboring cays, an American woman named Hester Soames on Rumbullion Cay, and so forth.

  I said, “I’m looking for this boat…”

  He nodded, his bright old eyes searching mine.

  “My uncle is on it and we got separated somehow and I think he’s in this general area. Maybe there is a skiff or something that I could use to take a look around some of the cays.”

  “I have a skiff,” he said. “A little sailing skiff.”

  “Could you take me around? Could I rent your boat for a few days?”

  “Rent?”

  “Well, you know, pay you whatever you think it’s worth. I don’t have any money with me right now but I have this watch…” I unstrapped Mr. Burger’s gold watch and held it out to Albury. He examined it carefully and said, “A beautiful timepiece.”

  “I know.”

  “Too expensive to be exchanged for the use of my little skiff. And furthermore I have no use for a watch here. I go to bed with the sun. In any case, have I asked you for money?”

  “No, but…”

  “You will be my guest, Mr. Bullmore.”

  He was very courteous. A really beautiful old man. I wondered where he had come from with his books and fine manners and what he was doing living there alone, but I thought it better not to ask. I was beginning to appreciate the fact that there were people who did not ask me questions, and I thought it only right to return the favor. He gave me some biscuits and cheese and coffee. Although he urged me to take more I refused, since I could see that he was obviously short of supplies. He watched me eat, but ate only a couple of biscuits himself. When I had finished he said, “We can start looking for your boat now, if you like.”

  “That would be fine, sir.”

  He had me doing it too. He had such immense dignity and beautiful manners, that old man, that he soon had me talking like some character out of an old English movie.

  He led the way down a path through the brush between all sorts of flowering things and clouds of big white butterflies. Back in there we were sheltered from the sea breeze and the sun was murderously hot.

  “You should be wearing a hat, Mr. Bullmore,” he said.

  “I know. I left it on my uncle’s boat.”

  “Perhaps we can find you something in the skiff.”

  The skiff was typically Bahamian—unpainted, crudely built out of native woods and obviously very strong. It was moored in a small lagoon at the base of the hill. We waded out to it and climbed over the gunwale. The old man dug around among some rope and other junk in the forward part and found an old straw hat for me. It was a little too big, so he tied a piece of
twine over the top and then under my chin.

  Mr. Albury got up the tattered, baggy old sails and tacked out of the lagoon against the incoming tide. He did it all so easily and beautifully that you had to think twice about it to realize how much skill was involved. Considering the kind of equipment they have, all the Bahamians are tremendous sailors. By rights those tubby, old, shoal draft boats with their sloppy rigs should not sail at all, but somehow they do. I should think it would give most of the high-powered modern yacht designers an awful pain in the neck just to see one go by.

  When we had cleared the lagoon, he explained the situation to me. There were any number of islands ahead of us stretching southeast for more than a hundred and fifty miles. Unless we wanted to spend a year or two at it, we could not search them all. Since I had mentioned Wardrick Wells and Galliot Cay, which lay about twelve miles southeast, we could start off in that direction and see what turned up. I said I hated to be such a bother to him, and he said he had been looking forward to a cruise anyway. He had not been down to see his friend Miss Hester in a long time, and it would be a good opportunity for a little visit.

  The islands were blue and hazy in the distance and the water was unbelievably clear, shading off from a sort of milky color over the flats to light green and then dark blue in the channels. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. Back up on the hill Mr. Albury’s house was no bigger than a white dot.

  The little sloop moved along at a steady pace and by twelve o’clock we were halfway to Rumbullion Cay. Mr. Albury gave me two biscuits and half a cup of water from a wooden cask. He took nothing for himself. Rumbullion Cay began to shape up in the distance. I could see a low, flat-roofed house on the point facing toward us. Mr. Albury said that if there were any strange boats in the area Miss Hester would probably know about them. She lived alone on the island and from her point she would see almost any vessel taking the inside passage north or south. Of course, Harry might have gone by in the dark—if in fact he had come this way at all—but Mr. Albury said it would certainly be worthwhile to stop to talk to Miss Hester, and I agreed.