A Wild and Lonely Place (21 page)

“Yes.”

“Well, Zeb, he get himself in big, and jus’so, he owe a lot of money. But he think they can’t touch him on his island. Then
this fella from the States show up, tell him to settle or else, and Zeb can’t.”

“Was the fellow Speed—Klaus Schechtmann?”

“Yeah, that the one. Anyways, Zeb work a deal with him. He sell him Jumbie Cay, and Schechtmann let him keep his house and
some land.”

“What did Schechtmann want with the island?” I was reasonably sure my information was correct, but I wanted Lash to confirm
it.

He smiled slyly as he extended his hand for the full glass Connors brought him. “It a damned good place to run a sports book
from.”

“You know for sure that’s what he’s doing?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you been to Jumbie Cay since Schechtmann bought it?”

“Sure. Zeb and me’re friends, go back a long ways. Sometimes I visit him.”

“Have you ever seen Schechtmann?”

“Uh-uh. He got a compound out on Goat Point. Never leave it.”

“What about a man named Dawud Hamid? Have you heard of him?”

Lash glanced at Connors. “Hamid. That the Arab. I hear about him, but I never see him.”

“Okay, Mr. Lash, how can I get onto Jumbie Cay without attracting the attention of the people at the compound?”

Again he glanced at Cam. “Bad idea.”

I suspected he was right, but I merely repeated the question.

He asked, “You just goin’ to the island, or you want into the compound?”

“The compound.”

“Bad,
bad
idea.”

“I’ll worry about that.”

“Sharon,” Cam said, “you ought to listen to Zeff.”

“Maybe I ought, but there’s a little girl on that island who needs my help.”

“You said she was with her father.”

“I also said that’s the wrong place for her.”

“How can you be sure?”

Good question, but I couldn’t explain to him the violent stirrings of the gut-level instinct I’d always relied on. “I
am
sure—that’s all I can tell you.”

Connors compressed his lips. After a moment he said, “Ripinsky warned me you were stubborn.”

“Too damn stubborn for her own good, maybe,” Lash muttered.

I turned toward him. “Why?”

“That compound, it got guards, army of them. They using assault weapons, AK-forty-sevens. Then there’s the Dobermans. You
ever tangle with a Doberman?”

He was trying to scare me. It worked, but I wasn’t going to back down. “Mr. Lash, for the last time—how can I get onto Jumbie
Cay?”

He spoke swiftly in French to Connors.

“What?” I snapped, fed up with their cryptic conversations.

Connors shrugged, eyes troubled. “He’s concerned for you, Sharon. So am I.”

“I’m through with arguing, Cam. If the two of you can’t help me—”

He sighed and nodded to Lash. “You better help her.”

Lash studied me for a moment. “Okay—you a good swimmer?”

“Yes.” It was the one form of exercise I really enjoyed, and recently I’d been swimming laps at the health club Adah had talked
me into joining.

“Then you get somebody to fly you there in a seaplane. Drop you off at night off Marlin Landing. There be a restaurant, Nel’s
Place. Belong to Nel Simpson, friend of mine. You swim towards the orange lights on his dock.”

“And he’ll get me into the compound?”

Lash’s lips tightened.

“Look,” I said, “the little girl’s mother was an American, and she was born on American soil; that makes her a U.S. citizen.
I don’t want to bring our State Department in on this because of some complicated circumstances surrounding it, but if I have
to, I will. That might cause trouble for your friend Zeb.”

Two two men exchanged glances that contained both reluctance and, on Connors’s part, a warning. After a moment Lash said,
“Okay, I tell Nel. Maybe he find a way to get you in there.”

“And if not?”

Lash set his glass down and spread his hands. “Then, lady, you on your own. I tell you this much: you go near that compound
without a damn good plan, for sure you gonna die.”

Black star-filled sky, blacker water. Orange lights in the distance. I’m all alone. Should be afraid, but I’m not.

Waves gentle, water warm. Soft tropic breeze against my face. My limbs are leaden. Should swim for shore, but I can’t.

I start to sink, but feel no panic. I want to lose myself in this warm darkness. The water closes over my head. Safe at last.

But what’s that?

Something floating on the surface above me, great wings spread. A giant bat.

I glide closer, look up. Not a bat, a woman. The wings are a robe billowing on the swell. And her eyes…They’re empty holes.
I can see through them, down into her soul. But there’s only darkness there.

Oh God, Mavis, your blank forever eyes
—

I jerked upright, clutching at my throat, my heart pounding. My breath came in short, harsh gasps and sweat filmed my body.
It was hideously hot. I itched from a hundred insect bites. Something had even stung the knuckle of my little finger; it felt
as if a match were being held to it. Glaring light slanted through the half-closed louvers on the window next to the bed.
I looked around at the simple furnishings, my travel bag, my discarded clothing.

After a minute my panic ebbed. I propped up the pillows, leaned back, reached for my watch where it lay on the nightstand.
One thirty-three; I’d awakened from a nightmare in the middle of the day.

Anxiety, of course, over the prospect of striking off in unfamiliar waters toward a strange place in the dark of night. Dark
of
tonight,
because I’d persuaded Cam to fly me to Jumbie Cay as soon as possible. At first he’d refused, then tried to talk me out of
it for hours after we left Zeff Lash. When he finally gave in, he said he wanted to go along. I wouldn’t allow it; his debt
was to Hy, not to me.

The dream images returned: all alone in the dark sea…

For the first time my resolve weakened. I permitted myself to wonder if I’d be doing Habiba a favor by bringing her home to
her despotic grandmother. After all, as Cam had repeatedly pointed out, Dawud Hamid
was
her father; he had a right to her. But then my uneasy feeling about Hamid returned, and I thought of Speed Schechtmann and
what might go on inside his closely guarded compound. I suspected Malika Hamid was ignorant of how Schechtmann was accustomed
to living, had only sent Mavis and Habiba with him to get them out of harm’s way at the consulate. She fully intended for
them to return to her control when the bomb threat was finally laid to rest. But now that Mavis was dead and Dawud had possession
of his daughter, I doubted he’d willingly relinquish her. Whatever control his mother once exercised over him had been severely
weakened, if not destroyed, when Habiba stepped ashore at Jumbie Cay.

My resolve firmed again. Malika Hamid might be tyrannical, but she loved Habiba and she wasn’t a criminal. Better the little
girl live with her than her father and his corrupt associates.

As Connors and I had argued into the small hours of the morning, he’d asked me why I cared so much about a child I’d only
seen twice. I simply told him that she was an exceptionally appealing little girl who deserved a chance in life, but of course
that wasn’t the half of it. From the moment I’d seen her solemn eyes regarding me over the lip of the huge urn at the consulate
I’d connected with her. From the moment she’d owned up to her loneliness I’d been solidly in her corner. I, too, had been
a lonely child.

You wouldn’t have suspected it, had you seen the McCone household during my growing-up years. Five kids—two older brothers,
me in the middle, two younger sisters. Aunts and uncles and cousins stopping in by day or night. Dogs and cats underfoot;
hamsters and gerbils escaping their cages; a pair of turkeys named Gregory Peck and—my bawdy father’s contribution—Gregory
Pecker scratching away in their pen. A gaggle of friends belonging to each of us crowding the rambling house that was constantly
in the throes of an ongoing renovation project that eventually would span two decades. How, you might ask, could anyone be
lonely in a place that resembled a beehive on a June day?

It wasn’t as difficult as it might seem. I was the middle child, and middle children are often overlooked. I wasn’t a rowdy
male ever on the brink of juvenile delinquency like John and Joey, nor was I a rebellious female ever on the brink of teenage
pregnancy like Charlene and Patsy. Instead I was the one who made no waves, was on the honor roll, made the cheerleading squad
and the prom queen’s court. Oh, there was one disgraceful episode when I was caught in a compromising position with the captain
of the swim team—now family legend, Mick claimed. But if so, it was only legendary because it involved the white sheep of
the flock. Otherwise I played it safe, as John once bitterly told me.

Always playing it safe makes for loneliness.

There was a coldness at the core of our household, too, in spite of a lot of ritualistic hugging and kissing. Pa was a chief
in the navy, often out to sea; when he retired, his sojourns in his garage workshop lengthened to the extent that he frequently
slept there on a cot. Ma was busy juggling the demands of raising five kids on a very limited budget; she had no time for
our questions or problems, and usually she put them off until they were either unimportant or critical. I suppose the emotional
vacuum was what made John drink and get into brawls and Joey go off on petty-thieving rampages. I suppose it was what made
Charlene decide to get pregnant while still in her senior year of high school and Patsy run away from home at fifteen.

I know for sure it was what made me a loner—a dreamer who spent hours by herself in the tree house in our backyard canyon.
Eventually the web of schemes I spun there would bind me more firmly within my isolation. I went off to college at Berkeley,
where I knew no one. I financed my education by taking lonely graveyard-shift security jobs. Then I moved from Berkeley to
San Francisco as soon as I graduated. If I hadn’t run into my old housemate, Hank Zahn, in front of City Hall one day, all
my college ties would have remained severed. Even when I went to work for very little money at All Souls, I refused their
offer of a rent-free room, preferring my tiny, overpriced studio apartment. I formed romantic relationships, but never let
down my guard enough to allow true intimacy.

But then I met Hy, who was shaped by a similar emotional vacuum. Together we’d made a life that worked for us.

Those years before Hy hadn’t been unhappy ones, but they’d taught me some bitter lessons; and the sum of those lessons made
me afraid for Habiba. If she remained on Jumbie Cay, she might never be in real physical jeopardy, but she might be emotionally
scarred by events no child need experience. Most certainly she would become more tightly bound within the web of isolation
she’d already begun spinning. But unlike me, she would never have the chance to break free. Her world would forever be a wild
and lonely one.

That was why I’d swim through those unfamiliar waters toward a strange place tonight. That was why I’d do my damnedest to
take her home.

* * *

The previous evening Zeff Lash had mentioned that the old man who sold Jumbie Cay to Schechtmann had an estranged daughter
living on this island. After I showered and dressed I checked the phone book, but there was no listing for a Regina Altagracia.
Of course, that didn’t have to be her name now—she might have married—and I wasn’t sure where Princes Quarter was, anyway.
Cam had gone out on an early charter and wouldn’t be back till after six, so I couldn’t ask him. As I paged through the directory
to the section for rental-car companies, though, I remembered the card Kenny had handed me yesterday when I paid my cab fare.

I called the number on the card and found the driver at home. Sure, he knew where Princes Quarter was, and he also knew Regina
Altagracia’s goat farm. “Snazzy family around here once,” he added. “No more.”

I asked him what he’d charge to take me there.

“Thirty bucks, U.S.?” He sounded so tentative that I was certain he’d doubled his usual rate.

“Fine.” After all, it was RKI’s money. “Pick me up where you left me yesterday, please. In an hour.”

I set the receiver in its cradle and calculated the time difference between here and San Francisco. It was ten-seventeen in
the morning there. Cam had told me the best way to make an international call was through an independent long-distance carrier
that accepted Visa; I punched in the number he’d written down and gave the operator the numbers for my card and for Adah Joslyn.

Joslyn’s phone rang eleven times before I hung up. No answering machine again. Had she been home at all since I last tried
to call her? Time to have someone look into the situation.

I redialed the long-distance carrier, this time giving Greg Marcus’s extension at the Hall of Justice. The call went through
quickly, and Greg’s voice came on the line as clear as if I were phoning from across town.

Not so on his end. He said, “Where’re you calling from? You sound like you’re in a tunnel.”

“I’m in the Caribbean.” To forestall questions, I added, “Long-distance minutes here are as precious as diamonds. Did you
find out anything about the people I asked you to run checks on?”

“Nothing except the gambling indictment on Schechtmann. Nothing on his wife, Ronquillo, or Newton, but plenty on Chloe Love.
She’s dead, was murdered in her apartment in Oakland’s Lake Merritt district on January twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety. That
much I got from my lady, who knew her from when they were both students at the Culinary Academy. Yesterday I called an OPD
guy who worked a couple of homicides in cooperation with me a few years back; he accessed their records on the case. Nasty
business: she was raped and strangled. Dawud Hamid was questioned about the murder—very briefly.”

My skin prickled and I gripped the receiver more tightly. “Briefly, because an attorney appeared and put a stop to the questioning
on grounds of diplomatic immunity?”