Gone Bamboo (18 page)

32

T
he four of them had gone drinking the night before - a prolonged bar crawl from one side of the island to the other, winding up at Henry and Frances's hotel, where they did tequila shots in the empty bar and went skinny-dipping in the rain in the teardrop-shaped pool. Tommy's last memory was of throwing up into a hibiscus bush before Henry, Frances, and Cheryl loaded him into the rear end of his pickup and drove him back to Charlie's house.

"I want to die," he muttered now, sweating alcohol in the early afternoon sun. "I can't believe you do this all the time."

"Have a beer," said Frances from the chaise lounge next to him, stubbing out a cigarette in a half-eaten croissant. "You'll feel better."

They'd gone for what Henry and Frances called the hangover cure at the Grand Case Beach Club: rented chaises, Bloody Marys, and fat joints of Henry's hydroponic weed on a beach crowded with young Frenchmen. French waitresses brought them food and drinks and adjusted their beach umbrellas to keep their heads in the shade. Frances even arranged for massages, administered under a tamarind tree near the bar by a breasty Afrikaner who hummed along with French pop songs from a portable radio while she worked.

Henry tucked into a plate of stuffed crab backs with both hands, looking completely unbothered by the vast amounts of liquor Tommy had seen him consume the night before. It was twelve-fifteen in the afternoon, and he was already, by Tommy's count, into his fourth beer - this
after
a Bloody Mary and two joints. Frances, too, looked no worse for wear. She was on her third beer after a hearty breakfast, and unlike Cheryl, who was collapsed into her chaise, a wet towel over her forehead, she was fairly animated, petting a scraggly-looking dog with a limp who'd wandered down the beach and had seemed to recognize her and speculating on the private lives of the swimmers.

"Who's the fat guy with the girl from La Ronda?" she wondered out loud, noticing a balding, barrel-chested American embracing a thick, dark-skinned woman in the shallow water.

"The John?" asked Henry, sitting up in his chair. "I haven't seen him around. Doesn't look like a tourist - he's too tan."

"She's a prostitute?" asked Cheryl, lifting a corner of wet towel so she could see. When she saw Violetta's slightly hunched laborer's body, held tenderly afloat in Kevin's longshoreman arms, she looked disappointed, having expected, no doubt, a more exotic figure.

"You know that big clapboard place by the dirt road on the way to Philipsburg?" said Frances.

"Yeah."

"That's La Ronda," said Frances. "It's a whorehouse. Not a bad place, actually. They've got a pool table, and they play good merengue. We used to go there a lot. The yachties used to go slumming there until the pool table warped. We'll take you sometime."

"That's okay," muttered Tommy.

"The guy with the big arms is a customer?" asked Cheryl, becoming interested.

"That would be my guess," offered Henry.

"E
wwww
," said Cheryl, making a face. "I don't care
how
much you paid me . . ."

"He's not that bad," interjected Frances. "At least he's nice. He took her to the beach. Look. He really seems to like her."

Violetta was out of the water now, Kevin running ahead for her towel. When she sat down on the blanket, he dried her back and kissed her shoulders, and when she turned and dried his hair like a child at bathtime, he closed his eyes and grinned with pleasure.

"See the marks on her calves and ankles?" said Henry.

"Yeah?" said Cheryl.

"Cane cutter. You get those marks cutting sugarcane in the fields. From a machete. That's a woman who's done some hard, hard work in her life."

"I guess next to that what she's doing now isn't so bad," said Cheryl hopefully.

"Look at the big galoot with her," said Frances. "He's in love."

Kevin lay down next to Violetta, wrapped his Popeye arms around her waist, and went to sleep.

"Men are such babies," said Cheryl. "They all want their mommies."

"You got that right," said Frances, expressionless behind her dark glasses. "And regular blow jobs."

33

T
here must be a million a' these fuckin' things in here!" complained Richie Tic. He tore another fragrance strip out of the new
Vanity Fair
and placed it neatly on the growing stack in front of Jimmy.

Jimmy took a cautious sniff, wrinkled his nose, and crumpled the cardboard strip into a little ball before tossing it into a trash can in the corner of the small, wood-paneled trailer office.

"Try this one," suggested Richie, yanking loose another one.

"This is nice," said Jimmy, taking an appreciative whiff. He licked the strip and wiped the cardboard surface on both sides of his jowly neck. "I like it. What's that one called?"

"Compulsion," answered Richie, already examining the photo layout next to another strip. "What about this? What's 'is cowboy shit? Smells like my fuckin' car? What's 'at, leather?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Jimmy, dismissively. "You wanna smell like you a cowboy from fuckin' Queens you wear that. Lookit the pitcher there - that little prick with the suntan. He don't look like nothin' you wanna smell like. Nice fuckin' hat." He laughed. "Can you see that guy walkin' around, that hat on his head in this neighborhood? Guys would be pissin' all over themselves laughin'."

"I'm a Rhinestone Jewboy," sang Richie, snorting with laughter.

The phone rang, three times. Jimmy looked over at Paulie Brown, who was deeply engrossed in a
Cosmo
sex quotient test on the leatherette couch.

"Hey, fuckwad. Get the phone," Jimmy commanded.

Paulie heaved himself up and got the phone. After a few impassive grunts, he put the receiver down and gave Jimmy the bad news.

"That was the fellow from the casino down there. You know, Jerry's guy?" he said.

"So? Whadduz he say?"

"He says he ain't seen Little Petey for three days. He says he ain't been in his room and his car's gone. He says he's worried and he wants to know what he should do."

Jimmy's thick eyebrows knitted together, and he began tapping his hairy fingers on the desk. The dark, double-breasted suit he was wearing started to shake, and out of his mouth came a sound that began as a low growl and quickly developed into a piercing, high-pitched wail, continuing without break as he first tore the heart out of
Vanity Fair,
then cleared his desk of everything on it with a sweep of his arm. He punched his desk lamp, sending it bouncing off the wall into Paulie's head. Then Jimmy, his head snapping this way and that, like a hyperactive tortoise, settled on a small end table covered with magazines as his next target. He kicked it across the room, knocking over a floor lamp and showering both Richie and Paulie with broken glass from a framed picture of Ava Gardner on the wall. Paulie brushed the bits of glass off his shoulders like he was ridding himself of some dandruff, a thin trickle of blood coming down from a tiny cut on his forehead. He stood there, frozen and expressionless, waiting for Jimmy's tantrum to end.

"SonofaBITCH!" screamed Jimmy, getting his second wind. "MotherFUCKING SONofaBITCH!" He slammed his fists into the desktop, put his foot into a metal filing cabinet, denting it badly, then looked around the room for something else to hit. There was nothing. The trailer rocked on its cinder-block supports as Jimmy paced back and forth, the sounds coming from between his clenched teeth resembling nothing human. Richie had managed to work himself down in his chair, a copy of Italian
Vogue
held tentlike over his head.

When Jimmy finally sat down, Richie tried to mollify him with a hopeful scenario.

"Maybe . . . maybe the guy's just gone native a few days," he suggested. "You know, shacked up with some hooer . . . or maybe he done it and he hadda like lay low for a while. That could happen."

"He's gone," said Jimmy, eyes wet and black. "He's fuckin' gone. You can't see that? You can't see that, you can't see nothin'." He pondered things for a minute, Paulie and Richie waiting expectantly.

"You. You're goin' down there," he said, looking at Paulie.

"But, you said—" Paulie started.

"Fuck what I said. You goin' down there. Tomorrow."

"My wife—"

"FUCK your wife!" screamed Jimmy, his face turning the color of rare liver. "Get down there and straighten out that fuckin' Irishman. Find out what HIS fuckin' problem is . . . I can't . . . I can't get nothin' done . . . It's un-fuckin'-believable." He reflected for another moment. "See that he gets that other thing done first. And fast.
Then.
Then see that that hippie fuck who stiffed me for my money gets done too. If he can't get it done, then you do it! I'm sick a' the whole fuckin' lotta youse. I had enough a' this shit. This fuckin' mick down there takin' a fuckin' vacation or somethin'. I want some fuckin' action. Soon as that rat gets done . . . you see that the other one goes. I had enough."

"I bringin' somebody along or what?" asked Paulie.

"What? Who you gonna bring? You gonna bring Benny, Teddy, D.P.? Who? They all been called up the gran' jury. They gonna go buyin' airplane tickets NOW? What's the matter with you? You fuckin' retarded? I think you fuckin' retarded . . . 'My wife, my wife.' You better get yer fuckin' head screwed on straight, Paulie, or I gonna take it off an' shit in it."

"I got a subpoena too," said Paulie. "I got the same problem."

"That's right. You got the same problem. Same problem as me. Benny, Teddy, they don't fuckin' work for me. You do. It's your ass hangin' out there too, scumbag. So fuckin' do somethin' about it an' stop bawlin' about your fuckin' wife for a fuckin' change. Pussy-whipped . . ."

"I could go. I don't mind," said Richie.

Jimmy gave him a fierce look and raised a hand as if to slap him. Richie cowered almost imperceptibly. "You listening to me? D'you hear what I just said? I said HE'S going. Him. You, I need around here." To Paulie, he said, "Get goin'. I'm sick a' fuckin' lookin' at you."

When Paulie had gone, Richie began picking up the mess, crawling on hands and knees under the desk to get the magazines and fragrance strips scattered by Jimmy's outburst.

Jimmy, beginning to relax behind the desk, loosened his tie and said, "Hey, cupcakes - while you down there . . ."

34

T
he sound of deep water chopping against the hull, the squeaking of the lines as Henry let out the mainsheet a bit more, the snapping of sails as they filled with wind, winch cranking; these would have been happy sounds under other circumstances, but this was business. Henry scrutinized the waters around Isle Forchue from the mizzen deck of the seventy-three-foot Irwin, looking for other boats. Directly off the line of the bow, the island stood, barren looking and curiously uninviting, the choppy seas white around its rocky shoreline.

There were- mercifully, no other boats in Isle Forchue's one protected harbor. Henry dropped anchor and took the Irwin's powerful dinghy ashore, beaching her under some sea grape trees.

The hike to the heavy-weapons cache took around twenty minutes. Henry had no difficulty finding the spot. He took a shovel to the loose sand and soil and quickly unearthed the crate. Getting the plastic waterproofing off was a bit harder, but a while later the whole parcel had been undone. Henry unzipped his dive bag and began loading.

The Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun went in the bag first, along with eight boxes of number-four combat loads. A Car-15 and silencer went in next, for Frances. Fourteen clips of 5.56 ammunition. Seemed like a lot, but you never knew . . . Finally the Armalite. That was for Henry. He took out a darning needle and monofilament and, sitting cross-legged on the ground, carefully sewed up the waterproof wrapping before returning the remaining cache of weapons to the crate. He shoveled dirt back into the hole and raked some brush and scrub over the freshly turned soil.

Satisfied that the ground looked once more undisturbed, Flenry hoisted the dive bag over his shoulder and headed back to the sailboat. People were going to die, and he hoped, he intended, that he and Frances would not be among them. If something bad was going to happen, it would not be for lack of firepower. Prior preparation prevents - he kept repeating it over and over, like a mantra, under his breath - piss-poor performance.

He changed over to Country Joe and the Fish, God only knew why; he'd hated that song then, hated it now - "One two three . . . what are we fighting for?" - and found himself laughing out loud. There was a sudden noise from behind, and Henry fell onto his belly, his free hand reaching for the H & K at his waist.

It was a goat, hooves kicking at the rocky surface of the hill as it scrambled for distance from the horrible sound of Henry's singing voice. He was frightening the goats.

He lit a joint to calm down, his heart still racing from his close encounter with the goat. He sang all the way back to the dinghy, the sound of his own voice comforting on the lonely island.

With Henry gone for the day to get the guns, and not due back till eight or nine, Frances had invited Tommy and Cheryl to dinner at La Case d'Or in Marigot. Even the perpetually misanthropic Tommy was excited at the prospect, for it was considered the best restaurant on the island. The chef, formerly of a three-star place in New York, was said to have had a nervous breakdown and so moved to the less stressful environment of Saint Martin.

Frances picked them up in a hired car with driver, Cheryl squeezing excitedly between her and Tommy in the back seat, the smell of French perfume and new clothing filling her nose and making her nearly delirious with pleasure. They smoked a joint on the way over to Marigot, the driver playing zouk on his cassette, and watched the setting sun through tinted glass windows.

"Madame Denard!" crowed the proprietor of La Case d'Or. She was an elegantly dressed matron of sixty or so, expertly made up, her hair in a shimmering twist, a single strand of pearls around her ample neck. She proffered both cheeks to Frances in pantomime, then gave in and administered a warm, full-body embrace, and kisses that left bright red lipstick. She dabbed the lipstick off herself, fussing busily over Frances and her guests, apologizing for the damage, and signaling waiters and busboys all at the same time.

". . .
Et Monsieur Henri. Où est-il ce soir?"
she inquired.

Frances smiled warmly, and for Tommy and Cheryl's benefit, responded in English. "Business, Madame Bigard . . . He regrets . . . perhaps he'll join us later."

Madame Bigard led them past a gurgling, Florentine-style fountain, through an ivy-filled courtyard into the outer room of a restored plantation house. The floors were wide, teakwood beams stretched overhead, and in between huge floral arrangements, the naked brick walls boasted impressionistic studies of local flora and fauna. From the next room, Tommy could hear the clatter and clink of diners, the intimidating murmur of people speaking French, and, from somewhere, chamber music. As Madame Bigard charged forward with her phalanx of hostess, front waiter, wine steward, busboys, appearing from all sides, Tommy hesitated for a moment, nervously reaching up once more to touch his hair. Cheryl, next to him, dug her fingernails into his arm, holding on for dear life.

Frances, without even looking, slid her arm around Tommy's and placed her other hand on his, scarlet fingernails patting the back of his hand as she whispered into his ear. "Relax. You're with the two best-looking women in this place." She gave him a nudge, and they stepped into the dining room.

It was true, Tommy realized in a moment of complete happiness. Madame Bigard led them across the peach-hued dining room, in between tables filled with envious-looking little Frenchmen and their wives and mistresses. He was having dinner with two smashingly beautiful women. Compared with Cheryl, in her tiny black minidress, and Frances, her backless, dark green Chanel exposing a long expanse of tanned flesh, her hair up, two sizable emerald stud earrings flashing as she moved her head, green eyes looking greener than ever, the other women in the room looked like overdressed crones.

Their table was right on the water. Underwater lights illuminated the coral below, and dark shapes of fish scooted about, breaking the surface with sudden splashes.

"Martinis okay?" inquired Frances. "No use pretending. Let's show the flag straight off."

Helpless to resist, Tommy and Cheryl just grinned and nodded. Tommy, not a martini drinker, was swept along by the mental picture of himself and these two good-looking women, sipping martinis from chilled stem glasses. Who cared if he hated gin; James Bond drank martinis, and that was just who he felt like now. Time slipped by as if in a dream, and soon they were all having seconds, then thirds, Tommy growing more and more relaxed, now smelling food and thoroughly enjoying himself. He found his eyes returning repeatedly to the low cut of Frances's dress, fascinated by the way her chest rose and fell with her breathing. He gazed longingly at the junction where her neck met the emerald earrings, studied her lips as she ordered wine. He was watching the lips move, not listening, fascinated by the way Frances's expression changed from moment to moment; one second coquettish, another, deadly serious, moving from laughter to mimicry to seduction in the blink of an eye.

Cheryl, though just as delighted with the surroundings, was not oblivious to Tommy's sudden interest in Frances. When she spoke to him for the third time and received no reply, Cheryl reached under the table and tightened her hand around Tommy's nuts. Just short of causing him to yelp, she released him.

He looked at her, expecting a reproach. But something strange and marvelous happened: to his astonishment, she laughed, Frances joining in, the two of them watching Tommy's ears redden with increasing delight.

"What am I going to do with him?" Cheryl was saying. "He has such a crush on you. It's disgusting." Her speech affected by the martinis, she said to Frances, "Look at him."

Completely unflustered, Frances extended a hand, leaning across Cheryl, and ran those fingernails gently, gently down the side of Tommy's face, the two of them watching his reaction, clearly enjoying his torment.

"It's sooooo obvious," said Cheryl.

"I'm flattered, if it's true," said Frances, somewhat charitably, Tommy thought.

"It's true," said Cheryl, sighing.

Really feeling the martinis now, Tommy just shook his head and smiled weakly. He was having too good a time to say anything. What could he say, anyway? Cheryl didn't seem pissed off, everybody was having fun, the whole dreamlike quality of the evening made even the embarrassment pleasurable. He wanted it never to end.

The smell of French cigarettes, the perfume, caramelized shallots from the next table, the barest hint of fennel and saffron wafting out of the distant kitchen, the gigantic tulips everywhere, and these two fantastic-looking women - he felt narcotized with joy.

By entree time, well into a second - or was it a third - bottle of wine, Tommy was afraid that any second he would throw caution to the winds and make a blunt and probably unrealistic sexual overture to both women. The thought of the three of them, a sweaty tangle of limbs, in his big, round bed was lurking dangerously close to vocalization. He shook his head, trying to banish the thought.

"Talking to yourself?" said Cheryl.

"Just thinking," he answered.

"He's been so quiet," said Frances, her mouth full. "Do you think we damaged him?"

"He's not broken," said Cheryl, kicking him playfully under the table with her high heel. "Yet . . ."

"At least he's eating. That's always a good sign," said Frances, mopping up sauce with a hunk of bread.

"This is great," pronounced Tommy. "This is really great." It was all he could think of to say. In his mind, he was making love to both of them, imagining an orgasm so enormous that the top of his skull would lift off like a Sputnik and bounce off the ceiling.

"He looks happy," said Cheryl.

"He's smiling," said Frances.

For dessert they all had harlequin souffles. Tommy was drizzling Grand Marnier sauce onto his plate from a silver sauceboat when he heard Madame Bigard laughing flirtatiously at the dining room entrance.

There was Henry, striding across the dining room, his arm around Madame Bigard's thick waist, lasciviously nuzzling her neck the whole way. She was shrieking with obvious delight, to the annoyance of the remaining diners. He looked like he owned the place, a possibility that occurred to Tommy as Henry grabbed an empty chair from the next table and pulled Madame Bigard roughly onto his lap.

"God!" said Cheryl. "Everybody's horny today."

Henry's suit looked like sharkskin, sharp edges at the shoulders, thin lapels, a slim metallic-blue tie. Instead of the usual chunky steel Rolex, he wore a paper-thin platinum Piaget on a narrow alligator-skin band, and the shoes, though ancient, looked expensive and well cared for. In full view of the appalled diners, Henry ran his hands over Madame Bigard's chunky thighs and into her armpits. Flushed with excitement, she held up a hand for a waiter and called for
digestifs
for the table.

"The kitchen is still open, Henri, you bad boy . . .
cochon,"
she said.
"Mange, j'insiste."

"Non,
Mimi," said Henry, leaning around to peck first Cheryl, then Frances on the cheek. "Just cognac."

When Henry's lips approached Frances, she turned her face to him and fastened her teeth on his lower lip, holding it for a full two seconds.

"Gawd!" said Cheryl, fanning herself with her napkin. "You look great!"

"Merci bien, mademoiselle,"
said Henry, charmingly. "And may I say you look pretty damned ravishing yourself." He looked perfectly at ease, leaning back in his chair, one arm slung across the back of Cheryl's chair, the other continuing to massage Madame Bigard's neck.

Tommy, unhappy with the indisputable fact that he was no longer the center of attention, ordered a double espresso, determined to sober up.

Cheryl accepted a creme de menthe from an insistent Madame Bigard, following Frances's example.

Madame Bigard was brought a snifter of cognac with Henry's, the two of them clicking glasses and exchanging chin-chins.

"How was your trip?" inquired Cheryl, still gaping at Henry's suit.

"Fine, fine," said Henry, exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Frances that no one at the table could miss. "Had the wind the whole way back."

A waiter arrived with a plate of petits fours, and Madame Bigard forced Henry to eat one, feeding him by hand, Tommy getting the idea now that this was a relationship that went back a few years - probably a lot of years. Henry looked so goddamn at ease in his sharkskin suit, the imposing-looking Frenchwoman wriggling on his lap, the whole floor staff of La Case d'Or hovering attentively while other customers paid their checks and slunk away in a huff.

"Henri knew my hoosband," said Madame Bigard, reading Tommy's mind. It seemed everybody was doing that tonight. "My hoosband . . . a very bad man." She laughed. "Like Henri . . .

"Are you a bad man too, Tommy?" she asked. "I think you must be."

"Tommy's a very nice man," said Frances, cutting him to the bone, then adding, "but he's a little bit bad, I think." She gave Tommy a piercing, flirtatious look that made his heart race. Across the table, Cheryl looked almost sorry for him.

"Do you know each other from here?" she asked, eyes on Henry.

"Non.
Marseille," said Madame Bigard. "Henri, my hoosband, they are friends . . . from business. Restaurant business. You see?" She gestured around the room. "When my hoosband die . . . Henri helped me."