The Devil on Chardonnay (19 page)

Chardonnay wasn’t easy to remount from open water.  Even on this calm night, 4-foot swells raised her to what seemed an awesome height to those helpless in the sea.  Boyd failed in his first attempt to lift Wolf onto the transom.  Dropping then, it nearly pushed both of them below the surface.  Boyd waited for the next one and pushed Wolf onto the transom at the low point of the cycle and it lifted him effortlessly from the water.  Shivering, the big man was helped by the swarthy Portuguese onto the deck.  Boyd climbed up unaided. 

Neville St. James wore a shoulder holster with a 9 millimeter automatic securely snapped into it.  He engaged the engine and Chardonnay began to move again as Boyd passed by, carrying the flag beacon and life jackets.

“Stay forward for now,” Neville said quietly.  “We don’t need n’more trouble.”

Candido and his cousin Manuel also wore sidearms. 

Glancing back from the door of the doghouse, Boyd appreciated the logic in the design of the ship.  The crew’s section, the aft third, included the wheel, engine room, a separate entrance to their quarters and the galley.  Uncertainty can arise at sea, especially with Mikki Meilland on board.  Neville was right to take charge.

Donn lay on the settee with ice in a wet towel on his mouth.  He lay still, but his eyes followed Wolf.  Mikki and Pamela pulled the dining table away from the bench seat.  Wolf sat, grimacing in pain, dripping wet.  A dinner fork deformity of his right wrist was obvious as he supported it at waist level with his left hand.  He nodded to his left shoulder as Boyd descended the stairs. 

“It’s dislocated,” Wolf said plaintively, looking pitiful there in his helpless bulk.  “I hit the water holding the other arm, it went back, over my head.” 

He grimaced again, remembering the pain.

“Neville!” Mikki called, and Boyd could see the little girl, scared, calling for the big strong captain who had always been there to make the world safe for her.

Neville appeared at the top of the stairs.  He stooped and looked into the saloon, but didn’t descend.  He said nothing.

“Wolf’s shoulder is dislocated.  Can you put it back?”

“No, Mikki.  I’ll be stayin’ up here for now.  Your friends need to stay down there while we straighten things out.” 

The prospect of the two big guys having a go at each other, or maybe one of the crew, was clearly motivating a high degree of caution.

“Someone!”  Wolf looked around the room, pale, shivering, miserable.

Nobody moved.

“I can do it.”  A muffled voice came from the bloody towel over Donn’s mouth.  He sat up.  “Lie back.  Pam, hold the other arm for him.”

Wolf lay supine as Pam took over the support of the broken right forearm.

Dropping the towel, Donn revealed a hideously lacerated, swollen mouth.  He stood painfully upright and stepped across the room, his pale torso showing the round purple bruises of body blows.

“Hold my hand and relax,” he said, as he knelt beside Wolf.

He clasped his fingers with Wolf’s left hand, and the two sat quietly, holding each other’s gaze.  Donn placed his right hand gently behind the huge shoulder as he held Wolf’s left hand motionless.  Wolf had no choice but to trust. 

“My roommate in, ah, college, used to dislocate his shoulder all the time,” Donn said, slowly bringing Wolf’s hand off his abdomen where he’d held it rigidly since releasing the right arm to Pamela.

“Are you going to pull it?”  Wolf asked, sounding afraid.

“No.  I’m just going to move your hand slowly out.  The shoulder should go back in.”

For five minutes they were nearly motionless, the ever so slow elevation of Wolf’s hand was like motion on a Ouija board.  Silence was broken only by the occasional rush as Chardonnay hit a small swell and threw spray over the moonlit Atlantic.

Boyd wrestled a new demon.  Rage had left him shaking, even now, dry and in warm clothes.  Raging, brute hatred had driven him like a berserk machine.  He’d not been in control.  Now, sitting here in awe of what had happened to him, he realized a bigger evil had set it up.  Just to watch.

Mikki sat with her back to the corner of the settee, eyes bright.  Boyd forced himself to look back at Wolf and Donn.  The shoulder reduced with an audible snap as the muscles, stretched painfully by the dislocation, pulled the humeral head back into the socket.

************

“Africa is where the new fortunes will be made,” Mikki said earnestly, drawing an outline of the Dark Continent on a napkin.

Behind her, the masts of sailboats bobbed in the anchorage of the Yacht Club in Bermuda.

Boyd nodded, feigning disinterest.  He’d been unaware, until the past two days, of the range of inducements a female could use to attract a male.  He’d resisted smiles, glances, sighs, brushes, glimpses of body parts, everything but a verbal invitation to join Mikki in her cabin.  Now, with the others gone to take Wolf and Donn to the doctor, he’d allowed them to be alone for the first time, and she was all business. 

“Why do you care?”  He was genuinely interested in why a wealthy woman, already possessing a fortune, would want to work for more.

“Meilland Freres will belong to my cousin.  I will not be a part of it when my grandfather dies.  He is very old.  I want to have my own bank.”

“In Africa?”

“No, of course not.  Meilland Freres has handled the affairs of businesses in Africa for many companies.  The principals do not live in Africa.”

Boyd let his eyes flick behind Mikki to see the ships at anchor and the yachtsmen carrying their provisions aboard on little carts.

“Gold, oil, minerals and diamonds lay openly available in Africa.  They are mined by the laborers, refined in the industrial centers and exported to the world market.  All the financial arrangements are made in Europe.  Africa has made Luxembourg rich,” she said, apparently annoyed at his lack of interest.

“Gold?”  His eyes were back on Mikki.

“Yes, of course. Cash is needed to buy the ore, pay the miners and extract the gold.  Profits must be retained in liquid form to buy gold coming from the small producers in Africa.  The price could drop.  That would be disastrous.”

His interest seemed to increase the rate of her speech.  He wrinkled his brow.

“Europeans have the monopoly in gold, diamonds, copper and other minerals,” she continued. “They contract with the governments of South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Kenya and Namibia to buy minerals produced there.  Governments keep the penalty high for those attempting to buy outside the system.  Our bank handles huge amounts of rands and Mozambican meticals, Congolese francs, Namibian dollars and Angolan kwanzas, as well as fund transfers of dollars and pounds.  The cash is to buy from the small producers and to bribe the government officials.”

Boyd nodded, but expressed no further interest.

She lowered her lids and said softly, “I will need a strong man to help me.  I will take my inheritance this year.  My grandfather wants me to start another Meilland bank.  I will have clients in Africa.” 

She looked up, then asked, “Will you join me?”

“Why me?  You know nothing about me.”

“You are honest.  You are strong.  That is what I need.  I have accountants who add the figures.”

“What about Wolf?”

“Wolf is a dear friend,” she said, as if he had just died.  Then she added, “He works for my grandfather.”

“You seem to be lovers with Donn. He’s my boss.  That could be a problem.”

“I have many lovers.  Donn is a dear friend.  It would not be a problem if you worked at my bank.”

“I’m not so sure working at banks is my field.  A lot of this numbers stuff is dull,” Boyd said, eyes scanning the horizon for the sails of yachts that might have been a few hours behind theirs.

“That is not what I would wish for you to do.  Do you remember our talk on the island we visited?”  She was smiling now, with a conspiratorial glint.  “The primordium?”

“Yes.”

“Africa is dark and primordial.  There are dangers there.  The risks make the rewards greater for the winners.”

“With modern mining techniques and equipment, and political stabilization, the risks should be less than before,” he said off-handedly.

“There are some factors that may give us an advantage.  You Americans call it an edge.  Things might not be as stable as some would wish.”

“Oh?”  Boyd asked innocently.

“Some businessmen have grown old and fat.  Their heirs are lazy.”

“Does any of this have to do with your trip to the states?” Boyd asked, deciding on a whim to try for better information.  Instantly he saw it was a mistake.

“I’ve wanted to cross the Atlantic.  It was the only time Chardonnay was available.  I have no interest in anything there.” 

Annoyed, she stubbed out her cigarette and left the table.

*********

“She was naked when she came on deck,” Donn said, slurring the words through his newly stitched mouth.  He shook his head in disbelief. 

“You’ve surely seen your share of naked women, including her,” Boyd said, teasing Donn now that it was clear he was going to recover and keep virtually all his teeth. 

“It was my watch, midnight 'til dawn.  I was aft, watching the bubbles come up in the wake.  I turned around and she was there.  She looked like a ghost in the moonlight.  I 'bout jumped over the rail.”

Their beers arrived.  Boyd drained the last sip of his first and pushed the empty wine glass Mikki had used toward the waiter.  She had just caught a cab in front of the bar in Hamilton, Bermuda, going to the hospital to arrange for Wolf to be admitted overnight for the reduction of his fractured arm under general anesthesia.  Pamela and Neville had remained with Wolf. 

“She said she couldn’t sleep.  She wanted to do it, right there on the deck.  I said I had the watch, couldn’t we wait.  She purred and rubbed around just like a cat, you know, when they want something.”

“Yeah,” Boyd responded warily, amused, yet realizing he was seeing something that had far bigger implications.  She’d been hanging around him for two days since the fight. 

“She wanted to go up to the bow, to that bowsprit.”

“Yeah?”

“She looked like one of those carved naked ladies on old ships, hanging out over the water.”  He laughed, and the pain cut him short. 

“So, there you were …”

“I guess a lot of guys have fantasized about doing something like that, with the ship rising and falling, splashing through the waves.  It was weird.”

“That’s when Wolf came up?”

“Yeah, and was he mad.”

“He thought she was his honey.  Didn’t she tell you that?”

“She said he was just the help, not to take him seriously.”

“She forgot to make that point with Wolf.”

“I can see that so clearly now,” Donn said, pausing to look at his beer.  Then he asked softly, “Why did you jump in to save him?”

Boyd could see the dark water and the surprise on Wolf’s face as he hit it and sank out of sight.  In a moment, the sum of 35 years of hopes and strivings and labors sank into the North Atlantic.  The knife had only been a prudent man’s effort to have a last chance in a tough world where losers were just that – losers.

“That was me in the water,” Boyd said simply.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Jahazi Coffee House

Raybon scanned the street carefully, walking past the coffeehouse to a street vendor and stopping suddenly to see whether he were being followed.  The heat of a midday sun beat down, and there were few on the street.  He crossed the street and ducked into the coffeehouse.  Aarif, his Arab friend and business partner was already there, at the table in the back they had occupied only two weeks before.

“Greetings old friend,” Aarif said, standing to accept the obligatory facial touching of friends and close associates.  They sat and tea appeared immediately.  The waitress, a young black woman, placed napkins at each place and a tray with a steaming teapot in the center of the table.  There was a thick envelope beneath Raybon’s napkin.

“That was a refreshing rain yesterday,” Aarif said. “My garden enjoyed it.”

“Allah be praised,” Raybon said as Aarif poured his tea.  “Your garden is the finest in town.”

“You are kind.  My humble efforts have been blessed with success.  Allah be praised.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the street.

 “Our business has recovered.”

“I’ve discouraged troublesome visitors as a sign to your friends.”

“They have noticed.”

Raybon had landed on Mtwapa Creek the night before and unloaded 50 cases of Scotch whisky into a barge.  Aarif paid him for the booze, but he never touched it, or the money that Raybon received. The money always was handed to him by someone else. 

“I have asked some friends about jihadists in Sudan.  It seems that they are there, quite a few of them.  They are there to fight over a swamp.”  Aarif frowned as he said this.

“A swamp?”  Raybon recalled that Oyay had told Davann that the Arabs wanted to drain a swamp to divert the White Nile to Egypt.

“Yes.  The Al Sud swamp in South Sudan.  It is the homeland of several African tribes.”

“Is that part of jihad?”  Raybon was pushing Aarif into a corner, philosophically.

Aarif didn’t answer.  He sipped his tea and looked out at the street.  Several minutes passed.

“Islam is based on the same forgiving scriptures you Christians follow.  We call you followers of the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, Ahl-Al-Kitab, People of the Book.  It is written that Muslims must respect what is their neighbor’s, especially if the neighbor is a fellow Muslim or Ahl-Al-Kitab.  The tribes who have lived on the Al Sud since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and the peace of Allah be upon him, are followers of the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him.  Taking their land is an act of thievery and forbidden by the Holy Qur’an.”

“Then why are jihadists there?”

“Some Muslims take a very narrow view of the Holy Qur’an.”  Aarif was squirming a bit now, uncomfortable.  “They label as kafir anyone who doesn’t agree with their narrow definition of Islam.  Once labeled kafir, or nonbeliever, a person can be persecuted by any good Muslim.  We moderate Muslims label as kafir only those who refuse to accept the dominion and authority of Allah, the one true God.”