‘Maybe thirty minutes up the mountain, not far.’
The Magician looked sadly at O’Hara.
‘Thirty minutes up a mountain on a mule and he says it’s “not far”?’
They clopped uneasily up the side of the cliff on the three mules. The sheer face of the mountain dropped straight down to the path, which was barely five feet wide. Then the mountain dropped away again, into the valley, hundreds of feet below them. Wind howled around the craggy face of the cliffs, carrying the damp promise of rain, and -thunder grumbled through the spires above and below them.
‘I’m gonna have Joli’s ass this time. This time I’m really gonna, y’know, rip a nice chunk of it off and nail it on the wall over my piano.’
‘Hell, Magician, he found Danilov for us.’
‘He didn’t tell us we were gonna ride fuckin’ donkeys up the side of a mountain on a path no wider than a slab of bacon. Some sense of humour. He’s like all them goddamn frogs — perverted!’
‘He’s not a frog, Magician. He’s a Haitian.’
‘He talks frog and he acts frog and he’s perverted and that makes him a frog t’ me,’ the Magician yelled.
‘And what would you do without him?’ O’Hara yelled into the wind.
‘Sleep better at night,’ the Magician yelled back.
The mules were just ornery enough to be scary. Billy led the procession. The Magician, bitching constantly, was in the middle, with O’Hara bringing up the rear. The wind howled at them, cutting through their summer windbreakers. The path became wet and slippery and then the rain started. And then the path got even narrower. Billy broke out a flashlight, sweeping it back and forth, keeping the path in view.
To the west La Citadelle, the mountaintop fortress built by King Christophe in the early nineteenth century, brooded over the northern coast, its high, grim walls capping one of the many jagged mountains around them. It soon vanished in the swirling rain and fading light.
They climbed higher.
The Magician passed the time griping about Joli while O’Hara preoccupied himself by thinking about Lizzie, about how soft and warm she had been in Montego Bay and how eagerly she had jumped at the chance to work with Izzy on the code while they were gone. The lady pulled her weight, no doubt about that. Thinking about her helped pass the time.
Forty-five minutes of hard riding through the storm brought them to the end of the trail, a tiny plateau protected only by a low earthen wall. Wind and rain lashed them. There was a hitching rail for the animals, room for the three mules and the three of them and not much more.
O’Hara looked up. The cliff disappeared up into the fog.
‘Now what?’ the Magician said woefully. ‘Do we fly the rest of the way?’
There was a bell attached to the face of the cliff and Billy rang it several times before a voice called down from above.
‘Oui? Qui est la?
‘C’est mol— Billy,’ the guide yelled back.
‘Ah, oui, Billee. Un instant.’ A moment later a thick rope dangled down from the darkness above with a basket attached to it. Above the basket was a loop of rope, like the strap in a subway.
‘Who will be first?’ Billy asked and he smiled for the first time.
‘We’re going up the rest of the way in that?’ the Magician exclaimed with alarm.
‘Oui,’ said Billy.
‘I’ll go second,’ the Magician said, hunching his shoulders against the wind and rain. ‘Or maybe I’ll wait here.’
‘A little nervous?’ O’Hara asked.
‘Sailor, I’m scared shitless,’ he said.
‘I will go up first,’ the gangly Haitian said. ‘So they will know everything is in order.’ He gave the flashlight to O’Hara and got in the basket, sitting on his knees and holding the rope strap with both hands.
‘Allez-y! he called to the man above and a moment later the basket rose into the darkness.
‘Allez, my ass,’ the Magician said. ‘What am I doin’ here, anyway?’
‘You told me you were bored and wanted to perk your life up. This is called perking things up.’
‘It’s called freezing things off, that’s what it’s called.’ He stared grimly up into the darkness, listening to the rope groaning and the slow, steady click of the pulley above.
Then the pulley stopped clicking. A few seconds later Billy yelled down, ‘Allez donc! Come up. It is safe.’
‘Merci,’ O’Hara yelled back.
The swing basket dropped out of the darkness. O’Hara helped the Magician into it. The musician clutched the rope handle and clung to the rope. His knuckles were white, his eyes squeezed shut. ‘Things aren’t bad enough, we had to pick the goddamn monsoon season for this gig!’ he cried. His voice was lost to the winds as the basket, buffeted about, was hefted into the rain and strobe-lit by the lightning that zigzagged above the mountain.
When the basket was lowered the third time, O’Hara settled into it and whistled through his fingers. He felt himself being drawn slowly up the cliffside. As he neared the top he could hear the steady clinking of the ratchet pulley. The basket was being raised and lowered like a bucket in a well.
