Parker went into the aft cabin, more crowded and with a lower ceiling. In one of the closets he found a white yachting cap and a blue jacket like those worn by the two men up on deck. He stripped off his suitcoat and tie, opened his shirt collar, and put on the cap and jacket. Then he went back up on deck.
The smaller boat was just pulling alongside. Three men were in it, all young and hard-looking, wearing dungarees and T-shirts. One of them called, ‘You people lost?’
Yancy, smiling, holding his bottle and glass, called back, ‘Not us. Just out for a spin around the park.’
The trio in the other boat couldn’t be close enough to see the truth on Yancy’s face, so they’d have to think they were just looking at an amiable clown. The one that talked said, ‘You don’t want to get too close to the island. Dangerous rocks, things like that. You could ruin your boat.’
‘Thanks so much.’ Yancy gestured with bottle and glass. ‘We’ll just sweep around it and hurry on home. Thanks for your concern.’
‘Remember. Don’t get too close.’
‘I’ll remember.’
The little boat veered off, heading back for the island. Yancy turned and said, ‘Very nice. The jacket’s a little small, but the cap looks quite sporty.’
Parker said, ‘How many of those has Baron got?’
‘What? Boats?’
‘Torpedoes.’
‘Oh.’ Yancy brushed them aside with an airy wave of the bottle. ‘Half a dozen, maybe ten. Beach bums.’
Parker took the cap and jacket off, dropped them on the chair next to the guy at the wheel. ‘So far,’ he said, ‘it don’t look good.’
‘Love will find a way,’ Yancy said.
Parker looked at him. Sometimes it seemed as though the face was a lie and the rest was the truth. Yancy was somebody you could underestimate.
The guy at the wheel said, ‘They’re still hangin’ around, in by shore.’
Parker told him, ‘Go around the island to the left.’ To Yancy he said, ‘The brick building there, up behind the cottages. What’s that?’
Yancy squinted, behind his sunglasses. ‘Power plant,’ he said. ‘Storage sheds the other side of it, on the far slope. You’ll be able to see it better as we go around.’
The part of the island Parker had seen so far had no beach, no cove, no pier, no place at all for a boat to come in to shore. Tangled trees and undergrowth clogged the ground right down to the shoreline, and vines and branches overhung the water. The half dozen or so cottages scattered along the slope were all half hidden by the foliage. From not very far away the island would look both uninhabited and uninviting.
The guy at the wheel said, ‘They’re still watching us.’
‘As we do,’ Yancy told him, ‘what I announced we would do. Don’t worry about it.’
They had started now to make their swing around the island. In close against the island lay the little boat, in the island’s shadow, nearly invisible except for the white T-shirts of the three guys who were sitting in there watching.
The island kept looking empty and grim as they went around, until they reached the section exactly opposite the part they’d seen while coming out. Here was the main building, a huge sprawling two-story red brick affair fronted by thick white pillars. Two long piers jutted out into the water, and between them bobbed half a dozen boats like the one Parker was aboard. Careful rock gardens flanked the slate paths up from the piers to the main building, which looked most like an old southern plantation, except that it was practically bare of windows.
Yancy said, ‘The cockfight pit’s behind the main building; you can’t see it from here. Baron lives in the main building, most of the people that work for him live in that building on the left.’
The building on the left was also brick, also two stories high, but plain and functional in design and containing a normal amount of windows.
Parker said, ‘So far, this is the only place we could land.’
Yancy nodded. ‘That’s right. Baron cleaned out a channel here.’
‘So we couldn’t land anyplace else.’
‘That’s right.’
Parker shook his head. ‘Bad.’
This time, Yancy said nothing.
The guy at the wheel said, ‘They’re following us.’
Parker looked behind them, and the little boat was in their wake, but keeping back.
Yancy said, ‘Ignore them. Go on around.’
They went on around the island, and there was nothing else to see. To east and west and south the Gulf of Mexico stretched to the horizon and beyond. To the north the coast was a grey smudge.
Parker said, ‘Head back.’
Yancy gestured with the bottle. ‘Well? What do you think?’
Parker shook his head.
