dancer’s legs, spread apart boldly, unashamed; this modest girl had her hands on her hips and was laughing down at me.
“Why is your mouth open like that, Nathan?” She wore nothing but the wooden beaded necklace. “Are you still hungry?”
Then she ran into the surf, laughing, legs kicking, globes of her behind perhaps too large for some tastes, but not mine; I was scrambling out of my clothes and scampering into the surf like a horny land crab.
She splashed at me, giggling like a young girl, and I splashed her back; the moon was playing on the water, washing her with ivory, the water’s surface a ripply mosaic of white and blue and black and gray. She dove and splashed me and swam out a ways and I followed her. Treading water, I looked back at the shore. We weren’t incredibly far out but we could see the country club and her cottage and Westbourne and palm trees silhouetted against the sky.
“It doesn’t look real,” she said. “The world looks like a toy world.”
“It doesn’t seem real to me, either,” I said. “But you seem real.”
She smiled, arms and legs moving, keeping her afloat. But it was a bittersweet smile. “Oh, Nathan…we shouldn’t. We’re from different worlds.”
“There’s only one world,” I said. “Just different places and different people. Sometimes they make war on each other. Sometimes they think of something better to do….”
That took the bitter out of her smile, leaving the sweet, and she dove back in and swam to shore and sat half in the water, half on the wet sand, looking up at the moon, basking in it, as if sunning herself.
I sat next to her. I was a little out of breath. She was in better shape.
“You have scars,” she said, and touched one.
“I been shot a few times.”
“The war?”
“Some of it’s the war. Some isn’t.”
“Your life is dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s more dangerous than others….”
And I took her in my arms and kissed her, I kissed her hard, and she returned it, our tongues finding each other, my body on hers, the surf crashing over us, her skin wet and hot and cold and willing under me; I slid down, and was about to bury my face between her legs when I said, nastily, “If I can eat my enemy, the least I can do is…”
But then I was doing it, kissing her there, licking her, tasting the coarse hair, sucking the inside of the pink sweet bitter fruit and she cried out, as if in pain, but she wasn’t, and then the tip of me was in her mouth, and then more than the tip of me, and when I couldn’t endure the ecstasy any longer, I pulled her up on me, and rolled back on top of her, put my hands on her breasts, hard soft cold wet warm breasts, tips of them hard and sweet and salty when I suckled them, and then I was inside her, the mouth between her legs suckling me, and she moaned and I moaned and we moaned, and we churned gently together and then not so gently, and when I pulled out of her, whimpering with pleasure, her hand gripped me as I spilled into the sea….
We collapsed together on the wet bed of sand, clutching each other with a mingled urgency and tenderness, staring up at the moon. There were a few wisps of cloud drifting in front of it, now; it didn’t look like a poker chip anymore: it looked alive; it seemed to glow, almost burning, the clouds like white smoke. And we basked in its glow as the tide lapped over us.
I’d almost fallen asleep when she tugged my arm, saying, “Nathan! Time to see Arthur.”
She ran to her clothes and I watched with a smile.
Then I hauled my sorry ass over to my own clothes and shook the sand off and put them on.
Some gentleman.
On the way to Lyford Cay I filled Marjorie in on my experience this afternoon with the obvious police tail.
“Do you think they were following us last night?” she asked, sounding worried.
“When we drove over to Grant’s Town? Naw. I would’ve noticed.”
She glanced behind her, into the blackness. The sheltering palms made a tunnel of the narrow, unlighted road into the Lyford Cay development area. “What about now?”
“No. I gave ’em something to study in that alley. They’re probably still standing there, watching that chalk circle, waiting for something to jump out at them.”
The wharf at the tip of Lyford Cay wasn’t much of one: a finger of wood extending into the sea with a few rowboats tied there, a couple posts with life buoys draped on nails, a kerosene lantern on another post, giving the scene a jaundiced cast. The road stopped and opened into a small graveled area near the mouth of the dock; we got out of the Chevy and walked over to Arthur’s shed, which resembled an oversize outhouse-a four-seater, maybe. His bike was propped up against the side.
“No light on,” I said.
“Maybe Arthur has rounds he makes,” she said. “He’s caretaker, you know.”
“Right. Let’s peek in, anyway.”
We did. There was a chair, a table, a water jug, and no Arthur.
“What time is it, Nathan?”
“About five after eleven. We’re late, but not much. I’m going to have a look around.”
“I’m stayin’ right with you. This place doesn’t feel good.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, but she was right. I wished I’d brought my nine-millimeter along, but it was still packed away in my suitcase. Without official permission to carry it here, I hadn’t been risking it-nor had I seen any reason to.
At least, not until I felt the skin on the back of my neck start to crawl, about two minutes ago….
We walked out on the spongy dock; walked clear out to the end. I glanced in the moored skiffs, thinking Arthur might be taking a nap in one-no room to stretch out in that shed-but Arthur wasn’t loafing on the job, at least not in one of the boats. We reached the end of the dock, and turned, simultaneously, and looked back toward land.
I think we both saw him at the same time; we each grabbed the other, and were lucky we didn’t tumble into the drink.
But we caught our balance, if not our breath.
Because we could see Arthur clearly, in the moonlight, in the kerosene glow: spread-eagled on his back, half in the water, half on the sand. Sort of like Marjorie and I had been, not so long ago.
Only we’d been alive.
We had to drive back to Marjorie’s cottage, to use the phone, and I tried to talk her into staying behind, but she insisted on coming along on the return trip.
We beat the police there, but stayed in the car, waiting, until the siren announced their arrival, loudly, pointlessly, the black police car throwing gravel as it ground to a stop. Arthur was dead, and unlikely to get either alive or, for that matter, any deader. What exactly was the rush?
Another two cars arrived shortly, but in the lead car were Lindop, Captains Melchen and Barker, and a uniformed driver.
I went over to Lindop, who wore a black-and-khaki cap in place of his daytime pith helmet; I filled him in, going out of my way to pay no attention to Barker and Melchen, who were standing around, rocking on their heels, like little kids who had to go wee-wee.
We walked over to where Arthur lay on his back, eyes wide and empty and staring up at the moon.
“I gave him a quick once-over,” I said. “I don’t see any marks, but his clothes are torn around the shoulders.”
“He’s a native,” Barker said. “His clothes are ratty. So what?”
I acknowledged him for the first time, saying, “I thought you were in New York.”
His upper lip curled. “I got back this afternoon. Is that all right with you, Heller?”
“I didn’t know I had a say in it. Next time check with me and I’ll let you know.”
Kneeling over the dead caretaker, standing half in the water, Lindop said, “He’s apparently drowned. Perhaps he fell off the dock, in the course of his duties.”
“Perhaps his clothes are torn because he was held under the water till his eyes popped out. Colonel, he was meeting me here to give me key defense evidence. I hardly think this is an accidental death.”
