Helping Charlie up the stairs, Drummond said, “That was lucky, wasn’t it?”
“I guess,” said Charlie, thinking of the old horseplayer expression:
Apartment 3A was a spacious loft with a collection of curvy Plexiglas furniture that, from the standpoint of functionality, might be more aptly considered art. Charlie imagined Hibbett buying the whole lot in an effort to win over a modern furniture store saleswoman.
The living room bolstered the theory. This room probably reflected the real Hibbett: just a single piece of furniture, a soft, black sofa made to look like a baseball mitt from Ty Cobb’s day. It faced an enormous plasma television mounted on the wall. Littered on the hardwood floor were two laptop computers, three game systems, and too many game cartridges to count. And in the corner was an antique Coke bottle vending machine retrofitted to dispense cans of Red Bull.
“Think we’re safe here?” Charlie asked Drummond.
Drummond sank into the baseball mitt. “From what?”
“The usual: getting killed. Or getting arrested, then getting killed.”
Drummond luxuriated in the cool leather. “Why did we come here again?”
“We decided it would be too conspicuous to row out to Fielding’s island in the middle of the night.”
“Right, right.” Drummond sat up with an air of determination. “So we can find the device.”
“First we need a better way to get there than rowing.”
“Well …” Drummond thought. The exertion seemed to have sapped him. His head fell back onto an Oakland Raiders throw pillow. His eyes burned with frustration. “I’m so sorry, Charles …”
“Did you remember to take your medicine?”
“Of course,” Drummond said, indignant.
“That explains it.”
Drummond was supposed to take a pill before bedtime, and he did so with the reliability of a Swiss train. Drowsiness invariably followed. Drummond yawned. “What was it you needed to know again?”
“How to get to Fielding’s island.”
“Oh, right. You know who might know?”
“No. Who?”
“Odelette’s children.”
“Mathilde and Ernet?”
“How many children does she have?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. Nor did his father, he realized, at least not now. “I figured it would be best not to tell them what we were up to.”
“That sounds about right.”
“So any idea how to get out there?”
“Where?”
“The island where Fielding lives. Or lived, I should say.”
“Oh, right, right. I don’t know.” Drummond stretched out on the sofa.
Charlie rushed to capitalize on his father’s last moments of consciousness. “What if some other organization figured out what Fielding was doing with washing machines, then tried to storm the island?”
“They’d be in trouble. Police patrol boats would open fire on them once they got within a mile. And there are armed guards there as well. Everyone is scared to go out there, by design.”
“Let me guess? The chief of police got a boxful of money?”
“Rings.” Drummond studied the blank plasma TV as if it were playing a thriller.
“A boxful of rings?”
“Rings a bell.” Drummond said, his lids lowering. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“Dad, what rings a bell? Please, we have to get out there somehow.”
Drummond opened his eyes. “We donated thirty-caliber machine guns to the police department. Whatever you do, do not try to go to that island.”
“But-” Charlie stopped short. Drummond was out.
Maybe for the best. Rest was his Red Bull. Charlie could try again in a few hours.
Now, careful not to make too much noise, Charlie sat on the floor and hit the space bar on one of the laptops, bringing the computer to life and flashing its display image on the plasma screen. The system was already open to the Web, a site selling coin-operated air hockey tables.
Charlie debated entering as little as FIELDING into a search engine, let alone HOW TO COVERTLY REACH NICK FIELDING’S PRIVATE ISLAND. What if the CIA had programmed its house-sized computers to set off alarms if anyone did? Wouldn’t that person’s location flash at once onto the agency’s computer screens or cell phones or tricked-out wristwatches?
Charlie was willing to bet against that happening. Fielding’s cover as a dashing and colorful hunter of pirate gold had made him a worldwide celebrity. Teams of his divers were still combing the Caribbean in search of the sunken ship containing the legendary treasure of San Isidro. Charlie’s horseplayer cronies, who regarded treasure hunting as gambling’s highest form, kept track of the San Isidro expedition team with the same dedication with which other people followed athletic teams. In reality, according to Alice, the treasure of San Isidro was the maritime equivalent of an urban legend.
Thinking of her, Charlie considered for the first time that the expression “missing someone like crazy” wasn’t entirely hyperbole.
Clicking to a search engine, he entered what he considered a relatively innocuous FIELDING ISLAND MARTINIQUE. The screen filled with 10 of the 871,222 results, the first being a computer-generated map of Fielding’s private island, Ilet Ceron, located a few miles northwest of Fort-de-France.
Charlie opted for the satellite picture of the island. He gaped at the pentagonal swimming pool, so big that it was probably visible from outer space without satellite assistance. He also made out the slate roof of the sprawling chateau and what appeared to be a wall around the entire island, topped by bushels of barbed wire.
His eye fell to the search engine’s automatically generated advertisements, all but one from online stores selling replica gold doubloons and pirate swag. The exception was a real estate listing of a thirty-room chateau on Ilet Ceron. The ad had been placed by the Pointe du Bout, Martinique, office of Caribbean Realty Solutions.
Charlie hoped that the company would have a solution for him.
23
Located on the ground floor of a three-story tangerine French Colonial building on Pointe du Bout’s ritzy yet quaint main street, Caribbean Realty Solutions filled its broad front window with striking color photographs of the best listings. “Bait,” the Realtors called these pictures. “Fish” often stopped and lingered, openmouthed. Frank DeSoto, an eleven-year veteran of the realty game, sat at the reception desk, watching two such prospective catches, men wearing expensive polo shirts and Bermuda shorts, crossing the street. Without a glance at the bait, they entered the agency.
Fabulous, DeSoto thought. They know what they want.
Filled with the exhilaration a fisherman feels at a tug on his line, DeSoto did a five-second check of his hairpiece and breath.
The men approached the desk. Striking the proper balance between deference and social equality, DeSoto asked, “What can I do for you?”
The younger of the two men, who looked moneyed enough, said, “We’re interested in seeing the Ceron Island property.”
DeSoto’s exhilaration evaporated, although he continued smiling. Chances were these men were GCs-gate- crashers, a minor-league brand of thrill-seeker whose idea of a thrill was wandering around a property they couldn’t afford.
GCs were normally couples, however, and tended to dress as if they’d just stepped off a yacht. Like the
