The Rose Diary
Coastown, San Dominica
At eleven o'clock that morning, Carrie Rose lounged beside a 2,500,000-gallon saltwater swim ming pool at the Coastown Princess Hotel.
Next to her at the poolside bar, a thirty-three year-old stockbroker from New York, Philip Becker, was lamenting the decline and fall of the good life. He was also trying to put the make on Carrie.
'It is a sad, shitty affair.' Philip Becker eulo gized San Dominica in a most-good-natured way. 'Here you finally make time for a vacation. You pay out two thousand, say, for ten glorious days of not having to schlepp around Manhattan with all the gum snappers, panhandlers, the general roll call of sewer snipes.... And then suddenly, slambam, you don't just get a little rain to ruin your good time.... You don't get a sunburn.... You get a bloody revolution!'
Carrie shook out her long sandy hair, exposed the tiniest mother-of-pearl earrings. She was beginning to smile at the way Becker was telling his dimwitted stories.
'I like the way you say that.' She rested her hand on the back of his. 'You get a revolution!' she repeated his thought.
'That is exactly what we have here,' the stockbroker said. 'Machete knife behind every palm tree. ' He was beginning to stare openly at her breasts now; her long legs; brown swimmer's stomach; her crotch.
'This Dred-excuse me, Colonel Dred-is going to do some major league bloodletting now. Which means I'm going back to the safer confines of New York.'
'All of a sudden a hundred and fifty thousand tourists and landowners want to get off this island at the same time,' Carrie said. Philip Becker smiled. He raised his glass in a mock salute. 'to, uh... Colonel Monkey Dred,
who, uh, niined our respective vacations. Up yours, Monkey. 9
At which point Carrie Rose decided that she liked this one well enough. Philip Lloyd Becker. A wonderfufly confident man. Nearly as smooth as Damian Simpson Rose.
Smooth Philip continued to smile at her. He was gallant. Handsome. Physically nice: a walking advertisement for -the New York Athletic Club. And he was as empty-headed as the proverbial dizzy blonde.
When he finally asked her if she wanted to go back to his suite, Carrie said yes. That was the beginning of a little cherchez la femme side plot. Also an experiment.
Friday Afternoon
Down and out in Coastown, as disoriented as people in a Neil Simon situation, Peter and Jane first got the bum's rush at San Dominica's Government House. 'Men at the Gleaner and the Evening Star newspaper offices.
'If, indeed, there is a mysterious white man involved, ' a British-sounding Uncle Tom at Government House explained, 'he'll most surely turn up when we catch Colonel Dred. And, right now, we are trying to put all our efforts into catching Dred.'
'Well, Jesus Christ, man. Don't let us keep you from the manhunt, ' Peter said before Jane could pull him away.
At noon the two of them wandered through the crowded Front Street marketplace. Children were selling green coconuts, yams, fresh fish. Tinny record-shop speakers blasted songs like 'Kung Fu Fighting.' Jane was getting leers and lazy smiles from all the local males.
'Take a taxi ride, lady?'
'Eat me coconut?'
One block off Front Street they went out onto the very famous and beautiful Horseshoe Beach.
'This could be the nicest day anywhere, ever,' Jane said as -they began to walk on the gleaming sand. 'God!'
The entire surface of the Caribbean was nearly white, glittering with the brightest galaxy of stars. Jane's long blond curls were shining.... She was the blond beauty you always see at the beaches but nobody ever seems to get.
As the two of them walked along-in spite of their best intentions not to-they began to feet wonderfully calm and content. As if nothing really mattered except the buttery sun, getting a tan, keeping the sea spray in their faces.
'It's so grand, Peter. Kowabunga! Old Indian expression of delight and awe-from The Howdy Doody Show.'
'Kind of makes you wonder why somebody would pick central Michigan to settle in. Any cold climate. Oh, Caleb, isn't that the most gorgeous stretch of tundra! Let's build our house there.'
'Oh... hush, puppy.'
WaMng barefoot, carrying loafers and sandals, they passed under a low wooden pier. Pilings coated with seaweed and barnacles. Some sort of hot- sauce-and-clams bar chattering overhead. As they emerged from under the dark, rotting planks, Peter happened to glance up at the boardwalk. What he saw snapped his perfect mood like a twig.
Sauntering along, carefree as tourists, were the black killers from Turtle Bay. The Cuban and Kingfish Toone. Even more disturbing, the smaller of the two was pointing down at the beach. Right at Jane and him.
'Janie, we don't have time to think this out,' he said, 'but I want you to get ready to run like an absolute madwoman. The killers from Turtle Bay are at our beach.'
Meanwhile the two blacks hurried to a set of wooden stairs twisting down to the sand. Dressed in lightweight suits and fedoras, they looked like duded-up Caribbean businessmen.
