It was a working disguise he hoped would work just one more time for him.
At quarter past he left the tiny hotel-the Welcome. Off to find a boat called the Fish 'n Fool.
Peter knew that the boat regularly brought guests back and forth from the expensive Rockefeller resort at Caneel Bay. From Caneel Bay he could take a prop plane to another island with safe flight connections to New York and Washington. Once he was in Washington... well, at least he wouldn't be in San Dominica. Someone was going to listen to him and Jane in Washington. His father had an old friend, for one thing-Senator Pflanzer. Peter himself knew an army general at the Pentagon....
It was going to be weird when it hit the fan in America, Peter started to think. It was going to be devastating, in fact.
Whoever hired the blond mercenary at Turtle Bay was in for a hell of a big surprise.
Around 12:15 Peter was floating on an adrenaline high.
It was close to the feeling he'd always gotten on afternoon patrols in Asia. No-man's-'Nam. Where he'd invented new ways to block out as much shit as possible. to drift. Go with the flow.
All the world a little grainy, he was concentrating hard on a handsome black dude collecting stubs at the stem of the Fish 'n Fool. The dude was wearing a shocking-pink T-shirt; short-shorts; tightly wound coral bracelets and a necklace. He didn't look as if he would be any trouble, but Peter braced himself anyway.
'Parlez-vous _franqais?' He grinned big babygrand piano teeth at Peter. 'Nope. You're American, right?'
'New York City. West Sixty-third Street Peter lied so automatically, acted so well, it scared him a little. 'We leave around twelve-thirty?'
'Twelve-thirty on the button.' The young black kept his smile like a good trouser crease. 'Give or take five minutes or a half hour for some of my lost turista friends... John Sampson, Norfawk, Virginah. ' The man put out his hand. He widened his smile. 'At your beck and call, New York.'
Peter finally smiled back at the man. A pseudofag! Jesus. He tilted his floppy hat down and walked up on the main deck.
The afterdeck of the Fish 'n Fool was all polished brass and rich mahogany. It was jam-packed with bronze gods and goddesses. With designersigned T-shirts and Parisian jeans; forty-dollar sunglasses; the smell of benzocaine, camphor, hot burning flesh.
'Hi.' Long black hair, jet-set tan. A red string bikini.
'How are you?' Peter smiled. Felt like a boat's chaplain.
Hyellow! ' Frizzy, short blond hair. Mirror sunglasses. A man. 'Hyellow. '
Seeming bashful and cutely backward, Macdonald made his way to a padded bench half in, half out of the sun. He was a little self-conscious about his hair-shaggy for him; about the inescapable fact that he smelled after his days on the road.
He put his tennis sneakers up on the brass rail. Pulled the floppy hat down over his eyes. Listened to the quick beat of his good, strong heart.
Tomorrow's going to be so unreal, he thought. Washington. No idea exactly where he would start.
'Men, very slowly, Peter drifted far, far away from it all. to a pretty, half-awake place with no guns, no machetes, no slick blond killers. Just Janie. Rest. Escape.
In the meantime the black dude, John Sampson, from Norfolk, Virginia, was up on shore making a phone call.
At 1: 15 the sky was a roaring firefight. Flame throwers. An entire South Vietnamese city on fire.
The hat was still over his face, but Peter's eyes were open wide. He was trying to see through the loose weave of the summer fabric.
For a long moment it was almost as if he were inside a large, packed, American sports arena. A low crowd murmur echoed all around him. As if were sitting in the bleachers during a brief lull in a dramatic World Series game. Tiger Stadium. Mickey Lolich on the mound. Everything but the hot-dog men.... 'Mr. Macdonald.' Crowd murmur. 'Good afternoon, Peter.' Crowd murtnur.
Clammy and dry tongued, with a disgustingly sour taste in his mouth, Peter slid back the hat. He wasn't properly prepared to believe the things he saw in the blinding sunlight.
A crowd, largely blacks, was being held back on the dock by CDS soldiers. Fifty people, maybe a hundred, were all straining to watch the Fish 'n Fool. Policemen carrying old-fashioned rifles were running single file onto the yacht.
Close up, Macdonald tried to focus on John Sampson from Norfolk, Virginia. Then on the island police chief.
On a gray-haired American man he didn't recognize. Finally, on Brooks Campbell. White linen suit. Hom- rinimed sunglasses that were too big for him. Handsome as ever....
Suddenly Peter was very tired, unbelievably weary. His head began to swim; his heart beat so hard and fast, it scared the living shit out of him.
'Good afternoon,' Campbell repeated.
'You have to come with us,' the black police chief said. 'There's nothing to worry about.,,
Now there was a Bob Hope one-liner that should have gotten a laugh, Peter thought. Instead he just blinked at the four men. His mind reeled like three windows in a slot machine... Blond Englishmen, Colonel Dred, Cosa Nostra. Not going to get to Washington, Senator Pflanzer...
'Give you a hand, Macdonald.'
Grubby, light bearded, he got up by himself. All the jet-setters on the deck were standing around watching now. Whispering in one another's ears how they'd thought he looked funny when he tcuxie on board.
