Mr. Green would be recalled at a later date. Then I quit.
O’Hair and Green rose. Lying made Green nervous. He looked weary, and he left quickly. O’Hair got ready to follow, but I stopped him. “When we call Green back, Mr. O’Hair, it won’t be so much fun. I know you’ll remind him of that.”
O’Hair shook his head with a slight smile and walked out. So did the reporter, with her own half-smile. I turned to Robinson. “Being lied to always makes me hungry. Can I buy you lunch?”
“Sure.” He smiled. “You know, that kind of thing makes you wish for thumbscrews and rubber hoses.”
“Damn O’Hair anyhow, the smug bastard. It’s clear Lasko put Green up to it. Or else Green would have denied it without the weasel words. But all we have on the record is the First Seminole Bank. Can you dig around to see who owns the big interests in the bank?”
“OK. I’ve got a friend I can call at the Florida Corporations Commission. I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
We walked out together. Robinson headed for the telephone. I went back to my office.
The phone rang. It was Woods. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. Still want to go to St. Maarten?”
That threw me off. “Sure.”
“When would you go?”
“Tomorrow.”
Woods paused. “OK,” he said, “go ahead. I’ll tell McGuire.” His phone clicked.
I stared at the phone, surprised. But there was no use puzzling over a break when you got one. I hung up.
Eighteen
By two the next afternoon, my airplane hovered over St. Maarten. It was green and white, surrounded by vivid blue. I wished it were winter, and vacation.
I felt the searing heat as soon as we landed. By the time I got my bags and checked through customs, I was moist and enervated. I walked toward a line of cars parked expectantly at the end of the airstrip. The nearest one was an old Oldsmobile. The driver leaned against it with elaborate casualness. I don’t give a damn for you, his face said, but you’re a living.
I didn’t give a damn either. “Give me a lift to Philipsburg?”
He nodded and tossed my bags carelessly into his trunk. I opened my own door. Welcome to friendly St. Maarten.
We drove in silence through low green brush on a choppy slash of dirt and rock, past huts of wood and corrugated metal. It wasn’t hard to see: tourists arrived each winter like migratory birds and were chauffered past the huts, chattering about the white sand and blue water. They didn’t see the stony faces or shabby huts; if they had, they wouldn’t have chattered. The ones that saw felt guilty, and went to Palm Springs next year. And the natives despised them all and took their money. And despised them more. Which was stupid, in a way. Looking at the black rock, you knew the natives needed the tourists, not the other way around. We passed another hut, with a sad skinny goat tethered to it. Like a lot of things, it was tough to get moral about it, either way. But I was probably going to Palm Springs next year.
We came up on Philipsburg. It was not a likely spot for a Lasko enterprise. The town was mostly one-story stucco, with some metal and wood signs that needed paint, scattered along a few cramped streets. It had a desultory, absent-minded look, as if it had been thrown together a little at a time. The asphalt streets were crowded by trucks, jeeps, and some cars, most of them old enough to enhance the junkyard ambiance. The streets themselves were quiet and veined with cracks and lent the parked cars and trucks an abandoned quality. A few palms stood on scattered patches of grass, along with some leafy shade trees I couldn’t identify. The main thing was the heat; it was so wet you could almost see it. It seemed to have seeped into the wood and the metal and the cracks in the sidewalk. And into the movements of the few islanders-a listless amble. I felt a little like that myself.
The driver dropped me at the Government House, where the police were. This neighborhood was better- some large two-story white frames, freshly painted. The government building had a red tiled roof and a long covered porch. I pulled back the screen door and stepped into a pale green reception room presided over by a serious young black man in gold-framed glasses. I put down my luggage and asked for Inspector De Jonge. He directed me to a wooden chair in front of his desk and picked up the phone.
I waited for about five minutes. Then a bulky man in khaki slacks and a short-sleeved shirt jogged down the stairway. He came up to me, and shook my hand.
“Mr. Paget, I’m Henrik De Jonge. Would you care to come to my office?” His voice was soft and lightly accented.
“Yes, thanks.”
I followed him up the stairs and around the corner, into a broad hall that had once been the second floor of someone’s home. De Jonge’s office was on the left, also light green. It was small but neat, with a large overhead fan. He had a wooden desk, very uncluttered, and one chair stuck in front of it. The fan and shade made the office bearable, no more. I took the chair and looked around. The walls were bare save for an official portrait of a much younger Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, pre-Lockheed. De Jonge’s age was harder to peg. He had a full thatch of dirty-blonde hair, a creased young-old face, and clear blue eyes, but he slumped tiredly in his chair. I put the slump down to the white man’s burden and guessed late thirties. I kept wondering how he got there.
De Jonge was playing with a meerschaum pipe, watching me watch him. “Well, Mr. Paget, what can we do for you?”
“It’s really no more than I explained on the telephone yesterday. As far as I know, we’re not investigating any Dutch nationals. Just the one American. William Lasko.”
He pulled a tobacco pouch from his desk drawer by feel, still looking at me. “And you want to visit Mr. Lasko’s company here.”
“That’s right.”
He carefully pinched some tobacco into his pipe. “And this relates to what, precisely?”
“We suspect-we don’t know, but we suspect-that the acquisition of Carib Imports may relate to some stock market activities by Lasko, done in America and illegal under American law.” I searched for a formula that sounded safe. “All my agency really wants is information as to where at home we should look. There’s a man at the company I’d like to talk with-a Peter Martinson.”
He lit his pipe, glancing sideways at the picture, as if Juliana were watching him. “After you called, I spoke to the Governor-General’s office on Curacao. I can assist you to the extent of visiting the company and getting you the records you requested.” He sounded very cautious, like a bureaucrat. The thought must have crossed my face; his tone changed abruptly. “You understand, Mr. Paget, that these islands are very poor. We encourage foreign investment. The philosophy is-and it is not my choice-that one does not have to be a saint to do business in the Antilles.”
That was hardly a sunburst. But it was an explanation of a sort, the best he could make. I didn’t have his job and didn’t want it. “I understand, Inspector. We appreciate any assistance you can give.” I looked at my watch. “Have you time to visit the company now?”
He stood. “I can manage it. We can find a jeep and driver downstairs.”
The driver was a young black policeman named Duval, with sharp eyes and a strong grip. He steered us to a jeep and piloted us expertly through the narrow streets to the outskirts of Philipsburg. A corrugated metal warehouse stood in a patch of dirt and rock behind a scrofulous strip of cement. The warehouse was long, low, and singed with rust. A metal door was the only front entrance. We got out and approached it. Screwed next to the door was a heavy bronze sign, incongruously new, reading “Carib Imports.” I looked at the warehouse, a little amused. Pictures of this one would never grace the company bulletin.
We stepped inside, into a passageway between metal partitions. The partitions looked new and formed three offices on each side. The offices were empty. The passageway led through them to a large warehouse area, grubby
