“Okay then,” said Walter, I’ll take them all.” He lifted his glass bottle in the air. “The Robber Barons, Rockefellers, Bill Gates-all of them.”
“That’s a pretty powerful combination,” offered Ike.
“Yeah,” Billy said, on his way to the kitchen door. “The bigger they are, the more mud they’ve been swimming in.”
“Damn, I like that,” said the old man. “I’ll take the mud itself, if you don’t mind.”
“Mud?” Billy asked. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“The lubricant,” Ike said. “It’s the lubricant for all of them. For everything. You got a way about you, Billy. Thank you. Sort of like a metaphor, if you know what I mean. If they all swim in it, it must be so.”
“Metaphor?” marveled Walter.
“And I got it,” the old man said.
“The lubricant? You know what the lubricant is, don’t you?” scoffed Billy. “Judges. That’s the lubricant. You got the judges, you got it all, believe me. I’ll take the judges.” Once more, as they always did it seemed, Ike and Billy, their choices already settled, looked to Walter. He had this silly smile on his face. “Pennzoil,” was all he said.
“Damn, this is serious business, young man,” chided Ike.
Billy wrote it up-Mud/Judges/Pennzoil.
The restaurant on the veranda at the Caneel Bay resort overlooks the crescent-shaped, white sandy beach that is the private property of the hotel. The restaurant is very big-perhaps fifty feet square-and it’s protected from the Caribbean sun by a pyramid hip roof with cedar shake shingles. Cedar shake is a favorite among those who can afford it, in tropical places like St. John where the sun is particularly hot and where there is also an abundance of rainfall. When the cedar gets wet it expands and when it’s especially dry, the cedar shingles loosen up. The result is a kind of filter effect. The roof breathes, allowing heat to dissipate. It helps to keep a house cool. In the case of this restaurant, it was little more than a pleasant bonus. Its roof covered an otherwise open area built in exactly the right place to get the most of sea breezes. On the most uncomfortably warm days, the veranda was a nice place to be.
Walter arrived on time. He had a thing about that. Timeliness was next to godliness, they say. For Walter, it was a good distance in front. Being late made him nervous. If he was expected at noon, he thought that was when he ought to be there. A little early was okay. A little late was not. Likewise for those who made appointments to meet him. Years ago he gave up the lame practice of saying things like, “it’s all right,” or “that’s okay,” when somebody showed up late cavalierly apologizing for their tardiness. Such automatic, clearly bogus sentiments were taken by Walter for what they were-arrogance. He never humiliated anyone by challenging what he felt was their disrespect, but he did forego the allowance and acceptance of that behavior that is so much a part of most people’s routine. The girl was also on time for this meeting. She asked for it. It seemed only right that she should already be there when he showed up.
She had called Walter yesterday, introduced herself as Aminette Messadou, and said she needed to talk with him. Talk about Harry Levine.
“Why?” he asked her.
“I think it’s best to wait until we meet, face to face, as it were.” She sounded like a young, American girl except for the slight vee when she said, “… until we meet…” Walter allowed there was a chance it was just the phone, a poor quality instrument and not the voice.
“If I told you I had no idea who-what did you say his name was-Harry Levine is?”
“I would say it is best we speak of it when we meet.” There it was, again, the vee. Walter agreed to meet Ms. Messadou at Caneel Bay, the next day. He’d wait until then, he determined, to place her accent.
He spotted her immediately. She sat alone at a table near the front, facing the entrance, not the beach. Nobody ate alone here and most of the other diners arranged their chairs so all at the table could view the sea. She did not look comfortable or at ease. In fact, Walter thought she appeared visibly on edge. Her legs were crossed, but her feet were in constant motion, up and down, side to side. She moved silverware around with her hands. When he entered, stopped and stood by the hostess’ stand for a moment, she looked up. When she rose, sporting a pasty smile, he began walking her way.
“Walter Sherman,” he said in his friendly, everyday St. John voice.
“Aminette Messadou,” she replied, holding her hand to him. He took it politely, then gave it back. He figured her to be young, but this was younger than he thought. She was quite beautiful, but surely no more than twenty-if that-slim, skinny to some, with long, thin arms, legs to match and a neck that seemed to never quit. Her complexion was dark, Mediterranean, Central Asian perhaps, with no obvious imperfections save a single, small dark brown birthmark on the right side of her neck, near the ear. She wore her exceptionally straight, black hair long. Walter didn’t know much about women’s haircuts, but he was certain this one cost a fortune. Her smile was, as he noticed right away, forced. He decided to see how nervous she was.
“I don’t take well to strangers,” he said. “Especially those who come to my island and have balls big enough to invite me to lunch. Of course, you don’t appear to have any balls, big or otherwise.”
“Please,” she motioned, any sign of nerves gone, floated away with the gentle breeze off the water, “sit.” Pretty quick adjustment, he thought.
A waitress approached, a middle-aged black woman, very short and considerably on the hefty side. She smiled at them both and took her notepad and pen out. “Miss?” she said looking at Aminette Messadou. “Have you decided?” The girl ordered a cheeseburger with bacon, onions, mushrooms, lettuce and tomato, French fries and a vodka martini with an olive and a twist. Not the salad and Evian Walter might have expected. Then the waitress turned to Walter and asked, “What would you like, Mr. Sherman?”
“Turkey sandwich, on rye toast please,” he answered. “And Margaret, no mayo.” Margaret smiled again, at both of them, and was off to place her orders in the kitchen.
“You are not drinking anything, Mr. Sherman?”
“She knows what I drink. Now, tell me, who are you and what can I do for you?”
“My great-uncle, four generations removed, was the great man Djemmal-Eddin. His brother was my father’s great-grandfather. I am named for Djemmal-Eddin’s daughter, Aminette Messadou, who died more than eighty-five years ago, in childbirth, as women will. It is my mission in life to be worthy of her memory. My family has not forgotten her. The man you are hired to find, Harry Levine, has something that belongs to Aminette’s husband. He too was a great man, her husband, a powerful man among his own people, widely respected and honored among mine. Now that he is gone we seek to recover what is rightfully ours.”
“And…?”
“When you find Mr. Levine, you shall also find the document. We very much want you to persuade Mr. Levine he should give it to us.”
“How badly do you want this… document?”
“You are not familiar with it?”
“The document?”
“Yes.”
“No, I am not. May I ask, what is it that brings you to me in the first place? How do you know me and what makes you think I have any interest in this man you call Harry Levine?” Aminette Messadou was wearing a lime green summer dress made from a smooth and silky polyester. Catching the breeze as if it owned the wind, it barely fluttered about her shoulders, its scooped neck shimmering even without benefit of direct sunlight. The color was just right for her tan skin and black hair. She leaned forward across the table, elbows resting on the glass, and chuckled. Walter could see nearly all of her small breasts. It was a lovely sight, still he could not help himself. He looked carefully for tan lines. There were none. A girl with her skin color, he thought, it was hard to define a suntan. Either she had none or she regularly sunbathed topless. He had no time to figure that one out. Not now.
“We are too cute,” she laughed, her smile now genuine and warm to the eye. “You and I are to be allies, Mr. Sherman. We have nothing to fear from one another. Harry Levine’s aunt is among the most famous people on Earth. When she visits you-a man who makes his way through life finding others-it is both not a secret and not a mystery. Not much of one anyway.”
“Did you ever meet Lord Frederick Lacey?” Walter asked. For an instant, nervousness, maybe even fear, reappeared in Aminette Messadou’s deep brown, almond eyes. She sat back in her seat as Margaret served them. The last thing the heavy-set black woman did was put a Diet Coke in front of Walter, in a glass bottle.
