mean?”
“I do,” Walter said.
“And?”
“And, what?”
“So you ain’t talking, is that it?” said Ike. “You ain’t talking. I’m asking you and you ain’t talking?”
“I can’t help this one,” Walter said. “I can’t help her.”
“Oh, well, in that case… I’m sorry, Walter. I didn’t mean.. .”
“It’s okay, Ike.”
There’s a bend in the road approaching Walter’s house. It’s where the two-lane asphalt takes a steep turn up toward the crest of the mountain. It’s where the newest of many potholes sits, outlined in bright orange paint. Just ahead, there’s a single-lane, heavily wooded driveway that leads from the road, down the hill, to a gravel parking area in front of Walter’s house. A wrought iron gate guards the entrance. A button, on top of a short pole on the driver’s side, must be pushed to open the gate so a car can drive in. Someone once asked Walter if the gate was for security. “Goats,” he replied. St. John is overrun with livestock, goats, cattle even a few sheep. They roam at will. The goats used to run down Walter’s driveway and eat the flowers in the small, Asian-flavored garden next to his front door. Plus, they shit in the gravel and it was damn near impossible to clean. One day Walter got so pissed he ordered the gate. That’s what he said. Some people on the island doubted that story. Walter was a subject of continuing mystery to many.
Tucker Poesy chose a spot just around the bend, near enough to Walter’s gate, to have her car break down. She did this a little after three in the afternoon. Walter’s usual schedule took him home from Billy’s about that time. As he approached, some ten minutes later, Tucker Poesy stood in the road, looking frustrated with just the right touch of anger. Next to her was a rented Jeep Wrangler. Walter pulled over to the side of the road in front of her, stopped and got out.
“Need help?” he asked.
“Oh, you’ve saved my life!” she gushed. “I’m so… so furious. This damn car just quit on me. What am I going to do?” Her shoulder-length, brown hair was pulled back, tucked under a baseball cap with a St. John logo. Walter recognized it as a cap from the Caneel Bay Resort. She wore running shoes without socks, loose, light blue shorts and a black halter-top showing off plenty of what cleavage she had to show. She was not beautiful, but she was an attractive woman. Walter noticed the VI Rent-a-Car sticker on her rear bumper. The vehicle belonged to Virgin Islands Rent-a-Car, a company operated by Ike’s son Roosevelt.
“Do you have a phone?” he asked. “A cell phone?” She shook her head no. “You can make a call from my house, if you like. I live right over there.” He pointed to the big iron gate only ten or fifteen yards ahead. “I know the rent-a-car company. I’m sure they’ll send someone to help you in no time at all.”
“Thank you, Mr…?”
“Walter Sherman,” he said, extending his hand. She came closer to shake it and Walter noticed the sweat on the rim of her cap. She had been in the sun for some time. “How long have you been stranded here?”
“It just happened,” said Tucker Poesy. “A minute before you drove up. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. My name is Caroline Henley.” She smiled at Walter and he smiled back. She acted as any reasonable tourist would. She made friends with him and now it was safe for her to allow him to help her.
“Hop in,” he said. “It’s a short trip. My housekeeper can give you a cold drink or something to eat, if you need it.” Tucker Poesy, posing as Caroline Henley, was effusive in her thanks. She reached into her stalled vehicle, pulled out a colorful, canvas handbag, big enough to carry beach clothes and other tourist essentials. She jumped into Walter’s car and they were off, past the gate, down the driveway, into his home.
“You have a beautiful house,” Walter’s visitor said. “May I?” she asked, indicating she wanted to open the glass sliding doors to the deck. No one seemed able to resist the view, the blue sea, the lush green, hilly islands to the north, and St. Thomas in the distance. “Wow!” she said.
“Please, sit down,” Walter said. “I’ll call Roosevelt and he’ll send someone out with a new car for you.” He called for Denise, who was downstairs in the laundry room. When she came up, he asked her to “bring something cold, for Miss Henley to drink.” Walter sat in the chair next to the small table with the telephone. His back was to the deck and he faced the kitchen. His guest sat across from him. Still unable to resist the incredible view over his shoulder, she quite purposely sat facing the deck. A few puffy, white clouds drifted their way from the west. The mid-afternoon sun was high in an otherwise clear blue sky. It shone behind Walter and directly in Tucker Poesy’s eyes. Denise brought out fruit punch over ice for the girl, “Miss Henley,” and the usual for Walter. He watched closely as the girl’s expression changed from stranded tourist to determined actor. “I don’t really have to call Roosevelt, do I?” he said.
“No,” she said. “All you need to do is give me the document.” As she said that, Tucker Poesy’s right hand came out of her bag holding a pistol she pointed at Walter. “You’re good,” she said. “You figured it out pretty quickly. Couldn’t surprise you for long, could I?”
“You didn’t surprise me at all,” Walter said, taking a sip from his small bottle of Diet Coke. “I recognized you immediately. Made you before I stopped the car.”
“Really. How so?” She hadn’t figured him for a braggart.
“You were waiting for me-long enough to work up a nice sweat under that little baseball cap. I saw that, but that wasn’t the main thing. As I said, I spotted you before I got out of my car. I already knew who you were. I’ve seen you before. You have less clothes on now. Lovely breasts. I’m sure many men have regretted looking at those.” He pointed to her chest, and to his satisfaction, her eyes went with his finger just long enough to tell him what he needed to know. “You look a little different, but not that much.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Amsterdam Central Station. And, of course, you were standing on the other side of the canal, the Heerensgracht. You saw me. And I saw you.”
“If that’s true, why am I the one sitting here with a gun on you? How did you let this happen?” She looked very serious. Walter, on the other hand, smiled warmly and chuckled a little as he might have had she instead been Ike and the subject, well almost anything with that old man. He crossed his legs and took another, longer drink.
“Denise is in the kitchen, right behind you,” he said. “She is, at this moment, aiming a Glock nine millimeter at your skull. She’s a crack shot. If I raise my left hand off the armrest of this chair, she will pull the trigger and blow your head off. Most likely, the bullet will exit right where the last remnants of your high school acne are still visible.” He saw the movement in Tucker Poesy’s eyes. It wasn’t much. Few people would have seen anything. It took only an instant, but it was there. She couldn’t help herself. Instinctively, she looked down toward an area of her face just below her nose on the right cheek, then to the side where Denise should be. She had to look-she had to try to look-to see if Walter’s housekeeper really was behind her, really was ready to kill her. Her rational mind, of course, said no. Don’t look. It wasn’t possible. Surely no one was behind her. That was the oldest trick in the book. School children used it. Grade B Westerns and detective movies used it. Her rational mind was sure she had not only the upper hand, the only hand. But her rational mind had to wait until her instincts played themselves out. When her eyes darted, Walter’s right fist smashed flush into Tucker Poesy’s jaw. She tumbled over, dropped the pistol and lay unconscious on the floor. When she came to, she was sitting at a marble table, under a covered roof on Walter’s deck. Her hands rested on the arms of a wicker chair, held there by duct tape. Her legs were pulled apart and back slightly, taped securely, with the same metallic duct tape, to the legs of the chair. To her great discomfort, she was totally naked. Denise was pressing an icepack, wrapped in a towel, to the side of her face. She hurt too much to talk. Walter could see she was still woozy.
“Billy,” Walter said into the cell phone. “I need you. It’s important, my friend.”
“Name it,” said Billy.
“Come to my house…”
“I’m there already. Ten minutes?”
“Make it a half-hour. Come prepared.”
“Understood,” Billy answered without missing a beat. “You okay till then?”
“I’m fine. Thirty minutes.” He slapped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket, looked at Tucker Poesy, motioned to Denise to give the girl some water. “Put a bathrobe on her,” he said. Denise went downstairs and returned with one of her own. When Tucker Poesy’s dignity was partially restored, Walter rose, turned and went to the kitchen. When he returned he was munching a Granny Smith apple.
