Ray glanced across at his door, as if he’d momentarily forgotten that he was alone in the penthouse. Swiveling all the way around, he unlocked the top drawer of his desk and took out an odd-shaped blue-green object.
“Damn it! I must have that piece, Ray.”
“The NYPD has it, Frik. No way to get it out.”
“I’ll pull strings. You’d be amazed at what a large enough donation to the Policemen’s Fund can buy. They’ll be glad to help me.”
As Ray turned the piece over and over in his hands, it reflected the light from the wall screen. Playing with it as if it were a worry stone, he watched as it seemed to warp the light such that its own image, and not the rest of the model, was visible like an afterimage on the irregular surface.
“I tried that,” he said. “Remember, I have a lot of friends in that precinct. I’ve done more than my share of filming there. They won’t release it to anyone other than Peta. She signed a priori for Arthur’s effects.”
Peta would feel safe as long as Frik thought she was the only one with access to Arthur’s fragment, Ray thought. He needed her to be fearless.
“Peta said something about going to New York on her birthday as a kind of statement. Since she’s being so cooperative, why not ask her to retrieve the piece from the precinct and bring it along to Vegas at New Year’s?”
The Afrikaner’s frustration seemed audible, even before he said, “I can’t wait that long.”
“What’s so almighty urgent?” Ray was aware of the rush he was getting from the conversation and happy to discard his recent ennui. “She’ll bring Arthur’s fragment here on New Year’s Eve. You’ll be lucky to have Selene’s piece by then anyway.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Frik said, though to Ray he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “By the way, have you been able to work anything out with your computer models?”
“Not that I could say over an unsecured line if I had, but no. I know its shape, and I know the reactions from Paul’s notes. Other than that, it’s a complete mystery.”
“Well keep working on it, would you.” If possible, Frikkie’s voice seemed to hold more frustration than before. “As for the other matter, I suppose you’re right. I can wait for New Year’s Eve to get the other pieces. I want the whole Daredevils Club there when we put this together and find out what it really does.”
I bet, Ray thought, but all he said was “Good-bye.” He hung up the phone and held Arthur’s piece between thumb and forefinger. Angling it, he tried to line up the fragment with the image on the wall screen. As the images merged in his vision, he felt his head swim, and a wave of nausea overcame him.
Centering the piece on his desk, he stared at it, shook his head as if to clear it, and closed his eyes. After counting to five, he reopened them and refocused on the object.
Nothing had changed; his nausea and the illusion of the artifact’s curious reflection of itself remained.
36
Not much outside of restaurants and bars stayed open on the island on Carnival Monday. The occasional minibus driver picked up a load of passengers, the police and fire stations stayed on alert, and the clinic opened its doors, which was fine with Peta. She had no urge whatsoever to participate in Carnival, particularly after her experience with the Jab Jab Molassi. She had no interest in watching the parade or in following it to Grenada National Stadium for the calypso finals and the crowning of the king and queen of the Carnival.
It was well into the afternoon before she finished seeing her patients, which was perfect because Ralphie was rarely around before then. His routine was absolute unless he was ill or off-island. He disappeared after his morning sea bath, and appeared again on Morne Rouge Beach in the late afternoon with his knapsack. Settling himself against the fence in front of the house nearest to Gem Holiday Beach Resort, he carved black coral, smoked the occasional joint, and engaged in brief conversations with passers-by. Mostly, he kept to himself.
Always, she knew where to find him.
She had brought her party clothes from home, figuring she would use the bathroom at her clinic to dress. If it weren’t for carnival, she’d have gone home, then down to the Carenage and hailed a water taxi to take her to Ralphie at Morne Rouge Bay and back to Blue Lagoon Marina. Today, however, was not the day to do that—not with all the drunks and tourists jockeying for space on the Carenage.
At about four-thirty, she made her last patient notes and dressed—or more precisely, undressed—to kill, in a miniskirted black T-strap dress.
Praying that Ralphie would have her replica ready, she threw a pair of silver stiletto-heeled sandals onto the front seat of the car and, barefoot, drove her Honda down the hill to Gem. He was not yet at his post, so she stopped in for a brief hello with the hotel manager, a woman whose string of children Peta had delivered, picked up a Coke at the beach bar, and walked onto the sand. She could smell the aroma of fresh seafood cooking in the perpetual pot that was kept going by the beach folk. One of them, still dripping from his dive, cracked open a sea urchin and offered it to her. She could not resist the treat. He wouldn’t take any money, so she tossed him a couple of cigarettes.
Attracted to the sight of the giveaway, a jailbird con artist whom she knew only as Coconut asked for a smoke. She tossed him one.
He grinned and stuck it between his lips before motioning with his hands as if he were striking a match.
“Seen Ralphie?” she asked, pulling a disposable lighter from her purse.
Coconut shook his head. “Not for a few days. Maybe he go off-island.”
Peta pointed at the small pile of green coconuts at his feet. He pulled his machete from the sand, picked up one of the nuts, a little smaller than an American football, and began the ritual he would have to complete before she could ask him any more questions. Twirling the coconut in his left hand, he expertly swung the machete across the end, trimming away the green husk and exposing the soft interior shell. With a final whack he lopped off the end and handed it to her.
She exchanged it for the lighter and drank down the liquid inside the coconut, relishing its cool sweetness. When she’d finished, she handed it back to Coconut, who chopped it open and returned the two halves, along with a shaving from the husk. Using the shaving like a spoon, she scooped out the white, gelatinous insides that off-islanders never saw in the old, dried-out nuts they bought at the supermarket.
“Ralphie has to be around somewhere,” she said, throwing the empty shells into the nearby tin drum that passed as a trash can.
Coconut grinned. “I find him for you—cost you a pack of smokes.”
Peta sat down on one of Gem’s beach chairs. “Sure.” She brushed away a family of no-see-ums that were settling on her arm in anticipation of sundown. “Why not.”
She adjusted the chair, lay back, and fell asleep. The steel-drum sounds of the New Dimensions, a local reggae and soca group, awakened her an hour later. Their music came from theRhum Runner, a tourist-filled catamaran making a stop on its daily sunset round. Two old ladies sat under a palm tree near the cat, trading baskets of T-shirts. A third had thrown a row of brightly colored towels over the fence. She sat in front of them braiding a tourist’s hair with the help of her granddaughter, a pretty girl of no more than nine.
“Ralphie come soon.” Coconut plopped himself down on the sand next to her and held out one hand for payment. “I find him wa-a-y down Grand Anse.”
“I don’t see him,” Peta said.
“He come along slow.”
“Why should I believe you?” Peta asked, amusing herself.