"Eustace is the man charged with Americanizing the Defense Forces. So turning his good friend away is not the thing. Anyway," Roger said, "you may find her fun."
"I find her attractive," Van Dreele said. "I tried to hire her as an assistant, but unfortunately Eustace found her. He's going to be our local André Chénier. Toussaint. Bolívar. She will commit it all to history."
"I suppose we don't have to comp her?" Lara asked. "She's not a travel writer."
Roger shook his head. "On the contrary. We set them up for Miss McKie."
Lara thought about it. "You know," she said, "Francis has a way of undercooking goat that's really disgusting. Maybe we should gut one in her honor."
"Francis's goat is lovely," Roger declared, "and I'm going to miss it. No, Miss McKie is a fucking ascetic. She gets too hungry for dinner at eight. She stays in the lowest hippie hovel in Rodney. Freddy's Elite."
"All the hip white kids used to stay there."
Roger nodded bitterly. "I should know, sweetheart."
"No kidding, Rog. You picked up white boys at Freddy's? That's a switch. Who paid?"
"Sometimes," Roger said with a sigh, "the trade was distinctly rough."
"At least," Lara said, "she didn't invite us there."
Van Dreele stood. They could hear a car pulling up in the hotel's turnaround.
"I don't want to talk to the press," the Dutchman said. "And McKie is a minefield. By the way," he told them as he went out, "Junot's secured Rodney and the whole south part of the island. His troops will be up here in a few hours and they have some American support units. Also Special Forces with the forward elements."
"That means," Roger said, "we'll have a lot of hungry ex-soldiers up this end of the island. This is where they'll hide out." He waved cheerfully to Miss McKie, who was coming up the stairs. "We've got to get over to the lodge and get this over with. Things are coming unraveled on this island republic."
Lara gripped the table. "We have to get there by nightfall," she told Roger. "For retirer."
"I've hardly forgotten," Roger said. "We'll deal with McKie and go."
She meant the ceremony for John-Paul.
Miss McKie had worn khakis and sandals to join them, along with a navy blue T-shirt and a knit sweater against the night breeze. She was pretty; her slim neck and delicate features made her look like a dancer, but she was not tall. The candlelight at the table suited her. She appeared very much at home, which was not what Lara had expected.
"I'll never recover from the beauty of this place," McKie said. "I won't forget it."
"And now," Roger said, "you have attachments here. The Caribbean moon makes all irresistible." He was referring to Eustace Junot.
"I understand your father was Roger Hyde, the novelist," McKie said quickly. "That true?"
Roger smiled as though he were listening to something far away, hearing different words.
"All that old-time swashbuckling stuff, right?" McKie persisted. "The gallant South. But you didn't live here or in the States?"
"We lived in Cayoacán," Roger said. "Down the street from Trotsky."
McKie gave him a long-toothed smile. Then she turned to Lara, looking her over somewhat impolitely.
"I understand you teach political science at Fort Salines, Miss Purcell."
"Call me Lara."
"Do you deal with the modern history of this island? The corruption and poverty?"
"I'm afraid we can't stay long, Liz," Lara said. She brushed her shoulders and tossed her head as if she were cleansing herself of Liz McKie's effrontery. "We haven't time for the grand historical questions."
"My questions," McKie said, "are all about modern history. Independence to the present. May I ask a few?"
"We're afraid," Lara said, "your close connection in the Social Justice Party — and the Defense Forces — would shade your interpretation. And we have an engagement tonight."
"Actually," Roger interrupted, "if I were you, I would get back to my friends."
"We inherited a historical situation here," Lara said. "We all did. Everyone. We're in business here, we have been for two hundred years. We pay a decent wage for a day's work. Higher than any of the offshore American or European companies."
"Is it true that you're involved in moving drugs to the United States?" Liz McKie showed the same smile.
"There's never been a drug case connected with St. Trinity," Roger told her. "Not one. All local business people are accused of it. Whereas American-owned companies are said to be pure. Why is that?"
"Informed people say it. They say there's a political dimension."
"Do you want to stay here for the night?" Lara offered. "The roads will be troublesome if you're traveling after dark."
They got her in her car and under way. Her driver was one of Junot's American-trained soldiers, and he looked worried as he drove out of the hotel's turnaround. Miss McKie sat in front, beside him.
"A stupid waste of time," Roger said when they too were back on the road. "We've got to get the shipment out whether the Colombians have arrived or not. The pilot's been standing by."
"Waiting for darkness," Lara said. "Same fellow I came in with?"
"Truly," Roger said, "I try not to distinguish one from the other."
"I won't ask you about drugs," Lara said.
"You needn't. People don't understand how it is."
"No?"
"You know," he said when they had left the road and were struggling along rainforest track, "we also have a reputation for not moving drugs. At least we used to. We're in the arts business primarily. People ask us about emeralds."
When the quick darkness fell, the drums began.
"I'm hopeful, you know," Lara said. "I have a blessing and I'm determined that nothing go wrong."
Manhandling the wheel, Roger glanced over at her and smiled.
"What?" she asked.
The drums were louder and closer. They heard the ogan, the metal roarer, lay down a commanding beat and the other drums fell into line around its tempo.
"You're so like him."
"Ah," she said happily. "Twins in the mysteries."
"I hope nothing goes wrong," Roger said. "I hope you see him."
13
THE PILOT was a Colombian-born Basque named Soto. Until learning to fly a few years before, he had been partners with his brother in a wholesale electronics business. The business had thrived but he had found the life boring.
As darkness came down on the mountains, he stood by the wooden benches outside the lodge, smoking, listening to the drums. He knew Lara slightly from the short deadhead flight down from Vieques. He had delivered a new plane from the dealer, a lovely Beechcraft that pleased him, evoking Bogey and Ilsa at the Casablanca airport. The plane that he would fly north was fueling on the edge of the canefields surrounded by armed men. Colombians and other off-islanders had replaced the local security, in which the higher-ups were losing confidence. It was a good plane, a Cessna 185 taildragger of the sort useful for rough-and-ready takeoffs and landings, worked on that morning by an expatriate Cuban mechanic who had a little cigarette and rum factory outside town.
"Sit if you like," Lara told the pilot. She was preparing herself for the ceremony that was under way in the hounfor and she had been trying to stay out of his way. The sound of the drums had brought him over. He looked from the drummers toward the ruinous lodge building.
"It's strange, this."
She shrugged. He took out a pack of cigarettes and offered the opened pack to her. She declined.
It was strange there even to those who had seen a great deal. The lodge was a nineteenth-century building of stucco and brick, with a tall steeple and three Ionic columns in front. Above the formal entryway were painted the vevers of the gods around the Masonic square and compass. It stood in what was now an abandoned village of Haitian-style thatched houses. The canefields around it had been cut back to provide a grassy landing strip, at the far end of which was a low tin-roofed machine shop, painted in camouflage colors.