The waiter came with their drinks just then. Canadian on the rocks for Andrew, a planter’s punch for Willie. Willie raised his glass in a toast to the two women sitting across the room. The one in the pink dress looked at him and then turned away in seeming disdain.
“Bingo,” Willie said.
“So what do you think, sis?” Heather asked. “Can you find your way back alone tonight?”
“You’re not serious,” Sarah said.
“I seem to have caught Whitey’s eye.”
“You may catch more than that...”
“Who cares?”
“... picking up strangers in a bar.”
“A restaurant, please. And only one stranger. Unless the one with the big ears wants to join us.”
“I think you are serious.”
“You just watch me, kid.”
“Your plane leaves at nine.”
“Plenty of time.”
“The man’s in his sixties!”
“Good, I’ll give him a heart attack.”
“Whatever you do, leave me out of it,” Sarah said.
“Who invited you?”
“I mean it.”
“Watch him melt,” Heather said, and turned toward where the two men were sitting, and leveled a long, lingering, blue-eyed gaze at the white-haired one.
“What time is the boat meeting me?” Andrew asked.
“Did you see that?”
“No. What?”
“The one in pink. She just invited me to her room.”
“They’re not staying here,” Andrew said. “They live in that house on the beach.”
“Better yet.”
“The boat,” Andrew reminded him.
“They’ll send a dinghy to the dock at ten tomorrow morning. They’re very prompt, so be on time. I told them you’d be alone, the way you wanted it. I prefer the one in white, but I’m willing to settle,” Willie said. “You want the one in white?”
“No,” Andrew said. “I want a good night’s sleep. This meeting tomorrow is important.”
“Always mix business with pleasure,” Willie said. “That’s a rule here in the islands.”
“Whose rule?”
“Mine. You sure you don’t want the one in white?”
“Positive.”
“Then I’ll take both of them.”
“Do you plan to eat first, or are you going to jump them right here in the dining room?” Andrew asked.
“Maybe both,” Willie said, and grinned like a shark.
The one with the white hair approached their table while they were having coffee and dessert.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said.
Heather looked up at him.
Nothing in her eyes. No hint that she had noticed him earlier, had in fact blatantly flirted with him across the room. Sarah had to admire her sister’s cool.
“My name is Willie Isetti,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d like to join my friend and I for an after-dinner drink. There are some quiet tables in the bar area...”
“Thank you, no,” Heather said, her voice only a few degrees icier than the glare in her pale blue eyes.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” he said, and smiled weakly, and walked back across the room to where the young one was sitting alone at the table.
Sarah looked at her sister.
“He doesn’t know grammar,” Heather said, and shrugged.
“I thought I was the English teacher.”
“Besides, my plane is at nine.”
“Um-huh.”
“And he is in his sixties.”
“Um-huh.”
“And he’s not as good-looking now that I’m sober.”
“Then let’s go home,” Sarah said.
She left Heather touching up her lipstick at the mirror in the ladies’ room while she went outside to get the car from the valet. She was waiting under the hibiscus-covered trellis at the front of the hotel, the side away from the harbor and the spectacular view, when the young one with the ears came outside.
He said nothing to her.
They stood at opposite ends of the small curved entryway to the hotel, the strong heavy aroma of angel’s-trumpet suffusing the night air. The silence lengthened until it became too obviously awkward.
“Nice night,” she said.
“Lovely,” he said.
The valet arrived just then, pulling the car up to a squealing stop, leaping out, leaving the driver-side door open for her, and then running around to open the passenger-side door. Thinking they were together, he looked surprised when Sarah and not the man tipped him four francs.
“Did you have a car too, sir?” he asked.
“Red VW,” he said, and handed him the keys.
“The license plate?”
“Sorry, I don’t know.”
The valet shook his head.
“They like you to remember the license plate number,” Sarah told him. “These rental cars from the airport all look alike.”
“I should have realized that,” he said, and turned to the valet. “I parked it under the big tree there,” he told him, and pointed it out.
“You should have let me park it, sir,” the valet said, looking offended.
“Sorry about that,” he said, and smiled.
“I’ll get it for you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Heather came out of the hotel just then.
“Well, good night,” Sarah said.
“Good night,” he said.
Heather looked at him briefly and then got into the car. As they pulled away from the hotel, she arched a brow and said, “Fast work, sis.”
Sarah was thinking she’d be talking to Michael in less than twenty minutes.
The phone rang some ten times before he picked up.
“Hullo?”
His voice sounded sleep-sodden, almost drugged.
“Michael?”
“Mm.”
“It’s me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wake up, darling.”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“Wake up, it’s me.”
“Mm.”
“Wake up, Michael.”
“Mm.”
“Michael?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s me,” she said. “Sarah.”
“Okay, g’night,” he said.
There was a click on the line.
“Michael?” she said.
Silence.
“Michael?”
She looked at the phone receiver, so startled that she burst out laughing. Shaking her head, the laughter subsiding, she put the receiver back on its cradle, lay back against the pillows again, and visualized Michael at home all tangled in the bedclothes, dead asleep, not knowing whether she was lying there beside him or calling from the moon, having forgotten completely the promises of long-distance sex they’d made earlier tonight.
It was too bad, actually.
She’d really been ready for him.
Looking out at the star-drenched night, she lay silent and still for a long, long while before finally she fell asleep.
The computerized tapes had brought Michael current to April of 1992. From there on, it was either listening to the tapes themselves or reading the typed transcripts of them. It was simpler to read transcripts than to listen to tapes, which were often hard to understand. He decided to read.
This was now nine thirty on Tuesday morning, the twenty-ninth. He had phoned Sarah before leaving for work, vaguely remembering a call from her in the middle of the night, and apologizing for having drunk a bit too much at Spark’s, which restaurant always made him feel like a gangster himself; maybe that’s why he went there. Sarah had graciously allowed that perhaps she and her sister — who’d be leaving for the airport in about twenty minutes, she informed him — had also drunk a bit too much, so maybe they should try it another time, like how about right now, she’d suggested. He’d told her he was on his way to the office, but he’d call her later.