When audience cries,
Lungs fill with venom
And foam and lies,
Momements before she dies,
An applause a bow, arise!
For it smiles down
From tassers distant eyes!
As it seems them all to be
Flush with his breath,
So washed by his empowering
Hand they will be flowering
And cleansed.
“ This could be just another ploy to throw us off, Eriq.”
“ You really think this creep is that clever?”
“ Yes, he has been.”
The others slowly, quietly vacated the room to allow the two FBI people to hash out this latest wrinkle in the case.
“ If we’re down here on a wild-goose chase. Jessica, it’s going to be damn near impossible to explain to D.C.”
“ It was my call, Eriq. I don’t expect or want you shielding me again on this case. You got that?”
“ What’re you saying? That we go through with our plans as if this”-he lifted and tossed the facsimile of the killer’s note back onto the table and continued to worriedly pace- “that this didn’t happen? That it doesn’t exist?”
“ I’m doing exactly that.” He fumed a bit and then said, “You mean we… We’re doing exactly that.”
“ Thanks, Eriq.”
“ For what?”
“ For hanging in with me…for trusting me.”
“ I’m going to turn in early… Get some sleep,” he advised. “We’ll see what dawn brings.” Eriq gathered up the information provided by Ja and disappeared for his room upstairs. Jessica sat alone until Ja’s two youngest children crept into the room and begged her to come play with them. She knew she would be spending a restless night filled with questions she had no answers for, so the simplicity of a children’s game and perhaps a bedtime story held a tremendous appeal, and Ja’s children were lovely.
Jessica allowed the children to pull her by her fingers away from all thought of the Night Crawler.
Jessica had been up before dawn, and she’d had one of Ja’s sons-also up and watching a crude local television show for children-roust his father. Ja contacted the port authorities and asked if there had been any sightings of the ships racing toward Grand Cayman. There had been none.
“ Ask if there have been any ships to come in overnight, any at all,” urged Jessica.
Ja asked in his native tongue, a crude concoction of old French, Dutch and pidgin English. He listened politely after asking the question, then turned to Jessica and replied, “Only another cruise ship standing off the island.”
“ What news have they on the race?” she asked quickly. Ja smiled at her and again in his native tongue asked her question of his port authority man. Jessica watched her friend as he unnecessarily nodded several times into the phone, when he then finally told her, “You may relax, my good friend. They are hours yet away.”
She did relax, taking a walk about the garden which overlooked the ocean far below. It was a wondrous, ever- surprising place, this patch of sand lying in the Western Caribbean between Cuba and Belize-one of thirty-four island nations. The children had taught her how best to pronounce it the night before, training her to say Kay-Monn, and they wanted to know when and where she would be diving in the brilliantly green sea, as diving was done by everyone who came to Kay-Monn. She could only wish for the time.
Before the famed and legendary six-thousand-foot drop to the ocean floor called The Wall, with its extensive barrier reef, had been discovered, no one had ever heard of the Caymans, but word had spread among divers the world over. As a result, divers were always arriving and dive outfitters and excursions were one of the island’s leading tourist industries. Every other shop along the wharves sold to or outfitted snorkelers and divers.
Jessica, on her earlier visit to the island in the company of Alan Rychman, had become familiar with the busy retail enclave here called Coconut Port and she and Rychman had outfitted themselves out of Aquanauts. Everywhere in Cayman you heard the expression, “Sorry, mon, can’t help you tomorrow, ‘cause I’m doing The Wall.” She recalled her own sense of freedom forty and fifty feet below-over the legal limit for these waters-as friendly black-and-yellow angelfish, electric-orange fish and others of many colors swam past stalk after stalk of elkhorn coral and wave-spreading fan coral. There were dry alternatives to exploring The Wall, like booking a seat on the Atlantis submarine, which carried tour groups on dives to one hundred feet-eight hundred if you wanted the deluxe treatment, which she and Rychman had opted for, at about what it had cost the two of them to learn to dive over the years. But The Wall was wondrous, magnificent, worth it, and Cayman-especially for the underwater enthusiast- was truly one of the few places on earth where the hype was not overkill and the reality disappointing. Still, to the naked eye and raw spirit, reality here seemed unreal, a mirror held up to another time, place, dimension-a colorful dimension like that of a cartoon. It was spectacular and breathtaking, reminding her of Hawaii, and of Jim, which all seemed now an illusion as well.
Had Hawaii ever happened? she silently wondered.
Only the wind coming in from over the ocean had an answer. It might be a wind that had traveled here all the way from Hawaii, she thought as she walked the lovely gardens where Aliciana had planted literally thousands of flowers of all color and variety.
Yes, the wind affirmed to her… Hawaii had felt real, Jim’s touch and his love for her had certainly felt real, regardless of its near-magical qualities, its seeming like an illusion, just like this dreamworld place called Grand Cayman. It was quite as terribly real as it was beautiful. Nowadays, in fact, the orderly, tidy and superficially wealthy British colony was considered the Caribbean’s best place for an underwater getaway, and how much further from ugly reality could one get than to become a fish?
Ja’s home and grounds were beautiful and ugly, double-edged remnants of a time past, when the colonials ran things here and no native such as Ja stood a chance at capturing a brass ring like a good job, a career, a well fed family and. least likely of all, a mansion, Jessica thought. Her walk at an end, she returned to the house to find Aliciana, still somewhat sleepy, preparing a native breakfast with much attendant fruit for them all. It appeared obvious that Ja had clamored until she climbed from bed and went to work in the kitchen, to fulfill her duty as a well-kept wife, but she was a kind lady, gracious and easily giving; she extended a genuine and lustrous smile for Dr. Jessica as she, Ja, and the children had come to call her.
Soon the others were finding their way downstairs from their various rooms, enticed by Aliciana’s cooking, the sweet, luring odors enough to brighten even Santiva’s day. Still, Jessica was anxious to get down to the airport and out over the water in search of their prey, and to this end, she hustled the others through their breakfast, despite Ja’s insistence that one couldn’t hurry an island meal.
Sunlight buttered the island and the bays and the wharves. To get to the airport, Jessica and the others had to drive by George Town Port, where they saw a crowd milling about the boats moored in the heaviest tourist district. The floating docks were mobbed with reporters, photographers, tourists and what Ja told them were friends and family. “Friends and family of whom?” asked Jessica. “The racers, of course-the sailboat racers who stop here today. They are touring the entire Caribbean Sea and now they stop over here, later today, tonight, depending on the sea and the condition of their sails, of course.”
Jessica now realized what she was looking at, so she saw that not everyone on the docks and wharves were idle onlookers, that many were shore-crew personnel, people struggling to prepare for the arrival of the boats. Amid the crowd she saw the bustle of business. She saw hoses, vacuum cleaners, water jugs, crates of food, folded sails, lines piled high, saws, drills, marine sealant, flats of cardboard, all shining in the blood-orange glow of morning sun. It looked like the contestants had quite a welcoming committee on deck.