‘Whisky.’
‘Whisky it is. You want the regular or the expensive?’
‘That one,’ Ben said, spotting the half-full bottle of eighteen-year-old special cask strength Islay malt on the counter.
‘The hard stuff,’ Claude said, reaching for the bottle.
‘Make it a double,’ Ben said. He perched on a stool and laid a twenty dollar note on the bar. When Claude set the glass down in front of him, he drained it down in one gulp. Feeling better already, he lit a cigarette. The ashtray on the bar read ‘Quint’s shark fishing’.
‘I’ll have another double,’ he said to Claude.
Claude looked at him, raised an eyebrow and picked up the bottle again. ‘Go easy with this stuff,’ he said as he poured it out. ‘This ain’t your normal whisky.’
‘Helps me think,’ Ben said.
‘It goes to people’s heads. Makes ’em crazy if they can’t handle it.’
‘First time I’ve heard of a barman telling people not to drink.’
Claude pulled a face. ‘Yeah, well, the last time I had a customer start knocking down too much of this stuff, I ended up with three hundred bucks damage.’ He pointed angrily at the new mirror that the workmen had almost finished mounting to the wall.
‘I’ll have to try not to smash anything,’ Ben said, turning to his drink.
‘Fucking prick,’ Claude muttered.
Ben looked sharply up at him — then realised Claude was still complaining about his troublesome customer. He obviously hadn’t got over it yet. ‘Comes in here bawling everyone out, acting the big shot. Treats Raoul like shit. Then starts flashing cash in here like there’s no tomorrow. No tomorrow. I like that one. That’s funny.’
‘You think so?’ Ben said, thinking about carrying his drink over to one of the empty tables.
Claude grinned. ‘Sure. Cause for him there really was no tomorrow. Raoul took him to the plane. You know, the plane that crashed?’
Now Ben was giving it his attention. ‘Yeah, I get the part about the plane. But I don’t get who Raoul is.’
‘Cab driver. My brother in law. Anyway, this prick hires him to drive him to the airfield. On the way, tells him to stop here so he can tank himself up even more than he is already. Raoul says, he’s not a fucking chauffeur. Guy throws a wad of dough at him. So Raoul waits for him in the car. Guy starts knocking back that same whisky you’re drinking. Pretty soon he’s out of control with it. Carrying on about how he’s flying to London or someplace and how he’s gonna kick ass.’ Claude made a dismissive gesture. ‘Like I was interested. I just wanted this loudmouth sonofabitch out of my place, and I told him so. Now he’s really pissed off. Me and Dave had to sling his ass out of the door, but not before he’d managed to throw his glass through my damn mirror.’
Claude turned and motioned towards its replacement above the bar. ‘I liked that old mirror. Hung there more than fifteen years, and some asshole who can’t hold his liquor goes and smashes it.’ He pointed at Ben’s glass. ‘So all I’m saying is, mister, go easy on that stuff. You’re still thirsty after this one, I’ll pour you a beer. How’s that?’
‘I’ll pass on the beer,’ Ben said. ‘Where can I find Raoul?’
Claude looked at him. ‘What for?’
‘I need a taxi ride,’ Ben said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Where to, mon?’ Raoul drawled over his shoulder with a Jamaican lilt as Ben climbed in the back of the taxicab outside Claude’s thirty minutes later. The Peugeot 504 made Ben’s rental Toyota look showroom-new. Reggae thumped over the speakers and the tang of cannabis smoke was imbued into the worn-out fabric of the seats.
‘How about a little scenic tour?’ Ben said.
‘Sure,’ Raoul said, lurching away from Claude’s. ‘You wanna go right round the island? It ain’t a big place.’
‘Just as far as it takes for you to answer a few questions,’ Ben said, tossing a thin wad of cash over the backrest of the front passenger seat. Raoul thumbed the money expertly with one hand as he drove, and flashed Ben a dazzling smile in the rear-view mirror. ‘What you wanna know?’
‘Tell me about the guy who smashed up Claude’s place.’
‘You a cop?’ Raoul looked worried for a second, probably thinking about the pot he’d got stashed away in the glove compartment or somewhere. Ben knew that the Cayman laws on ganja-smoking were pretty Draconian.
‘A cop’s the last thing I am,’ Ben told him. ‘Relax. Talk to me about this guy you drove to the airport the day the plane went down.’
‘A real rat’s ass,’ Raoul declared, launching enthusiastically into his story. ‘He was already totally canned when I went to pick him up. By the time we got to Claude’s, the guy’da picked a fight with Mike Tyson.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because of what was on the radio,’ Raoul said simply.
‘He didn’t like your music?’ Ben said.
‘No, mon. He didn’t like the news.’
‘The news?’
Raoul nodded. ‘The news about London. You know, the terrorist thing? Bombs and shit? They were talking about the sisterfucker that did it. This guy, he suddenly goes crazy. Starts yelling at me: “Turn that crap off! Turn it off right now or you can kiss my ass for your money!” So I turned it off. Like I’m gonna lose my fare over what goes on in fuckin’ London, right?’
‘Claude says he got you to drop him off at the bar and wait for him. What happened next?’
‘Drunk fuck. After they threw him out, he gets back in the taxi. I take him to meet the plane, like he wanted.’
‘You saw him get on the plane?’
Raoul shrugged. ‘Sure. He got on the motherfucking plane and it flew away. Then it crashed.’ He shrugged again. ‘Feel sorry for the rest of those folks. Not for Mister A-hole.’
‘You wouldn’t happen to know Mr A-hole’s name?’ Ben said.
Raoul waved towards the glove box. ‘Guess it must be in my book,’ he said.
‘Another ten bucks in it for you if you let me see it,’ Ben said.
‘No problemo.’ Raoul flipped open the glove box, battered about inside, yanked out a tattered and much-thumbed notepad and passed it back over his shoulder for Ben to examine. Raoul had his own special book-keeping system. Ben turned back a few pages, tracing his finger down the date entries scrawled in the grubby left-hand margin until he’d worked his way back to July 23.
And there it was: there in Raoul’s chicken-scratch capitals, the name he was looking for.
‘Moss,’ Ben read out loud. Beside it was the name ‘Palm Tree Lodge’.
‘That’s the guy,’ Raoul said.
‘This address. That’s where you picked him up from?’
‘Uh-huh. So what now, mon?’
Ben had a feeling he wouldn’t be returning to the airfield that day. ‘Scenic tour’s over,’ he said. ‘Take me back to my car. Then you can show me the way to Palm Tree Lodge.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Palm Tree Lodge was one of a row of little white wooden houses scattered along a deserted stretch of beach. As Raoul’s taxi disappeared into the distance, Ben climbed out of the Toyota and trudged across the soft white sand. Palms rustled overhead, shading him from the late afternoon sun as he walked up to the house. He climbed the three sandy steps to the veranda, knocked on the front door and waited for a response. There was none. After a couple more knocks, he crossed the shady veranda to the nearest window, and peered through.
The place looked empty. Chairs had been stacked up in a corner, as if cleaners had gone through the place. Ben headed back down the steps to the sand.