J.B. dug in her fat briefcase and came up with a wad of dollars. 'I make it we owe you for a three-hour ride. Two hundred and forty-four dollars, eighty cents – right?'
I shrugged.
Whitmore said: 'Call it $250. It ain't much of a bonus for knocking down a jet, but I don't know how we'd explain that in the budget.' He smiled. Joke.
I smiled back and said 'Thanks' and they drove away, leaving me standing on the hotel drive with my handful of money and the doorman looking at it curiously. After a while I walked through to the bar.
The next day I went through the proper motions without getting any further than I'd expected, which was exactly nowhere. The insurance company shook its head and regretted that confiscation wasn't covered. After them I tried various Jamaican authorities and the British High Commission to see if I could get a bit of diplomatic pressure on my side. Jamaican authority just didn't want to know; the Repúblicawas some unknown quantity out of sight over the horizon… They were quite ready to believe they confiscated aeroplanes there; hell, they already believed they ate babies and danced naked in the streets at high noon there. So what could you do about it? It was another suburb.
The High Commission sympathised and said it would ask the Commonwealth Relations Office in London to ask the Foreign Office to ask the consul in Santo Bartolomeo… I clicked the loaded dice in my pocket and went away to ring Diego Ingles and tell him the flying lessons were off, indefinitely. I couldn't find him. I was back in the Myrtle Bank by five.
Tuesday was more of the same, only I was running short of people to complain to. So I tried the Flying Club, which sometimes chartered out small planes, to ask if they needed a pilot. But it was their slack season, too. I still couldn't reach Diego. I thought about the crop-spray boys – but that was a big decision, even if they really wanted me. A different type of flying, a different life. I decided to wait until I was off Whit-more's payroll. That day I was in the bar soon after four.
About an hour later the barman handed me the phone; it was J.B. 'The Boss Man wants to buy you a beer. Get yourself a taxi on over; we'll pay it. Okay?'
I thought of reminding her I had a jeep, then decided that if there was any serious drinking coining up, I didn't wantthat with me. 'All right – where to?'
'You know a house called Oranariz? He's rented it.'
I said I knew it and would be there in a couple of hours.
Jamaican taxis aren't surprised at the idea of a sixty-mile trip, so the doorman found one for me pretty easily. We went over the short, steep way, up into the hills to Castleton, down again to Port Maria, and then along the north coast road.
Oranariz – which means 'golden nose' in Jamaican Spanish – is one of a collection of pricey modern houses around Oraca-bessa (golden mouth) near the Boscobel airstrip. They're mostly called Ora-something or just Golden Head, Goldeneye and so on. This one belonged to a writer who was rich enough to afford to live in London and rent off his Jamaican house most of the year. Visiting film stars often took it.
The house itself wasn't all that much – nothing like the 'Big Houses' the Victorian planters built in the hills so that they could take long walks without breathing the open air along with the workers – but what there was of it was good. A long, low bungalow built around three sides of a four-car courtyard, with a fashionable wood-tiled roof, windows with elegant white hurricane shutters, a wide marble-tiled patio around the outside walls. The big point was that it was private: it had itsown walled-in three acres of jungle facing over a small cove and beach that couldn't be reached except from above – or by boat.
The road gate was open and J.B. met usin the courtyard, wearing a cool tube dress of white lace and carrying the usual wad of dollars. She paid off the driver and led the way through the house on to the patio facing the sea.
The first thing that hit me was a refrigerator of my own height, connected by a wire through an open window. On either side of it Whitmore and Luiz were stretched out in aluminium lounging chairs. The third person present was young Diego Ingles.
I was still wondering how he'd got into the charmed circle when Whitmore called: 'Hi, fella. Beer or whisky?'
'Beer, please.'
Luiz stretched an arm and yanked open the refrigerator door, Whitmoie stuck in a hand and pulled out a bottle of Red Stripe, Luiz swung the door shut. It was a smooth piece of teamwork that didn't shift either of them an inch in their chairs.
Whitmore jammed the cap of the bottle against the arm of his metal chair, smacked it with a huge hand, and tossed the open bottle: it dropped neatly upright into my hands.
I took a swig, sat down in another chair, and told Diego: 'Been trying to find you since yesterday.'
He smiled his boyish smile. 'I have heard the sad news already, Señor. I am most sorry for you.'
Whitmore said: 'You remember you figured he could straighten out our Spanish for us?'
Diego waved a deprecating hand. 'I will do what I can, Señor Whitmore, but I am no writer…'
'Hell, it's your own language, isn't it? That's all we want. We damn sure don't need another lousywriter. ' He looked back at me. 'We got some good news for you, too, fella. We got you another aeroplane. Show him the 'gram, J.B.'
She passed me a used cable form. It said:Have found B-25 good condition Buenaventura stop price fifteen but can get for twelve stop delivery Barranquilla any time you want ends.Signed with a Spanish name.
I handed it back thoughtfully. J.B. said: 'I've told him to close the deal – subject to our inspection – and get the plane to Barranquilla. We'll fly down as soon as we hear it's there -okay?'
'A twelve thousand dollar aeroplane that must be at least twenty years old,' I said slowly. 'She won't be in one-careful-little-old-lady-owner condition.'
'Will she fly?' Whitmore asked.
I shrugged. 'If she flies from Buenaventura to Barranquilla – and that's five hundred miles – she could do anything. You're quite sure she is at Buenaventura and not sitting at the back of a hangar in Barranquilla the whole time?'
There was a crossfire of startled looks. These people must have done plenty of wheeling and dealing in then- time, but it seemed they hadn't tried buying an old aeroplane before.
Then Diego said carefully: 'I think, Señor Penrose, you have not met this man' – he nodded at the cable in her hand -rbut my family has done business with him many times. He is an honest agent.'
The suspicious tension faded. Whitmore stretched his legs again, scratched under his bush shirt, and said: 'So – okay. You can handle a B-25 okay, fella?'
Out behind him, on the edge of the patio, there was a humming-bird tree: a dead branch set in a block of concrete and carrying a dozen little narrow-necked jars of sugar-water. A few humming-birds were still around, whizzing in and hovering with nickering wings while they dipped their long beaks for the last snort of the evening. To them, flying was just flying, and no worry about what a new pair of wings might feel like… The hell with them; mere helicopter pilots.
I was trying to recall anything anybody had told me about the B-25, known also as the Mitchell. It wasn't much: except around South America nobody has flown them really seriously since the war, twenty years ago. All I could remember was that they were supposed to be good load-carriers, noisy as hell, and a little tricky until you knew them.
I said: 'I expect so.'
Whitmore said: 'Fine, fine. And we figured a new deal foryou – after what happened Saturday. Give him the contract, J.B.'
She gave it me. It was the same as before, except for the pay. Instead of the $20-a-day retainer plus $10 a flying hour and costs, I was now getting a flat $100 a day. It was a nice gesture, seeing it was hardly his fault I'd lost the Dove, but it wasn't as generous as he probably thought; it would just about let me keep up the mortgage payments I had to go on making on the Dove, confiscated or not, and a bit towards the check four if that day ever came now. He still didn't really owe me anything anyway.