The little man did not allow the inspection to bother him. He continued his inventory of the town’s few attributes. He saw the ship’s chandler next to the confectionery, with the hardware and a grocer’s below, separated by a storefront that was boarded up. Only one building stood apart, separated from the others by a narrow lane, and also, it appeared, by a full century in time. It was a two-story building, squat and characterless, which might have been transported red brick by red brick and reconstructed, complete with original grime, from any English coastal town from Gravesend to Tynemouth, to serve the thirsts of the small community. Above the door with its leaded glass panels a battered wooden sign hung, depicting what the artist undoubtedly considered a badger. The artist, the small man noted in passing, had been quite wrong.
The shacks that made up the bulk of the village in area, if not in construction, were of mud with thatched roofs, newer by far than the stone monstrosities they seemed to huddle about as if for protection, but also far less stable. Fishing nets hung from many of the paneless windows, draped over poles, spread for drying. Across the road a series of sand dunes hid actual sight of the ocean, but a dual track beaten through the tall sparse grass indicated the location of the dock and the fishing boats, now undoubtedly tied up for the evening. The sun was low in the cloudless sky, sinking over Mount Hillaby, but the air still retained the heat of the day.
Wilson sighed, wiped his brow, hitched up his ragged ex-white trousers, and padded across the road to the inn, his worn tennis shoes raising little puffs of dust. He tried to appear nonchalant about the constant inspection he was receiving from the constable in the car, straightening his scrubby jacket in a gesture indicating he had as much right to enter an inn as anyone else.
He pushed through the heavy doors into a welcome coolness, abetted by the yeasty aroma of beer, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and his ears to the noise. The bar was filled with fishermen, slaking a thirst built up through working a long day in the sun; others crowded the benches and booths that filled the opposite wall. Wilson stood a moment, studying the group, and finally found McNeil leaning quietly on the bar somewhere in the middle of the noisy gang about him, speaking with nobody, paying no attention to the crowd of men laughing, pounding each other on the backs, comparing catches. Wilson shouldered himself through the men, pushing up to the bar. The bartender, a stout mulatto, his face shining with sweat, came to stand before him.
“Beer or rum?”
“Rum. Make it a double.”
A glass was slid before him; rum gurgled from a bottle. Wilson started to raise it to his lips and then saw the bartender still waiting before him. Strangers, he realized, were rare in the village, and seldom came with established credit ratings. Without putting the glass down, he fished money from his pocket with his free hand and tossed it on the bar. The bartender took it and walked away.
In the mirror behind the bar Wilson picked his image out of the mob, studied it a moment, and smiled faintly. Even had he not been a stranger it would have been small wonder had the bartender suspected his ability to pay. He hadn’t shaved for four days, and it had taken him many hours to fray his shirt collar and the cuffs of the cheap suit-jacket he wore. I ought to be thankful he served me at all, he thought, money or not, and downed his drink. It was strong, but much smoother than he had expected: not Reserva San Juan cognac, but on the other hand, not Brazilian pinga either. He dug out another coin and rapped on the bar with it, attracting the attention of the bartender, glancing at the clock on the wall even as he waited for his glass to be refilled. Even adding the ten minutes all bar clocks are set ahead throughout the world, he didn’t have too much time. The bus hadn’t exactly broken all speed records on its journey from Bridgetown. He raised his glass, drinking, his eyes casually studying McNeil in the mirror. The big black man at his side had his head bent, his thoughts obviously far away; his mug of beer had lost its head. Time to go to work, Wilson thought, and tapped the bar with his glass. The bartender came back, bottle poised.
“One more, mon?”
“No thanks.” Wilson gestured with his head. “The head? I mean, the gents?”
“I know what you mean, mon. In the back.”
The bartender moved away to serve his other customers. Wilson backed his way through the noisy bunch, accidentally jostling McNeil as he forced his way back. The big man didn’t even bother to respond to the murmured apology, continuing to stare at the bar, his mind far away. It’s really unfair, Wilson thought; he isn’t even paying attention. He walked to the back door and let himself through it, not greatly surprised to find himself outside. The Gents and Ladies were housed in a separate building, and the man loitering quite obviously at the end of the lane had to be someone the police had put there to watch the rear exit of the inn.
With a smile Wilson turned and walked down the lane beside the weathered brick building. He calmly crossed the road before the constable’s car, marching along the shoulder in the direction he had been going by bus. Let the constable think he had merely paused on his way for a glass of beer, although he was quite aware that the constable, while undoubtedly sizing him up, was also under strict orders to keep McNeil under his eagle eye — and not some stranger, no matter how ragged his appearance nor how unusual his means of exit from an inn.
Wilson was also fully conscious, as he walked along, of the pressure of McNeil’s wallet in his own pocket, and the possibility of a sudden outcry behind him which would force him to take to his heels over the dunes and save himself from the big man as best he could. It occurred to him that while the rewards of pocket-picking undoubtedly were both ample and relatively easily come by, the suspense of waiting to slip up and be caught were a bit nerve-wracking, and that by and large he would hate to make his living that way. He grinned as he trod the road’s shoulder: What were his alternatives? He couldn’t pilot a plane, and with his legs he’d starve to death as an exotic dancer.
He heard the sound of a motor behind him, the labored grinding of an old car; he turned raising his thumb. It was an ancient camper; not to his amazement the driver put on his brakes, drawing to one side of the road. Wilson climbed in; the car moved slowly ahead. Behind them the constable returned to watching the door of the inn with stoic patience. Whether the ragged stranger deserved interrogation or not would soon be the problem of the next parish, not his.
In the car Da Silva glanced at Wilson over his shoulder.
“How did it go?”
“Like clubbing carp in a rain barrel.” Wilson patted his pocket. “I left him his wristwatch, his underwear, and the fillings in his teeth.”
“I consider that very sweet of you,” Da Silva said. He pulled the camper a bit to one side of the road to allow ample passage for the yellow bus that was approaching from the opposite direction, and then got back into the center of his lane once it had passed. “Do me a favor, though, will you?”
“Anything.”
“Move away from me a bit more, will you? The money in my billfold is a gift from the Brazilian Government, and as such it has sentimental value...”
The yellow bus that Da Silva had passed stopped before the Badger Inn to allow Diana Cogswell to descend. The girl, scarcely recognizable as the svelte creature of her photographs or the beautifully gowned and coifed young lady who had had drinks with Da Silva and Wilson in Port-of-Spain, was still undoubtedly very attractive; no change of attire or hair style could conceal the perfection of her dark brown features, the loveliness of her strong body with its long legs, straight back, and full bosom. She watched the bus pull away and then opened the door to the inn. The harried bartender heaved a sigh of relief as she bent to pass beneath the counter, coming up beside him.