He walked away from the cabin and stopped beneath the palm trees. “You know what I was doing in there?”
“No, sir. I think, yes.”
He frowned, trying to decipher her patois. “You don’t know, but you have an idea?”
She nodded. “I think you place charm to kill him. Because he bash you.”
He looked at her and smiled slowly. “You’ve lived with your mother too long.”
“Yes, sir.”
She seemed to be waiting for something more, and Burt reddened at the realization that his words could be taken as some sort of proposal. Maudie wore his gift beneath her T-shirt, and it was, as he’d expected, far too small. He failed to see how she breathed. He thought of telling her she didn’t have to wear it to please him, then realized it would merely drag him into more semantic confusion. He shrugged and started toward the club. Maudie followed. Burt called over his shoulder:
“Keep following me around, Maudie, and you’ll see things you shouldn’t.”
“Yes, sir,” she said gravely.
He walked on, and heard her bare feet slapping the path behind him.
He reached the club in time to watch Rolf negotiate the entrance to the lagoon. A split-second’s error in timing would have ripped the bottom out of the sleek, lap-hulled Swedish cruiser, but whatever else Rolf was, he was a skilled boatman. He waited for the swell, then gunned the engine and rose up with it. A wall of spray hid the boat for a moment, then it sailed into the comparatively calm lagoon. Burt was waiting as Rolf tied up at the jetty.
“We’ve lost our rowboat,” said Burt. “You didn’t happen to see it drifting?”
Rolf stood up, three inches taller than Burt. He looked strikingly virile and Nordic with his yellow hair blowing and his windbreaker jacket sparkling with water droplets. Burt noted the bulge beneath his left armpit and was half-relieved to know where the gun was.
The woman stood behind him, her eyes hidden by dark glasses. Her nose and forehead were sunburned, and there was pinkness on the long legs which extended below her white shorts. He wondered at her folly in submitting herself to the sun after being burned yesterday. Perhaps she’d been deceived by the haze; many northerners didn’t realize the tropic sun could burn through a layer of clouds.
“There was nothing out there,” said Rolf. “Everybody seems to be staying in port.” He frowned. “Lost the rowboat, eh?” His eyelids drooped slightly. “Then it seems I’m in possession of the only means of leaving the island.” He smiled blandly at Burt. “Let me know if I can be of any help.”
He walked away, and the woman followed without having spoken, or even nodded to Burt. He noticed that the shorts molded her so snugly that the cloth was shiny tight. It seemed wrong for her to be so blatantly sexual in public; she was the type who waited until it could produce immediate results. Furthermore, she wasn’t handling herself in a seductive manner. She walked as though she were self-conscious and uncomfortable, as though she’d been caught unprepared and had to wear a smaller woman’s clothing—
“All right, March. Shove your eyes back in your head.”
He turned to Joss beside him. “You notice anything strange about Mrs. Keener?”
“It isn’t strange. Everybody’s got one. Not everybody throws it around.”
He had to smile at Joss’s criticism of another woman’s apparel, considering her own home-made bathing costume. He walked with her to the club and sat down at a table.
“Tell me, did a blonde happen to occupy cabin two before she came?”
Joss frowned. “No. The last ones were two Frenchmen from Martinique. Rum-heads. Threw up all over the joint. Had to scrub it with soap and water to get the smell out. Why?”
“When did Jata clean it last?”
“Yesterday. She couldn’t today because—”
“I know. Then it had to be night before last.”
“What?”
He hesitated, then pulled out the two sheets of paper and handed them to her. She squinted, then shook her head and handed them back. “Light’s bad here. You read.”
“The light’s perfect and you know it.” Burt read the two notes and explained where he’d found them. He didn’t mention that he’d gone inside.
“Okay, Burt,” said Joss without interest. “She was alone and bugged by the fact.”
“Bugged enough to consider suicide?”
“Enough to write a note about it, and enjoy the thought of her husband being sorry she was dead. It’s like a crying drunk; you feel way down, you can’t figure why you’re down, so you invent trouble.”
“Maybe.” Burt folded the sheets and returned them to his pocket. “But you’ve got to admit, she doesn’t seem to be feeling sorry for herself now.”
“So her husband came and she’s happy.” Joss raised her glass, obviously ready to forget Mrs. Keener.
“One more thing,” said Burt. “Have you noticed any changes in her since I came? Has she dyed her hair... or anything?”
She set down her glass. “Burt, she had only one head, she wore clothes, she didn’t wear a beard. That’s all I can tell you. You know my eyesight.”
“Maybe the boys—”
“They won’t tell you anything.”
Her positive tone made Burt look at her sharply. “Why not?”
“Well... they’re not supposed to look.” Joss looked uncomfortable. “We’ve had some trouble in the past. The boys are typical islanders, you know, pretty direct types. Uninhibited. When they see a pretty woman they... look her over. But good. Stateside women aren’t used to that, and most of them have this color thing. I finally had to give strict orders to the boys, don’t look at the women.”
“Hell, Joss. That won’t stop it.”
“No, but they still won’t tell you anything. That would mean admitting they’ve disobeyed.”
Burt had to agree, and reflected that here was the drawback in throwing your authority around; you cut yourself off from sources of information. He decided not to tell Joss about the heroin, nor about the suspicion which was taking shape in his mind. Joss couldn’t help him until he knew which way it was going, and there was no point in spreading the burden of silence. With Joss, it would be a tremendous burden. He supposed it was her stage background that made her accept people for what they said they were. It was part of her charm.
Joss broke into his thoughts with somber sincerity:
“Listen, Burt, I don’t know what that bump on the head did to you, but you’re going to louse up your holiday. Not only that, you’ll depress me, and then I’ll drink too much and go on a bawling jag—”
“I’m sorry, Joss, but—”
“But, nothing. The weather’s bad enough without you catfooting around the islands. What we need is a party.”
It occurred to Burt that a party might be exactly what he needed to shake out more information. “You’re right, Joss. Get the boys in with their instruments—”
“And I’ll broil pigeons, and get some more wine—” She paused. “The Keeners?”
“Invite them, by all means. It won’t be a party if they don’t come.”
Four
Joss managed to produce excellent wine for the dinner, and pigeons braised over the charcoals. She also arranged that Burt set opposite Mrs. Keener, with Rolf opposite Joss. Burt could see her visibly melting under the man’s attention, hypnotically reaching for her glass when Keener filled it.
Burt devoted his attention to Mrs. Keener, and in the process grew increasingly puzzled. She seemed miserably ill at ease in a dress too small for her. Its décolletage might have been breathtaking had her cleavage not been so grotesquely distorted. Burt half-expected to hear a pop like a champagne cork coming out of a bottle, and to see Mrs. Keener shoot up to the roof. She kept squirming in her chair, plucking at her waist, and plunging a hand inside her dress to make certain adjustments when she thought Burt wasn’t watching. Though she ate only one pigeon, she seldom raised her eyes from her plate. When she did, Burt saw the sparkle of moisture inside her lids. He felt a rising excitement; watery eyes, loss of appetite, itching, all were signs of drug withdrawal. But if she really were an addict, that blew his whole theory to hell. Then he remembered something which restored it; he had delivered fourteen caps to her, and there would have been no reason for her to be deprived.