Burt chose a table nearest the bar and sat down to assess the scene. Boris was carrying drinks, his massive dignity unimpaired by the red-headed man’s playful belligerence. He kept shouting for drinks, making the kind of noise a man makes when he’s afraid of silence. Ace drank quietly, his small dark eyes roving somewhere in the area between Bunny’s collarbone and the bodice of her peasant blouse. Rolf seemed preoccupied, unaware that Bunny was meeting Ace’s eyes from time to time, and that little electric messages were crackling between them.
The explosion came with the serving of dinner. The red-haired man demanded food; Boris came out and set a plate of canned beef and crackers in front of him.
“What the hell is this, horse meat?”
“No, sir. Bully beef, sir.”
“Take it back and get me a steak.”
“I’m sorry. There is nothing else.”
“Don’t tell me we’re paying ten bucks a day for this!”
Boris stood like a soldier at attention, his black face frozen in stoicism.
“You hear me? Is this what we get for ten bucks?” The man was shouting, his face as red as his hair.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, take it!” He threw the plate at Boris, who moved just enough to allow the plate to sail past and land harmlessly on the sand outside. The blob of bully beef, however, struck him on the right side of the face. He stood for an instant without moving while the greasy red meat slid down his cheek and became trapped in his goatee. Then he turned and strode behind the bar. Burt heard the sound of sliding metal; he peered over the bar to see Boris draw out a curved, three-foot cutlass. Burt felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck.
“That’s no good, Boris. He’s got a gun.”
Boris looked at Burt, his smeared face wrinkled up as though he were about to cry.
“I kill him, sir. Got to kill him.”
“Wait a minute.”
As Butt walked toward the redhead’s table, he warned himself to keep cool. But he’d been under pressure too long. The anger boiling inside him had to find an escape. He stood beside the redhead’s chair and spoke with tense contempt.
“On your feet, carrot-head. The bartender’s waiting for your apology.”
The man looked up in surprise. “The hell he is. Well, the day you see Charlie Tate apologize to a goddamn spade, you can—”
Burts actions went suddenly out of his control. His foot kicked out and struck the leg of the other’s chair. The big man sprawled backward, his mouth wide with surprise. He landed flat on his back and started clawing at his lapel. It seemed to happen in slow motion; Burt was rocking forward on his feet, preparing to launch a kick at the other’s wrist, when he heard a faint swish of air beside his head. The fallen man’s features convulsed suddenly, then flowed loose like a bowl of mush. His coat fell back and Burt saw a spreading wetness on the starched white shirt. In the center of the stain, like a pin stuck in the heart of a red, red rose, was a knife buried to the hilt.
Burt turned and saw Rolf zipping up his jacket.
“I should’ve searched you for a knife,” said Burt.
“I told you I didn’t like guns.” Rolf’s eyes held a reptilian glitter; his lips were pulled back from his white teeth. Bunny was staring down at the man, breathing so hard that her bosom swelled above her blouse like a pair of inflated balloons. Ace sat in his chair with his eyes narrowed to slits. No expression crossed the mask of his face, but Burt felt it would take very little to make him draw his gun. Boris leaned over the bar in a hypnotic stare. A particle of dried beef flaked off his cheek and fell to the floor. For the second time that day Burt felt he was involved in a play; soon the curtain would close, the redhead would rise and go off-stage, and they would all gather in the dressing room for a drink.
“Hell.” He turned to Rolf. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
“I know. I could have let him shoot you.”
“He wouldn’t have killed me. I was about to—”
“Kill him yourself?” asked Rolf with a smile.
“Don’t kick a dead horse,” said Burt. “We’ve been through that.” He turned to Ace, who seemed to have slumped lower in his chair. “You plan to do anything about this?”
Ace gave a shrug which had no effect on his face. He mumbled, “Charlie was hot-tempered. He shouldn’t have gone for his gun. He lost the toss and I guess he paid for it.” He gazed up at Rolf with a vague appeal in his eyes. Burt thought of a gorilla caught in a trap. “But life goes on, don’t it? What happens now?”
Rolf turned to Burt. “What happens, Burt?”
Here it was, on his back again.
“I’ll take the body to St. Vincent, turn it over to the authorities. I’ll need your boat.” He glared at Rolf, challenging him to bring his game into the open. “You’ll have to give them a statement.”
Rolf nodded. “I know the rules, Sergeant.”
“Sergeant!” Ace blinked at Rolf. “You called him. Sergeant.”
“He’s a detective in a jerkwater Florida town,” said Rolf. “No jurisdiction here, of course. But somebody has to take over in an emergency.” Rolf gazed out over the lagoon, where the Coleman lantern sent its white light across black water and picked out the plunging spray on the rocks. “We can’t go until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow early,” said Burt, still puzzled by Rolf’s cooperation. “I’ll also take Joss and the boys, and Jata and Maudie.”
Rolf raised his brows. “Evacuating the island, Burt? Declaring martial law?”
“Just getting them out of the line of fire, Rolf. Any objections?”
“No, it’s a good idea. See you in the morning.”
Eight
Burt didn’t even consider trying to sleep. After throwing a blanket over the corpse, he sent Boris up to the tower to keep watch, then sat down at a table to guard the body. Joss tiptoed in a half-hour later to get a fresh bottle. Her eyes were bleared with sleep. She gave a small shriek when she saw the body, but calmed down as Burt told her what had happened.
“I’m surprised at myself,” she said, slumping into a chair. “I actually feel relieved. I’m not scared about what’s going to happen, because it’s already happened.”
“Maybe,” said Burt.
“I just wonder what it’ll do to business. Isn’t that crass of me?”
“You’ll be snowed under, Joss, by the same kind of people who crowd and push and sweat when you carry a corpse out of an apartment, that gape through the windows of smashed trains and tour auto graveyards to see the blood on seat cushions. Pretty slimy types. You won’t like them.”
She drummed the table absently with her fingers. “Maybe I’ll close up. Wouldn’t cost much to live if I didn’t try to keep up facilities for guests. You could come whenever you want... and your wife, if you ever stop being too finicky to give a girl a chance.”
She rose suddenly and went behind the bar. She lifted out a bottle and shot him an inquiring look. “Something for your nerves, Burt?”
He shook his head, watching her fill a glass.
“That’s right, you don’t have any.” She tipped the glass and drained it as though it were water and she’d just come off the desert. She filled another glass and carried it back to the table with the bottle. Four drinks later she laid her head on her arms and began snoring. Burt sat and listened to the boom of the surf. The light dimmed; he lifted the Coleman lantern off a nail and pumped it full of air. When he finished, he saw three huge gray rats tearing at the blanket which covered the body. He routed them and saw two more peering over the edge of the platform, twitching their whiskers. He stamped his feet and they disappeared. Another approached the body from the kitchen, moving in a humped shuffle. He launched a kick which sent it scurrying, but there were more squeaks and chitters from the thatched roof overhead. He looked up and saw a half-dozen tails hanging down from the rafters. They know, he thought, the yellow-toothed little bastards know death has come to the island. He lifted down the lantern and set it beside the body. Its upward glow filled the club with weird, looming shadows, but it kept the rats away.