There was only a low swell of lazy surf and the lagoon was warm as new drawn milk. The girl struck off with a strong, fluid stroke and was far from shore when I caught up with her. I couldn’t touch bottom but we treaded. Her skin was sleek under my hands. I reached for her hips to pull her to me. She flung herself backward, her body sinking and circled her legs around me. Neither of us was quite ready when she raised her head and gasped, using her arms in a stroke to drive herself on me.
In that deep water I had no leverage. I didn’t need it. She had enough for both of us. Her timing was great.
When it was over, she loosened her legs, and floated to the surface. I floated up beside her and we rested. In the warm stillness I went to sleep. I didn’t know it until my head went under and I swallowed lukewarm salt water.
The girl was gone. Sputtering, I looked around. She was lying on the beach on her stomach, brown against the white sand, her back unmarked by swimsuit patches. I swam in, stretched out beside her and went to sleep again. The next thing I knew her throaty voice was saying, “Rise and shine, Carter. You’re about to meet a friend.”
I clawed back to consciousness. The sun was low in the west. I couldn’t see anyone on the beach except the pair of us. Nothing moved but a few sluggish crabs. Then she pointed along the cove toward the headland. Something was advancing across the water, and it wasn’t a boat.
It looked like a human figure. I was groggy but not that groggy. I blinked, shook my head and looked again. It was still there. A thousand feet away and out at the depth where I hadn’t been able to find footing, a man was walking. Tall, blue-black, thin, in a long white robe that billowed out like dry cloth. He came toward us dignified but purposeful. It was unbelievable.
The girl stood up casually and waved, went to gather her clothes and got into them without hurry.
Was it voodoo? Or had she mainlined me with valium while I was out? I knew it was hallucination. I knew the cove water was salty. Floating on it was easy. I knew it felt like syrup. But even so it didn’t keep me from sinking when I fell asleep on it.
The man kept coming. About ten feet from the shore, he lifted his robe to his waist, above a twist of loincloth, sank slowly in the water to his thighs and rose again in a stride up the beach.
He looked to be seven feet tall. He was old and his long beard and hair were white. His frame was skinny, but taut with muscle.
I sat naked on the sand and I looked up at the high brow, the somber eyes, the wide mouth that smiled at Mitzy Gardner. She was beside me again and he took her hand in fingers that would span a basketball, holding it gently as if it were an uncooked egg. She spoke to him in a language I didn’t know and they laughed. She looked down at me and said in English, “Meet Noah, Nick. He’s lived here since heaven knows when. And he’s another who doesn’t want Red missiles on his island.”
I stood up. What else?
Noah studied me, fingering on my middle section, then offered a hand. Mine disappeared in his palm, but his pressure was only enough to be a solid, honest grip. It was real flesh I touched, warm, with blood inside, alive.
“My admiration, Mr. Carter.” The accent was impeccably British, the tone a muted baritone that would thunder if he chose. “Mitzy claims accomplishments for you that strain my credulity.”
“Your credulity?” I swallowed. “At least what I do is possible. I’m afraid you’re impossible to believe.”
His eyes went to Mitzy and held hers. There was a bond between them, a bond of respect, friendship, understanding. Then he brought his attention back to me.
“I must apologize, Mr. Carter. I asked Mitzy to bring you before you became too involved with your duties. Unhappily, a problem has developed up there.” He gestured toward the mountain. “There is a serious illness I must exorcize. I will not be able to stay now, but I felt I should meet you at least and promise you our help should you need it. You will visit me again, I hope.”
He bent, kissed the girl’s forehead lightly, nodded to me, walked back to the shore, hiked up his robe, waded out, stepped up to the surface and walked away across the water.
I gawked after him. Mitzy giggled.
“What happened to your cool? The egg on your face is drying.”
I pointed after the apparition. “How?”
She sobered, gave me a long, speculative look and said, “Don’t question too much, Nick. I’ve seen some very unsettling things since I met that man. You will too. Now we’d better get back to Fleming before he wakes up and wants to hit the street.”
I got into my clothes. Slowly. I kept watching the tall black figure until it disappeared among the rocks at the base of the hill.
“Give,” I told the girl. “What’s the story on your friend?”
She lifted a brown shoulder. “You heard me before. Just be prepared for surprises. Noah’s full of them and I’m sure I haven’t seen or heard them all.”
She ran away from me toward the car. The engine roared, full-throated, before I got there. As soon as I was in the seat, she spun the wheels on the hard sand and headed out to the road.
I didn’t for one minute buy the story that Noah had some special magic up his sleeve. He struck me as particularly sane and shrewd.
“Is he a hermit?” I asked Mitzy.
“Anything but. He rules a tribe of over a hundred people up in that old fort. He says his people hold up there a couple of hundred years ago, after a slave rebellion. They’re a spooky lot. They can be all around you in the jungle and you won’t see one unless he intends you to.”
“How did you get acquainted?”
The full lips pursed and she faced me. “Funny about that, too. I was at the cove for a swim one day and he came down to give me a message. Chip’s second in command at the casino had been shot and Chip was looking for me to take the word to Miami. The guy was killed at 3:10 in the afternoon. It was a quarter after three when Noah told me.”
That was easier. I was back on solid ground. “Jungle drums.” I laughed. “Bamboo telegraph.”
“Probably. But later I saw him cure a very sick woman with voodoo. He claimed to have exorcised her devils into the sea. She got up right away.”
My scalp prickled. The girl beside me was tough enough to survive in the tough world of the Mafia. That takes pragmatism. Now she was talking about voodoo and black magic, almost believing it. I didn’t ask any more questions.
We rode in silence for five miles. Suddenly there was a black man standing in the middle of the road, a hand raised to stop us. Mitzy pulled up beside him. He sounded excited; she asked him something in the native dialect and he shook his head. She looked worried, whipped the car in reverse, made a U-turn and kicked the accelerator to the floor.
“Noah wants us in a hurry,” she said. “Something’s happened, but he didn’t say what.”
I glanced at her, then looked back toward the messenger. The road was empty. When we passed the next turn, the road deteriorated badly and we should’ve had a jeep to bounce up that climb. I winced for the Caddy. Halfway to the top, the track ended at a pothole two feet deep.
“We walk from here,” the girl said.
We didn’t exactly walk. We clambered like mountain goats through the trees. We came out of the timber at a high wall built of limestone.
The fortress covered the whole headland and looked impregnable. Beyond the gate the courtyard was set in the same limestone. Stone buildings backed against the wall faced inward, some crumbling but others in good condition, forming a platform with their roofs.