“No,” Fletcher said.
“You don’t aim to pick up the two thousan’ dollars?”
“I don’t want their money,” Fletcher said. Which sounded a grand renunciation but had a phoney ring to it. They all knew he had probably lost all chance of getting the dollars anyway.
He went to his room and did some packing ready for departure in the morning. He was not happy to be going, because he had liked it there; but he supposed it was the wisest course; in fact, the only one. And if he was ever going to write that book it was probably as likely to get written in a bed-sitter in London as on a West Indian island. Here the climate was too relaxing; it was too easy to be idle, just letting things drift from day to day. So okay; he would pull up stakes and go.
He hung around the bungalow until evening, but the atmosphere seemed strained. Finally he announced that he was going down to the Treasure Ship for a farewell drink, and he asked Joby whether he would like to come along.
“Not tonight,” Joby said. “I got things to do.”
It was a queer way of putting it: if he didn’t go along with Fletcher that evening, when would he? There was not going to be another opportunity. But Joby very seldom did go to the Treasure Ship because Paulina was against it. Nevertheless, Fletcher felt a sense of grievance: Joby could surely have made an exception for his last evening.
“Well, please yourself,” he said.
“Will you be late?” Paulina asked.
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“No; it doesn’t matter.”
“If I get stinking drunk I’ll just sleep it off on the beach or somewhere.”
She looked hurt. “You know I wasn’t thinking that. You never do get drunk.”
It was the truth; he was only a moderate drinker. But he had felt a sudden impulse to give vent to some of the resentment he was feeling, and she had been the one to receive it. He wanted to apologise at once, or at least to make it into a joke, but he could do neither.
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said; and on that sour note he left them — Paulina still looking hurt and Joby with that sullen expression on his face that he had had after the talk with Captain Green.
Walking down to the Treasure Ship he felt ashamed of the way he had spoken, and he decided to make it right in the morning — or maybe that evening if he got back early enough.
The Treasure Ship was doing the usual amount of business, and it had the usual odour of spirits and tobacco smoke with a bit of human sweat mixed in to add piquancy to the brew. The light was never good in there, but this evening it was even dimmer than usual, so Fletcher concluded that there had been a voltage cut. The electricity came from the Jamestown power station and when the generators were over-loaded it was never Jamestown that took the first cut; it was Port Morgan and the other outlying places.
He walked to the bar and ordered a rum-and-ginger, and Fat Annie served it to him; but there was no big welcoming smile to go with it, and he gathered that he was no longer such a valued customer as he had once been. Annie was the kind of person who had a very exact appreciation of the way the wind lay, and if someone happened to be out of favour with the police he was also likely to be out of favour with her.
“Thought I’d call in and say good-bye,” Fletcher said.
She appeared surprised. “You leavin’, then?”
“In the morning.”
She hardly seemed desolated by the news. “You got tired of this place, Mist’ Fletcher?”
“Maybe we should say it got tired of me.”
He saw that she understood. “That’s the way it goes.”
She moved away. He was of no further interest to her; he would be bringing no more money into the Treasure Ship.
He took his drink to a vacant table and sat down facing the entrance. He saw a young man go to the bar and speak to Annie, and then both of them glanced in the direction of his table, so it took very little reasoning to deduce that they were talking about him. Then the young man came over and stood by the table looking down at him.
“Mr. Fletcher?”
He was the narrow-faced type of black, with a beaklike nose and slightly protruding teeth like the convex wall of a dam. He was tall and lithe, and when he moved Fletcher was put in mind of a greyhound walking; at any moment you expected him to break into an electrifying run.
“Yes,” Fletcher said.
“My name’s King,” the young man said. “Matthew King. I’d like to buy you a drink.”
“I already have a drink, Mr. King. And I don’t know why you should want to buy me one.”
King pulled up a chair. “Mind if I sit here?”
“The chair’s free,” Fletcher said.
King sat down and looked at him in silence, as though taking the size of him.
“What’s on your mind?” Fletcher asked.
“I’d like to have a word with you.”
“Well, go ahead. I’m listening.”
King glanced over his shoulder, as though fearing that someone might be creeping up on him. He seemed nervous.
“I wonder if you could spare a little of your time, Mr. Fletcher?”
“To do what, Mr. King?”
“To meet some friends of mine.”
“Why should your friends want to meet me?”
“We think you might be able to help us.”
King was keeping his voice low, on what might have been described as the conspiratorial level; but nobody was listening or apparently taking any notice — except Fletcher.
“I don’t know that I’m in the market to help anyone,” Fletcher said. “And tomorrow I’m leaving.”
Matthew King’s head jerked slightly. “Leaving?”
“Yes, leaving. Never to come back.”
He thought King looked perturbed. “You’ve made up your mind to do that?”
“Yes.”
Fletcher drank some rum-and-ginger. King was drinking nothing, which was not going to make him very welcome in Fat Annie’s eyes.
“Well, anyway,” he said, “you could have a talk with my friends before you go.”
Fletcher could not see why anyone should wish to talk to him, but he had no objection — just as long as it was friendly talk.
“Okay. You bring them along and I’ll talk to them.”
“Not here,” King said.
“You mean I’ve got to go and see them?”
“They could not talk here.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” King hesitated. “Well, let’s say it would not be wise.”
Fletcher did not care for the sound of it; there was something fishy about the thing. He had heard of people being lured into dark alleys and then being set upon and robbed, and he was not keen to become one of them; it was not the kind of experience he wanted on his last evening in Port Morgan — or at any other time for that matter.
“I’m sorry‚” he said, “but I’m not going anywhere. If your pals can’t come and talk with me here they’ll just have to manage without the talk.”
“It’s important,” King said.
“Oh, I’m sure it is. So if it’s that important why don’t they come to me?”
“I told you—”
King broke off abruptly and there was that slow dying away of conversation that had occurred two evenings ago when the men with the gold ear-rings and the fancy suits had walked in. It was the same reason this time; they were there again, the same two, standing just inside the room and gazing coolly round as if searching for someone. Then they walked to the bar with that swaggering gait they had and spoke to Annie, and they must have been ordering drinks because that was what came up; but once again there was no money changing hands, and it occurred to Fletcher that if they did all their buying on that system the cost of living for them must have been pretty low.
And then they glanced across at his table and for a moment he wondered whether they were looking at him or at King; only the funny thing was that King was not there any longer. Fletcher had not seen him go; he had been too occupied watching the Leopards; but King had gone sure enough and there was no sign of him anywhere in the room. And he had not even waited to say good-bye, so maybe he had been in a hurry.