“Taking my time,” Yancy said.
“It’s only the best soup on the island. I use fresh-growed tomatoes.”
Eventually Yancy took a sip. He bowed at the man and said, “Outstanding.”
“Damn right.”
“How’s the bonefishing?”
“Super, if you can stand the heat.”
“I love the heat,” Yancy said.
A plane passed overhead, the pitch of the engine dropping during descent. Yancy hurried from the restaurant and pedaled his borrowed bicycle through gusty winds to the airstrip, where he found the white seaplane parked near the small terminal building. Claspers, the pilot, was talking on a cell phone while he set the wheel chocks. Standing alone by the fence was the beefy pinhead with the crumpled ears. He wore a brown guayabera, wet moons under the armpits. One side of his mug was shiny and swollen, testifying to an eventful dental appointment.
Yancy propped the bicycle against a shaded wall of the terminal. Soon a taxi van rolled up and the pinhead squeezed himself into the front passenger side. Yancy opened the sliding door and plopped down on the bench seat behind him.
“My bike’s got a flat. Can I ride back to town with you?”
“I ain’t gon dot way,” the big man said.
“Then we’ll drop you off first. My name’s Andrew. What’s yours?”
It was the driver who answered. “Egg’s wot dey call ’im.” The goon stared ahead, rubbing his jawbone. He told the taxi man to take him to Curly Tail Lane.
“You mean Green Beach?” the driver asked.
“Ain’t wot de sign say.”
“N’how ’bout you, suh?”
“Conch shack,” Yancy said.
The driver chuckled. “Almost lunchtime.”
Egg took a prescription bottle from a pocket and tapped out three oval pills. “Fuck lunch, mon. Juss drive.”
Yancy said he was from Florida. He said he loved the Bahamas and was thinking of buying a place on Andros, maybe a time-share. Egg ignored him.
The van stopped at a construction site. Egg paid the driver, unlocked the chain-link gate and disappeared inside an Airstream trailer that looked like it had been rolled off a cliff. Yancy didn’t see any signs or billboards on the property.
“Is this Curly Tail Lane?” he asked the driver.
“Yah.”
“I heard it’s going to be a five-star resort.”
“Dot’s de plon.”
“They’re just getting started, huh?”
The taxi driver laughed. “It’s not like Miami. Tings move lil’ slower here.”
“You hungry?” said Yancy.
The driver’s name was Philip and he was from Nicholls Town, on the north end. Yancy bought him fritters and a beer at the conch shack, where he flirted equitably with the two women behind the counter. Afterward he gave Yancy a motor tour of Lizard Cay, through the quiet old settlements of Elizabeth, Pindling’s Bluff and Weech Harbor. Along the way Yancy saw a few families boarding their windows, but the prevailing mood was leisurely. When the taxi began to jerk and sputter, Philip pulled over by the ferry dock on Victoria Creek. A squall blew in while he was beating with a wrench on the carburetor, so he scrambled back into the van.
While they waited for the rain to let up, Yancy described for Philip his unsettling encounter with the old woman on the motorized wheelchair. The driver frowned and told Yancy to be careful—she was a man-eater.
“A true sex witch, mon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wonna my uncles sleep wit her and tree months later he drop dead,” Philip said. “She feed ’im poison coz he won’t screw her no more. Wicked bod lady—you stay ’way.”
“What’s the story with that monkey?” Yancy asked.
The driver said the animal starred in the Johnny Depp pirate movies until he turned rowdy and got fired—the rumor was that he had been caught masturbating on wigs in the costume trailer. Later the monkey was won in a domino game by a local man named Neville Stafford, who’d been working hard to rehabilitate his new pet. Nobody was sure why Neville had gifted him to the old voodoo hag.
“Dey call her Dragon Queen,” he added.
“Where’d she get those crazy wheels?”
“From her new boyfriend, mon. He won’t lost long. Nonna dem do.”
Yancy suspected that her Super Rollie was a demo left over from Nicholas Stripling’s Medicare-fleecing operation. Christopher Grunion could have conned the “personal mobility device” from Eve and given it to the Dragon Queen, though it seemed far-fetched that he—or any fully sighted male—would start a romance with such a revolting loon.
“Is the lady’s boyfriend a white American? About my age?”
Philip cackled. “No, bey, you already meet de fella! It’s Egg.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Yah, dot’s true. I tole you she’s a witch, dot Dragon Queen. No cock is safe!”
“You know a man named Grunion?”
“Yessuh. Egg’s boss.”
“Show me where he lives,” Yancy said.
“Why?” Philip seemed amused.
“Because … he’s a friend?”
“Dot’s your story, I guess. What if I say no?”
Yancy took out the Miami police badge belonging to retired sergeant Johnny Mendez and held it up briefly for Philip to see. The shield featured a lush palm tree but not the officer’s name, which was convenient for Yancy.
“You cont ’rest nobody here in de Bahamas,” the driver said mildly.
“I was hoping for some friendly cooperation, that’s all. Wouldn’t you at least like to know what crimes I’m investigating?”
“No, mon.”
“Three homicides that took place in Florida. Murders.”
Philip sucked in a breath and said, “God o’mighty.”
Yancy gave him some cash. “I’m not here to make trouble. I didn’t even bring a gun.”
“Too bod. He’s a mean mottafuckah.”
“You’re talking about Christopher.”
“Egg, too. You needa be cool.”
“My middle name,” Yancy said.
On the return trip to Rocky Town, Philip slowed the van as they passed the oceanfront house Grunion and “his woman” were renting. Yancy saw a yellow Jeep Wrangler in the driveway but no activity. When he got to his motel room, he placed a box of bonefish flies and a water bottle in his fanny pack. Then he grabbed the tube holding his fly rod, selected another bicycle and rode back toward Bannister Point.
· · ·
The tide was coming in, so the depth was fine. Under an overcast sky Yancy buttered his nose and cheeks with greasy white sunblock. Then he put on wide Polaroid sunglasses and a long-billed fishing cap with cotton neck flaps. This Unabomber style, tweaked for the tropics, ensured that neither Eve nor her boyfriend would recognize him from a distance.
He assembled the nine-foot rod, strung the peach-colored line through the guides and picked out a credible fly. Slowly he waded down the shoreline, occasionally pausing to cast at fish that weren’t there. The wind was strong but he quartered slightly into it and double-hauled for more distance. It was a graceful exercise; anyone watching from a dock or a porch would have pegged him as a serious angler, not one of the usual goobers.
As he came within sight of Eve Stripling’s place, Yancy spotted the widow herself. She was dragging a red kayak through the backyard toward one side of the house, where she stowed it beside a wall. Yancy continued wading, pretending to be focused on the flats. Next Eve went after a barbecue grill, which she rolled to the same sheltered location. Evidently she’d been following the TV weather reports.
Yancy put the fly rod under one arm and began the ceremony of tying on a new tippet. He took his time, hoping for a glimpse of Grunion roaming the property. The water felt warm on his bare legs, and the wind kept the ruthless doctor flies at bay. Out of nowhere a Stratocaster started twanging in his brainpan—an old Dick Dale surf riff. Offshore was a misting reef break, and Yancy could hear the waves plowing the coral ledges. Whatever he was doing on the flats of Andros Island, it sure didn’t feel like work.