My guess: Wolfie was the bagman I’d followed from the Bank of Aruba to the waterfront bar they’d mentioned, the Green Turtle. If true, Wolfie was fifteen years older, a big, round man, wore expensive Italian sunglasses, and drove a nice car-a man competent with money and cameras. Wolfie might be a pompous fool, but he wasn’t the one who’d lugged all this gear up the mountain.
Wolfie was the man in charge. Maybe the blackmailer. If he wasn’t, he was better connected than the other three.
Below the blind, a third and fourth woman had joined the others. Two wore gauzy beach kaftans. One had pulled on a man-sized T-shirt, Michigan, in blue and gold. Moneyed ladies on vacation-but their faces didn’t have the glossy angularity I associate with face-lifts and wealth. They looked cheerful, full of fun, as they made a pitcher of margaritas and kibitzed about where they would go for dinner.
Four old friends, comfortable with themselves and their age, their flaws-my read. They didn’t deserve the ambush that awaited.
I popped the cellophane and disabled the new cassettes. If the cameraman noticed, so be it. If he carried fresh cassettes, there was nothing I could do.
I confirmed the recorder was working, then slipped through the opening into rain forest. I scouted around until I found a good viewing platform of my own: a rock ledge to the south. If I sat on the ledge, the camera blind’s viewing window was uphill, to my right. The swimming pool was downhill to my left.
From my pocket, I took a roll of special reflective tape. Hit it with a regular flashlight, it resembled green ribbon. Use infrared light, though, in combination with night-vision optics, it glittered. Because I might have to find this ledge at night, I tied a couple of pieces on nearby foliage, then used four-inch lengths to mark an escape route.
I chose a trail that ran along a rock ridge. At a couple of spots, the ridge dropped off fifty or sixty feet onto rocks below-okay for a man wearing night vision; dangerous for a man who wasn’t.
At the narrowest section, I thought about stringing a trip wire. Wrap it with the special tape-I would see it. Anyone chasing me would not. But if an innocent hiker came tromping along this path…?
Couldn’t do it.
I continued walking… then froze as parrots flushed from trees to my left, screaming an alert. I stood there for a long minute, searching the shadows. Something, or someone, had spooked the birds.
I pocketed the marking tape, and slipped the Colt from the back of my pants. Slowly, I started uphill toward a grove of traveler’s palms where the parrots had been. The leaves of the palms fanned out like a green wall… but the wall was moving-something in there.
I had the little semiautomatic palmed, not showing it but ready, when two iguanas came snaking out-miniature dragons, skin iridescent green, reptilian tongues probing. They were the size of small dogs.
I watched, focusing on the green wall. Iguanas eat birds’ eggs, and sometimes birds. Parrots would flush at their approach and scream an alert.
So why did I suddenly feel as if the jungle had eyes? That I was being watched?
Ridiculous. A cliche from cowboy movies; folklore from childhood. I don’t believe in such things.
I holstered the pistol and moved on.
14
The woman who’d been wearing the Michigan shirt, but was now in a sundress, tropical yellow with spaghetti straps that showed her thick tan shoulders, asked me, “Is it dangerous to swim in the lagoon? Sharks, I mean. That’s what the girls and I were wondering. We’re from the snow belt-” She shrugged, grinning to let me know it might be silly. “-and this is our first trip to the islands.”
I told her, “Most resorts, you don’t have to worry about sharks until you’re out of the water. Probably the same on Saint Arc.”
Big smile. “Like the Jimmy Buffett song? ’Fins.’ ” She was intrigued, not concerned.
“Who knows the islands better?” I smiled, joking but not joking. Letting her think about it as I opened the plastic case I carry as a portable lab. It contained collecting jars, chemicals for testing water, a plastic slurp-tube for catching sea jellies and small reef fish-the dutiful biologist at work.
I had anchored my rental boat in the shallows-a cheap tri-hull with an antique Evinrude that would do until tomorrow when I took possession of a loaner-a seventeen-foot Maverick with a one-fifty Yamaha. It was as fast and stable as my boat, just smaller.
Tomlinson had been right about new contacts. I’d hitched a ride with Lags in his Gulfstream jet-no problem with customs at the private airport-and my friend Skip Lyshon arranged for a demo boat from the Hewes/Pathfinder dealer on Saint Lucia.
I had decided not to phone Beryl again-even though it meant I couldn’t check in to the couples retreat that, according to Bernie, was somehow associated with the blackmailer. If Beryl agreed to join me, there would be too many questions to dodge.
That was okay. I was playing it by ear, letting the situation pull me along until I sensed the right opening. Locate a trap and, sooner or later, the trapper will appear.
I had found the trap. I still had six days-plenty of time to lay low and let events play out until the blackmailer revealed himself. Trouble was, this smiling woman in the yellow sundress was his prey. Her three friends, too-I waved at them now as they walked from the house, and stopped when they spotted me on the beach.
The temptation was to tell them what to expect tomorrow night, but I couldn’t. If they contacted police, the blackmailer would know. He’d shut down the operation for a week or two, then be right back at it. Worse, it would put him on alert and make it tougher for me to locate his stash of videos. If he’d kept a copy of Shay’s tape, he probably had them all. That’s what I was after-the collection. If it didn’t work out, negotiating a private deal was a last option.
I couldn’t tell the ladies, but I could at least plant a warning. So I had changed into jogging shorts, then waded with mask and fins to the beach, as if getting ready to dive into the lagoon. Then I’d futzed around with the portable lab until the woman struck up a conversation.
The woman glanced at her friends now and waved them closer, still smiling at my joke about land sharks. She extended her hand. “My name’s Madeleine. But everyone calls me Mattie.”
I said, “Marion-or Doc,” doing first names only-common at resorts-even though we’d been talking for several minutes.
I already knew that Mattie was the mother of two college-aged children. Because she didn’t mention a husband, I assumed she was divorced, not widowed. She wasn’t exactly retired, because managing the family business took a lot of time. “Managing” was said in a way that suggested stocks, properties, and liquid assets. Wealthy-golden eggs, the guy with the pirate bandanna had called them.
Mattie was on Saint Arc because two of her best friends were getting married. This was their private girls-only celebration before the October wedding.
A familiar scenario.
She was looking at her friends now as she said, “See the two tall gals? Those are the twins. Never been married before, never came close, and we’re so darn happy for them. At our age, I mean. We thought it was never gonna happen, then boom, they met the two nicest guys you could ever want. Can you guess what I’m about to tell you?”
“The twins met twins?”
Mattie had an easygoing familiarity not uncommon with large women. She nudged me with her shoulder, lowering her voice as her friends approached. “Yep. Identical twins, just like the gals. Farmers. Big spreads in upstate New York, and they’ve never been married, either. You’ve never seen four happier kids in your life.”
I smiled. Kids-talking about those tall, bony women in their forties, but it fit because of their suntan glow and their vacation faces.