Wrapping the wounds with cotton gauze, Kathy gave me a pair of white socks to put on. I found a pair of worn deck shoes and managed to squeeze my feet into them.
"Come, I'll fix you something to eat."
Over scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh Bahamian-baked bread she told me about herself. A flight attendant for T.W.A. for eight years, she had married and divorced a Captain with the same airline. Recounting the events that led to the breakup caused her face to lose its clear, frank look; the expressions that played across it were too vague and fleeting to read. Her features seemed to relinquish some of their definition. It was as though she were looking at her past through a veil of fog.
She liked the isolation of the cays. No one bothered her here. It was only a twenty minute run to Marsh Harbor in the runabout if she got too lonely. There were friends at the Conch Crawl bar, or dinner at the Conch Inn.
Helping Kathy with the dishes, I spotted one of the fast cigarette boats, running full speed, round Pelican Point and head straight toward the house.
"If that's anybody you don't know, tell them you are alone and have not seen anyone since you've been here. I'll be under the steps leading to the ocean side of the beach."
There was surprise and fear in her eyes. "I understand. Now hurry."
The steps were steep and there was only enough room to squeeze beneath them. It would be a horrible place to die. Voices and footsteps sounded overhead.
"Jay, it's me."
"Glad to see you still alive."
"I don't have much time. Everyone thinks I'm visiting a girl staying on one of the cays. They seem to have bought your death."
Dave looked at Kathy. There was amazement on her candid face, then swiftly changed to one of resolve. She bit down on her lips, the way women do when they wanted to spread their lipstick evenly, and the line bracketing her mouth deepened. She suddenly looked very concerned.
"What's the plan?"
"Little Will is up to his neck in sharks. I'm doing everything to get him out of this Snowpowder business alive. If he tells them one more time that he wants out, they'll probably kill him. I need your help. It may get messy."
"Well, as the boy in the jetliner on that fateful September the 11 ^th day, said, "Let's roll."
"The one that ordered you killed, the Snowpowder King, has no competition in the Bahamas. His blow is flown in to the outer cays and he's bribing Customs agents."
"Too bad."
"Yeah. Tell me again how you came to be snooping around the Sun Dog in Nassau?"
"Lynn Renoir's sister was killed with an overdose. Back tracking, I found she'd been aboard the boat. From what I can figure, she was supposed to have been disposed of somewhere around Nassau, but somebody botched the job. They ran her over to Bimini and put her aboard the seaplane to Miami. Someone called the Miami Police Department and told them she was on the way. I don't know how Rene ties in with these people or why they would want to kill her. There was no ransom demanded."
Dave scratched his chin, threw me a hard glance. "The Renoir woman I sent to you was having breakfast at the Conch Inn in Marsh Harbor this morning in the company of a female I've never seen before."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"She was in Nassau the night I was shanghaied. She was supposed to stay out of the investigation into her sister's death. Did she recognize you?"
"She never saw me. If she's asking around and the Snowpowder King gets wind of it, she could be in serious danger."
"That's why I didn't want her nosing around. You can't baby sit them and work a case, too. But I'll have to worry about her later. What's your plan for Will?"
"A big load of dope is arriving tonight to supply a car rental convention starting tomorrow up at Treasure Cay. Fifteen thousand people are coming in. They plan to bring the Sun Dog in across the bar and anchor up behind Bridges Cay. I've arranged to buy ten kilos tonight at nine o'clock. I want you along."
"They know what I look like."
"We'll figure something. Be ready at eight-thirty. I've got to get back. See you tonight."
"You'll tell me the plan then?"
"If I figure it out." He cracked a sly grin. "Kathy, thanks for the help."
She nodded, said nothing.
Walking with Dave down to the beach, I asked if he thought Kathy could be in any danger?
He smoothed his hair with both hands, an angry spark flashed in his eyes, then his eyelids narrowed slowly. He looked at me and his face relaxed to a look of understanding at my question. "I can't see any. They don't know who she is or where she's staying. If there was the slightest chance of harm to her I'd move her out."
Pawing at the loose sand with a sore foot, I said, "For your information, the Renoir woman is worth over a billion dollars. She's about to take control of her father's business that previously has been handled by Joe Glossman in Ocean Springs."
Dave looked at me with hard, knowing eyes. "Yeah, Max Renoir. I knew him. But no ransom demand on her sister. Interesting."
We pushed the cigarette boat back into the water and he roared away.
Kathy and I stood in the kitchen watching the boat carve a foamy opening in the calm, emerald waters of the Sea of Abaco. The open wound slowly healed until soon all was as before, no trace, not even a scar left to what had passed before.
Shafts of sunlight slanted into the house hitting walls of polished Caribbean pine. There were a few pieces of hand-made furniture, a ceiling of bare rafters. An archway with some kind of carved hieroglyphics opened into the small kitchen with rough shelves, a bare wooden table made of one-inch thick planks, and there was a butane gas stove. The place had the primitive simplicity of a seaman's cabin, reduced to essential necessities, but done with elegant, modern skill and sat down smack in the middle of Valhalla.
With seven hours to kill, it was time to do some serious thinking. Sitting on the small couch in the living room, the drumming of the overhead fan began to pulse to a slower beat, like the throb of great engines below deck. They whispered the same warning over and over. The air grew weighted and all times felt troubled. A dangerous voyage was about to begin.
Kathy came and sat beside me. Her breath, sweet and soft, brushed across my cheek. Her body shimmered under the white shorts snugged tightly around the smooth firm buttocks, like the promise of life itself. She was good company, and helped the afternoon pass quickly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A cool breeze blew through the house making it pleasant and comfortable. Looking north toward Cornish and Sandy Cay, I could see the mainland behind them. Two white markers used to line up the pass through the North Bar channel stood like sentinels. On the sloping hills of Abaco dark pyramids of Casuarina pines stood immovably straight in defiance of the seasonal hurricanes, their needles trembling in the sun and wind.
I thought about Dave's brush with death on the reef at Sandy Cay. If it hadn't been for Karl Strange, he would have drowned.
A young woman's brother hired Dave to get her out of Marsh Harbor and bring her back to the United States. She'd gotten in over her head with a mean-tempered New York mobster who was running a money laundering operation in Abaco. She wanted away from him, but he wouldn't let her go, and there was a lot of abuse.
Dave made some mistakes, and one of the Italians chained him to a concrete block at low water on Sandy Cay reef. He left him there for high tide and sharks to finish the job.
Karl Strange risked his life to get him loose from the chain. At one point he thought Dave's foot would have to be amputated to get him out, and Dave urged him to cut it off. On his last attempt, Karl cut through a link in the chain. Dave owed him one.
Getting Will out from under the Snowpowder boys was one way he had of repaying Karl. How he worked his way into the dope pusher's inner circle, I had no idea. Always good at infiltration, it was his specialty when he was a Special Agent with the FBI. It was also his undoing. He got too close to his work.