Suddenly the cabdriver accelerated again, passing the Volks and speeding ahead to a traffic light that flashed the yellow caution signal. He swung the car into the left intersection; Alex read the street sign and the wording on the large shield-shaped sign beneath:
TORRINGTON ROAD
ENTRANCE
GEORGE VI MEMORIAL PARK
«We head into a racecourse, mon!» shouted the driver. «Green son of a bitch have to stop at Snipe Street light. He come out’a d’ere fast. You watch good now!»
The cab sped down Torrington, swerving twice out of the left lane to pass three vehicles, and through the wide-gated entrance into the park. Once inside, the driver slammed on the brakes, backed the taxi into what looked like a bridle path, spun the wheel, and lurched forward into the exit side of the street.
«You catch ’em good now, mon!» yelled the Jamaican as he slowed the car down and entered the flow of traffic leaving the George VI Memorial Park.
Within seconds the green Chevrolet came into view, hemmed between automobiles entering the park. And then McAuliff realized precisely what the driver had done. It was early track time; George VI Memorial Park housed the sport of kings. Gambling Kingston was on the way to the races.
Alex wrote down the license number, keeping himself out of sight but seeing clearly enough to know that the two black men in the Chevrolet did not realize that they had passed within feet of the car they were following.
«Them sons of bitches got to drive all way ’round, mon! Them dumb block sons of bitches!… Where you want to go, mon? Plenty of time, now. They don’t catch us.»
McAuliff smiled. He wondered if the Jamaican’s talents were listed in Hammond’s manual somewhere. «You just earned yourself an extra five dollars. Take me to the corner of Queen and Hanover Streets, please. No sense wasting time, now.»
«Hey, mon! You hire my taxi alla time in Kingston. I do what you say. I don’ ask questions, mon.»
Alex looked at the identification behind the dirty plastic frame above the dashboard. «This isn’t a private cab … Rodney.»
«You make a deal with me, mon; I make a deal with the taxi boss.» The driver grinned in the rearview mirror.
«I’ll think about it. Do you have a telephone number?»
The Jamaican quickly produced an outsized business card and handed it back to McAuliff. It was the taxi company’s card, the type that was left on hotel counters. Rodney’s name was printed childishly in ink across the bottom. «You telephone company, say you gotta have Rodney. Only Rodney, mon. I get the message real quick. Alla time they know where Rodney is. I work hotels and Palisados. Them get me quick.»
«Suppose I don’t care to leave my name—»
«No name, mon!» broke in the Jamaican, grinning in the mirror. «I got lousy son-of-a-bitch memory. Don’t want no name! You tell taxi phone … you the fella at the racecourse. Give place; I get to you, mon.»
Rodney accelerated south to North Street, left to Duke, and south again past the Gordon House, the huge new complex of the Kingston legislature.
Out on the sidewalk, McAuliff straightened his jacket and his tie and tried to assume the image of an average white businessman not entirely sure of which government entrance he should use. Tallon’s was not listed in any telephone or shopping directory; Hammond had indicated that it was below the row of government houses, which meant below Queen, but he was not specific.
As he looked for the fish store, he checked the people around him, across the street, and in the automobiles that seemed to go slower than the traffic allowed.
For a few minutes he felt himself in the pocket of fear again; afraid that the unseen had their eyes on him.
He reached Queen Street and hurried across with the last contingent making the light. On the curb he turned swiftly to watch those behind on the other side.
The orange sun was low on the horizon, throwing a corridor of blinding light from the area of Victoria Park several hundred yards to the west. The rest of the street was in dark, sharply defined shadows cast from the structures of stone and wood all around. Automobiles passed east and west, blocking a clear vision of those on the north corner. Corners.
He could tell nothing. He turned and proceeded down the block.
He saw the sign first. It was filthy, streaked with runny print that had not been refinished in months, perhaps years:
TALLON’S
FINE FISH AND NATIVE DELICACIES
311½ QUEEN’S ALLEY
1 BLOCK—DUKE ST. WEST
He walked the block. The entrance to Queen’s Alley was barely ten feet high, cut off by grillwork covered with tropical flowers. The cobblestone passage did not go through to the next street as is common in Paris and Rome and Greenwich Village. Although it was in the middle of a commercial market area, there was a personal quality about its appearance, as though an unwritten sign proclaimed this section private: residents only, keys required, not for public usage. All that was needed, thought McAuliff, was a gate.
In Paris and Rome and Greenwich Village, such wide alleys held some of the best restaurants in the world, known only to those who cared.
In Shenzen and Macao and Hong Kong, they were the recesses where anything could be had for a price.
In Kingston, this one housed a man with arthritis who worked for British Intelligence.
Queen’s Alley was no more than fifty feet long. On the right was a bookstore with subdued lighting in the windows, illuminating a variety of wares from heavy academic leather to nonglossy pornography. On the left was Tallon’s.
He had pictured casements of crushed ice supporting rows of wide-eyed dead fish, and men in soiled, cheap white aprons running around scales, arguing with customers.
The crushed ice was in the window; so were several rows of glassy-eyed fish. But what impressed him was the other forms of ocean merchandise placed artistically: squid, octopus, shark, and exotic shellfish.
Tallon’s was no Fulton Market.
As if to add confirmation to his thoughts, a uniformed chauffeur emerged from Tallon’s entrance carrying a plastic shopping bag, insulated, Alex was sure, with crushed ice.
The double doors were thick, difficult to open. Inside, the counters were spotless; the sawdust on the floor was white. The two attendants were just that: attendants, not countermen. Their full-length aprons were striped blue and white and made of expensive linen. The scales behind the chrome-framed glass cases had shiny brass trimmings. Around the shop, stacked shelves lighted by tiny spotlights in the ceiling, were hundreds of tins of imported delicacies from all parts of the world.
It was not quite real.
There were three other customers: a couple and a single woman. The couple was at the far end of the store, studying labels on the shelves; the woman was ordering from a list, being overly precise, arrogant.
McAuliff approached the counter and spoke the words he had been instructed to speak.
«A friend in Santo Domingo told me you had north-coast trout.»
The light-skinned black man behind the white wall barely looked at Alex, but within that instant there was recognition. He bent down, separating shellfish inside the case, and answered casually. Correctly. «We have some freshwater trout from Martha Brae, sir.»
«I prefer saltwater trout. Are you sure you can’t help me?»
«I’ll see, sir.» The man shut the case, turned, and walked down a corridor in the wall behind the counter, a passageway Alex assumed led to large refrigerated rooms.
When a man emerged from a side door within the corridor, McAuliff caught his breath, trying to suppress his astonishment. The man was black and slight and old; he walked with a cane, his right forearm still, and his head trembled slightly with age.