Bluebell shook her head. "No, nothing that sounded like that. Packer's a cartel man. the cartel has hundreds of men and billions of dollars. There's white stuff stashed all over Deechapal. Zercher is the one who is keeping people out — with muscle and fear and money. He doesn't want anyone poking around."
"And you swear you never heard him use the word 'cylinder'?"
The lady shook her pretty ebony head.
I stood up, feeling a little cheated. The whole exercise had been fun, but, as they like to say these days, with no redeeming value. Bluebell's comments would be a lot more interesting to Hannah on her real mission, but they didn't do a whole lot for me and the riddle of Bearing's cylinders.
I slipped the gun in my belt and headed for the door.
"You sure made a mess," Bluebell said, glancing around the room.
"Bad habit of mine — had it since I was a kid."
"Elliott," she said softly, "what happens when he comes to his senses? Is he going to remember all this?"
I shrugged my shoulders. The truth was, I didn't care.
"Let me stay at your place tonight," she pleaded. "It may sound corny, but suddenly I'm scared of Chauncey Packer."
I cocked one eye open, all too aware that the symphony of birds only comes with the dawn and that the smell of coffee doesn't happen by itself. Hannah was glaring down at me.
I was still sore, and where I wasn't sore, I was stiff. It seemed as though Hannah still ought to be somewhat sympathetic instead of giving me a bunch of dirty looks.
"Well, I see why our little scout leader is still sleeping. Didn't get much sleep, huh?"
When I caught a glimpse of Bluebell still zonked out in the other bed, things began to register.
Hannah didn't hand me the coffee; she thrust it at me. "Well, sport, did we have fun last night?"
It wasn't hard to read where the fuming Ms. Holbrook was coming from. Suffice it to say, the lady was steaming, and in my typical fashion I was about to dismiss the whole misunderstanding as her problem. She could think what she wanted to think, but it has always amazed me how folks seem to want to think the worst.
"What time is it?" I grunted, taking a couple of slurps of coffee.
"Seven-thirty." The lady's voice was solid ice. When she couldn't hold it back any longer, she added, "I didn't think we came down here to frolic."
I probably would have launched some sort of mumbling, ill-conceived, half-baked explanation of the previous evening's activities but Bluebell chose that very moment to rise from the dead. She slithered out of the bed, naked as the day she was born, half stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door. Several minutes passed; there was a flushing sound, and the ebony beauty emerged in panties and bra. She walked back across the room, slipped into something slightly more discreet that dropped down sensually over her head, walked over to my bed, took the coffee out of my hand, took a couple of sips and handed it back. From there it was just a couple of steps back to her bed where she started rummaging through her purse for her makeup.
Hannah was pure glower.
I was pure enchantment.
In less than five minutes, Bluebell was ready to meet the new day. She turned and smiled. "A girl's gotta do what she's gotta do," she said matter-of-factly. "And Bluebell Saint James has gotta catch a bus."
"Where to?" I asked.
"I know how men like Chauncey think," she sighed. "He'll figure I've got two choices — Montego or Kingston. He'll figure I gotta go where the action is, but I know some other places." Bluebell was trying to inject a tinge of mystery into her disappearance, but it wasn't coming off.
I nodded. I don't know why, I just did.
Bluebell blew me a kiss, ignored Hannah and opened the door. "Take care of yourself, Elliott." The door closed behind her, and the show was over.
Hannah Holbrook had selected a chair on the other side of the room. After Bluebell, Hannah looked almost proper. She was all decked out in tan linen shorts and matching top with her legs crossed, holding onto her coffee with both hands. The thaw had already started.
''Wanta hear what happened?" I tried.
"That's your business, not mine."
I started to get into it and was still in the poorly organized and even more poorly articulated stage of the previous night's proceedings when we heard a commotion in the courtyard. I got up, went to the window, peeled back the drapes and saw a cast of characters, some dressed in whites and others in what looked suspiciously like police uniforms. They were milling around unit 11, the one where Chauncey and I had had our little encounter the previous evening. Two of the men dressed in white were wheeling out a gurney with whatever was on top of it covered with a white sheet from top to bottom. I saw Queet maneuvering around in the throng. After exchanging a few words with one of the other guests, he started back across the courtyard toward Hannah and me. He stepped through the door and closed it. "It's Packer, mon. He bought the farm."
His words had all the force of a machete stab to the gut. A kaleidoscope of headlines flashed through my mind: "Wages Booked on Manslaughter Charge" or "Treasure Hunter Gets Life." I looked at Hannah. Her anger had been replaced with open-faced shock.
"I got a quick look at him," Queet admitted. "They say the son-of-a-bitch suffocated."
While Queet assessed what he had seen, I was busy hustling my battered body into trousers and other items of acceptable attire.
"They're looking for some princess. The night clerk said Packer had a local cutie tucked in there with him last night."
Hannah was watching me curiously. She didn't have all the facts, and now it was going to be even tougher to explain what had happened. Bluebell was tough, but I didn't know how she would react to an interrogation. If she happened to let it slip that I was involved, Bearing Schuster might never get his cylinders and I might never get out of Jamaica. I shoved my few meager belongings in a bag, picked up my survival kit and headed for the door. "Let's get the hell out of here."
It was exactly 8:41 A.M. when we boarded the Sloe Gin and Sargent started cranking some juice into the old girl's diesel. I told him to head us in the direction of the Cluster and hoped that the locals still hadn't put two and two together.
Queet had rigged the PC-13A for towing, and Maggie was monitoring our new supplies. Huntington, who had remained aboard while we were in Negril, actually appeared to be anxious to get back to the mission.
I used the opportunity to fill Hannah and Queet in on the previous evening's party in Chauncey's room. At first Hannah seemed skeptical. I concluded it all with a staunch denial that I had anything to do with turning Chauncey's admittedly pummeled remains into a corpse.
"I decided to let Bluebell spend the night in my room only because Chauncey's stomach had made a mess of hers. I flopped down across my bed, bluebell disappeared into the bathroom, and I swear I don't remember anything until you started waving coffee under my nose this morning."
Hannah was listening, but I couldn't tell if she was buying. Queet had propped himself against the bulkhead with a Red Top.
"Look, Chauncey Packer was alive the last time I saw him. I'll admit he was in bad shape, but he was damn sure breathing."
"Do you think they'll tie you to Packer?" Hannah asked.
"I don't see how, but I sure wasn't going to hang around and let them start asking questions."
"What about your friend, Bluebell?" Hannah managed to put a special little twist on the word "friend."
For all her effort, the question earned Hannah nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders. "I guess it depends on how hard they look, and that probably depends on how much they care."