Twenty-Seven Bones

8

Sunday night is bargain night on Wharf Street. A garote can get laid a lot cheaper if he keeps his pecker and his pay in his pants all weekend. Ruford Shea, the man who’d been voted most valuable scrounger at the Core’s October tempura feast, had saved up all month, paid his rent on Tuesday, sent a hundred dollars back to his wife on St. Vincent on Friday, and by Sunday was down to seventy-five dollars. But by Sunday night, twenty bucks would fetch a blow job from any whore on Wharf Street and fifty would get you laid; either way he’d still have a minimum twenty-five left over to get him through to payday. Then next week he’d start saving again-no more whores, if he expected to make it home by Christmas.

When he left the Core in his plucky ’72 Toyota Corona-you could see the road through the floorboards-Ruford was still an undecided consumer. Once he saw Angela standing on the raised wooden sidewalk, in the shade of the portico outside the old Customs House (now the first souvenir shop the tourists saw when they came off the cruise ship), he knew he’d be lucky to escape with even the twenty-five in his pocket.

Angela, a tall, dark-skinned gal who could get a man hard with her eyes, had fled Montserrat after the eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano in ’97-you can’t walk the streets when they’re knee deep in ash. And unlike many of the Wharf Street gals, Angela permitted, even encouraged, kissing. Sometimes Ruford missed kissing his wife more than he missed the sugah down deh.

Ruford pulled over, right side to curb on the wrong side of the street. Angela sauntered over-and if she could saunter in those fuck-me heels and that ass-hugging, postage stamp vinyl skirt she was wearing, she could saunter in anything. Ruford reached over and opened the door. She slid in, then made a pretense of tugging her skirt back down over her stocking tops. They exchanged pleasantries-she didn’t remember his name, but she remembered his island. When he told her what he wanted, she cast a dubious glance toward the backseat of the Corona.

“Ain’ much room back dere fa dese long legs a mine, y’know mon.”

“It’s a balmy evenin’, why don’ we spread a blanket up by Lime Grove?” suggested Ruford.

“You ain’ be dot Machete Mon fella dey be tahkin’ ’bout.”

“Me a steppin’ razor,” said the little down-islander, “but me ain’ no Machete Mon.”

The Epps hadn’t worked whores since San Jose. Lewis was more of an expert-he knew where to find them, and when they saw the dark-skinned whore with the long, long legs get into the rust-eaten Toyota, he knew where they’d be going-the public grove.

Lewis did not, however, realize that the driver of the Toyota was one of his tenants until later. They had parked the Land Rover off the dundo road and hiked around, approaching the grove from the forest instead of the road. There was only the one couple on the grass under the trees. Bennie, a demon of stealth, sneaked up on them alone and held them at gunpoint until the others caught up.

If Apgard was surprised to recognize Shea, Ruford seemed relieved to see his landlord. “Mistah Apgard, sah! What’s going on heah?” He’d already rolled off the woman; he pulled up his pants and scrambled to his feet. Angela remained on her back, skirtless, with her blouse rucked up to her neck. She tugged her blouse down to her midriff and draped the tiny skirt over as much of her groin as it would cover, but offered no other resistance, not even when Emily started going through her purse.

“Ruford, it’s an incredibly, incredibly long story,” said Lewis, who’d brought a bottle of Reserve along, and taken a slug or two, either for courage, or to numb himself-he wasn’t sure, and didn’t care which.

“Twenty-two,” said Emily, removing Angela’s Saturday night special from the purse.

“Let’s get them in position first,” said Phil. “We want all the forensics to line up just right.”

“Mistah Apgard?”

“Be over in a sec, Ruford. We just want to get some pictures of Miss…”

“Angela Martin,” said Emily, who had handed Phil the.22 and was using her flashlight to examine Angela’s wallet.

“Miss Angela Martin plying her trade, so we can deport her back to…”

“Montserrat,” said Emily.

“Montserrat.”

“An’ me, sah?” asked Ruford.

“Pull your pants back down and get on top of her. Unless Immigration can identify you by your ass, you’ll be fine. And for your trouble, I’ll even forgive next month’s rent.”

Ruford couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening. Was Mr. Apgard helping the INS now? Or were the old folks Vice? And where did the silent Chinaman fit in? A month’s free rent sounded pretty good, though. Sounded even better when the old white lady told him he and Angela could finish their business, if he were still in the mood.

As for Angela, she’d been deported from better islands than this one. A free airplane ride home wasn’t the worst thing in the world, especially when her first thought had been that the St. Vincent man had set her up, and that she was about to be gang-raped and murdered. So she tossed her skirt aside again-don’t have to worry about vinyl wrinkling-and pulled up her blouse. Ruford pulled down his pants and knelt between her legs, but he couldn’t get hard with everybody standing around.

“We haven’t got all night,” said the older woman. “Just lie down on top of her.”

Ruford did as instructed-and now that he was no longer making an effort, he found himself getting hard. “Here we go,” he said, scooting his hips back and raising himself on his forearms. He was vaguely aware that the white woman was now kneeling to his right, beside the blanket, but most of his concentration was on striking the right angle to reach the promised land. At least until the first shot.

Ruford felt it as a blow to the rib cage, then a searing pain in his abdomen, like being speared with a hot poker. He collapsed onto Angela. A second shot, at a steeper angle, tore through his side and groin and smashed his pelvic bone from the inside.

He tried to roll off; a foot pressed against the small of his back, pinning him against the terrified woman. The last thing he saw was Angela’s face, lit up like an icon of some African saint by the beam of the old woman’s flashlight.