The Green Hell Treasure

4

“Moonlighting?” Da Silva asked politely.

“Believe me,” Wilson said earnestly, understandingly, “nobody knows better than Zé or myself how difficult it is to make ends meet on the paltry salaries doled out by Interpol to its vassals — but a stewardess? I should have thought there’d be more money in exotic dancing. Or even piloting the plane, if you must fly. Although,” he added in an attempt at fairness, “I’ve never tried either of them, myself.”

The three were seated at a window-seat table on the upper-floor lounge of the famous upside-down Trinidad Hilton. Beneath their window the Savannah Race Track stood empty at this hour of noon, twin rows of palm trees guarding the bare asphalt of the gigantic parking lot; beyond, the green of the city ran smoothly down the slopes to the distant ocean. At their side the buzz of the crowded bar occupied by every major race in the world; conversation in a dozen languages flashed back and forth over the heads of the busy bartenders in their sunken pit, sunken so they would not impede the view.

Diana Cogswell looked from one man to the other and sipped her whiskey sour. She placed her glass back on the table, reached down to fish a handkerchief from her bag on the floor beside her, and patted her lips.

“To tell the truth,” she said, “I like to size people up a bit before I start working with them. At least when I can.” Her voice was soft and the slightest bit husky. Sexy, Da Silva thought — and it would be a wonder if it weren’t. He brought his eyes back from her low-cut gown to her face; she noticed the change in direction and bit back a smile. “I also prefer to study them when they’re not aware of it. It’s amazing what one can learn about a person.”

Wilson grinned at her; his grin disappeared as his cigarettes slid from the table, jogged by his elbow. He reached down, gathering them in, bringing them back to the table.

“I was about to say, ‘What conclusions did you come to about Zé?’ but I won’t for two reasons.” He came to his feet apologetically. “For one, I have an errand to run. And for the second, I’d just as soon not hear your answer. I hate to see a grown man embarrassed.”

Da Silva’s eyes twinkled as the nondescript man left the room.

“You can still answer,” he said.

“I—” She stopped.

“Let me help you out,” he said, his eyes on the door through which Wilson had passed. “You found out that Captain Da Silva doesn’t particularly care about flying, and also that he’s not the most observant man in the world as far as stewardesses are concerned.” He glanced at her lovely profile and shook his head in wonderment at himself. “I’ve no excuse for that last one. Absolutely none. It must have been too much storm. Or too much Reserva San Juan.”

“I wasn’t all that unimpressed,” Diana said softly, and smiled at him. “You can handle your Reserva San Juan, at least; you don’t pinch, and I did see that you obviously came well prepared for your assignment with pictures and tapes of your man.” She forced herself to sound very businesslike. “Well, Captain, you’re the boss. What are your ideas?”

“My first idea is let’s finish our drinks,” Da Silva protested. He raised his glass, winked at her, finished his drink, and set it down. “There, that’s better. All right, down to work if you insist.” He looked curious. “My ideas about what?”

“For getting McNeil—” She stopped abruptly; her tiny jaw started to tighten, and then relaxed. “You’re joking with me, Captain. I don’t think it’s particularly a joking matter.”

“You almost got angry,” Da Silva pointed out. “I also like to learn things about people I work with, and it’s amazing how much one can learn when the other person loses his — or her — temper. However—”

“However, I didn’t lose it,” Diana said sweetly.

“But you came close,” Da Silva said, laughingly. He paused as Wilson returned and unobtrusively seated himself. He bent to tie his shoelace and then straightened up. “We were discussing our plans,” Da Silva explained.

“Oh?”

“Yes, such as they are.” He turned to the girl, shrugging. “Well, to be serious for a change, my plan really isn’t much of a mystery. As soon as I saw your picture, I said to myself — ‘If Diana Cogswell doesn’t have McNeil eating out of her hand in a week, he’s got to be blind!’”

“Actually,” Wilson said, “you said it to me.”

“I knew I said it to somebody — I was sure I hadn’t heard it just anywhere.” Having put the smaller man in his place, Da Silva returned to the girl. “Anyway, basically that’s the plan.”

“I see.” Diana nodded, not at all surprised by the plan. It had been, after all, what she had expected when she had requested the assignment. Her dark eyes came up. “And you?”

“Me? I’ll be around someplace if the action gets rough. Or if you need me for something. I have my own ideas of a cover, and what little I can contribute, but there’s no need to go into all that at this early date.”

The girl tilted her head toward Wilson.

“And what about him?”

“Well,” Da Silva said thoughtfully, “in all honesty, my original scheme was for him to stay home in Rio and not get underfoot at all. However,” he added in a kindly tone, “since he’s here he might as well stay. He’s been useful in the past for minor errands, and we might manage a use for him in this affair. He exhibits surprising talents at times, you know. Not often, but occasionally.”

“Thank you muchly,” Wilson murmured.

“That’s perfectly all right,” Da Silva said magnanimously.

Diana Cogswell frowned. “And just how do I go about meeting this McNeil man?”

“Well—” Da Silva began, but Wilson cut in smoothly.

“I do believe Miss Cogswell is getting her revenge for your not having noticed her on the plane,” he said. “A woman scorned is a joy forever, or something along those lines—”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Wilson?”

“I’m merely saying, ma’am, that you have a plan well worked out. Let me see if I can guess it...” He frowned at the table and then snapped his fingers. “Of course! Now just suppose that you had an aunt living in St. Andrew parish, Miss Cogswell — an Aunt Margaret, for example — and suppose the thought occurred to you that this McNeil would be going back to Brighton when he gets back to Barbados — it’s a natural thing for the man to do. And it’s not too far from your Aunt Margaret’s, where you plan to stay. Now, I don’t imagine there’s a lot to do in a small fishing village like Brighton, so I’d judge the social life, such as it is, must center about the pub. Now if I were you, Miss Cogswell, I’d get in touch with the local police through Interpol, and have them arrange me a job at one of them. How? Possibly by offering the present barmaid a better proposition in a big town like Bridgetown, and making it worth her while, thereby leaving the job open.”

The girl was staring at him with open mouth. She noticed him looking at her, and closed it suddenly. Wilson smiled at her in friendly fashion.

“Oh, yes,” he went on, struck by a second thought. “I’d say the Badger would be the pub to start at. It was named for Nelson’s first command, incidentally — they seem to have a thing for Nelson in Barbados. My guess is it’s the largest pub in Brighton—”

“The only one,” Diana said.

“Then all the more reason. You shouldn’t have any trouble on an age basis, being twenty-nine, although I’m sure the custom at the pub will never believe it...”

Da Silva’s black eyes twinkled.

“You see?” he said. “I told you he had his talents, didn’t I?” He turned to Wilson reproachfully. “I don’t think it was very gentlemanly to mention the lady’s age, though.”

“But how—”

She glanced down at her bag; she lifted it decisively into her lap and opened it, checking the contents carefully. She lifted out her wallet, riffled through it, dug about until she had found an envelope in a zippered pocket, checked it, and then returned everything to its proper place.

“No. Everything is here and it hasn’t been touched—”

“Everything is there now,” Da Silva said evenly, “but I’m afraid it really has been touched. I’m sure you’ve noticed how unnoticeable our friend here is. I watched him bend over, extract your wallet and papers, and just a minute ago I saw him just as carefully return them. If he had disturbed anything in the process, he would have lost his merit-badge for pocket-picking. Or pick-pocketing, if you prefer.” He nodded. “It’s the reason he’s never had to turn to exotic dancing or piloting a plane to augment his income. I’m surprised you never heard of him. In the inner circle of Interpol he’s widely known as Wilson the Dip.”

Diana Cogswell stared at the two men, as her fingers clenched her bag tightly. She looked as if she were seriously considering losing her temper, whether it revealed things about her or not. The two men waited patiently for her decision. At last she merely sighed.

“All right,” she said quietly. “I’ve been put in my place. I’ll try to be more careful if I decide to try and fool you two geniuses again. It’s true. The police in Bridgetown arranged the whole thing. I work evenings at the Badger. All I can eat for supper, plus forty biwi a week.”

“Biwi?”

“It stands for British West Indies. The banks call it E.C. — Exchange Currency. It comes to about twenty dollars.”

Wilson smiled at her, a friendly smile.

“I imagine that Varig pays better, but on top of our meager stipend as intrepid police agents, anything is better than nothing.” His smile faded as he thought a moment. “This aunt of yours — does she have any idea you’re connected with Interpol?”

“Heavens, no!” Diana shook her head. “She merely thinks I couldn’t make it abroad and had to come home to eat humble pie. It’s far from unusual in the islands.”

“But will you be free to come and go?” Da Silva asked.

“Of course. My aunt’s an old lady, a widow. She has her little cottage, and she has a slight income from renting out my uncle’s old fishing boat. And besides,” she added a bit archly, “I am grown up, you know.”

Wilson bit back the obvious reply, turning to Da Silva.

“I hate to be argumentative, but just suppose McNeil doesn’t go to Brighton.” He raised his hand. “I know I said he probably would, but just suppose he doesn’t? Or just suppose he really is crazy, and doesn’t fall for Diana. What then?”

Da Silva looked at him steadily. “Then, quite obviously, we dream up something else. If he doesn’t go to Brighton, he’ll go someplace else, and that someplace else will have a pub. If he doesn’t go for Diana” — he shrugged — “then maybe we’ll have to find someone else. I can’t picture it, though.”

Wilson considered a moment and nodded.

“All right. So we’ve got Diana meeting McNeil and McNeil falling for her like a ton of bricks. With her help, of course. What then, brown hen?”

“Then,” Da Silva said quietly, “she simply needles him for always being broke. That’s all.”

The other two considered this for several moments; then Wilson nodded.

“Which could well drive him to go for the stuff, only with us on his tail. Yes, it could work, I suppose.” His gray eyes came up. “You also mentioned something about a cover for yourself. Any concrete ideas along those lines?”

“Not exactly,” Da Silva said, and smiled. He snapped his fingers for a waiter, placed an order for a repeat of their drinks, and leaned back, watching as the white-coated figure moved toward the crowded bar. “It just occurred to me that I really shouldn’t need one, not with you two both hard at work...”

The rickety yellow coastwise buses from Bridgetown have a route that carries them around the fifty-odd mile perimeter of the island, through Holetown and Speightstown — called Spiketown by its inhabitants for some reason lost in history — then around the northern surf of St. Lucy parish at North Point, down past Brighton and Bathsheba on the east and eventually back to Bridgetown by way of Seewell Airport and the lovely southern beaches. Duplicate buses are making the same rounds at the same time in the opposite direction, and their meeting places can be almost anywhere, depending upon how many passengers decide to stop for errands or to eat at how many places how many times, or other variables of a similar nature.

Visitors to the island of Barbados seldom if ever use this means of transportation; it is primarily meant for the delivery and pick-up of the maids and porters who service the luxury hotels that have sprung up along the wide, beautiful, formerly virgin beaches. It is also used on occasion by sugar plantation workers who are away from home for some reason, as well as by those people who prefer the anonymity of the bus to the more public view which would be almost inevitable should one travel by private car or taxi.

(The buses are also available on a rental basis for funerals, but their tendency to be late has given them a bad name. People who are perfectly willing to wait hours for the yellow vehicles themselves, somehow resent having their dead friends and relatives inconvenienced by a delay of even minutes.)

The drivers of the yellow buses are so familiar with their unvarying route that many people claim they often drive in their sleep; certainly their eyes remain half closed at all times, possibly against the glare of the sun or quite possibly against the monotony of the trip, and it is true that their feet seem to find the brakes automatically and their weathered hands reach out for the fare oftimes before the passenger is even sure he wishes to descend at that point. Nor do they ever pay the slightest attention to the passenger when at last he decides in their favor.

It must be said in fairness, however, that the small passenger who dropped from the bus at Brighton that late afternoon three weeks after Da Silva, Wilson and Diana Cogswell had met at the Trinidad Hilton in Port-of-Spain, was so unnoticeable in appearance that even had the driver chosen to study him (assuming the driver to have been awake) it is doubtful that he could have furnished a useful description later, other than the fact that the man was white, and white men were in the distinct minority of the buslines’ passengers.

The little man watched the bus pull from the dusty shoulder back onto the glaring pavement, and then turned to study his surroundings. The town of Brighton didn’t seem to be of a size even to merit mention on a map. It consisted of one section of the main road with a row of stone buildings on one side, aged by wind and rain, with a cluster of huts haphazardly taking up the space for several hundred yards behind them and running spottily in ever-lessening numbers down the road to disappear into a stand of giant palms. The stone buildings seemed to have been there forever; the commercial signs above their doors had long since lost any relationship to the business being conducted within. A shabby lean-to of driftwood and hammered gasoline tins used the last building on the street for support, displaying fruits and vegetables offered on the tops of wooden crates, and attracting the attention, seemingly, only of sand flies. The proprietor, if he existed, had small fear of thievery, for he was not in sight. Of people, the only one to be seen was a uniformed policeman in an old but highly polished open sedan, parked up the street from the bus stop, and now watching the small man with curious eyes.

The little man did not allow the inspection to bother him. He continued his inventory of the town’s few attributes. He saw the ship’s chandler next to the confectionery, with the hardware and a grocer’s below, separated by a storefront that was boarded up. Only one building stood apart, separated from the others by a narrow lane, and also, it appeared, by a full century in time. It was a two-story building, squat and characterless, which might have been transported red brick by red brick and reconstructed, complete with original grime, from any English coastal town from Gravesend to Tynemouth, to serve the thirsts of the small community. Above the door with its leaded glass panels a battered wooden sign hung, depicting what the artist undoubtedly considered a badger. The artist, the small man noted in passing, had been quite wrong.

The shacks that made up the bulk of the village in area, if not in construction, were of mud with thatched roofs, newer by far than the stone monstrosities they seemed to huddle about as if for protection, but also far less stable. Fishing nets hung from many of the paneless windows, draped over poles, spread for drying. Across the road a series of sand dunes hid actual sight of the ocean, but a dual track beaten through the tall sparse grass indicated the location of the dock and the fishing boats, now undoubtedly tied up for the evening. The sun was low in the cloudless sky, sinking over Mount Hillaby, but the air still retained the heat of the day.

Wilson sighed, wiped his brow, hitched up his ragged ex-white trousers, and padded across the road to the inn, his worn tennis shoes raising little puffs of dust. He tried to appear nonchalant about the constant inspection he was receiving from the constable in the car, straightening his scrubby jacket in a gesture indicating he had as much right to enter an inn as anyone else.

He pushed through the heavy doors into a welcome coolness, abetted by the yeasty aroma of beer, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and his ears to the noise. The bar was filled with fishermen, slaking a thirst built up through working a long day in the sun; others crowded the benches and booths that filled the opposite wall. Wilson stood a moment, studying the group, and finally found McNeil leaning quietly on the bar somewhere in the middle of the noisy gang about him, speaking with nobody, paying no attention to the crowd of men laughing, pounding each other on the backs, comparing catches. Wilson shouldered himself through the men, pushing up to the bar. The bartender, a stout mulatto, his face shining with sweat, came to stand before him.

“Beer or rum?”

“Rum. Make it a double.”

A glass was slid before him; rum gurgled from a bottle. Wilson started to raise it to his lips and then saw the bartender still waiting before him. Strangers, he realized, were rare in the village, and seldom came with established credit ratings. Without putting the glass down, he fished money from his pocket with his free hand and tossed it on the bar. The bartender took it and walked away.

In the mirror behind the bar Wilson picked his image out of the mob, studied it a moment, and smiled faintly. Even had he not been a stranger it would have been small wonder had the bartender suspected his ability to pay. He hadn’t shaved for four days, and it had taken him many hours to fray his shirt collar and the cuffs of the cheap suit-jacket he wore. I ought to be thankful he served me at all, he thought, money or not, and downed his drink. It was strong, but much smoother than he had expected: not Reserva San Juan cognac, but on the other hand, not Brazilian pinga either. He dug out another coin and rapped on the bar with it, attracting the attention of the bartender, glancing at the clock on the wall even as he waited for his glass to be refilled. Even adding the ten minutes all bar clocks are set ahead throughout the world, he didn’t have too much time. The bus hadn’t exactly broken all speed records on its journey from Bridgetown. He raised his glass, drinking, his eyes casually studying McNeil in the mirror. The big black man at his side had his head bent, his thoughts obviously far away; his mug of beer had lost its head. Time to go to work, Wilson thought, and tapped the bar with his glass. The bartender came back, bottle poised.

“One more, mon?”

“No thanks.” Wilson gestured with his head. “The head? I mean, the gents?”

“I know what you mean, mon. In the back.”

The bartender moved away to serve his other customers. Wilson backed his way through the noisy bunch, accidentally jostling McNeil as he forced his way back. The big man didn’t even bother to respond to the murmured apology, continuing to stare at the bar, his mind far away. It’s really unfair, Wilson thought; he isn’t even paying attention. He walked to the back door and let himself through it, not greatly surprised to find himself outside. The Gents and Ladies were housed in a separate building, and the man loitering quite obviously at the end of the lane had to be someone the police had put there to watch the rear exit of the inn.

With a smile Wilson turned and walked down the lane beside the weathered brick building. He calmly crossed the road before the constable’s car, marching along the shoulder in the direction he had been going by bus. Let the constable think he had merely paused on his way for a glass of beer, although he was quite aware that the constable, while undoubtedly sizing him up, was also under strict orders to keep McNeil under his eagle eye — and not some stranger, no matter how ragged his appearance nor how unusual his means of exit from an inn.

Wilson was also fully conscious, as he walked along, of the pressure of McNeil’s wallet in his own pocket, and the possibility of a sudden outcry behind him which would force him to take to his heels over the dunes and save himself from the big man as best he could. It occurred to him that while the rewards of pocket-picking undoubtedly were both ample and relatively easily come by, the suspense of waiting to slip up and be caught were a bit nerve-wracking, and that by and large he would hate to make his living that way. He grinned as he trod the road’s shoulder: What were his alternatives? He couldn’t pilot a plane, and with his legs he’d starve to death as an exotic dancer.

He heard the sound of a motor behind him, the labored grinding of an old car; he turned raising his thumb. It was an ancient camper; not to his amazement the driver put on his brakes, drawing to one side of the road. Wilson climbed in; the car moved slowly ahead. Behind them the constable returned to watching the door of the inn with stoic patience. Whether the ragged stranger deserved interrogation or not would soon be the problem of the next parish, not his.

In the car Da Silva glanced at Wilson over his shoulder.

“How did it go?”

“Like clubbing carp in a rain barrel.” Wilson patted his pocket. “I left him his wristwatch, his underwear, and the fillings in his teeth.”

“I consider that very sweet of you,” Da Silva said. He pulled the camper a bit to one side of the road to allow ample passage for the yellow bus that was approaching from the opposite direction, and then got back into the center of his lane once it had passed. “Do me a favor, though, will you?”

“Anything.”

“Move away from me a bit more, will you? The money in my billfold is a gift from the Brazilian Government, and as such it has sentimental value...”

The yellow bus that Da Silva had passed stopped before the Badger Inn to allow Diana Cogswell to descend. The girl, scarcely recognizable as the svelte creature of her photographs or the beautifully gowned and coifed young lady who had had drinks with Da Silva and Wilson in Port-of-Spain, was still undoubtedly very attractive; no change of attire or hair style could conceal the perfection of her dark brown features, the loveliness of her strong body with its long legs, straight back, and full bosom. She watched the bus pull away and then opened the door to the inn. The harried bartender heaved a sigh of relief as she bent to pass beneath the counter, coming up beside him.

“You’re late.”

“Bus was late, mon. Blame her, not me.”

The bartender didn’t bother to answer. He removed his apron, ducked under the counter and came up puffing, reaching for his jacket on a hook next to the mirror in the same motion.

“See you tomorrow.”

She nodded, watched him close the door behind him, then opened a cabinet door beneath the shelf of bottles under the mirror, stowing away her scarf and her handkerchief with her money wrapped in it, island style. She turned, moving gracefully toward McNeil, disregarding the hammering of glasses requesting her attention. She leaned over the bar, her blouse gaping, speaking softly.

“Hello, Bill.”

He had watched her entrance, his face showing animation for the first time that day. He smiled at her and reached out, taking her hand in his.

“Hello, Diana, sweet.”

“Your beer is flat, honey. Let me get you another. Or would you rather rum?”

“Rum, I think, now you’re here.” He released her hand and shook his head admiringly. “You know something, sweet? You get prettier every day. Every day!”

The other customers were getting restive, impatient. Not only was the man occupying the barmaid’s time a newcomer to town — one week, no more — but he was an ex-convict, fifteen years in a Brazilian jail, with a policeman on his heels day and night, a disgrace to the village. My word! But whether he was a newcomer or not, a jailbird or not — these weren’t the questions. The fact was that pub custom the world over demanded that attention from a barmaid be parceled out equally — and not just in service, but in smiles and jokes as well. Everybody knew that, or should. My word! One of the fishermen closest to the pair, young and handsome himself, leaned over the bar to impart this basic knowledge to these obviously uninformed persons.

“Look, sweetheart, more than one fish in this here ocean. We did a hard day on the boats, not loafing like some I could mention. Lots of us here anxious for a touch of grog.” His hand reached out, touching the girl’s cheek. “And a bright smile with it wouldn’t go amiss, neither.”

The fisherman suddenly found himself grasped, lifted bodily, and flung through the crowd, bouncing off the startled bystanders. He tripped and fell ignominiously, and then came to his feet instantly, his eyes narrowed, a fish-gutting knife suddenly in his hand with a gesture few had seen. The girl half-screamed.

“Bill!”

“Don’t you worry, honey.”

McNeil chuckled and shoved his way to the center of the room. A large circle instantly formed around the two men; those along the wall and in the booths stood on chairs and benches to get a better view. The fisherman in the center of the ring stood alert; the muscles of his opponent didn’t impress him at all. He had a razor-sharp knife and much practice in its use. And he knew he was thinner, younger, and faster than the other. With the knife it should be no problem. Still, to make the first move and miss could be disastrous; the big man looked mean and tough, and also not without experience. No, let him make the first move and blunder into death.

McNeil moved about the other slowly, flat-footedly, arms half-extended, fingers flexed; the fisherman pivoted on the balls of his feet in the center of the room, always facing the big man, the knife a constant threat, never wavering. The crowd held its breath. The knife was held waist-high, edge up, point slightly depressed. McNeil recognized the professionalism of the stance, but the death’s-head grin on his big black face never wavered.

Then, swift as a snake, he shot one of his huge arms forward and instantly retracted it. The fisherman had been expecting such a move, awaiting it; his response was equally swift, the knife slashing out expertly, and being brought back to the ready in almost the same motion. But the armed fisherman was not prepared for the result of his sudden riposte. He knew well that he had not touched the other, yet the big man was falling to the floor. The man with the knife hesitated a fraction of a second, confused; the time lost was his undoing. McNeil landed on his hands and twisted at the same time, shooting a leg up like a piston. It caught the other man under the jaw, knocking him sprawling and unconscious against one of the booths. He lay there, his arm flung wide, the knife drooping from it.

Utter silence, the silence of disbelief, had fallen on the bar. McNeil pivoted easily, rising to his feet. He walked over, smiling grimly at his fallen opponent, and then brutally kicked him alongside the jaw. There was a gasp from the crowd; he paid it no attention. He bent and picked up the knife, jabbed it deep into the oaken floor, and bent it until the blade snapped. This time the gasp was louder, somehow even more outraged; a fish-gutting knife cost the equivalent of two day’s earnings. McNeil tucked the useless weapon in the belt of the unconscious man and straightened up, facing the silent group.

“It’s fifteen years since I’ve been around here, and I guess everybody’s new, or you were all too young, or maybe everybody just forgot me. Well, now you’ll remember.” He looked down at the man on the floor; blood was running from his cheek where he had been kicked the second time. “One of the things you learn in a Brazilian quod,” he said coldly. “They call it capoeira. He’ll live. We don’t swing for no man, my word!” His eyes came up, challenging. “Now, anyone else here want to argue about the service I get here?”

The men remained still, frozen. He pushed his way back to the bar, the crowd parting easily before him. The girl was staring at him wide-eyed. He smiled at her.

“I’ll take that rum now, honey.”

She turned slowly to reach for a bottle. There was the beginning of a shuffling as the men came alive again. Three of them raised the unconscious man and carried him out the front door; most of the others followed. Several still had mugs of beer on the bar; they swallowed them hurriedly and left, their yellowish eyes veiled, their black faces expressionless. The girl poured the drink and put the bottle back on the shelf. When she turned, his smile had changed to a wide grin.

“Like that little exhibition, honey?”

“You didn’t have to kick him when he was through,” she said quietly.

“That breaks the mon’s spirit, honey. The truth. I don’t kick him, he gets another knife and comes after me tonight down at the shack when I’m asleep. This way he feels that lump on his jaw and thinks twice. Then he forgets all about it. You see?”

“And you drove all the custom away, too.” The girl’s voice was stubborn. “The boss’ll want to know where all the money is, come tomorrow.”

“Money?” McNeil laughed, his deep bass booming. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about money, sweet. I told you that before. Anyway, tonight I’ll drink enough to put the bloody till even. My word! Why, all those poor trash fishermen did was nurse a mug of ale all night. You call that custom? I’ll show you custom. I’ve got a fifteen-year-old thirst and the means to satisfy it, too!”

He laughed and slapped at the pocket where he kept his wallet. His laugh froze a moment and then disappeared; his grin swiftly changed to a scowl. He patted the pocket once again and then the rest of his pockets. His face became murderous.

“Somebody dipped my purse!”

He turned, scanning the arena of his combat, then bent to peer under the benches, but he had not dropped his wallet during the scuffle and he knew it. Some ugly bostard had swiped it, and if he ever got his hands on the bostard, there’d be an end to one purse-snatcher, my word! But who? He frowned, trying to remember anyone touching him, but he couldn’t. Oh, yes; there had been one chap jostled his shoulder getting away from the bar, but he was positive that one hadn’t brushed against the pocket. He ceased his fruitless search of the floor and came back to the bar, his face screwed up in anger, to find the girl had brought the rum bottle back from the shelf and was carefully pouring his drink back into it.

“Hey!” McNeil’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “What’s the idea, sweet?”

Diana calmly finished her task, corked the bottle and returned it to the shelf beneath the mirror. She turned, wiping her hands on a towel, looking at him evenly.

“The idea, Bill, my lad,” she said quietly, “is that you’ve been having me on with your tall tales long enough. Somebody dipped your purse! And if he did, I pity the lad for the little he’ll find in it! And if he did, who would it be? One of the lads who was in here tonight? Don’t make me laugh!”

“I tell you somebody dipped my purse! As for that damned drink of rum—”

“As for that drink of rum, my lad, I’m not paying for it out of my money, and don’t you even dream it.”

“But, damn it, Diana, sweet—”

“And forget that ‘sweet’ business, too. You’ve been telling me lots of things ever since you got back, about how you were going to pick up that fortune someplace and then the two of us would be off and away and all. But anytime a girl asks you ‘when?’ then it’s always ‘in a little while.’ And now this bit about somebody stealing your purse! Well, if they did they probably hurried up the day you’ll have to come down off your high horse and get yourself a job on the fishing boats like the other lads, the ones you call trash. And you can forget about me when you do. Because I’m not aiming to do the cooking and cleaning and washing and raising a dozen brats for some Bajan comes home smelling of fish every night!”

He tried to reach across the bar to grasp her arm, but she stepped back, continuing in an even, expressionless voice.

“And another thing: I’m not waiting forever for something I’m beginning to seriously doubt, and I mean it, my lad. I took this job temporary, and I mean it to be temporary. You and your ‘in a little while’ nonsense! Well, a little while is a long time with you, Bill McNeil. Too long a time for me.”

“You saying I lied to you, honey?” The big man’s voice had dropped; its very quietness made it sound more dangerous. “You saying Bill McNeil’s just some big-mouth telling tales to impress a pretty girl? Like I need to lie to get a pretty girl?”

She remained silent, watching him.

“You saying I didn’t get my purse snatched? That I said so for a bloody drink of rum? And that I didn’t have more money in it than all the fishermen in this hole all put together? You saying that?”

The door of the pub opened; several sugar-plantation workers came in, their straw hats pushed to the back of their heads. They came to the bar, leaning on it. Diana moved over to them. McNeil stared at her a moment and then wheeled from the bar, striding fiercely to the door, flinging it open abruptly and disappearing into the night. There was the sound of a car being started as the constable openly began to follow.

Diana stared at the closed door a moment, a faint smile on her face, then turned to the new customers, repeating the standard litany of the Badger Inn.

“Well, boys, what’ll it be? Beer or rum?”