Twenty-Seven Bones

4

“Lewis, we have to talk.”

Oh gawd. The last words any married man wants to hear. Even if he’s not hungover. Which Lewis Apgard was. Frightfully. On rum. White, hundred-and-fifty proof St. Luke Reserve. Lewis opened his eyes. The effort was excruciating. They say white men shouldn’t drink white rum. They could be right.

“How much do you remember from last night, Lew?”

Oh gawd again. Apparently there was going to be a formal recital of Letterman’s top ten list of phrases no married man wants to hear. Lewis glanced warily around the master bedroom of the late-eighteenth-century mansion known as the Apgard Great House, looking for clues. “Not much,” he had to admit.

The better half emerged from the bathroom, wearing one of her golf outfits-tartan shorts, sleeveless white jersey. Her full name was Lindsay Hokansson Apgard-two surnames to reckon with on St. Luke-but everybody including the servants called her Hokey. Childless, slender, a strong swimmer, a good rider, and a scratch golfer, she looked both older and younger than her age, which was thirty-three, same as her husband. Older because the tropics wreak havoc on the Scandinavian complexion; younger because she still retained the facial mannerisms of the spoiled little rich girl-on this occasion, the proactive pout. “I didn’t think so.”

Suddenly Lewis had to piss. He pulled back the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and brushed past her on his way into the bathroom, not even trying to hide his morning hard-on.

“Well? You gonna tell me or what?” he called over the sound of his stream hitting the water. Even with his hangover, it was a noisy, satisfying, damn-near-glorious piss-and the way his marriage was going, probably the most rewarding thing he’d be doing with his dick all day.

“I’ll wait.”

He finished, shook off, flushed, returned to the bedroom. She was sitting at her vanity, brushing her whitish blond hair with short, angry strokes. Her back was turned, but she could see him in the mirror. “Put some pants on,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m not having this conversation with your thing swinging in the breeze.”

Now it’s my thing, thought Lewis, pulling on yesterday’s briefs, which were on the floor not far from the hamper. She used to call it Clark, as in Lewis and Clark, because in the early days of their marriage she rarely saw the one without the other. “That better?”

Primly: “Yes. Thank you.”

He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “Look, whatever I did last night, I’m-”

She cut him off. “Not this time, Lew. I’ve had enough. It’s over. I want a-”

“Hokey, please.” His turn to cut her off, before she could get the D-word out. “Whatever happened last night, I give you my word, I-”

“How can you promise if you don’t even know-”

“How can I know if you won’t-”

“Fine an’ dandy, me son, I’ll tell you.” Hokey stood up, tossed the brush onto the vanity, loomed over him (she was two inches taller even when he was standing) with her hands on her slender hips. “You reeled in dead drunk last night, you harangued me about selling the land near the airport again, when I refused you tried to hit me, but you were too drunk to land a blow, then you went all maudlin, falling all over yourself apologizing, then you got angry again and tried to force yourself on me, but you were so drunk you passed out on top of me.”

Lewis groaned, and ran his hands through his thick, golden blond hair. It was coming back to him now-not last night with Hokey, but yesterday afternoon, closeted in his study, poring over financial statements, phone calls with his accountant, his business manager, his broker, his lawyer. Had there ever been a man so unlucky in his investments? First the tech bubble bursting, then the post-9/11 crash, then the Enron debacle.

His portfolio had been decimated, his sheep, his cattle, and his cane scarcely paid for themselves, and although by island standards he was still a rich man, and a powerful one, most of his remaining assets consisted of real estate, and he couldn’t sell any of it, including the most valuable property, the sixty acres of mahogany forest bordering the St. Luke airport, unless Hokey agreed.

So divorce was out of the question, at least until he’d solved his cash flow problems. Which he could do only by clear-cutting the mahogany at the edge of the airport, the lumber in itself worth millions, then selling the property to the St. Luke Improvement Corp., of which he was a charter investor. SLIC would level the hill and extend the airport runways until they were long enough to land jumbo jets. Then Lewis could sit back and watch all the real estate on the island, in addition to his shares of SLIC, double or triple in value.

Of course there was another possibility, one that Lewis had been thinking about-obsessing about-with increasing frequency over the last few months, as he had watched what remained of his portfolio (energy: what could be safer than energy?) swirling down the crapper, and argued fruitlessly with Hokey about the airport property. If the marriage ended with a divorce, he would be ruined; if it ended with Hokey’s death, he would be a wealthy man again.

But in the meantime, humble pie. Lewis lowered his head, buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, his turquoise blue eyes were swimming with tears. “I love you,” he said in a choked voice. “I’ll do anything you ask if you’ll give me another chance.”

Hokey sat down next to him at the foot of the bed, a Danish West Indian satinwood four-poster with a hand-carved headboard and hand-turned spindles. “You’ll lay off the rum?”

“I’d have done that anyway.”

“By rum, I mean-”

“I know: the wagon.”

“And you’ll start seeing someone?”

“I hear this new guy, Vogler, is pretty good-I’ll give him a call this afternoon.”

“And you understand this is the last chance?”

“If I blow it, which as God is my witness I won’t, I’ll give you that divorce, uncontested.”

“If you blow it this time, me son,” said Hokey, “it won’t matter whether you contest it or not.”