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.Eventually the hotels faded away as they went around the deep, pretty curve of Go Slow Bend and reached the narrow strip of public park at Saunders Beach.After that the bloom was off the rose.A mile out in the water a white concrete tower that looked like something out of The Jetsons ruined the view, and Poitier told them it was the old Crystal Cay Observation Tower and Aquarium and was usually closed for one reason or another.On shore the beachfront houses became older and crummier, interspersed with bars, clubs, and condo units poking up through the sand and limestone and sparse patches of grass.Just past a yellow house, surrounded by a razor-wire-topped stone wall, the taxi turned again and they pulled up into the driveway of a time-battered Victorian clapboard with a screened porch and narrow windows that looked as though it belonged on the set of Psycho.A carved wood sign out front announced that this was the office of Sir Percival Terco, M.P., Minister of Justice.Directly across from the big old house was a row of fish-fry shacks.The nearest one said Deep Creek.Poitier grunted.“Percy hasn’t been Minister of Justice since Linden O.Pindling in ninety-two, but he likes the sign.And nobody here calls him Sir, believe me, General.He went away to England on holiday a few years back, came home and said Queen Elizabeth knighted him while he was there.Brought back a fancy piece of parchment with the Terco crest on it.Said it was hundreds of years old.Swans on it.” He snorted.“Black swans, maybe.” The old taxi driver laughed.“Motel’s around back.”He drove in behind the house.A long L-shaped white building that looked like renovated slave quarters or a transformed chicken house stood at the end of an asphalt lot.There seemed to be seven units.There was a strange cupola like an afterthought on top of the building and a set of stairs running down to the ground with a banister made of old pipe.In the middle of the parking lot was a raised wooden platform in the shape of a boat.Above it was a sheet of rippled fiberglass, just like the one over the carport of Pyx’s place in Aix-les-Bains, except this one was yellow instead of green and topped in turn by a big satellite dish.There was a television mounted in a padlocked wooden box in what would have been the bow, a Ping-Pong table amidships, and a charcoal barbeque in the stern.Where the rudder would have been on a real ship was a public telephone mounted on a pole.In between the barbeque and the satellite TV were rows of padded benches and some lawn chairs.Behind the deck of this wooden boat sailing in its parking lot sea, between the edge of the asphalt and a swampy-looking inlet, was a huge cream-colored old Daimler Princess, tires rotted off, weeds growing up around the winglike fenders and the wide running boards.Something from another time.A very black, very skinny man in baggy pants and a moth-eaten wifebeater undershirt was cooking something on the barbeque that was creating enormous amounts of smoke.“Lloyd,” said Poitier.“Percy’s brother.He owns the motel.”“Where’d he get the car?” asked Hilts.“The Duke of Windsor,” said Poitier.“Creamie-pie leave it here when he left the king’s employ.Lloyd been going on about fixing it since 1956.Which is about as much true as Percy been knighted by the Queen.Lloyd’s a good man though, General.He won’t do you wrong.”“Creamie-pie?” Finn whispered.“The Duke, I guess,” Hilts said and shrugged.An elderly black woman as skinny and ropy as beef jerky with a face to match came out of one of the motel units wearing bright blue rubber gloves and carrying a red pail with a mop in it.She saw the taxi and waved her free hand.Her smile was more like a grimace of pain.“Mrs.Amelia Terco herself,” Poitier explained.“Mother to Lloyd and to Percy.Does the cleaning for her boys.Looks like her rheumatism’s acting up.” He laughed.“ ‘Course, it’s been acting up since Hemingway came here to bonefish once.”“A little old for that kind of work, isn’t she?” Finn asked, startled.The woman was ancient.“Don’t you go telling her that,” Poitier said with a laugh.“She bite your head off.Tell you Percy was useless except for lying in Parliament and Lloyd too lazy to clean up after himself, let alone other people.” They climbed out of the taxi.Lloyd waved his spatula then went back to staring down into the smoke pouring up from the grill.“Good mornin’, good mornin’, how are you this mornin’?” said Poitier to Lloyd Terco, joining him at the barbeque.“Brought you some business.”“Well, that’s nice,” said Lloyd, squinting through the smoke.“You want some nice grouper, young lady?” he asked, smiling at Finn.The smoke wafted over her.It smelled delicious, and she told him so.“Get the pretty young thing a plate, Mr.Poitier, and one for her friend as well,” instructed the chef in the undershirt.Poitier went to a table laid out in front of the big TV and picked up a couple of paper plates and some plastic cutlery.“He tell you his name was Sidney Poitier?” Lloyd asked.“He did,” Hilts said.“Isn’t it?”“Far as I know,” answered Lloyd.“Calling him that since he was six years old, which in his case was a long, long time ago.Just wondered if he brought it up.He usually does.Thinks he gets better tips that way.”Poitier came back with the plates and the utensils.“Telling lies again, Lloyd Terco?”“Whenever I can,” Lloyd answered.He used the spatula to slide a couple of lightly battered slabs of fish onto the plate.“If I had a deep fryer we’d have some chips or some conch fritters, but I don’t so we won’t.” He pronounced “conch” konk.“Sad thing, but I’d burn myself if I had one,so p’raps it’s for the best.”Finn sat down on the nearest bench and rested the plate on her knees.She started to cut into fish with the plastic knife and fork.“Eat it with your fingers, girlie.Mr.Poitier there brought you the knife and fork just to prove we have manners.Won’t cook you in a pot or some such.”“No bones in your noses either,” said Hilts.“Those are African niggers, my son.Island niggers got civilized a long time ago,” said Poitier blandly.He winked at Finn.She took a bite of the fish and winked back.Poitier liked that.The fish melted in her mouth.She tasted beer and lime.Lloyd handed fish out to everyone and then took some himself.He put his plate down beside one of the lawn chairs, went to the front of the boat and opened up a small fridge under the TV.He uncapped four bottles of Kalik and brought them back to his guests.Finn took a swig.She wasn’t much of a beer drinker, but this was like drinking liquid honey.“Great,” she said.“Funny name,” said Hilts, reading the label.He pronounced it kay-lik [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]