Tanning can be a serious business. Lindsay dozed, and dipped, and began to burn. He wondered whether it might be time for lunch. He gathered his towel, and padded back into the hotel garden, heard the sound of music, and wrinkled his nose. Someone was cooking close by. He found a little open air barbecue, with a couple of musicians lazily playing steel drums, waited for an obliging chef to grill up a quick hamburger and pack it round with salad, took a cold beer, and settled to eat at a table shaded by an overhanging palm. A group of men, Americans by the looked of them, sat drinking beers at another table a little way away, but there was no sign of Swann and the rest of the Collier press party.
He was mopping away his last hamburger crumbs when he had a feeling that one of the Americans was taking an interest in him. He was a young man, with a crew cut, in a blue cotton shirt patterned with pink and red flowers. After a moment the American got to his feet and made for Lindsay, to stand looking down at him. He plainly wanted to know something, but he was not threatening.
‘Hi.’ He stared at Lindsay hard, and Lindsay had a feeling that they had recently crossed paths, but could not place him. ‘Weren’t you with Bailey in New York?’
Lindsay twitched, and suddenly felt ice cold, despite the sun and the heat. Beads of cold sweat began to form on his back, and he looked around quickly for an escape route. But he could see nowhere to hide. His brain cranked into overtime. The man must be a journalist, if he had been at the New York hotel. He not look like a mafiosi. No dark suit, no dark glasses. Sometimes journalists stuck together.
The young man flashed a press card. ‘My name’s Chuck Wright, I’m with the Daily Post.’
Lindsay was silent. He needed first to know which way Wright’s wind might blow.
‘You seemed in a hell of a hurry to get out.’ Wright smiled faintly, and eyed Lindsay’s glass. ‘Can I get you another beer?’
Lindsay sighed, and shook his head. Another beer would have been nice. But he needed to keep his head clear, and not put his feet wrong. ‘I’m a journalist as well. I just missed getting a bullet in the head.’
Wright’s eyes narrowed, and he hurried on. ‘I write for The Times, in London, I’m here to cover King Cay.’
Lindsay paused. But he was plainly not saying enough, and he was on a bench, under an overhanging palm tree, and his press card was in his room. He needed to go on, and count on truth carrying conviction, or risk being lost. ‘I was on the same plane as Bailey. We began talking, he wanted to mobilise some support, and we cut a deal on the flight. He said he’d tell me all about the background to King Cay, and I said I’d do a piece on it.’
Wright made a face. He did not looked very convinced. ‘He took you to meet Valucetti?’
‘He said he’d introduce me to his partners.’
‘And then?’
‘Valucetti seemed to think Bailey was double-crossing him.’ Lindsay did not mention Delahaye’s gun. Some things were much too complex to explain simply.
Wright sucked in his breath. ‘You were lucky.’
‘I think I was.’
They looked at each other, each sizing up the other. Then Wright seemed to come to a decision. He pulled out a cane chair, and sat facing Lindsay across the table under the overhanging palm, and suddenly they were into interview mode. “OK. What did he tell you?”
Lindsay summarised his conversation with Bailey, flying high above the Atlantic. But he did not mention flying in luxury. Journalists conventionally travelled economy, and he needed to keep his story simple.
Wright listened, nodding from time to time. He nodded again as Lindsay complates his tale. ‘Yup, that all sounds about right. Collier’s a damn sight smarter than Bailey, he set him up for the cleaners. The wiseguys must have been real mad. Pity you never got the paperwork.’
Lindsay smiled. He had made a friend. ‘I’m still alive.’
Wright was silent for a moment. Then he looked at Lindsay hard. ‘Richard, you just don’t know how lucky you are.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘I’d better get you that beer.’
Lindsay watched him with a touch of alarm. Wright might go back to his fellow Americans, and unleash a British Colonial garden press conference.
‘Not me.’ The American shook his head. ‘Wait until Collier has fronted his launch party, then we’ll go talk to him together. I know a lot more background than you. But you were with Bailey.’
They drank together, and then Richard returned to his patch of sand. He needed to recharge his batteries. Later, quite a lot later, he woke again, to feel quite thoroughly burned. He struggled into a sitting position, and looked down at his chest and legs. They made him think of a nicely boiled lobster. He struggled awkwardly to his feet in an agony of smarting muscles and tender skin, and knew himself to be totally grilled. Now he needed succour, most probably in the form of a very large planters’ punch, or several punches in rapid succession. He limped back to the hotel through the garden, and each step was a judgement on sleeping in the sun. But he walked proudly, because he knew that he was heading for a real copper tan.
Swann and the four other members of Collier’s British press group were already comfortable in cane chairs, holding glasses. Lindsay raised his hand in greeting and hurried past them to a lift. Now he was desperate for a drink. He showered and dressed with care, because the slightest movement possessed a power to spin his nerve endings into hyperdrive, and took the lift down again. He was a man dying of thirst, but closing on an oasis.
Swann had already moved a sixth cane chair into the circle around the table. He waved expansively at two waiting tumblers. ‘We’re a bit ahead of you, Richard. You need to catch up.’
Lindsay lowered himself gently, and raised his tumbler to his lips. The punch was cool, and sweet, and instantly refreshing. He sipped again, and again, and realied with a shock that his first tumbler had mysteriously emptied itself, and that he was now half way down his second.
Swann watched benevolently, whilst his four companions gossipped with a slightly glazed air, and Lindsay felt himself sliding gently down a rum-drenched slope to join them. More drinks appeared, as though by magic, and his sunburn began to grow quite bearable. He sipped, and Donna smiled at him momentarily. Then she gave way to Aileen, and he was back at at his flat, and Aileen’s eyes were damp with tears. Lindsay’s throat caught, and he drained his glass quickly. The bar of the British Colonial was no place for sentimental memories.
They gossipped on, and drank on, and six men floated together companionably. But time was passing, and Swann looked at his watch. He lifted a commanding hand. ‘I suggest, dear boys, we have something to eat, and then taxi to Paradise.’
The British Colonial restaurant was virtually empty, but they stood waiting obediently as a portly Bahamian head waiter made a great show of finding them a table by a picture window, looking out over the water. Swann recommended steak, with claret, and five heads assented in slightly glazed unison. Two deft waiters served salads, before the main course, in the American manner, and the head waiter opened a bottle of claret with a flourish. Swann promptly commanded another three bottles, and the meal passed in a pleasure of eating and drinking, to the tune of more anecdotes, bits of gossip, and assorted adventures, whilst a man in a plaid jacket played tunes from the shows on a hammond organ in a corner, and a middle aged couple danced together in an ungainly embrace. But Lindsay kept a tight guard on his tongue. There were times to talk, and times to be silent, and he needed to maintain a very low profile indeed.
Ice creams followed steaks, and coffees and large brandies followed ice creams. Swann signed the bill with a flourish, and they lurched a little unsteadily to their feet to troop out, weaving just a little, in search of a couple of cabs.
Paradise Island is a giant hotel and casino complex on a stretch of limestone rock, once known as Hog Cay, running parallel to the Nassau harbour front. They fell out of the taxis to find themselves in a kind of vast cavern housing rows and rows of roulette and blackjack tables, with an army of one-armed bandits lining the walls. Lindsay bought himself a fat handful of chips – he could afford to have a small fling. He paid in American bills, beaming at Swann’s surprise.
‘I’ve been lucky.’
Bob Armstrong, the man from The Economist, glowered. ‘What happened to Exchange Control?’
Lindsay grinned. ‘I did a little job for somebody in Germany. They paid me in cash.’
Armstrong swallowed. It was 1969, and British travellers were strictly limited to spending £25 per trip, sixty dollars or so. But freelances plainly followed rules of their own.
Lindsay began to explore the tables, betting five bucks here, another five there. He was looking for a lucky table, one that would sing for him. He lost, and lost again, but it was not important. One of the tables might prove a winner.
He passed a roulette table, and stopped. A girl in a tight yellow silk dress, with long black hair, was betting dollar chips, and generally losing. Lindsay watched her for a moment, and she turned to look at him. She was a peach of a girl, maybe just into her twenties. Dark, in a hispanic way, possibly Latin American. She had huge eyes, beautiful eyes, filled with temptation and mystery.
She smiled slightly. ‘Are you any good at this?’
He smiled. He would have a punt, just to please her. He placed a ten dollar chip on seven, and the croupier spun the roulette wheel, to rocket round and round, and slow, with the small metal ball jumping in an out of several numbered slots, before settling. It was a seven.
‘Oh, my, but you know how to do it.’ The girl touched Lindsay’s bare forearm, and her fingers are like silk in their touch.
Lindsay grinned. Something told him, perhaps some sixth sense, that the girl was no ordinary holiday punter. She seemed a bit too bold. But casinos are fun places, fun palaces, filled with fun people. He pushed the little pile of his winnings towards her.
The girl gasped. ‘Is that for me?’ Her hands scooped in the chips, and now Lindsay was certain, because she moved just a little too fast. He nodded magnaminously. Ten bucks was peanuts.
‘You’ve got the right touch, honey.’ Now she was staring at him, trying to mesmerise him, and Lindsay kept his hand close to his wallet. ‘You going to do it again?’
Lindsay shrugged, the gesture of a big shot, and moved on, with the girl in tow. She told him that she was Brazilian, an actress, and that her name was Sylvia, and she was all soft touching and secret smiles, and Lindsay very much a feeling that he was being targeted.
Then he stopped. He could hear a table calling to him, and he knew that it was going to be a good one. The girl stopped beside him, and he knew that it was his time to make a big gesture, to do something really eye-catching. He counted his chips quickly, and moved a thousand dollars out onto seven again.
The girl caught her breath. ‘Can you afford to do that, honey?’ Her tone was one of hushed awe.
Lindsay was wholly cool, though his heart was now pounding inside his shirt.
The wheel began to spin, and he closed his eyes. He heard the roulette ball race and rattle, and slow, and he could still not bear to look. Then it stopped. The girl was silent, for a moment, and then let out a small shriek. Lindsay opened his eyes. He had won. He thought for a moment, and then pushed the whole pile he had made, along with his original stake, onto twenty-one.
The girl’s fingers tightened on his bare forearm. ‘Are you going to put it all there?’ He heard a note of disquiet in her voice, as though she might have hoped for some small slice of his victory.
But Lindsay was on a roll. He shut his eyes again as the wheel began to spin, with a feeling that he was doing something rash, because the girl’s fingers had loosened, and now barely touched him. The wheel spun round and round, and slowed, and suddenly her nails dug into him hard. He opened his eyes, and looked at the table, and knew that it was time to pack up. He had won again, and he was richer by the best part of sixty thousand dollars.
‘Wow.’ The girl’s voice held all the reverence of a handmaiden for a hero. Now she was holding on to Lindsay as though she had found treasure. ‘You gonna call it a day now?’
Lindsay nodded.
She smiled at him, and her smile compounded pure desire with pure greed. ‘Why don’t you come up to my room?’
Lindsay looked at her thoughtfully. She was a beautiful girl, but there was something a little hard about her. He needed to check her out, even though he was pretty sure he knew where she was heading. He looked at the armful of chips he was holding. ‘Do you want to share this?’
Sylvia was not a very bright girl. A bright girl might have simpered, and blushed, and hoped for half, or at least something generous. But Sylvia had a simpler mind, a more basic approach. She smiled, and her smile was a smile of pure seduction. ‘I’ll settle for a grand through ‘til morning, honey.’
There are times when men sow, and times when men reap. Lindsay smiled. There was something rather tough about Sylvia. She belonged in a world of dark suits and dark glasses. He looked around, holding his chips tight, and spied Swann playing a one-armed bandit. It was time for him to move on. He grinned. “Maybe some other time, honey.”
Sylvia was still standing open-mouthed, clutching her small handful of chips, as he joined Swann.
Swann looked up from his own-arm bandit. ‘Nice looking girl.’ His tone was dismissive.
Lindsay beamed. He had won every game. ‘She wanted a grand.’
Swann glanced at her quickly, and returned to his machine. He had a paper cup filled with quarters, and was feeding them to the machine mechanically, pushing them home in sequence. He frowned as yet another quarter vanished without trace. ‘Girls here can be very expensive.’
Lindsay shuffled his armful of chips. The damned things were awkward and heavy. ‘Would you?’
Swan looked up again, stared at Sylvia, now making eyes at a large man chewing on a cigar, and shook his head as he pushed another quarter home. ‘She’s cute, but she’s not worth it.’
It was a judgement. He pushed again, and suddenly a quarter caught, and lights began to flash on his machine. The one-armed bandits coughed, and shook, and began to spew out a shower of silver coins. Swann stared at the flood of money, and began to laugh. ‘I think I’ve hit the jackpot.’
Later, when they had both cashed up their winnings, and rounded up Swann’s four other charges, they returned to the bar of the British Colonial, to drink in triumph. The other four were subdued: Armstrong claimed to have won a little, though he was shy about giving out a number, whilst Cowan says he had ‘just about’ broken even, which probably meant that he had lost. The two golf men both looked sombre.
Lindsay repackaged Sylvia, but avoided citing his winnings, because he had no wish to grind the others down, and Ben Goodwin, the man from the Daily Mail, looked sour. ‘We should have syndicated her.’
Swann makes a face. ‘For a grand?’
‘For a hundred and fifty each.’ Goodwin raise his hand to beckon for a fresh round of rum punches. ‘She would have been neat at a hundred and fifty.’
Lindsay finished his drink, and levered himself to his feet. Now he was tired. He would add his winnings to his nice fat envelope in the British Colonial safe, and sleep the sleep of a victor. Small people have small minds, but heros collect rewards.