3 Crystal Blue Page 8

  Back to work.

  Aside from the luggage and a few shirts and slacks in the suite’s closet, nothing suggested anyone had actually occupied the room—no toiletries in the bathroom, the king bed made, everything in its place. I slid the shirts across the rack—good quality resort-style—checked his shirt and pants pockets and found nothing. No receipts, no cash, not a business card or even a pen.

  I pulled out the Tumi suitcase—shoes, underwear, a belt. Damn. Now the briefcase, a leather Coach bag with lots of wear and tear, loaded to the hilt with files, paper, and brochures.

  I found the mini-bar and liberated two tiny bottles of Bacardi rum, which I emptied into a glass and gulped neat. Then I sat at the desk and started sorting.

  After a half-hour I had the files sorted into a few piles: logistics for the event, correspondence with the participants or their managers, bills, and ISA-related legal looking documents. None of it provided any insight into what might have happened to John Thedford. At least the logistics offered me a road map to where he’d been and planned to go—along with a ball-busting schedule of arrivals over the next 48 hours, which I had no idea how I’d manage. I scanned the list and counted a dozen different people I needed to retrieve who would’ve been covered by Seaborne. Then there were another half-dozen to shuttle to different exclusive resorts throughout the Virgin Islands. And the first arrival was tomorrow morning in St. Thomas.

  There was no way I could do it alone, and no way I’d have time to look for John. Even if the charter boats were still willing to help, that wouldn’t be enough to cover everyone.

  I sat back in the chair. No clues.

  I opened the sliding glass door and retreated to the balcony to think. Looked past the beach and pool area below to the bay, boat to boat, and after that dark blue all the way to the horizon. The sun was well into its downward arc.

  A fat pelican flew close to the balcony and sparked an idea.

  I needed help, lots of help, different kinds of help. Maybe my go-to mentor could be of assistance. I dug into my backpack and removed my notebook and cell phone, in the process spotting the piece of tape I’d found on the Beast’s hatch this morning. The note instructing me to call.

  Whether it was the rum, the lack of clues in John’s briefcase, the aftereffects of those brass knuckles to my chin, or just overwhelming fatigue, I was for the moment at a loss—which number should I call first? I finally opened the notebook to my list of phone numbers and found the G’s. Dialed, sat back in the chair, and waited.

  “Harry Greenbaum here,” came the familiar voice.

  “Hey, Harry. It’s Buck Reilly.”

  “You’ve caught me in a bit of a rush, dear boy—next block up, Percy.” A car horn sounded in the background. “I’m in New York and late for a board meeting at GVI.”

  “What’s that stand for? Greenbaum Ventures? One of your sixty-four companies?”

  Harry’s chuckle had the same refined British subtlety as his voice.

  “That’s what most people assume GVI is, and I never share what the acronym actually means. But legally the name of the company is Greenbaum Vulture Investors.” He snickered. “The board doesn’t even know that—and by the way, I’m down to sixty-three companies now.”

  Harry’s candor warmed my heart. We’ve always been close, and even though he lost tens of millions when e-Antiquity tubed, he made many millions more and sold it off before that happened. After my parent’s sudden death, Harry was the closest thing to a paternal role model I had left.

  “Down one?” I said. “Not another e-Antiquity-type failure, I hope.”

  “No, no, no, nothing of the sort. I sold London Inks to an Indian firm and doubled my money. So today’s—take a right, Percy—today’s meeting is to review what next to acquire and how best to deploy the capital.”

  Harry’s British style and manners were all the more successful given his Yiddish drive and ability to pick diamonds from piles of coal others refused or abandoned.

  “Real quick then, Harry, I’m in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands—”

  “I trust you’re not mixed up with that kidnapping, dear boy? The movie star, what’s his name, Jugs Mengle?”

  I choked back a laugh.

  “Stud Mahoney, and no, not directly, but I am helping the promoter of the event Mahoney was here to support, and it’s all unraveling—”

  “Buck, I truly am sorry, but I must depart. Percy here will take notes on what you need, and I’ll get back to you once I can fill the request with whichever of my companies might have insight into your current dilemma. Cheers.”

  With that Harry was gone, and another familiar British accent came on the line. I provided a concise query I thought Harry might be able to feed through his sources and come up with some guidance. The question was so random Percy had me repeat it three times before he rang off.

  For as long as I’d known Harry, Percy had been his driver, professional to the core like most of Harry’s corporate leaders—with the exception of me: his only failed investment, far as I knew.

  I GRABBED THE FILE with the guest arrival schedule, contact numbers, and other logistics, stuffed it into my backpack, and shoveled the rest of the piles back into John’s worn briefcase. Who knows, maybe he’d return to the hotel. Or maybe he disappeared on a boat with an exotic island woman or a Hollywood starlet. I hustled down to the lobby and asked a bellman to call me a cab. A shrill whistle later and one of the pick-up truck taxis lumbered out of the shade of a broad royal palm.

  “Ferry dock,” I said. The driver just sat there.

  Once on the rear bench seat, I realized he was waiting in hopes of more passengers. I leaned over, knocked on the sliding window at the back of the cab, and pointed up the street.

  The driver released the clutch, which sent me flying toward the gateless edge of the truck bed.

  Wise guy.

  The road to town had little traffic but wound over steep hills that had me clinging to the railing, then chugged through local neighborhoods, then a basketball court where the fence was lined with spectators and players awaiting their turn. It wasn’t until we were descending into Cruz Bay that I remembered I hadn’t called the number on the piece of masking tape. I retrieved the phone and the tape, then dialed…

  “What?” A man’s voice.

  “Did you leave this phone number on my plane at the harbor in Charlotte Amalie early this morning?”

  “Plane? What the fuck? Who be—”

  A loud noise sounded—I thought he’d dropped the phone, but a second later another voice was on the line.

  “Who this?”

  “Buck Reilly. Did you leave a phone number on my plane this morning?”

  A deep quick laugh.

  “Last night they left the number for you. ‘Bout time you called, brudda.”

  The taxi reached the circle just above Cruz Bay and turned down the hill that led to the harbor.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  “What I want?” Could this be the person who’d been calling John Thedford? “I want to talk to you.”

  “We’re talking now—”

  “Face to face. In person.”

  “I’m pretty busy, what it’s about?”

  “Where you at? I have someone get you.”

  Cagey. I don’t like cagey. Dammit, I wanted to know if this had anything to do with Thedford.

  “If you’ve been to the harbor today,” I said, “you probably noticed I left—”

  “Right. Plane’s at Cyril King now. You back at Frenchman’s Reef yet?”

  It had to be the guy who woke me up this morning.

  “I will be later,” I said. “Where can we meet?”

  “I have someone pick you up at eight. Out front.”

  “But—”

  Click.

  Damn!

  The taxi circled around the block and fell in behind a few other trucks, then stopped. I leapt from the back, handed the man a ten, and kept going. I checked my watch. It was
nearly 6:00 p.m., I still had some things to do here, and now I needed to be at Frenchman’s Reef by 8:00.

  On the dock, I watched the ferry get smaller as it motored out of the harbor—I’d just missed it. The schedule on the wall showed one more crossing to St. Thomas tonight: 7:30.

  No way I could make it to the hotel by 8:00.

  Damn.

  I jumped from the pier to the sand. At the far end of the beach was the Beach Bar from which Diego’s goons had so rudely extracted me. But in the middle of the beach was American Watersports, and the crowded harbor made me guess all their boats had returned from their charters for the night. I pulled off my boat shoes and hurried over the sand toward the path next to their sign. I started down the alley—

  “We’re closed,” a voice shouted from above me.

  I glanced back and noticed a man drinking from a bottle of Carib beer, making eye contact with me from the adjacent patio bar.

  “You the manager?”

  He shook his head and let out a loud burp. “Owner. Want to rent a boat for tomorrow?”

  I walked back out to the beach and found stairs that led into the bar. The owner was a guy about my age with a deepwater tan, shoulder-length dirty-blond hair, and a beer gut that told me this was a nightly routine if not an all-day one. I held out my hand.

  “Buck Reilly. I’m with the Adoption AID people who chartered—”

  “Hell, I been wondering if anyone else was gonna show up.” He smiled. “We been holding the Powerplay for you, along with the Cigarette.” He squinted at me. “The hell happened to your jaw there, Buck? Got a nice purple bruise—”

  “Tripped on a lizard.” I rubbed my palm down my tender jawbone.

  Out in the harbor was a black cigarette speedboat with twin in-board engines on the back. Not very subtle, but it was certainly fast and would connect with a certain crowd.

  “Things have been a little messed up,” I said.

  “No shit. Heard about that actor—and what about Thedford? He turn up yet?”

  “No, he hasn’t. Are you Billy?”

  “The one and only,” he said.

  So far, so good. “Thedford came by here, right?”

  “Stopped in the other night after he got here, before the party down the beach. Told me we’d be heading over to check arrangements on Tortola and Peter Island the next day—that’d be yesterday—and then a few other places today. Then he disappeared.”

  It felt like a hamster wheel was turning in my stomach. This was only the second person I’d met that had seen John Thedford here on St. John—not counting Diego Francis, but the jury was still out on him.

  “Was anyone with him, or was there anything strange you saw that might—”

  “Nah, man, wish there was. Already told the cops, but he came in alone, maybe had a little buzz, jolly as hell. Nice guy and boy was he excited. Who could blame him? All these big shots coming here for his show. Hell, I was pretty fired up too.”

  “So he didn’t tell you anything—”

  “No, sorry—Buck, right? He split for the Westin but came back later to the party at the Beach Bar, which was the last time—” He set the empty beer on the bar. I noticed the bartender raise her eyebrow. Cute blond.

  “Two Caribs, please?” I turned back to Billy. “You were saying, last time what?”

  “Last time anyone saw him, except for me.”

  I waited. It wasn’t easy, but Billy was not a man to be rushed.

  “Pretty sure I saw him get on board a red Cigarette, right out here on the beach.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “Well, I’d been here a few hours, but yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what I saw.”

  I flashed back to Officer Deaver of the Park Police. He hadn’t mentioned it was a red boat.

  “You called the cops?”

  “Nah, they were going door to door asking if anyone had seen him.” He smiled at the waitress. “Right, Sunny?”

  She gave him a quick smile, which caused Manny to chuckle. He didn’t notice her roll her eyes when she turned away.

  “So they found you here and you told them he left on a red boat?”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t entirely sure. It had been a long day and all.”

  “You never said if he was with anyone,” I said.

  “Well, there was at least one other person in the boat…”

  “A woman?”

  He shrugged. “Someone behind the wheel, that’s all I recall.”

  I checked my watch. 6:45. Shit!

  “You gotta be somewhere?”

  The bartender put the two beers down and smiled at me. She had the beginnings of dreadlocks and wore a snug Red Sox tank top. I gave her a twenty.

  “As a matter of fact, I need to get to Frenchman’s Reef within the hour.” The next part was dicey, since Billy was half in the bag. “Can you run me over in that Cigarette?”

  Billy laughed and lit a Marlboro Light.

  “You don’t want me running a boat right now.” He smiled. “But I can see if Jeremy’s around, he’s the one was gonna captain for Thedford.”

  After a draw on the cigarette and a deep pull on the beer, Billy un-holstered his cell phone and turned towards the water, and then after a couple minutes turned back to me with a smile on his face, the phone still pressed to his ear.

  “Good. Get here quick.” He winked at me.

  I checked my watch. 6:50.

  “Jeremy’s on his way—”

  “I’m right here,” came a voice from behind me.

  I turned to see a tall guy in his mid-twenties with a to-go cup in his hand and a smile on his face.

  “I was next door at the Mojito,” he said.

  What a life these boys have…

  “The boat’s paid for,” Billy said, “so take the man where he wants to go.”

  “Buck Reilly,” I said. “Frenchman’s Reef, St. Thomas.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Once we waded out the fifty yards to where the Cigarette was moored to three different buoys, Jeremy jumped aboard and fired up the twin inboards while I untied us. By 7:01 he was swinging the bow out toward open water.

  “I really appreciate this, man,” I said.

  “No worries, I’ve just been waiting around to help your friend.” He glanced both ways to check for traffic and added throttle. The twin engines pushed the sleek boat through the harbor like a knife.

  “Did you meet John Thedford?”

  Jeremy nodded and checked the gauges on our boat, all the while dodging dinghies.

  “Yeah, when he first came in.”

  Once we cleared the boats, he added more throttle. The Cigarette jumped forward, but he still had a lot of throttle to go.

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “Not sure, but there was a chick hanging out on the beach. Looked like she was waiting for someone. Might have been your boy.”

  We passed the green buoy into open water.

  “What’d she look like?”

  “Tall with a nice rack is all I remember. No—she had dark, long hair, too.”

  Lovely.

  “You think Billy really saw Thedford leave on that red Cigarette?”

  He looked at me, zeroed in on the bruise on my face, then glanced back up at my eyes.

  “That time of night? Billy Hartman can’t usually see his feet.”

  Damn.

  JEREMY PRESSED THE THROTTLE down hard and the Cigarette roared forward, splitting the sea like a scalpel. At this speed I’d make my 8:00 meeting with the mystery caller.

  We bounced steadily in the mild chop, each slight turn of the wheel jerking us immediately in the direction he steered. Conversation was impractical due to the speed of the wind and the snarl of the twin engines, so I mulled over what Billy Hartman, Officer Deaver, and Jeremy had said….

  What the hell. I used Booth’s cell phone and texted Diego Francis and asked if he knew anyone with a red Cigarette who might have grabbed Thedford.

  I turned back to
Jeremy: “Have you ever seen a red Cigarette boat around here?”

  “You see all kinds in these islands.”

  The authorities must not have believed Thedford left on that go-fast boat, otherwise they wouldn’t have dredged the harbor and searched the beaches. I thought of the Beast, how the mystery man on the phone knew I’d moved her to the airport. I thought about what Jimmy Buffett referred to as the Coconut Telegraph, the way information travels so fast in the islands, especially among those whose lives depend on real-time information.

  I was on my own, skipping across the water at high speed with a list of questions that just kept getting longer. The fact that Crystal needed me intensified the pressure to the point where I could feel my heart pounding.

  We made the crossing in record time, at least for me, and compared to the ferry it felt like time travel. The setting sun cast a fruit juice glow on the passage between Great St. James and Little St. James islands as we approached the southern coast of St. Thomas.

  “You know Diego Francis?” I said.

  Jeremy whipped around to face me, his brow furrowed.

  “Know him? Hell no. Know of him? You can’t live around here and not.”

  “As bad as they say?”

  “Gangsta all the way.”

  “Was he at the Beach Bar concert the other night?”

  Jeremy shook his head, slowly. “Couldn’t tell you, but he doesn’t miss much. If he wasn’t there, you can be sure some of his people were.”

  Hmmm.

  “You heard any rumors about Adoption AID, like maybe anyone who wasn’t happy about it?”

  He glanced back at me with his brow furrowed. “Movie stars and rocks stars in the islands for a party on Jost? What’s not to like?”

  Right, what’s not to like.

  We passed the ferry I’d watched leave St. John just as it angled away toward Red Hook. Boat traffic got thicker. Commercial and sport fisherman, dive boats, pleasure craft, sail and power, all glided toward destinations like Secret Harbour, Bolongo Bay, and Bluebeard’s Beach Club. My destination, Frenchman’s Reef, was visible high above the water on an outcrop that jutted out mid-island, just before the coast turned north into the harbor of Charlotte Amalie.