Read Color Him Dead for Free Online Page B

today?”
    “No more than usual.”
    “You must see the doctor.”
    Shaking his head, he removed her hand from his arm, swung to the window, and leaned his elbows on the sill. A breeze rippled the tall grass around the shack with a sound like sliding silk. He took a deep breath and let the air dry the cold sweat on his face. Gradually the pain receded. Leta set the coffee at his elbow.
    “I go bathe now,
Dudu.
”
    Drew nodded, and her feet padded out. He sipped his coffee and watched the fishing fleet approach the beach. Twenty-odd boats were strung out in a crescent which opened up toward the beach in front of the villa. A few gannets dive-bombed the water ahead of them, and a dozen pelicans sat on a point of land, hunched over like old women waiting for a funeral to begin.
    He looked at the big house. Four days ago, a crew had extended the jetty several feet into the lagoon, out beyond the new sand piled in by the waves. Then they’d tidied up the beach, picking up driftwood, raking sand, sifting out shell fragments. They’d replaced the glass in a broken window, scooped the drifted sand, rat-turds and goat droppings off the terrace, then scrubbed the place down with mops and brooms. And each day since then he’d come to the window with anticipation squeezing his guts.
    But nobody had come, nobody had shown any interest in the island, until yesterday. And that reminded him—
    He found Leta behind the house, where an area of packed earth contained a cook shack and two oil drums for water. On the west, a rock wall rose 50 feet to the ramparts of the fort; to the north, a sheer two-hundred-foot cliff dropped off to black rocks and hissing foam. Leta knelt before a cookpot, her slip taut across her haunches, fanning the charcoal fire through a hole in the bottom. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, and her face mirrored the single-minded intensity she gave to every task.
    He leaned in the door to watch; there was no knife-thrust of desire in his loins, no electricity crackling along his nerves, only warmth and a feeling of power.
    Now the pan was sending up tendrils of steam. Leta straightened, set the pan on the ground, used a calabash to dip water from a barrel set under the drainpipe, and poured the water into the pan. Then she hooked her thumbs in the band of her slip and with a single, smooth movement, dropped it to the ground and stood naked in the sun. She lifted the hair from the nape of her neck, filled the calabash, and poured the water over her shoulders. She shuddered as it coursed down her back, a single current spreading over her shoulder blades and gathering into the valley of her spine, disappearing into the dark division of her buttocks, diverging into twin streams down the back of her legs, finally trickling off her ankles in little fountains. She picked up her old gray dress and dropped it over her head, twisting her body as she pulled it down over her breasts and hips. The dress showed dark patches of moisture; it would dry quickly in the sun. Drew sighed, regretting the end of the show.
    “Leta,” he said, “do you know a man who wears white riding pants and black boots?”
    She froze like a frightened animal. “Where did you see him?”
    “On the beach at Petty-lay. He watched the island through binoculars.”
    She turned, her lower lip caught in her teeth. “You must leave,
Dudu,
before he comes for you.” She started past him. “I will pack.”
    “Wait.” Drew caught her arm. “Who is he?”
    “We call him Doxie.” She took a deep breath, then spoke rapidly. “He entered my house yesterday while I was buying stores. He never knocks on Powerhouse Road. To him we are filth, whores. He saw the clothes Maria was washing—”
    “And she told him where I was.”
    “No! She didn’t know. How could she tell?”
    Drew sighed. “Go on. Why should he put me off?”
    “He works for Barrington.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Everything. Anything.”
    “Killing?”
    “He has done this.