Spa Read online

  “I’ll be an endangered species if I don’t get that plane in the morning,” she said to her reflection in the hall mirror, as she ran a hand through her hair and tugged at the frayed neck of the Go Mets Go sweatshirt she wore over her jeans.

  The sweatshirt was a leftover from a summer sojourn with one of the team’s PR men, who had assured her, among other things, that even though it did say “Made in Bangladesh” on the label, it was both machine-washable and-dryable. Unfortunately, the washing hadn’t worked out any better than the relationship. Some men, it seemed, found it necessary to lie about more than cleaning.

  The banging on the door was repeated.

  “Just a minute.” She moved across to the door, conscious, once again, that she should have had a peephole installed.

  “Who is it?”

  “Murbldurf.”

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “Murbledurf!” It was louder, but no more distinct.

  “Oh, what the hell!” She began flipping the three locks that served as her barrier against the outside world. “This had better be important,” she said, wrenching open the front door.

  There stood Harry, looking somewhat rumpled and out of focus, balancing a large pizza box in one hand, carrying a bottle of wine in the other, and holding a brown manila folder in his mouth.

  “Harry! What’re you doing here?”

  And it was at that moment she realized that Harry was one of the few people she had ever met who could convey sarcasm even better with their eyes.

  “Oh, right. Here, let me take that.” She took the manila folder from Harry’s mouth, noting that his teeth prints were well-etched into the paper.

  “Thanks!” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought you might want to have a look at that before you go.”

  “Oh? And what about the pizza and the wine? Are they for the octogenarian next door or the two guys across the hall?”

  “I thought you might want something to eat while you’re looking. I know I do. I’m starving.” He pushed past her and headed for the kitchen.

  “Why don’t you come in?” She followed him down the hall. “Look, Harry, I’m really busy. I haven’t even packed yet. I.…”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Well no, but.…”

  “So eat.” He slapped the pizza box down on the table, opened it, tore off a slice and crammed half of it into his mouth. “You got a corkscrew?” he asked, through the food.

  “A corkscrew? Ah.…” She had to think for a minute where she had last seen the corkscrew, and then remembered it was in the bathroom. She had used it to pry the stopper out of the bathtub drain.

  “You always keep your corkscrew in the bathroom?”

  “No, not always.” And she disappeared down the hallway.

  Harry went to the fridge and pried two ice cubes out of the tray which wouldn’t budge from its frozen nest, and then pushed the door shut with his shoulder.

  Joyce returned a moment later and offered him the corkscrew. He waved it aside, still holding the ice. “The wine’s for you. I’m having scotch.”

  “Oh you are, are you?” Say what you like about Harry, he never bothered with the formalities. She moved across to the other side of the kitchen and reached for a tumbler from the cabinet above the sink and then retrieved the scotch bottle, which was almost full, from the one next to it.

  “You want water?”

  “Just the hard kind.” He plopped the two cubes into the glass she was holding and sat down. “Come on Joycee, your dinner’s getting cold.”

  She glared at him and placed the bottle on the table in front of him. “Help yourself.” Scotch and pizza. Blecck!

  “Have I got instincts, Joycee, or have I got instincts?” He poured a healthy splash of scotch over the ice, checked the level in the glass, and then added another splash.

  “I don’t know, Harry, it depends on what kind of instincts you’re talking about.” She sat down and poured some of the wine into a wine glass and helped herself to the pizza.

  “Do I know a story or do I?” Harry’s smile was extended by a wide band of tomato sauce that curled up from each side of his mouth. He pushed the file across the table. “Check it out. Read it. I told you this spa piece is gonna be great.”

  Joyce opened the file, but before she could read the first line, he began to tell her about its contents.

  “I thought I’d help you out a little, so I got Research to do a rundown on the guy who owns the place. Thought it would save you some time and might make a nice little sidebar to the piece. You know, like that one you did on Denis Thatcher as the man behind the woman?”

  “Thanks, Harry, but I could have had my department do that. You didn’t have to bother.”

  “Bother. No bother. I got you into this, Joycee and, well, I thought, what the hell, the girl’s a real trouper, so why not give her a hand. More pizza?” He passed the box toward her, but Joyce waved it away. Harry shrugged, helped himself to the last piece and threw the box on the floor.

  Then he continued, “But you know what I found out?”

  Joyce shook her head. She was listening with only half her brain. The other half—the skeptical side—was wondering what Harry was doing here, complete with food and beverage. He had never come over uninvited before. He could have told her this much over the phone. And, besides, she suspected that he had already had more than a nodding acquaintance with his favorite beverage today.

  “Not a whole heck of a lot,” Harry continued, pouring more scotch into the glass. “You got any more ice?”

  With a sigh Joyce got up and went over to the refrigerator. But as she opened the door, Fredo exploded out into the kitchen from the shelf above the crisper and skittered underneath the sink.

  “What the …?”

  “Sorry. He must have jumped in when I went to get the ice while you were in the bathroom.”

  Joyce gave Harry a look that said “A likely story,” and then proceeded to pry two more cubes from their frozen prison.

  “There’s your ice. Now, can we please get on with this.”

  “Well, this guy Voight—he’s the doctor who owns the place—seems to have sprung ready-made onto the planet about two or three years back.”

  “What do you mean, ‘ready made’?”

  “The man has no past. He does not exist. He’s a cipher.”

  “That’s not possible, Harry. He’s a doctor. He must have a medical degree from somewhere, a social insurance number, something.”

  Harry shook his head and took a long pull on the scotch. “Research checked it out. He’s supposed to have graduated from that medical school. You know the one the Russians tried to take over when we invaded that island in the Caribbean. What’s it called?”

  “You mean Grenada. That’s St. George’s, and it was the Cubans—more or less.”

  “Cubans, Russians, what’s the difference?” Harry belched. “’Scuse me. Anyway, that’s the one. And, there’s no record of anybody by that name ever going to, never mind graduating from that medical school. And I had Research check with the A.M.A. and they have no record of anyone by that name as a member, either.”

  “So? Clerical errors. Computer screw-ups. It doesn’t mean anything. Besides, maybe he went to school somewhere else. In Europe, maybe.”

  “Then why does he put it out that he went to St. John’s?”

  “St. George’s. And I don’t know why. But what difference does it make where he went to school? Maybe it’s a local thing. You know, because of the spa being in the Islands.”

  “No way. There’s a story there, Joyce, I can smell it.”

  “All I can smell is pepperoni.” She got up from the table and pushed away Fredo, who had recovered enough from his ordeal to venture out to check the box for anchovies, picked up the carton, and put it next to the garbage.

  But Harry was like a bloodhound on the trail of a mountain lion. No matter how stacked the odds, he wouldn’t give up on the chase. “Just ask yourself thi
s, Joyce. How does a guy with no past suddenly turn up with enough money to not only buy an island but to build a ritzy-schmitzy spa on it. Huh?”

  “Maybe he won the lottery. Who knows?”

  “Or maybe he’s got friends in low places. You know what I mean?”

  “Maybe.…” He always did know how to get at her.

  “Anyway, do me a favor, will you, and just check it out. You’re going to be there, anyway. What can it hurt? You wanted hard news, maybe this is it. Maybe the guy’s some kind of a crook.” Harry drained his scotch and reached for the bottle, but Joyce got there before him, and, screwing the cap on, put it back in the cupboard.

  “O.K. I’ll see what I can find out. But don’t get your hopes up. There could be a hundred reasons for what you found out.”

  She paused by the sink, thinking, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans. But after a moment, her mind segued away from the graft, corruption, and money-laundering and she was suddenly conscious of how alone they were in the tiny kitchen. Just the two of them. Late at night.…

  What was the real reason for Harry’s visit, anyway? Whatever it was, she didn’t want to know. Did she? He was her boss, that was all. Wasn’t it? There was no reason to complicate what had become over the years a good working relationship that sometimes bordered on friendship. Was there?

  She answered all the unspoken questions at once. “You have to leave. I still have to pack, and it’s already after midnight.”

  Harry reluctantly got up from his chair. “No coffee?”

  “No coffee. I mean I don’t have any coffee.” Joyce herded him down the hall toward the front door.

  “You want to talk for a while?”

  “Harry, we just talked. It’s late. Go home.” She opened the door.

  “I can’t go home. Maxine’ll be there.” He turned around until he was facing her. “Joyce, I don’t know what to say to her anymore. I haven’t been home for days. I’ve been sleeping in the office.”

  “I know.” She suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for this man who could control a big magazine so easily but who was laid out for the count by his own marriage. She reached up and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’ll all work out, Harry. You’ll see.” She wanted to say more, but what more was there to say?

  “Yeah, sure.” He lumbered unsteadily through the door. “’Night, Joyce.”

  “G’night, Harry.” She watched as he made his way to the elevator, weaving slightly as he reached out to push the “Down” button, and then she shut the door.

  PART TWO

  The Island

  Chapter 10

  As the DC 10 circled Grantley Adams Airport, one thought was supreme in Joyce Redmond’s mind. Pantyhose. Specifically, Hanes Everyday Control Top with the cotton-lined gusset and whatever had possessed her to wear these synthetic sausage casings to travel in.

  She was irritable and uncomfortable after the five-hour flight—the last four hours of which had been without air conditioning, for some reason known only to the aircraft manufacturer and possibly the F.A.A.

  But worse than the physical discomfort was the opportunity this condition had afforded her mother’s voice to echo the prophecy that, because of the pantyhose, the circulation to every cell below her waist had probably been cut off by now. And, since a prophecy is nothing without a warning, the voice continued with the admonition, “Your Aunt Ruth wore pantyhose and you know what happened to her? Varicose veins. No wonder she never found a nice man to settle down with. Who wants to marry a woman with legs like Gorgonzola?”

  Caveat gestor, reflected Joyce, as the plane touched down and she pulled her bag out from under the seat in front of her.

  There had been few passengers on the plane, and most of them were sitting toward the back, so she was first out the door. Cautiously, she descended the rickety steps that connected the cabin to the runway, clutching the handrail to keep her balance and wondering what kind of a place would have an airport that made its passengers hike halfway across the airfield to get to the terminal. Images of “Casablanca” rose to mind, but she cast them aside.

  As she pushed her way through the wall of tropical heat that rose like a circumfusion from the concrete, she anticipated the frigid rush of processed air that would be waiting for her inside the terminal—the signal that she had not departed from the civilized world after all, but had merely taken a small detour.

  But, as she shouldered her way through the swinging doors of the old, one-story, pink-stucco building, she was bathed instead in a viscous mass of warm “soup” that smelled vaguely of old, damp basements and something else she preferred not to examine. She wrinkled her nose and started taking short, shallow breaths in an effort to draw as little of the foul stuff into her lungs as possible.

  Joyce looked around for the baggage carousel, which wasn’t really a carousel at all, but rather a semicircular conveyor belt of undetermined vintage that came in on one side of the terminal and exited about fifty feet further along the same wall. By dodging around some slower-moving passengers, she reached it just in time to intercept her one bag before the belt carried it out of sight behind thick rubber curtains and into luggage limbo.

  She put the suitcase down, pulled her ticket out of her purse, and studied the small print. Her connecting flight to the island of St. Christophe left from Gate 7. She looked up, and her eyes wandered over the inside of the terminal. “Gate 7” was painted in big, black letters about halfway down the building, and she headed resignedly in that direction. She had an hour to wait before boarding the plane. A long, hot hour.

  As she lugged her suitcase along, she wondered briefly where Harry was, about now. Probably in some cool, dark bar having a cold beer before deciding what to have for lunch. And then, after lunch, a casual stroll back down Madison Avenue to do a little work in the peace and quiet of the weekend-empty offices. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.

  But speaking of bars.… She was passing the terminal bar and glanced inside. It was dark but not noticeably cooler than the rest of the building. And, like airport bars everywhere, it had a plastic rec-room decor which someone must have once decided would be soothing and familiar to the passenger who needed a little liquid comfort while he waited for his next plane.

  For a moment she toyed with the idea of going inside anyway. But airport bars were always so depressing, and she was already miserable enough. Besides, there was only one other person in the room—a man, and that might mean having to strike up a conversation, something which she was not in the mood for at the moment.

  He was sitting at the bar, his back half-turned to the door, in front of a large, colorful poster that advertised one of the local varieties of rum. Joyce couldn’t see his face very well in the gloom, but he was expensively dressed in a casual sort of way, and he had great shoulders. She imagined he was one of those good-looking playboys who populated the islands with their charm and kept the local distillers in business. She decided to keep going.

  At Gate 7 there was no one to check her ticket, so she pushed through the double-glass doors and into the oasis of cool air that she had so recently ceased to hope for. Sighing with pleasure, she put the suitcase down and lifted her heavy mane of hair to let the cool air play on the back of her neck. Then she glanced around the empty room, and, picking up the bag once more, took a seat by the long window that looked out over the single runway.

  In spite of the fact that the glass was encrusted with the skeletons of a million dusty raindrops, the window afforded her an opportunity to savor the view, or at least what passed for a view.

  As far as she could tell, Barbados seemed to consist, no matter in which direction you looked, of rows and rows of palm trees swaying off into infinity, punctuated here and there with eddies of airborne sand, stirred up, she supposed, by the constant presence of the trade winds.

  It was not at all what she had envisioned for a tropical paradise.

  And so, as usual when she was in a funk, she turned her mind to work. Un
like men and geography, work was something she knew she could always count on. She reached into her bag and pulled out the file which still had a discernible impression of Harry’s teeth marks in one corner, and soon became engrossed in the short history of the mysterious Hans Voight.

  Chapter 11

  Mariette flung herself into the tub chair across from the desk, adjusting her fall of white-blond hair until it lay in a perfect pale cloud around her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of tight cotton shorts and a T-shirt that molded itself to her upper body like a second skin. On anyone else the outfit would have suggested the possibility of a recent residency on Hollywood Boulevard but, for some reason, on her it only served to emphasize the perfection of her seventeen years.

  The doctor looked up from the file he was reading. “I hope you don’t plan to go to the airport dressed like that.”

  “Why, do you think it would scare them away?” Mariette squirmed provocatively and stretched out a pair of long, tanned legs.

  “Only the women.” The doctor noted with some regret the lithe young body that was so invitingly displayed in front of him, and closed the file. In another time, another place, he might have been tempted to take advantage of the situation. But he had other things on his mind right now, and besides, Mariette was not just another yielding, yearning girl. He looked up. “And how many have we got this time?”

  “Six.”

  “Six? That’s all?”

  Mariette nodded. “Six, but two of them are comps, so it’s really only four, if you’re talking about paying guests.”

  “Four!” The doctor flipped on his calculator. “Let’s see: four guests at $3000 a head.… His fingers raced over the buttons. “Better put another 20 percent on all the items in the boutique and the gift shop, and tell all but the essential staff they can have the week off—without pay.”

  “Again?”

  “There’s no point in having them around, if there’s nothing for them to do. They only clutter up the place.” He changed the subject. “Who are the comps?”