Artifact

Artifact Page 35

On her way to The Traffic Light, Peta's pager buzzed.

She ignored it at first.

The restaurant where she'd been headed was so named because the owners had imported and erected what had, until recently, been the only traffic light on the island. The traffic light didn't work, nor was it meant to do so. It was a curiosity, intended for no other purpose than to direct people to stop and sample the food. Of course, the truth was that the place was already so popular with the locals that they had all the customers they could handle.

After months of eating only because it was mealtime, finally, tonight, Peta had been looking forward to stopping in at The Traffic Light and eating Maggie's oildown. She had never been good at making the Grenadian national stew of breadfruit cooked in coconut milk with salted meat and vegetables, mostly callaloo, and lots of seasoning, but she loved to eat it. Especially now, in early August, when lobster season was in full swing and Maggie could be persuaded to throw in the occasional tail.

That was the way Arthur had liked it best too.

The two of them had shared oildown at The Traffic Light once a month. The meal was followed by a monthly evening of poetry. Since Maggie would not accept payment from either of them, they submitted to the poetry in exchange for the meal. Arthur didn't mind. In fact, he occasionally read some of his own scribbles to an enthusiastic audience. Peta only half listened, dreaming on a full stomach about Captain Bligh enduring a mutiny because he had used essential water for his breadfruit saplings instead of giving it to his crew.

The pager buzzed again insistently.

Peta pulled to the side of the road and checked the number. It was her service. Everyone's service, really, since it was the only halfway efficient one on the island.

Hoping it was something that could be taken care of over the phone, she grabbed the cell phone from her purse and called in.

"One of your patients called. A girl. Patty Grant. She says a man's been knifed in her house. Something to do with Carnival. Says the house is in the bushes and hard to find, so she'll send her brother out to the road to flag you down."

Though she didn't recognize the name, Peta made a note of the address, apparently a shanty in the rain forest, on the road to the Grand E´ tang, the island's dormant volcano.

She sighed heavily. So much for oildown.

The whole island was only twenty by twelve miles. As the crow flies, the house was probably no more than six or eight miles away, but it would take her the better part of an hour to get there. The road through the rain-forested mountain was far and away the best on the island. The problem was getting to it. Most of the secondary roads barely deserved the name. They were often unpaved, and those that were had more potholes than pavement. They wound like coiled vipers through the countryside, almost as if to make up for the fact that there were no poisonous snakes on the island.

Hungry, she reached into her pocket for a protein bar and settled into the driving, marveling as she always did at the spectacular landscape and the variety of fruit there. The rain forest around her contained an astonishing mixture of trees: breadfruit and banana, cinnamon and nutmeg - the island's most famous spice - clove, coconut palm, mango, cocoa, apple, soursop, cashew, avocado, plum. And more. Papaya. Orange. The list of edibles was endless.

For those whose taste ran to meat, there were all manner of animals, some of them unique to the region. The forest hid the armadillo or tatoo, the manicou or opossum, not to speak of the Mona monkey - an island delicacy.

Through her open window, Peta could feel the increasing humidity and hear the song of exotic night birds. For too long, she had claimed to be too busy to climb the trails. Too busy trying not to think.

She passed a house where several young men and women were partially dressed in brightly colored satins. Carnival dancers preparing for the next day's parade.

Carnival season in Grenada was joyous for some, anathema to others. There was dancing in the streets and strange business afoot as gangs of young locals, faces painted with tar, created equal parts of music and mayhem. They wore masks and devil costumes soaked in a combination of charcoal and engine oil and jumped out at you, pulling you close to dance with them and leaving you smeared with greasy black residue.

As a child, she had been terrified of them. They represented both the devil and the priesthood, warning in both personas of hell and damnation, yet promising redemption, too, to those who did not thwart them. As an adult, she avoided them where possible and wore old clothes throughout Carnival in case she ran into them anyway.

The Jab Jab Molassi.

Another all-male club, she thought, recalling Arthur's tales of his years among them.

It took her a minute to remember the last time she had participated in the parade, or any of the revelry of Grenada's late-summer festival. She had told herself that she didn't have time for that, either. In truth, neither the activities nor the hedonism held any appeal, but at this time of year, they were hard to avoid. As July became August, the people of Grenada geared up for the days of revelry as if they were readying for war.

Beginning with the Rainbow Festival in St. Andrew's, during the first weekend in August, big tents mushroomed around the island for the steel-band and calypso competitions. Because the calypsos were, in the main, politically based, the lyrics inevitably spawned more fights than were usual on the island and, under cover of Carnival's loose attitude, more assaults on tourist.

This year however, there were fewer political songs, and many more that stretched the moral boundaries of the island. Watching the frenzy mount and the competition grow ever fiercer, Peta could not but wonder how many - or how few - Grenadians remembered that Carnival was supposed to be about Lent. It had been easier to remember when it coincided with the Lenten season. Once the influx of summer tourists induced a change to August, none but the most religious among the revelers gave much thought to its origins.

She chuckled somewhat wryly at herself.

For the first time since she could remember, her Catholic roots were showing. As an intelligent being and as a doctor, she had an intense awareness of life's transience, but she'd never concerned herself with what lay at the end of her tunnel.

Not so these days.

These days she thought a lot about her own mortality.

Doubtless, this was related to Arthur's death. This would be her first Carnival without him. Wherever he was, that was where she wanted to go. Not right away, of course, but ultimately. When it was her time.

Meanwhile, the annual celebration had to be endured.

In the gloom of dusk among the trees of the mountain, a light flashed ahead of her. Glancing at the odometer, she realized that she was nearing the location of her house call. She had been averaging no more than fifteen miles an hour. Even had she not recalled the location on her own, she was hardly likely to have missed the figure waving a flashlight at the side of the road.

She stopped the car and stuck her head out of the open window.

The messenger directed the flashlight's beam into her eyes. She covered them with one hand and, with the other, opened the car door.

"How's the patient?"

"Patient be dead."

The stranger, a masked male youth judging by the width of his shoulders, stepped into Peta's line of vision. He was quickly joined by a group, seven or eight strong, of Jab Jab Molassi.

In the distance, she heard drumbeats, punctuated every now and again by the bleating of a goat. At the Grand E ´ tang Lake, Mama Glo, the goddess of the river, was worshiped, especially during Saraka, the period of honoring the dead and appeasing evil spirits. Animals were sacrificed. The days of feasting and singing and dancing attracted Shango worshipers, who believed that the African god of thunder and thunderbolts punished troublemakers and rewarded his worshipers.

Heart pounding, Peta reached for her cell phone - and realized that she had left it inside the car. She felt for her belt and pushed the button on the left of her beeper. It went off with resounding clarity in the night darkness.

A Jab Jab laughed and closed in on her. He removed the pager from her belt and tossed it into the trees.

"We have maldjo," he said, in a mixture of patois and English. "We have the evil eye."

"Maldjo," his buddies chanted. They were close enough that she could hear their breathing. Feel it. The smell of the cheap rum they'd been drinking mixed with the stench of tar and engine oil smeared across their bodies.

One of them tousled her hair from behind.

"You want my money?" Peta reached into her pocket, ready to give them whatever she had on her.

They laughed, quietly, and pressed closer.

One of them smacked his lips, as if anticipating a tasty morsel. "This one's delicious. I gon' eather a-w- e-l up."

Another stuck his head through the open car window. "Hey. Look-a what I found." He slid his body into the car and emerged with her medical bag. "Must be good stuff in here, me t'ink."

A hand tugged at her blouse, another at her skirt. She pulled away, into the arms of a third, who kissed her resoundingly on the mouth. What an idiot she was coming out here alone, at night, during Carnival. She was heavily outnumbered. They were young and they were strong and, judging by the alcohol on the breath of the one who had kissed her, they were considerably more than a couple of sheets to the wind. If they decided to rape her, which seemed inevitable, there was nothing she could do. If she shouted, who would hear her?

Still, it couldn't hurt to scream. Maybe kick a few gonads.

"You want to use your maldjo on me?" She turned to face the one who had kissed her. Immediately she heard what she expected, the sound of one of the Jab Jab coming at her from behind.

Using all of the knowledge Ray had taught her, she kicked backward. Her foot found substance and one of the boys screamed and doubled over.

"You wan' it rough, bitch?" another youth said as he grabbed her by the hair.

She pummeled him with both fists and screamed at the top of her lungs.

A Moke rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of them. Her would-be molesters froze in the vehicle's headlights as, crossbow in hand, Frikkie Van Alman jumped out of the driver's seat of his low four-wheel-drive jeep.

Immediately, the Jab Jab Molassi scattered, shouting, "Sorry, man...mistake, man...sorry, man," as they vanished into the surrounding forest.

Peta took in a deep breath. "Great white hunter rescues damsel in distress," she said, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart.

"I am delighted to be of service," Frik said. "Perhaps you will allow this to make up in some small measure for the recent unpleasantness between us."

His casual air, combined with the apparent miracle of his timely arrival, told her instinctively that the whole thing had been a setup. Asshole, she thought. Fucking immature asshole.

She feigned more trouble catching her breath while she got her emotions under control. He might be an immature asshole, but he was also dangerous and armed. "Are you talking about Simon, or about your performance at the airport?" Or Blaine, she thought.

"Both." He lowered the crossbow. "I've apologized to you about the incident at San Gabriel. I'm afraid Mr. Blaine got overzealous. He won't be causing a problem for any women for a while, I assure you. As for my little, um, tantrum at the airport. Blame that on my male ego. Whatever the reason, I'm over it."

"Am I supposed to say thank you for that, too?"

Frik made a weak attempt at a chortle. Then, never one for subtleties, he offered her the protection of his boat through the rest of Carnival.

Setup or no, Peta remained concerned for her own safety. For the moment, she decided, it was best to pretend friendship. She had little doubt that the same ego that Frik had blamed for the incident on the tarmac would persuade him that she was genuinely fooled by his attempt at charm.

She followed him back through town to the marina, recently renamed Blue Lagoon, where theAssegai was moored. The gate man let them in. They parked near the all-but-deserted bar and made their way down the narrow walkway to the boat.

As always, the dogs, Sheba and Maverick, greeted their master energetically. He settled them down, then ushered Peta on board. She accepted a drink from his ample stock and they exchanged a few pleasantries as they seated themselves at the big wooden table that stood on the afterdeck. The image of Arthur falling asleep on this very table the night they'd saved him from the Communists, seventeen years earlier, entered her mind.

Drink in hand, Frik's tone went from solicitous to confidential. "I know what you think, Peta. You think that I had something to do with Arthur's death."

He waited for her to say something. Keep waiting, you bastard, she thought.

"You couldn't be further from the truth, you know. Arthur was my dearest friend. I would never have done anything to harm him and I will always miss him. Come, I have something to show you."

He took her into the ship's saloon and showed her the pieces he had of the artifact. They were resting in some sort of wire frame. She recognized the oddly shimmering surface of the pieces and marveled at how perfectly the piece she recognized from the undersea cavern, the one Blaine had taken from her, fit into what had to be the one Paul had left Frik. Intuitively, she could see where the little cups and nodules on her piece would fit, and how Arthur's, stuck in NYPD's Midtown North evidence lockup, would link neatly to all three.

"It may surprise - even shock you - to find out that I know you have a piece of the artifact," Frik said. "I saw it around your neck during the newscast, that god-awful night in New York."

What is your game, Frik? Peta thought. Why are you taking me into your confidence? "What do you want me to say about that?" she asked, mostly to buy herself time.

"I don't want you to say anything. I want you to give your fragment tome...forthe good of humanity."

Frik held out his hand. She stared at it. He had delayed this long to make his demand; why make it now? Why not wait until New Year's Eve?

Clearly, the answer was that he had trusted her then and did not trust her now. She could think of at least two obvious reasons for that, one at the bottom of the sea and one up on the mountain.

"I don't have it on me," she said, and fingered her neck as if to demonstrate that the pendant was not there.

"Bring it here tomorrow. I'm having my usual carnival party after the parade. It wouldn't be complete without your presence anyway."

The last thing I need, Peta thought, is one of Frik's drunken parties. Then again, if she didn't accept, the little mob scene on the Grand E´ tang road was likely to be repeated, sans the arrival of the white knight.

Humoring him, praying that Ralphie had the replica ready for her, she smiled congenially. "I could use a few laughs. I'll bring it with me tomorrow night."