“He asked for you, Mr. Tom. Mr. Bobby’s a gentleman if there ever was a gentleman and sometimes that trash comes in on yachts gets him worn down. He was wore down almighty thin when I left.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I went for Coca-Cola and I stayed to keep my hand in shooting a stick of pool.”
“How’s the table?”
“Worse.”
“I’ll go down,” said Thomas Hudson. “I want to take a shower and change.”
“I’ve got them laying out for you on the bed,” Joseph told him. “You want another gin and tonic?”
“No thanks.”
“Mr. Roger’s in on the boat.”
“Good. I’ll get hold of him.”
“Will he be staying here?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll make up a bed for him anyway.”
“Good.”
Thomas Hudson took a shower, scrubbing his head with soap and then rinsing under the prickling drive of the sharp, jetted shower. He was a big man and he looked bigger stripped than he did in his clothes. He was very tanned and his hair was faded and streaked from the sun. He carried no extra weight and on the scales he saw that he weighed 192 pounds.
I should have gone swimming before I took the shower, he thought. But I had a long swim this morning before I started work and I’m tired now. There will be plenty of swimming when the boys come. And Roger’s here too. That’s good.
He put on a clean pair of shorts and an old Basque shut and moccasins and went out the door and down the slope and through the gate in the picket fence onto the white glare of the sun-bleached coral of the King’s Highway.
Ahead a very erect-walking old Negro in a black alpaca coat and pressed dark trousers came out of one of the unpainted board shacks along the road that was shaded by two tall coconut palms and turned into the highway ahead of him. Thomas Hudson saw his fine black face as he turned.
From behind the shack a child’s voice came in an old English tune singing mockingly,
Uncle Edward turned his fine face, looking as sad as it was angry, in the bright afternoon light.
“I know you,” he said. “I can’t see you but I know who you are. I’ll report you to Constable.”
The child’s voice went on, rising clear and gay,
“Constable going to hear about this,” Uncle Edward said. “Constable know what steps to take.”
“Any rotten candy today, Uncle Edward?” the child’s voice called. He was careful to keep out of sight.
“Man is persecuted,” Uncle Edward said aloud as he walked on. “Man has his robe of dignity plucked at and destroyed. Oh, Good Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Ahead down the King’s Highway there was more singing coming from the rooms up above the Ponce de León. A Negro boy slipped by hurrying along the coral road.
“Been a fight, Mr. Tom,” he said. “Or something. Gentleman off’n a yacht been throwing things out of a window.”
“What things, Louis?”
“Any kind of things, Mr. Tom. Gentleman throw anything he can get his hands on. Lady try to stop him he say he going to throw the lady, too.”
“Where’s the gentleman from?”
“Big man from up north. Claims he can buy and sell the whole island. Guess he could get it pretty cheap if he keeps throwing it around the way he’s doing.”
“Constable taken any action, Louis?”
“No sir, Mr. Tom. Nobody has called in Constable yet. But way everybody figures, Constable’s time is coming.”
“You with them, Louis? I wanted to get some bait for tomorrow.”
“Yes sir, I’ll get your bait, Mr. Tom. Don’t worry about bait. I been with them right along. They hired me to take them bonefishing this morning and I been with them ever since. Only they ain’t been bonefishing. No
“Sounds like a difficult gentleman, Louis.”