Richard Greener: The Knowland Retribution

They drove out of Cruz Bay on the road leading to the beaches, up into the hills, and then made three turns, only the last of which was marked. Tom reckoned that a careful driver would have needed about twenty minutes for the trip. A driver who didn’t know where he was going would take at least forever. This tropical automaton delivered his fare in twelve minutes flat, maneuvering impassively, maniacally, all the way. Wesley took the turns and lurches with rigid stoicism.

It never occurred to Tom to complain. He used calculations and observations to distract himself. He noted that the houses on that part of St. John were built below an often steep road tucked into the side of a mountain. Most properties must have had sharply descending driveways because Tom saw bits of roof from the road, but hardly any houses. The road afforded a view of the sea, St. Thomas, and several much smaller islands. As the car slowed for the first time, Tom was surprised to find himself wondering whether, on a perfectly clear day, he might see all the way to St. Croix. It would not have pleased him to know he was looking in the wrong direction.

The taxi rolled up to a massive wrought-iron gate. The driver lowered his window slowly and pushed the single unmarked button on a pole next to the mailbox. The gate swung open. They drove down a narrow driveway winding to a concrete pad barely large enough to let the car turn around.

The house looked very tropical and, Tom thought, more-or-less Asian. The grounds were landscaped with crushed rock and brightly- colored flowers, which he liked. A vaguely Japanese fountain gushed into a gutter that ran under wide wooden steps leading to large double doors made of dark, heavy wood. White shuttered windows faced the driveway. Maloney got out of the car first. The other two followed. “Wait here,” Maloney said to the driver, who certainly did not need to be told.

A sturdily built, sharp-boned black woman answered the door in a dark blue dress hanging down to her toes. Her age made her look hunched over, although she was not. The phrase “Wicked Witch of the West” danced stupidly through Tom’s mind.

“Follow, please,” she said slowly and very softly, in the familiar Caribbean rhythm. “Mr. Sherman’s expecting you. He’s out on the patio. If you will follow me, please.” They walked behind her from the small, wood-paneled foyer into a room that must have been forty feet long and nearly that wide, with dark hardwood floors and a vaulted ceiling upwards of twenty feet high. There was a small stone fireplace on the left and an open kitchen with a long, massive island counter on the right. Above the kitchen counter, copper-colored pots and pans and gleaming utensils dangled from a bright silver grid.

Set into the wall next to the kitchen, Tom spotted the highest and widest TV screen he had ever seen. “Radio Goddamn City,” he heard himself thinking. Near the fireplace, a long, polished dinner table stood surrounded by eight matching chairs. Four fat, leather easy-chairs congregated haphazardly around a big glass coffee table in the middle of the room. Beside each of these chairs stood a stainless steel lamp plugged into an outlet set in the floor. Twin brass and glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling at the same level as four rattan fans. All the fans rotated slowly, silently, seemingly in synch. The far wall, opening out to the sea, was entirely glass and extended the full length of the vaulted roofline. Above three double sliding doors the glass was fitted with wooden blinds. The view was westerly, the sun high in the afternoon sky. The room-and Maloney was far from sure that such a space could even be called just a room-was awash, aglow, with soon-to-ripen yellow sunlight.

A deck patio made of pale, shiny wood, perhaps fifteen feet deep, ran the whole length of the house. Part of it was covered by a roof. A round black-marble table with six bamboo chairs occupied that protected space. A fan and lamp descended from a chain above it. A covered hot tub and high-tech grill kept each other company at the other end of the porch. Tom’s wide eyes lingered there. Stepping outside, he imagined himself at ease, with the first or second of his wives laughing beside him-at his comical apron, or at the cautious way he turned a crimson lobster on the grill. That’s what he wanted to worry about; how to turn the lobster on the grill.

The old woman had shown them to where Walter waited. He rose from one of the bamboo chairs with a fixed, businesslike smile. He suggested they take off their jackets, roll up their sleeves, and loosen their ties. “Dress comfortably,” Walter had said, and left to his own devices Tom would have. Now, he lost no time. The other two followed reluctantly, as though the suits were slyly fashioned Italian armor.

The house perched near the top of the mountain looked down and out to a glittering vastness. Scattered clouds drifted across St. Thomas, a speck in the world but a continent next to its tiny brother; on St. John they called their larger neighbor “the rock.” Sunlight filtered downward, like pillars plunging toward the sea, and fragmented beams of dusty sunlight bounced back up off the dark water to throw mysterious shadow patterns onto the small hilly islands to the right, where no one lived. Walter watched them absorb it, jackets in hand, motionless for a moment.

“Tom, will you introduce your friends?”

Tom took his sunglasses off and put them in his shirt pocket. “Walter Sherman, I’d like you to meet Nathan Stein and Wesley Pitts.” The formality startled Walter; these two might be Tom’s parents, and Walter his brand new girl. Nathan Stein was a small man, five feet six inches, lean and fit, already sweating profusely under his arms, agitated, eager to commence whatever business had brought him to this place. Walter made him a starving rat of a man, all purpose and fury, a fortune builder. He’d seen this kind before. Walter knew a man like this in the war, an admiral’s son who hated his father, a talented liar and full-time taker. He wound up drafted and partied with colonels who knew what he could do for them in the real world. A promoter, Walter called him then, shorter even than this one, a wolverine in shrimp’s clothing. Nathan Stein was the boss, and Walter did not like him.

Pitts was a big man: six-three, 260 pounds at least. He once ran the forty in four and a half seconds. Some time ago. Now he must be thirty-eight or -nine. For a moment that astonished Walter. And it hurt him that he’d not spotted Wes in Billy’s. He soothed his pain with the rationalization that the man was at least twenty-five pounds over his playing weight, and his red-brown face had gone from long and dangerous to cheerful and round as a plate. He carried a large black attache case as if it were a cracker-jack box with a handle.

“Mr. Pitts, I’m sure you are recognized more often than not,” Walter said. “It was always a pleasure to watch you. I’ve long considered tight end an underappreciated position, and especially the way you played it.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Sherman. It’s always nice to be remembered, and please call me Wes.” Pitts kept a bright smile alive at the center of his moonlike face. He projected an earnest manner and shook hands firmly, but with care. He had what Walter knew must be widely celebrated as a winning personality, no particle of which did Walter suppose to be authentic. Wes let go of Walter’s hand. “That’s some gate you’ve got there. Security?”

“Keeps the goats out,” Walter told him. “The island’s full of them. Cows too. The damn goats ate my flowers so I had to put up the gate.”

They sat at the marble table: Walter, Nathan, Maloney, Wes. Comfortable and shaded. Wes set his case under the table. The old woman had brought cold drinks and food on a square silver platter. Walter nodded appreciatively at the artfully arranged meat, cheese, fruit, and crackers. “Mr. Stein,” he said, “what can I do for you?”