Десмонд Бэгли - Bahama Crisis

Billy took off his jacket and sat in a recliner. ‘You forget I’m a Texan. Ever been in Houston in summer? You know what Sherman said about Texas?’ I shook my head. ‘He said, “If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent out Texas and live in Hell.”’

I laughed. ‘Then you’ll see the problems, although we’re not as bad as Texas. There’s always a sea breeze to cut the heat.’

We chatted while Luke Bailey, my general factotum, laid the table for lunch. Presently the women came back and accepted cold drinks. ‘You have two very nice girls,’ said Debbie.

‘Julie must take the praise for that,’ I said. ‘I get any of the blame that’s going.’

Talk became general over lunch and I was pleased to see that Julie and Debbie got on well together. If the womenfolk of business associates are bitchy it can upset things all round, and I have known several sweet deals fall down because of that.

At one point Julie said, ‘You know Mom and Pop are coming for Christmas.’

‘Yes.’ It was an arrangement that had been made earlier in the year.

‘I thought I’d do my Christmas shopping in Miami and meet them there.’

I said, ‘Why don’t you give them a sea trip? Take Lucayan Girl and bring them back by way of Bimini. I’m sure they’d enjoy it.’

She said, ‘It’s a good idea. Would you come?’

‘Afraid not, I’ll be too busy. But I’ll have a word with Pete; he’ll need an extra hand for that trip.’

‘Still a good idea,’ said Julie meditatively. ‘I think I’ll take Sue — and Karen, if she’s better.’

‘Take me where?’ Sue had joined us draped in a towel. She helped herself to ice-cream.

‘How would you like to go to Miami to meet Grandma and Grandpop? We’d be going in the Girl. ’

Ice-cream went flying and Sue’s squeal of delight was an adequate answer.

After lunch Julie took Sue back to school and Debbie went along because Julie said she would show her the International Bazaar where you can walk from France to China in one stride. When they had gone Billy said, ‘How big is your boat?’

‘Fifty-two feet. Come and look at her.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘You have her here?’

‘Sure. This way.’ I led him through the house to the lagoon on the other side where Lucayan Girl was moored at the quayside. Pete Albury was on board and when he heard us talking he appeared on deck. ‘Come and meet Pete,’ I said. ‘He’s skipper, but sometimes he thinks he’s the owner.’

‘Tom, I heard that,’ called Pete, his face cracking into a seamed black grin. ‘But I’ll allow you on board anyway.’

We went aboard. ‘Pete, this is Billy Cunningham, an old friend from the States.’

Pete stuck out his hand. ‘Glad to know you, Mr Cunningham.’

I was watching Billy carefully. He did not know it, but this was a minor test; if he had hesitated, even fractionally, in spite of what he had said I would have been worried because no one who is a nigger-hater, even in a minor way, can get along successfully in the Bahamas. Billy grasped Pete’s hand firmly. ‘Glad to know you, Mr... er...’

‘Albury,’ said Pete. ‘But I’m just Pete.’

‘I’m Billy.’

I said, ‘Julie wants to go to Miami next week to do the Christmas shopping and to pick up her parents. She’ll be taking Sue and maybe Karen, and you’ll be touching in at Bimini on the way home. Is everything okay for that?’

‘Sure,’ said Pete. ‘Are you comin’?’

‘Sorry. I can’t make it.’

‘Then I’ll need a hand. Don’t worry; there’s always youngsters around the marinas. I’ll pick a good one who’ll be glad of the ride for a few dollars.’

‘That’s it, then,’ I said.

Billy was looking at the lagoon. ‘This is artificial,’ he said abruptly.

‘I hoped you’d notice.’ I pointed. ‘The channel out to sea is there — by the Lucayan Beach Hotel. That’s where the BASRA Marathon begins.’

‘BASRA?’ he said interrogatively.

‘The Bahamas Air-Sea Rescue Association. The Marathon is run by and for BASRA to raise funds. It’s a voluntary organization — a good crowd. If you’re coming in here it wouldn’t do you any harm to donate a few dollars or offer facilities.’

‘Do you do that?’

‘Yes. We have the company planes...’ I broke off and laughed. ‘Not big jets like yours, but we have four Piper Navajos — seven-seaters we use to take tourists to the Out Islands, part of our tours division. And they’re used on other company business, of course. But if a boat is lost and BASRA wants an air search the planes are available.’

He nodded. ‘Good public relations.’ He switched his attention back to the lagoon. ‘So this has been dredged out?’

‘That’s it. This lagoon, and others like it, stretches for about three miles up the coast.’

Billy looked at the lagoon and then back at the house. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘having a house with a water frontage. And it’s protected, too; no big waves.’

‘You’ve got it. Now I’ll show you something weird. Let’s take a drive.’ We said farewell to Pete, left the house, and I drove about four miles east into Lucaya. ‘Notice anything?’

Billy looked around. ‘Just trees — and the traffic is light.’

That was an understatement; there was no traffic. I had not seen a car for the last two miles. But there were many trees. I pointed. ‘That’s a street. See the name plate? Now keep your eyes open.’

I drove on and presently the trees thinned out and we came on to a plain dotted with mounds of limestone. I said, ‘We’re coming to the Casuarina Bridge. It crosses the Great Lucayan Waterway.’

‘So?’

‘So we’re going to cross it.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Billy.

I said, ‘We’ve been passing streets, all named and paved. Those poles carry power lines. Now, I don’t know how it is in the States where any wide place in the road can call itself a city, but to me a road is something that goes from one place to another, but a street is a place, and it usually has houses on it.’

Billy was momentarily startled. ‘Houses!’ he said blankly. ‘No goddamn houses! Nary a one.’

‘That’s it. But I’ve more to show you or, rather, not show you. We’ll get a better view from Dover Sound.’ I carried on driving, following the signposts to Dover Sound and Observation Hill. It is not really a hill — just a man-made mound with the road leading up and a turning circle at the top. I stopped the car and we got out. ‘What do you think of that?’

Billy looked at the view with a lack of comprehension. I knew why because I had been baffled by the sight when first I saw it. There was land and there was water and it was not easy to see where one stopped and the other began. It was a maze of water channels. Billy shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. What am I supposed to think?’

I said, ‘Think of my house and the lagoon. This is the Grand Lucayan Waterway — it cuts right across Grand Bahama, nearly eight miles from coast to coast. But it has forty-five miles of water frontage.’ I flapped open the map I held. ‘Look at this. You can see where the streets and waterways fit together like fingers in a glove.’

Billy studied the map then took out a calculator and began punching buttons. ‘At a hundred feet of water frontage to a house that’s nearly 2500 houses. Where the hell are they?’

‘There’s more. Look at the map.’ I swept my hand over an area. ‘Twenty square miles of land all laid out in paved streets with utilities already installed — the unfleshed skeleton of a city of 50,000 people.’

‘So what happened?’

‘An election happened. Pindling got in and the investors ran scared. But they’re coming back. Take a man who runs his own business in Birmingham, Alabama, or Birmingham, England, come to that. He sells out to a bigger company at, say, the age of fifty-five when he’s still young enough to enjoy life and now has the money to indulge himself. He can build his house on the canal and keep his fishing boat handy, or he can take one of the dry land plots. There’s sun and sea, swimming and golf, enough to keep a man happy for the rest of his life. And the beauty of it is that the infrastructure already exists; the power station in Freeport is only working to a tenth of its capacity.’