Bermuda Schwartz Read online

  BERMUDA SCHWARTZ

  Also by Bob Morris

  Bahamarama

  Jamaica Me Dead

  BERMUDA SCHWARTZ

  Bob Morris

  St. Martin’s Minotaur New York

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  BERMUDA SCHWARTZ. Copyright © 2007 by Bob Morris. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-32893-1

  ISBN-10: 0-312-32893-1

  First Edition: February 2007

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To the one and only Debbie

  A long time ago—yet still I remember—

  that I was cut down from the edge of the timber,

  and removed from my roots. Powerful fiends there held me off,

  for a spectacle to make, command me a criminal to aloft.

  —from “The Dream of the Rood”

  Anonymous

  C. A.D. 750

  BERMUDA SCHWARTZ

  He knows he will die. No use fighting it now.

  “Where is it, Ned?” his killer says.

  The words sound far away, as if he were lying at the bottom of a well and someone was calling down to him.

  It reminds him of when he was a boy. Three, maybe four. Delirious with fever. Meningitis.

  His mother and sister stand by his bed.

  “Is Neddie going to die?” his sister says.

  “Shhh,” his mother quiets her.

  And then the sound of his sister crying.

  He remembers how he pulled himself back to them, willed himself not to slip way, crawled out of that deep, dark well to where he belonged.

  But now … there is nothing he can do.

  “It’s still down there, isn’t it?” his killer says.

  He doesn’t try to answer. His body is shutting down. All that is left of him has retreated to a small safe place, a place beyond fear, beyond pain.

  The boat engine idles. He can feel it throbbing through the deck, hear its low rumble. The sound is comforting.

  It makes him think of Polly. Her and her yoga. How she talked him into practicing it with her.

  It felt good to stretch, to sweat. And to watch Polly, so graceful, so beautiful.

  What he couldn’t handle was the part, at the very end of a session, when they had cooled down, and Polly would fold her hands, as if in prayer, close her eyes, and start in with that “Om” business.

  “You’re supposed to chant with me,” she would say. “It’s the universal hum, our connection with the life force.”

  He would try, really he would.

  “Ommmm …”

  But it was too hippy-dippy for him. He would start laughing. And Polly, unable to help herself, would start laughing, too.

  He loves her. Their time together has been so brief.

  The rumble of the engine …

  He tries to match its tone.

  “Ommmm …”

  “What’s that, Ned?” his killer asks. “You trying to tell me something?”

  He feels his killer close to him.

  “Ommmm …”

  “Sorry, Ned. You’re not making any sense. But that’s okay. I know what I need to know. And I think it’s still down there. Else, why would you have come back, eh?”

  He feels tightening in the ropes that bind his arms and legs.

  “Up you go,” his killer says.

  He senses himself being lifted to the side of the boat.

  And now—a touch of something against his ear, something cold, metallic.

  “Sorry, Ned,” his killer says. “This might sting a bit.”

  But the sting is brief, the blackness welcome.

  He is dead before he hits the water.

  1

  Lunchtime at Ocean’s Seafood—I’m eating a fried grouper sandwich and grappling with a major philosophical dilemma.

  Barbara Pickering sits across the table from me. As usual, she is in tune with my innermost thoughts and desires.

  “You are already contemplating a piece of the key lime pie, aren’t you?” she says.

  “Depends on what you mean by already.”

  “I mean, you are one bite into your rather large sandwich, there remains a rather small mountain of French fries to be consumed, plus that cupful of coleslaw, and yet there you are thinking about ordering the pie … already.”

  “It’s good pie,” I say. “They mix crushed peanuts with graham crackers for the crust. They use real lime juice in the filling, not the bottled stuff. Pie like that, there’s a lot to contemplate.”

  Barbara smiles.

  “I can read you like a book, Chasteen.”

  “Oh, really?” I put down my sandwich, lean across the table, and dial up my inner Clooney. “So what are you reading right now?”

  Barbara feigns concentration, then surprise. She looks pretty cute doing it.

  “Why you filthy, filthy man.”

  “Damn, you’re good.”

  Barbara’s cell phone rings. She looks at the caller ID.

  “Oh my, it’s Aunt Trula.”

  “The one in Bermuda?”

  Barbara nods.

  “The one who is richer than God?”

  She nods again.

  “Sorry, but I better take it.”

  No objection from me. I finish off the coleslaw while Barbara exchanges pleasantries with Aunt Trula.

  “Why no, Titi, I haven’t forgotten, it’s your seventieth, isn’t it? … Oh? That sounds lovely, just lovely … We’d be delighted …”

  The two of them carry on. I eat my sandwich and take in the view outside.

  Truth be told, the view from Ocean’s is lousy. The Atlantic is nearly a mile away and the windows open on A-1-A as it slithers through Minorca Beach before dead-ending at Coronado National Seashore.

  Just down the street from Ocean’s sits a miniature golf course with a humongous pink plaster of paris gorilla as its centerpiece. Next to the golf course there’s a strip mall anchored at one end by a chiropractor’s office and at the other end by the Mane Event, which despite its name is a decent enough place to get a haircut.

  In between you’ll find Blue Cat Surf Shop, Barr’s Bait and Tackle, the Wine Warehouse, and not one, but two real estate offices. This is, after all, Florida. By state law, the percentage of Realtors must always be at a level three times that of any other so-called profession and there’s not nearly enough room to store them all.

  I finish the grouper sandwich and catch the eye of the curly-haired woman, Kim, who is working behind the counter. I mime my desperate need for pie and she delivers it.

  Just as I am savoring the first bite, I hear Barbara say: “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I’m sure Zack can help you out. He’s sitting right here.”

  Barbara hands me the phone. I look at it. Then I take another bite of the pie.

  “Aunt Trula wants to speak with you.”

  “That would be rude,” I say. “To the pie.”

  Barbara covers the phone with her hand.

  “She’s getting ready to celebrate her seventieth birthday,” she whispers.

  “We’ll send flowers.”

  “It’s not until April. She wants me to go early and help with the party.”

  “So, go.”

  “She wants you to go, too. She has a business proposition for you. She has offered to bu
y our tickets.”

  “She doesn’t even know me.”

  “I’ve told her all about you.”

  “Including the part about how I can stand by the bed naked and flex my butt in time with my dazzling a cappella rendition of ‘Chantilly Lace’?”

  Barbara gives me that look she can give. She sticks out the phone. I take it.

  “Hello there,” I say.

  I think I sound fairly chipper, at least for someone who has just been unwillingly separated from his dessert.

  “Hello, Mr. Chasteen. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you.”

  We go on like that for a bit. And I manage to nibble at the pie without making loud swinish noises.

  Aunt Trula speaks in a British accent. She sounds a lot like Barbara. Understandable. She is the younger sister of Barbara’s mother. And ever since Barbara’s mother passed away a few years ago, Barbara and Aunt Trula have become particularly close.

  “I understand that you are a horticulturist, Mr. Chasteen.”

  “Nope, I just raise palm trees.”

  There is a brief silence while I suppose that Aunt Trula is considering whether she really wants to continue a conversation with someone who is more dirt farmer than title-holding functionary.

  I take the opportunity to grab another bite of pie. And to consider Dorothy Parker. You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her …

  “Think you can help me with a little landscaping project that I have in mind?” Aunt Trula says.

  “I’ll try.”

  “If one wished to plant one’s backyard with palm trees that made a statement, then which palm trees would one choose?”

  “Depends on what statement one was trying to make.”

  “That one had lived for seventy years and wished to celebrate it,” says Aunt Trula. “Majesty, splendor, that sort of thing.”

  No self-esteem issues for her.

  “Then I’d say you should go with Bismarckia nobilis. Better known as a Bismarck.”

  “Like that German chap, the one with the mustache, the first chancellor or whatever he was.”

  “Like him exactly. Otto von Bismarck. Had lots of things named after him, including a battleship that got sunk and a city in North Dakota. I think he’d be proudest of the palm trees.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Broad silvery fronds that fan out like a crown. Grow to about eighty feet tall. Real showstoppers.”

  “Do you raise Bismarck palms, Mr. Chasteen?”

  “Matter of fact, I do. There’s a large stand of them at the nursery, several dozen. My grandfather brought back the seed pods from Madagascar and planted them years ago, before I was even born. They’re nearly full-grown. Just like me.”

  Another pause on Aunt Trula’s end. She’s a Brit. You’d think she’d appreciate my brilliant dry humor.

  “Very well then,” she says. “I would like eight of your very best Bismarcks delivered to me here in Bermuda—one for each of the decades in which I have lived. And one more for the decade yet ahead of me.”

  “Why cut yourself short? You might hit ninety. Or a hundred.”

  “I don’t intend to,” she says.

  Before I can come up with a suitable response, Aunt Trula says: “So how much?”

  “Well, it’s not quite that simple,” I say.

  As palm trees go, Bismarcks are fairly cold hardy. So I’m not worried about their surviving winters in Bermuda, which, even though it is six hundred miles off the coast of North Carolina, enjoys the blessings of the Gulf Stream and gets no cooler than Minorca Beach.

  Bismarcks are salt tolerant, so stiff sea breezes aren’t a problem. And they’re adaptable to a wide range of soil, so given a suitable pH range they can thrive in Bermuda’s limestone marl.

  The trouble comes with transplanting. Bismarcks don’t take kindly to it. Once established somewhere, they prefer to stay put. Like too many people I know.

  I spend several minutes explaining the downside to Aunt Trula.

  “No buts, Mr. Chasteen. I want those Bismarcks. And I want them planted in my backyard in time for my party in April. How much?”

  I come up with a price in my head. Then I double it. Because I don’t really want to dig up eight specimen-quality Bismarck palms and ship them on a freighter to Bermuda. Especially if they are just going to die once they get there.

  I tell Aunt Trula what it will cost her. It is hard to get the number out of my mouth without laughing.

  “Splendid, Mr. Chasteen,” says Aunt Trula. “What say I add another fifty percent for all your trouble?”

  “Deal,” I say.

  But like always, I’ve underestimated the trouble part. And hauling palms to Bermuda is only the start of it.

  2

  Three months later, on an April afternoon eight days before Aunt Trula’s big birthday bash, our plane touches down at Bermuda International.

  The runway glistens from a midday rain. Barbara and I follow Boggy as we step onto the tarmac for the short walk to immigration and customs.

  We are a dapper-looking bunch. Barbara is wearing something gray and silky from Eileen Fisher that manages to be casual and sexy and elegant all at once. I sport a brand-new blue blazer, nice khakis, and a relatively spot-free polo, all the better for impressing dear Aunt Trula. Even Boggy looks fairly dashing—this is Bermuda after all—in a white guayabera with baggy cargo pants and his best leather sandals.

  Halfway to the terminal, Boggy stops dead in his tracks. We almost bump into him.

  He slings his carry-on bag off his shoulder. It isn’t really a bag so much as it is an old handwoven blanket into which he has stuck everything he thinks he might need in Bermuda then rolled up and fastened with bungee cords. He didn’t check any luggage.

  He reaches inside the bag and pulls out a leather pouch. He opens the pouch and takes from it two small, black, shiny stones. He sets down the bag and the pouch. Then he stretches out his arms, palms to the sky, a stone in each hand. He closes his eyes and sniffs the air.

  Other passengers weave around us, staring at Boggy.

  “Don’t mind him,” I tell them. “He thinks he’s a Taino shaman.”

  Barbara gives me an elbow.

  “Shhhh,” she says.

  She’s far more tolerant of Boggy’s ways than I am. Still, I am glad he has decided to join us.

  Boggy oversaw the delicate business of getting the Bismarcks ready for the road. We couldn’t just pluck them out of the ground and ship them off. They wouldn’t have survived the shock.

  Boggy nursed them along. He spent a couple of hours each day with them, gently digging and nipping away.

  Eventually each of the Bismarcks was extracted from the loam at Chasteen Palm Nursery. Its root ball, about the size of a VW Bug, was wrapped in burlap. And its fronds were drawn together around the crown and tied with sisal rope.

  We loaded them onto two tractor-trailers and hauled them to the port at Fernandina Beach. Cranes stacked them side by side aboard the freighter Somers Isles for their four-day trip to Bermuda.

  An excruciating amount of paperwork was involved, mainly from the Bermuda Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Parks, which wanted all sorts of guarantees that the palms were not infested with weevils and other vermin. As if anything coming out of Florida could make such a guarantee. We sprayed them with Dursban and hoped for the best.

  The day before we were to fly out of Orlando, I got word from the shipping company that the Bismarcks had arrived and passed inspection. Aunt Trula had already paid the 3 3 percent import tax—even though I lowballed the value on the bill of lading, the levy still hit a low five figures—and the palms would be ready to plant once we got there.

  But first, we have to go through immigration, get our bags, and clear customs, then get a taxi to Aunt Trula’s. And here we are, still standing on the tarmac, while Boggy gets in touch with the freaking cosmos.

  All the other passengers are long gone. The crew
will soon be exiting the plane. They’ll see Boggy standing there zoned out, in one of his trances—a short, round dark man with a braided ponytail that falls to the seat of his pants—and they’ll call security. The authorities will lock us all up. You just don’t screw around at airports these days.

  I poke Boggy in the back.

  “Move it, Mr. Mystic,” I say.

  He doesn’t budge, doesn’t even seem to notice that we are standing there. Barbara shoots me a dirty look.

  “What?” I say. “He’s just going to come out of it spouting some crap about having one of his visions. ‘I see much darkness, Zachary.’ Or ‘The way ahead it is very gray, Zachary.’ It’s always something goddamn gloomy like that. It creeps me out.”

  “He’s always right,” says Barbara. “Exactly right.”

  I look at her.

  “No, what he is, he’s exactly vague.”

  “How can someone be exactly vague?” Barbara says. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “And that’s what I’m saying. He talks mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Oh, really? And what about that time in Harbour Island? He knew the hurricane was going to turn and slice through the Bahamas.”

  “A lucky guess,” I say. “Even monkeys and TV weathermen sometimes make them.”

  “What about last year, when you went down to Jamaica?”

  “What about it?”

  “Before you left, he predicted that everything was going to turn bad.”

  “No, he did not,” I say. “I remember exactly what he told me. And what he told me was, ‘It will not be quite so easy as you expect, Zachary.’”

  Barbara makes a gesture with her hands and her shoulders that says, “So, there.”

  “No, no. That is not a prediction,” I say. “That is horse flop. Because nothing is ever quite so easy as anyone expects. And just because Boggy says it doesn’t mean he’s clued into the future more than anyone else.”

  Barbara does this thing with her eyebrows that says: “You’re wasting your breath, pal.”

  Boggy lowers his hands, opens his eyes. He returns the stones to the pouch, the pouch to the bag.