Anansi Boys (Page 74)

"Maybe you should have married Fat Charlie," said her mother. "Then we wouldn’t be here."

"No," said Rosie. "I should never have married Fat Charlie. I don’t love Fat Charlie. So you weren’t entirely wrong."

They heard a door slam upstairs.

"He’s gone out," said Rosie. "Quick. While he’s out. Dig a tunnel." First she began to giggle, and then she began to cry.

Fat Charlie was trying to understand what daisy was doing on the island. Daisy was trying, equally as hard, to understand what Fat Charlie was doing on the island. Neither of them was having much success. A singer in a long, red, slinky dress, who was too good for a little hotel restaurant’s Friday Night Fun, was up on the little dais at the end of the room singing "I’ve Got You Under My Skin."

Daisy said, "You’re looking for the lady who lived next door when you were a little boy, because she may be able to help you find your brother."

"I was given a feather. If she’s still got it, I may be able to exchange it for my brother. It’s worth a try."

She blinked slowly, thoughtfully, entirely unimpressed, and picked at her salad.

Fat Charlie said, "Well, you’re here because you think that Grahame Coats came here after he killed Maeve Livingstone. But you’re not here as a cop. You just powered in under your own steam on the off-chance that he’s here. And if he is here, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it."

Daisy licked a fleck of tomato seed from the corner of her lips, and looked uncomfortable. "I’m not here as a police officer," she said. "I’m here as a tourist."

"But you just walked off the job and came here after him. They could probably send you to prison for that, or something."

"Then," she said, drily, "it’s a good thing that Saint Andrews doesn’t have any extradition treaties, isn’t it?"

Under his breath Fat Charlie said, "Oh God."

The reason Fat Charlie said "Oh God," was because the singer had left the stage and was now starting to walk around the restaurant with a radio microphone. Right now, she was asking two German tourists where they were from.

"Why would he come here?" asked Fat Charlie.

"Confidential banking. Cheap property. No extradition treaties. Maybe he really likes citrus fruit."

"I spent two years terrified of that man," said Fat Charlie. "I’m going to get some more of that fish-and-green-banana thing. You coming?"

"I’m fine," said Daisy. "I want to leave room for dessert."

Fat Charlie walked over to the buffet, going the long way around to avoid catching the singer’s eye. She was very beautiful, and her red sequined dress caught the light and glittered as she moved. She was better than the band. He wished she’d go back onto the little stage and keep singing her standards – he had enjoyed her "Night and Day" and a peculiarly soulful "Spoonful of Sugar" – and stop interacting with the diners. Or at least, stop talking to people on his side of the room.

He piled his plate high with more of the things he had liked the first time. The thing about bicycling around the island, he thought, was that it gave you an appetite.

When he returned to his table, Grahame Coats, with something vaguely beardish growing on the lower part of his face, was sitting next to Daisy, and he was grinning like a weasel on speed. "Fat Charlie," said Grahame Coats, and he chuckled uncomfortably. "It’s amazing, isn’t it? I come looking for you here, for a little tat-a-tat, and what do I find as a bonus? This glamorous little police officer. Please, sit down over there and try not to make a scene."

Fat Charlie stood like a waxwork.

"Sit down," repeated Grahame Coats. "I have a gun pressed against Miss Day’s stomach."

Daisy looked at Fat Charlie imploringly, and she nodded. Her hands were on the tablecloth, pressed flat.

Fat Charlie sat down.

"Hands where I can see them. Spread them on the table, just like hers."

Fat Charlie obeyed.

Grahame Coats sniffed. "I always knew you were an undercover cop, Nancy," he said. "An agent provocateur, eh? You come into my offices, set me up, steal me blind."

"I never -" said Fat Charlie, but he saw the look in Grahame Coats’s eyes and shut up.

"You thought you were so clever," said Grahame Coats. "You all thought I’d fall for it. That was why you sent the other two in, wasn’t it? The two at the house? Did you think I’d believe they were really from the cruise ship? You have to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on me, you know. Who else have you told? Who else knows?"

Daisy said, "I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about, Grahame."

The singer was finishing "Some of These Days": her voice was bluesy and rich, and it twined around them all like a velvet scarf.

Some of these days

You’re going to miss me honey

Some of these days

You’re gonna be so lonely

You’ll miss my huggin’

You’ll miss my kissin’-

"You’re going to pay the bill," said Grahame. "Then I’ll escort you and the young lady out to the car. And we’ll go back to my place, for a proper talk. Any funny business, and I shoot you both. Capiche?"

Fat Charlie capiched. He also capiched who had been driving the black Mercedes that afternoon and just how close he had already come to death that day. He was beginning to capiche how utterly cracked Grahame Coats was and how little chance Daisy and he had of getting out of this alive.

The singer finished her song. The other people scattered around the restaurant clapped. Fat Charlie kept his hands palms-down on the table. He stared past Graham Coats at the singer, and, with the eye that Grahame Coats could not see, he winked at her. She was tired of people avoiding her eyes; Fat Charlie’s wink was extremely welcome.

Daisy said, "Grahame, obviously I came here because of you, but Charlie’s just -" She stopped and made the kind of expression you make when someone pushes a gun barrel deeper into your stomach.

Grahame Coats said, "Listen to me. For the purposes of the innocent bystanders here assembled, we’re all good friends. I’m going to put the gun into my pocket, but it will still be pointing at you. We’re going to get up. We’re going to my car. And I will-"

He stopped. A woman with a red spangly dress and a microphone was heading for their table with an enormous smile on her face. She was making for Fat Charlie. She said into her microphone, "What’s your name, darlin’?" She put the microphone into Fat Charlie’s face.

"Charlie Nancy," said Fat Charlie. His voice caught and wavered.