Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David and Wallis are foiled in their attempt to protect a socialite’s jewels.
Leon sat on the white sands of the Eleuthera beach watching little Sidney tentatively take his first steps towards him. His wife Jessamine jumped and clapped her hands. When Sidney reached him, Leon extended his arms to hug the boy on his success. The toddler waved his arms, turned slightly and kept moving.
“No! Walk more!”
Laughing, Leon rolled around to watch his son waddle past him. His smile faded as he saw a dark outline against the Bahamian sun. Pooka stood there, her arms folded and her head wagging.
“You’re a lucky man, Leon Johnson.”
“Yes, I know I am.”
“If you had stayed away another week you would have missed seeing your son take his first steps.”
“And if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their butts on the ground when they hopped.”
Pooka walked up, towering over him. “What exactly is it that you do, Leon Johnson?”
He rose his feet with the grace of a ballet dancer. “I thought you would know, being a high priestess of Obeah.”
Jessamine brushed by them on her way to intersect Sidney before his feet reached the water. “No, no. Wait for me!”
“You are fortunate Jessamine is such a good mother.” Pooka stared into Leon’s eyes. “But one day when you are not here she might not see evil coming his way.”
“Now why would you want to threaten me, Pooka? If you are a high priestess you must sense a strong aura of power around me.”
Raising her hands, Pooka demurred. “No, no. I am not threatening. I am offering my help. Obeah can keep your son safe.”
“I’m sure. If the price is right.” Leon smiled. “That is what you are saying, isn’t it, Pooka?”
She spat on the sand and stormed away as Jessamine walked up with Sidney in her arms.
“What did Pooka want?”
“Money.” Leon took the boy into his arms and walked back to the ocean spray. Wading into the water up to his waist, he held Sidney high over his head and jiggled him as he laughed. “We have nothing to fear, do we, my son?
This was the happiest time of his life, he decided. No matter how much money he might make through working for the organization, Leon was sure nothing could surpass the peace and satisfaction of this moment. His beautiful hacienda-style home was completely his. No one could ever take it away. He had the satisfaction of providing a secure comfortable old age for his mother. His wife was utterly devoted to him and walked with pride along the paths of their Bahamian paradise. And he was going to teach his son the way his father had taught him. All this was possible because of one trip to New York City and the Plaza Hotel.
It was so simple. The night before the American Labor Day Leon went to the Cotton Club where he caught an early evening show. In a display of sophistication, he leaned back in the chair in his fine linen suit, a cigarette between his fingers. The troupe of ebony dancers finished their act and dispersed around the room. One of them, a tall, buxom woman covered in white feathers, sat at his table, oozing seduction. “You look like a man who enjoys a good time,” she murmured, taking the cigarette and puffing on it.
“Always. If the price is right.”
“Ask for Abe in the custodial closet. His price is fifty dollars. Then go to the sixteenth floor. Suite 1601. First room on the right. Jewels in a large ornamental wooden box.”
She blew him a kiss as she sashayed away.
Leon took a cab downtown to the Plaza Hotel where he found and bribed custodian Abe for his work clothes, pass key, work cart and identification papers.
Shortly after sunset Labor Day Leon clocked in. The crowds which had gathered for the parade had dispersed. Most residents settled into their apartments for the night. Others donned their best apparel for dinner and partying. Leon with his cart of cleaning equipment took the service elevator up to the sixteen floor and room 1601.
By this time he had perfected a limp in his left leg, dragging his foot behind. His mouth twisted in a bizarre way which required Leon to wipe his lips every few minutes with a dirty handkerchief. Each hotel guest that passed him kept their eyes straight ahead.
“Yassa, you have a good evening, you hear?” Leon was quite proud of his American Negro accent, which he knew white Americans expected to hear.
All of them deliberately ignored him. Leon had become the invisible man. He lingered in the hallway, vigorously polishing the wooden floors. An older woman dressed as a nanny left the suite. When he flashed his toothy smile, she sighed deeply and quickened her step.
Leon used his service key to enter, paused to look around the large apartment. Complete darkness. Total silence. He assumed that his organization knew the occupants would be out for the evening. The children were fast asleep. Why else would have the nanny left? Going directly to the master bedroom, Leon dumped the jewelry box contents into a trash bag he had taken from the cart. He jogged down the stairs to the custodial locker room and changed into his street clothes. Emptying the jewels into a small, non-descript suitcase, Leon was out the basement door hailing a taxi in a matter of minutes. He directed the cabbie to a prominent hotel in Harlem. Once inside he checked in at the desk.
“Have there been any messages for John Doe in Room 312?” he asked the clerk.
“No, sir.”
“Very good.”
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at his door. When he opened it, Leon saw a black female hand thrust into the room. In it was a thick envelope. He took it and handed the suitcase off. She grabbed him by his neck, pulled him into her and kissed him.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you in the Cotton Club last night.” The dancer winked.
“I hope you liked it.”
“Oh, I did.” She kissed him again. “I liked that one too.”
Leon was on the midnight train to Miami. By mid-morning he climbed into a shuttle craft to Freeport. His usual boatman waved when he saw Leon and ran to take his suitcase. As the sun set he walked through the courtyard of his hacienda and exulted in the welcome from his wife, child and mother. He trotted upstairs to unpack as Jessamine and Dorothy finished preparing his supper. Only then did he open the envelope and count the money. Leon could not help but smile at the amount. He did not know who these people were, and he did not care. There was enough cash in the envelope to allow him to stay home to watch his son grow up without another assignment for at least a year.
Two weeks later, Leon carried little Sidney out the door for romp time on the seashore when he noticed his flower pot was askew again. Frowning, he cursed under his breath and looked inside. A small bag of tobacco blended in with the soil. He opened it and found a large blue sapphire wrapped by a note.
“Special appreciation.”
“Jessamine! Hurry along! We want to play!”
Leon smiled and stuck the tobacco bag deep in his pocket. That was why he was so joyous with his family on the shore. Now he could stay home for three years. He hugged Sidney close to him as he sloshed out of the surf.
“Sidney, my son, it is time I taught you about our warrior ancestors in Africa. We were defeated, but we always remained proud.”

Jessie Donohue
Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David kills an ambassador in Shanghai.
After her bizarre experience in China, Wallis returned to the United States because Win’s deployment in the Far East was completed and she had promised the Foreign Office to stay with the boozehound until they told her she could divorce him. The situation with Win’s increased drinking bothered her because, if he became too much of a sot, the Army would sack him and she would lose that delightful $250 a month. The British spy service had promised her money, jewels and luxury. She had not seen any of that yet. The agency told her to have patience. Wallis had never learned patience and she certainly was not going to start now.
Things perked up a bit when a MI6 message reached her while she played golf at her country club in Washington, D.C. She was visiting her mother who had married for the third time, the latest husband being a Veteran’s Administration official who made a comfortable living. The British contact dropped a note in Wallis’s golf bag.
“Plaza, week before Labor Day.”
Wallis and her aunt Bessie gleefully packed their bags and were off again. Bessie, worn out by the train ride, napped while Wallis unpacked at the Plaza. There was a knock at the door. When she opened it, she saw a maid.
“May I help, ma’am?”
“No thank you. I don’t need any help.”
The woman smiled and replied, “Oh yes, you do.”
They sat on the rim of the tub in the bathroom as the maid quickly informed Wallis of the Donohue situation. Her assignment was to bump into the Donohues and remind them they knew her uncle Sol, the clever inventor from Baltimore, and suggest they celebrate Labor Day together, since the Donohues knew the best night clubs in New York.
“Suggest to Jessie she wear her best gems for the evening out. Tell her you’ve always had a passion for glittering objects.”
Wallis’ thin lips creased into a serpentine smiled. “Maybe she’ll give me one.”
“Well, let’s not be too optimistic.”
The ostensible chance encounter took place in the hotel lobby with the best results; after all, social manipulation was Wallis’s specialty. The Donohues were instantly taken by Wallis’s sparkling personality and Jessie immediately agreed to the Labor Day outing along with the full array of accoutrement of diamonds, rubies and pearls. Wallis found Jessie a bit frumpy but James was a divine dancer. Of course all of her efforts were for naught. The jewels were stolen anyway, and Jessie did not offer Wallis one multi-faceted souvenir of the night. Wallis didn’t understand why MI6 was interested in the bloody baubles in the first place.
The next day Wallis returned to her mother’s new house in Washington, D.C. She paced in her room. What bothered her was the fact that she had not had the opportunity to torture or murder anyone yet. She thought she would have been given some Chinese opium dealer to practice on. No. Instead she was given the thankless duty of providing cover for the agent assigned to assassinate the ambassador. At least the part of being a belly dancer in the marketplace was fun. She had hoped to behead someone chasing the agent but the best she got was skimming her sword along the ground. The agent himself was not impressive. He was too short and thin, though his appearance played well in the role of an ancient derelict.
The person she actually could not get out of her head was the young black man in casual Caribbean attire running alongside of the British agent. She could tell he was aware of what was going on. But how would he know the ambassador was going to die? Who did he work for?
Her ruminations were interrupted by a knock at her bedroom door. When Wallis opened it there stood Win, trembling with his hat in hand. She invited him in and he entered hesitantly.
“Please, please give me a divorce.” His voice quavered. “Even the thought of a reconciliation has sent me into the bottle. I don’t care about my career—“
“Neither do I,” she cut him off as she lit a cigarette. “And I’m not the innocent little girl you married. I know I can take care of myself.”
“Thank you. I’ll start the paperwork now.”
“No.” Her voice was sharp. “We need three years residency in Virginia to divorce but even then we need a cause. You have to have an affair. In the meantime you will finance my living some place pleasant, out of the way. I enjoyed holidays with mother and Aunt Bessie to Warrenton in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I liked hiking in the forest. So many fascinating plants grow there.” She turned to Win and blew smoke in his face. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?’
“No,” he whispered.
“Good. You’re better off being stupid. Except for flying those airplanes. I don’t understand why you’re so clever with airplanes.”
“Neither do I,” he mumbled. “And thank you. I’ll even increase your allowance. But please stay away from me.”
Wallis smiled. She knew MI6 would contact her soon to inform her who her next husband would be. That did not mean a marriage would be imminent. Perhaps he would need a divorce from his current spouse.
“You can go now,” she told Win. “I have to shop for clothes. I have nothing suitable to wear in the mountains.”
“Of course. Anything you say. Thank you.”
After acquiring her new wardrobe, Wallis moved to a resort in Warrenton in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She found agreeable people with whom to pass the day golfing and riding. In no time at all she became a regular at the most fascinating parties in town.
Wallis flirted outrageously with the best looking men, just to hone her social skills. One night at dinner the waiter placed a cup of coffee in front of her. When she lifted it she saw written on her saucer in dark chocolate, “Hike the waterfall trail.”
The next morning she followed the instructions and when she reached a point along the path where she could hear the water crashing against the boulders, a nondescript man joined her.
“Are you ready to meet your next husband?” He spoke in a soft English accent. A bit less sophisticated than a Londoner. Perhaps Northumberland.
“Of course I am.”
“He holds dual American and English citizenship. He doesn’t know about your MI6 connection. Generally he’s not a very observant person. He’s respectable looking and is wealthy from his family’s shipping business. The only drawback is that he’s married.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m married.”
“Both divorces can occur simultaneously. I think it’s time for you visit New York again.”

Shenanigans at the Plaza
Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David kills an ambassador in Shanghai.
David was miffed. He was not in London long enough to have an intimate evening with Lady Elvira Chatsworth or even Freda Ward before Tommy Lascelles informed him that the Foreign Ministry had recommended to the King that it would be a good idea to send the Prince of Wales to New York City to participate in the U.S. celebration of Labor Day.
“Labor Day?” David raised an eyebrow. “What? No Tory Day?”
“It’s not that kind of labor. It’s to acknowledge the American working class.”
“Tommy, I was making a joke.”
“I know. I was ignoring it.”
On his first evening out from Portsmouth, David found the selection of ladies rather depressingly sparse at dinner, so he took a walk along the deck which was shrouded in a particularly dense fog. As he was about to flick his cigarette overboard an old woman, who was dressed more as a street peddler than as an ocean liner passenger, walked up in a fit of giggles.
“Pardon, yer majersty,” she gurgled in a hardly understandable Cockney, “but could I please have yer butt? As a souvenir of meeting your worshipful holiness.”
“Excuse me. What did you say?”
The current group of strollers harrumphed and hurried away. David leaned in to the old woman and cupped his ear.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch your comment. Will you please repeat?”
“Yer butt,” she said loudly, which caused the next couple to rush along. “You know, yer fag butt.”
David’s brow over his sagging eye arched. “I must say, my dear lady—“
“Oh, get over yerself, David,” she rasped. “Steam room. Seven in the morning.” The old woman grabbed the burnt-out cigarette and tossed it into the ocean before she fumed into the fog.
The next morning David awoke early, went for a light run around the deck and entered the steam room. Wrapping a towel around his middle, he sat, waiting alone for details for his next mission from MI6. Exactly at seven, a pudgy old man entered from the locker room and sat next to him.
“Begging your pardon, David,” he whispered in a familiar Cockney. “Me old lady can be rough around the edges. You know we’ve been doing this since the old queen died.”
“Think nothing of it. Now what is this important business in New York?” He wiped sweat from his brow.
“They want you to steal an American socialite’s jewelry and then mail them back to her a month later. No return address, of course.”
David sat up. “What? That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Don’t jump down my throat.” The old man looked away and sniffed. “I don’t make this stuff up. I just pass messages along.”
Leaning back, David smiled. “You’re much too sensitive for this line of work, you know.”
“Come close to getting killed too, you know. Me old lady pulled me chestnuts out of the fire, many a time.”
“Very well. What else?”
“You heard of Woolworth’s Five and Dime? It’s his daughter. Jessie Donohue. They’re one of the richest families in America, but because their money comes from selling cheap stuff to poor people, other rich folks give them the cold shoulder. That’s why she buys so much jewelry. It’s worth $600,000.”
David was already becoming bored, but he dared not make any more brash remarks before the old man was finished.
“The problem is her husband. He spends all his time gambling and romancing both men and women around the world. Scuttlebutt has it the husband had contracted the organization to steal his wife’s jewels to pay off a blackmailer who knows he’s just broken off an affair with a black male dancer. And I know you’re thinking what does this have to do with the national security of the British Empire. Your own brother George is a well-known philanderer visiting both sides of the street.”
“Well,” David interjected in a sardonic tone, “he is considered to be the handsome brother in the family.”
“If darker forces realize they can hire the organization—the biggest, most successful crime syndicate in the history of civilization—to blackmail a rich American family, what is to stop them from extorting the royal Windsors?”
“I thought I had been so outrageous that anything the rest of the family did would be too dreary for the public to notice.”
“Mixing the races and not mixing the sexes is quite a different matter. Now don’t get me wrong. Personally I don’t care about what goes on behind closed doors but the rest of the world is not as advanced as me.”
David sighed and slid down on the bench. “Oh well, at least I’ll be in New York. It’s a fine town. Maybe I can make it out to Coney Island for a hot dog.”
“You’re kidding me! That’s why me old lady and I took this job. Love those hot dogs. And Coney Island is like Brighton Beach, but less hoity toity.”
Another man entered the steam room, and David’s companion made a quick exit. When a suitable amount of time elapsed, he also left. After bathing, and changing into his new plaid slacks and a powder blue shirt complemented by a purple ascot, David sauntered into the breakfast lounge. Once being seated, he ordered black coffee, a bagel and half a grapefruit. As he awaited his meal, David lit a cigarette and considered how he would have to join diplomatic officials for pictures with the New York mayor and attend the Labor Day Parade—he presumed there would be a parade. Americans loved to march. When the server brought his food, David asked that the latest editions of all the New York City newspapers be delivered to his suite. His enjoyment of his grapefruit was ruined when a photographer suddenly appeared in the door with his camera and flash holder. Damned nuisance.
Over the next couple of days David read about the Donohues in the society pages. They traveled in circles of actors, athletes, nouveau riche, oilmen and exiled foreign royalty whose company could be purchased for the price of a roof terrace hotel suite. How could anyone be so desperate to be bought by classless Americans, he asked himself.
Currently the Donohues resided at the Plaza while their house on East 80th Street was being modernized. They had two sons, Woolworth, twelve, and James, ten. A nanny tended the children every night as the parents went to glittering nightclubs. That gave David a window of opportunity to break into their apartment. Labor Day. After the parade. After decent people were at home asleep in their beds.
The day arrived, and David appeared at the mayor’s office with his diplomatic entourage, posed for photographs and sat in a reviewing stand on the city hall steps to watch the parade. He ate with a group of energetic American capitalists, then excused himself to his hotel suite since the last few days had been so fatiguing, with the ocean crossing and all.
After midnight, he dressed in his black turtleneck and trousers with the mask in his back pocket. Slipping into the basement of the Plaza Hotel, he slinked up the backstairs until he reached the Donohue suite. Once inside he made his way to what his research showed to be their bedroom. Just as he was about to turn the handle, he heard a child’s voice.
“”Hello, I’m very pleased to meet you. My name is Jimmy Donohue. And who are you?”
David turned to see a ten-year-old boy with brown hair and remarkably clear blue eyes staring at him.
“I’m nobody.”
“Oh, so you don’t have any money. That’s all right. I have enough money for everybody. Of course you have to do anything I want if you want me to give you any.”
“Um. Excuse me, young man. I’m rather preoccupied at the moment.”
“You sound English.”
“I’m in a frightful hurry.”
“No need to be. Mother and father will be out until dawn. They’re nightclubbing with this woman from Baltimore. She’s supposed to be important but I don’t know why. She’s not rich. My parents are paying for everything. People say she’s supposed to be beautiful but I think she has the face of a horse. I can’t remember her name but it’s a man’s name. Isn’t that odd?”
“You like to talk, don’t you, young man?”
“Of course, I do. I’m fascinating.” Jimmy looked at David’s hand on the doorknob. “You want to steal something from my parents’ bedroom.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re wearing a mask, and your hand is on the knob.”
“Very observant.”
“What do you want? My mother’s jewelry? I know where it is. I can get it for you.”
“Why would you do that? Do you hate your mother?”
“No. I love my mother. If you stole her jewels then she could have the fun of buying new ones.”
“I hate my mother and father.” David did not understand why he said that. The boy must have cast a spell on him.
“You need to see a psychiatrist,” Jimmy advised.
“So show me where the jewels are.”
Jimmy opened the door, and David followed. The boy went straight to a large, ornately carved wooden box and lifted the lid. Nothing was there. He looked up at David.
“Someone beat you to it.”

The man in his white linen suit
Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David kills an ambassador in Shanghai.
Old Joe, the Eleuthera fisherman who had always given Leon a free ride back home, was dead. That was the word on the Freeport dock as Leon returned from the Far East. Yesterday morning someone dropped by his thatched roof bungalow and discovered him in his bed, clutching a couple of half crowns. Leon grimaced when he heard the news. Joe had been like a father to him in the last few years; however, when they last saw each other as Leon left for Shanghai, their friendship was strained. When Leon disembarked from the fishing boat at Freeport he handed Joe him two half-crown coins. Leon intended it as a gesture of appreciation. He could see in Joe’s eyes he had taken it as an insult, as though Leon was setting himself up to be the old man’s superior. Leon searched for the right words, but Joe gruffly pushed his boat away from the dock before Leon could explain. Now he would never be able to explain.
Perhaps it was just as well, Leon thought. When he went back through the Panama Canal after his mission, he took a quick tour of some of the shops in Panama City and bought himself a white linen suit, a wide brimmed hat and a new traveling bag. Leon conceded to himself that old Joe might have been right, because he did take considerable pleasure in hailing a boatman to take him back to Eleuthera. The man bowed deferentially as he loaded Leon’s new bag. The wind caught sail and impelled him homeward. Leon languidly leaned back, puffing on a cigarette of fine Egyptian tobacco.
When they landed, he placed a single half-crown in the man’s palm which made the boatman grin broadly and scurry to extend the plank to the dock and carry Leon’s bag ashore. At the last moment, Leon handed the man another coin to carry the bag down the dirt road to Leon’s house. He sauntered a few steps ahead of the carrier, lit another cigarette, tossing the match into a nearby sand dune. Soon he saw the high severe wall surrounding the Ribbentrop hacienda house. It still had the thick wood doors. Leon paused to take a long drag on his smoke, grabbed the bag from the boatman and dismissed him with a nod of the head. He removed a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
The house was now his. The courtyard, once filled with exotic flowers, now overflowed with vegetables and fruit trees. He saw his mother Dorothy on her hands and knees between the rows pulling weeds.
“Mum!” Leon called out. “I told you to hire a village child to tend the garden.”
Looking up, she smiled. “I enjoy it. If I didn’t kneel down, soon I wouldn’t be able to.” She rose with great difficulty. “And then what good would I be?”
She walked to her son and kissed him. “My pretty little boy is home again safe at last.” Her wrinkled hand smoothed out the lapel of his linen suit. “I see you bought yourself a new fancy suit of clothes.” Her fingers ran down the sleeves. “Good for you.”
Behind him he heard a baby crying. He turned to see the pretty smiling face of his wife Jessamine. Though she was a mere slip of a woman, her slender arms ably held her child. Leon embraced both of them tenderly, showering their faces with little kisses. Though he did not even know the gender of the child, which had been born while he was half a world away trying to kill an old white Englishman, Leon already he loved this baby. He vowed he would be as good a father as his father had been to him. He would teach the same lessons of defeat, humility, defiance and brutality. As his father died to fill his belly with food, so would Leon die to feed his child.
“Say hello to your son Sidney,” Jessamine announced proudly.
“Is he strong?” Leon examined the tiny hands and feet. Sidney’s hand reached out to clutch Leon’s little finger. “Yes, very strong.”
“You are lucky you weren’t here. I screamed my head off, calling you all sorts of names.”
“How did the Freeport hospital treat you?” he asked.
”I didn’t go to the hospital. Pooka delivered him.”
“Pooka! That old witch! I gave you money to go to the hospital.” He stroked the baby’s cheek. “Only the best for my child.”
“Pooka is not a witch,” Jessamine corrected him. “She is the high priestess of Obeah.” She pulled a wad of bills from her dress pocket. “And I still have the money.”
Leon looked deeply into her eyes. “Obeah is one of many religions created by our people brought here from Africa in chains. We don’t need that. We can take care of ourselves now.”
One of Leon’s earliest memories of toddling down the beach was a plump, beautiful baby in the arms of a woman his mother called Auntie Millie. Millie, who was Dorothy’s best friend, kneeled down so little Leon could see little Jessamine better. Even then he knew he would spend the rest of his life with her. Jessamine grew into a slender woman who was not afraid of hard work. She always had a song on her lips even when times were tough. She was a passionate lover. But she was not as smart nor as skeptical as his mother. She let Pooka fill her with lies and fears. What of that, Leon told himself, because Jessamine was the sum of his reason to live. He took Sidney into his arms. No, he corrected himself, Jessamine and Sidney were his reasons to live.
“Besides,” Jessamine continued, “Pooka said things would not go well for you on your trip.”
Leon held Sidney up so the baby could see his white linen suit. “Does it look like it didn’t go well? I was paid handsomely. I won’t have to work again for a long time.”
“But it didn’t go the way you expected, did it?”
“No, it didn’t but I was paid more than I thought.” He rubbed noses with his son.
“See, Pooka was right.”
“I am home. I am holding my son. My wife is healthy. I have money. Even my mother is having fun playing in the dirt. Do we have to talk about Pooka?”
The next morning Leon awoke, dressed casually in shirt and shorts and took a long walk along the beach. By the time he returned home for breakfast, he noticed the plant pot outside his front gate was askew. Another assignment, he thought. So soon? He smiled as he took the message out. Good. More money the better.
“Tonight, Rialto.”
Rialto was the most popular casino in Nassau. Leon had to leave now to reach Nassau by evening. That night when he walked into the casino in his new linen suit, Leon looked around, certain someone would make a sign. One black jack table was empty. A tall blonde in a tailored tuxedo coat and silk blouse sat in the dealer’s chair. She stared at Leon.
He sat at her table. The woman immediately dealt him a hand. When he picked it up Leon noticed a note was tapped to the ace of diamonds. Discreetly detaching it he slipped it into his trousers’ pocket. Leon pushed the cards back at her.
“Fold.”
She scowled. “Finish the damn hand, jerk.”
“Only if you smile for me.”
Parting her red lips, she revealed even white teeth. Leon also noticed she was much younger than the way she was dressed and wore makeup. She could not have been more than fourteen or sixteen, he decided, the same age when he had to grow up too fast. Not only did he finish the hand he also played three more games, losing all three pots but at least she smiled at him.
Leon took the midnight ferry back to Eleuthera. Sitting in a deck chair he pulled the note from his pocket to read it.
“Lobby of Plaza. Labor day.”
Leon knew of only one Plaza Hotel, and it was in New York City. His stay at home was being cut short. Wadding up the note, Leon tossed it into the midnight waters of the Caribbean.