David, Wallis and the Mercenary Chapter Ninety-Five

Previously: Mercenary Leon meets MI6 spies David, the Prince of Wales and socialite Wallis Spencer. David becomes king then abdicates to marry Wallis. He becomes Bahamas governor. Leon dies and his son Sidney becomes a mercenary. David hires him as his valet. Sidney begins affair with another mercenary Aline. He learns Aline killed his father because her boss Harry bungled the orders.
Sidney waited a moment before entering Harry’s room. From his hiding place he could hear both men, Harry and Harold, stumble around taking their clothes off and brushing their teeth. Soon loud snoring came from both rooms. Pooka’s voice echoed in his head. When his father was away on one of his missions, the Obeah priestess would share with him secret rituals of the old tribal religion. If you wanted to doom a man’s soul to hell, kill him with an object which he held dear. That would be Harry’s miner’s pick. To make sure he suffered for his sins, Pooka added, mutilate the most offensive parts of his body. Sidney already decided which parts of Harry’s body were most offensive.
The snoring settled into a low purr, as though the two men had descended into the deepest levels of sleep. Sidney slipped from the folds of the curtain, carefully slithered through the door and prowled like a panther to Harry’s bedside where he pulled back the sheer netting.
Harry sprawled over the bed on his back, naked and without even a sheet over him. Not wasting a second, Sidney placed one hand over the old man’s mouth and twisted his head to expose its back. With his other hand Sidney plunged the miner’s pick down several times until brain matter fell to the pillow.
Putting away the spike, Sidney pulled out a cigarette lighter from his pocket and reached for the insecticide pump spray can on the bed stand. First he sprayed Harry’s eyes—the eyes that only saw gold—then he sprayed his open mouth, deep down into his throat—so he couldn’t tell lies anymore. Last, Sidney sprayed a large amount of insecticide on the dead man’s crotch—so he could never defile another woman. Once he was sure the insecticide had soaked in, Sidney flicked the lighter and lit the eyes, mouth and crotch, each flaming up but not enough to reach the netting.. Sidney ripped open Harry’s pillow and grabbed handfuls of duck down to toss over his body. The overhead fan kept them floating above the pillaged body, a sign Obeah had been there.
The entire operation took only a couple of minutes, and Sidney was out of the room, through the window and sprinting back to the center of Nassau and Aline’s apartment. When he arrived, he noticed the dead flowers were waiting for him.
Sidney knocked on the door. He heard her voice.
“Come in.”
Entering, he removed his cap and put it in his bag which he placed on the floor. He tried to smile at Aline to set her at ease, but he couldn’t.
“Is it done?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Good.” Naked, she stood and went to him. “Your payment should arrive in a few days.” Aline put her arms around his waist. “You can pick it up here.” She tried to kiss him but he pulled back.
“Have you ever made love in the waves along the beach?”
She frowned. “What an odd thing to say. We could be caught.”
Sidney picked up her robe from a nearby chair and put it on her. “It’s after midnight. No one will see us.”
“It’s about to storm. We could be struck by lightning.”
He lifted his bag with one hand while tugging her toward the door with the other. “That’s why we should go now.”
“No.” She pulled back. “What’s wrong with my bed? You’ve never complained about it before.”
Tightening his grip, Sidney pulled her outside. “It’s boring. I want us to do something we’ve never done before.”
They were halfway down the street with Aline struggling against Sidney’s strong grip. “If you don’t stop right now I’ll scream,” she hissed.
“What? And have the police find us?” He kept walking toward the nearby west beach of Nassau. “What a fine story we could tell. For a change let’s tell the truth. We’re both cold-blooded murderers and deserve to die. But not before revealing everything we know about this organization who owns us.”
“No one will believe you.” Aline was on the verge of tears.
“I don’t care.” He walked faster, causing her to trip over her feet, fall and struggle back up. “One thing I’ve learned about the organization that my father didn’t teach me. Once you agree to work for it, you are officially dead already. Nothing else matters.”
“My God, you’ve gone insane,” she whispered. “Merigny will understand. He’s a new generation for the organization. He will take care of you. I know he will.”
They climbed a dune and descended onto the west beach. He dropped his bag and kept walking to the surf.
“Not here.” Desperation choked Aline’s voice. “No one swims here. The riptide is too strong.”
“Don’t believe everything people tell you.” He yanked her closer to him. “One time someone told me they tried to keep my father from being murdered. Turned out that person was the one who killed him.”
“Who told you that?”
“You did.”
“I’d never say anything like that.”
“You talk in your sleep.”
They reached the ocean’s edge, but Sidney continued his march. “We are here. It should be electrifying, thrilling, something we’ve never done before.” Throwing her around in front of him, he kept pushing further into the ocean.
“Stop! I feel the under tow already!”
“Good.” He took several more steps until he saw her feet fling straight out from under her.
“Please! Don’t! I love you!”
“You told me you didn’t love me.”
“Oh my God! Don’t let me go!”
He looked up in the sky as it began to rumble. “It’s going to rain soon. Thunder too. And lightning.”
“No! No!” Aline tried to grab further up his arms to pull herself out, but she slipped back on the soaked sweater. She lunged to wrap her arms around his neck, but he pushed her away.
Sidney let go of her hands. Aline screamed which allowed the salty water to flood into her mouth. Her eyes bulged and turned red. She let out a huge cough, spewing spit mixed with foamy seawater just as she disappeared under the waves. With luck, Sidney thought, her body would never be found. Some shark might eat her. Maybe she would wash ashore and become another alleged mob victim. At any rate, she would no longer be his problem. He turned and ploughed through the choppy water, retrieved his bag and walked back to the Governor’s Palace. Rain pelted his back. Sidney saw a flash around him and heard a clash. He knew he was getting home just in time.
In the morning Sidney bathed, groomed and put on his valet’s uniform. He was ready for a new day. Hearing a knock at the door, he opened it to find a maid.
“The police just came to speak to the governor and his wife,” the woman whispered. “They both want you in the breakfast room.”
I know what they want to tell me. Harry is dead. They know I’m familiar with Obeah. They think I can explain all the symbolism. I will, with pleasure.
When Sidney arrived in the breakfast room, he saw the Duke was grim and the Duchess distraught.
“Sidney,” the Duke said, “We have some dreadful news. Harry Oakes was murdered last night.”
“And that lovely girl Aline—you know, his assistant,” the Duchess said through her sniffles, “washed ashore several miles down the beach. She’s dead too.”
“You remember her, don’t you Sidney?” the Duke asked.
“Vaguely,” he lied.
The police captain cleared his throat. “Mr. Oakes’s friend and business partner Mr. Harold Christie found the body when he awoke when the thunderstorm passed over. He called us immediately. Mr. Oakes’ head had been bashed in, then his eyes, mouth and another part of his body were burned. Curiously, Mr. Christie found feathers floating over the body, evidently kept in the air by the ceiling fan over the bed.” He paused a moment as the Duchess openly wept again. “Since Mr. Christie was the only other person in the house, we naturally are focusing on him.”
The Duke looked at Sidney. “I recall that you told me once you are familiar with the Obeah religion because you grew up on Eleuthera. Some of these things sound ritualistic. What do you think?”
“Yes, I am very familiar with their customs,” he replied. “My father discouraged my interest in it because he was of the Christian faith, as am I. The burning of parts of the body cleanses it from their sins. His eyes were burned out because of things he saw. His mouth and tongue were burned because of things he said. The floating feathers revealed Obeah was there.”
“Do you think Mr. Christie would know about these rituals?”
“It’s hard to say. If he were close to an employee who practiced Obeah he could have talked about the religion.”
“Even here, in metropolitan Nassau?” the captain asked.
“Obeah is everywhere in the Bahamas. The natives are everywhere.” Sidney clinched his jaw.
“Since Mr. Christie was the only other person in the house at the time of the murder, we must concentrate on him,” the captain continued. “Your Highness, do you know of any motive Mr. Christie would have for killing Mr. Oakes?”
“Nothing but hearsay,” he replied, “nothing that would stand up in court.”
“That’s true, but hearsay can lead to credible evidence.”
The Duke cleared his throat. “I’ve heard rumors that Mr. Christie was pocketing money from the airfield project. If Mr. Oakes found out—“
“What about that lovely girl, his assistant, doesn’t anyone care about who killed her?” the Duchess interrupted the Duke.
“One investigation at a time, my dear lady,” the captain replied with an air of condescension
“You’re so incompetent you can handle just one case at a time?” The Duchess’ eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered.
“Sidney, will you please escort Wallis to her bedroom?” the Duke asked. “I’m afraid all this is too much for her.”
“Madame.” Sidney’s voice was gentle.
As they walked down the hall, he felt her tiny body tremble. Without thinking, he put his arm around her, and she leaned in to him.
She shook her head and announced in a voice Sidney could hardly hear, “I’ll never love another woman again.”
He thought it best to pretend he didn’t hear her.
I agree. I will never love another woman again either. At least not on the level of souls melding together. If I am to maintain my sanity, I must remember my father’s command—You must fill the bellies of your family. The Duke and Duchess are my family. Jimbo and Gertie are my family

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