Free Thai Horse by William Diehl Page A

the glass bottom and drank a lot of wine, and when she finally left the boat two days later, she knew nothing more about him than she had known when she came on board — except for his taste in furniture, clothes and art, all of which were impeccable — not what he did for a living or where he came from or what he had done before he came to the island or whether he had ever married, had children, was wanted by the police r was dying of an incurable disease. Now, nine months later, she still didn’t know. And she didn’t care. He was a tender lover, an experimenter, considerate, unhurried, aware of her wants, unthreatened, funny, and she responded in the same way. Sex had remained a joy rather than a task. He never showed anger, never judged anyone, and he treated her with uncommon respect. That was good enough for her.
    It was around noon when the Lear jet whistled over the island, banking sharply to the east, circling out over the Atlantic and sweeping back over the island a second time.
    Sloan studied the island as the pilot circled it. It was shaped like the island of Manhattan, but there the similarity ended. Ten miles long and barely two miles wide, it was little more than a thin strip of hard land surrounded on three sides by a sprawling marsh and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
    A tiny village squatted at the southern point of the island, its fishing pier pointing a hundred yards out into the ocean like a finger pointing toward Florida. A whitewashed old lighthouse seemed to guard the three-block- square shopping area, which was surrounded by moss- laden oak trees that hid most of the inland houses populating the south end. Weathered old homes of tabby and wood lined the ocean like sentinels, defying the unpredictable Atlantic.
    On its leeward side was a shopping center and a handsome new redwood marina, where several large yachts were moored among the smaller sailboats and fishing boats. A small jetport was located just north of the village, and north of it the upper half of the island was heavily forested and uninhabited - You could walk the inhabited part of the island in an hour, thought Sloan.
    A tall man slender as a reed and wearing a battered captain’s hat pulled up in the fuel truck as the Lear howled to a stop near the low-slung terminal.
    ‘Anyplace to get some good home cooking?’ Sloan asked, climbing out of the plane.
    The man, who seemed to be on about a ten-second delay, stared at him and then said, ‘Might try Birdie’s over in the village.’
    ‘Can I get a cab?’
    He thought about that for another ten seconds.
    ‘No cab out here.’
    ‘How can I get over there?’
    ‘Well,’ the man in the peaked cap said after some thought, ‘you can walk, takes ten or fifteen minutes.’ Another delay. ‘Or you can rent a car inside.’
    ‘Actually I’m looking for a friend o f mine. Maybe you know him — Christian Hatcher?’
    After half a minute: ‘Wouldn’t know.’
    ‘Birdie’s you say?’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    It was a beautiful day, the temperature in the eighties and a cool breeze hustling through the trees from the beach.
    ‘We’ll walk.’
    The island, a quaint bit of Americana worthy of a Rockwell painting, had changed little in twenty years. Its charm lured the big cruise ships from Miami and Charleston. They came once or twice a week, tied up at the pier and spent the night. The cruisers, as its passengers were called by locals, ambled down the fishing pier and checked out Tim’s gift store, pored over Nancy’s used books, stocked up on T-shirts and stuffed a ni mals at the Island Hop, got the latest magazines and paperbacks at Doc Bryant’s drugstore, had a drink at Murphy’s Tavern or homemade ice cream at Clifton’s an d then wandered off the Main Drag — the only drag, since the village was a single street a mere three blocks lo n g — and did some sightseeing. In that short main stretch, the cruisers could eat home cooking at Birdie’s, hamburgers at the Big T,