Bad Monkey

It had happened on the road to the docks. The voodoo woman was drunk, slumped in her electric scooter chair and attended as usual by her murmuring matrons. At the sight of the monkey she began to keen, reaching for him with stained crooked fingers. Driggs yeeped and ducked behind Neville.

This rejection brought from the Dragon Queen a mortifying wail. Neville tried to dart past but she nimbly manipulated the joystick to keep the wheelchair in his path. She said Egg had gotten sick and she needed a new boyfriend, and she commanded Neville to come see her later for sex.

“You owe me, bey,” she said.

“Fuh wot I owe you?”

The Dragon Queen huffed. “Fuh dot woo-doo. Ha! You’ll see.” She held up a gold chain strung through a small, diamond-studded anchor. “Dis here fuh my lil’ pink boy.”

“No need, madam.”

“Take it, mon, ’less you hungry fuh pain.”

Neville was ashamed that he still feared her dark magic. He accepted the chain and handed it to Driggs, who began scratching at a scab with the prongs of the anchor charm. The Dragon Queen frowned and levered herself from the scooter. From the depths of her dress she produced a small meerschaum, which she waggled like a lollipop at Driggs.

“Don’t!” Neville warned, but the monkey wore a rictus leer as it flew toward the old woman’s ankles swinging the anchor necklace like a mace. She commenced a queer jig, kicking left and right at the frenetic creature while chanting in a voice as deep as pure evil.

Neville was not too preoccupied to notice Philip’s taxi van jouncing at a loose clip down the hill. He tackled Driggs and in a tangle they rolled clear. The Dragon Queen’s supplicants had also seen the speeding van and—rotund as they were—parted as fleetly as sparrows. Their excited shouts, loud enough for a tent revival, failed to pierce the voodoo woman’s boozy trance.

The taxi slammed hard into her bony frame as Philip stomped uselessly on the brake pedal. In a sinusoidal path the van petered on down the road. Through its punctured windshield jutted the Dragon Queen’s legs, her vivid raiments flapping like a broken beach umbrella. Terrified, Neville lowered a shoulder and barreled through her cow-like retinue, Driggs galloping after him.

Now they sat in the boat solemnly waiting for a fish to bite. On shore Rocky Town looked smaller than usual because half the lights were still out from the hurricane. As the tide rose, the current grew stronger and the ripples ticked against the bow. Neville’s rod bent, and he reeled in a good five-pound hogfish. He placed it inside a Styrofoam cooler, where it flapped loudly, startling Driggs. With a sigh the monkey pantomimed a pipe-smoking motion, which Neville ignored.

An hour passed without another nibble. Neville was preparing to move to a different spot when he heard high-powered engines. Initially he believed it was the Royal Defence Force patrol boat he’d seen earlier near the public wharf. Then he saw a bright light moving rapidly up the shoreline from Bannister Point—a foolhardy route in darkness across tricky water. The danger was grounding on the flats or smashing into a coral head. Nobody in the government fleet would make such a run, even with a spotlight.

Neville figured it must be drug smugglers, so he lay down flat on his seat. He groped for Driggs’s silhouette and pulled the monkey to his chest. The sound of the fast boat got louder and louder. Driggs smelled awful but Neville didn’t let go. He knew that his own small boat, with its low profile and dark hull, would be difficult to see on a starless night.

Abruptly the oncoming engines shut down. Neville waited a few minutes before peeking over the gunwale. Anchored on the edge of the shallows, perhaps two hundred yards away, was a sleek light-colored boat. Neville guessed the length at thirty-five, maybe thirty-six feet. It had a V-hull, three big outboards, and a pair of tall outriggers for trolling. The finish on the sides of the craft looked bright and new.

A faint light glowed in the cockpit, and Neville discerned movement—a hunched figure emptying a bucket over the transom again and again. There was no conversation rising from the deck and no two-way radio crackle, which seemed odd. Voices carried a long way across open water and, in Neville’s experience, dopers were always yakking to each other.

At Neville’s feet, Driggs issued a sequence of warning chirps. Neville hastily snatched up the monkey and held him over the side for a pee. It was a small milestone in Neville’s dogged campaign to house-break his unruly pet, and his hushed praise for Driggs was heartfelt. He set the animal in the bottom of his skiff and returned his attention to the gleaming boat across the channel, where there was finally noise.