Ferguson looked at his watch - his goddamned inexpensive Timex - and signalled the bartender to total his bill.
When the bartender did not come over in thirty seconds, Ferguson reached for the tab in front of him and turned it over. It was simple enough to add: a dollar and fifty cents, twice.
James Ferguson then did what he had never done in his life. He took out a five-dollar bill, crumpled it up in his hand, got off the bar stool, and threw the wadded bill towards the cash register several yards in front of him. The bill bounced off the bottles on the lighted shelf and arced to the floor.
He started for the entrance.
There was machismo in his gesture; that was the word, that was the feeling.
In twenty minutes, he would meet the emissary from Craft the Younger. Down off Harbour Street, near Parish Wharf, on Pier Number Six. The man would be obsequious - he had no choice - and give him an envelope containing one thousand dollars.
One thousand dollars.
In a single envelope; not saved in bits and pieces over months of budgeting, nor with the tentacles of Inland Revenue or debtors-past reaching out to cut it in half. It was his to do with as he pleased. To squander, to throw away on silly things, to pay a girl to get undressed and undress him and do things to him that were fantasies... only yesterday.
He had borrowed - taken a salary advance, actually - from McAuliff. Two hundred dollars. There was no reason to repay it. Not now. He would simply tell McAuliff... 'Alex'; from now on it would be 'Alex,' or perhaps 'Lex' - very informal, very sure... to deduct the silly money from his paycheque. All at once, it he felt like it. It was inconsequential; it didn't really matter.
And it certainly didn't, thought Ferguson.
Every month Arthur Craft would give him an envelope. The agreed-upon amount was a thousand dollars in each envelope, but that was subject to change. Related to the increased cost of living, as it were. Increased as his appetites and comforts increased.
Just the beginning.
Ferguson crossed St James Square and proceeded towards the waterfront. It was a warm night, with no breeze, and humid. Fat clouds, flying low and threatening rain, blocked the moon; the antiquated street lamps threw a subdued light in counterpoint to the gaudy neons of white and orange that announced the diversions of Montego Bay night life.
Ferguson reached Harbour Street and turned left. He stopped under a street lamp and checked his watch again. It was ten minutes past midnight; Craft had specified 12.15. In five minutes, he would have a thousand dollars.
Pier Six was directly ahead on his right, across the street. There was no ship in the dock, no activity within the huge loading area beyond the high linked fence; only a large naked bulb inside a wire casing that lit up the sign:
PIER SIX
HAMMOND LINES
He was to stand under the lamp, in front of the sign, and wait for a man to drive up in a Triumph sportscar. The man would ask him for identification. Ferguson would show him his passport and the man would give him the envelope.
So simple. The entire transaction would take less than thirty seconds. And change his life.
Craft had been stunned; speechless, actually, until he had found his voice and screamed a torrent of abuse... until, again, he realized the futility of his position. Craft the Younger had gone too far. He had broken laws and would be an object of scorn and embarrassment. James Ferguson could tell a story of airport meetings and luggage and telephone calls and industrial espionage... and promises.
Such promises.
But his silence could be purchased. Craft could buy his confidence for a first payment of one thousand dollars. If Craft did not care to do so, Ferguson was sure the Kingston authorities would display avid interest in the details of his story.
No, he had not spoken to anyone... yet. But things had been written down. (Lies Craft could not trace, of course.) That did not mean he was incapable of finding the spoken words; such capability was very much within his province... as the first payment was within Craft's province. One cancelled the other; which would it be?
And so it was.
Ferguson crossed Harbour Street and approached the wire-encased light and the sign. A block and a half away, crowds of tourists swelled into the street, a one-way flow towards the