Limekiller!

There were a number of North Americans down there in old British Hidalgo, down there on the boggy barm and brink, the soggy margin, of the Carib Sea: and some were very good people and some were not and most of them were variously in between. This is of course true of most people in most places, Truisms are called them because they tend to be true. And one of these North Americans was Alex Brant, and Limekiller had known him for quite a while. Had they first met in the Pelican Bar? Or in Reuben Swift’s boatyard? And if in the Pelican Bar, adjacent and adjunct to the Hotel of the same name, had they been waiting for a drink? Or for a woman? Because they had met, and not just once and again, in both those places. And in others. Someone had summed Alex up as being “slim, muscular, and nervous”; like all summings-up, it left much unsummed. Sometimes he had a moustache or a beard or both. Sometimes he had not. He had formerly lived in another Commonwealth Country, on an island thereof, which he persistently, and, it may be, a trifle bitterly, referred to as “Great Exzema.” Had Limekiller himself been asked to sum up his friend, it would have been at greater length, and somewhat as follows:

“Is currently running a small plantation but on occasion acts as a ‘White Hunter’ or maybe he is not now running a plantation but maybe it’s chicle time and he is a chicle buyer… or buying crown gum, which Wrigley’s will not take but will be taken by Third World markets which don’t care about any difference but price. Brant buys tortoise-shell, too. Sponges. When available. Exports orchids. At times. Has a small distillery and when sugar is cheap, makes cheap-cheap rum. Sometimes takes boat charters, or he sometimes may plant rice. - Doesn’t ha ha hunt Whites, hunts tigers.; not his fault that the local jaguar is locally called a tiger, always explains the critter has spots not stripes; still, the very name, you know. Well. Tiger hunts as run by Alex Brant in these 1960s are $1,500 for ten days, kill guaranteed or money back; if an early kill leaves days unused, will run wild hog hunt if desired, at no extra cost. Sometimes runs boat charter. Lost his ass once in an inter-island cargo schooner and doesn’t like to get that tied up (or down) since that time. Will mate with White women or Brown, Black, or Brindle. Smuggling? A wry grimace. Spent seven months in a Spanish-speaking jail once for that; took him seventeen months to recover. Has been All Around, but prefers British Hidalgo because, well, ‘it’s too poor to be too much corrupted, small enough to put your arms around, just big enough to keep you from getting claustrophobic. Unspoiled? — yes, well — Great Salt Cave is unspoiled, too, but there’s nothing there worth spoiling, damnit.’

“Trustworthy? As a friend? Certainty. As a businessman? Not necessarily. As company? Always good company.’’

Alex Brant.

The party had been a rather crowded one, but, then, in British Hidalgo, all parties were by7 definition crowded ones. According to the Nationals, a party7 couldn’t be too crowded. Of course, not everyone in the Emerging Nation was a National thereof, and so not everyone down there felt accordingly.

“Do you remember, Jack,” Alex asked, “that New Year’s Eve, we go to that place and she comes out on the verandah as we’re coming up the steps and she says to y" ou, ‘Em sorry, but we’re quite full up here, and besides, these are your guests, not mine,’ and with that she turns around and goes back inside again, eh?”

Jack said that he remembered. “She only invited me because I was wearing a necktie and I was only" wearing a necktie because I’d been to see the bank manager — didn’t help — and I suppose she found out.”

Felix, sipping her rum-and-Coke, asked, “Who was she?”

Alex said, “Lady Bumtrinket.”

“ What?”

“Not her real name,” said Jack. Sipping his. “Close, though.”

“Cecilie, anyway. Wife of the Commonwealth Com Commissioner, or something like that. They didn’t stay down here long.”

“Pit-ty!”

The record player was blaring out the latest hit, hot from Jamaica, where they liked it hot, I Am Not A Qualified Physician, So I Don’t Like To Give De Decision. Some of the guests were dancing while they were drinking and some were drinking while they were dancing. And some were standing around and -

“Can I get you anything from the buffet, Felix?” asked Alex. “It’s just loaded with fashionable munchies, and not a local item among them.”

“Well —”

“Imported potted meat product and byproduct, white bread sandwich, with the bread crusts carefully cut off, London style? Salad of imported Republic of Nueva Cartagena cabbage with imported Heinz Salad Cream and imported tinned peas? Some imported sweet-and-soggy biscuits? (‘Crackers,’ we call them.)”