Anansi Boys

Rosie fumbled in the darkness for the juice carton, passed it to her mother. She heard the sound of drinking, then her mother said, “The animal will not be the one that kills us. He will.”

“Grahame Coats. Yes.”

“He’s a bad man. There is something riding him, like a horse, but he would be a bad horse, and he is a bad man.”

Rosie reached out and held her mother’s bony hand in her own. She didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything much to say.

“You know,” said her mother, after a while, “I’m very proud of you. You were a good daughter.”

“Oh,” said Rosie. The idea of not being a disappointment to her mother was a new one, and something about which she was not sure she how she felt.

“Maybe you should have married Fat Charlie,” said her mother. “Then we wouldn’t be here.”

“No,” said Rosie. “I should never have married Fat Charlie. I don’t love Fat Charlie. So you weren’t entirely wrong.”

They heard a door slam upstairs.

“He’s gone out,” said Rosie. “Quick. While he’s out. Dig a tunnel.” First she began to giggle, and then she began to cry.

FAT CHARLIE WAS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT DAISY WAS doing on the island. Daisy was trying, equally as hard, to understand what Fat Charlie was doing on the island. Neither of them was having much success. A singer in a long, red, slinky dress, who was too good for a little hotel restaurant’s Friday Night Fun, was up on the little dais at the end of the room singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

Daisy said, “You’re looking for the lady who lived next door when you were a little boy, because she may be able to help you find your brother.”

“I was given a feather. If she’s still got it, I may be able to exchange it for my brother. It’s worth a try.”

She blinked slowly, thoughtfully, entirely unimpressed, and picked at her salad.

Fat Charlie said, “Well, you’re here because you think that Grahame Coats came here after he killed Maeve Livingstone. But you’re not here as a cop. You just powered in under your own steam on the off-chance that he’s here. And if he is here, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

Daisy licked a fleck of tomato seed from the corner of her lips, and looked uncomfortable. “I’m not here as a police officer,” she said. “I’m here as a tourist.”

“But you just walked off the job and came here after him. They could probably send you to prison for that, or something.”

“Then,” she said, drily, “it’s a good thing that Saint Andrews doesn’t have any extradition treaties, isn’t it?”

Under his breath Fat Charlie said, “Oh God.”

The reason Fat Charlie said “Oh God,” was because the singer had left the stage and was now starting to walk around the restaurant with a radio microphone. Right now, she was asking two German tourists where they were from.

“Why would he come here?” asked Fat Charlie.

“Confidential banking. Cheap property. No extradition treaties. Maybe he really likes citrus fruit.”

“I spent two years terrified of that man,” said Fat Charlie. “I’m going to get some more of that fish-and-green-banana thing. You coming?”

“I’m fine,” said Daisy. “I want to leave room for dessert.”

Fat Charlie walked over to the buffet, going the long way around to avoid catching the singer’s eye. She was very beautiful, and

her red sequined dress caught the light and glittered as she moved. She was better than the band. He wished she’d go back onto the little stage and keep singing her standards—he had enjoyed her “Night and Day” and a peculiarly soulful “Spoonful of Sugar”—and stop interacting with the diners. Or at least, stop talking to people on his side of the room.

He piled his plate high with more of the things he had liked the first time. The thing about bicycling around the island, he thought, was that it gave you an appetite.

When he returned to his table, Grahame Coats, with something vaguely beardish growing on the lower part of his face, was sitting next to Daisy, and he was grinning like a weasel on speed. “Fat Charlie,” said Grahame Coats, and he chuckled uncomfortably. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I come looking for you here, for a little tête-à-tête, and what do I find as a bonus? This glamorous little police officer. Please, sit down over there and try not to make a scene.”

Fat Charlie stood like a waxwork.

“Sit down,” repeated Grahame Coats. “I have a gun pressed against Miss Day’s stomach.”