Black Cake(31)

No one was more shocked than Pearl by the suddenness of what transpired soon after. At about four o’clock that afternoon, Clarence “Little Man” Henry, aged thirty-eight, ruthless moneylender and occasional murderer, stood up from the table where he and his new bride, Coventina “Dolphin” Lyncook, nearly eighteen, had been finishing their plates of rum cake, stumbled backward over his chair, and dropped dead on the white tile floor.

Pearl hurried across the room, trying to get to Covey. But when she reached the other side, Covey was gone.





Lin





“Mister Lyncook?”

Lin looked up. He hadn’t been called by his English surname in a long time. Most people still called him Lin, including the police officers who frequented his store. Only his woman and his schoolteachers had ever called him Johnny. But this evening, he was Mister Lyncook to everyone here. His daughter had gone missing and she was suspected of murder and the police were now deferring to protocol, including this young man who now approached him, followed by the police girl who, earlier, had gathered his daughter’s wedding gown from the sand where it lay and handed it to Lin, gently, as if it might break.

“We’re calling off the search for the night,” the policeman said. Lin knew this officer. He was Bunny’s older brother. Lin had gone to the cockfights with this man’s father. He had watched this young man grow up. This boy used to call him Mister Lin. This boy used to be as narrow as a river reed.

Lin looked down at Covey’s wedding dress, balled up in his arms. Lin had hoped that this would resolve everything, Covey’s marriage to a wealthy man, but Covey had accused him of selling her to Little Man to pay off his debts. And now this. His daughter, running away in the only way she knew how, toward the sea.

“Couldn’t you…?” Lin began. “Isn’t there…?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lyncook,” the policeman said. “Look at the sky.” Lin narrowed his eyes at the darkening canopy, listened to the thudding force of the waves as a storm moved in. Not even Covey could survive out there alone for very long. He kept telling himself it was too late, but what if it wasn’t? What if they were giving up too soon?

The policeman turned his back to the water and walked away, followed by Lin, who, dragging his shoes through the sand, head down, didn’t see two of Little Man’s thugs running toward him. Little Man Henry had been that powerful. His brother hadn’t hesitated to order an attack on Lin, not even with police officers present. It was a widely known secret that the police tolerated most of the Henry family’s illegal antics, anyway, helped along by strategically placed envelopes of cash. But this public ambush was going too far.

When the police pulled the thugs off Lin, he had only a couple of superficial cuts. But the officers didn’t lock up the hoodlums, they merely chased them off and warned them not to repeat their actions. Which, of course, Lin fully expected them to do. Lin retrieved his daughter’s wedding dress from the sand and shook it out. The rustling of the chiffon unleashed a faint scent of gardenia mixed with rum and sugar from the ceremonial cake. When her plate clattered to the floor, leaving a trail of cake and icing on her dress, Covey, like everyone else, must have been distracted by the bridegroom, who was on his feet, gagging and stumbling.

“She hated lilac,” Lin said out loud.

“Sorry, sir?” said the officer.

Lin shook his head and bundled up the dress again. Covey hated lilac and Pearl knew it, and yet Pearl had put lilac icing on the girl’s wedding cake. Lin looked back at the beach, now shrouded in twilight and storm clouds, and thought of where he’d seen Pearl earlier, standing just inland with a small group of onlookers near the pocked asphalt road that skirted the sand. They’d all been staring at the sea, leaning forward, as if willing it, like Lin, to send Covey back to them. But even Pearl had since abandoned her watch.

Pearl had spent more years with his daughter than the girl’s own mother had. She probably knew more about that girl than Lin himself did. And she cared for his daughter, he was sure of it. Lin thought of Pearl standing by the beach road, wiping her eyes with the hem of her skirt, and a disturbing idea began to pick at the edges of his mind.





Bunny





Bunny felt a spray of seawater on her face. Not a good sign, so far in from the breakers. She stood on the beach road with Pearl and the others, scanning the choppy waters of the bay for a sign of Covey. Bunny knew that even a strong swimmer could miscalculate. But even in her haste, Covey must have understood what kind of wind was blowing, what kind of sky was taking shape. Covey would know that she couldn’t stay out there for very long.

And now Bunny tried to imagine her friend’s calculations. How far along the coast could Covey get before having to come ashore again? The police would have thought of this too, of course, but they had already come back in. They’d already given up on Covey. They didn’t understand Covey, or the currents, the way Bunny did.

It had been calmer the other day, during their last swim together. They had pulled easily through the warm water, then sat on the sand to dry in the sun, licking the salt off their lips, braiding each other’s hair, saying nothing. There was nothing left to say, after their tearful discussions, after their what-ifs. Bunny’s heart had cracked a little every time Covey had whispered to her of her plans to follow Gibbs to England, but Bunny would have taken anything over this, this forced marriage to another man, this smothering of Covey’s dreams.