"Heavens," I said, "what would Eleanor Smeal say?"

Suki shook her head. "I don't know Eleanor, but I know you, Chris, and I want to give you whatever you want."

"I can dig it," I said. "Just make me up a light a.s.sortment. I'll take the grapes with the skins."

Suki looked confused again for a moment, but she smiled right on through it and went to get me a plate. I had a second rum punch while I was waiting. The band began to play. Their first selection was a slightly overarranged version of Ricky Nelson's song "Garden Party." There was a good crowd around now. A lot of the people at the buffet table were women making up plates for men. Serving men was apparently not an exclusively oriental tradition.

Suki came back with my plate. She had quite carefully arranged a little of almost everything.

"Let's go to the veranda," she said, "and you can enjoy your meal."

"Sure," I said, and followed her as she carried the dinner plate ahead of me up onto the porch.

We sat together on a wicker love seat with a low table in front of us. The band had started to play "Sleepy Lagoon." Clearly they were working thematically. Suki offered me an oyster on a small fork. I ate it.

I said, "A bit more sauce on the next one, my dear."

"Certainly, kind master," she said, and smiled and put a little more c.o.c.ktail sauce on the next oyster. "I'm sorry we don't have any powdered horn."

"It's okay," I said. "I'll make do with oysters."

"Oh, Chris," she said. "So, are you married?"

I winked at her. "Of course not," I said. She smiled at me and put a shrimp in my mouth.

"I believe you," she said. "Which bungalow you in?"

"Over there," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don't know," Suki said. "In case I needed you later on, or"-she looked up at me as she put a piece of Jarlsberg cheese on a cracker-"you needed me."

"You been working here long?" I said. Suki slid the cracker and cheese between my lips as I asked her. I bit down on it and held it between my teeth and then lipped it in and chewed.

"I wouldn't call it work, Chris."

"Well, have you been playing here long?"

"Five years," Suki said. "Last May. Yearround. The weather is . : . well, you can't beat the weather."

"Sure can't," I said. "Is there wine?"

"Oh, Chris, I'm sorry," she said. "I'll get it. Red or white?"

"You choose, I want you to drink some too."

"Don't move," she said. "I'll be right back." She ran away toward the buffet table, smoothing her long black hair back from her forehead with both hands. All around me on the veranda were men being fed by women. Maybe the wine bottle would have a nipple on it. The trio began to play "In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening."

Suki came back with a carafe of white wine and two gla.s.ses. She poured one for me and then herself. She handed me mine and raised her gla.s.s at me.

"To love," she said.

"And l.u.s.t," I said. We clinked gla.s.ses and drank. Suki smiled at me, her eyes widened. "There's a difference?" she said.

"Not here," I said.

We both drank some wine. It was jug wine, served very cold.

"Ginger Buckey still around?" I said.

"You know Ginger?" Suki said.

"Sure," I said. "Who doesn't?"

"She never really worked here," Suki said. "She used to come down with Warren."

Suki had tucked her legs up under her on the love seat and was leaning against me, her head on my shoulder, looking up at my face as she talked. She drank her wine.

"I don't think she's been down since spring," she said.

I nodded and leaned forward and took a green grape from the plate and tucked it into her mouth.

"Now Chris is gonna feed Suki," she said. She had dropped her voice an octave and given it a slight purr. She took the grape in her mouth and sucked on it a little and rolled it around in her mouth. I think she was being seductive.

She chewed the grape and swallowed it. "What else you gonna feed me, Chris?" She had her winegla.s.s in her left hand. I raised it, hand and all, to her lips and tilted it. She drank.

"She was working in Boston," I said, "when she came down with Warren?"

"Uh huh. She's a nice kid. Got to know her a little in training, you know? All us girls go through training together, one month a year, off to school. Mr. Lehrnan makes sure of everything."

"Really," I said.

"Can Suki have another grape, Chris?"

I slipped one in her mouth. She ate it sensuously. The old suck-the-grape come-on.

"That's how I know her," I said. "I'm from Boston, but I'm trying to place Warren-tall, slim black guy, light skin?"

Suki laughed. "G.o.d, no," she said. "Warren's white, about sixty, he's like a banker or something." She dropped her voice. "Very important." She laughed again. "Ginger said he was kind of kinky but I used to wonder if he could get it up."

"Oh, that guy, yeah, I think I've seen him around the club in Boston, what the h.e.l.l is his name. Beatty? No, Burger?"

Suki said, "I never knew his last name."

"Wonder why they broke up," I said.

"I think they had a fight when they were down here. One day I noticed Warren went home without her."

"And she stayed?"

"No, she was gone too. I heard she took off with one of the musicians. Why? She know some tricks you think I don't know?"

"Naw, just asking. She was a good kid, and then I hadn't seen her in a while. I thought she'd moved down here."

"This isn't a move, Chris. Down here is a promotion."

"Upward and onward," I said.

25.

Suki and I danced a little on the broad veranda. It had verged into evening and the moon was out. On cue the band played "Blue Moon," "Moonglow," "Moonlight Becomes You," and were halfway into "Old Devil Moon" when Suki excused herself.

"Suki has to find the little girls' sandbox, Chris," she said.

"Hurry back," I said, c.o.c.king my head the way I was pretty sure Cary Grant did.

She disappeared into the Princedom. I had a thought. I walked over to the band and stood near them as they finished up "Old Devil Moon" with a big keyboard flourish.

"Before you guys break into "Moonlight Sonata," I said, "do you know Robert Rambeaux?"

"No, but hum a few bars and we'll fake it," the keyboard man said. He was a skinny black guy with a thin mustache. He liked his joke enough for a cool inward chuckle. The drummer did a soft rim shot.

"Everywhere I go," I said, "Henny Youngman. Didn't Rambeaux used to play down here?"

"Sure, man. Worked a lot of places on the island. Reed man."

"How come he left?"

"Woman trouble," the keyboard player said.

"Someone got pregnant?"

"Man, n.o.body gives a s.h.i.t about that anymore," he said. "Got tied up with one of the hostesses, went off with her. Left the client with his d.i.c.k in his hand, you know."

"That's old Robert," I said. "Always playing the wrong instrument. Was it Ginger?"

"That he run off with?" The keyboard player shrugged. "Got me, man, we gotta blow. Ain't time yet for a break."

I nodded. "What's next? 'How High the Moon'?"

The keyboard player grinned, nodded at the ba.s.sist, and launched into "Moon over Miami." I looked around. Suki was still busy in the little girls' sandbox. Seemed like a good time to boogie on out of the Crown Prince Club. So I did.

Driving back toward Frenchman's Reef I thought about Suki's feelings of rejection. Late in the evening without a client for the night. Probably too late to find another one, no tip tonight. She probably wouldn't have respected me in the morning anyway.

The roads on St. Thomas are narrow and they wind. The terrain is hilly and driving at night is slow. I got back to the hotel near midnight and went into the room. Susan was sitting up in bed reading Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas.

I made a V sign at her with the first two fingers of my right hand.

"Being trained in people skills, I perceive that you feel triumphant," Susan said.

"I'll say. I was hand-fed my supper by an adoring Eurasian cutie," I said, "who then t.i.tillated me by suggestively eating a grape."

Susan put her book facedown, open, on her lap.

"Well," she said, "no wonder you feel triumphant."

"Also I found out that Ginger came down here with a banker-type sixtyish white guy from Boston and left him here and took off with Robert Rambeaux."

"Ah ha," Susan said.

"You remember my mention of Rambeaux?"

"The New York pimp."

"You do listen," I said.

"It's my training," she said.

"As a shrink?"

"No, as a woman," Susan said. "Hard to overcome early habits."

"Should we order up room service?" I said. "You could feed me something."

I sat on the bed beside her. She had on a lacy-topped copper-colored nightgown.

"I feed your ego nearly every day," she said. "That's enough." She took my hand. "How'd you find all this stuff out?"

"I asked," I said. "And of course the virile power of my masculine self was enough to entrance Suki. She'd have told me anything I asked."

"Suki?" Susan said.

"Un huh. And asking the band about Rambeaux was just sort of an inspiration."

"Unconscious integration," Susan said.

"That too," I said. "Besides, Suki told me that Ginger took off with one of the musicians."

"So now what," Susan said.

"We'll go to New York and discuss this further with Rambeaux."

"We will? When will we?" Susan said. She had moved my hand between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and held it there.