Somebody must’ve had one hell of a sense of humour, Edge thought. A statue of Lord Nelson – the first to be raised in the British Empire – stands guard at the top of Broad Street and the street where the whores hang out is called Nelson Street.

  He stopped at one of the bars near the top of the street. A group of men was leaning against the counter sharing a bottle of Old Brigand rum. Music came from a jukebox in the corner. Two boys in their early teens were playing with a video game machine near the far wall. The man behind the counter asked Edge what he could do for him. Edge told him he was looking for a girl named Broadway.

  “Comrade,” the man said. “Is rum I selling. Not woman.”

  “Stop giving the man a hard time, Gus.” It was one of the men with the Old Brigand.

  “It’s important,” Edge said.

  “Since when whores that important?” the man asked.

  “Try Nancy’s Parlour up the road, friend,” the other man said, and turned back to the rum.

  Edge told him thanks. The sun was down. A warm wind gusted in from the sea stirring the crowns of the giant coconut trees that towered above the buildings. A stereo system erupted up the street. Edge hummed a few bars of the calypso under his breath. A truck pulled up in front of him. The men on their way home from work in one of the quarries, by the look of them, jumped down and filed into one of the shops. He heard a man call for a bottle of Cockspur rum.

  A light was burning above the door to Nancy’s Parlour. A man and a woman stood just inside the doorway talking softly. They stepped back and let Edge through.

  The woman at the bar was reading a comic book. Four women and a man sat at a table near the window. Another man sat by himself in a corner drinking rum and coke. The woman put down the comic book and looked at Edge.

  “How’s Tarzan this evening?” he asked her.

  She laughed. A woman got up from the table and went to the jukebox and selected a booming hip-hop song, and went back to the group.

  “I only here passing the time here ‘til the people start coming,” the woman behind the bar said. “I take ‘way this thing from my son this morning. I ain’t able with Tarzan, nuh! I like my love stories.”

  “More fun than ape-men,” Edge said.

  “I don’t remember you in here before,” the woman said.

  “I really came looking for a woman named Broadway,” Edge said.

  “Let me see if she in,” the woman said. She left the room, and when she came back there was another woman with her. She had large breasts and narrow hips. She moved with the slow swaying gait of the female predator. Edge felt her sensuality reach out and pluck at him.

  “You want me?” she asked.

  Edge tapped the stool next to him. “Sit down,” he said.

  Her dress was already too short, and as she climbed on to the stool, it shot up around her hips. Edge saw long, firm legs and green lace panties.

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  “Drink?” Edge asked.

  “Vodka and orange juice,” she said.

  Edge ordered rum and coconut water for himself. The drinks came. He could see her studying him in the glass behind the bar.

  “Got a cigarette?”

  Edge shook his head.

  “Buy me a pack, honey.”

  The cigarettes came. Edge lit one for her. She pulled the smoke in and blew it at the ceiling.

  “You just killing time, or you looking for some action?” she asked him.

  “I came looking for action.”

  “Okay, let’s go then. I got a feeling this is going to be one of my busy nights.”

  Edge paid the bill.

  “Give the girl another twenty dollars,” Broadway said. “For the bed.”

  The woman took the money and put it in a tin and put the tin under the counter. Broadway linked her arm through Edge’s and walked him through the door marked ‘Private’. She pulled open a door halfway down the corridor, and went inside. The room had a bed, a chair, a washstand with a basin and a towel. Broadway stepped out of her slippers. She shrugged her shoulders twice and the dress fell to the floor. Her bra matched her panties and seemed insufficient for the job it was asked to do. She came over to Edge and rubbed against him. She stepped back and ran her hands down her ribs and rested them on her hips.

  She smiled at him. “Forty dollars,” she said. “Not that I don’t trust you. But a girl likes to be sure.”

  Edge gave her the money. She counted the money and put it on the chair. She walked over to Edge and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  “Now look,” Broadway said. “Don’t come on with that crap about what a girl like me doing in a place like this. I like what I do and I prefer to get paid for it.”

  “I know. I want to talk about Cedric.”

  Broadway sat down on the bed. “Oh him,” she said.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Are you a policeman?”

  “No. I’m just a man who needs help.”

  Her brows came together and the corners of her mouth drooped.

  “Cedric went to New York about six months ago,” she said. “He ain’t call or e-mail me since he get there.”

  “Did he tell you why he was going? Where did he get the money?”

  “You got to pay for that kind of information,” she said suddenly.

  Edge handed her twenty. She spread it down on the bed and smoothed it out with her fingers.

  “He used to be with something call the Columbus Club. I think he say the club was sending him.”

  “Did he say why the club was sending him?” Edge asked.

  “He say he was just going for a visit.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No, Cedric don’t talk much.”

  Broadway leaned back on the bed. She raised both legs in the air, and opened and shut them like a pair of shears.

  “That’s all the info I got,” she said. “Why not come over here and spend the rest of your money?”

  “Some other time perhaps,” Edge said.

  She drew her legs up. She crossed one knee over the other and her smile mocked him.

  She put on her clothes and switched off the light. “Come again when you are not on business,” she said.

  They went out through the door marked ‘Private’.

  A man pushed away from one of the tables and stood in front of Edge.

  “You overstayed,” the man said. “We don’t give it away for nothing.”

  “You’re in the way,” Edge said.

  “I see,” the man said. “One of the tough ones.” He looked over his shoulder. “The brother’s heavy,” he said to the men behind him. Just for that I’ll take all your cash and your watch.”

  Edge smiled at him. The man’s hand came out of his pocket with a cutthroat razor.

  “I’m goin’ cut them off of you, big man,” he said and went into a crouch.

  “So you’ve been watching the late show,” Edge said.

  Edge was smiling when he picked up a chair and broke it across the man’s back. The man dropped to his knees.

  Edge hit him again. The razor slipped from his fingers.

  Edge brought his heel down on it and it broke into little pieces. He turned to face the other men.

  “Anybody else?” he called softly.

  Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Edge dropped the piece of chair he was holding. He walked out the door and down the steps.

  The lights were on in Nelson Street. The night people were out. Men in skin-tight pants minced their way along the pavement. Women waited in doorways and near the mouths of dimly lit alleys, and others, younger, bolder, stalked the night like hunting leopards in mini-skirted packs.