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"Uh - near Jamaica, off Montego Bay - not quite a week ago!"
Shandy flung him away, turned on his heel and sprinted toward the shore. "Skank!" he yelled. "Skank, dammit, where - there you are. Come here!"
The young ex-pirate trotted up to him uncertainly. "What's up, Jack?"
"The Jenny's leaving today, this afternoon. Get all the men you can - and provisions - and get aboard her.">Most of the people bustling through the plaza were black, and several times as Shandy made his way toward the official-looking buildings on the far side, he was courteously greeted with, "Bon jou', blanc." Good day, white. He nodded politely each time, and once, when a young black man muttered to a companion a quick joke in half-Dahomey patois about Shandy's discreditable shirt cuffs, he was able to quote back, in the same patois, a marron proverb to the effect that any sort of cuffs, or none at all, were preferable to iron ones. The young man laughed, but stared curiously after Shandy, and he realized he would have to watch himself here. This was civilization, not New Providence Island.
Wary of any kind of law enforcement officers - for it was possible that the English authorities had told the French about the John Chandagnac who had assisted in the total destruction of a Royal Navy man-of-war less than a month ago - Shandy asked a merchant where he should go to settle questions about deeds and titles to local property, and he was directed to one of the government offices right on the plaza.
Yes, he thought as he strode across to the place, first I'll find out where the old homestead is, and go pay Uncle Sebastian a visit. No need to let him know right away who I am, though I will definitely want to do that pretty soon.
The interior of the building looked like any European office - several white men working at high writing stands, leather-bound ledgers along one wall - but the tropical breeze swaying the lace curtains in the tall windows undid the illusion, and the clink of pen-nib in inkwell, and then the scratch of the nib on paper, seemed as incongruous here as would the cry of a parrot in Threadneedle Street.
One of the clerks looked up when Shandy entered. "Yes?"
"Good day," said Shandy, trying for the first time in two months to speak pure French. "I have a question about the, uh, Chandagnac estate - "
"Are you another of the employees? There is nothing we here can do to help you get your back wages."
"No, I'm not an employee." Shandy summoned up his best Parisian accent. "I have a question about - the title to the house and land."
"Ah, I see, you are another creditor. Well, as I understand it, everything was sold; but of course you will want to talk to the executor of the estate."
"Executor?" Shandy's stomach went cold. "Is he - is Sebastian Chandagnac dead?"
"You did not know? I am sorry. Yes, he committed suicide some time Wednesday night. His - "
"This last Wednesday?" Shandy interrupted, fighting to keep from shouting. "Three days ago?"
"Yes. His body was found on Thursday morning by the housekeeper." The clerk shrugged. "Business reversals, it seems. They say he had to sell everything, and still left behind many debts."
Shandy's face felt numb, as if he'd had too much to drink. "I ... heard that he was a ... speculator."
"Exactly, m'sieu'."
"This executor. Where would I find him?"
"At this hour he will probably be having brandy on the terrace below Vigneron's. He is a small man, somewhat bucktoothed. His name is Lapin, Georges Lapin."
Shandy found Mr. Lapin at a table overlooking the crowded harbor, and from the number of saucers in front of him he guessed he'd been there quite awhile.
The smaller man started violently when he saw him, then apologized and accepted Shandy's offer to buy him another brandy.
"You are the executor, I understand, of the Chandagnac estate," began Shandy when he'd pulled out a chair for himself and sat down. "Uh, two brandies, please," he added to the steward who had half-suspiciously followed him to Lapin's table.
"You are of Sebastian's family," said Lapin with certainty.
" ... Yes," Shandy admitted.
"There is resemblance - for one instant I thought you were him." He sighed. "Executor, yes, that is me. Though as it happens there is nothing to execute - eh? - and all I am doing is pointing various creditors at one another so that they may fight. Unknown to any of us his friends, Sebastian had destituted himself." He picked up his brandy as soon as the steward set it down, and he drained it at a gulp as if in illustration of Sebastian Chandagnac's profligacy.
"One more for Mr. Lapin, please," Shandy told the steward. Turning back to Lapin he asked, "And he's dead? Certainly?"
"I saw the body myself, M'sieur Chandagnac. How odd it is to call someone else that! He had no other surviving family here, you know. Yes, he primed a blunderbuss pistol and then loaded it with all his remaining gold and jewelry." Lapin held out his two hands cupped together. "Not much as a fortune, but as a load of shot it was kingly. And then he raised the gun so that the bell muzzle was a foot away from his face, took one last look, we may suppose, at what remained of his fortune, and then sent that fortune into his brain! Ah, it was poetical, in a way. Though messy in a pragmatic sense, of course - virtually the entirety of his head wound up in the garden below his bedchamber window. Poor Sebastian! - I am certain the local gendarmerie made off with most of the ... ammunition."
Then Shandy remembered where he'd heard the name Lapin - Skank had said that the big dealers with pirates on Haiti were "Lapin and Shander-knack." And you're right, Skank, Shandy thought now - he does look like a rabbit.
"I suppose I can see why they made it look like suicide," Shandy said ruminatively.
