As Barbara explains, it all has to do with Bermuda's status as one of the most densely populated places on the planet. As a result, no household can own more than one car. And foreign visitors are prohibited from obtaining a driver's license, which means they can neither rent cars nor borrow them from Bermudians.
"Which explains why all the tourists drive mopeds," I say.
"Exactly," says Barbara. "It also explains why King Edward Hospital is such a busy place. Something like forty tourist-on-moped accidents a week."
"That statistic courtesy of Aunt Trula?"
"No, right here," Barbara says, tapping the Royal Gazette. "There's a story about how the hospital is building a new orthopedic wing. Apparently it's boom time for broken bones in Bermuda, not something they advertise in the tourist brochures. Still, if you want to take your chances, Titi does have a couple of mopeds. She says you are welcome to borrow one of them."
"I told you she hated me."
"She doesn't hate you. It was just a prickly beginning," Barbara says. "Do you want to borrow a moped or not?"
"Guys like me don't do good on mopeds. Too much beef, not enough butt-rest. Plus, our knees stick out and wreak havoc with the aerodynamics," I say. "I think I'll pass."
"That's what I thought you'd say. So Titi went ahead and called for a driver. He'll take you wherever you need to go. And he'll be here any minute."
"That was nice of her."
Barbara smiles.
"She is nice. The two of you just got off on the wrong foot, that's all," Barbara says. "Once you've finished your business in Hamilton, she'd like you to join us for cocktails and dinner at the club."
"The club?"
"The Mid Ocean Club. It's down-island a bit, in Tucker's Town."
"Sounds uppity."
"Very uppity. Which is what makes it the institution that it is. Everyone who's anyone in Bermuda is a member, along with the likes of Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg ..."
"The mayor guy. New York, right?"
Barbara nods.
"Silvio Berlusconi ..."
"Who's she?"
"He. Former prime minister of Italy, media baron," she says. "And, of course, Michael and Catherine."
"As in Douglas and Zeta-Jones?"
"As in."
"And you're on a first-name basis."
"Oh, but of course." She laughs. "Actually, I vaguely remember Michael bouncing me on his lap when I was a little girl. His mother was a Dill. They go way back here. She and Titi are friends."
"Well, I hope the Mid Ocean Club will let the likes of me through the door."
"On good looks alone," says Barbara.
"Still, I'll need to make myself presentable."
"In an old-line clubby kind of way."
"Which presents a problem," I say. "The last time I saw my blazer, it was taking a boat ride."
"You left it on that poor man's body yesterday?"
"Didn't seem right to take it off."
"And you don't have any intention of trying to get it back?"
"Would you?"
"Omigod, no. Just the thought ..."
"I'll pick up a new one while I'm in Hamilton," I say.
"Try A. S. Cooper, on Front Street, right across from the ferry terminal. While you're there you can try on some Bermuda shorts."
A good thing she smirks when she says it.
"Do guys actually wear those things here?"
"Oh yes, they get quite outfitty with them. Socks that match the shorts, with suit coats to go with it. You'll see."
"I'll try not to snicker."
One of the butlers appears in the doorway to the alcove.
"Your car is here, sir," he says.
"Be right there," I tell him.
I get up from the table. I give Barbara a hug.
"Titi would like for you to meet us at six o'clock," she says. "And please, Zack, do give her another chance."
"You can count on me," I say. "I'm all about the three P's: punctual, properly attired, and polite as all hell."
"So pucker up," Barbara says.
And she kisses me good-bye.
9.
The driver is fiftyish, a thickset guy almost as tall as me, with just a smudge of a mustache, a dab of gray against brown skin. He stands by a white minivan. A magnetic sign on the side of it reads: J.J.'s CAR SERVICE: TOURS, AIRPORT, DAILY/HOURLY.
He holds the sliding door open for me.
"I'll ride up front with you," I say.
I climb in and he climbs in and we are off.
"Are you J.J.?"
"Yes, sir," he says. "John Johnson."
I stick out a hand. He shakes it. I tell him where I need to go and how long I think I might need to be there.
"How much?"
J.J. shakes his head.
"Taken care of," he says.
"What you mean taken care of?"
"Mrs. Ambister, she's taking care of it."
"I'd rather handle it myself," I say.
J.J. cuts his eyes my way.
"Then you tell her that," he says.
J.J. and I are obviously on the same page regarding dear old Titi.
He turns onto the road to Hamilton.
"First time to Bermuda?"
"It is," I say.
"You want me to give the tour talk, or you want to ride in quiet?"
"The tour talk cost more?"
"Oh, I might add on a dollar or two."
"Which you will no doubt charge to Mrs. Ambister?"
J.J. nods.
"Talk away," I say.
On the twenty-minute drive to Hamilton, I get a crash course in all things Bermudian. How Bermuda is not just one island, as many think, but 120-some-odd islands, with the main dozen or so connected by bridges and causeways. How there were no indigenous people living here when the first settlers arrived, quite involuntarily, aboard the British ship Sea Venture, which crashed on the reefs in 1609 on its way to Jamestown, Virginia. And how there are thought to be at least another three hundred shipwrecks on the reefs encircling Bermuda, maybe even more.
We pull off near the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and get out so J.J. can show me a roadside marker.
It reads: On this spot her majesty Queen Elizabeth II paused for a while to admire the view. Wednesday the 24th of November 1953.
It's a nice view-a hillside filled with pretty houses sloping to Hamilton Harbour. If I had a Post-it Note I'd stick it on the marker with the message: "His Ownself Zack Chasteen admired it, too."
We get back in the car and I tune J.J. in and out, absorbed by the scenery. Sherbet-colored houses topped off by whitewashed, terraced roofs. Hand-laid stone walls, pocket-size vegetable plots, manicured boxwood hedges, gardens wildly abloom. And a beguiling assortment of street names, each of which seems to suggest its own story: Controversy Lane, Buggy Whip Hill, Ducks Puddle Drive, Featherbed Alley, and, my favorite, Pie Crust Place.
It's as if Bermuda is populated by a happy tribe of really well-to-do Hobbits, cozy and content and given only to the pursuit of pleasurable things. It is all just so goddamn charming.
And then, as we squeeze into a roundabout and merge with the traffic of downtown Hamilton, J.J. yanks me out of that happy reverie.
"So you saw the body, huh?"
I look at him.
He says, "I heard it was you found it and called the police."
"Yeah, something like that."
"That true about the eyes, how they'd been pulled out?"
"Where did you hear that? It wasn't in the paper."
"Small place. Everyone's heard by now," he says. "It true?"
"Yeah, the guy's eyes were gone."
J.J. lets out air, shakes his head.
"Man, oh man," he says. "Just like before."
"What do you mean like before?"
J.J. looks at me, then back at the road. He adjusts his hands on the wheel.
"Must have been six or seven years ago," he says. "They found two bodies, a couple of scuba divers, washed up like that one you found. Eyes in them were missing, too."
"Who were they?"