Summary
In the chiaroscuro of a city that never quite wakes, Lawler—a maestro of mendacity—conducts a symphony of blackmail, brandishing the phantom corpse of Yawkey like a conductor’s baton. Winton, a tycoon hollowed by guilt, believes the blood on his hands is real; Lawler turns that guilt into currency, demanding Josephine—Winton’s luminous, violin-playing daughter—as payment for silence. Enter Billy Mountain, a vengeful drifter cloaked in whiskers the color of storm clouds; he lures Lawler aboard a chromium-plated yacht that stinks of diesel and retribution. Josephine, caught between filial dread and the itch for autonomy, stows away as the vessel plunges toward a banana republic mid-upheaval—palms torched, cicadas screaming louder than mortars. On shore, Lawler slips his makeshift chains and dons a general’s epaulettes, while Billy, now allied with rag-tag revolutionaries, plots to unseat the president who bathes in marble while children sip muddy water. Cannonade at dawn: Billy is shackled before a stone wall, cigars passed among the firing squad; Josephine, draped in rebel burlap, prays to a god who seems to stream static. The twist arrives like a heat-stroke hallucination—Yawkey, sunburned and very alive, strides out of the jungle shadows, unraveling Lawler’s tapestry of lies. With the despot toppled, Billy and Josephine vanish into the smoke, clutching not certainty but each other, while the yacht drifts empty, a ghost on a blood-orange horizon.
Synopsis
Lawler, a dishonest promoter, has Winton in his power, the latter believing that he has killed Yawkey, Lawler's partner. For his silence, Lawler demands the hand of Winton's daughter Josephine. Meanwhile, Billy Mountain, a man whom Lawler has swindled, arrives and, disguised by a heavy beard, interests his old enemy in a proposition. He invites Lawler on his yacht and makes him a prisoner. Josephine, fearing that Lawler will expose her father, accompanies them when they sail for a South American country involved in a revolution. When they land, Josephine frees Lawler, who joins the forces of the government. Billy and his partner, allied with the revolutionaries, plan an attack on the president and his forces. In the battle, Billy is captured and sentenced to death, but when the tide turns in favor of the revolutionaries, he escapes. With the appearance of Yawkey, Josephine is freed from Lawler's power and begins life anew with Billy.
