by Fred Galvin
Chapter 6: “Hello Mama.”
As we drove back toward the coast I noticed an impressive sign directing drivers to the Montego Bay Yacht Club. She nodded at the sign. “There, that’s where you will be staying.”
“I’m staying on a yacht?”
“Not exactly. We have a small office for our charter business and Roje keeps the Sea Nymph there.”
“So … I’m staying on the Sea Nymph …”
Ronnie showed a little impatience with my childishness. You’d think she’d know better by now. “No, Dan.” (pause while she regathered her patience) “You’re not staying on a yacht nor are you staying on the Sea Nymph; maybe you will one night while we’re out at sea if that is your desire and Roje agrees, but we have more comfortable accommodations ready for you.”
My turn for a smirk. She caught it and slapped me on the knee. We drove on and crossed a narrow spit of land between two bays. I saw two dolphins (I think they were dolphins, maybe whales, not many of either one of those in the East River). We passed the Montego Bay Yacht Club with its signal flags flying from the “ship’s mast” at its gate.
“Does every yacht club in the world have an entrance like that? It seems like every one I’ve ever seen looks like that, a ship’s mast and flags flying in the wind. Do the flags say anything?”
Ronnie grinned. “Yes, Dan. They say, ‘Welcome to Jamaica, Mr. Case.’”
Eyebrows raised, the gullible idiot (me) asked incredulously, “They do? Really?”
“No, not really. So I guess you don’t spend much time at yacht clubs.”
My witty comeback was something like, “Be quiet and take me to my more comfortable accommodations please.”
Snapping a smart salute, “Aye aye, sir.” She drove another minute past resorts on both sides of the road and pulled into a small parking lot in front of a modest one story building. It housed two businesses, had a thatched roof, and was brightly colored, half in deep green and the other half in sky blue. The deep green side had a sign above the door which read Flip Flop Lounge and the sky blue half housed the office of Deveaux Charter Services. A Land Rover and another Jeep were parked in front next to where Ronnie had pulled in.
“Here we are.”
“Uhh, where we are? The Flip Flop Lounge? I thought you were taking me to my accommodations.”
Ronnie climbed down from the Jeep and grabbed my duffel. “Come with me, Mr. Case.” She led me around the back where there was another building, obviously a residence. It had a front porch and looked neat and tidy. As we approached, the front door opened. Out of the door stepped a woman of such elegant beauty that I stopped in my tracks. If there is such a thing as a “classic alluring Jamaican woman” I was looking at her. Her jet black hair showed wisps of silver. Her cocoa colored skin over high cheekbones looked to be as smooth as silk yet with subtle lines and shallow wrinkles. She had full lips with a hint of red, and deep black pools for eyes that somehow peered through me. She seemed to be about my age yet somehow she also looked to be years younger.
She carried herself as if not even standing on the ground but hovering inches above it. There was something familiar about her but, of course, I knew I had never seen her before. She looked at me as if sizing me up to determine if I would fit into her oven. Then she smiled a smile that I could only describe as radiant. Incongruously, she held out her arms seemingly beckoning me into them. I froze, which was fortunate, because before I could make an idiot out of myself Ronnie stepped forward into her arms and they hugged.
“Hello Mama.” Then turning to me, “I’d like you to meet someone.”
Mama?? Ah, now I understood the familiarity. This radiant woman was Ronnie’s mother. The eyes, the smile, the cheekbones, the air of confidence, now I understood a little more about my mystical former partner, a small crack in the armor, a peak behind the curtain.
While I stood there like a stupid kid with my feet frozen in the ground, Ronnie turned to me. “Mama, this is Dan Deckler from New York. Dan, this is my mother, Delyse Deveaux.” She pronounced the name Del-EEZE with the accent on EEZE.
I managed to step forward extending my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Deveaux.”
To my dismay, she did not take my hand. Instead she stuck out her right hip with her right hand firmly placed on it and looked at Ronnie. They both started laughing. Then she looked at me with a smile that could light up Times Square.
In a voice than could only be described as warm maple syrup and a strong Jamaican accent that I found disturbingly alluring, “So you’re Dan. Well, well. Now, I must tell you that that will be the last time you will call me ‘Mrs. Deveaux.’ I am Delyse.” She then held out her arms with her hands beckoning me to her perfectly shaped breasts and took me into a hug that nearly took my breath away.
“Welcome to Montego Bay and to our home. Ronika has told us much about you. I’ll say this much, if you are half the person she says you are, well then …” She didn’t finish. Then she held me at arms’ length with a strong grip on each of my shoulders. “Come, come into our home. Ronika, please, let’s show Dan to his room.” Ronnie walked past us, into the house with my duffel, shooting a wink at me when she passed. Her wink seemed to say, You’re in deep trouble now, Dan. Delyse took my arm and led me in behind Ronnie. “I hope you have a pleasant stay here with us, Dan.”
“Thank you, Delyse. I’m sure I will.”
Since Ronnie had come down to Montego Bay to live and work with Roje, the thought had gone briefly through my mind that she may have other family in the area. I had not specifically thought of meeting her mother, although in hindsight I certainly should have been prepared for that possibility. Had I been, I don’t know what I would have expected, but it sure would not have been Delyse.
I had to admit my head was spinning and I had a slight pang of guilt as a thought of Jen flashed in my mind. Then the guilt subsided as I was sure she would have said to me something along the lines of, “We had a good life together. Time to move on with my blessing. Be happy, my love. Be happy.” It had been just about six months. I know that doesn’t sound like much time but without her it seemed like years to me.
Something told me it would be a very eventful visit, in many respects. I wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 7: Guns, Gun Bay Beach, T-Bone, and the Whyte Brothers
Since the late 1970s, with some fluctuations, gun laws in Jamaica had resulted in the small island nation being one of the statistically least-armed countries in the world. It had been estimated that there were only nine civilian firearms per 100 Jamaican citizens ranking it ninety-second. Number-one ranked U.S.A. had 120 per 100 persons, thus 1.2 firearms for every man, woman, and child in America. By comparison, Canada was in seventh place with 35 per 100 which is about three people per firearm.
Still, Jamaica had a reputation for being a violent place, at least in the poorer parts of its inner cities of Kingston and Montego Bay.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s violence in Jamaica rose exponentially due to clashes among gangs and extreme polarization of the nation’s political landscape. In addition to gang members, frequent victims were lawyers, politicians, and businessmen to the point where the police and the military worked together in attempts to stem the violence. Per the 1967 Firearms Act, houses could be searched without warrants and weapons confiscated. Automatic weapons were prohibited entirely.
Additional laws requiring licensing and ownership of guns and ammunition were passed and strongly enforced. As a result, the number of firearms in the country, both legal and illegal, was significantly reduced. Under the new laws, just owning a bullet could lead to a life sentence. There was a special “gun court” which held secret trials.
Violence was still a problem in Jamaica but the government was pro-actively combating it. While, as mentioned earlier, the numbers of firearms was relatively small, the volume and percentages of crimes committed with them had been disturbingly high, as much as eighty percent.
Of course, those with determinatio
n and dark agendas found ways to obtain firearms. A contributing factor was the looseness of American gun laws. Hundreds of thousands of of guns bought in the U.S. disappeared only to resurface in Mexico and the Caribbean. From there the guns would find their ways to their final destinations like the city streets and rural roads of Jamaica where there were enormous profits to be made for the gun runners.
As in America, procurement of firearms in Jamaica was not that difficult if the procurer was determined enough. The U.S. Coast Guard was chartered to do exactly as its name implied – to guard the U.S. coastline. But it’s a big coastline and gun runners, or more formally, arms traffickers, were determined, sinister, devious, and, frankly, very good at plying their trade. One estimate was that over one billion dollars (for perspective that’s $1,000,000,000) in illegal arms transactions took place annually either in the U.S. or between the U.S. and other countries.
Smuggling arms into Jamaica had become somewhat of an artform. Hidden among electronics, clothing, and other imports, firearms had streamed into Jamaica’s main harbor from Florida threatening the Caribbean region’s security. Relative to the population, Jamaica’s homicide rate rose to ten times that of the U.S.
Most of the seized weapons in Jamaica have come from three primary sources: eastern Florida counties – Orange, Dade, and Broward. The latter two are situated on the eastern coast and include the cities of Fort Lauderdale and Miami respectively. Surprisingly, Orange County is home to Orlando, known primarily as the residence of a famous mouse and, more recently, a boy wizard and his cronies. However one significant characteristic is common among the three. They have large Jamaican populations. The gun running routes go either from these sources directly to Jamaica or through “scrubbing countries” like Haiti and Mexico, so-named because each stop along the way served to scrub the preceding source. Additionally each stop along the way added to the ultimate value of the end-sale of the guns.
One common complaint among Jamaican authorities was that the Americans cared only about what came in, not what went out. One Jamaican police commissioner stated publicly, “There aren’t any checks or any controls on goods leaving the United States. Yet anything leaving here, we have to make sure it's double-checked and tripled-checked for drugs.”
The U.S. and Jamaica both prohibit the unlicensed transport of guns. But Jamaican smugglers depend on lax U.S. gun laws, corrupt customs inspectors, and front men acting as buyers. Besides coming in on freighters and airplanes, Jamaican authorities say guns are brought in by “small-timers” like fishermen who bring homegrown marijuana to nearby Haiti or Mexico and return with pistols, revolvers, and submachine guns, many of them believed to be from the U.S. as well.
~~~
All that leads us to, of all places, Gun Bay Beach on Grand Cayman Island. Appropriately named, as you will see, it is 200 miles west-northwest of Montego Bay as the seagull flies.
Almost everyone is familiar with the cliché stating the three most important factors in determining the desirability of a property are location, location, and location. Given that maxim, one may wonder if Gun Bay Beach could be in any way a popular tourist spot given its location which is situated at the far eastern end of the island about twenty miles due east of George Town, Grand Cayman’s primary city. The main highway, and I use the term loosely, is a two-lane road that winds through the lush island country side, mangrove forests, and finally along the southern coast, sometimes unpaved, and is the only land-based way to reach Gun Bay Beach.
The primary attraction of the beach is its seclusion from the cruise ship-infested Seven Mile Beach of Grand Cayman Island. Open beaches provide excellent snorkeling. However, seclusion has its drawbacks. Anyone researching Gun Bay Beach will find the warning that there are no public restrooms along that stretch of coastline. Of course, the world’s biggest public toilet is just a few steps off shore into the turquoise Caribbean Sea, if one is so-inclined.
A nearby attraction is East End Lighthouse Park. While the lighthouse itself has fallen into disrepair, its location and surrounding Lighthouse Park offer visitors views of the sea and a handful of water bungalows for overnight stays.
If one digs a little deeply, one would discover the proprietor of said bungalows is a smoky character named Tomaso “T-Bone” Bonefede. As one may suspect, T-Bone’s heritage can be traced back to a certain boot-shaped country in the Mediterranean region of Europe and from there to New York City and Florida’s southeast coast, namely Broward county, and its local Mafia community.
His connection to Grand Cayman was one of convenience, the convenience of being able to run guns, many guns, from Florida, to the east coast of the island. T-Bone frequently stayed at one of the bungalows which he outfitted with a makeshift dock where cash would trade hands and nocturnal transfers of crates of firearms from Land Rovers to boats would take place. Such transfers occurred in less than thirty minutes. The boats would then depart back toward destinations such as Haiti and Jamaica.
It would be one of the transfers bound for the latter destination that would make the Whyte brothers of Montego Bay become part of the overall tale being woven here.
~~~
Gillian and Vernon Whyte were born and raised in Montego Bay. They were fraternal rather than identical twins. Essentially that meant they were two ordinary siblings born at the same time. Well, not exactly the same time. Gillian (that’s with a hard G as in a fish’s gill) was two minutes thirty seconds older than his younger brother and never let him forget it, always referring to him as “my little brother, my younger brother, my Baby Bro.” The last one rankled Vernon the most and had led to many brotherly spats and conflicts as they grew up. Vernon referred to his older brother in more colorful ways but as he grew older he did his best never to let on that Gillian’s condescension bothered him while it actually bothered him very much. Despite it all, they were very close and each would protect and defend the other to the end.
Their father was Haitian and never a part of their lives. In fact, he most likely was totally oblivious to their existence. They were the result if a one-and-done encounter between their mother and father one night when their mother was in Port Au Prince attending her sister’s funeral. She never made any attempt to reconnect with their father and most likely would not have had much luck even if she had wanted to. She knew him only as the attractive young man who had struck up a conversation with her at a bar adjacent to the cheap hotel at which she spent the night following her sister’s burial.
He had said his name was Junior and he had done a good job of listening to, commiserating with, and ultimately taking advantage of a grieving and vulnerable young woman who had traveled alone from Montego Bay to Haiti to say farewell to her only sister, the victim of a hit-and-run driver.
Their mother worked two jobs as a chambermaid to provide for her two boys. She was a loving mother but was seldom able to devote much time to them. When she wasn’t working she was trying hard to earn extra cash which, unfortunately, frequently meant providing comfort to tourist men eager to “try out the local talent.” So Gillian and Vernon grew up primarily fending for themselves. They skipped school often and eventually dropped out altogether, as was the wont of many young Jamaicans, and made their way through life in any way they could.
When they were thirteen years old their mother stepped onto a Montego Bay street late one night after too much tequila and never saw the car that sent her flying into a wall head-first, ironically joining her sister as another victim of a hit-and-run that would never be solved. She had no ID on her. The brothers were eventually contacted two days later to come and officially identify their mother’s body. They had not realized she was missing until one of her employers knocked on their door wondering why she had missed work.
The Whyte brothers were totally on their own and had no qualms about how they would get on with their lives. They knew no boundaries. They progressed from pickpocketing to petty theft, like shoplifting, to more-aggressive theft, like small-time burglaries, which gra
dually led to more daring and brazen criminal endeavors that “paid better.” Vernon did manage to take a steady job as a waiter to at least provide some steady income, but not much.
Their most brazen endeavor would eventually connect them to Ronika, Roje, and Delyse Deveaux, Dan Deckler, the unsavory T-Bone Bonefede, and through T-Bone to Grand Cayman Island, and indirectly to Harry Belafonte. Yes, that Harry Belafonte.
A strange cast of characters indeed.
Stay tuned.
Chapter 8: Delyse
I tried to remember the term from my high school English classes used to describe when a series of words all begin with the same consonant sound. A couple of classic examples leapt forward from the depths of my brain, “She sells seashells by the seashore” and “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Onomatopoeia? I didn’t think so. Wasn’t that when the words actually sound like what they mean? Like, hiss, buzz, and, my personal favorites, burp and fart?
Alliteration! Yes, I was pretty sure that was it. Sometimes it blew my mind how I could recall something I hadn’t thought of for at decades while I couldn’t remember what I had for breakfast … Honey Nut Cheerios? I think so. Or was that yesterday? Maybe Trix. One thing I knew for sure, it wasn’t Lucky Charms!
Doesn’t matter. I digress.
I now had a new one to add to my alliteration vault, “Delyse Deveaux.” It was certainly not in the tongue-twister category as the two old chestnuts, but beautiful alliteration just the same. And beautiful in more than one way. The name flowed effortlessly when spoken. I had always thought Ronnie’s name, Ronika Deveaux, had a certain rhythm to it but her full name was seldom used or heard in our years together in the NYPD. She was always either Detective Deveaux when in a formal professional setting or just Ronnie to me. But saying “Delyse” seemed to beg appending “Deveaux.”