by Len Maynard
‘So, what’s the book about?’
He took a final swallow of his beer and pitched the bottle over the side. ‘Child pornography and pedophilia. It’s a delicate area.’
‘Are you saying Alan Lancaster is a pedophile? Because if you are you’ll be joining that bottle over the side.’
‘I’m not saying anything. I was writing a series of investigative pieces for the paper. When they started spiking my stories, I decided I’d have to leave and carry on with it as a book. Alan called me the day after I left. He said he needed to talk to me. He said he’d been following the series and he had some facts and figures that would help me, and more importantly he had names.’
‘Names?’
He ran his fingers through his thin hair. ‘It’s difficult if you haven’t been following the stories, but in précis this is it. Child pornography is one of the criminal growth areas of the twenty first century; magazines, books, DVD’s, even computer software. I’ve been investigating it for the past three years, trying to find out where most of it originates. It’s fairly global. Eastern Europe is a major source and, to a lesser extent, the Scandinavian countries, some from France and Germany, Holland, and Britain. At the end of 1999 our government blitzed these sources as they tried to export the filth into the US, and for a while it seemed to be a success. Then in 2010 a new supplier entered the scene.’
‘The Bahamas?’
‘No. The stuff doesn’t originate here. We know that most of it is produced at home. The FBI has been instrumental in closing down some of the manufacturers, but you close down one operation and two more spring up in its place, like a fucking hydra.’
‘Have you spoken to anyone in the FBI about this?’
‘Sure. I have my sources,’ he said proudly. ‘But they admit themselves that what they’re doing is about as effective as pissing up a tree when you’re trying to put out a forest fire. The main problem is how it’s all financed. At first, they thought there was Mafia money behind it, and there was an element of truth in that, but only as far as the distribution was concerned. But now they believe differently. The current intelligence is that there is a cartel made up of some of America’s richest and finest, who get their jollies from watching very young girls and boys being sexually abused. Although that intelligence is soft. So far they haven’t been able to get on the inside track of the cartel.’
‘By cartel you’re talking about a pedophile ring.’
‘In essence, yes.’ He reached for another beer. ‘They’re not only dealing in pornography, but also sex slaves; children being bought and sold to pedophiles who want to do more than just watch.’
I opened a beer for myself and lit another cigarette. I was starting to feel nauseous myself as I thought of Alan and his seven-year-old daughter, Sally. How could he…?
‘Okay, you get the picture so far?’
‘I’m following you.’ I found I couldn’t meet his eyes…afraid, I suppose, of betraying my thoughts about Alan.
‘So far, I’ve managed to trace everything back to Florida, and that also ties in with another important aspect. The raw materials. The children themselves. Twenty years ago the porn merchants used kids from their own cities and towns, but in the last three or four years the majority of pornography emanating from the US features Cuban and Haitian children. We know this because some of the kids have turned up on the streets. Usually they’re drugged out of their minds, and they’re stealing and mugging to support their habits; some are working the streets as prostitutes…girls and boys. They’re the lucky ones. Others have turned up dead, usually murdered. We’ve managed to build up some of the background by talking to a few of them, but most of the kids we encounter are just too scared to say anything.’
‘So you think the children are being routed through the Bahamas.’
‘Historically it makes sense. The Bahamas have always been a gateway into the US for all types of contraband; liquor during and after Prohibition, cocaine, marijuana. Why not children?’
‘And you’re asking me to believe that the Cubans and Haitians are just selling their kids to pedophiles to be used in pornography?’
‘Harry, these are poor countries, their economies are shot to shit. Haiti was all but destroyed by the earthquakes. Their birth rates are forever increasing. I’m not saying that they’re told what the fate of the children will be. They’re probably fed a line about desperate American couples, ready and willing to adopt children. Christ, it’s always in the papers how some rich, bored actress or whatever has adopted a foreign baby to give it a chance to grow up in the Land of the Free. Imagine a young couple with half a dozen kids living in a tin shack in Havana, approached by some smooth talker offering them hard US currency to take one of their kids back to the States, with the promise that the child will live with an affluent family, have a college education, all the trappings. They’re hardly likely to turn around and say, ‘no shove it up your ass; my child enjoys poverty,’ are they? They’re going to have that kid’s bag packed before you can say Viva Castro!’
I got up from my seat and weighed the anchor. ‘We’re moving on. I can smell a storm in the air.’
‘You’re the captain. I’ll try to keep the contents of my stomach to myself.’
As The Lady raced the thunderheads to Abaco, Sam said, ‘Now you’ve heard what it’s all about, will you cooperate?’
‘I need to think about it some more. How long are you staying in the Bahamas?’
‘For as long as it takes.’
‘Just one question.’
‘Sure.’
‘How were you so sure I wasn’t involved in all this too? After all, Alan Lancaster is my best friend. It would make sense to assume I’m just as involved as he seems to be. His wife certainly did,’ I added, still stinging from Anna’s tirade.
‘You checked out, Harry,’ he said, his cheeks flushing slightly.
‘Who checked me out?’ I said coldly.
‘The FBI has been on to the Bahamas connection for some time.’
‘So the FBI has a file on me and you know what’s in it, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Sorry, Harry, that’s the way it works.’
‘Are you FBI too?’
‘The FBI has no jurisdiction in the Bahamas, Harry, as you well know. I’m writing a book. I cooperate with them and they help me out when they can.’
I’d heard enough. There was a white-hot ball of fury burning in my stomach, and I wanted nothing more than to punch Sam Goldberg in the mouth. Instead, I opened The Lady up to full throttle and let her bounce over the choppy water, giving Sam one of the most uncomfortable rides of his life.
23
Barracuda Cay lies three miles south of Great Abaco, and is probably the ugliest and most inhospitable island in the whole of the Bahamas. Eighty-five per cent of the interior is swamp and marshland. There is only a thin shingle beach littered with conch shells and other oceanic debris. The harbor is flanked by mud flats and mangrove. Bonefish, snappers, and shark have made their home in the mangrove roots, as well as the barracuda from which the cay takes its name.
The harbor itself is a mistake; a misguided venture by a North American property developer called Wesley Morgan who bought a parcel of land on the cay and built Barracuda’s one and only hotel. The money ran out half way through building the harbor, and now it sticks out into the sea like a decaying tooth, a testament to the man’s folly. What is left of it is crumbling away year by year, eroded by the tides. The hotel didn’t fare much better. It did not see a single guest, and now it stands dilapidated and boarded up in a town ironically called Morgan’s Pride.
The hotel was a brave venture but doomed to failure because, apart from the twenty or so inhabitants who make up the entire population of Barracuda – of which my father is one – the cay’s only other residents are mosquitoes. There are millions of them, and they’re said to be the most voracious mosquitoes this side of the equator.
I dropped a protesting Sam off at Marsh Ha
rbor on Great Abaco, but not before he’d scribbled his hotel number on a card and pressed it into my hand, imploring me to contact him when I was ready to talk. He was like an oversized child, eager to talk but too ill from the sea journey to insist. Then I took The Lady over to Barracuda Cay.
It’s always a tricky crossing, because in the three miles between Great Abaco and the cay, the depth of the ocean is pretty shallow. There is only a narrow channel you can follow if you don’t want to risk ripping the bottom out of your boat on the razor-sharp coral reefs that hug the ocean floor.
I had made the crossing many times now and knew the channel well, but I was still cautious, rarely letting our speed go above five knots.
I pulled into the harbor and spotted Julius Flood sitting in the shade of a palm tree mending a fishing net. He looked up from under the wide brim of a battered straw hat, and his black cherubic face split into a huge grin of welcome. ‘Harry, man! How the fuck are you? It’s been too long.’
‘Grab a line,’ I called, and threw him the stern rope. He caught it deftly and tied The Lady to the quayside. I jumped ashore.
‘Island Girl’s looking good, Harry,’ he said. He never called the boat by anything other than her original name. I figured it was because he was quietly superstitious, but he would never admit to it.
‘It’s all thanks to Stevie,’ I said. ‘She keeps her in shape.’
‘She okay?’
‘Fine,’ I lied.
He put his arm around my shoulder. Julius Flood was a big man, six foot six in bare feet, and not an ounce of fat on his two-hundred and eighty pound frame. He eked out a meagre existence from the ocean, catching crawfish and selling their tails. He was the only local, apart from my father, who actually made his living on the cay. The others commuted across to Great Abaco to work. My father kept his head above water now by woodcarving and making coconut shell jewelry.
‘How is he, Julius?’
‘Dry. Has been since the last time you seen him.’
Julius was my father’s unofficially adopted son. Their houses were next to each other, and Julius watched out for him.
The last time I’d seen my father was in a small room at Nassau’s Princess Margaret Hospital, where he had been airlifted after collapsing on Barracuda with acute alcohol poisoning. One of my father’s many weaknesses was pineapple rum, which he drank like water. By the time I reached the hospital they had pumped his stomach and connected him to a glucose drip, drying him out slowly and trying to restore some nutrients to his emaciated, drink-sodden body. They saved his life that time, but the doctor treating him took me to one side and told me that my father’s liver was so enlarged and his general health so poor that another bender would probably kill him.
Two days later the old man discharged himself from the hospital and begged a ride back to Barracuda on one of the local bone fishing boats. I thought then that the next time I saw him it would probably be in a coffin, but I hadn’t counted on Julius Flood, who obviously decided that my father’s life was worth saving. I felt slightly guilty that I had left his wellbeing to Julius, but I knew that if I tried to interfere the old bastard would probably drink himself to death just to spite me.
‘Are you here to see him?’ Julius said as we walked towards the settlement.
‘Would he like me to?’
Julius shook his head sadly. ‘You two are blood-tied, man. It’s a tragedy you don’t see eye to eye.’
‘Both strong willed,’ I said.
‘Pig-headed is what I call it.’
24
The houses on Barracuda rest on two acres of dry land in the middle of a swamp. There is no main road to speak of, and the only way across the marshy ground is by way of a wooden bridge that always seems to be in a state of imminent collapse. As we approached, Julius was constantly slapping at his bare arms, swatting mosquitoes as they landed to feed. The insects never bothered me. There was something in my blood they didn’t like. Whatever it was I had inherited it from my father, who claimed to have lived on Barracuda Cay fifteen years and never once been bitten.
All the houses were New England style; clapboard painted in pastel shades, pinks, yellows, blues, and greens, with russet red shingle roofs. They all had wide verandas and shutters on the windows to protect them against the tropical storms that occasionally swept through the cay. Apart from my father’s place, all the houses had insect screens on the doors and windows – not attractive, but very necessary.
My father’s was the most run-down house in the settlement. The paint was peeling from the boards in leprous flakes, and the boards themselves were starting to warp and twist. The veranda was a cluttered workspace with a bench made from an old mahogany dining table, and littered with discarded tools, silver wire, and half-sewn pieces of coconut shell. A cane chair with a sagging seat rested in the corner, and from a beam above the bench hung a rusty but usable hurricane lamp. A few lizards had made their home in the eves, and a colony of spiders nested in an empty beer crate that doubled as a footstool. It was a depressing sight, and as usual gave me a hollow, empty feeling in my stomach. As they normally were during the day, the windows were heavily curtained to keep out the sunlight. My father was nocturnal, preferring to sleep away the daylight hours and emerge at twilight, and work on through the night by the light of his lamp.
I walked past the place and up the steps to the house Julius shared with his wife, Nona.
‘Can’t face it yet, Harry?’
‘He’s probably still asleep. Anyway, I could use a drink first.’
The big man smiled. ‘You might even be in time for dinner.’
Nona Flood greeted me like her long-lost son, even though she was only five years my senior. The hard life on Barracuda had taken its toll on her looks, though. Her hair was liberally flecked with grey, and there were deep lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She hugged me for a long time, all the while calling instructions to Julius, who was checking on the meal she’d been in the middle of preparing.
‘It’s so good to see you, Harry,’ Nona said, finally letting me go. ‘I’ll kill that man of mine for not telling me you were coming. I could have cooked something special.’
‘He didn’t know,’ I said. ‘And I don’t expect to be fed.’
‘Nonsense. You’ll eat with us. It’s just cracked conch and grits, but I’m sure Julius has got a bottle of something to sweeten its way down.’
The food, when it came, was wonderful. Nona Flood could do things with conch that would have a gourmet’s mouth watering. It was simple fare, the conch seasoned with lime juice and dipped in egg and cracker crumbs, but the taste was out of this world.
‘This is superb, Nona,’ I said. ‘You’re a witch.’
‘I’m no witch,’ she said. ‘But my mama was. She came from Haiti. She had the gift.’
‘Obeah,’ Julius said, raising his eyes to the heavens. ‘Hokum, woman, that’s all it is. Voodoo mumbo jumbo.’
There was a fierce look in Nona’s eyes. ‘You want dessert, man? Cos the way you’re bad mouthing Obeah you aint likely to live long enough to eat it.’
‘I’ll take my chances. What is it anyway?’
‘Guava duff.’
‘Quick, Harry man. Give me the name of some Obeah high thing so’s I can pray for forgiveness. Nona’s guava duff is the food of the gods. Ambrosia.’
And it was.
After dinner Nona put a Bob Marley tape into the tiny battery powered cassette player that made up their sound system, and they sat back in their shabby but comfortable easy chairs, listening to reggae and sipping coconut rum. It suddenly occurred to me that this was the real reason for coming to Barracuda. The Floods were the closest thing to a functioning family I’d ever had and, sitting in their relaxing company making small talk, it was a relatively easy task to put the events of the last few days out of my mind for a while, and to enjoy the simple pleasures of family life. It was Nona who brought me back to reality with a jolt.
‘Your papa’s b
ecoming the most popular man on Barracuda. All these people dropping in to see him. Your friend Alan the other day, those men last night. He’s developing quite a social life.’
Julius noticed the look of alarm in my eyes. ‘What is it, Harry?’
‘The men last night, who were they?’
‘Cubans,’ Julius said. ‘Two of them came to talk to your pa about his jewelry. I took them to the house myself.’
‘What were they like? Describe them, could you?’
‘Young, black, very polite. One was about my height. The other one was shorter; about the same size as you. He did all the talking. Is there a problem, Harry?’
‘Was there a woman with them?’
‘No,’ Julius said.
‘Yes, there was,’ Nona said. ‘She stayed on the boat. I saw her when I went down to the harbor later.’
I’d heard enough. I bolted from the chair and out of the house, Julius at my heels. I hammered on my father’s door, but there was no response.
‘He can’t have gone anywhere,’ Julius said. ‘Nona would have seen.’
‘We’ll have to break down the door.’
25
Julius elbowed me to one side. ‘Let me.’ He lifted his great size fifteen foot and kicked the door open. It crashed inwards, slamming against the wall and rebounding back.
The stench was appalling; a mixture of vomit, shit, and booze. Inside it was dark, and Julius went across the room, yanked the curtains apart, and threw open the window. My father was lying on the floor, unconscious, in a puddle of filth.
‘How the hell…?’ Julius said, and crouched down beside him, listening to his breathing. I looked around the lounge, counting three empty rum bottles scattered about the room. Pools of vomit and damp patches were on the threadbare carpet. Julius turned to me, his face taut with anger. ‘There wasn’t a bottle in this house. I check it every day. And there’s nowhere on the cay he could have bought it.’
‘Then it looks like his guests brought it in.’