Martin Billings Caribbean Crime Thrillers

by Ed Teja

  It is true that she takes care of the old brick house that they share and does a good job of it. She takes care of James too. But you need to know the story behind their relationship.

  Matilda adopted James when he first moved to Grenada. She was running a bed and breakfast back then, and James was looking for a quiet place to get away from a lot of things and a past that these days he will deny knowing anything about.

  He can't pull that with me, but anyone who didn't know him in his past incarnation easily buys into the new, quiet businessman persona. Sometimes even I have trouble reconciling this friend with my old colleague.

  Anyway, he liked Grenada, and when tourism flagged and the cost of everything was going up, Matilda found herself in a financial bind. James wasn't about to let his sweet situation slip away so he stepped in and paid off the mortgage. In every way that matters, it is still really her house, and he is a boarder.

  He may hold the title, but she certainly holds his heart. Even close friends don't inquire further than that. They have been living together this way for a number of years now, and it suits them both. Whatever their relationship is when they are alone, it works, and I have always delighted in it.

  James and I went into the little front room that he uses for a study. I sat in a spindly Victorian chair while he opened a cabinet and took out two glasses and a bottle of Glenlivet Scotch. He poured two healthy drinks and looked at me quizzically. "Is this okay? I saw you drink this once, so I assumed you like it."

  "That is not a matter of like, James."

  "No?"

  "No. You are talking of a passion."

  "No ice," he muttered absently as he sat down. "Sorry, there is no ice."

  I took a slow sip of the Scotch and let its warm fire trickle down my throat and relax me. "Unblended Scotch does not like ice particularly anyway," I assured him. He looked at me oddly, so I said, "It's okay. I can live without ice."

  He carried his own drink over to an overstuffed chair and plopped himself down. He loosened his tie and sat the glass on a table next to his chair, carefully setting it on a doily.

  "Martin, can I tell you my problem? I don't want to burden you, but..."

  "You stupid Chinaman, you made me fly to Grenada over my protests so you could tell me your problem. I came up here to hear it. I plan on leaving when I have listened and commiserated and gotten the promised money. Did you honestly think I am going to suddenly say that I don't want to hear it? In fact, if you don't tell me the whole thing right now, I will be forced to beat the story out of you." I smiled. "After I drink up your scotch, that is."

  That earned me a thin smile. "I'm afraid I need you for more than your friendly ears."

  "What can I do?"

  "I need you to go to Venezuela."

  That stopped me. "James, as much as I love you, my friend, I have an empty boat sitting in front of a cargo pier doing nothing but sucking up money. The port authorities are delighted to have me there, of course, as they are charging me a hefty daily rate for the privilege. I am sure I saw them rubbing their hands with glee at the sight of me heading out of the country. We can't leave until we load this very fine cargo of purpleheart. We can't load it until we pay for it. The people who own the lumber would give us credit, as they are almost as desperate as we, but we can't take delivery unless and until we come up with the cash to pay some taxes the lumberyard owes the government. Governments are not agencies of trust. That means I need to borrow the money and get moving. Now."

  The glassy stare James gave didn't reassure me that he was following my riveting narrative. Finally, he nodded. "Yes," he said, vaguely.

  "By the way, Ugly Bill said if you put the scientific name of the wood in the paperwork it will make things look much more impressive and official. But I'm more concerned about how fast we do the paperwork. If I don't get the cargo, I can't afford to repair my diesel, which is hanging together by a thread. Sammy, his young assistant, has gotten extremely good at doing things with thread, but our survival in the medium term will require some repairs."

  Having said my piece, I sipped the drink and waited. The drink made the wait more tolerable than it would have been otherwise. It had been some time since I had enjoyed good scotch. When James continued his stony silence, I added, "The situation is, I admit, all very convoluted, but as usual, it's nothing that money won't solve."

  James touched the glass sitting next to him and stared absently at the ceiling. "Ugly Bill is down there with the boat now, isn't he?"

  I laughed at the mention of my partner. James knew him as well as anyone did. And where else would Ugly Bill be but on the boat?

  "Yes, he is watching the boat, and keeping an eye on the mail; he is alert in case one of the publishers he has contacted wants to publish his book of poetry. Very likely he is dedicating any spare time to working on developing cordial relations with a large segment of the female population of the fair city of Georgetown, Guyana. He is also teaching Sammy everything there is to know about boats and the sea and providing special instruction on his lecherous ways. Even poetry."

  The look on his face told me there was no news in my answer. "Then you really don't need to be there, do you?" He paused, seeming to savor my startled reaction. "If I wired the money to him tomorrow morning, he could pay the taxes and collect the cargo. I imagine that even without your assistance or presence he'd find some way to settle up with the port authority and haul the cargo to your clients."

  I thought about it. I hated to admit that my presence wasn't necessary anywhere, but especially on board HARM. It hurt. But James knew the situation well. Ugly Bill and I worked together and had formed our partnership because we enjoyed working together and we trusted each other.

  Truth was, I'd make a better living doing it with a hired crew, and so would he. But working together made things more fun. We were equal partners, although Bill carried out the pretense that I was the captain. Most of the time I was certain that was only because it meant I had to do all the damn paperwork.

  "He could," I admitted. "Bill is a licensed skipper. He would have to hire help to get the cargo loaded in a reasonable amount of time though."

  I didn't add that even though it would be hard work, there was nothing I wanted more than to be there, working alongside Bill and Sammy. James already knew that.

  "If you would do me my favor, if you help me, then I would happily give you the money you need. I'll give it to you, not loan it to you. I'd even pay extra for the additional labor Bill requires. Then you would be sure make a decent profit for your cargo. It would all be profit for you and Bill. You could get your diesel rebuilt. That should be worth something."

  I sucked in my breath and thought. This had to be a big favor James was asking. Even the fact that he had spent the money on Glenlivet was a clue to how serious he thought the situation was.

  "James, as much as I would enjoy not paying back a loan, you know I can't take your money for doing you a favor. It isn't right."

  His short nose twitched as he thought that over. As a businessman he understood incentives; but as my friend, he understood favors too. He'd done enough for me in his time. He worked over the problem, or maybe he was just giving me time to think through the options.

  Finally, he figured out his counter offer. "Then you help me, and I will loan you the money at no interest," he said finally. "A favor for a favor. In addition, you will let me pay what it costs for Ugly Bill to get the additional help he needs because you aren't there. Surely it is all right if I cover the cost of you helping me. And I would pay you something for the time you spend in Venezuela on my behalf."

  That put another spin on things. I'd worked for James before, and he was a good, if demanding, employer. I took another sip of my divine drink and noticed that James hadn't yet touched his.

  Maybe he was the kind of drinker whose consumption lagged slightly behind evaporation even when there was a reason to drink. I slumped in my chair as I mulled over the co
nversation and let the scotch seep into my system.

  James and I went way back. How our friendship started was an old story from other times, and there was no need to rehash them. We were almost different people then. In fact, when we met, I was a US Navy Seal and James was something that we should probably just refer to as spooky.

  As I said, we'd both changed since then, but when James changed, he did it radically. I often found it hard to imagine this James in the places and times where our paths had crossed. He'd lost a step or two but turned that sharpness to building a successful business.

  His eyes caught mine and there was a bit of a sad glimmer, as if he was remembering the old days too. It would be juvenile and superficial to call those the good times. In some ways, they had been terrible times, but we'd forged a relationship.

  Over the years since then we had helped each other out, in big ways and little ones, too many times to count. I knew I would help him now; he knew it too. "No" was not an acceptable response when he asked me outright for help.

  "I give, James. You know I will do whatever it is that needs doing. Tell me the story while I remember my Spanish and then you and I can gang up on me, ply me with drink, and convince me to go on this crazy trip to Venezuela."

  "The story?"

  It wouldn't do to let James drag this out. "The one that starts with, 'I got into this mess when...' and ends in 'and that's why I need you to go to Venezuela.'"

  "There is no story, just a situation."

  "You never had a good story sense, James. Every situation has a narrative. So sketch out the background information for me and get to the chase."

  He leaned back in his chair. “Did you know that I opened an office down there, in Puerto La Cruz?"

  "I remember something about it. Just vaguely."

  "Venezuela is quite volatile. It goes up and down economically, depending on the current government as much as anything. But last year, with oil prices stronger again it was picking up. Like so many places, doing business there requires knowing people—making and maintaining connections. Connections are everything for getting business, getting permits, all the things a business needs. I knew there was opportunity for my company, but I stayed out of there because of the need for local knowledge."

  "What changed?"

  "I met Clyde Walker."

  I vaguely remembered that the last time I had been in Grenada something had been going on and that James had introduced me to some new colleague and his wife.

  All I could I conjure up was a blurry image of a rather brusque and handsome, although to my mind, an unlikable man with a silent but attractive brunette on his arm. She hadn't shown any interest in the business or meeting anyone of that crowd, so I took her to be a trophy wife. I have nothing against that. Everyone needs a gig of some kind. But now I couldn't put a clear face on either of them.

  "An American, right? He and his wife came here a while back?"

  "Yes. Clyde and his wife Evelyn came up to negotiate the deal. He has been living and working in Venezuela for many years. He'd been working for a big corporation, but they were scaling down operations. They wanted to transfer him home, but he saw no future there. His real skills were dealing with South American operations. So he approached me."

  "To be your rep?"

  "Now I am wishing that had been the deal. No, I made him my local partner. We formed a Venezuelan company. He said he'd use the contacts he had made over the years to develop new business. He said there was a need for a company that could offer efficient export of finished goods and importation of tools and raw materials. Mostly it's for products coming out of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. In some areas the transshipments have been growing fast, despite the political problems. I work with most of the cargo ships and, in the current climate, air cargo has gotten absurdly expensive, which gave us an opening."

  "It keeps me alive too," I said.

  "Walker's detailed proposal laid out a scheme whereby I would provide the international connections that get the products moved around the world as cheaply as possible; he would acquire the business and deal with the paperwork."

  "And bribes?"

  He nodded. "Bribes, of course, or any other payments that need to be made. Most businesses that matter in Venezuela are at least partly government owned. The rest are tied to the government one way or another, so connections are everything and connections are smoothed with bribes and kickbacks. You can hate the system, but you can't go around it. Walker sold me on the idea that he knew the right people."

  "All businesses either government owned or soon to be government owned," I said. "That doesn't sound like a reasonable place to launch a business. But what do I know? I take it that things didn't go smoothly as Walker promised."

  James shook his head unhappily. "It was smooth enough at first, although a rather expensive exercise. He never managed to find enough business to support the operation down there. Oh, he got some customers, but they were disappointingly small fry. The big ones were always just about to make a commitment, according to Walker. He'd just had dinner with this or that minister and been assured that when such and such a contract was renewed, it was ours. Meantime, the operating costs, relative to what business we had were enormous. They sucked the profit out of the little business we did get. That was okay for a while. I expected losses. It costs money to get new business and I went into this knowing that expanding into a new area takes time. Eventually, as you get a feel for things, you learn where to cut expenses and new business starts coming. A short time ago, the word got to me through some business associates that Walker was doing some business on his own."

  "He was cutting you out of deals?"

  He shrugged. "That's what it seemed. I couldn't be sure exactly what was going on, and he was furtive and defensive when I tried to talk to him. The one thing that was clear was that he wasn't doing everything he could to build a good and healthy business over the long term. Once I realized that, naturally I began rethinking the relationship. Because my name figured prominently in this, I wanted to wind things down quietly. While I was considering the best approach, I had some customers approach me to complain about our service. Interestingly, I had never heard of them. Apparently, he was doing some freelance work off the books and I had to soothe their anger. I think that was the final straw. I couldn't be sure if Walker was a cheat or just stupid, although I was pretty sure it was a combination of the two. He effectively cut his own throat as far as I was concerned."

  "So, you wanted to end it—the operation."

  "Yes. Another problem was that I learned that some of the officials he had mentioned by name, ones he told me he was working closely with, are considered to be quite corrupt even by local standards."

  I shrugged. "Officials, corrupt...why do we need two words for the same thing?"

  James ignored me. "These particular associations make it problematic if I just pulled out unilaterally. I don't know what Walker might have promised them or how corrupt they are. And even without an office there, I still do business in the country. It would hurt to have black marks against me in the official books."

  A thought occurred to me. It wasn't a pleasant one. "Seeing as he liked doing transactions off the books, is it possible Walker was involved in the import and export of drugs?"

  James shrugged. "Possibly. I don't think so. I saw no signs of it, but then I have no way of knowing what he was doing. The only reason to consider that possibility is that some of the officials he was courting turn out to be on the US government's list of people suspected of involvement in trafficking."

  That wasn't good. I didn't ask how James managed to get a copy of that list. Apparently, he still had some of his connections from the old days. That sort of information was well out of reach of an ex-Seal boat captain. James somehow managed to circumvent having a need to know. At least an official one.

  "It could mean that he is involved in the drug trade, but it could also mean many other things�
�things that might be less dramatic but just as bad for my business reputation. When I called him and asked him about it, he denied there was anything underhanded going on beyond the normal bribery I would expect. He was quite vehement, and he defended his associates, saying that it was just political posturing that portrayed them as crooked."

  "That does happen."

  He nodded, tiredly. "It does. Unfortunately, it happens that men lie to their partners too. One of the men that Walker was apparently very close to was recently arrested for taking bribes for avoiding customs duties. While we do bribe officials, it is usually just to keep them from putting our shipments into customs limbo for indefinite periods. But avoiding duties is an area that strikes particularly close to the heart of my main business. My business associates expect that I will provide good service at competitive prices, but they will not do business with someone caught going outside those particular legal channels. There is too much legitimate work at stake."

  I knew that James was born in Shanghai. Although he hadn't been back to China for a lot of years and for a lot of reasons, and he was as American as anyone I knew, the concept of face remained near and dear to his heart.

  His reputation had made him a substantial fortune. He was proud of what he had accomplished. With no children, and no official family, his reputation was all that mattered to him.

  "I decided to terminate the relationship," he said.

  "What about Walker's connections?"

  "At some point, you need to cut your losses," he said. "I wrote the original agreement myself," he said. "I will confess that doing business down there made me nervous. Hell, doing business in Grenada is tough enough, but usually fairly straight forward. I made Walker agree to a clause that if either of us triggered it, the office would be closed and the business dissolved. Any contractual matters I will have to take care of but any verbal agreements he made are his own lookout. It isn't foolproof, but it should give me a way of dodging any ramifications of things I don't know about."