Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  Nég’ nwé con ça ou yé, ago-é!

  Nég’ nwé con ça ou yé!

  Y’ap mangé avé ou!

  Y’ap bwé avé ou!

  Y’ap coupée lavie ou débor!

  Black man, like this you are, ago-é!

  Black man, like this you are!

  He will eat with you,

  He will drink with you,

  He will cut the life out of you!

  —Haitian Folk Song (H. Courlander, The Drum and the Hoe)

  41

  Mary came up from a dream of civilians being shot in the streets like mad dogs. Bogeymen and women in black and red with fixed faces and gleaming guns stalked over the corpses. An incongruous voice broke through the dull throbbing horror and she opened her eyes, blinked and saw Roselle standing in the door. Bright light through the windows. Morning. She was in Hispaniola.

  “Mademoiselle, Monsieur Soulavier called. He is coming…” Roselle stood in her bedroom door, expression glum. She turned, glanced over her shoulder at Mary, closed the door behind her.

  Mary got dressed. She had just finished when the door chimes—real chimes—rang. Jean-Claude answered and Soulavier stalked through the anteroom and into the living room on long stiff legs, face glowing with exertion, expression deeply almost comically worried. He still wore his black suit.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, bowing quickly. “I know now why your others did not arrive last night. There is big trouble. Colonel Sir has ordered the US Embassy closed. He is most insulted.”

  Mary stared at him, astonished. “Why?”

  “News just arrived. Colonel Sir and fifteen other Hispaniolans have been indicted yesterday in your city of New York. Illegal international trade in outils psychologiques.”

  “And?”

  “I am worried for you, Mademoiselle Choy. Colonel Sir is very angry. He has ordered US citizens out of Hispaniola as of tomorrow; boats and planes and ships.”

  “He’s ordered me to leave, as well, then.”

  “No, pas du tout. Your complices, your associates, they will not be flying in; all flights from US are canceled. But you represent legal authority of US. You he wants to stay. Mademoiselle, this is most unfortunate; is your government stupid?”

  She could not answer him. Why hadn’t Cramer and Duschesnes known about this? Because of the inevitable separation of federal, state and metro. Yes, the governments were stupid; they knew not what other hands were doing or where their fingers might be poking. “I’m not a federal agent. I’m public defense, from Los Angeles in California.” She glanced at Jean-Claude. His face was blank, hands folded before him not in supplication but in nervous unease. “What shall I do?” she asked.

  Soulavier shook his long hands helplessly at the ceiling. “I cannot tell you,” he said. “I am caught between. Your guide and avocat. But most loyal to Colonel Sir. Most loyal indeed.”

  Jean-Claude and Roselle stood near the kitchen doorway and nodded solemnly, sadly.

  “I’d like to make a direct call,” Mary said, feeling her breathing slow, body automatically compensating. She glanced at the open doorway; bright sunshine and beautiful blue skies. Balmy air smelling of hibiscus and clean ocean; a pleasant seventy degrees already and it was eight thirty. She’d wake people up in LA. So be it.

  Soulavier shook his head like a marionette. “No direct calls.”

  “That’s against the law,” Mary advised him, head angled slightly. She could see walls going up; how high?

  “Apologies, Mademoiselle,” Soulavier said. He shrugged; not responsible.

  “Will your government actually block transmissions from my personal unit to the G-sync?”

  “There is a block already,” Soulavier said. “Phased direct link interference, Mademoiselle.”

  “Then I’d like to arrange for a plane and leave Hispaniola immediately.”

  “Your name is on a list of those not allowed to leave, Mademoiselle.” Soulavier’s smile was sympathetic, unhappy. He moved around the room gracefully touching the mantel over the unused stonework fireplace running his hand in a caress over the back of the couch that divided the living room. “Not for twenty four hours at least.”

  Mary swallowed. She would not permit anger; panic was out of the question. She was aware of her fear but it did not limit her. With a clear mind she assembled her options.

  “I’d like an audience with your police as soon as possible. I might as well get my work done until this is straightened out.”

  “A good attitude, Mademoiselle.” Soulavier brightened and postured ramrod like a soldier. “Your meeting is in one hour. I will escort you personally.”

  Roselle returned from the kitchen. Plates had been set out in the dining room. “Your breakfast is ready, Mademoiselle.”

  Soulavier sat patiently in the living room stovepipe hat in hands, staring at the floor, shaking his head now and then and muttering to himself. Mary ate at a forced leisurely pace the breakfast Roselle had prepared, eggs and true bacon not nanofood, perfect toast, fresh squeezed orange juice and a slice of tangy dense-fleshed mango.

  “Thank you. It was excellent,” she told Roselle. The woman smiled sweetly.

  “You need strength, Mademoiselle,” she said, glancing at Soulavier.

  Mary took her case from the bedroom—hairbrush and makeup kit within—and stood by the couch in the living room. Soulavier glanced up, leaped to his feet, bowed and opened the screen door for her. The limo waited at curbside.

  Seated across from her, Soulavier instructed the car in French and they turned around in the broad asphalt street to exit the compound. As they drove to the bayfront he described history and legend in a steady patter that Mary only half heard. She had read much of the same information the night before, delivered with almost as much enthusiasm.

  Throughout Port-au-Prince with few exceptions the buildings were no older than the arrival of Colonel Sir to Hispaniola. The Great Caribbean Quake of ‘18 had provided John Yardley with a gilt-edged opportunity, and had also saddled his youthful tyranny with an enormous burden of reconstruction. A few of the newer buildings made half hearted efforts at recapturing the gingerbread spirit of old Haiti; most started afresh year one with a new style of architecture best described as Efficient Institutional.

  The hotels were conspicuous exceptions; here, at the center of tourist cash flow the architecture was flamboyant and festive, wastefully imaginative. Mary had been to Las Vegas several times and was reminded of its daytime drab and night-time excess. Architects from around the world had converged in Hispaniola beginning in 2020, “year of Great Vision,” as Colonel Sir had flamboyantly named it, and had tried to create hotels in the shape of ocean liners, mountains to match the island’s, seabirds with wings spread as well as fearfully unsupported structures that sat on the shore and in the bay like fanciful space stations with spinning hubs and twisting arms.

  The two years previous to this “year of Great Vision” had been hard ones. Colonel Sir had fought off four counterrevolutions, three Dominican and one Haitian; he had lost his best friend, geologist Rupert Henshaw, in the second of these. Before his death Henshaw had helped revitalize the old copper and gold mines and find new ones; he had also unlocked the secrets of massive oil reserves heretofore considered too risky to exploit. In those days, on the edge of the nano breakthroughs, petroleum had still been a necessary raw material, not burned but converted into thousands of byproducts. Henshaw had served Colonel Sir well.

  Most of the island’s records for those years were not available to the general public or world historians. At the very least thousands had died in the consolidation. Colonel Sir had emerged with a reputation for extreme ruthlessness in the tradition of dozens of previous rulers of Hispaniola’s two nations. Unlike those rulers, however, once secure on his seat of power he had also shown himself to be extraordinarily capable and selfless.

  Colonel Sir cared nothing for personal riches. He had a vision. He applied that vision with insight and eventually, with re
gards to Hispaniolans, even with gentleness, never again taking reprisals upon opponents or enemies; always allowing them to go into well-endowed exile. Under Colonel Sir’s controversial judicial system, by 2025 Hispaniola had the lowest crime rate of any nation of its population density and income level in the world.

  Colonel Sir John Yardley had broken the cycle of the island’s cruelty. Over three centuries that cycle, that curse, had exercised its force; the force could not be denied it could only be rechanneled, and Colonel Sir had pointed it outward, exported it from the island.

  The Citadelle des Oncs, Citadel of the Uncles—police headquarters—was less fortresslike than some of the businesses and public buildings of the city. Situated near the bay, four long red brick buildings formed a square connected by wood and stone walkways, the middle courtyard smoothly planted with well manicured grass. In the center of the courtyard rose a huge twisted humprooted tree, its base festooned with bougain-villea and frangipani.

  “That is a baobab,” Soulavier said, pointing proudly. “From Guinée. Colonel Sir brought it here from Kenya to remind us of our true home. My father told me it is occupied by a loa who watches over all of this state, Manna Jacques-Nanci by name. Manna Jacques-Nanci when she chooses rides Colonel Sir as a horse. But I have never seen that and it is most unusual for a white man, even Colonel Sir, to be so ridden.”

  Mary tried to penetrate Soulavier’s manner, to decide what he believed and what he related merely as fable, and failed. He was a man raised to be clever and hide all important things, to know all the slides and traps of political life as a magician knows signs and symbols. His voice seemed sincere; she could not believe him sincere. How successful (or sincere) had Colonel Sir’s campaigns against vodoun been?

  Soulavier behaved like a solicitous brother as he spoke, face betraying a flow of emotions quick and open, childlike. “The Noncs,” he said, “the Oncs we call them also, the Uncles, they are not bad men but they have jobs to do, sometimes jobs very difficult. Do not be dismayed by them. They are proud, handsome, dedicated. Many fought with Colonel Sir in their youth; they are his brothers.”

  “Do you know whom I’m meeting with?” she asked.

  “Alejandro Legar, Inspector General of Hispaniola des Caraïbes, state of Southern Haiti. In attendance will be his two assistants, Aide Ti Francine Lopez and myself.”

  Mary smiled at the surprise, almost relieved by this turn, seeing a path through the manner to something approaching truth. “You’re an assistant to the Inspector General?”

  Soulavier as if sharing a child’s secret returned her smile delightedly, nodded vigorously and tapped the arm of his seat. The limo rolled quietly under the Citadelle entry arch. “It is an excellent job,” he said, “the job my mother raised me for. It helps me be an even better avocat for visitors as I know the laws, the ins and outs.”

  Straightbacked oncs in black and red uniforms stood silent rigid suspicious at the glass doors. They did not blink at Soulavier or his companion. A beautifully colored serpent in tile meandered down the cool quiet hall beyond the glass doors, its broad popeyed head debouching the triple door of the office of the Inspector General Legar.

  In an anteroom that smelled of disinfectant and old fashioned floorwax, Mary sat in an institutional plastic chair at least a decade old, seat edges cracked and worn, arm bolsters patched. No expense wasted on show here.

  Soulavier remained standing but mercifully had stopped talking. He occasionally smiled at Mary and twice left her with muttered apologies to vanish through a narrow fog etched glass door into the inner sanctum. A woman’s voice came through speaking Creole, swift and dulcet, impossible to catch.

  “Madame Aide Ti Francine Lopez will see us,” Soulavier said after his third shuttle. Mary followed him past the cold hard fog and into a modest side office. Bright folk paintings from the past century crowded the walls. Behind a small mahogany desk sat a tall woman, her features handsome but not especially feminine, her frame tall and slender, with thin hands and thickly painted red fingernails. Aide Ti Francine Lopez smiled broadly.

  “Bienvenue,” she said. Her voice was the voice of a large young man, a tenor. “Monsieur Aide Soulavier tells me you have come from Los Angeles. I have a cousin who lives there, also police—you say public defender. Do you know of him—Henri Jean Hippolyte?”

  “Sorry, I don’t think so,” Mary said.

  Aide Lopez had weighed and measured her within the first glance. “Both please sit. I am to ask you what help we can provide.”

  Mary glanced above the aide’s head at her collection of paintings. “I seem to be stuck here,” Mary said. “I don’t think I can do my job under these circumstances.”

  “You have come looking for a man once an acquaintance of Colonel Sir’s.”

  “Yes. I’ve brought data to help—”

  “I do not believe we have such a man on Hispaniola.” She opened a cardboard folder and referred to a printout dossier. “Goldsmith. We have many poets, black and white, but not him.”

  “An airline ticket to Hispaniola purchased by Goldsmith was used.”

  “Perhaps by a friend.”

  “Perhaps. But we were told you’d cooperate with our investigation.”

  “We have already searched for him. He is not here unless perhaps he has gone to the hills, to work lumber or mine copper. Not likely?”

  Mary shook her head. “We were offered a chance to conduct our own search.”

  “Les Oncs are thorough,” Aide Lopez said. “We are highly trained professionals like yourself. It is unfortunate that your colleagues cannot join us.”

  Mary glanced up again at the unframed paintings on stretched canvas and wood panel, eyes drawn by the brilliant primal colors. Gods in formal and party dress hovered over voluptuous women and sternfaced men, trees spread open vaginally to admit secret glimpses of skeletons, gaily colored Tap-Tap buses carried a wedding party to the hills.

  “My department isn’t involved in any federal disputes with Colonel Yardley,” Mary said. “I’m looking for a man who killed eight young people with no reason. I have been told your government would give me proper authority to arrest him and remove him from the island.”

  “That is no longer proper. Tit for tat, the winds blow this way now. There is only so much we can do but assure you that we have looked. Goldsmith the murderer is not here. He did not arrive on any recent flights.”

  Mary looked at Soulavier, who leaned his head to one side and smiled in complete sympathy.

  “You’ll allow me to look on my own?” she asked.

  “A big undertaking. Hispaniola is a very large island, mostly mountains. If he is here and we have missed him—not likely! believe me—he has probably gone to the caves or to the forests, and that is a search of months for a thousand inspectors. Easier to find a flea in a room full of papier chiffonné.”

  Aide Lopez twitched her shoulder like a horse wrinkling its skin to shoo a fly. She reached up to smooth the black cloth there, fixed her eye on Mary and said, “I can see you are doubtful. As professional courtesy while you are on our island, if you wish, we will work to give you support.”

  “I’d be very grateful. Is there any way my colleagues can join me?”

  Lopez pointed two fingers like a pistol barrel at Soulavier as if to cue him for an answer. He smiled and inclined his head, shook it tragically. “That is with Colonel Sir,” he said. “He is firm. No visitors from the mainland.” His expression brightened. “We have opposition to fear!”

  Mary did not understand that—did he mean they were opposed to fear?

  “Yes!” he exclaimed as if she had just expressed great disbelief. “Colonel Sir has his enemies, and not just on the mainland. We must be watchful. That is part of our job too.”

  “We show a generosity to our enemies that would have been unheard of two generations past,” Aide Lopez said with faint regret.

  Mary felt the room becoming hot though the building was air conditioned. Mouse in a box. Being hel
pless made her angry but she would no more show that anger than show her fear. “You make my job very difficult,” she said. “As one policeman to two confreres, surely there’s something you can do to help me.”

  Aide Lopez furrowed her brow. “If there is time you will meet with the Inspector General. I will try to arrange it for this morning or afternoon. Aide Soulavier will wait with you. Perhaps a walk on the beach, relaxation, something to eat. There is fine food on the beach. We always take our afternoon meal on the beach.”

  Aide Lopez pushed back her ancient rolling chair and stood, matching Mary’s height and adding ten centimeters of high-peaked cap that suited neither her job nor her physique. Now Aide Lopez resembled a somber clown mocking police. Her expression was relaxed and unconcerned. She looked around the walls at her collection, turned back to Mary and said, “These are my windows.”

  Mary nodded. “Very attractive.”

  “Valuable. Thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of gourdes. I inherited them from my mother. Many of these artists were her lovers. I do not choose artists for my lovers. They have no sense of propriety.”

  Mary smiled ironically, then turned and followed Soulavier, who preceded her along the serpent tiles. “Yes,” he mused. “It would be best for you to meet the Inspector General. You have a good point that we are all police together, with common goals. You should tell that to the Inspector General.”

  Mary asked how long it might be before she could meet with Legar but decided that would be a small sign of weakness. Patience and no misstepping. She might be on Hispaniola for a long time.

  The waters of the bay were brilliant blue green and sparkling clean; the beach was almost empty of tourists this early. A few young Haitians in civic sanitation uniforms fanned simple metal detectors over the sand. Soulavier purchased two fried pompano and two beers from a lone boardwalk vendor and spread out this feast on a blanket on the sand. Mary sat crosslegged and ate the delicious fish, sipping the native brew. She did not enjoy beer often but this was acceptable.