Dead Fast

by A. J. Stewart

  “G’night, suh,” he said.

  I thanked him and squeezed ten US dollars in his hand, and then got on the bike. There were a number of other cars being valeted, and we followed a sedan down the hill to the main road, where the car turned into the darkness on the right, and we turned into the darkness on the left.

  Chapter Ten

  I TOOK THE ride easy, having had a couple of rum shots, and we didn’t see much traffic. The headlight on the bike was more a suggestion, and the road had its fair share of potholes. I heard the engine of a vehicle coming from behind, and I assumed it was another guest from Rose Hall, making their way back into MoBay. We passed a resort, spotlights pasting an eerie glow on the palm trees out the front, and then we moved on to a dark stretch, no doubt a rocky part of the coastline not conducive to a resort beach, so left undeveloped. I saw the headlights grow larger in my mirrors, and I moved to the side of the road to let the faster vehicle pass. As it reached us I saw it was a minivan, equally beaten as every other one, and for a moment I was surprised that a guest at such a function as we had come from would be going home in such a van. A dark face peered out of the open window, but I saw no features, no eyes, no smile. The van moved ahead a little. Then it swerved.

  The van shot violently to the side, almost taking us out. But the driver had assumed our speed to be greater than it was, and despite my rums, I had time to brake and pull in behind the van. Just as suddenly as it had jerked to the side, the driver hit the skids, and the van fishtailed in front us. In the fraction of a second I had to think about it, I was convinced we were going to run right into the back of the van, so I yanked the bike into the darkness beside the road. The headlight gave us a preview of a grassy channel, and I felt Danielle tighten her grip around my waist, no doubt sensing that things were about to get dicey. The bike left the road and I pulled up on the handlebars, lifting the front wheel slightly, and we dropped several feet down into the channel. The landing was smoother than I had thought it might be, then the front wheel hit some thick grass that wrapped around the spokes and the bike lost all momentum. Unfortunately, we didn’t. I was launched over the handlebars, Danielle clinging to my back like a baby monkey on its mama. As we fell toward the ground we separated and I tucked, trying to roll as best as I could on impact.

  I took the hit on my shoulder, softened by the long grass, then I flipped over, legs up in the air, like an out-of-control gymnast, and I dropped over and hit the ground flat out on my stomach. I took a second to brush away the shock, and then I took a quick inventory. Adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay, but I felt for breaks and found none. I pulled my face from the grass and looked for Danielle. All I saw was more grass. I heard the van, which had taken some time to stop, backing up. For a moment I wondered if they had hit an animal, causing them to swerve and brake. Then a pair of feet landed in front of me.

  “You okay?” whispered Danielle, laying her hands on my shoulders. She had discarded or lost her helmet.

  “Yeah, I think so. You?”

  “Yes. Thank goodness for grass, hey?” She looked up, alert, as if she had just bounced off a bed, rather than being thrown over the handlebars of a motorcycle.

  “They’re coming back,” she said.

  I pulled up onto my hands and knees. “Was that an accident?”

  “What do you think?” she said, but her tone told me she had no doubt it was not. “Come on, get up.”

  We stood but stayed crouched, and moved to the back of the channel, where we heard the doors on the van open and then slam shut. The headlights of the van gave us some vision, and three silhouettes appeared above us. They were looking down into darkness, so one of them lit a flashlight and scanned the channel until he found us.

  “Hello,” said one of the men, an incongruent joviality in his voice. The flashlight guy stayed on the road, spotlighting us, and the other two clambered down the embankment into the channel of grass. Even in silhouette it was clear they carried big clubs, like baseball bats on steroids. To my dismay I realized they both held cricket bats, big wide chunks of lumber with handles. The two men came toward us. The angle of the channel made it impossible for them to move side by side, so one came before the other. I felt Danielle behind me, and she put her hand on my shoulder.

  “What do you think?” I whispered.

  “You’re going to have to take one for the team.”

  We waited for them to get closer, just out of reach of their big bats, and then we moved. I charged like a blocker on a football field, paving the way for my running back behind me. The first guy saw me coming in the spotlight, and he pulled his bat back and swung. I’d been hit by sporting equipment before. It’s surprising how many thugs like sports equipment as weapons. I’d copped baseball bats, hockey sticks, even bowling balls. None of them were fun, but at least the experience gave me a chance, and I was glad to still be wearing my helmet. The cricket bat came down hard, and I moved with it, down and away, turning and tucking my head to hopefully save myself from a smashed cheekbone. The bat connected across my shoulder blades, pain searing down my spine. But it was a glancing blow, knocking me forward into the grass, but at least not splitting me in half. The follow-through of the swing brought the bat down with me, and that was when Danielle sprang into action. She charged—this I knew because she stood on my butt as she ran forward, trying to get to the guy before he could raise his bat again.

  She made it. I heard the sound of a fist connecting with a nose, a sickening, crunching sound, and I rolled onto my back to see the guy stagger, but not go down. Danielle was well trained, fit and strong, but she wasn’t taking down a big guy with one punch. But then that wasn’t her plan. The guy put one hand to his bloody nose, a natural reaction to one’s face exploding in a mass of blood and snot, and as he did, Danielle went for the bat. She grabbed it mid-shaft, in the thick part, and wrenched it up, pulling the handle out of the guy’s hand. He felt it go, and tried to regather, leaning away as she swung at him. But she didn’t swing. She used as little movement as possible, and thrust the bat like a pool cue, crashing the end point of the handle into the guy’s crotch. He gave a muffled yelp, oddly more noise than he had made when his nose was broken, and he bent over. That gave Danielle the time to flip the bat through the air, like a baton twirler, catching the handle, winding up and swinging for the bleachers, or whatever one swings for when playing cricket. The wide chunk of wood collected the guy in the chin, and his head snapped up, and then he fell backwards like a giant redwood meeting its end.

  The second guy watched from behind, powerless to intervene, but now he held out his bat, down in front, like a Jedi knight. I thought I caught a smile form in the edges of the flashlight. Danielle raised her bat up, across her shoulder like a baseball batter. The guy took a small step forward. Despite his buddy’s demise, he was clearly confident he could take this skinny little woman in a sword fight of sorts. But Danielle wasn’t about to parry with him. She slowly dropped the bat, down behind her back, elbows up. The guy held his bat out front but stayed out of range. Then Danielle jagged her elbows down, propelling her bat over her shoulders in a chopping motion, and let it go. The bat flew from flashlight to darkness, impossible to track with any accuracy, and probably so fast it didn’t matter anyway. It spun like an Indian tomahawk, over itself, until it connected with the head of the second guy, and he dropped like a skydiver with no chute.

  Danielle jumped forward to make sure the guy wasn’t coming back for more, but I was pretty confident based on the sound alone that he wasn’t waking up any time soon. The flashlight followed her and she kneeled by the fallen guy. I took the moment of darkness to get up and use the grass to pull myself out of the channel. The guy on the road was flicking the light between his two buddies, probably in shock. He collected himself and realized that discretion was the better part of valor, and he turned to run back to the van. Only he turned straight into me. His mouth dropped open like I had materialized from nowhere, his eyes went wide and he dropped the flashli
ght.

  “The White Witch says hi,” I said, then I pushed him backwards and he fell down into the channel. I grabbed the flashlight and found Danielle pulling herself out of the grass, and I helped her up onto the road.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, and was shaking. “Think I need a rum,” she said.

  I hugged her gently, sure her body had to be hurting as much as mine. Then we heard the third guy call from down in the channel.

  “You kilt dem!”

  “They’re not dead,” said Danielle. “They just won’t be getting up for a while. You prop them up, they’ll be fine.” Then she turned to me. “So, that rum?”

  “The bike?”

  “I’m not trying to fish a motorcycle out of there,” she said. “And I lost my shoes, so I’m not walking back. I’m sure they won’t mind if we borrow their van.”

  I threw the flashlight into the scrub and tossed my helmet down in the general direction of the motorcycle. Then we got in the van and I piloted us home. I pulled into the front of the resort, we gingerly got out and I tossed the keys to the valet.

  “It’s a loaner. See that it gets back to its home, will you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE MORNING DAWNED like another postcard, cloudless and mild. My shoulders still ached despite half a dozen ibuprofen, and Danielle had a nasty purple bruise along the triceps on her right arm, but we were glad to be done with our adventures at Rose Hall. Danielle suggested a hot tub, so we wandered down to the pool and sat boiling like a couple of lobsters. The pool area was like a land grab in the old west, people claiming loungers with towels in the predawn darkness before retreating back to their rooms. The hot tub loosened up my muscles some, and once we were sufficiently cooked we went back to our room. I was feeling particularly feisty despite or maybe because of my beating, so I collected all the towels off the vacant loungers and dropped them in the used towel bin as we left. Danielle just shook her head and smiled.

  Markus didn’t have an early training session, so we were able to grab a plate of tropical fruit. Then we went to the doorman and asked for a minivan into town. I had to chalk up the motorcycle as a bad investment. The van took us to the Swan home, but when I tried to pay, the guy gave a shake of the head.

  “You keep dot boy safe.”

  I nodded and said that was the plan, and then we collected Markus and walked to school. It appeared that news of us arriving back at the hotel in someone else’s van had spread through the grapevine, and the rest of the story had been pieced together. As a result Markus seemed more impressed with us than he had before, as if he hadn’t been convinced we would actually protect him, if push came to shove. We dropped him at the school gate, and then I let out a deep breath and looked at Danielle as if to say well, what now?

  “Let’s get a coffee. I want to go see our esteemed assistant commissioner, and I am betting he’s not in the office this early.”

  Danielle was right about that. We wandered down to the constabulary offices, a featureless, squat building behind wire fencing, at about nine thirty, and were sitting in the lobby for half an hour when Harrow marched in. He didn’t look overjoyed to see us.

  “Mr. Jones, Deputy Castle, what can I do for you?”

  “We’d like to report a traffic incident,” said Danielle.

  “I am sure the desk officer can help you with that.”

  “And an attempted murder.”

  Now Harrow frowned. “That’s quite the accusation.”

  “It is. Shall we document it?” said Danielle. She was standing tall and clearly in no mood for Harrow’s prevarication. But we all knew that now she had made the statement, Harrow had to at least hear her out.

  “My office.”

  His office turned out to be a large space with walls that had been painted white a couple decades earlier. Slow-moving ceiling fans shifted air around that smelled like cinnamon. Harrow sat behind his large but plain desk, and invited us to sit opposite.

  “Would you like to make a formal complaint?” said Harrow.

  “I don’t know,” said Danielle. “Will it do any good?”

  “Excuse me? Deputy, I don’t know how you converse with your superiors in Palm Beach, but here we expect a greater level of respect than you are showing.”

  “In Palm Beach we earn respect, we don’t expect it. That being said, we already told you about an assault that you suggested was a funding issue, so I am just trying to ascertain if tourists being driven off the road and beaten with cricket bats falls into the same category or if we should contact the US embassy.”

  Harrow took a shallow breath that seemed more for show than for air, and steepled his fingers together.

  “Your embassy is in Kingston, at the other end of the island. Regardless, I assure you we take all matters regarding tourist safety very seriously. So why don’t you describe the events for me?”

  Danielle gave a law enforcement version of the previous night’s adventures—just the facts, ma’am. Words like assailants and brandishing and deadly force. She left out my ghost story, which seemed the prudent move to me.

  “So how did you get back to your hotel?” said Harrow, looking between Danielle and me.

  “In the van,” I said.

  He frowned. “You stole their van?”

  “They suggested we could borrow it, and we asked the valet to see that it was returned.”

  “Well, it seems you do know how to attract trouble.”

  I couldn’t debate that point, but I wasn’t sure that was what Danielle wanted to hear.

  “We can take matters forward, if you wish to make your complaint formal,” said Harrow.

  “I just gave it to the assistant commissioner. How much more formal does it get?” Danielle frowned. She really had her hackles up, and I wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t leap across the desk at Harrow.

  “If you wish to make it in writing,” said assistant commissioner. “We have procedures. But I will offer a pound’s worth of advice for a penny. You are guests here on our island, temporarily. You have come to avail yourself of our resort hospitality, and you have chosen to forgo such hospitality and venture into matters that should not concern you. Local matters. Now Jamaica can be a dangerous place. Beautiful but dangerous. It does not serve you to disrespect a man like Mr. Winston. If I came to your country, and made vicious accusations against your president, how welcome do you think I’d be?”

  My guess was in parts of Florida that would earn you a street parade, but I decided to keep that to myself.

  “So my advice to you is to be thankful you suffered no serious injury, and enjoy the rest of your vacation in the safety of your resort.”

  Danielle gave Harrow a steely look, which I was surprised to see dissolve into a soft smile. It was like a switch had flicked inside her, and it was seriously Stepford.

  “Assistant Commissioner, I apologize. We did come here to enjoy a relaxing vacation, and we have, as you rightly point out, strayed from our purpose. I am sorry to have wasted your time.”

  Without further word Danielle stood and I followed suit. The assistant commissioner didn’t get up. Danielle thanked him again, I gave a nod and we left. I waited until we were on the steps of the building before I spoke.

  “Okay, that was weird. You just giving up now?”

  “Hell, no,” said Danielle, with a look that might have turned a lesser man to stone. She shot the look back at the constabulary building. “He’s the worst kind of cop. We’ve got them at home too. Jaded, maybe corrupt.”

  “You spend enough time swimming against the tide, maybe it wears you out,” I said, playing devil’s advocate for reasons I didn’t understand.

  “No, you swim upstream, it brings out your character. You make it, or you don’t, because of who you are.” She turned back to me, the look gone. “You know when I went to the law enforcement leadership conference in Atlanta? I met plenty of high-ranking people who would had been in as long as Harrow. But they hadn’t given up. If anyth
ing, the fight made them more determined. I’m sure not all cops here are like him. I’m sure there a plenty who give a damn.”

  “I give a damn,” said a voice from behind us. We snapped around to see a girl standing on the steps who appeared all of sixteen years old, dressed in a dark blue police uniform that looked like a Halloween costume on her.

  “And you are?” I asked.

  “Corporal Lucia Tellis, Jamaican Constabulary Force.”

  “Corporal? What are you, twelve years old?”

  “I’m twenty-four, suh.”

  I noted she had an accent, but it wasn’t nearly as pronounced as some. “Twenty-four? If you say so.”

  “What do you give a damn about, Corporal?” asked Danielle.

  “I give a damn about the JCF motto, ma’am.”

  “And what is your motto?”

  “Serve, protect, and reassure.”

  “And what about your boss, the assistant commissioner?”

  “Between you and me, ma’am, he’s not exactly my role model.”

  Danielle smiled. “I like you, Corporal. My name is Deputy Danielle Castle. This is Miami Jones.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I know. I know all about it. And I want to help.”

  Chapter Twelve

  CORPORAL LUCIA TELLIS took us to a small coffee shop a few blocks from the police station. She had ebony skin that glowed in the sunshine, smooth as a bowling ball, and her frame was delicate like fine china. Her eyes told another story altogether. We were the only people in the coffee shop, save the woman who had been wiping the grime from the front windows, who followed us in and brought us coffee.

  “You know we produce some of the best coffee in the world, right here in Jamaica,” said Corporal Tellis, and she earned a beaming smile from the woman who was pouring the coffee from a large pewter pot. When the coffee was poured, we all took a sip and nodded our approval to the woman, who smiled again, and then retreated behind her small counter.