Dead Fast

by A. J. Stewart

  “So, Lucia, that’s a nice name. Are you named after the island St. Lucia?” asked Danielle.

  “I’m named for the saint after which the island is named.”

  It was a nice name, and the coffee was fine, but after wasting the morning on Assistant Commissioner Harrow, I was itching to get to the point. “Corporal, what’s the deal with your assistant commissioner?”

  Tellis didn’t miss a beat. “You have to understand, not everything in Jamaica is like the tourist brochures.”

  “We kind of picked up on that.”

  “Like many islands in the West Indies, we are both rich and poor, and the difference between the two is great. And with such disparity comes disruption.”

  She was well-spoken, and I found myself impressed by her. It occurred to me that I had assumed that she wouldn’t be. That everyone on the island would have the laid-back attitude, and the singsong speech, and that the poverty I had seen meant a lack of education. I felt bad about having made the assumption. After all, I worked in Palm Beach, one of the richest places on the planet, and it was proven to me every day that wealth did not necessarily equal intellect.

  “What do you mean disruption?” asked Danielle, sipping her strong black coffee.

  “Excuse me, I sound like a politician. I mean crime, Deputy. People who have nothing often resort to crime.”

  “People who have everything do it too, trust me,” I said.

  “Of course, but it is different. In Jamaica, we have one of the highest homicide rates in the world. There are drug problems. Not just the ganja, but we are also used by cartels in South America as a trafficking point into America. That brings its own violence. And we don’t have the budgets to fight it. The rich choose to hide from it, in gated communities or in resorts, and as long as they are not affected, all we can do is stem the tide. We have no power to stop it.”

  “You don’t seem ready to give up, Corporal,” said Danielle.

  “No, ma’am. I am not. I am not a fool, I don’t claim it to be easy, but we can do it. Any organization gets its energy from the top. A dynamic leader results in a dynamic rank and file. Did you know our new commissioner is the first ever to have a PhD in criminology? He got it in your country. He is the new model. Integrity and energy.”

  “Unlike Assistant Commissioner Harrow,” I said.

  “Yes, unlike him. He is the old school. Using privilege to insulate himself, rather than to help others.”

  “He’s a cliché. And he’s not the first one we’ve run into. Do you know what happened to us last night, Corporal?” I asked.

  “Yes, suh, I do. My cousin works at your resort. You were run off the road?”

  “We were, but that I can handle. It was being attacked with cricket bats that didn’t fill me with joy.”

  A sorrowful look washed over the corporal’s face, like she took personal responsibility for us having a less than stellar opinion of her homeland.

  “And it happened directly after we left the event at Rose Hall. An event hosted by Cornelius Winston. An event during which I was warned off helping Markus Swan.”

  Tellis sipped her coffee but remained silent.

  “So it seems a little more than laziness, that your assistant commissioner, who we met at the party, would be less than interested in investigating an attack on us. Given as you say, we are the very tourist dollars that Jamaica depends on.”

  The corporal sipped her coffee, then gently placed the mug down and lifted her chin to me. “Mr. Winston is an unusually powerful man.”

  “Unusually?” said Danielle.

  Tellis nodded. “Yes. He is a powerful man in Jamaica, for certain. He has many business interests, some of which are not exactly legal, but many which now are. His businesses have become more legitimate over time.”

  “So how is he unusual?” I repeated.

  “You must understand, that for these men, they are older, so they are perhaps considering their mortality, their legacy. Of course, they could all become philanthropists, but they are not the sort of men to let their legacy get in the way of their lifestyle. Rather one should complement the other.” She sipped her coffee and continued.

  “Mr. Winston is an important figure in Jamaican athletics. This is a considerable deal in Jamaica, where sports, especially running, are held in the highest regard. But he is not at the top of the totem, nor do his responsibilities give him much leverage outside the region. But for some reason, he does have quite a profile abroad. He is often in the company of influential people in other countries, like America or Britain. He has quite the international network for a man with no international position.”

  “What does that mean, Corporal?” asked Danielle.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “All I can tell you is that men like Assistant Commissioner Harrow might benefit from Mr. Winston’s activities. So he has an incentive to assist Mr. Winston and not you. What that incentive is, I do not know.”

  Maybe she didn’t know, but I knew. Arthurs, the old Englishman at the Rose Hall function, had told me as much. Winston was making a play for an IOC role. And I could see how an international network might be helpful in gaining such a position. I could also see how a man in that position might need security advice on international venues, and how that perk might be attractive to an old cop sitting in a cinderblock building in MoBay. I resolved to keep these tidbits to myself until I felt it was necessary to share with the young officer.

  “So, Corporal, we all agree no one will help us,” I said. “But we do this for a living. We’ll cope.”

  “Yes, suh. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But the two of you . . .” She leaned back and looked me up and down, and did the same to Danielle. “No offense, suh, but you don’t exactly blend in here. I knew about your accident last night before you woke up this morning. If I have eyes and ears about, Assistant Commissioner Harrow has too. Same for Mr. Winston.”

  It was a fair point. With my sandy hair and predilection for palm tree print shirts, and Danielle looking like a Nike model with a few years of Krav Maga under her belt, we didn’t exactly meld into the background anywhere in Montego Bay.

  “No offense taken, Corporal,” I said. “Your point is well made. So what do you suggest?”

  “I can help you. I know most of the gangs that do occasional work for Mr. Winston. If you can get an ID from Markus Swan, I can track down who attacked him. And that may well lead to whoever attacked you.”

  “And confirm who hired them,” said Danielle.

  “Precisely, Deputy.”

  “I’m on vacation, call me Danielle.”

  “Alright, Danielle. Please call me Lucia.” She turned her gaze on me. She was pretty, but that wasn’t the most arresting thing about her. It was the determination in her eyes that grabbed me.

  “So what say you?”

  “Alright, Corporal. We could use your help. We’ll chat to Markus, see what we can get out of him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  LUCIA LEFT US in the coffee shop to walk back to the police station, and returned with a clean, almost-new looking Suzuki Jimny in JCF livery. It was a toy model of an SUV, two doors and not a lot of leg room in the back, but it beat walking. Lucia made a call en route and discovered that our motorcycle and helmets had been retrieved from the channel where we had left them, and were presently sitting in the very workshop where we had purchased the bike in the first place. I wasn’t too keen on getting run off the road again, so we left it where it was, and took our police escort to the Swan residence.

  We left Lucia to return the car, and knocked on the door. I heard a call of come in, so did just that. Mrs. Swan was in her usual spot, boiling something or other on the stove, and she gave her usual frown as we wandered in.

  “Markus is fine,” said Danielle. “He’s at school.”

  I saw the frown loosen some, and she nodded for us to sit at the table. She offered us tea, which we declined, still full on coffee.

  “Mrs. Swan, do you have any clue
who attacked Markus?” I said.

  “You was dare,” she said. “Ow would I know?”

  “I just thought Markus may have said something.”

  “No, suh. Markus don’ say nuttin’. But I don need no hearin’ to know it was Mr. Winston behind it.”

  “What makes you say that, ma’am?”

  “He’s a bod man.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve been wondering. If he’s so powerful in the athletic community, and he wants Markus with him enough to injure him because he’s not, then why not just go with him? Why not accept his help instead of the help of some joker who isn’t even in Jamaica? What’s Richmond got that Winston doesn’t?”

  “Pfft,” she said, shaking her head. “Richmond. He no shinin’ light, dot I tell ya.”

  “So why let him help Markus?”

  Her shoulders sagged, and she turned and poured some water into a kettle, which she put on the stovetop. Then she joined us at the table.

  “Mista Jones, somebody got to help. We don’ got da money to buy fancy shoes and da like.”

  “I understand that, ma’am. So why not go with Winston? I’m sure he has access to plenty of Nikes.”

  Her face softened, almost sad to look at, and for the first time I could see the woman she had been, before life wore her down. The kettle blew its siren call, and she stood and made a solitary cup of tea, then she returned to sit with us.

  “My husband, Mista Jones, was a cricketer. He could run too, dot for sure, and dot is how he come to the eye of Cornelius Winston. Mr. Winston was not such the big mon as he be now, but he knew what he wanted, even den.”

  “And what do you think he wanted?” asked Danielle.

  “He want control. He want power.” She looked into her tea, and then up at Danielle. “He want my husband.” I watched her sip her drink, searching for words or canvasing memories. “Mr. Winston want my husband to run for him. My husband tell ‘im no, he want to play cricket. Den Mista Winston want my husband to play cricket for him, to throw matches dot Mr. Winston want to bet on. My husband refuse, and get beaten. Again and again. Den Mista Winston threaten me, threaten our boy, Markus.”

  She took another drink and looked into the mug. For a moment I thought she might shed a tear, but it never came.

  “One night, men came. Dey held me and my baby boy. Dey was going to do tings, bod tings. You know?” Mrs. Swan looked at Danielle, who nodded.

  “My husband come home, find dees mon, and he fight dem. He kill one a dem. Kill ‘im dead. De udder mon run away. Den we hear, the police, dey gonna take my husband away to jail. He cannot do dot, so I tell him run. So he run. He run away.”

  “Where did he go?” asked Danielle.

  Mrs. Swan shook her head. “I don know. I tell ‘im, never call, never write, or dey find you. So he never did.”

  “Never?” Danielle raised her eyebrows. Mrs. Swan glanced at her like she was going to share something, but she dropped her eyes.

  “No, never.”

  We sat in silence for a time, each in our own thoughts. My head was with Markus, growing up without a father, knowing or not knowing about why he left, why he wasn’t there to take his boy to those early morning training sessions, to watch him run like the wind. I was at college when my dad died, although I lost him years before when my mother surrendered to the cancer. In a lot of ways he had let me down when I needed him most, so I couldn’t wait to leave, to run from Connecticut and never go back. Baseball and football took me to college in Florida, then baseball took me to California and back to Florida, and I landed with a new mentor in the late, great Lenny Cox, and a new direction in life. And it wasn’t until I was back in South Florida, the baseball career been and gone, that I realized that I had let my dad down every bit as much as he had me. And I wondered at what thoughts were coursing through Markus’s mind. Without a father figure to bounce our thoughts off, our minds have a nasty habit of turning on us. Which gave me an idea, and I unfurled myself from my seat.

  “I’m just going to step outside and make a call,” I said.

  Danielle nodded.

  Mrs. Swan did not.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I WANDERED OUTSIDE, where the breeze had picked up and clouds gathered around the mountain tops like old men around a bar. I took out my phone and called West Palm Beach. The number rang three times before it was answered.

  “LCI,” said Lizzy, my office manager. When Lenny Cox, the founder of the firm, had died, he left me the business, and it was suggested that I change the name from Lenny Cox Investigations to something more apropos. But we already had the stationery, so I declined.

  “Lizzy, it’s me.”

  “Why are you calling here?” Lizzy was my self-appointed guardian angel. She seemed to see her role as being in charge of both my religious salvation, which was a task as destined for failure as an antidevelopment politician in Florida, and in conjunction with Danielle, my health and work/life. The latter role manifested itself in all kinds of torture, not limited to but including removing all the liquor from my office during one particularly zealous period. Lizzy had ordered me to not call while on vacation, and had almost commandeered my phone for the duration.

  “I just need to talk to Ron.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “It’s not a work thing, honest.” I felt a small twinge about lying to a devout Christian, but figured I could deal with any given deity. A month of stony silence from Lizzy was too much to bear.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Is he at Cassandra’s?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks, Lizzy.”

  “Are you at least having a good time?”

  “It’s a blast. Like Florida, without the snowbirds.”

  “Don’t drink too much. I know what those all-inclusive resorts can be like.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve heard. Say hi to Danielle.”

  “Will do. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  I hung up and dialed again. It rang and rang again, but I knew it wouldn’t go to voicemail.

  “What?” answered the gruff voice at the other end.

  “Mick, it’s Miami.”

  “This can’t wait ’til you get here?”

  “I’m on vacation, Mick. In Jamaica.”

  “Why?”

  It was a fair point. I lived by the water, currently drove a convertible Porsche around in the sunshine and spent my down hours sharing a few drinks in the outdoor bar of Mick’s place, Longboard Kelly’s. Except for the jerk chicken, it really wasn’t all that different from Jamaica.

  “Is Ron there?”

  “Do cats taste like rabbit?”

  I didn’t bother trying to respond to that, given I ate so many of my meals out of Mick’s kitchen. Instead I listened to the scratch and bang on the line as Mick took the phone to the bar. I could picture Ron, my business partner, drinking partner and best bud, sitting under the palapa shade on his stool, silver mane shining in the afternoon light, chatting with Muriel the barmaid and just being, the way one can in Florida.

  “Miami, how goes my birthplace?” Being born in Jamaica meant Ron could never be president, but he still held onto the hope that his beloved Florida would break away from the union and form its own republic, complete with daily state-mandated happy hours.

  “Hey, Ron. It’s more like Florida that I’d have given credit.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’ve not being lying on the beach?”

  “We did that. The other day.”

  “And since then? What trouble have you found?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  I gave him the abridged version of our vacation, from the assault in the alley to Markus running and his mentor Richmond, and Winston and Rose Hall and getting run off the road and attacked with cricket bats.

  “So par for the course,” said Ron.

  “Yeah, even including the complete apathy of the local cops. If these thugs are connected to Winston, then I don’t know how we get a
nywhere, because the local cops are completely in his pocket. Except for one young officer, and I don’t know how much she can help.”

  “Can I advise going back to your resort and keeping your head down?”

  “You sound like the assistant commissioner. But I’m not worried about me and Danielle. I’m thinking more long-term. This kid can really run, and all this corruption might not only prevent him from running, it might end a lot worse than that.”

  I heard Ron take a sip of what I was sure was a beer.

  “Well, I’m afraid I’m not that well connected in Jamaica anymore, and anyone I do know is in Kingston. MoBay was never really my haunt. But there is one avenue you might pursue.”

  “And that is?”

  “The State Department.”

  “We thought of that, but the embassy is in Kingston. It’s nowhere near here.”

  “True, but I’m pretty sure there is a US Consulate in Montego Bay. You and Danielle are US citizens who have been assaulted. If the cops won’t help, maybe the consulate will.”

  “A consulate? Worth a shot. But I’m not sure how that helps Markus.”

  “You say he can run? Really run?”

  “Dead fast, as they say here.”

  “Then there’s one other idea. Get him out. Get him away from the bad influences.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Are his grades okay?”

  “Think so.”

  “You still know the athletic director at UM, don’t you?”

  I nodded to myself. “I do.”

  “They offer scholarships for running?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So maybe he could run his way into an education.”

  “Yeah, that’s an idea. Thanks, Ron. Keep my seat warm.”

  “This is Florida, my friend. That’s what the sunshine is for.”