Blown

by Mark Haskell Smith

  She nodded. “Does it get any smoother than Michael McDonald?”

  “Actually, it does.”

  “Glad to see you’re enjoying the boat, Mr. Ebanks.”

  “If you call me Cuffy, I’ll pour you a glass of this delicious wine a really sweet person gave me.”

  Teresa smiled. “Glad to see you’re enjoying the wine, Cuffy.”

  He held out a hand and she took it as she climbed into the boat. Her skin felt soft.

  “Did your parents give you that name?”

  Bryan ducked into the galley and grabbed another glass. He poured her some wine and winked. Bryan decided, at that moment, that Cuffy was someone who might wink at women. He was just the kind of mischievous rogue who would do that. Who knows? Some women might find it charming.

  “They wanted a girl. So …”

  She took the glass and sat on the helm seat. “So you were supposed to be Buffy?”

  Bryan laughed. “I never asked.” He took a sip of the wine and said, “This is delicious. Thank you.”

  “It’s one of my favorites.” Another song came on and Teresa cocked her head as she listened. “Is that the Doobie Brothers?”

  “It might be Steely Dan. I’m new to the yacht-rock lifestyle.”

  Teresa laughed. “So this is it. You’re going to spend your life riding the wind, traveling the world, living the dream.”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  She shook her head. “No way. I make my living selling the dream.” She leaned back and sipped her wine. “I just think I’d get lonely.”

  “We can’t all save the world.” He said it to sound like a man resigned to his fate, as if there were something epic and worldly about his leaving the rat race, but then he realized that wasn’t necessarily true. “But the truth is I’ve no clue what I’ll do.”

  “It’s good to keep your options open.” She finished her wine and put the glass down. “When do you cast off?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I still have some loose ends to tie up.”

  “Let me know if you need anything.”

  She held out her hand. Bryan shook it and then said, “I’ll stop by your office to say good-bye.”

  She smiled. “Come by for a coffee.”

  Piet wasn’t going to sweat it. The provisional warrant was a nuisance, but it wasn’t the end of the world. The American tourist would think he’d see justice done, but Piet would trot out the entire staff of the resort to testify that the tourist was a racist blowhard who’d earned every stitch in his fucked-up face. Maybe Piet would countersue for emotional distress, add punitive damages for the ravages of colonialism to the Caribbean region. The American could be looking at a fine of a couple hundred billion dollars. Four hundred years of payback is a bitch.

  The bigger problem was seeing his clients held as material witnesses in a murder investigation. It wouldn’t surprise Piet if the charges suddenly escalated to potential accessories to murder, whatever the higher-ups at the RCIPS thought might give them a bigger payout. Not that they were corrupt. It was just business.

  Grover entered the room and looked at him. “Oh, don’t be that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Don’t pout.”

  Piet picked at the lip of the paper coffee cup he’d been given. The coffee was long gone. “I’m not pouting. I’m concerned about my clients.”

  “Don’t be. They’ve got a lawyer coming in a few minutes.”

  Piet was impressed. “That was fast.”

  “This particular lawyer is a member of Parliament.”

  “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Hey. An upstanding local turns up dead. Some Americans are poking around the dead guy’s home with a private detective. I’d be derelict if I didn’t look into it.” Grover pulled out a chair and sat across from Piet. “I ran that name you gave me. LeBlanc.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. No one named LeBlanc blew in on any plane or stepped off a cruise ship. No LeBlanc staying at any hotel.”

  “So you drew a LeBlanc?”

  Grover laughed. “How long have you been waiting to use that?”

  “It just came to me.”

  Grover smiled. “What would make it funnier is if I shot you with a Taser right now.”

  Piet remembered working with Grover on an interisland case once. He recalled how the more Grover smiled, the more violent the response was about to be. Piet held up his hands. “I’m sorry, man. Sorry.”

  Grover’s smiled faded. He relaxed back into his chair.

  Piet leaned forward. “Let me talk to them, see what else I can learn. I know they went to the victim’s bank. I honestly don’t know why.”

  “Too late. The lawyer’s already in there with them.”

  Piet crumpled the paper cup and said, “I have an idea.”

  The lawyer had a bow tie. Neal couldn’t decide if he was impressed by the fact that the attorney got dressed in a crisply pressed suit to come see them at the police station or if he was unnerved by it. You would think someone in the tropics might play it more casual. Of course the hourly fee this guy was charging the company probably demanded formal attire. Still, he was a good-looking man in his midfifties, and Neal could tell by the way he carried himself that he was important—this was not your typical public defender. The lawyer sat at the table next to Neal and said, “I have a personal message from your boss. He says, ‘Keep up the good work.’”

  Neal looked at the lawyer. He wasn’t sure he understood the message the CEO was trying to deliver. “I’m sorry?”

  The lawyer continued. “Whatever it takes.”

  The lawyer flashed a thumbs-up and Neal noticed that his fingernails were professionally manicured. Neal leaned close to the attorney, close enough to catch a whiff of a dry gin martini, and said, “We didn’t kill anyone.”

  The lawyer nodded. “Of course not.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “But if you had, your boss wouldn’t be upset.” The lawyer held eye contact with each of them in turn. “Take that as a positive.”

  Neal didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Seo-yun broke the silence. “Can you get my cell phone back?”

  The lawyer nodded. “In due time.” He then turned to Neal. “So, tell me, why are you on our beautiful island?”

  Neal was unsure how much to tell him.

  “Whatever you tell me is confidential. Lawyer-client privilege is extended,” the lawyer reassured him.

  Neal scanned the room, looking for signs of two-way mirrors or some sort of listening device. It was what he would call nondescript. Industrial beige paint seemed to cover every surface. The floor was beige linoleum, the table beige Formica. Neal wanted to laugh. This room was so nondescript it actually erased descriptors from your mind. It was anti-descript. It created a non-impression. It was tricky.

  Seo-yun finally spoke up. “A broker embezzled some money. We traced it to a bank here. The guy who got murdered was the assistant manager at the bank.”

  The lawyer ran his fingers through his hair. “So you think the broker murdered the bank manager.”

  Seo-yun shook her head. “There’s no way. I know him. There’s just no way.”

  Neal turned to her. “How can you be sure?”

  Seo-yun shrugged. “I’m sure.”

  The lawyer tapped his fingers on the table. “Who knows, right? He could be dead too. There could be a third party involved. Either way, there’s no reason for you to be held. My job is to get you out of police custody.”

  With that the lawyer snapped his briefcase closed and left the room.

  It had never occurred to Neal that he might spend the night in jail. He was a law-abiding citizen. He didn’t live in a city where he might accidentally drink that one extra drink and then get behind the wheel of a car, and he didn’t hang out at bars where people got into fights. It was true that he marched in political protests from time to time, but he’d never been in a riot, and if one broke out, he w
ould get away from it as fast as he could.

  Neal sat on the hard metal bench and looked around the cell. Unlike the holding room he’d been in, this room was not nondescript. Metal sink, metal toilet, metal bench, concrete walls, each bearing a grimy patina that told a story of dirt and sweat, of blood and snot and semen spattered across the surfaces and allowed to petrify. The floor was splotched and faded, some parts chemically blistered by solvents, while other areas were built up with thick rivulets of scuzzy matter. The distinct aroma of industrial cleaner mixed with an undertone of rancid feces tickled his nostrils and filled his mouth with an acrid taste. The walls revealed the artistic endeavors of previous tenants; there were layers of incomprehensible graffiti and at least a hundred crude drawings of ejaculating penises scrawled on the brick.

  Neal had to admit that some of the artwork was not without charm, but there was nothing that invited erotic musings. Maybe if it was a little cleaner it could be a kind of kinky backroom fantasy, the kind of place he might’ve taken Bart on his birthday or something. You know, go wild. Role-play. Buy some handcuffs.

  At least Seo-yun was released. The lawyer had told the police they were following up on a suspicious wire transfer and that was why they were looking for the assistant bank manager. It was just bad timing that someone murdered him. It was completely believable and yet the George Town police seemed unconvinced. So a deal was struck. He stayed in jail, Seo-yun went back to the Ritz, and the lawyer would sort it all out in the morning.

  Neal put his hands behind his head and lay back on the crusty metal bench. If LeBlanc had purchased that boat he saw at the marina, well, he’d probably be sailing away soon. Not that there was much Neal could do about it from jail. He might as well try to get some sleep.

  He settled in and decided that he’d throw his clothes in the trash when he got back to the hotel. He wouldn’t bother sending them to the laundry. The lights in the cell went out, but it wasn’t really dark; a shaft of moonlight blasted in from the window. Neal looked up at the ceiling and something caught his eye. Neal stood up on the bench for a closer look. Sure enough, it was a stalactite of dried semen dangling six or seven feet above the bench, glowing in the soft moonlight. Neal didn’t think it was physically possible to launch a come load that high. Who could do that? But then there it was. It was a marvel.

  “I need a drink.”

  Piet watched as Seo-yun headed across the Ritz-Carlton lobby. Although he felt like he’d been worked over in the police station, a drink seemed like a good idea. He followed her to the bar.

  The bartender smoothed out his graying mustache with his left hand while setting two paper napkins on the bar with his right. Seo-yun looked at him and said, “Bourbon. On ice.” The bartender nodded and turned to Piet. Piet smiled even though he didn’t feel like smiling and scanned the bottles behind the bartender. Nothing jumped out at him, so he said, “A beer for me.”

  Piet sat down on the bar stool next to Seo-yun. She was trembling. “I can’t believe Neal has to spend the night in jail.”

  Piet reached out and touched her hand. “We’ll pick him up first thing in the morning.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we get you guys off the island.”

  The bartender placed their drinks in front of them and went back to tidying up the bar. It was quiet; the only other guests were a couple drinking wine. Seo-yun took a long pull of her bourbon. “What about LeBlanc?”

  “I don’t trust the police. They don’t have any leads. I think they want to flip this whole thing around on us.”

  “But we didn’t do it.”

  Piet shrugged. “Innocent people are put in jail all the time.”

  “But Neal just found a clue. Down at the marina.”

  “People buy boats here all the time.”

  “It’s worth following up.”

  Piet leaned close to her. “Listen, I’m here to help with the investigation, but I need to protect you too. None of us can find LeBlanc from a jail cell.” Piet watched her consider what he was saying.

  “What if something happens to him in there?”

  “You guys are VIPs staying at the Ritz. The concierge has probably already called the jailers and sent over some pure cotton sheets. Maybe they’ll even put a chocolate on his pillow.”

  “We owe it to Neal to check out that boat.”

  Piet nodded. “We can check on the boat in the morning, on our way to the airport.”

  Seo-yun sipped her drink. “I’d better go work on my résumé.”

  “Why?”

  “This is an absolute failure.”

  He put his hand on hers. “It’s not your fault. Someone got murdered. Once that happens …” Piet thought about what to say. “You should go back to New York.”

  She sighed. “I don’t want to go back. Not yet anyway.”

  “Come to Curaçao.”

  “I don’t think we’ll find him there.”

  Piet shrugged. “We can have fun while we look.”

  “I need more fun.”

  Pearson had gotten a phone tip from the bartender at the Ritz-Carlton that the American he had been watching had been arrested and was spending the night in jail. Pearson didn’t really know what to do—he had no special training in abduction or murder—but he was an artist, and artists think for themselves. Seeing things differently is what creates an original work of art. Pearson would have to improvise. That’s why he was waiting in his car when the American came stumbling out of the police station.

  The American held his hand up to keep the morning sun out of his eyes as Pearson approached him. He seemed unsettled, as if Pearson were going to ask him for spare change or bother him somehow. “Mister? I’m here to give you a ride,” Pearson said reassuringly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The little man and the Asian woman sent me.”

  The American seemed surprised. “She’s Korean American, actually.”

  Pearson shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  Saying that seemed to put the American at ease. Pearson knew it would. Pinkies always liked to be called “boss” or “chief” and hear you say, “Yes, sir, no problem, sir.” One minute they feel threatened by a black man and the next they’re feeling that it’s all under control, the hierarchy reestablished.

  The American grimaced, as if he was really torn about what to do, like he couldn’t decide, but he finally made up his mind and said, “Are we going straight to the marina?”

  Pearson nodded. “Straightaway.”

  The American relaxed. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Pearson opened the passenger door to his yellow Jeep and the American climbed in.

  Bryan drove out to the Bay Market. He figured he’d get enough provisions for at least a week. It was exciting to be provisioning for a voyage. Even the word provisioning made him smile. He’d never imagined that someday he’d have a boat—his boat—that would allow him to sail away to wherever he wanted. If he wanted to go to Carnival, he could sail to Brazil. If he wanted to see some zebras, he could cross the Atlantic to Africa. He could go far and wide and never come back. It was in his best interest not to come back.

  His father had talked about the need for freedom, and not that bullshit American exceptionalism that old people usually go on about. For him it was creative freedom, humanity’s inalienable right to construct poems in free verse, the power to break the chains of the sestina and villanelle. He wondered if his father had felt free in his little apartment. He’d been retired, so he could have done his favorite thing: passing the time with his nose in his papers and books. But not having to work and being free seemed like two different things.

  Which was why Bryan had wanted to make a statement: to declare his freedom from the tyranny of the computer monitor, his liberation from having to answer to Wall Street, a big wholehearted fuck you to the capitalist system and all the bad karma associated with it. Call it dropping out or early retirement, but somebody had to show
that those values were corrupt; exploiting people didn’t lead to happiness. He could make a stand for a better world, inflict some hurt on a big bank—all that and get a tan.

  His idea was to sail east along the southern coast of Cuba, past Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, heading for the Lesser Antilles. Get as far away from the Caymans as possible. Who knows, if the weather held he might try to cross the Atlantic and get to the Mediterranean.

  He parked on Market Street and went inside.

  Bay Market was fancy, with lots of imported goods displayed under spotlights as if they were diamonds. It made sense; it wasn’t easy to import gourmet food from Europe to a small island, so you’d want to showcase it, but it created a somber shopping experience. Not that he was complaining—the air-conditioning was rocking.

  As he perused the gourmet cheese selection he began to relax. There was something reassuring about the Manchego and Camembert and chèvre, like being back in his old life in New York City, standing in Dean & DeLuca, looking at fancy foods flown halfway around the world for his pleasure. He grabbed several different kinds of cheese. Everything was going to be fine. He felt optimistic for the first time in months. He was setting sail. It was all working out. He’d be off the coast of Cuba by the end of the day. Maybe he’d pull into port and buy a cigar.

  Seo-yun sat in the car while Piet went into the police station to get Neal. She watched him walk into the station. He had a strut. She liked that. And even if he wasn’t as tall as most people, he was sexy. There was just something about him. He knew exactly what she wanted before she knew it. He understood her desires. Maybe that’s because he was an experienced lover.

  It’s not that she was so experienced; she’d had only a handful of boyfriends and, until recently, hadn’t really slept around. Maybe she hadn’t taken a big enough sample to make a valid finding, but from her limited exposure to the sexual skills of men, Piet was in a league of his own. Or maybe they clicked. She’d heard that sometimes people clicked, but the whole thing seemed like a myth, something people said to justify marriage and children. It suddenly occurred to her that her fiancé might want to procreate with her. She tried to imagine little emo-haired toddlers running amok in her apartment, demanding juice boxes, shitting in their pants, and scattering Cheerios everywhere. The babies would want to feed on her. They would squall and holler until she let them suck milk out of her breasts like little vampires. She shuddered. The whole thing made her skin crawl.