Anaïs and Avril continued to work transporting money from the States to Europe and Beirut. I would meet them in Paris or London, then one or both of them would go on to Beirut and deliver money to the Lebanese until the war made it too dangerous. They set up bank accounts in Lichtenstein, Austria, and Hong Kong, became adept at managing international wire transfers and money laundering. I began to live for those meetings with Anaïs. When we were apart I wrote her poems and love letters. And still there had been no physical expressions of love between us. She and her boyfriend were in some protracted process of ending their affair. There was an unspoken feeling between us that we would find each other when the time was right.
Then, one evening in a London hotel after we had said good night, she came to my door. “What do you need?” I asked.
“You,” she said and came in. “Hold me.” We didn’t leave the room and hardly left the bed for three days. She and Avril sold the place in Deyà and moved to New York. Promises were made—and broken. By me, never by her.
Now, looking at her, I wonder why what I felt for her—and still feel for her—strong as it was and continues to be, was not enough.
She picks up on my thoughts. “Are you happy?” she asks.
“I don’t even think about that. I’m on the run.”
“I mean, your girlfriend. Is she good to you?”
“She is. Although I don’t see that much of her. It’s basically—it’s about the business.”
“That’s you,” she says. “All about the business.”
“I spent almost a year in Lebanon.”
“You were lucky to get out of there alive.”
“And you?” I ask, not willing to mention her new man.
“All I want now is some peace. I want to wake up in the morning without the fear of the police breaking down the door. And pick up the phone and not be terrified to hear someone has been arrested. Or worse yet—killed.”
“You deserve that.”
“What is it?” Anaïs asks. “Why can’t you give it up, Richard? What are you trying to prove?”
“Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”
“What does matter?”
“Maybe if we’d had kids… a family, I would have settled down.”
She shakes her head. “No, that would not have stopped you. That would only have brought more chaos into our lives. And you still would have been… gone somewhere… doing whatever you seem to think you must do.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because, I’ve always known—yet I would not admit—there is something in you. I don’t know what it is, but something is forcing you to keep pursuing this mad dream of yours. It’s as if you’re not happy unless you’re risking your life. What is it? What do you want?”
I stand and sigh. The conversation is making me uneasy. “Who knows? Who knows what they want in this life? You think you do, and that’s great. I wish you luck. But that life, what you’re talking about, the thought of it bores the shit out of me.”
She laughs, stands with me, and I walk her to the door of her bungalow.
“Shall I come in?” My cock stirs at the thought of making love to her. “We may never see each other again.”
“No,” she says. “That won’t do.” She puts a hand on my chest, over my heart, as though to keep from hurting me, and says, “I loved you. Very much. Some part of me will always love you. But… our timing was off. It wasn’t meant to be,” she tells me. “I knew it when we first met, that you would take me away from everything I knew. And then you would leave me. But you were like the Pied Piper; everyone just wanted to follow you.” Her fingers clutch ever so slightly at my chest, pushing me away and pulling me closer at the same time. I want desperately to kiss her.
“I don’t blame you… for anything,” she says. “Even being unfaithful. If that’s what you needed.” She steps back and reaches in her handbag. “But I don’t want to be alone the rest of my life. I want a divorce.”
We lived together for years before we finally got married. We had a townhouse in Knightsbridge, in London, then leased a farm in Marlow in the Thames River Valley. While living in Marlowe, I came home one day with a furry white puppy in a cardboard box. Anaïs was reading The Brothers Karamazov and began calling the puppy her little Karamazov. We moved to Boston, then to Cape Cod. After I was arrested in New York in ’78, Anaïs was deported as an undesirable alien. She returned, flew into Montreal, and we married in the basement home cathedral of a justice of the peace in rural Quebec. Anaïs was nervous and high and fumbled her vows. “In richness and in death,” she said instead of, “In sickness and in health.” It seemed appropriate then, more so now. Our witnesses, Avril and Jonathan, cracked up. The wife of the justice of the peace who married us had a whole display cabinet filled with these shrunken head–like figurines made from dehydrated apple cores. I smuggled Anaïs back into the States, and we bought the home in Provincetown.
“We’ll do it Arab style,” I say. “I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.”
“No, I want a real divorce. I’m getting married.” She takes a packet of papers from her handbag. “You can take care of the whole thing in one day in Santo Domingo. I have all the information.” She hands me the papers. “Will you do it?”
I walk back to my hotel. Hurt much more than I understand. I brought this upon myself, and yet it feels unjust. Maybe I need to feel sorry for myself. Yes, that’s it. I wanted to fuck her for old time’s same, and she rejected me. Cock and balls walk along the iron road. Cunt sleeps wrapped around herself. The dawn of a new day seeps along the horizon. And it doesn’t matter. Nothing means shit. Life is just one pointless, unsatisfied lust after the next. I could walk until I fell off the edge of the world. Keep stepping. Find out when I arrive that there is nothing and no one there, just more empty space. And chaff blowing in the galactic winds.
* * *
NASIF TURNS A tannish shade of green on the boat ride back to Spanish Wells. Later, walking on the beach, he complains of chapped thighs where they rub together when he walks. “That’s because you’re too heavy,” I tell him. “You need to lose weight, you fat fuck. You’ll end up like your father.”
“I got accepted at the university in Miami,” he says gleefully.
“Congratulations. You’ll enjoy it there. Lots of blond girls.”
When we return to the house, Anaïs has discovered both pairs of diamond stud earrings. “Which are hers?” she asks and cocks her arm as though she will pitch the offending pair out the window. Then she laughs.
We charter a plane back to Nassau. Nasif leaves on a BOAC flight to London with a connection to Zurich, $2.7 million in cash in his luggage. I’m relieved to have another big chunk of money out of my hands. Anaïs books a flight back to Toronto. We say good-bye at the airport.
“God bless you and keep you safe,” she says and walks off.
I hold the charter plane and carry on to Grand Cayman with four hundred grand in Canadian money to deposit in the bank. Val arrives the next day with another quarter million US. With the bulk of the cash safely put away in an offshore account, we charter a flight to Jamaica and check into the Half Moon in Montego Bay. I am determined to fuck every vestige of Anaïs out of my heart and soul and into Val’s writhing, heaving, sweating, welcoming body.
“Damn, daddy. What got into you?” she says.
“I thought you wanted to have a kid.”
“Yeah, I do. But I want to be able to walk too.”
The reggae SunSplash festival is in tribute to Bob Marley, recently dead from cancer. Rita, Bob’s widow, and half a dozen little Marleys are staying in the next bungalow at the Half Moon. Val befriends one of the departed star’s sons, who looks like a mini version of his dad. We take the boys out on a fishing excursion one afternoon. Mini-Bob has a crush on Val; she has a way with kids, still a kid herself.
On the evening of the concert, I hire a taxi to take us to Jarrett Park. Our dreadlocked, stoned driver is speeding, driving
like a maniac, passing trucks on curves. I tend to be fatalistic in these situations; it’s all about the experience. If I’m meant to die in this taxi with this crazy, red-eyed Rasta, so be it. Maybe my ego won’t let me admit fear. Val, sitting behind the driver, has no such restraints. She tells him to chill, slow down, we’re in no hurry. He grins and says, “No problem, mon.” But doesn’t change his driving. Val grabs him by the dreads. She yanks his head back and says, “Slow down, motherfucker, or I’ll break your neck.”
It’s a long night. Takes these folks hours to get the show under way. Endless sound checks. Soon come, mon… soon come… “These fuckin’ Rastas,” Val says. “They drive so fast and do everything else so slow.”
Stevie Wonder comes on at dawn. When we return to our room at the Half Moon, along with fresh flowers and chocolates on the pillow, I notice the message light on the phone is blinking.
“Dr. B. called. Please call him back.”
“What’s up, doc?” I ask when he picks up.
“Bad news, bro,” Biff says when I reach him.
“Tell me.”
“Ah, well,” he hesitates. “Now?”
“Yeah. Now.”
“Okay. They arrested Anaïs when she landed in Toronto. Avril, Rosie, Squid, something like sixty people all across Canada have been busted.”
My stomach drops and then cramps. I feel sick. A jolt of pain through the center of my being says: You caused this.
I hang up and call the lawyer who handled Rosie’s past cases. He assures me he’ll have Anaïs and Avril out on bail in a day or two. It was a massive sweep, coordinated by the Metro Toronto drug squad working with the RCMP, he says. They got some money but very little product. It’s essentially a conspiracy case. My soon-to-be ex-wife and sister-in-law have been charged with violations of the recently enacted Canadian currency control statutes—basically laundering money in furtherance of a drug distribution conspiracy. They are facing five years in prison.
“Tell me the cops’ names,” I say. “Metro Toronto drug squad cops.”
He tells me, “I only have one name. Carter, Sergeant Terrence Carter. He’s had a bee in his bonnet about Rosie for some time now.”
“Carter arrested Anaïs?”
“Well, Immigration Canada detained her when she landed at Pearson Airport. Then Carter came along and lodged the formal charges.”
“Where are they?”
“The Don Jail in Toronto.”
“You got a phone number for Carter?”
“What’re you going to do, Richard? Don’t threaten him.”
“No… of course not.”
Later, from a public phone in Montego Bay, I place a person-to-person call to Sergeant Terrence Carter. He comes on the line. “Sergeant Carter, Metro Drug Squad.”
“Carter… you feeling pretty good about yourself?”
“Who is this?”
“Richard Stratton.”
Silence and then, “Oh.” His voice registers surprise. Then contempt. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what kind of punk asshole cop you are. You can’t get the man, so you arrest his wife.”
A longer moment of silence and then, “Don’t worry, Stratton. We’ll get you too.”
I’m sodden with guilt, anger oozing from my pores like sour sweat. Angry at myself and directing it at Carter. “It’ll take more than a couple of lightweight Toronto cops to get me,” I say and wish it made me feel better. Instead, I feel foolish. Childish. A naughty boy who thinks he’s a big shot. Yet I can’t restrain myself.
“Suck my dick, Carter.”
Next I try Wolfshein. I know how stupid this is, and yet I can’t help it, I feel I must vent to release my guilt.
“Special Agent Wolfshein,” he answers.
“I thought you had more class that that.”
“Who is this?”
“Stratton… You go after the wives?”
“That’s not me, Rich. That was the RCMP.”
“You telling me you had nothing to do with it?”
“I’m telling you it was not my decision,” he says.
“It’s a punk move.”
“It’s the law. When are you gonna get it through your thick skull? People break the law, they go to jail. You want to put a stop to this? Come in, give yourself up. It’s not too late.”
“No, that’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna have to catch me,” I say and hang up.
Val leaves the next day. “Fucking Rosie,” she says. “That guy just can’t stay out of his own way.”
I kiss her good-bye at the airport, tell her, “Be careful.”
She nods, smiles. “You too, Dad.”
We’re in crisis mode. With sixty people in custody in Canada, a US sweep can’t be far behind. Other than Anaïs and Avril… and
Rosie… and Squid, I’m trying to think of any other link to Sammy, JD, Biff, Benny, the whole American organization. There is whatever intelligence Wolfshein has gleaned, but where can this go? If the sisters hold up… I have no doubts about Rosie; he can handle jail. Squid? He could lead them to Biff, but I doubt the Squid will roll. He’s tight with Rosie, and as a first-offender he’ll be out on bail and won’t be looking at a lot of time. The security shield between the borders seems secure. Val will make the rounds, she’ll pick up cash and let anyone who needs to know about the situation up north.
I take a commercial flight to Santo Domingo. At night, painfully alone in my hotel room and recently divorced, I dwell on the boy, Avril’s kid. First his father eats it in a plane full of pot, now his mother is in the can.
Pied Piper all right, leading everyone off to jail… or to the grave.
14
END GAME
AT LAST THE Lebanese trip is winding down. I’m in Maui, alone at the house in Ulupalakua. All fifteen thousand pounds of hashish and fifty gallons of honey oil have been distributed, most of it going to Rosie in Toronto before he got cracked. Jimmy Chagra’s commercial Colombian weed is all gone as well. Capuana sent someone to inspect the contaminated tonnage, then JD borrowed a backhoe and buried it. I have visions of a forest of mutant marijuana plants oozing diesel fuel cropping up in the wilds of Maine.
The Kansas City Kid’s DC-6 load of primo gold Colombian is long gone and paid for; I personally made sure Val delivered the money to Cartagena. The last thing I need is a bunch of disgruntled Colombians on my trail. Hard enough eluding DEA and the US Marshals. The Colombians don’t play. You stiff them, you die. Val tells me they want to hook us up with another load. I’m tempted but still have an inventory of some several hundred pounds of Jamaican sinsemilla in Boston and New York to move, and a couple of other trips in the early-planning stages. Mostly, however, over the past weeks I have been obsessing about how it is all to end, trying to devise a feasible exit strategy to avert the obvious one.
Now it’s all about cleaning up the aftermath. Dealing with lawyers, bail bondsmen, families of the incarcerated. Finding and collecting the rest of the hash money. Balancing the books and distributing the profits. The Arabs in Lebanon are beseeching me for more money. So are the Jews in New York. And the Mexicans in Texas. The Rastas in Jamaica. Val has been managing the final stages of the trip. She is the public face, traveling to New York and Boston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Kansas City, Detroit, Austin, Lake Tahoe, Anchorage—where she and her partner, Judy, have their own thing going, selling slabs and pounds to dope-starved, dollar-heavy Alaskans for twice cost. She picks up money and delivers it to me, to Sammy in New York, Nasif in Nassau or Cyprus or Paris. Makes deposits at the bank in Grand Cayman.
Val has been gone on this latest trip for over three weeks, almost a month. I’ve lost track of time living alone here in Maui, at the house she bought on the slopes of the volcano. My days are ordered and nearly identical. I meditate, work out, take long hikes, eat a strict raw food vegetarian diet. No booze. I’ve lost all the weight I packed on during my plush, overfed captivity in Lebanon. I feel good, strong. Lonely but good. It’s
curious how I seem to get stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally when I am alone, dwelling in a self-contained and private headspace. Like I have come to port after a long and tumultuous voyage. It hasn’t worked to assuage the guilt I feel over the destruction I left in my wake, but there is something to say for survival.
Given the time difference between here and the mainland, I make my first round of calls early in the morning. Biff has a new office phone in New York. Anaïs and Avril are out on bond; we don’t speak. The Squid as well is out awaiting trial. Rosie the repeat offender has become Canada’s most famous cannabis prisoner. He has his own radio show from inside the joint. He’s on the cover of Maclean’s magazine, the Canadian Time. There was a big spread on him in High Times. He’s the voice of the marijuana subculture. The lawyers tell me Anaïs and Avril are going to cop pleas. No one, I’m told—except the recalcitrant Rosebud, who will no doubt go to trial—is expected to get more than a couple of years. They don’t take pot offenses that seriously north of the border. It’s almost a peccadillo. Except if you are the unregenerate hippie godfather.
In the evening I usually connect with Val. She’s due back today. She has begun to worry me even more than usual. I know she’s been doing blow; I can hear it in her hoarse, halting voice. She’s partying. Sometimes she misses our calls. “Oh, sorry, I was running around,” she admits. Yeah, running around. You couldn’t sit your sweet ass down in a phone booth? At times I think she may be fucking some other guy. Biff saw her in New York and said she and her girlfriends were having a wild time. A lot of my questions go unanswered. “I’ll tell you when I see you,” she says. And then the trip gets extended. A week, ten days has become close to a month. I could get pissed off and frustrated, I could order her to return and explain herself. But to what end? She’s an adult. She has a mind of her own. I can’t force my will on her even if the money is my responsibility. She’s my eyes and ears and already the connection is tenuous. The longer I spend alone, the further I withdraw from that reality, the more brittle our bond.
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