by Tom Wood
‘Meet me at the Fortaleza Ozama in two hours. Bring your friend.’
NINETEEN
After leaving Sylvester, Victor kept moving. He didn’t like to stay still, especially in a new town. He was a stranger here, ignorant of the rhythm of street life and melody of the inhabitants. Exploring meant acquiring knowledge that could prove useful, even essential, to both the task at hand and the more difficult job of staying alive.
He liked the city, despite the locals hassling him to buy snacks or worthless souvenirs. Everyone seemed to smile, as if even the most mundane of daily activities brought genuine joy.
With half an hour left before he was due to meet Sylvester, he walked down a pedestrianised street lined with cafés, bars and shops. He followed the street to the seafront and spend a while gazing at the bay. He turned into a tree-lined street where grand colonial buildings towered above him.
A trio of musicians played merengue music as they strolled along the boulevard. Dominicans sprang into impromptu dance as they passed by. He smiled and clapped in the same way he had seen tourists do. A local girl tried to take his hand so he would dance with her, but he shook his head and moved on. A roadside stall sold coconuts. For an extra dollar the seller let Victor use the machete to chop the top off one and he sipped the juice from a straw as he continued on his way to the grounds of the sixteenth-century Fortaleza Ozama.
Victor waited on the fort’s battlements, next to a deactivated cannon that faced the river and pirates and invaders from the previous millennium.
Sylvester arrived alone, and late.
‘He won’t come here,’ Sylvester was quick to explain. ‘You must go to him.’
‘That’s not what we agreed.’
‘I could not persuade him.’
Victor said, ‘You called yourself the great Sylvester.’
The man shrugged. ‘He won’t come to you.’
‘You mean you were not willing to share the money I gave you.’
Sylvester shrugged and repeated, ‘I could not persuade him.’
‘Let’s go,’ Victor said.
Sylvester led Victor to where a sun-bleached old VW Beetle was parked under the shade of a palm tree. Sylvester unlocked it with a key while Victor waited on the kerb to look out for watchers. No one seemed to be paying them any attention.
Metal squealed as Sylvester wrenched open the driver’s door. ‘Get in.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘My friend lives out of town. Like all the other cartel people.’
‘Where out of town?’
‘A village near the plantations,’ Sylvester replied. ‘Fifty or so kilometres north. Only half an hour if we are lucky.’
Victor regarded the Dominican. Being led away into the unknown was not his style, but he had little choice. He wasn’t going to find Marte without some help. He pulled open the passenger door, which made even more noise than the driver’s had a moment before.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sylvester said with a grin. ‘The car is as safe as the houses.’
‘If you’ve set me up in any way,’ Victor said, gaze locked on Sylvester, ‘I’m the worst enemy you’ll ever have.’
Sylvester said nothing, but the grin slipped away from his face.
‘You do know that I’m telling you the truth, right?’ Victor said.
The Dominican didn’t answer and climbed into the Beetle. Victor climbed in too. He was surprised when the car started on the first turn of the ignition.
They set off northeast, leaving Santo Domingo behind and heading into savannah. They passed gua-gua buses of tourists on excursions to the Cordillera Central mountains. After twenty minutes on the highway they headed off on to narrow roads winding through villages and sugar and tobacco plantations. Here people used mules as much as cars for transportation. Sugar plantations seemed to be everywhere.
They drove past market stalls set up along the side of the road selling fruit and sugar cane to passers-by, slowing down as the road became narrow with parked vehicles and mules. One stall sold leering carnival masks. It was noisy with locals and tourists alike bartering for better deals.
A traffic cop in mirrored sunglasses waved them over.
‘What’s wrong?’ Victor asked.
‘Do not sweat,’ Sylvester said. ‘He’s just seen your foreign face.’
‘Bribe?’
Victor’s guide only smiled and dropped out of the vehicle to hand over money to the smiling cop, who patted him on the back as if they were friends, before leaving.
‘All fine. Only ten dollars.’
‘A bargain,’ Victor said.
The sun sank down towards the horizon. Dust clouded and swirled in the breeze against a backdrop of blazing orange. Flamingos so bright they seemed to glow pink stood in the glassy waters of a shallow lake.
Sylvester stopped the Beetle on the outskirts of a ramshackle collection of buildings that formed a village in the centre of endless fields of tobacco.
Sylvester climbed out and Victor followed him into the village. Here the buildings were made of wood and painted in faded and cracked pastel colours. The streets were narrow and winding. Cars were rare. Two women hung out laundry on a line over a small balcony. One waved as he passed. Teenagers danced merengue to music emanating from their mobile phones.
He passed an area of grassland where spray paint had been used to make crude baseball markings. The grass had been worn away to bare dirt where every base was marked. A yellow house surrounded by a wall stood on a small hill overlooking the rest of the village. Generators rumbled and coughed fumes into the air. The power supply on the island was inconsistent at best and many relied on their own electricity instead. He passed young women who rolled cigars on their thighs from tobacco leaves while they laughed and joked with one another under a string of twinkling fairy lights.
They ducked under the low archway to enter the bar. Victor nodded to the patrons who looked his way and they nodded back, appreciating his manners. He knew a little of Dominican etiquette. The few dozen men and handful of women drank rum and coconut milk from dappled glasses. The chairs and tables were all made from dark-stained mahogany. Dominican rap music thumped out of speakers. Colourful paintings of famous national boxers hung from the walls. In one corner a blue Hispaniolan parrot cleaned itself inside a gilded brass cage. He could smell seafood cooking: shrimps grilling and kingfish frying.
Sylvester said, ‘Wait here,’ and went to speak to the bartender.
A bowl of mangoes, oranges and passion fruit sat on a nearby table. Victor selected an orange and used a thumbnail to pierce the skin in a line that followed all the way around its circumference. He peeled that half away and took a bite from the flesh beneath. With his free hand he stroked the chin of an iguana that lay on the same table.
A man said something in Haitian Creole as he passed towards the exit. Victor had no idea how the words translated but a drunken slur was the same in any language.
After a minute had passed, Sylvester waved Victor over and he approached the bar, where he used a napkin to wipe his fingers and deposit the orange skin. The man tending the bar had braided hair, brightened by colourful beads. He wore a necklace of blue and black amber stones.
‘You want passport?’ the man asked.
Victor nodded.
‘You have money?’
Victor nodded again.
The man with the braided hair nodded too and said, ‘Come with me.’
‘Go with him,’ Sylvester added. ‘But pay me first. One hundred dollars, please.’
‘Fifty,’ Victor said. ‘Because you didn’t bring him to me as agreed.’
Sylvester scowled but didn’t argue. He took the fifty dollars and settled on a stool. He waved a young woman over from where she sat at the end of the bar and ordered himself a drink.
The man with the braided hair and amber necklace guided Victor into the back of the bar and through the kitchen, which was so hot and humid Victor had trouble catching his breath. His face wa
s damp with sweat by the time they had exited the back of the bar into a dusty courtyard behind the building.
Several dirt bikes and quads were parked in the courtyard. Near to them five Dominican and Haitian men sat at a bench, finishing a meal of white rice, red beans and fish, and drinking mango juice. None of the Haitians looked the right age or build for Marte.
One stood, a large Haitian in a white vest darkened with sweat and grime, and went up to the man with braids. They exchanged whispered words.
‘You want the passport?’ the Haitian asked Victor.
‘Yes.’
‘Show me your money.’
Victor said, ‘Where’s the forger?’
‘I’m the forger.’
Victor looked at the man’s hands. They were large and strong.
‘No, you’re not.’
The man with braids headed back to the bar. Victor would have followed his movements but he kept his gaze on the Haitian, because behind him the other four men stood and approached.
Victor heard the bar’s back door shut. He didn’t hear, but he sensed the lock engaging from the inside.
‘Show me your money,’ the Haitian said again as he took a machete from the tabletop.
TWENTY
There was no one else in the courtyard apart from Victor and the five locals. The only exit, a narrow covered alleyway, lay behind the men. Two storeys above, a woman hung out wet laundry and watched proceedings. Of the four guys from the table, two had knives drawn. Both were cheap and unsharpened, but still capable of splitting skin and arteries and piercing organs.
The machete was a crude but effective weapon designed for chopping and splitting. With a good swing it could slice a coconut in half or bury itself deep enough in a skull to perform a partial lobotomy. This particular weapon was old and rusted and the blade looked dull, but the Haitian was strong enough to make up for the neglect.
‘I have five hundred dollars on me,’ Victor said. ‘You can have it.’
‘Good,’ the Haitian said. ‘Hand it over.’
‘But I’ll double that if you tell me where I can find Jean Claud Marte.’
‘You have the other five hundred on you?’
‘No,’ Victor answered. ‘It’s in my hotel room.’
‘What do you want with Marte?’
Two questions asked by the Haitian and neither included the word who.
‘I want to ask him some questions,’ Victor explained. ‘All you have to do is tell me where to find him and you can earn yourself another five hundred dollars.’ Victor took out his wallet and threw it at the ground between himself and the Haitian, who stood a little in front of the others. ‘That’s your first five hundred. Five hundred and thirty, to be exact.’
‘The rest?’
‘I’ve told you already. It’s in my hotel room.’
‘Maybe you’re hiding it.’ He gestured at Victor’s shirt. ‘Secret pouch or belt.’
‘There is none.’
The Haitian pursed his lips in consideration.
Victor said, ‘You don’t want to do what you’re thinking about.’
‘Which is?’ the Haitian asked with a smirk.
‘Don’t,’ Victor said.
The big Haitian adjusted his footing in a sign of nervous energy. The others were even more anxious: pacing back and forth, clenching jaw muscles, spitting, or scratching.
They were armed and in a position of strength through numbers, but they were just criminals, not professionals. Adrenaline was hyping them up and might make one try something rash before their boss had decided how best to proceed.
Victor continued looking around, never letting one of the locals out of sight for more than a few seconds. He acted passive because he did not want to provoke them into action through a challenge, but he needed them to be aware he was not their average victim. Weakness would only increase their confidence and therefore the risk they would turn to violence if they failed to get their way.
‘Take the five hundred now,’ Victor said. ‘And earn another five hundred the easy way. Don’t make this into something it doesn’t need to be.’
The Haitian stared at him; his unblinking eyes were bloodshot.
‘Well?’ Victor asked, when it seemed the big guy would say nothing further.
‘I’m thinking,’ he said.
This seemed to be a challenging process, given the pinched expression he wore.
The next closest man spat out a glob of saliva that landed on Victor’s shoe. A rope of it stretched from the man’s lip.
Victor looked at his shoe and then to the man in an acknowledgement of the taunt. ‘Thanks, they could use a polish.’
The man smirked in return. Victor did not know if he had been understood. It didn’t matter.
The Haitian in the white vest swallowed and clarity seemed to enter his bloodshot eyes for the first time. He smiled.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No five hundred. We search you.’
‘You’ll find nothing,’ Victor said.
The Haitian stepped forward. ‘Then I’ll be angry.’
The other four locals may not have spoken English, but they understood their boss’s tone enough to know what the decision had been. They neither tensed with readiness nor became focused with aggression.
The Haitian came forward, machete raised to threaten more than attack. At least for the moment.
The other four approached too. The two with knives stopped ahead of the two without.
‘Okay,’ Victor said with a sigh. ‘Okay. The other five hundred is in my belt.’
He unbuckled and slid it out from the belt loops of his trousers. He wrapped it around the buckle until it was a tight ball. He held it in one hand and gestured to the big Haitian.
‘Here,’ Victor said. ‘It’s in a secret pocket.’
The Haitian smiled in triumph and reached with his free hand for the belt, which —
Victor snapped out, holding on to one end, so the buckle was sent flying into the Haitian’s face.
It ripped open the skin of his left eye socket. Blood smeared across his cheek and temple. He staggered away, clutching his face with his free hand while he swung the machete back and forth with the other.
The two with knives darted forward.
Victor feigned an attack at the first, only to whip the belt at the second as he lunged to intercept. The buckle caught him on the side of the skull and he fell face first on to the floor.
A blade glinted in the dim light.
Victor blocked the incoming wrist with a forearm, then released the belt to grab hold of the arm in both hands and swing the guy into the closest wall. He managed to react in time to get a hand out to stop his face colliding with the brick, but not fast enough to stop Victor twisting the blade from his grip and throwing it away.
He blocked a punch from one of the two unarmed Dominicans, caught the wrist before it could recoil and pulled the man closer and into an arm bar, arm locked out, elbow facing upwards.
A second forearm strike broke the joint.
The man wailed, and again tried to punch, but with his other fist. Victor parried it with a shoulder as he turned on the spot, coming outside of the guy’s arm. He stamped on his instep, and then swept that injured leg out from under him.
The guy went down hard.
Thick arms grabbed him from behind, pulling him down into a headlock. Victor turned to his assailant, positioning his left foot between the guy’s legs for stability, and sent a palm strike into the groin that became an uppercut to the man’s chin. The grip loosened and Victor threw him away.
He parried an incoming punch and trapped the arm between elbow and ribs, leaving the man exposed and vulnerable to the counter strike that hit him in the sternum. Victor released him so he could stagger back, doubling over, airless and stunned.
The Haitian roared as he charged, machete swinging in a wide arc.
Victor knocked it from the big man’s grip with a downward forearm strike to the wrist and it skidded away
across the floor.
A punch to the abdomen knocked Victor back into a wall. He blocked the next blow with a raised forearm, then another as the Haitian tried to overwhelm him with strikes. Victor responded with an open-palm blow to the side of his attacker’s face and he staggered away.
The Haitian raised his arms to parry Victor’s next strikes, but instead he went low, wrapping his arms around the man’s thighs and taking him to the ground.
The wind was knocked from the Haitian’s lungs and in that instant of stunned paralysis Victor grabbed hold of the back of his own head and drove his elbow down – using all the strength and mass of his upper body – against his enemy’s sternum.
The whole ribcage compressed until the remaining energy had nowhere else to go.
Ribs snapped.
The sound reminded Victor of breaking branches as a boy. The Haitian made a soundless cry.
Victor stood. The man lay as still as he could to avoid the agony of moving with multiple broken ribs. Tears welled in his eyes with every shallow breath.
Victor glanced around to check the other four were finished, then placed a heel on the Haitian’s destroyed ribcage.
‘Where’s Marte?’ Victor said as he began applying pressure.
TWENTY-ONE
There were no sentries outside Marte’s yellow house and no signs of any other forms of security because up until now it had never been needed. He was an untouchable, feared and respected and protected by the cartel.
Victor entered through an unlocked back door. Inside the yellow house, the hallway was well lit by light fixtures and lamps. The air was humid and hot despite ceiling fans thrumming overhead. He breathed in the scent of grilled shrimp, cigarette smoke and incense. The chatter of multiple conversations fought in his ears along with the clink of glasses and scratch of cutlery on earthenware and hiss of juices on searing metal. He separated out the overlapping sounds into four – then five – voices. There could be more though; present but not partaking: drinking or eating or cooking or just listening.
He stepped with measured footfalls along the hallway, keeping close to one wall because the bare floorboards were old and would no doubt bend and creak under his weight. As he reached deeper into the house and closer to the voices he detected another sound: a clattering scratch, faint but rapid. He recognised the sound and pictured someone cleaning a pistol, the small brush pushed and pulled along the barrel in rapid motions to scrape away gunpowder residue.