Cheap beads, hair braids, and wood carvings; snorkeling trips, fishing trips, sunset cruises; ganja, cocaine, more ganja—Gloucester Avenue had the highest concentration of hawkers, hagglers, and touts of just about anywhere in the Caribbean. And given the natural Jamaican propensity for confrontation—a direct result, many claimed, of Jamaica being on the receiving end of slave ships that pulled their primary cargo from the ranks of Ashanti warriors—the tourists walked in tight little groups, some of them clutching each other with the nervous eyes of wary prey.
I couldn’t blame the locals for their aggressive pursuit of business, not if it meant a ticket out of the tin-shack ghettos in the hills above Montego Bay. Prying bucks from tourists yielded richer results than selling yams on a blanket at the vegetable market. And I couldn’t blame the tourists for being repulsed by the whole scene. Most of the stuff for sale was crap, and some of the people selling it were really scary.
Faced with all this, Kenya Oompong’s tirades against cattle-call tourism made a certain kind of sense. Maybe if this were my home, I’d be just as outraged and militant as she was. Maybe I’d join Nanny’s People, spray-paint invectives on resort walls, harass the fetch-boys of foreign interests, and head for a better life in the hills. It wasn’t an altogether unreasonable reaction to what was surely an unpalatable set of circumstances.
The only downside: I wouldn’t look good in a red-and-yellow bandanna.
Which got me to thinking: What was I going to wear to Monk’s memorial service?
The only clothes I had were the ones on my back—khaki shorts, a blue polo—both way too big and borrowed. With the change in flights, I wouldn’t have time to buy anything in Miami, where I was now going to have to spend the night, or in Tampa, where I was going to have to get off the plane, rent a car, and drive straight to the memorial service. It was scheduled to take place at the national cemetery in Bushnell, a small town just north of Tampa. I couldn’t show up looking the way I looked.
I found a parking lot where the attendant seemed slightly trustworthy, or at least she did after I gave her ten dollars with the promise of ten more if the Mercedes was still there when I got back. I left the metal canister sitting in the front seat, although Monk would have probably loved walking around Gloucester Avenue, and I took with me the backpack containing the few other things I had—a toothbrush, a clean T-shirt and the black daybook I’d taken from Monk’s dresser.
I headed up the avenue and cut into the first shopping mall I came to, a three-story warren of shops, one of which turned out to carry some fairly presentable sportswear. I bought a long-sleeved black silk shirt, some tan silk pants, and a pair of black loafers. It wasn’t a funereal ensemble by any means, but it was fairly dignified in an island kind of way and it would have to do.
Point of fact: I can run boats across open water without charts and get exactly to where I’m going, but put me in a shopping mall and I get all turned around. I couldn’t find the way I came in, and when I stepped out it was on the backside of the mall and I didn’t recognize anything. I started walking in what seemed like the right direction, but stopped after a couple of blocks when it became clear I was going the wrong way.
I looked up at a street sign: Dover Road. I knew that name from somewhere. I reached into the backpack, pulled out Monk’s black daybook, and flipped to the final entry.
****EQUINOX INVESTMENTS****
314 DOVER RD MB
It was only a couple of blocks away. What the hell.
50
There wasn’t a sign that said Equinox Investments outside the building at 314 Dover Road. But there was something even better parked on the street: Darcy Whitehall’s black Mercedes, recognizable by his initials monogrammed in gold on the front doors.
How freaking fortuitous.
The building wasn’t much to look at, six stories of glass and concrete that could have been anywhere. I walked into the lobby, which was occupied by the building’s main tenant, Great Nation Bank. Lines were long and the tellers were busy. A directory listed Equinox Investments in Suite 601. I took an elevator to the top floor and got out.
Suite 601 was the only office on the sixth floor. A small, tasteful brass plaque on one of the polished teak double doors gave the company name. I opened the doors and stepped into a small reception area. Nothing fancy, but much nicer than the rest of the building would have led me to believe: muted lighting, soft textured carpet, contemporary furniture, nice art on the walls.
A pretty young woman wearing black reading glasses and a navy blue suit sat behind a polished teak console that served as the reception desk. Another set of double doors was behind her.
The pretty young woman looked down her glasses at me and said: “May I help you?”
“Yes, I have an appointment later today with Darcy Whitehall. I was walking by, saw his car out front, and thought I might just pop in and catch him, save us both a little time. Could you tell him I’d like to see him if he’s not too busy?”
The woman studied me for a long moment. I gave her my friendliest “aw-shucks” grin. Somehow she managed not to melt.
“And you are?”
“Zack Chasteen.”
“One moment, Mr. Chasteen, and I will see if Mr. Whitehall is available.”
She stood and went through the double teak doors. I nosed around the reception area. There wasn’t much to see. No magazines on the table. And the art on the walls really wasn’t as good as it had appeared at first. Just prints in fancy frames.
After about five minutes, the young woman returned.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but it seems as if Mr. Whitehall is not on the premises at this time.”
“Oh, shoot, that’s too bad,” I said. “Is he with Mr., uh, Mr. . . .”
“Mr. Arzghanian?”
“Yes, is he with him?”
“I would assume so, yes.”
“And they went to . . . ?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that.”
“And they’ll be back . . . ?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that either.”
“Oh well,” I said. “It was worth a shot.”
The young woman nodded.
“Is there a message?” she said.
“No, no message,” I said. “But do you happen to have any company brochures?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, something that tells me a little bit about Equinox Investments, an annual report, anything like that. Mr. Whitehall has spoken so highly of your company that I’d like to learn a little more about it for myself.”
The young woman shook her head.
“No, Mr. Chasteen,” she said. “I’m afraid we don’t have anything like that at all.”
“Hmm, that’s too bad. Because they’d be nice to have. You might want to mention that to Mr. Afghanistan.”
“Arzghanian,” she said.
“Him, too,” I said.
I rode the elevator down to the first floor and tried to figure out what I’d just accomplished. I knew slightly more than when I’d arrived. I knew that Darcy Whitehall had been there and was scheduled to come back. Or maybe he really was there and just didn’t want to see me. I knew that he was most likely with Mr. Arzghanian, whoever he was. I knew that while Equinox Investments didn’t balk at throwing around money for expensive office furniture, it cheaped out when it came to printing up a few measly company brochures. Not much on public image.
I also knew that the pretty young woman looked quite fetching in her navy blue suit with just a hint of cleavage and a nice pair of legs to go with it. But that was neither here nor there. Hell, maybe it was all neither here nor there.
Still, there had to be some reason why Monk had made a note about Equinox Investments in his daybook, just as there had to be a reason why Equinox Investments was buying the piece of land off Old Dutch Road from Darcy Whitehall for a whole lot more than it was worth.
51
I made it back to Miami just in time to check in
to my room at the MIA Hotel then catch dinner at the sushi bar in the concourse lobby. The place was getting ready to close, and I was the last one left sitting at the bar, holding down a stool that gave me a primo view of people coming and going in the terminal.
I was sipping a Kirin Ichiban and working on my first course, a spicy bowl of ika sansai, when a short stocky guy with a briefcase came in from the concourse, walked all the way around the bar, and sat down next to me.
I nodded at him. He nodded at me. The sushi chef came over and said to the guy: “Sorry, we close now.”
“No problem,” said the guy. “I’ll just sit here and watch my friend eat.”
He turned in his stool to look at me. I looked at him. He had close-cropped hair, bushy eyebrows, and a nose that sat off kilter in his chunky face. My age, maybe a little older. He was wearing a suit, a cheap one, and a white polyester shirt with the tie loosened.
“I know you?”
The guy ignored my question. He looked at the bowl of ika sansai.
“What the hell is that?”
“Marinated squid salad,” I said. “Pretty good.”
The guy made a face, shuddered. Then he smiled.
“Hey, you hear the one about the squid who walks into a jazz club?”
I didn’t say anything. I went back to eating my ika sansai. But the guy was not to be denied.
“Bartender tries to kick the squid out and the squid says: ‘My good man, I’ll have you know that I’m a very talented musician.’ Couple of musicians sitting at the bar overhear him, and one of them says: ‘Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got a guitar right here. And fifty bucks says you can’t play it.’ He slaps a fifty-dollar bill on the bar, pulls a guitar out of a case, and hands it to the squid. Seconds later, the squid is wailing on the guitar. It’s like Jimmy Fuckin’ Hendrix. He puts down the guitar and collects the fifty dollars.
“Second guy says: ‘I got fifty bucks says you can’t play my trumpet.’ He puts his money down, pulls out a trumpet, and seconds later the squid is playing hell out of it, like Louis Fuckin’ Armstrong. Squid collects another fifty bucks.
“Then the bartender looks at the squid and says: ‘I got something for you.’ Bartender goes into a back room, comes out a few minutes later, and he’s carrying a bagpipe. Bartender puts his money down and hands the bagpipe to the squid. The squid looks at the bagpipe. He turns it over and inspects it from every possible position.
“Bartender says: ‘What’s a matter? Aren’t you gonna play it?’
“‘Play it, hell,’ says the squid. ‘I’m gonna fuck the damn thing soon as I can figure out how to take off its pajamas.’”
The guy grinned at me.
“Pretty good one, huh?”
“First time I heard it, it was an octopus.”
“Yeah, I guess that’d work, too. What you think looks more like a bagpipe, an octopus or a squid?”
“I’d have to go with the octopus.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Next time I tell it, I’ll change it around.”
The sushi chef arrived with my main course and set it down in front of me. I’d asked him to surprise me and he’d outdone himself. There were sweet shrimp, three big ones with the heads still on, perched up on their tails like little pink crustacean puppies begging for a treat. There was marbled tuna belly—two thick blood-red pieces—and pink albacore, sliced paper thin and reassembled to look like a rosebud. The centerpiece was a small mound of yellowtail dappled with salmon roe and displayed between two generous slices of smoked freshwater eel, glazed with fermented molasses, which were meant to be dessert.
“Ah, arigatu gozaimasu,” I said, and offered a little bow.
“Doita shimashite,” said the chef, with a bow of his own.
“Exactly odo, Quasimodo,” said the guy.
“That Japanese?” I asked him.
“No, it’s a line from a song by John Prine. Kinda like ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Alliterative, ya know?” said the guy. “I just said it to hold up my end of the conversation.”
I picked up my chopsticks and went to work, starting in on the yellowtail. The guy rested an elbow on the counter, put his head on his hand, watching me. I was attacking the sweet shrimp when he said: “So let me ask you, Zack, you eat much sushi down in Jamaica?”
I stopped eating. The guy was grinning big-time now.
“You’re sitting there wondering, who the fuck is this guy, how does he know me, and how the fuck does he know I just flew in from Jamaica. Am I right, Zack?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what I’m wondering.”
He opened his wallet, got out a business card, and put it on the counter in front of me. I read it without picking it up. The gold embossed logo said: “United States Drug Enforcement Agency.” Under that it said: “Lanny Cumbaa, Special Agent.”
The guy stood, grabbed his briefcase, and slapped my shoulder.
“They got a bar on the top floor, Zack. I’ll be up there when you’re done,” he said. “I sit here watching you eat, I’m gonna toss my guts.”
52
Lanny Cumbaa was saying, “You know how tough it is to make money running a resort in the Caribbean, anywhere for that matter?”
“Not my field of expertise,” I said.
“Well, it’s mine,” said Lanny Cumbaa. “And you can’t fucking make a dime, that’s how tough it is. The overhead those places have? Shit, they bleed money. That’s why so many of ’em get set on spin-dry.”
“Spin-dry?”
“Laundered money, Zack. Got all kinds of dirty dollars going through those resorts. It’s a royal bitch to keep track of it all.”
“Thought the DEA just worried about drugs.”
“Shit’s all connected, Zack. Follow the money, find the drugs. Delivery and dispersal, two sides of the same operation.”
A waitress brought our second round. Another beer for me. Bourbon and seven for Cumbaa. We were sitting in highback chairs in a darkish corner of the Top of Port lounge, looking out on the twinkly lights that lined the runway, every now and then a big jet touching down or taking off.
“So, what you’re saying is, Darcy Whitehall, he’s laundering money through Libido,” I said.
“No, I’m not saying that,” said Cumbaa. “What I’m saying is, he used to. Twenty years ago, when he built that first fuck-palace of his, the one you’re staying at, that was all his money, on the legit, money he’d made in the music business.
“But the resort biz, it was more than he bargained for, way more. Inside of a year and Whitehall was ready to go belly-up. Enter Freddie Arzghanian.”
I pretended like the name didn’t mean anything to me. It didn’t take a whole lot of pretending.
“This Arzghanian, he’s in the drug business?”
“No, he’s in the money business. Works out of Mo Bay, but he has what you might call a global enterprise. Drug guys come to him with their money and he invests it for them so that it comes back smelling fresh and clean. So anyway, Arzghanian offers to partner up with Darcy Whitehall and suddenly everything is beautiful. All the bills are paid. Rooms are filled, guests are happy, everyone’s getting laid. Meanwhile, money’s going out the back door, sixty cents on the dollar, boomeranging back to Freddie Arzghanian, and for him that’s better than getting laid.
“A few years later, Whitehall decides he wants to expand, and Freddie he is way into that because he’s got money coming at him from every direction and needs somewhere to wash it. Build a Libido in the Bahamas? No problem. Build another one in St. Lucia? Love it. It’s like little money-laundering franchises set up all through the Caribbean.”
“So Arzghanian, he’s pretty big as far as money launderers go?”
“No, Zack, he’s not big. He’s fucking giant. He’s King Shit, man. Baddest of the bad and all that. Sooner or later everything goes through Freddie Arzghanian.” Cumbaa stopped talking and looked past me. His face dropped. He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “You see that bartender over there,
Zack, the one watching us?”
I turned around. The bartender turned away, started washing some glasses.
“He works for Freddie Arzghanian. I’m keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t pull a gun and pop us.”
Cumbaa studied my expression. Then he reached over and gave my cheek a friendly pat.
“I’m fucking with you, Zack. Fucking with you.” He sipped his bourbon. “But Freddie Arzghanian, he’s got guys like that all over the place, and they’ll do shit, major shit, no questions asked.”
“Like plant a fake bomb in a skybox?”
Cumbaa nodded.
“Just to get Darcy Whitehall’s attention,” he said.
“Or blow up a car in an airport parking lot.”
“To make him shit his pants.”
“But why? If Arzghanian already has Darcy Whitehall in his pocket, why does he need to do all that?”
“Oh-oh-oh, I forgot to tell you,” Cumbaa said. “Sorry, but I left out some important shit. I drink a couple bourbons and my brain goes soft. Vodka, gin, it doesn’t affect me like that. Bourbon though . . .”
Cumbaa drained his drink. He signaled the waitress, and she brought refills. The lights kept twinkling out on the runway.
“See, four or five years ago, something funny happens,” said Cumbaa. “Darcy Whitehall gets religion.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, suddenly, out of the blue, Darcy Whitehall decides he doesn’t want to do business anymore with Freddie Arzghanian. He wants to go clean.”
“Which isn’t so easy.”
“Which is im-fucking-possible. Except, for some reason, maybe because they been pals so long, Arzghanian cuts Whitehall some slack. Maybe thinks he’ll hang himself with it and come crawling back and he’ll get into him even deeper. But a funny thing happens: Whitehall makes it work. He’s borrowed a shitload of money from legitimate sources, and he’s mortgaged to the proverbial hilt, but he’s turning a profit on the up-and-up. Not a giant profit, but respectable. Turns out, he’s a decent goddam businessman and he really doesn’t need Freddie Arzghanian.”
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