His perfectly lovely, increasingly predictable, sometimes resentful and frustrated wife, had a waistline expanding at a rate commensurate with her material vision of what a good life in Miami was intended to encompass and absorb, regardless of how many times she jogged in slow motion around the neighborhood. Somehow letting it slip her mind that, Oh, Tom isn’t that type of lawyer, is he? Not the kind whose job description translates as raking it in. But why wasn’t he? Oh, yes, she had momentarily forgotten, he’s trying to save the fucking world. Bravo, Tom. In my heart I approve but here’s the bill for the wind damage on the roof, and please phone the plumber because that asshole seems incapable of returning my calls.
He didn’t object to being middle class, not as a measure of his financial status, but he was disappointed that her values seemed anchored there, without the raw ingenuity of the low or the expansive imagination of the high. Tom could be depended upon to meet all her conventional needs, to support the orthodoxy of her sensible desires. Having things her way—the quiet neighborhood, the kid’s school, the Swedish cars in the driveway, the guest list for her overly prepared dinner parties—was a given, what with his many and prolonged absences, his fidelity to the unnamed dead. Her domestic will exerted a potent force that he often acquiesced to with only a gesture of resistance, knowing it would be worse to fight it out, his eventual defeat by definition hers as well, in possession of a husband who had taken up the habit of being pounded into submission.
Her needs—he found them impossible to engage with any strong sense of empathy. If her weekends had a theme, a mission statement, it was, What do we need right now, this instant, that can no longer be delayed? Pretty things and comfort and pride and the ever elusive confidence of self-esteem. But what did it mean, Tom sometimes found himself worrying, if all the abstract dread he felt about his marriage of fifteen years could be peeled down to its core and there in the hiss and steam all that remained was sex and its imperatives?
Impossible to know—should he feel horrified or thankful?—but something, hormones or entropy or both, had diluted the high concentration of erotic Sicilian energy she had inherited in her blood. Increasingly over the years he had an inconclusive sense of his wife’s passion for the bedroom. These days, did she ever experience sexual need? Yes, but. When they had first started living together and before their daughter’s birth, she would sometimes suggest role-playing games that secretly embarrassed and intimidated him—he wasn’t her gynecologist and he wasn’t her assailant. At some point he had missed altogether, oral sex began to disgust her, or maybe it had all along and she had only resigned herself to the earlier packaging of their lusts. Fellatio was nothing and everything, depending on his mood, but he resented the scope of their intimacy being reduced in any of its interlocking parts. And although he could never keep his thoughts quiet about these things, neither did he want to talk about them, feared talking about them, feared ever being able to explain himself, feared most of all the idea that here was the one part of himself that was better off misunderstood than known and fully understood.
Yet no matter what was pitching through his mind, he believed the living quarters of his heart were only filled by his wife, and then again by his daughter. Gazing down at the inflammatory taunt of Jackie’s ass, he knew that to be true, and still he had to tell himself, watch out for Jackie, stay away from her or she was going to get him into some rare kind of trouble, and he didn’t want that, did he? He was more sensible than that, wasn’t he?
Jackie had to know the two of them were there at the wall, watching her, but she turned back to the beach without looking up at them, perhaps not caring what they saw. What is she? Tom wondered as he looked at the sleek corded muscles in her neck and arms, the smooth sculpted pack of muscles in her calves and thighs, and remembered the rock-hard clench of her body in his lap. A marathoner? A gymnast? She stepped back into her clothes but left her feet bare, bending to collect her socks and boots and when she straightened up she raised her head and looked at them, her eyes steady on Tom for an instant but her face unreadable, and he smiled back involuntarily even though at the moment he wanted to scorn her and thought, not coherently, Don’t be silly; trouble, whatever, she’s just a girl, he could handle it.
Their eyes followed her progress up the stairs.
Strangely, in the car again she was yet a different person, a new spirit behind her words and gestures. She seemed to become the person Tom actually wanted her to be, witty and logical and open, talking naturally with her two companions, and so he didn’t challenge her for the outrageous way she had behaved with the houngan. He didn’t want to quarrel with this improved Jackie, this pleasant, smiling, and sometimes coy Jackie, and throw away what he began to imagine with increasing focus was the chance to have her, to make her want him as a lover, a desire that needed no further explanation if she was now intent on just being normal, being rational, because when she was this way, she was, like any woman, a suggestion of what was irresistible in life. Perhaps it was the ocean, he thought. Stepping into its surge of cleansing reality had transformed her, brought her back from whatever dark spell had befallen her, somewhere that she wasn’t meant to be.
He had expected an apology and he wanted her to apologize, but she said nothing to that effect, and so Tom let it go, deciding there was little chance she could explain her behavior with Bòkò St. Jean. It was, he decided, an anomaly and too bizarre to ever make sense. Given the newfound lightness between them, when they arrived back at the Oloffson and she casually asked what he was doing tonight, he told her about his friend in the Special Forces. Why don’t you join us? he said and she said, That would be cool.
Jackie went on to her room. He stopped at the desk for messages—three phone calls from a lawyer he vaguely knew and did not respect, who represented one of Haiti’s oligarchical families—and was already at the table he had reserved for the evening at the far end of the veranda when he saw her again, immersing herself in the burgeoning crowd. He watched as she searched for him, her extraordinary beauty amplified by how she had chosen to present herself for the occasion in a low-cut peasant blouse and gauzy white skirt, her hair gleaming from the shower, her blue eyes enlarged and emboldened with makeup, an unsubtle metamorphosis from hard-bitten tomboy photojournalist (if indeed she would ever shoot a roll of film) to glowing ingenue and playmate. She saw him finally and the timid smile of her acknowledgment pleased him immensely, more than it should have, given the fact that he knew already not to trust her.
Is there something going on here tonight? she asked happily, reaching the table. She wanted to know where all the people had come from and he explained these gatherings were a weekly affair.
The Oloffson’s Thursday night fetes—a lavish buffet and a live band for dancing—were legendary for the clientele they customarily attracted, a volatile mix of the city’s opposing factions who were drawn to a night’s saturnalia in the demilitarized zone of the hotel. Terrorists and sunny-faced do-gooders, spies and the politicians they spied upon, the MREs—morally repugnant elites—and the foreign journalists who had christened them with the pejorative acronym, chic American-educated ruling-class girls with Ecstasy and pistols in their handbags and skeletal downtown whores dressed hopelessly in third-hand clothes, embassy technocrats, narco-traffickers and clueless missionary pukes—all bound together every Thursday night inside a Noah-like ark of decadent compatibility. Except some nights, not. Some nights the orgiastic bubble broke and gunfire erupted, which explained why two very big men were now stationed at the top of the stairs, disarming customers as they arrived and issuing claim checks for the handguns—Glocks and .357s and 9s—piling up in the footlocker at their feet.
Touching his shoulder affectionately, Jackie sat down next to Tom and he finally caught Joseph’s attention and ordered rum sours from the bar and turned to admire her, as any man would, and although she returned his gaze, when he made a lighthearted tease—I hope you
don’t think I’m trying to put a curse on you—about the jewelry she had chosen for the occasion, a bracelet and a talismanic pendant made from the sea-blue glass of evil-shielding eyes—the subject seemed to interfere with her mood, made her less warm, and she responded drily. They were gifts from an old friend, she said.
Egyptian?
Turkish. He gave them to me in Istanbul. My seventeenth birthday. Then pointedly, nodding at the gold wedding band on his left hand, mischief in the way she raised one eyebrow. Tom, we don’t really want to talk about our jewelry, do we?
I want to talk about you.
With a little prodding he learned more. Her father worked in the foreign service, she had attended grade school in Hong Kong and Kenya, middle school in Rome, high school in Turkey and Virginia, college in New England, graduate school in Boston. Actually, Cambridge.
Really! he replied to her vita without thinking. But you seem so—
What?
I don’t know.
She looked at him as if she knew exactly what he thought, as if his response was a familiar one, and she had gotten used to it.
I’ve learned to be resilient. I adapt well.
Why Haiti? People don’t generally adapt well to Haiti.
It seemed a good place to start.
Because nobody else wants it.
But I want it. That’s all that’s required, isn’t it.
She asked about his work and how he came to do it and he told her that in the eighties he had been a journalist, a foreign correspondent in Central America for one of the Florida papers, and then someone told him about a program at the Yale law school for reporters like him.
What kind of reporters are those?
You keep filing the same story, year after year, war after war, and the only thing that changes is the dateline.
You wanted to do more.
I wanted to believe I could make a difference.
I want to believe that too.
He was about to ask her why she so rarely seemed inspired to use her camera but their drinks arrived at the same moment a hush spread across the veranda and everyone’s attention swung in unison toward the unprecedented sight of American commandos materializing like phantasma in the dim globe of light at the top of the stairs, the diners silenced by the provocative surge of tension the warriors seemed to generate. The Special Forces had operated primarily in the hinterlands and kept a low profile in the capital, where they were prohibited by their command from visiting bars and restaurants, but here they were, mythic and exalted, savages commissioned by a superpower, and instantly engaged in a standoff with the two house guards collecting weapons. There were three of them, Master Sergeant Eville Burnette and two companions and they wore camouflage uniforms, holstered pistols and green berets and, from the looks of it, had spent the day in a fight.
Don’t they look like you just better not fuck with them, said Jackie.
Sliding out of his chair to intervene, Tom reached the confrontation a few steps ahead of the Oloffson’s owner, coming from the kitchen, alerted by his staff. The commandos were stone-faced yet unconcerned, mocking themselves over the mound of guns in the footlocker—There’s a few we missed in the buyback, I feel so much better now that we disarmed the population. Within a minute everything was smoothed over and Tom paid the prix fixe for the soldiers, who were allowed to keep their weapons after all, although it became immediately evident that the three men had been more in their element facing down the house goons than walking the length of the veranda, weaving through the tables, self-conscious in a milieu where the only challenge was to enjoy yourself.
Introductions were exchanged as Jackie stared wide-eyed at the men with an appreciation that jolted Harrington with unexpected envy. They removed their berets and nodded politely at her as they sat down, stiff and uncertain except for Eville Burnette, leaning over to play the gallant. He pecked each of her cheeks and said in French that she was a sight for sore eyes, a flattery that she did not ask to be translated but smirked back at him as if to imply he had gone too far, her eyes rising to the nasty lump on his forehead, the split in the skin closed with a pair of butterfly stitches. His companions had gotten more of the same. The soldier Tom did not recognize, a warrant officer named Brooks, had a black eye, and it was obvious that Captain Stewart Butler, the short, charismatic SF officer the Haitians called Tet Rouge (because of his shaved and sunburned skull) had had the side of his face raked by someone’s fingernails.
Oh, come on, tell us, Jackie coaxed with an exaggerated pout, responding to the nonchalant shrugs they used to dismiss Tom when he asked what happened. You can’t sit there like that and not say anything. That’s not fair.
Joseph approached the table and Tom asked the soldiers if he could stand them a round of beers.
Can’t, said Warrant Officer Brooks.
Tet Rouge’s thin lips formed a flat, wolflike grin. I have a signed note from my mother says I can.
We’re on the road to hell, said Eville and ordered three bottles of Presidente.
Somebody kicked your ass, Jackie taunted. That’s why you won’t tell us.
It was a reckless comment, Tom thought, noticing the twitch in the warrant officer’s face—Brooks was all varsity, all business, laconic, uncomplicated, his firm mouth quickly entertaining and discarding a sneer—but Jackie’s brazenness animated Brooks’s comrades, their eyes flashed and brightened, their faces broadened into smiles; the woman had thrown just the right bait to lure the story out of them, a typically screwy account of unconventional operations amid widespread anarchy.
One month ago, when Eville Burnette’s team had exfiltrated from Saint-Marc to the capital, the gwos neg who had reigned over the port city during the bloody years of the de facto regime, Jean Petreau, had slithered out of hiding and reestablished himself overnight, at least down at the harbor, where he fell back into the habit of extortion—collecting astronomical dockage fees and on-the-spot tariffs from legitimate shipping while allowing vessels of dubious registry and unknown cargoes to be off-loaded surreptitiously under cover of darkness. Big deal, same old funny business, who cares, not my problem, right? said Burnette, his mouth wide and elastic, his lips stretched euphorically or pursed with thoughtfulness or at other times what seemed to be remorse. But then what happened next, he told them, sent alarm bells ringing across the hemisphere.
A freighter comes in to Saint-Marc from Martinique, ties up at the wharf, Burnette said. Jean Petreau and his band of goons pay a call, the Surinamese captain—a white Dutchman—tells Jean Petreau to go to hell. Petreau and his men take the captain hostage, the captain’s wife and first mate barricade themselves in the communications room on the ship’s bridge, the wife radios Surinam and Martinique, someone in Martinique radios the owner in Miami, the owner telephones his congressman, the congressman calls the Pentagon, the Pentagon calls the UN, the UN notifies the National Palace, the palace wakes up the guy in charge of Saint-Marc’s new, American-made police force and tells him to get his men together and rescue the hostage, the cops go to grab the hostage but take a burst of automatic weapons fire, and, lo and behold, they freak, and before you know it rounds are flying everywhere, into houses, into cars, it’s rock and roll in Saint-Marc.
Act two, said Burnette. The police chief gets on the emergency frequency and dials up the UN troops—Nepalese chaps—at their base ten klicks down the road and they send an entire company of bootless conscripts to the scene, all of whom are immediately surrounded by thousands of good citizens issuing demands—food, water, electricity, road repair, et cetera, and something stickier but more doable, at least under the auspices of a few good men: they want the UN troops to arrest the entire police force for corruption and widespread abuse of power. Petreau’s only been shaking down foreigners, so Petreau is not an issue to the people of Saint-Marc. But then the mob begin
s to argue with itself and splits into factions and starts to riot, so the unfortunate and nonplussed Nepalese boys—not Gurkha mind you; Kathmandu does not rent out Gurkha to the UN—have their hands full with this collateral situation and, meanwhile, the hostage crisis is unresolved.
Act three. We get the 911 call at the LIC, said Eville Burnette, and within minutes a chopper comes to pick us up. Next, you’ll love this, Brooks here was on the original ODA that liberated Saint-Marc during the invasion and he knows Jean Petreau because he saved the shithead’s life the day the team infilled into town, pulled Petreau out of a crowd of very excited townsfolk who were about to give Petreau the fashionable necklace treatment for malfacteurs. We arrest him but within forty-eight hours we were told to push Petreau back onto the street with a promise of good behavior, whereupon he proved his intelligence by finding himself a hole to crawl into for the next eighteen months.
And this was how he thanked you for saving his life? Jackie asked Warrant Officer Brooks. By giving you a black eye?
No, ma’am, answered Brooks.
That’s right, said Tet Rouge, sputtering with laughter. A lady stamped him with that shiner.
Not a lady, Brooks said, slapping his hand on the table. Just a cunt.
Excuse him, ma’am, Eville said to Jackie.
Oh, give me a break, said Jackie. Women, cunts, bitches, whatever. What happened?
What happened, said Eville Burnette, is what happens when people aren’t more careful about who they choose to disrespect. Up to a point, Jean Petreau understood this basic code of survival, and when the three soldiers approached the door of the house where Petreau held his hostage, and Warrant Officer Brooks called out, Jean Petreau, goddamn it, I’m really busy today and I don’t have time to save your life a second time, Petreau himself opened the door to offer an effusive welcome to his old friend, explaining that the Dutchman was not a hostage but a criminal, and Petreau had no choice but to arrest him because the police would not, but here, says Petreau, Here’s the guy, you can have him, I’m sick of him, to tell you the truth, so they go in the house and there’s the ship’s captain trussed up in duct tape.
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