Cross Current

by Christine Kling

  Mike slid the dinghy alongside the dock in front of Joe’s boat and killed the engine. After all his shouting and the constant whine of the outboard, the quiet seemed almost unnatural. From up the canal somewhere, the smell of grilling meat mingled with the sound of children laughing and shouting.

  Mike took a deep breath. “Hmm. Smells good. Didn’t realize just how hungry I am.” He smiled at me. “No lunch.” He held his stomach. “I’m doing Weight Watchers.”

  “What? With all the piña coladas you drink?”

  He grinned. “That’s what I like about Weight Watchers. I can drink all my points.”

  I shook my head and hopped up onto the dock. “Do you think we should have tried to call again?”

  “Nah. When you want information, you don’t let ’em know exactly when you’re coming. Much better to just drop in.”

  Looking around at the elaborate pool and patio setup, I said, “Wow, this is some property. Joe didn’t do too bad as a DEA agent.”

  “Like I said, he bought this place twenty years ago when they were affordable, and this particular property was a real dump, I heard. He says he did lots of the work himself.”

  We were walking around the Jacuzzi when the sliding doors opened and a stunning, smiling black woman waved to Mike.

  “Mister Mike. Hello.” Her head was wrapped in a bright blue headscarf, and she stood in the doorway with one hand at her hip, the other shading her eyes from the sun. The pose was casual, but a photograph of her at that moment could have sold any product. Although her English was almost unaccented, I detected a bit of Haiti in there.

  “Hey, Celeste, is Joe around?” Mike asked as we rounded the pool.

  “He is not here right now, but he’ll be home soon.” She stepped out of the opening in the sliding door and waved her hand toward the interior of the house. “Would you like to come in and wait?” Her movements were like those of a dancer. Though she was wearing a simple cotton dress and no makeup, her figure and face were striking.

  Mike turned to me with raised eyebrows. “Your call, Sullivan. You got the time?”

  I shrugged. “We can wait a while. If he doesn’t get here in twenty minutes, though, we’d better take off. I have to meet someone tonight.”

  “Fair enough.” He waved his arm in the direction of Celeste. “After you.”

  Celeste brought us glasses and bottles of St. Pauli’s Girl beer. She set us up at the indoor bar in the study that overlooked the pool. Clearly, Joe was into bars. I was trying to discern if Celeste was a housekeeper or girlfriend. Or both. When she disappeared and did not come back, I decided on housekeeper.

  The decorating scheme for the house could only be called eclectic, but, somehow, it all worked. Along one wall, a narrow section of bookshelves stretched to the ceiling while the rest of the wall was covered with lighted nooks that held sculptures or photos or antiques. A wheeled library ladder reached up twenty feet to a rail that ran just below the ceiling. An antique barber’s chair was bolted to the floor just inside the window where it would have the best view of the river.

  As promised, Joe was home in less than ten minutes. We heard the car, followed by a loud greeting, then the hushed tones as Celeste told him we were there. His whispers sounded loud and harsh, angry about something. I wondered if it was us. But when he came through the doors, he was all smiles.

  “Mike. Seychelle.” He shook both our hands. “So good to see you both. What brings you by the old hacienda?”

  In his white shorts and lime green polo shirt, Joe looked the part of the retiree. I doubted the ensemble was a biking outfit. Maybe golf?

  “Hey, Joe. Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Mike said, “but I’m going to get straight to the point. Sey came by to visit me today, and she found some old photos among her dad’s things. She wanted to find out more about the history behind those pics.”

  I had already retrieved the photos out of my shoulder bag, and I spread them out on the bar. “I’m more than a little confused, Joe,” I said. “Yesterday morning you said that you and Red used to work together when you were in the DEA, and he used to tow boats for you.”

  Joe picked up the picture of the three of them. He had a peculiar little half-smile on his face.

  “You never said anything about knowing Red over twenty years ago,” I added.

  He didn’t say anything for over a minute. None of us did. We just sat there and watched the shadows in the room stretch out.

  “I haven’t talked about that trip in years,” he began. He climbed onto a bar stool on the far side of me. Mike rested his hand on my shoulder. Joe looked up from the photo. “You have grown up to be such a beautiful young woman, Seychelle. I would never say or do anything to hurt you. I didn’t lie to you the other day, I just didn’t tell you everything. That was the way we always handled it. When Red and I began working together again in the eighties, we never discussed the past.” He looked back down at the photo. “Seychelle, I think this is something you should just forget. Destroy these photos, forget you ever saw them, and get on with your life. Trust me when I tell you there are some things you are better off not knowing.”

  “I can’t do that, Joe.”

  “Then you need to try to understand those times, Seychelle. Everyone was doing it, and your dad was in a bind, as I understand it. Financially.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he would—”

  He raised his hand palm up. “Hear me out, then, if you insist. I was there as the delivery skipper, already down in Cartagena, and some guys I knew up in Lauderdale recruited your dad. It was a long time ago. I was only, hell, what, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old.”

  “Were you working for the DEA then?” I asked.

  Joe’s eyes flickered, sought out Mike, then looked across the room, out the window. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “You’re not making this easy. Yes. Yes, I was. I was pretty fresh, only nine months on the job when they asked me if I wanted to go undercover as a yacht delivery captain. Shit. Nobody’s even supposed to know we were doing that back then.”

  Part of me wanted to stop him. If it was even remotely possible, I didn’t want to know about it. But it wasn’t possible. Not Red. No matter what Joe said.

  “The guy who owned the boat had been under surveillance for quite some time. He had lots of toys and no identifiable means of support. Turned out it was easier than I thought getting hired on as the captain of his yacht. And, eventually, he brought me in on what was really happening. He had this crewman working for him. The guy’s still around.”

  “You mean Gil Lynch?” Mike asked.

  “Right. Of course, you’d know him, Mike. Forgot about that.” Joe pointed to Gil in the old photo. “That’s him there. This was the early days, before he was known much here in Lauderdale. He became a much bigger player after that trip.”

  “You see much of Gil these days?”

  Joe grunted a half-laugh. “I’d be surprised if he’s still alive.”

  “Oh, he’s alive all right. Sey and I saw him just a few hours ago.”

  “Really? Did you talk to him?”

  “No. I’ve used him as a snitch in the past, but today he ran from us. Don’t know why.”

  “Hmm. Well, it was Gil back then who set up the buy, did all the legwork down in Colombia. But I didn’t bust either him or Red. My bosses were after the yacht’s owner, the bigger fish. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I protected Red. Hell, you know what I’m talking about, right, Mike? The guy had a wife and kids back in the States, it was his first time getting into something like that.”

  “Sure, I know what you’re saying,” Mike said.

  My elbows were propped up on the bar, and I rested my forehead against the heels of my hands. I began to shake my head. “No way. I don’t buy it.” I lifted my head and turned to face Joe. “Red did not knowingly get on a boat that was smuggling drugs up from Colombia.” I swung my head back and forth, looking first at Mike, then Joe. Neither would look at me
.

  No one said anything for several seconds. Mike’s hand rested on my shoulder, massaging the flesh in a little circling motion. I wanted to reach over and smack his hand away.

  Finally, Joe said, “Listen, honey, I know you don’t want to think of your daddy—”

  I stood up. I wanted to break something. I wanted him to stop calling me “honey.”

  “Red didn’t know,” I said. “He couldn’t have.” I could hear that my voice sounded whiny, and it made me even angrier. I slid off my stool and stomped out of the room.

  Celeste was standing in the hall, just outside the doorway. As I passed her I asked, “Bathroom?” She motioned for me to follow her.

  I sat down on the closed toilet lid and gave myself about three minutes to just let my emotions go. It wasn’t long enough to turn my eyes and face all red and puffy, but it was just enough of a little pffft, like a pressure cooker’s jiggle, to make sure I wouldn’t blow when I went back into that room with those guys. They were undoubtedly talking about me right now—some “poor kid” scenario, where they were painting themselves as the big tough cops who knew how bad folks could be.

  But Red was different, and they weren’t used to people like Red. He was a man whose morality was absolute. He would not bend, nor did he ever struggle over a moral issue, much to the chagrin of his teenage daughter. Red would never have willingly smuggled drugs—not even to finish Gorda. That was a truth. I felt it in my gut. I was not sure whether Joe was floating this tale out of ignorance or deceit, but I intended to find out.

  After splashing some cold water on my face and relishing the soft, Egyptian cotton towels, I unlocked the door and ventured out. The men’s voices and loud laughter carried from their end of the hall, but I turned in the opposite direction. I decided to explore a little before returning to the boys’ club.

  I saw three doors down the hall. The guest bedroom was located diagonally across from the bathroom. The furnishings were expensive and tasteful, but the room had all the personality of a model home. The next door led to the master bedroom, a huge room, nearly twenty by twenty, with French doors that opened onto the pool deck. When I came to the last door, I nearly collided with Celeste.

  “Oh, pardon,” she said, looking startled and then lowering her eyes.

  “No, I should be saying that.”

  Over her shoulder I saw a room that was small and spartan, containing a twin bed, a dresser with a small mirror, and a single chair. Unlike the other two rooms, this one had personal items, a lovely brush-and-comb set on the dresser, a hand-stitched quilt on the bed, a small bright painting on the wall.

  “Really, I’m sorry. I was just being nosy. I wanted to have a look at the house. Is this your room?”

  She nodded and lowered her eyes.

  I pointed back down the hall. “I kinda got in an argument with those guys back there. Do you mind if I just sit here for a while? I could use some female company.”

  She smiled and stepped into the room, offering me the chair. After we’d settled ourselves, neither of us quite knew what to say. I could sense her awkwardness. After a while, she began to hum a tune.

  “That sounds very pretty. What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s a song we used to sing in Haiti. To make children go to sleep.”

  “Can you sing it for me?”

  She smiled shyly and began to sing softly, but in a strong and pleasant voice.

  Dodo ti pitit manman’l

  Do-o-do-o-do ti pitit manman’l

  Si li pas dodo

  Krab la va manje’l

  Her voice cracked, and she stopped singing. She stood suddenly, then crossed the room and stared out the window.

  “You miss Haiti, don’t you?” She did not move to respond to my question, so I tried a different one. “How long have you worked for Joe?”

  “Five years,” she said, so softly I could barely hear her. “That’s when you came from Haiti?”

  She nodded and spoke without turning around. “Mister D’Angelo brought me over, and he sent me to school to learn English.”

  “Your English is very good.”

  She turned around and smiled, then crossed to the bed and sat next to me. “Thank you,” she said. “I cannot read yet, but I will learn.” She sat with her head down, her fingers tracing the floral design on her dress. I had never seen such a beautiful woman behave so modestly. Was it possible, I wondered, she didn’t know how lovely she was?

  “So you met him in Haiti?”

  She nodded without looking up.

  “What was he doing there?”

  “He was a drug policeman. There were lots of drugs in Haiti. He help the Haitian people.”

  “Hmmm. I’ve met so many Haitian people lately. I didn’t realize there were so many Haitians in Florida.”

  She smiled. “Yes, this is true. Haitians are in the supermarket, restaurants, shopping malls. Every year more and more. It is because it is so bad at home.”

  “Do you still have family there?”

  She frowned and appeared to struggle with her reply. “No,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “All dead.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I looked at the top of her bowed head. She looked so young to have known such loss. “How old are you, Celeste?”

  “I am twenty-three.”

  “Joe brought you here when you were only eighteen?” She looked up quickly. “Yes. I love my country, Haiti, but it was bad there for me. There are many beautiful things in Haiti, many wonderful people. But this is my new country. There is nothing in Haiti for me now.”

  Joe appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing back here?” There was something in his voice, some undercurrent of threat that made me feel like a kid who had been caught rifling through her parents’ belongings.

  “We were just visiting.” I patted Celeste’s hand. “It was nice talking to you.”

  Joe walked us out to the dock, where Mike untied the dinghy line while I prepared to climb down the dock. “Seychelle, I want you to know—” Joe said.

  “Joe, stop.” I held up my hand like a traffic cop. “I came here looking for some answers about my dad, about who he was. And you know what? I found out that I’ve known that all along. I’ve always known who Red was. Nothing you say can change that.”

  “I’m glad. I hope you understand that I would never intentionally say or do anything to hurt you. Are we still friends?” I nodded once and he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

  Mike and I didn’t talk much on the ride back. As we cruised through the heart of the city, the late evening sunlight was turning the downtown buildings into golden towers. I sat up on the bow of the inflatable and tried to enjoy the beauty of the river, but my mind kept spinning images: Red, Gil, and Joe dockside in Cartagena; Perry waiting for someone in Flossie’s Bar; Gil’s photo on Perry’s Italian tow; new cell phones and radios. Joe had given me one version of what had happened down there over twenty years before. I needed to hear Gil’s version.

  By the time we secured the dinghy and I’d turned down Mike’s dinner invite, it was approaching five o’clock. I drove straight to Jeannie’s to pick up Solange.

  XVI

  When I pulled Lightnin’ into Jeannie’s yard, I saw B.J.’s black El Camino parked on the far side of her van. I had hoped to just grab Solange and take off for Mambo Racine’s, so this was an unwelcome complication.

  I saw him through the screen door when I reached the top of the landing. He was sitting on the couch talking to Jeannie, and in the few seconds before I knocked, when neither of them knew I was there, I watched him. He still gave me that shivery feeling—the way his biceps stretched the fabric of his white T-shirt as he raised his arm, his brown thighs showing beneath his khaki cargo shorts. His back was angled toward the door, and I could see his sleek black ponytail and his neck hairs pulled up into that rubber band. I had a sudden urge to kiss him right there, on his neck, just behind his ear.

  I shook my head and knocked.

&n
bsp; He was smiling when he unlocked the screen door. “We were just talking about you,” he said.

  “Great,” I said as I walked through the door. “Hi, Jeannie. I came to pick up Solange.”

  “Hey. I think taking that girl up to some Voodoo lady is nuts, but I can see you’ve got your stubborn heart set on it.” She rocked back and forth a couple of times to build momentum and then lifted her bulk up into a standing position. “I’ll go get her ready. It’ll take me fifteen minutes or so. She’s not dressed.”

  I had the distinct feeling that she was giving B.J. time to talk to me.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I felt bad about the way we left things yesterday.”

  “Listen, B.J., I really don’t have time to get into this now. I’m supposed to have this kid at Racine’s by seven, and I’ve just been on this ridiculous dinghy trip with Mike.” I was still in a bad mood from the conversation with Joe.

  “What dinghy trip?”

  “I was trying to find out something about my dad. It’s hard to explain. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  We sat in silence for a while then, the only sounds in the room those of the wall clock ticking and, through the screen, the city sounds of traffic and sirens and the far-off music of an ice cream truck.