The Informant

by James Grippando

  Hannon took a room at the Admiral’s Inn, a restored eighteenth-century Georgian inn that was the centerpiece of touristy Nelson’s Dockyard. The dockyard was a historic compound of restored shops, hotels and restaurants on famous English Harbour, like a small-scale Williamsburg, Virginia, with a nautical flare. Rooms at the Ad were away from the best beaches, so they were relatively cheap by Antiguan standards. More important, he was just a short drive away from the Charter Bank, where at nine o’clock Monday morning there would be a quarter million dollars for Eric Venters.

  Hannon left his garment bag and jacket in the room and headed to the outdoor bar on the elevated terrace. The sunset crowd was enjoying tropical drinks and dancing to melodious steel drum music beneath shady Australian pines. The bartender was a lively woman who moved behind the bar with rhythm in her step. She was in her mid-twenties, Hannon guessed, with long brown hair and a pink hibiscus blossom tucked behind her ear. Her dark, mysterious look exuded a kind of exotic beauty found in island women of mixed ancestry. She had every man’s attention in her tight white shorts and flower-print shirt knotted beneath her rounded breasts. Hannon liked what he saw, and he started a casual round of across-the-room eye contact. She broke away from a regular customer at the other end of the bar and came his way.

  “How about a fig daiquiri, mate?” she said.

  He made a face, like it sounded gross.

  She laughed. “It’s okay. In Antigua a fig’s a banana.”

  “All right. You talked me into it: I’ll buy one for you.”

  She smiled. “Sorry. Can’t drink while I work.”

  “How about after work?”

  “Maybe.” Her tone was encouraging. She put a napkin on the bar and casually brushed his hand, as if by accident. “So what do you usually drink?”

  “A belt-and-suspenders martini.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Shaken and stirred.”

  She cracked a smile and reached for the blender. “Tell you what, if you don’t like the fig daiquiri, the martini’s on me.”

  “Can I trust you?” Hannon asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “The question is, can I trust you?”

  “Only one way to find out,” he said, grinning.

  She burrowed her tongue into her cheek and gave him a sly look. Her smirk turned seductive as she leaned into the bar and gave him an eyeful of cleavage. “You’re pretty bold,” she said coyly.

  He chuckled lightly and looked her right in the eye. “You’d be surprised. I guarantee it.” The smile slowly faded from his face, and he turned serious.

  She smiled awkwardly, blinking at his stare. She poured his daiquiri, then glanced toward the far end of the bar. “Be back in a sec,” she said.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” he said as she started away.

  “Dominique,” she replied, glancing back over her shoulder.

  He nodded, as if he liked it. He watched as she walked toward the other customers, then turned his attention to the long strand of black hair in his hand. She hadn’t even noticed his plucking it from her head. Their eyes connected again from a distance, and she blushed with a smile. He smiled back suavely as he rolled the strand of hair between his thumb and finger. Then, discreetly, he turned his head and tucked it beneath his tongue.

  Chapter 35

  on Saturday afternoon Victoria dropped her muddy baseball cleats at the kitchen door, then shuffled across the linoleum floor in stocking feet to the refrigerator. Softball season was still eight weeks away, but a sudden burst of springlike weather had given her coach a brainstorm for a Saturday scrimmage. Her hair was twisted in a ponytail, flowing out the hole in the back of her cap. Across the front of her jersey in bold red script was the team logo, Long Balls, a name that could conjure up some rather obscene images until you finally visualized a long fly ball sailing out of the ballpark.

  Considering she hadn’t played since Labor Day, she’d made a decent showing in a losing effort. Two for four, three RBIs, and a big red strawberry on her left buttock from sliding into third base like an idiot on semifrozen ground. Starting at the waist, she carefully peeled down the tight pants for a peek, wincing with pain at the bruised and bloody proof that buns of steel weren’t always an advantage.

  Now that she’d seen the damage, it hurt like hell.

  She hobbled to the freezer and grabbed a bag of frozen peas. She’d had the same bag for months; frozen veggies made great ice packs. She leaned over the kitchen table, cringing and cooing as she held her home remedy in place. Her left cheek was sending mixed messages, as if it couldn’t decide whether the cold was worse or made it feel better. It would definitely keep down the swelling, however. By Tuesday, she might even be sitting again.

  The phone rang. It was hanging on the wall, completely across the room. She laughed out loud, suddenly imagining herself in one of those happy-smiley telephone commercials, unable to get to the phone because she was slumped over the kitchen table with a bag of frozen peas slapped on her ass. Don’t you wish you had call return?

  She heard her machine answer, but the caller hung up. A minute later, the phone rang again. Someone obviously didn’t want to talk to her machine. She tossed the peas aside and darted for the phone.

  “Hello,” she said through clenched teeth. She was in that “only-hurts-for-a-little-while” phase, like when the Band-Aid takes your hair with it.

  “Is Charlie there?” It was a woman’s voice, one Victoria didn’t recognize.

  “I’m sorry, there’s no Charlie at this number.” She grimaced and was about to hang up.

  “I know he doesn’t live there. I just want to know if he’s there.”

  Victoria hesitated. The tone sounded accusatory, agitated. “Who is this?”

  “A friend of Charlie’s. Are you a friend of his too, Victoria?”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “Because you gave Charlie your phone number.”

  Her skin was tingling, her mind racing. “I told you: I don’t know a Charlie.”

  “That’s a lie. I saw your little message on the cocktail napkin. ‘Don’t be a stranger.’ And you wrote your name and number.”

  Victoria blinked hard, confused. She remembered that, of course. But he’d said his name was Mike, not Charlie. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you ever call here again, I’m calling the police.” She slammed down the phone and took a deep breath.

  You idiot, she thought. She’d taught self-defense classes to women, warning them never to give their phone number to strangers. Three vodka tonics had apparently turned her into Agent “Do as I say, not as I do.” He’d seemed charming and was very good-looking, but that was no excuse. She felt like that skydiving instructor she’d heard about on the news who’d jumped out of an airplane without his parachute. Worrying about the safety of others is a good way to forget about your own.

  Part of her said just to ignore it, but if she’d run into an insanely jealous spouse or girlfriend, it might make sense to take precautions and do a little damage control. She hobbled across the kitchen floor and into the master bedroom, where the caller ID box rested on the nightstand between the telephone and a framed snapshot of her mother. She hit the retrieve button. Names and corresponding phone numbers instantly appeared on the digital display terminal, identifying her last three callers. The last two, counting the hang-up, were from the same woman. The name, however, meant nothing to her.

  She picked up the phone and dialed a friend who was an investigative analyst with the Bureau.

  “Hi, Sam, it’s Victoria Santos.”

  “Hey, how’s it going? Long time.”

  “I know it probably seems like I only call when I need a favor, but I need another one.”

  “Okay,” he chuckled. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

  “I just got this strange call at home,” she said pensively. “Don’t know who it was. I was hoping maybe you could do a background check. Valerie St. Pierre is the name.”

/>   “Sure. When do you need it?”

  She thought for a moment, and the more she thought about it, the more it tickled her instincts. There was something really weird about that call.

  “As soon as you can get it.”

  Hannon slept alone in his room until one o’clock that Saturday afternoon. The driving, flying and searching for Burmese pythons over the past few days had finally caught up with him. He purchased a pair of cotton chino shorts, sandals and a plaid madras shirt from the men’s shop in the hotel, then showered, dressed, and ate a late lunch in his room while looking over the documents for the account at the Charter Bank.

  At four-fifteen he reached over to the nightstand and picked up the cocktail napkin on which Dominique had written her phone number. Her shift last night had run past midnight, but they’d talked for an hour or so, until he was able to coax her number out of her. She was off tonight, so he called to see if she’d show him around the island.

  “It’s a date,” she said, and Hannon chuckled at the way she’d put it.

  He picked her up in his Jeep from her St. Johns apartment around five. She was wearing cutoff jean shorts, with a white fishnet shirt that covered a yellow bathing-suit top. Her breasts seemed fuller and rounder than he’d remembered, and she seemed to like the fact that it was so obvious he’d noticed. The pink hibiscus flower was gone from her hair, but the long brown locks draped over her shoulders, caressing her skin with her every move.

  Hannon helped her with the blanket and cooler she’d packed. “To the beach?” he asked.

  “No. Boggy Peak. There isn’t time to tour the whole island, but you can see lots from up there. I thought we’d drink a few beers and watch the sunset.”

  He smiled with approval, then steered into traffic, shooting her a glance every now and then to admire the way the wind blew her hair in the open Jeep.

  The road from St. Johns skirted the coastline, past some of the island’s finest west coast beaches, in the lee of the Shekerley Mountains, Antigua’s biggest hills. Dominique took them up the southern entrance, a steep road inland from Cade’s Bay. Fields of black pineapple stretched on either side of the road, while baked mud roads twisted inland through the island’s lushest and most attractive area. The southwest hills were the closest thing Antigua had to a rain forest. As they climbed Boggy Peak to thirteen hundred feet they were soon surrounded by elephant ear and colorful tropical flora.

  They parked at the end of the road, then walked the rest of the way through a stand of tall trees and thick bushy undergrowth. The path, if one existed, was indiscernible. She led the way through the overgrowth, but with his height Hannon was banging his forehead on low-hanging branches. Finally, they reached a small clearing on the side of the hill, with a view of the Caribbean that stretched south to Guadaloupe and north to St. Kitts. To the west, straight out, the sun was an orange ball hovering over the sea.

  Dominique spread the blanket out and tossed him a cold beer. “Greatest show on earth,” she said. “Come sit.”

  Hannon sat beside her on the blanket. She was leaning back on her elbows, her long legs stretched out in front of her. The hike had them both perspiring a little, and he could see her brown nipples faintly through her top. They sipped cold beer as she pointed out the sights. Frye’s Point, Darkwood Beach, and Johnson’s Point were the nearest beaches, mile-long strips of sand that had yet to be developed.

  “When I was a little girl, there were lots of beaches like those right down there. If your family drove up for a Sunday picnic and somebody was already there, you just left them alone and drove on to the next one. These days, you’re lucky to find only one hotel per beach.” Her eyes drifted slowly toward the horizon, where the sun was beginning to dip into the glistening Caribbean. “This is truly my favorite place in the whole world,” she said with a nostalgic grin. “Sometimes I wish I could just stay here forever.”

  Hannon smirked, then finished his beer and opened another, staring down at the sailboats below. From this height, they cut across the blue-green waters like graceful white swans.

  “Hey,” she said, her eyes brightening. “Maybe we’ll see the green flash.”

  “What’s that? Some Antiguan comic-book hero?”

  “No,” she laughed. Then she sat up quickly, excited he’d never heard of it. “It’s an island tradition. A little ribbon of green color stretches across the horizon just as the last bit of sun slips away for the night. You can only see it in places like the Caribbean, where there’s no dust or pollution. Even then, it’s hard to see it. But if you do, they say it brings you luck.”

  He shot her a glance, thinking her enthusiasm peculiar. “I don’t really believe in luck.”

  “You should,” she said as she scooted closer to him on the blanket. Her eyes were playing games with him. “I bet you have all kinds of luck and don’t even know it. Has anyone ever read your palm?”

  He shook his head.

  “Mind if I do?” she said with a sly smile.

  He hesitated, then relaxed his hand as she took it gently in hers and uncurled his fingers. She was sitting cross-legged, staring down into his palm.

  “Wow,” she said as she dragged her nail along one of the creases. “I can see you’re going to be a rich man. Or maybe you are already.”

  “Soon,” he quipped, thinking of the Charter Bank.

  She sipped her beer, then found another crease. “Here’s your lifeline, right here.”

  “Long?”

  “Looks to me like you should’ve keeled over yesterday. Kidding,” she said, giving him a friendly elbow. “Yes, it’s long. And I’d venture to say it’s a happy one, too.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She flattened her hand against his, comparing size. “Because you’ve got the biggest hands I’ve ever seen,” she said, eyebrows dancing. “A girl doesn’t have to be a palm reader to know what that means.”

  He quickly withdrew his hand. His expression turned cold as he stood up, towering over her.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, looking up nervously.

  He was sneering, all traces of warmth having vanished from his face. “That’s what you think, isn’t it? Big tall guy. Must be hung like a mule.”

  “I was just teasing.”

  “I don’t like to be teased.”

  “Sorry, mate. Let’s just drop it, okay?”

  He drew a deep breath, but his face flushed red. “That’s what you came out here for, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “To see the biggest cock you’ve ever seen.”

  “No,” she winced. Her lip started to quiver, a combination of fear and anger. “I don’t care about that.”

  His eyes narrowed and filled with contempt. “You liar.”

  She swallowed hard, suddenly afraid to speak. “I—I think I want to go home now.” She pushed herself up, but he knocked her right back down.

  “Siddown!” She started to squirm away, but he stepped hard on her ankle, pinning her on the spot, as if he had a rat by the tail.

  “You’re hurting me.” She reached for her ankle, but his look made her back off.

  “What did you think, this would be some kind of X-rated freak show? Something you could go back and tell your girlfriends about?”

  She cowered against the blanket. Her voice trembled. “Take it easy, all right? I won’t tell anyone anything. Just let me go.”

  “Don’t lie to me! You talked. I know you talked!”

  A tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t even know you! What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about me! You fucking talked about me.”

  Her fear became panic as she watched his expression turn steadily colder, to something beyond reason. It was as if he were speaking to someone else.

  She brushed a mosquito from her hair, then finally forced herself to look him in the eye.

  “Look,” she said in a desperate tone, “I’m sorry if I said something wrong. Please. I’ll walk myself back. I kn
ow the way. Just let me go.”

  “Go?” he said with a sadistic scowl. “I thought you said you wanted to stay here forever.”

  Her mouth opened, but the words didn’t come. It was getting darker, harder to see, but she watched closely as he reached into his pocket.

  “Forever’s a long time, Dominique.”

  Her eyes were locked on the hand slipping from his pocket. He had something wadded in a white cloth napkin.

  His voice became lower, more threatening. “Forever,” he said. “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you to be careful what you ask for?”

  He dropped the napkin, revealing the knife.

  She was about to scream, but he was right on top of her, pinning her to the ground. She couldn’t shout, couldn’t bite, couldn’t even breathe. Her skull seemed to flatten beneath the pressure, against the ground. It covered her entire face, half her head, from chin to crown.

  It was the biggest hand she’d ever seen.

  Chapter 36

  the Charter Bank of Antigua opened for business at nine o’clock Monday morning, but Hannon didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself by being the first customer of the day. He ate a leisurely English breakfast of poached eggs and tomatoes alone in his room while reviewing the bank records he’d taken from Rollins.

  At five minutes till ten, he started to apply the disguise.

  His Aryan complexion was already darker from the Clinique self-tanner he’d applied before going to bed. Brown contact lenses covered his icy blue eyes. A latex cap and brown wig went over the sandy blond hair. The epoxy irritated his nostrils, but he shook it off, knowing that the rubberized nose would make his chiseled profile unrecognizable. The padding strapped around his waist gave him a middle-aged paunch. Finally, a thick brown mustache and tortoiseshell eyeglasses made him look almost Middle Eastern.