The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

  ‘I don’t…’

  She looked over at the tub, where he’d left his bag.

  ‘You snivelling, cowardly PIECE OF SHIT! You LEFT HIM!’ she screamed. ‘YOU LEFT HIM!’

  She came closer to him.

  ‘Yeah. Thass right,’ Carmine said. ‘Thass right. I left him. Maybe the cops’ve got him now.’

  She wasn’t listening. She was staring over at the sink, to the shelf, where he’d left Bonbon’s gun. He hadn’t cleaned it. It was still covered in the fat man’s blood.

  ‘What are you doing with Bonbon’s gun?’

  ‘Bonbon’s dead.’

  ‘Who killed him?’

  ‘Me.’ Carmine tapped his chest. ‘I did. I shot him. Wit’ his own gun.’ He couldn’t help himself. He smiled. He was proud of what he’d done.

  ‘You killed him?’ She looked like she wanted to laugh and might have done if she didn’t have so much on her mind.

  ‘Yeah. I killed him,’ Carmine said. He felt a little bolder, a little rebellious even. He remembered he had the keys to the locker and the keys to the pickup in his pocket. Everything he needed. All he had to do was walk out. And he could. Physically she’d be no match for him. But could he stand up to her? He didn’t know. He was in her world, following her rules, going at her pace.

  ‘Where are you going?’ She pointed at his bag without looking at it.

  ‘I’m gettin’ the fuck out.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Gettin’ the fuck out,’ he repeated.

  She covered the ground between them and slapped him hard across the face.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that.’

  ‘FUCK YOU!’ Carmine yelled at her.

  She raised her hand to backhand him, but Carmine caught her wrist and pushed her away.

  He grabbed the gun off the shelf and pointed it at her. She ignored him.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she said, black eyes boiling with hatred and rage.

  ‘Yes I am.’ Carmine pointed the gun at her. ‘An’ you ain’t stoppin’ me.’

  ‘Run your bath,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Run. Your. Bath.’

  ‘Get outta my way.’

  ‘Run. Your. Bath.’

  ‘I’ve. Had. A. Wash.’ He cocked the gun.

  ‘Run. Your. Bath. And don’t you DARE disobey me, boy!’ she repeated, her fierce eyes boring into his as she came closer to him.

  He wasn’t backing down, but somewhere inside he wanted to.

  ‘You’re a crazy FUCKIN’ BITCH!’ he screeched.

  She laughed at him. He felt tears massing in his eyes. He knew he was close to breaking down. He knew he was close to letting her have her way. He felt so crushed and small and insignificant by her presence, her personality, her contempt and her hatred for him. He was pointing a loaded gun at her and she wasn’t in the least bit scared because she knew he wasn’t going to use it on her.

  ‘I’m warning you…Get out of my way,’ he sobbed.

  ‘Or what? You’re going to shoot me! Is that it? I don’t think so. You wouldn’t dare. You’re a scared little boy. A coward–just like your father! A no-good, weak piece of shit.’

  His hand was starting to shake. She noticed. She smiled.

  ‘See?’ she sneered. ‘You’re shaking. You’re pissing yourself. You don’t have the nerve! You don’t have the balls. You never had the guts to stand up to me. Me–a frail little old woman. You’re a joke, Carmine. A pathetic weak feeble joke. Your whole life’s a joke. Weak! Weak! WEAK!’

  He didn’t remember pulling the trigger. It just happened. He’d had enough of her voice, sneering, taunting, screaming in his aching head; tearing at his heart, crushing his soul. He’d wanted it to stop. He’d wanted her to stop. For ever. And his pain and desire translated into the few pounds of pressure he put on the sliver of metal.

  His mother toppled over backwards and landed on the floor, spreadeagled, a small, smoking black hole in her chest, a spreading red pool under her back.

  Carmine picked up the bag and headed for the door, the blast undulating in his ears.

  Before leaving the bathroom, he stopped and looked at her.

  She wasn’t dead. Her eyes were moving.

  They locked stares.

  ‘You taught me well, Mother,’ Carmine said to her. ‘I hate you. I’ve always hated you. And I’ll always hate you.’

  Eva saw his lips move but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Her ears were ringing from the pistol shot that had torn through her heart.

  She waited for what she knew would come next. She’d seen it and it was beautiful. Moments before the body died and freed the spirit, a comforting, cleansing pure white light gently obliterated all trace of this life and gradually illuminated the way to the next.

  It was true: God forgave everyone. Even her. She was only human, after all–for now.

  She felt very cold all over. She couldn’t feel her legs. The pain in her chest was intense as her heart struggled hard to heal itself and close the fatal rupture.

  She was looking forward to the next stage. She’d be able to watch over Solomon and guide him. As for that wretched murderous bastard son of hers–she’d haunt him to his grave, and then she’d make sure his existence beyond it was misery too. There’d be a bath waiting for him in eternity. He wouldn’t ever escape her.

  She wanted to laugh but she couldn’t because her muscles weren’t working any more. Any time now the beautiful light would come. Any time now.

  Then it came.

  But not the light.

  No.

  Not the light.

  An inky black smoke–part fume, part liquid–gradually poured into her vision, blotting out her surroundings. And then she heard the sound of dogs again–not scratching and circling as before, but stampeding, rushing towards her at great speed, their paws thunderous, as if they were as big as horses.

  The total darkness parted and she saw the great beasts bearing down on her, more terrifying than anything she’d ever seen in her many visions, than anything she could ever have imagined. She wanted to scream but she knew it was pointless. No one would ever hear her again.

  Carmine knew he should have already left the house, but he was stuck at the foot of the stairs leading to his mother’s forbidden quarters, a hostage to his own curiosity. There was light pouring out of the open door.

  Now she was dead he could do what he wanted.

  He found himself on a landing, facing four identical doors sunk into alcoves–tall, round-topped, made of heavy, polished dark wood; none had locks or handles, and all had the same moulding–an egg surrounded by a serpent swallowing its tail. There were two doors to his left, one to his right and one directly in front of him.

  He didn’t have much time. He couldn’t see everything. He could only see one thing. He had to make a choice.

  It wasn’t hard.

  He walked forward and pushed the door into his mother’s bedroom.

  Spacious, cool, musk scented. A library ran along the right wall, broken up by two windows, which faced the street. The shelves were filled with large, heavy, hide-bound antique books of spells and potions, divination, demonology and mediumship, their titles stamped in gold on the spines.

  Facing the library was a king-sized bed, made up with dark blue sheets and pillows. His eyes were drawn to a framed black and white photograph on a bedside cabinet. It was a headshot of his mother, the kind actors and models have in their resumés, just the face, set against a dark background. Seeing it made him understand where he got his vanity from.

  He looked across to the other side of the bed. There was a photograph there too, in the same style as his mother’s, only it was of someone else.

  He recognized the face but he didn’t know what it was doing there. He went over and picked it up.

  Solomon.

  All the rumours he’d heard about him having had extensive plastic surgery and his skin bleached were just that–tall tal
es disseminated by Chinese whispers, the usual misinformation that stoked the myth. Solomon looked slightly older than the years-old memory Carmine had of him–a few wrinkles around the eyes, two deep furrows in his forehead–but other than that he hadn’t changed much.

  What was his photograph doing at his mother’s bedside?

  He knew, but didn’t fully understand and didn’t want to believe.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed.

  How long had they been together?

  The answers were right in front of him, on top of a chest of drawers near the window.

  There were half a dozen more photographs–all colour–of Solomon and Eva together in Miami with their arms around each other outside Pork ’n’ Beans, sitting close together at a restaurant table, in a locked embrace on the beach, dancing together in a club, posing with a pile of money and staring longingly into each other’s eyes on a boat, getting progressively older, richer and more fashion conscious.

  They’d always been together.

  He guessed he should have known, but how could he? He’d never suspected a thing, never witnessed the slightest hint of intimacy between them.

  He wasn’t just shocked, but disgusted too. Disgusted at Solomon, because he was no better than his mother. They were as one. He wished he’d killed him out there on the road.

  What a fool he’d been.

  Bitter tears ran down his face.

  His first impulse was to trash the room, rip it to shreds, but he didn’t have time and the gesture would be meaningless. He had to do something else, something that mattered, something that counted; something that hurt.

  71

  ‘Think you’ll ever catch him–the man with no face?’ Sandra asked Max over breakfast.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Max pushed away his plate and lit his first cigarette of the morning. Sandra had cooked them a shrimp and onion omelette on Cuban bread, which was delicious, but he didn’t have too much of an appetite. In the three days that had passed since the Opa Locka shoot-out he’d eaten as sparingly as a piranha in a vegetable patch. ‘If I was him, with all this heat, I’d be well out of here by now–out of town, out of state, out of the country. That’s what any normal, right-thinking person would do.

  ‘But Boukman ain’t that person. He’s not just gonna give up and walk away. All that power, all that money, all that control. He’s used to it, he’s used to having his own way. People like him don’t leave their thrones. They die on ’em. He’s gonna wanna restore order and hit back. When he does, I hope we’ll be ready.’

  They were staying in a room on the top floor of Atlantic Towers, a high-security, state-owned building off Flagler, used by visiting politicians and dignitaries, connected celebrities and by cops and Feds to stash star witnesses.

  Sandra had been released from hospital two days ago. She’d been treated for shock, dehydration and the minor cuts and bruises she’d got when she’d crawled over to the car. Luckily she’d suffered no serious physical injuries.

  A shrink had talked to her for an hour, prescribed a month’s supply of Valium, given her a distant date for a follow-up meeting, and a number to call if there were any problems in-between. She refused to take the pills, saying she didn’t need them; she was fine, she insisted. And outwardly, to Max, she appeared to be just that. She showed none of the typical signs of trauma: she slept soundly and ate regularly; she wasn’t jumpy, stressed, or paranoid. In fact, she was almost exactly as she had been before. Max wasn’t sure if this was simply down to innate toughness, or if it wasn’t the silent build-up to a delayed reaction. He’d seen it happen in the past to cops involved in shoot-outs. They’d be business-as-usual for a few months and then, suddenly, flip out and go into meltdown.

  Although she remembered her ordeal vividly, she couldn’t provide much in the way of information. As soon as Max had told her to go into hiding, she’d packed and left her apartment. She was putting her case in the trunk of her car when a black Mercedes had pulled up alongside her. Bonbon was in the front passenger seat. A woman with a gun had stepped out and ordered her to get in. She’d been blindfolded and her mouth, hands and feet taped. When they had come off, she’d found herself alone in a bare, windowless room, with just a mattress on the floor and a pot to piss in. An hour later a man had come in with a telephone. He’d ordered her to tell Max that she’d been kidnapped and to go to the phonebooths outside the courthouse. He’d dialled Max’s number and held the receiver in one hand and a gun to her head in the other. She was left on her own until the next morning, when the same man had brought her food and water and taken out her pot. She’d tried talking to him, but he’d ignored her. A few hours later he’d come in and blindfolded her. She’d been led out of the room, up some stairs, walked outside and made to get in a van. The blindfold came off moments before she’d been escorted out across the wasteground at Opa Locka.

  After the shoot-out, they’d found Bonbon’s body minus most of its head on I95, close to the scene of an eight-car pile-up. Two black men–one covered in blood–had stolen cars and fled the scene. Descriptions of both were vague. Later, in Kendall, the Desamours house had gone up in flames. A woman’s body had been found in the remains. She’d been shot in the chest with a .44 at point-blank range. Max guessed it was Eva Desamours, but there was no way of knowing yet–all her skin had been burnt off, and they were still checking dental records.

  MTF had issued the media with an artist’s impression of Carmine Desamours, along with a photograph of a white pickup truck similar to the one Max and Joe had seen at the Desamours house. A day later the owner of a used-car lot close to the Omni Mall on Biscayne Boulevard reported that Carmine had part-exchanged the truck for an olive-green 1977 Chevy Impala.

  As for a description of Solomon, they were nowhere close. The second black man who’d fled the I95 crash had stolen a Mustang, which was found abandoned on Maynada Street, Coral Gables. It had run out of petrol. At 11.45 p.m. a woman in a Volvo 262 reported that she’d been carjacked by a ‘nigger with a gun’ on nearby Hardee Road.

  ‘How are the interviews going?’ Sandra asked.

  Along with the six survivors from the shoot-out, MTF had so far arrested twenty-seven SNBC members.

  ‘No one’s talking. They’re all terrified of Boukman. We’ve threatened them with the worst we can do–life in prison or the death penalty. You know what this guy said to us yesterday? “You think you’re bad? He’s worse.” I mean, what can be worse than life in prison or death, right?’ Max laughed.

  ‘The power of myth,’ she said. ‘If you catch him and bring him in, you’ll shatter the myth.’

  ‘You think?’ Max asked. ‘If we bring him in, no one’s gonna believe it’s really him. They’re gonna say we made it all up.’ He took Sandra’s hand. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling?’

  ‘In a word–scared,’ she said.

  ‘You’re safe here.’

  ‘Not scared for me. I’m scared for you.’

  ‘I’ll be OK.’ Max shrugged.

  ‘Will you?’ Sandra stared at him. ‘You don’t want to catch Boukman, do you? You want to kill him.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Max crushed out his cigarette and lit another.

  ‘That makes you no different to him. And you are different, Max. Completely.’ Sandra sipped her coffee. ‘What do you know about Haiti?’

  ‘Papa Doc, Baby Doc, voodoo, cocaine.’ Max counted them off on his fingers.

  ‘I’ve read about it and I know some Haitians. Out there you’re either very rich or very poor. There’s no in-between, and 95 per cent of the population is very poor. They’ve got nothing but the dirt they walk on. You’ve got to understand Boukman, examine what made him the way he is, examine what drives him. He came up in a place where killing’s a way of life, where things you took for granted when you were a kid, he didn’t have.’

  ‘What is this? Sympathy for the devil?’ Max let go of her hand and laughed. ‘He kidnapped you, Sandra, with the specific intention of killing you, and yo
u’re trying to what–understand him? There’s nothing to understand about the guy. He’s a sadistic scumbag.

  ‘You know, most Haitians in Miami are hard-working, honest, law-abiding people. They live in the shittiest conditions this city has to offer, but you don’t see them killing people. And they’ve all come from the same place as Boukman. So don’t give me that sociological shit. That’s for blackboards and trust-fund liberals.’

  ‘You don’t believe that,’ she said.

  ‘I do, you know.’

  ‘Then you’ve had an empathy bypass.’

  ‘No, I have not.’ Max felt his anger rise. ‘I empathize plenty. But I empathize with those who deserve empathy–the victims of monsters like Boukman. He ordered whole families killed. Whole families, Sandra–children–babies. That ain’t about social inequality or global injustice. That’s about right and wrong. You wanna examine people like him–do it in the fucken’ morgue.’

  Max looked away from her furiously and stared out of the window. The sky was a dense black, mottled with grey.

  He felt bad for shouting at her. He shouldn’t even have been angry with her, not after what she’d been through. He turned to apologize, but she cut him off.

  ‘Inside that pissed-off head of yours, there’s a compassionate, honourable, decent guy. I know it. I saw it in you the day we met. You’ve just got to let him out before it’s too late,’ she said.

  ‘Too late? Too late for who?’

  ‘For you. For us. But mostly for you. There’ll always be another Boukman. And another after him. And another. They’ll keep coming, long after you’re gone. You can’t change that, but can change yourself.’

  The phone rang.

  Saved by the bell, Max thought as he got up to answer it.

  It was Joe.

  ‘Carmine Desamours checked out of the Palace Motel twenty minutes ago. It’s right near the airport. The manager called it in. Saw Desamours on TV. We’ve alerted the units.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ Max asked.

  ‘MTF.’

  ‘Meet me in the garage.’