by Jacob Ross
At first, finding Jana Ray felt like the beginnings of a breakthrough – my chance to get some useful answers from a young man who worked for Lazar Wilkinson, but my brief interrogation had reduced the youth to a state of babbling terror. It was clear to me that soon I would have to push Jana Ray to face whatever seemed to cripple him. Have him put it into words so that Miss Stanislaus and I could get to the root of it. And root it out!
Odd that Jana Ray never saw the woman that the little boys in Beau Séjour had spotted with Lazar Wilkinson. And why the hell would a young Camaho woman conspire with two foreign men to murder a Camahoan male she knew, in such a gruesome manner? That made little sense to me.
My thoughts shifted to Juba’s death at the hands of Miss Stanislaus and the fast-approaching hearing. I visualised Miss Stanislaus and I facing a couple of superintendents, the Commissioner of Police and of course the Minister of Justice.
I imagined myself pointing to the killing of Lazar Wilkinson, one of our citizens and explaining the critical importance of finding and apprehending the coupla foreigners who I suspected were involved in the nastiest killing Camaho had ever seen. I couldn’t imagine doing the job without the help-and-support of Miss Stanislaus. Besides, didn’t they realise that a Camaho woman – a young baby mother – was probably held hostage by said suspects? The more I rehearsed the argument in my head the less convinced I became of their effectiveness on a bunch of stone-faced, overfed Old Bulls, including my fuckin father, the Commissioner.
And let’s say I managed to pin some kinda murder on Juba. Would a character assassination of the fella be enough to get Miss Stanislaus off? Because that was all it was – a character assassination – something to convince a tribunal of fuckin Geezers of what Juba Hurst was capable of. I would still have no evidence to show that Miss Stanislaus had acted in her and my defence. Still, as far as I could see, pinning a murder on Juba would be my strongest argument – probably my only real chance of getting the hearing to drop the case against Miss Stanislaus. Hopefully.
I thought of the search I’d left Benna and her team to do for me and my heart flipped over.
It was not just finding Koku Stanislaus that mattered now. It was finding him in time – that was if Miss Stanislaus was right in her suspicion that Juba Hurst had killed her great-uncle.
I pushed the thoughts out of my head and got ready for the Buso case in court.
The court house was a big room in one of the government buildings overlooking the roundabout in Canteen. When I arrived, the concrete yard outside was packed with people – most of them teenage males clutching sheets of paper in their hands. They all looked lost.
Staff Superintendent Gill was right: the presiding judge was a woman – a broad-faced Barbadian with a locked-down mouth, formidable in size and demeanour. She tolerated none of the dramatic antics of the defence lawyer; told him she considered pointing his finger in a witness’s face tantamount to assault; and furthermore, suggesting the victim was a whore was libellous, inappropriate and in contempt of her court.
Officer Buso’s defence fell back on glowing character references from colleagues he worked with. The prosecution called his wife to the stand and she left us with the picture of a short-tempered man, brutal with his children, who slapped her around at the slightest provocation. Buso’s wife announced to the court that she was starting divorce proceedings against him.
I was last to take the stand. I delivered my statement to a hushed court room.
At the end of it, Buso did not get a jail sentence. He ended up with a 15,000-dollar fine and an order to pay for the care of the woman’s children, including their education, until they were fourteen. The money, the judge told him, would be deducted from source. Her hammer came down, and that, for me, was better than nothing at all.
There were faces pressed against the window of San Andrews Central when I drove into the station courtyard. It was clear to me that they’d already heard the verdict.
Superintendent Gill looked surprised to see me. Malan leaned against the cooler at the far end of the corridor, a plastic cup against his lips. His eyes travelled down the length of my body, then up to my face, checking no doubt whether I’d taken his advice and walked with my weapon. I flashed him a glare, pulled my chair and sat at my desk.
I’d taken Chilman’s advice, placing my back against the wall so that every approach was within my line of vision. Switch emerged from one of the back rooms, Machete trailing after him. Skelo hung behind, stopping at the cooler to exchange words with Malan. I expected the usual hate stares from them, or a murder-threat printed on their faces. They ignored me, shouldered the door and left.
I was listing the things I needed to remember if I were to make headway with Miss Stanislaus’s hearing when the men returned. Skelo walked past me and met Machete at the door. Machete was holding up a cup in his hand and deliberately blocking Skelo’s path. Skelo sucked his teeth and slapped the cup in Machete’s hand.
I was already moving and well away from my desk by the time the cup struck the wall behind my chair.
Malan came running. ‘What happen!’
In the office space, the conversation died, every head turned in our direction. A telephonist sucked her teeth, turned hateful eyes on Skelo and sucked her teeth again.
I pushed past Malan, went to the toilet, pulled off my shirt and tore away the pocket. At the cooler, I grabbed a plastic cup, hurried over to my desk and dropped the fabric in the pool of liquid on the tiled floor. I took off a shoe and used the toe to nudge it into the cup. If Skelo threw something at me, it couldn’t be for my good.
When I raised my head, Switch and his two men were no longer there.
The telephonist hurried over, dropped her eyes on the cup in my hand and asked what happened – her face tight with concern.
‘I awright,’ I said.
Superintendent Gill came out with another receptionist behind him. ‘What they done now?’ he growled.
‘I awright,’ I said.
He looked at the cup in my hand, then at my face. ‘What you got there?’
‘Dunno yet,’ I said.
‘I told you to stay away from this place. You didn—’
‘I not the problem, Sir. So why you blaming me?’
He looked ashamed of himself, at a loss. I turned my back on him.
There was a patchwork of bleached varnish where the droplets had settled on my desk.
I grabbed my bag and walked out the door.
The three men were at the far end of the car park, their arms stretched out on the roof of their vehicle. Machete showed me all his teeth. The other two were pretending they didn’t see me.
I unlocked my car, laid the cup on the back seat and got in. Malan shouted my name. ‘Digger, what happen?’
‘I’ll deal with it.’
‘What you got in that cup on your seat?’
‘Is what I about to find out.’
‘Where you off to now?’
‘Why all them questions, Malan Greaves? I don’t trust you any more. You the one put me in this situation. I not counting on you to get me out of it.’
‘Digger, is not so it was supposed to go.’
‘Fuck you, Malan.’
I drove off.
At home, I dropped the cup in my kitchen sink, dribbled some water into it from my tap and left it standing for a while.
I dug under the sink, found the sponge I was looking for, and poured the contents of the cup onto it. The sponge began dissolving into a black mess. Acid – car battery, I guessed. Probably sulphuric acid.
Five missed calls from Malan.
I didn’t understand him – hot one minute, cold the next. Miss Stanislaus had also called. I poured myself a glass of water and picked up my messages. Dessie wanted to see me later. Miss Stanislaus asked if I had more thoughts on the Lazar Wilkinson case. Chilman left a wet cough then hung up.
I dialled Malan. He picked up promptly. ‘Digger, officewoman show me your desk. What they throw at
you?’
‘Sulphuric acid – from car battery. I sure.’
‘Monkey juice?’
‘That’s what you call it?’
He’d gone so quiet, I thought he’d cut off. ‘Which one of dem done dat?’
I didn’t answer.
‘I betting is de sickhead – the one they call Machete. I been watchin him! Okay, take dis down.’ His voice had gone flat and businesslike. ‘Dem three fellas chill out at a gamblin place in Willis name Rock Box, around ten, eleven evenin time. Switch stupid like you, he don’t wear no gun. People say he shoot his lil daughter by mistake once. So he not wearing none – he carry a coupla fishknife. You know how to find de place?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘You bringin de Mad Woman with you?’
‘Nuh.’
He went silent, then coughed in my ear. ‘Digger, I tell them fellas to leave you alone, becuz they dunno what dey bringin down on themself. They never lissen! So! Who can’t hear goin feel. Not so?’ He hung up.
I threw myself on the sofa.
My mind took me back to my one-year course in England, and a pale-skinned woman with beautiful reddish hair that tumbled off her head in curls reminding me of wood shavings. I carried an image of Nuala Quinn sitting at her desk in front of our class of nine men. We’d come from every part of the world: North America, the Middle East, a couple of West Africans and two English fellas – one black, one white – all wanting to get into forensics.
It was the end of the course. We were seeing our lecturers for the last time. Each came, answered last-minute questions, shook our hands and wished us good luck.
Nuala Quinn was the last – a criminologist whose idea of teaching was to run an extended, barely audible conversation with herself, as if none of us was there. Most of the fellas in class didn’t pay attention, they settled down to other work. Me – I was in love with the woman’s thinking and I believed she knew it.
On the last day she was silent; sat with her head bowed over a small book in her hand, A Good Man is Hard to Find.
I felt let down. I wanted some final word from her, some thunderclap of an idea that I would take back with me to Camaho. But nuh! The blaastid woman jus siddown there reading her book!
At the end of the non-session, people gathered their things and began heading for the exit. I remained seated and didn’t hide my dissatisfaction.
It was then she spoke, her lips pulled back in a big smile – a taunting, sing-song Irish voice directed at the back of the room. ‘Have you worked out which one you are yet?’
People halted and turned around. The room went silent.
She raised a hand and showed us three fingers. ‘There are – roughly – three kinds of policemen: the foot-soldier, the priest and the savage.’ She laid the book on the desk and stood up. ‘The foot-soldier follows orders because he needs to have his thinking done for him. The priest does not always do good, but he means good. The savage is,’ she tossed back her hair with a swift jerk of her head, exposing her face and throat, ‘the worm in the belly. He becomes himself inside the agencies of the law. So many opportunities to hurt: break heads, break lives. He’s the one that throws you in a van alive and hands you over dead. The law is a cover for his lawlessness. Which one are you? And,’ she picked up the book, ‘what have they got in common – those three?’
She shouldered her bag and began walking towards us, her brows puckered as if she herself was working out the answer to her own question.
‘Control,’ I said. ‘Or – erm – the desire to control.’
She looked me in the face and smiled, then handed me the book. ‘Mr Digson – you think too much. Not good for you, you know.’
Nuala Quinn was wrong; we were all three. Or could be.
27
I turned up at Rock Box at 11.32. A sprawling shed-like structure with a big patio, ringed with coloured bulbs, facing a beach packed with boulders. The outside walls were plastered with posters advertising beverages. Rows of wooden trestle tables surrounded by stools. Switch, Machete and Skelo were together in the far right corner of the space, a dozen or so beer bottles between them. Malan sat with Sarona near the entrance – Sarona in a multicoloured sarong, her back to me.
Malan lifted his drink to his mouth. His lips moved above the rim of the bottle and Sarona rose promptly. She walked towards me with a swinging flowing movement, her eyes locked onto mine. She smiled and stepped past me. I caught a whiff of her perfume. Malan had disappeared.
I was halfway across the concrete floor when Switch spotted me. He lowered his gaze to the leather belt in my hand, placed his drink on the table and grumbled something. Suddenly Skelo was on his feet – lean, spidery under the lights, that long narrow head of his bobbing on his neck. He’d grabbed a lager bottle and struck it against the table. It didn’t break. I broke it for him. He was reaching behind his waist when my buckle connected with his shoulder. I heard the crack of bone. He stumbled forward, reaching for his waistline with the other hand. I destroyed his wrist as he hit the floor, then his shoulder blade. Machete jumped the table. I took his right foot from under him and as he hit the concrete, I smashed his upper arm, then the heel of his right foot. The two men lay on their stomachs, wet, chesty sobs gushing from their throats.
Switch had backed himself into the corner. He’d picked up a length of steel from somewhere – the type they used for reinforcing concrete. Or maybe he’d brought it with him.
There was commotion around me: stools scraping, a door slammed heavily inside the building. Switch’s eyes – bright and feral – locked onto mine. I sized him up, a new heat rising in my head. I adjusted my grip on the tail of the heavy leather belt. It was then that Malan stepped between us.
‘Finish,’ he said, a tight smile creasing his face. I kept my eyes on Switch, my nostrils flared, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from shoving Malan aside and throwing myself at the man.
Malan placed a hand on my shoulder, the other on Switch’s chest. Switch dropped the bar. ‘He save y’arse,’ Switch snarled.
‘Nuh,’ Malan said. ‘I save yours. H’was goin to kill you or cripple you. You wasn watchin Digger’ face. You dunno Digger’ face. I know Digger’ face. I told y’all to leave him alone, was a big mistake y’all makin. Now come siddown and have a drink. I done call de ambulance.’ He gestured at Machete and Skelo. Machete looked out cold. Skelo had thrown up.
‘Next time you dead,’ Switch said.
‘Den all ov y’all going dead too,’ Malan said. ‘Becuz is not only me y’all going have to deal with.’ Malan was smiling with his mouth. ‘In fact, if De Mad Woman did come with Digger – all of y’all arse would’ve been dead by now. Believe! What you drinkin, Switch? Is me payin. Digger, you hangin round?’
I turned and headed for my car.
Sarona stood close to the entrance – out of sight because of the high row of sorrel plants that hugged the side of the building.
She looked like a mannequin under the string of multicoloured lights that lined the eaves above her. ‘Digger,’ she said.
I pretended I didn’t hear her.
28
Dog Island sat between Kalivini Island and Coburn. If there was a drugs capital in Camaho, Coburn was it – a sort of interisland commercial exchange for every variety of marijuana grown throughout the Antilles. There were fellas here who could tell the origin of any given weed, the region in whichever island it was grown and its potency – just by smelling it.
Well-built concrete houses clustered around a wide lagoon – a resting place for small yachts that were more like floating caravans. Hand-built constructions put together with parts of other boats and fitted with lazy diesel engines that helped them drift down to Camaho on the currents from Florida. They were the underclass of America’s boating world.
Dessie, Jana Ray and I hung out by the jetty. She’d taken an instant liking to the youngfella. She even whispered to me that he was ‘beautiful’.
Malan had phoned and
said that he and Sarona were already on Dog Island. He was setting up. Spiderface, our Department’s boatman, would pick us up from the jetty.
I surveyed the hilltop houses and asked Jana Ray and Dessie if they’d ever heard of The Actors – Camaho’s very own, home-grown drug lords.
‘We proud of them,’ I said.
Jana Ray threw me a look and grinned. The fella was getting to know me.
For the past coupla years there was a new trend in drug trafficking: young boys without parents or big brothers to control them getting picked up off the streets and sent out mid-ocean in boats to collect a brick or two of refined cocaine and return with it – part of the supply chain that kept the tourists happy. Did they know that Camaho had the highest tourist-revisit rate in the region? Well, I was wagering that those bricks had something to do with it.
Sometimes things went wrong. I told them of YouTube videos of kidnapped Camahoan boys being gun-whipped by raging Venezuelan men, demanding their money from the fellas who sent out those kids. Some of those children we never heard about again.
As for the fellas who sent out those boys, we never arrested them. We left them to self-destruct.
I turned to Jana Ray. ‘Yunno why?’ He said nothing – a new alertness in his eyes. ‘Because what happen to them is worse than jail. So much money, so little to do with it. They could hardly count so they pay school kids to tot up their takings. They throw money at the wind. They dunno what to do with themselves. So they run through some videos, choose a movie star they like and start to walk-n-talk and dress like the movie star, until they begin to believe it.’
‘Why you don’t arrest them?’ Dessie wanted to know. She’d draped an arm over my shoulder from behind and was fingering the hairs at the nape of my neck with the other hand.
‘They end up killing themselves,’ I said. ‘Now, Bradley Grange was different.’
I pointed at a big white house that sat like a stranded ship on a promontory over the sea. ‘He was a classmate of mine. His father talked some sense into his head, so he built two houses on the old man’s land.