“I want to know where to find Roland Galen?”
“Roland who?”
Val tightened the leash. “Galen. I’m told you’re his
pharmacist of choice.”
Logjam couldn’t speak. He nodded his head furiously.
Val let him have some air.
“Jesus! All you had to do was ask.”
The enraged dog sank its teeth into Val’s injured
knee. He screeched in agony, jerked his leg away, and released his grip on
Logjam. Val grabbed the animal by the neck and pulled it off. The woman started
to rain blows down on him with her purse.
Logjam fired an elbow into Val’s crotch. Then another
into his throat. It was Val’s turn to turn blue.
The drug-dealer scrambled to his feet and landed a
couple of kicks into Val’s ribs. Then he noticed the blood on his trouser leg
and switched his efforts in that direction, all the time urgently unraveling
the leash.
Val rolled across the sidewalk and curled up in a
ball. Logjam gave him one last kick, and then took off in the direction of Lee
Circle. The woman pressed a button to retract the leash, picked up her pet, and
scuttled off.
The words of a song playing on a bar’s jukebox reached
Val. He knew the tune. An old Leadbelly song.
He picked himself up and started to grin. The people
on the sidewalk locked at him uneasily and moved away.
He hobbled back to the restaurant and went through to
the kitchen. He asked the staff a few questions, but got nothing but a shaking
of heads and rapid Vietnamese babble.
Val’s cell phone rang as he was pulling his car
alongside the curb in front of his house. His leg was throbbing and he was in a
foul mood.
He unfolded the phone. It was Larson.
“Bad news, amigo. Just got word that Gilett’s FRAPH
buddies have sprung him. They used shotguns to shred the tires on the ambulance
that was transporting him to Tulane. It flipped over, sideswiped a couple of
cars and came to rest against a levee. They freed Gilett and scrammed.”
Swell, Val thought. The perfect way to end a perfect
evening.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said. “When did it
happen?”
“Mid-day. It’s not customary for FRAPH to risk men
springing their troops from custody. Gilett must mean a lot to them?”
“What does the FBI have to say about that?”
“No comment.”
“No surprise.”
“Two agents and a paramedic riding in the ambulance
were badly knocked about.”
“I know how they feel.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Look on the bright side. Gilett may have bought it in
the crash.”
Val doubted it. He had almost certainly been wrapped
in blankets and strapped to a gurney, which in turn the paramedic would have fastened
down securely for the trip. Val couldn’t think of any better way to survive a
crash.
“Any luck on Jackson?” Larson asked.
“Only bad. Goodnight.”
Val climbed from his car and pulled himself up the
steps to his front door. His leg had a date with an ice pack.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Val made sure to time his arrival at the radio station
for a full quarter hour before Harry Nolan began his morning radio show to
Haiti’s tenth district. Nolan was clearly surprised to see Val again. They
talked in the studio as the broadcaster prepared for his show.
Nolan read the message that Val had hand-written on a
sheet of A4 paper. It was a personal appeal, made by the police officer
involved in the FRAPH incident in St Francis and mentioning Val by name, for
anyone who had known Valerie Duval in Haiti to come forward. They were to ring
Val’s cell phone number.
The broadcaster put the sheet down. His expression
wasn’t one of enthusiasm.
“I did warn you about going up against FRAPH — not
that you paid me the slightest bit of notice. Are you sure you want your name
to go out on this?”
“Positive. When you’ve a tiger by the tail, you might
as well give it a good hard twist. Though I’m concerned about any backlash
against yourself or the radio station.”
“Forget it. We’ve been a thorn in FRAPH’s side that
long, another jab won’t make any difference. Why the renewed interest in
Valerie Duval?”
“I don’t know exactly. All I do know is that her
daughter didn’t kill her, but an NOPD officer did, who then went on to work for
Arena Victory. I’m hoping a lead on why she was killed will help connect the
two.”
“Okay, I’ll broadcast it. But your chances of a
response will improve greatly if I ask our listeners to ring the radio station.
There’s lot of very nervous Haitians out there. They trust me.”
Val nodded thoughtfully. “That means hanging around
here for a couple of hours.”
“I know our coffee stinks, but it won’t kill you.”
“It’s just that I have a pretty tight schedule mapped
out for today.”
Nolan indicated the message. “I’ll make sure this goes
out right at the head of the show. Maybe you’ll get lucky and somebody will
call in before very long.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Nolan glanced at the wall clock. It was almost time to
start his show. “It’s no big deal. Anything that puts a rocket up Arena
Victory’s backside is fine by me. You know that their CEO is back in town?
MacLean has his yacht moored on the Riverwalk ready for Thursday night’s
flotation jamboree.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“What planet are you living on? MacLean’s guesting on
every radio show, every TV show, headlining every paper. He’s a one-man public
relations machine.”
“I have a few questions of my own for
him,” Val said, already wondering what
strategy he should adopt with MacLean.
Nolan started to arrange a stack of newssheets spread
untidily around his console. “It’s time for me to go to work. Treat yourself to
some of our coffee and take a seat in the foyer. I’ll wave you in if there’s
any calls.”
John Clements had been sitting in his car parked
across the street from the Assist Haiti headquarters since shortly after eight
o’clock that morning. He wished it could have been earlier, but he hadn’t dared
leave the station until Pollack rang. He didn’t want him ringing his house and
his wife answering; she had developed mild angina the previous year. Pollack
seemed indifferent to news of the watch which Bosanquet had ordered on his
brother’s house, though Clements thought he sensed an increase in interest when
he mentioned that Angie Bosanquet, though separated, was still married to Val
Bosanquet.
Stifling a yawn, he squirmed about in the seat trying
to get comfortable. He was tired and badly needed to urinate. On the seat next
to him was an old copy of
The
Times-Picayune
that
had a picture of Lausaux handing a set of car-keys to a wealthy
Haitian businessman. He had watched staff arrive for work, then a steady stream
of callers after the office had opened, but so far there had been no
sign of Lausaux. Maybe he was wasting
his time. It may simply have been an oversight of Pollack’s not to inquire
about Lausaux. Clements figured that he could spend his time better by
following Bosanquet; then at least he would have something to give Pollack the
next time he called.
Now he had crossed the line, Clements knew there was
nothing he wouldn’t do to protect his son.
The two hours when the show was on the air ticked by
excruciatingly slowly for Val. His Haitian Creole was basic and after the first
ten minutes he gave up trying to follow Nolan’s smooth-flowing chatter, though
he registered the DJ mentioning his name every quarter hour.
He flicked through several six-month-old magazines
that someone had left around the front office. Then talked to the teenager
operating the switchboard for a while and made a couple of telephone calls. He
risked another cup of coffee and breakfasted on a jelly doughnut that the
teenager offered him.
Each time the phone rang he looked up optimistically,
but none of the calls were for him.
Nolan emerged from his studio after the show and
shrugged his shoulders.
“No luck,” he said. “Though sometimes it takes a
while. Do you want the request broadcast again tomorrow?”
Val shook his head. “A response would have been a
bonus, but it doesn’t mean that the message hasn’t reached the ears it was
intended for.”
They shook hands. Val promised to let Nolan have the
full story first, if there was one to be told.
He left the radio station and walked around to the
parking lot at the rear of the building. It was a cool morning, the limpid air
was less humid than usual for the time of year, the sky bright blue and almost
cloudless.
Two men riding trail bikes drove into the parking lot,
throwing a cloud of dust and grit up into the air behind them, the cacophonous
motors deafening. They started to circle Val cutting him off from his car. Both
men carried machetes and were trailing the tips of them on the ground. Their
circling closed in on Val. He stood his ground.
They pulled up on either side of him and raised their machetes
like Calvary soldiers of the old west, their faces hidden behind the visors of
their helmets. The skin on their hands was ebony black.
“Bosanquet’?” The one on the right had to shout to
make himself heard above the clamor of the bikes. His voice had a heavy Haitian
accent.
Val swallowed hard. “You know my name. What about
yours?”
The men ignored his demand. “You been asking questions
about Valerie Duval?”
Tires squealed as a plain dark-blue panel van hurtled
into the parking lot and braked sharply to a stop beside them. The rear doors
were flung open. Inside was a third man, a motor cycle helmet obscuring his
face. From his build, Val reckoned that he was considerably older than the
bikers.
“Get in. You’re going for a ride,” he shouted.
The bikers switched off the motors and flipped the
rests down. They shouldered the machetes as though on parade. Val jumped up
into the back of the van and they leapt in after him. They slammed shut and the
van sped off.
The light in the rear of the van was poor. There was a
Plexiglas window in the roof sprayed with a coating of white paint. They
searched him and relieved him of the Beretta. Val had to grab hold of the van’s
side to stop himself from failing. He braced his legs as the van took a wide
right turn.
The man who had ridden with the van said, “Why are you
asking questions about Valerie Duval?” His voice was hard and intimidating.
“She was murdered. I want to find out why.”
“That was ten years ago. Why the interest now?”
Val found the heat inside the van stifling. “I believe
there’s a connection between her murder and recent murders committed by members
of FRAPH.”
“They didn’t kill her. She was
one
of them.”
“So everybody keeps telling me. But there has to
something more which links them.”
The man didn’t answer. All Val could see was his own
reflection in the three visors.
“What do you need to know?” the older man asked
eventually. The menace had gone from his voice. It appeared he had come to a
decision about Val’s probity.
“The motive for Valerie Duval’s death? Money. Macoute
money.”
“What money? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Duval had no money.”
The biker on Val’s left raised his visor.
Clean-shaven, with dark-green eyes, he appeared to be in his early twenties.
Val didn’t recognize him.
“The Tonton Macoute money. The seven million dollars
Duval’s husband smuggled out of Haiti.”
“News to me,’ Val said. “Duval was living in poverty
when she was killed.”
The older man spoke again. “The Macoute had been
looting Haiti for years. Baby Doc was finished and they knew it. They stole,
accepted brides, defrauded the army, extorted, whatever
,
to lay their hands on every cent they could. They even relieved
Baby Doc of some of the funds he had stashed. Duval’s husband organized the
transfer of funds to New Orleans. Only one slight problem, he was one of the
first that they killed after Baby Doc boarded a flight to France. The seven
million was never accounted for.”
The van came abruptly to a stop. Val had found his
absolute motive. All he needed to do now was to survive long enough to make use
of it. “What do you want from me?”
The older man swung open the doors of the wan and
light flooded in. They were back in the radio station’s parking lot. The bikers
jumped from the van, straddled their machines, and kicked them into life. Val
stepped down. The man tossed Val his gun and pulled the doors shut as the van
moved off.
The bikers saluted him with their machetes, wheeled
around, and sped away, their rear wheels churning up clouds of dust.
Val opened his car door and sat down. He took several
deep breaths and held tightly on to the steering wheel. Once his knees felt
solid again he turned the key in the ignition and pointed the car towards the
airport.