All he had said, all of his unhappiness, every negative word echoed between her ears.
She had not been a good wife. She had fucked up London. She had not been a good partner.
He’d be in a better financial position without her. But she knew he couldn’t divorce her. She knew all of his secrets, just like he knew all of hers. She knew where the bodies were buried, the type of information that would have a man sitting on death row before the next sunrise.
As they moved up the road, passing La Perla real estate offices and Sunseakers, her scooter parked where she had left it, then coming up on Tiki Car Rental, she wondered, if this meeting was unexpected, why Matthew had come to see her here, why he had shown up unexpectedly with a knife.
She wondered about the Lady from Detroit being in Antigua. It didn’t make sense.
And Matthew never told her he was coming to the West Indies. Not one message.
Like he had wanted to surprise her.
She wondered if her husband had come to her room and waited for her as her husband.
Or had been in her hillside room, waiting in the darkness, lurking, as El Matador.
His BlackBerry rang again. Again he answered. Said a few words, hung up.
She felt the swarthy lover’s heavy penis inside her. Tasted Matthew’s come on her tongue.
Matthew said, “Change of plans.”
“What now?”
“She wants to meet at Pigeon Point. Said this is too close to the police station in the Dockyard. Doesn’t want anyone to see us meeting. So she wants to meet at a private area.”
“We can take the scooter I rented.”
“No scooter. She wants us to walk.”
“That will take at least twenty minutes.”
“Then we better keep moving.”
Her mind raced.
Now he wanted to turn around and walk up a hill and down roads too narrow for two cars to pass without someone pulling to the side, an area with few homes, plenty of tropical foliage, emerald waters, and white sand, wanted her to leave all she had behind and walk and have a meeting at a beach away from the rest of the harbor, a secluded shoreline that very few went to, a place not many knew about.
A place like she had taken her swarthy lover not that long ago.
El Matador.
His being here had surprised her; his barrage of questions never gave her time to think.
She hadn’t asked Matthew how he got inside her hotel room. Or how he knew what room she had been given when she checked in. He had no luggage with him, there was no job, but he had a knife on his person. Wasn’t adding up, not the way she wanted it to add up. It added up another way.
She wondered if the Lady from Detroit was really here or just a lie to get her out of the room.
Sweat grew on the back of her neck.
Nervous sweat that made the scent of a dead lover rise from her flesh.
He had permeated her being.
They hiked up a ragged road, past a construction site, new condos being built, a tattered road made for a Jeep, a road few cars would brave, a road that turned left and led to darkness and isolation.
Matthew could’ve killed her in the hotel room.
She knew killing her in the hotel room would be a problem that would have to be explained.
He led her over a gravel road that went uphill past where they were developing new properties.
She licked her lips, uncomfortable.
When she slowed down, Matthew pulled her hand, made her keep moving. If he took her to Pigeon Point Beach, killed her, locals would get blamed. This was a small island that had plenty of places to dump a dead body. E in her system, weed and lager still in her bloodstream, a sobering fear in her heart. She held her husband’s hand tighter. She noticed he was holding her just as tight.
Like he wanted to make sure she didn’t get away.
At the top of the first hill she glanced out at 360 degrees of lush mountains, looked down at yachts and dinghies in the marina, stared at all the British flags waving from the superyachts docked in the Antiguan harbor.
She wondered if that was the last time she would see that beautiful sight.
Seventeen
mysteries
Matthew said,
“You’re trembling.”
She didn’t respond, just wiped sweat from her forehead, did that using her free hand.
She was out of breath, sweating, feeling uncomfortable.
Matthew said, “You’re out of shape.”
She didn’t reply to that either, his list of disappointments growing every time he spoke.
She asked, “Are there snakes in these woods?”
“No snakes on the island.”
“How do you know?”
“They brought in mongooses, did that years ago; the mongooses killed all the snakes.”
“Mongooses, those things that look like rats?”
“Same family, I suppose.”
“Do mongooses bite people?”
“Keep walking.”
Every little noise she heard made her jump.
Matthew led her down the rugged street that ended at Pigeon Point. The downhill walk moved from an area covered by trees to where it opened up at the edges of the beach. There were two vehicles there, both small four-door Nissans with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. Both license plates started with the letter R; R was used to designate those vehicles as rentals. Eight men were standing by those cars. Eight men of various sizes, all clean-shaven, all dressed in jeans and colorful shirts that only a tourist would wear. They wore hats. Expensive, stylish hats, not baseball caps. Borsalino. Panizza. Peto. Henschel. Biltmore. Capas. Scoini. Goorin. Hats that took the look of a man to another level. She knew hats, knew fashion. Each man had on a different-style hat, wore those the way women hated to have on the same dress or meet a woman who wore the same shoes. The only thing about them that was the same was the shades, same brand and style, like there had been a clearance on Ray-Bans. Or they shopped at Costco.
Two of the eight came toward them as they made the left turn and moved toward the cars. The man wearing the Peto and a man wearing a Goorin.
She looked around. Nothing but Caribbean Sea and palm trees in front of them. She thought that she should tug on Matthew and have him back away from this meeting, maybe pause at this point and have them bring the rest of the meeting to them. It was too late. She heard something, looked behind her. Matthew did the same. The sound of rubber rolling over loosened gravel. Another car came down the road, moved slowly, dirt rising under its wheels, the first letter on its license plate the letter R as well. It crept and stopped a few yards behind them. The occupants got out and stood by each of the four doors. Four more big guys, clones of the ones who were in front of them, same standard-issue Ray-Bans; those men put their distinct hats on as they exited the vehicle.
Twelve men of various complexions, shapes, and sizes. Waiting in silence. Not a smile in sight.
The Lady from Detroit wasn’t in sight either. Maybe she wasn’t here.
Maybe this was a West Indies setup, payback for the fuckup in London.
She felt the men staring at her more than they regarded Matthew.
She asked Matthew, “What’s this?”
“Looks like an affirmative action reunion.”
“Or a hat club meeting.”
The way one of the men tilted his hat and gawked at her, the way he licked his lips, she felt the heat. In silence she imagined she heard his thoughts,
their
thoughts, about her body.
Matthew said, “What’s up, bro?”
“I’m not your brother, white boy.”
Just like that hate filled the Caribbean air; the man’s eyes blamed them for the degradation and abuse of slavery. She had seen that same hate so many times, race hate, and the hate due to complexion. Not just black and white race hate, but as she traveled she had seen the same internal hate in the South Asians, in the Pakistanis, had seen that same stupidity in the Bangladeshis. They hated different complexions in their own race and they hated the complexion of people with snowy faces.
The bodyguard’s eyes came to her, those eyes lingering on her backside as a wicked smile grew. At the moment she felt uncomfortable with what she carried.
The bodyguard looked her up and down, frowning deep. “You a sister or Puerto Rican?”
Matthew said, “You’re disrespecting my wife. You’re disrespecting me.”
“That onion got a serious hook to it. You rocking ass like Kim Kardashian.”
“Motherfucker, you hear me? This is my wife.”
She squeezed Matthew’s hand, that single squeeze telling her husband to let it go, for now. They were fucking with them. What was the shrinking minority in the States was the growing majority here.
Twelve well-dressed, hat-wearing men moved through the moonlight, fanned out, and they were surrounded. It felt like what she had read about in history books, only in history it was reversed, the night lit up by a burning cross. All the love she had for swarthy men, it became fear, the cousin of hate.
One of the men broke ranks and went to Matthew first, patted him down, found nothing. Another man came to her, the same one who had been looking at her in that wanting way, motioned for her to raise her arms, began patting her down, put his hands on her body, touching everything longer than necessary, his hands moving across her breasts and tracing her bra, moving up and down her thighs.
She snapped, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Matthew snapped, “Get your hands off my wife.”
The bodyguard ignored her, ignored her husband, patted her again as if he had missed something the first time, did that like he was showing her who was running this show.
She cursed the bodyguard when he backed away, cursed him and adjusted her clothing.
Matthew nodded. “Molesting my wife like that, disrespecting me, you think that was wise?”
The bodyguard sneered, then the tough guy walked away, her husband not worthy of an answer.
Another one, this one wearing a Stetson, a goatee on his square chin, said, “Follow me.”
None of their accents were Antiguan. They were from the States.
They followed two of the arrogant men as four of the others followed them.
Matthew’s jaw was tight; she saw that, knew that meant he was in a killing mood.
Her mood was the same as her husband’s, multiplied by a thousand.
All the shit she had been through growing up in foster care, now being abused by strangers.
One of the bodyguards said, “When you get to my boss lady, you speak when spoken to. She talks, you listen. She asks questions, you answer right off the bat. That understood, white boy?”
Matthew said, “Whatever you say, black boy.”
The bodyguard stopped walking and faced them.
A stare-down, this bodyguard the size of the Hulk, making Matthew look like Bruce Banner.
She wanted a gun. Any gun. Any kind of gun. She wouldn’t miss a shot. She would be perfect, would fan out like she had been taught, would take down six before the other six realized their numbers had been cut in half. But there was no gun. She wasn’t a fighter. And she couldn’t run.
The scent of adultery rising from her body, she moved closer to her husband.
Matthew said, “Either get on with this shit, or we’re going back the other way.”
“Think you can get off this island unless she says so?”
“You think I give a shit what she says or you say or what anybody else says?”
The stare-down continued, the bodyguard’s hands becoming fists.
Matthew smiled. “Call me white boy again. I dare you.”
“What the fuck you gonna do?”
“Find out, motherfucker.”
She cringed; her heartbeat sped up when Matthew said that.
There were twelve of them.
She stepped between the bodyguard and her husband, said, “Let it go, Matthew.”
The bodyguard shook his head and walked away, again leading them toward the waters.
“Follow me,
white boy.
”
Matthew did something she didn’t expect; he smiled. “No problem, boss man. No problem.”
To her ears the word
boy
had sounded more offensive than the strongest racial epithet, more demeaning. She stayed close to Matthew as they were led over the ruptured road, across the white sand, through the trees, and then to the edges of the Caribbean Sea. To their left, across the sand, about fifty yards away, was a wooden jetty that went from the shore out twenty yards into the emerald waters.
At the end of that jetty was a tall woman dressed in sun-yellow linen.
The Lady from Detroit.
Eighteen
a tattered web
By the time
they made it to the start of the jetty, she saw the Lady from Detroit was on her cellular phone. Still at her husband’s side, watching the politician, she waited behind the bodyguards.
Yellow wide-leg pantsuit over yellow top. Movado on her left arm, one that went for five thousand dollars. Her hair dark and shoulder-length, parted on the left side, as if that was some statement of her political preferences. But the shoes, those were beautiful yellow shoes she had dangling in her hand, designed by Bottega Veneta, three thousand a pair. And a Bottega Veneta bracelet and Bottega Veneta pearl ring that added close to another four thousand to her wardrobe. The David Yurman oval Figaro chain around the politician’s neck cost another four thousand dollars.
Her eyes went back to the politician’s shoes. The Bottega Veneta shoes.
The city of Detroit may have been struggling, but the woman standing in front of her was not.
Over the waves, through the wind, as the politician talked into the cellular phone she held up to her right ear, she could hear some of the conversation the Lady from Detroit was having as they were forced to wait.
They were late, had made the Lady from Detroit wait. Now she was returning the favor.