“It is beyond wicked. What is happening to my city is an atrocity. What I love is going up in flames, and nobody is doing anything to put out the fire. Every radio station host who was willing to discuss the facts about the city I love second only to God and my family has been replaced with more music, there are no people going on television outside of Detroit discussing the depths of economic despair that are rising at an alarming rate either, and do not get me started on the schools that they shut down in my city. As John Lee Hooker sang, ‘the Motor City is burning’; it started on Twelfth Street back then, and this destructive fire started long before sex text messages. We’re on fire and nobody can smell the smoke and they are ignoring the heat from the flames. What? Told you, I am about rebirth. I want people to be able to sleep at night and rest assured because I care, and I want to send the message to Washington because we need people outside of Detroit to know there is something rotten in Denmark. A country is only as strong as its weakest city. What? Detroit isn’t the weakest, not what I’m saying.”
Corrupt politics, religious bias, God, sex, bribes, extortion. A declining population, safety issues, limited public funds, and scarce land. The well-dressed politician ranted about all things American, the same things that plagued the world, the things that kept her hired guns employed.
The politician went on as if they were unimportant. “What? Why does that keep coming up? I’m sure he had his hand in my husband’s assassination. All of his rhetoric about me being the one who had my husband killed is and always will be an attempt to hide his own wrongdoings, his own misconduct, his own lies. I loved my husband; he was a good man, pillar of the community, my best friend, my faithful husband, and the father of my children. Missing money? My financial statements have been presented to the public. I have no missing funds. Maybe you should ask him about the dead stripper. What? Of course. We need to focus on uniting our party, on facts and not lies, because America is crumbling.”
She watched the elected official as she frowned and flipped her phone closed.
They viewed the woman who had summoned them in profile, the left side of her face. A small keen nose, full lips, auburn hair that hung like she had the perfect perm. A haircut of power and money.
Then came another voice.
“I should’ve cut your motherfucking throat, should’ve left your head hanging from your neck. My mistake was thinking you were smart enough to let this go.”
It was a recorded voice; it came from the phone the Lady from Detroit had in her hand.
She watched as the politician took her time. The winds picked up, made the politician’s yellow linen outfit flutter and tighten against her figure as sand danced on the beach. The politician had on close to ten thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and jewelry, whatever she had on underneath not included in the sum. The politician had a nice figure, size twelve, maybe fourteen, waist small, well-defined, not beautiful, but money had kept her looking extremely attractive. Money and power were aphrodisiacs. Money and power had a way of making the ordinary look extraordinary. Hair done, well-manicured; nothing about the politician stood out as being ordinary. She stood strong in the winds, not a hair out of place.
“Soon your head will hang from your fucking neck.”
The politician stood as if she were a thinking sun, solving the problems of the world, or just the problems of Detroit, her face for a moment showing a deep fear and a weighty concern, before she took a shuddering breath, and after that deep breath she took her time, maybe staring out at the lights from the yachts in the distance or staring at the lights in the hills, then turned away from the emerald waters and faced them. This was the politician who had sent them to kill a man in London. Then what she saw as she stared at the hypocritical politician, what happened in the next moment, unnerved her.
The politician smiled.
Not the generic, welcoming smile of an elected official.
And the smile was not aimed at her.
The woman dressed in the colors of the sun yielded a soft, almost girlish smile that came alive when she saw Matthew. The stoic Lady from Detroit had smiled a soft smile for her husband. The smile of familiarity, followed by the Lady from Detroit’s eyes coming to her, and that softness vanished.
Maybe it wasn’t the fact that the politician had smiled that bothered her.
For a moment, as he held her hand, she thought she had seen her husband smile too.
They were directed to walk a few more feet along the jetty.
The bodyguards moved away, stepped back down the wooden structure, and stood where the jetty met the sand. The only escape was to dive into the Caribbean Sea and swim toward the harbor.
The politician looked at Matthew, then her, then again at Matthew.
“There is no one here but us. I will deny knowing you. I will deny ever meeting you.”
She nodded at the politician, not caring if Matthew did the same.
Matthew said, “Likewise.”
They had exchanged smiles. Smiles that had made her heartbeat and breathing accelerate.
She took her hand from Matthew’s, stared at a political woman whose attention had returned to the hills and waters.
The politician addressed Matthew, asked, “A wha’ tek you so long?”
“Me walk wid me wife.”
“Me tink you min ya wid you partna.”
“How you mean? Me wife a me partna.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Now you do.”
“You no ’fraid you ketch worm?”
That last sentence was delivered to Matthew, to her husband, with a hint of sarcasm, the exchange so fast, so deeply rooted in dialect, that she had no idea what the politician had said, but the body language, the direct eye contact, that told her what she wanted to know.
The Lady from Detroit turned away from them, shaking her head.
Twelve bodyguards had them blocked in. Like twelve disciples. Like she was their Jesus.
When the Lady from Detroit was done with her thinking, done pretending she owned time, she faced them, again staring at her and her husband, before she took a step toward them, ready to speak.
“I hired an assassin who now calls himself Gideon. My first mistake. He did a job for me in the Midwest. He claimed he almost lost his life during the job and he blamed me for his incompetence. Then he extorted me. Demanded money, a lot of money, threatened to kill me if I didn’t pay. I had no choice. He has broken into my home, stolen information from my computer. He has violated me over and over. A man who I had paid to kill; for all I know he could go to the authorities, turn it all around. He is corrupt, has no morals or ethics. I want this finished. I want my children safe. I want to be able to sleep at night.”
She didn’t say anything. Matthew nodded.
The politician said, “I want my vengeance. You’re the third ones I’ve sent to handle this. This first one . . . I have no idea what happened. He sent me confirmation that Gideon was dead,
visual
confirmation, then he vanished. Without a trace. Without collecting . . . the rest of his fees.”
Matthew said, “That means he failed.”
“The second worker was sent to the Cayman Islands. Paid him half. Never heard from again.”
“I take it that whoever you sent there failed too.”
“Failure means death.” Her voice trembled. “Gideon came after me and told me himself. The man rose from the dead and came inside my home, touched my things, terrified me. Nothing scares me. But this man does. I hate to admit that, but he does. God told me that this must be done.”
She said that she spent her days surrounded by bodyguards, hadn’t been alone for almost a year, not one minute, since Gideon had broken into her home, threatened to assassinate her and her children. She said that Gideon had threatened to kill her friends and family, kill everyone she knew, repeated and emphasized that he had stolen information from her computer and BlackBerry, had left her in a state of paranoia.
A state of paranoia that had never ended.
The politician looked directly at her, said, “Now, tell me what the fuck happened in London.”
She stared at the woman dressed in fluttering yellow. Stared and said nothing. The center of the politician’s head now looked like a bull’s-eye. The spot that marked her heart looked the same way.
Matthew said, simply, “He got away.”
“That’s no excuse, Matthew.”
“Then walk the fuck away.”
“I’ve invested too much money in this to not have this resolved as of yet.”
“You put down half and if you don’t like how the fuck this is progressing, walk the fuck away.”
“Respect me.”
“Give to fucking get. Go hire some-fucking-body else and we’ll be fucking done with each other.”
“And you will return the monies I have invested thus far.”
“Not a dime.”
Silence moved between them, as if that answer wasn’t good enough.
The politician said, “Respect me.”
“As soon as you throw some respect this way. Give to get.”
Matthew, pissed. Her husband sounded like he was having a lover’s quarrel with the woman.
The politician raised her hand, but not to them. It was a motion to the bodyguards at the end of the jetty; the raised voices had them coming that way. With that simple wave, they backed away.
Now, as her husband faced the Lady from Detroit, her own jaw tightened with anger.
She said, “What other information did you get for me in London?”
“They didn’t talk.”
“How many did you interview?”
“Two women, both whores.”
“Where are they now?”
“I did what you paid me to do. Left no trail behind. They can’t warn anyone.”
Matthew had vanished in London, had left her at Knightsbridge, had dropped her off and stormed out of the hotel. She had taken her anger on a walk, become distracted when she saw she was in a shopper’s paradise, ended up shopping at Hermès and Chanel along Sloane Street; the same orgasmic sensations came at Harrods, then she calmed down, visited Buckingham Palace and Jimi Hendrix’s flat.
Matthew hadn’t told her about doing any more work for the self-important politician.
The politician said, “I sent others after London.”
“What happened?”
“They failed.”
“What happened?”
“They failed.”
“So you came running back to us.”
“I want this resolved. For my children. For my sanity. I want it resolved yesterday.”
Again the politician paused, pondered, once again in charge of time and the world.
“This is about honesty and integrity, truth and honor. This is my calling. I am the Roman goddess of justice. I carry the scales of justice and a double-edged sword. My husband was corrupt. He had to be dealt with in the way he was dealt with, his crimes personal, the pain his lies caused so very deep.”
She paused.
“And Gideon is no better than my husband. I’ll spend what it takes to put this to an end.”
Matthew said, “We can foster a plan.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“It takes money.”
“Money?”
“You said you would do whatever it takes. At this point it will take money.”
“You want more money. Like Gideon.”
“No, our contract stands. We get our other half when the job is done.”
“I’m at a loss here.”
“Can you access any more money? Simple question.”
She took a deep breath. “I can manipulate things so I can have access to funds.”
“About two hundred thousand. Maybe less.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Worst-case scenario.”
“I’m listening.”
“We pay Gideon to come to us.”
“What?”
“We get to whoever is handling him. Put a contract out on someone else.”
“Who would the contract be on?”
“Can be real, can be bogus.”
She frowned. “I’m listening.”
“The point being to get Gideon where you want him. Hopefully he will take the work, then he will show up and never know we’ll be there waiting. He thinks you’re chasing him. Don’t chase, lead.”
“Ambush.”
“Stop chasing the bastard and lie in wait. Like Kennedy riding by a library in Dallas.”
A moment passed before she asked, “Can that work?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Put enough money on the table, he’ll come.”
There was a long thinking pause before she nodded. “Where?”
“Here is as good a place as any.”
“My grandmother is from here.”
“My grandmother is from Germany. Your point?”
“Antigua has enough going on at the moment, more than enough negative publicity.”
“Well, see, we’re already here. We don’t have to race to some location and beat him there. Here they don’t have CCTV cameras all over the place. That was the problem in London. We would’ve had collateral damage, and there was no clear exit. The only cameras here are in the hands of tourists. We’re here, so we have time to set it up. We have time to get the hardware we need. Here is good.”
“A contract on whom?”
“You can make it on the prime minister or Stanford for all I care. Hell, half of the islanders are mad because all the Brits are over here buying up land the locals will never be able to afford, so throw the Brits’ names up in the air and pick one. Pick one of the rich fucks over at Jumby Bay. Pick a worker at Roti King. Taxi driver, bank worker, fisherman, baker, farmer, hairdresser, AUA student, hotel worker, it doesn’t matter who you pick. The point is you make the contract look legit, pay the fifty percent up front.”
Another thinking pause, as if she were considering her career, as if she were considering the possibility of this scheme failing and her spending the next fifteen years in jail because of a felony.