Hawks bit both, kept the one with the sweet plantain.
We sat down long enough to eat and sip water, then we limped over to Market Street, bought more clothes, dry backpacks, wide-lensed sunglasses, and nondescript baseball caps, then hurried inside a hardware store, picked up over-the-counter weapons. We had guns but the guns had only so many bullets before they became useless.
I called Konstantin. He was on the way down. He was glad to hear my voice.
He asked, “What happened?”
“Hell broke loose.”
“You in a safe place?”
“We’re safe enough.”
He told me he was on the way to the islands.
I said, “I’m about to try to get to the airport.”
“Getting yourself killed won’t do anybody any good.”
“Same for you.”
“Just do this one thing for me. Sit tight for a little while.”
I took a breath. “Okay.”
“Go to the Anchorage Inn.”
“Not going anywhere I might end up boxed up in a room.”
“You’re injured.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Just don’t go near the airport. That would be a death trap.”
I didn’t argue. Just hoped I lived to see him again.
Hawks followed me and we went inside Ceco Pharmacy on High Street. We came across a pair of crutches for Hawks. Then we went into Digicel, Hawks on lookout while I bought a phone. I still wanted to drop Hawks off at Holberton Hospital, but she still refused to go unless I was planning to do the same. I couldn’t go. I repeated that one look at the gunshot wound in my arm would have them calling the police. We had left more bodies in the sand than were buried on Cemetery Road.
We argued over that as we hobbled. The island’s heat was a growling beast.
Just like Detroit. This heat was her breath on my neck.
We spied the road, looked at the faces in cars that passed, both of us on edge.
Hawks said, “Where we going?”
“Time to get off the streets.”
“They have Starbucks?”
“Afraid not.”
“Find a place where we can change and get some air-conditioning.” I nodded.
She said, “What’s that all about?”
I looked down the road and saw a group of people coming our way, all in red shirts.
Hawks asked, “That a gang?”
“Political party.”
“Got worried. Thought it was the Bloods for a minute.”
“Antigua Labour Party protesting the United Progressive Party.”
“They get up early to start a ruckus.”
“I would rather deal with this one than the one we had last night.” Protesters held signs, marched up the center of the road, the heart of town.
CRIMINALS RAPING OUR WOMEN
AND SPENCER RAPING OUR COUNTRY.
UNDER UPP EVERYTHING RISING;
TAXES, UTILITIES, CRIME.
WET YOUR HAND AND WAIT FOR ME.
Hawks pointed at the last sign as it passed by, asked, “What does that mean?”
“It’s from a song. An old calypso from King Obstinate.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Means always be prepared because I’m going to come at you at some point. In the song, from what I remember, two women were cursing, one told the other, ‘Wet your hand and wait for me.’ ”
“Retribution.”
I nodded. “Lot of that going around.”
We mixed in with the political parade, used it as a shield, and made it to the KFC across the street. Again we took turns, went to the bathrooms, separated and tended to our wounds again, changed and dumped our damp, sandy, and torn clothes in the eatery’s rubbish.
We took a table where we could rest with guns in our laps, found a spot where we saw anyone who came inside before they saw us. Another crowd headed up the road. The second wave of red shirts. Different signs with basically the same messages we had seen before.
By then the news media had pulled up the narrow street, cameras being set up, people being interviewed. A few police officers arrived, stood to the side, made sure nothing got out of control.
Police officers. Media. Witnesses. That made this the safest spot on the island.
Hawks said, “So they don’t have Republicans down here?”
“Nope.”
“Must be nice.”
“No Democrats either.”
“Well, the world ain’t perfect.”
Hawks groaned, moved like her pain was equal to mine.
In the middle of grimaces and grunts, I called Catherine and the kid.
The phone rang. Nobody answered.
I called Alvin White. On the second ring he picked up.
He said, “I didn’t answer because I didn’t recognize this number, area code 268.”
I said, “Where are you?”
“Powder Springs. I tried to call you all night. The number you gave me, called it all night.”
“Shit. iPhone died.”
“You okay? You sounding sick.”
“I’ve been calling you since yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, my phone was on silent. Sorry about that. Was busy looking out and didn’t want to get distracted by my wife calling. Well, to tell the truth, got tied up with Bunny for a little while, then—”
“Bunny?”
“Girl that work for Mr. Kagamaster.”
“The young girl with the big mouth.”
“She might be young in years, but she ain’t young in all ways. She kept me company for a while.”
“This is important.” I rubbed my eyes. “See any trouble in Powder Springs?”
“Was some. Another reason I didn’t have time to be on the phone.”
“What happened?”
“Some people came by.”
“The woman and the kid, they okay?”
“Ain’t seen them.”
“I need you to knock on the door.”
“The people who came by, they were spying on the house, tried to break in.”
“What happened?”
“I think you need to get back here.”
“I’m not in America right now.”
“I really need you to get back here as soon as you can.”
“There was trouble.”
“Some.”
“Did you handle it?”
“We don’t need to get into that kinda conversation over the phone.”
I shifted, grunted, got comfortable, ready for bad news. “What happened?”
“Can’t say certain things about certain situations over the phone.”
“You haven’t seen the woman and the kid at all?”
“Not at all. There was a situation.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough for me to have to go inside my trunk.”
“Go to the door.”
“I went up two or three times. There was a FedEx package.”
“That’s mine.” What had been urgent didn’t seem as important now. “Something for me.”
“Kinda figured it would be.”
“Where is that package?”
“I got that with me. Did like you told me and picked it up as soon as they left it.”
“Was it opened?”
“Wasn’t opened.”
“Go back to the door.” I took a hard breath. “If nobody answers, break into the house.”
“Around back?”
“Around back. Look in the windows. See what you can see before you do.”
“What you think I might see?”
“See if anybody is in the house.”
“There is a car in the garage. I saw that when I tiptoed and looked in.”
“What kind of car?”
“One of those little bitty ones.”
Catherine’s car was in the garage. No answer at the door.
My insides dropped.
I knew the house being locked from the inside meant nothing, not in my trade.
That was when I looked up, looked toward Hawks, expected her to be watching me.
Hawks was distracted, her face painted with a deep frown.
She touched my shoulder and pointed up.
That was when I saw my enemy. I looked up and saw my problem from Detroit.
The woman who wanted me dead smiled in my face.
Thirty-five
the manipulator
She fled Long Island,
strawberry blonde braids caked with white sand, clothes soaked with salty seawater. Her blouse torn, practically ripped away in the fight. Skin bruised. Her face scratched.
She trembled, rode from the island in terror. Whispered Matthew’s name over and over.
Matthew,
now the name of a dead man, a name that put more tears in her eyes than stars on a clear night. This night no longer clear. Rain. Wind. The waves steady and powerful.
The waters that had been so affable were now filled with wickedness and anger.
As if the waves had been possessed by the devil himself.
Discombobulated. Wounded from fighting a madman. In shock. Grief-stricken.
She was a widow. A widow in severe pain. A widow who ached like she was about to join her dead husband. The life inside her refused to let go of her, refused to leave without a battle. A stubborn sentient being refusing to go away without erasing her in the process.
Ten minutes ago she had almost been killed. Gideon tried to slay her. Almost succeeded. He had killed her husband and tried to destroy her as wicked pills tried to terminate what grew inside of her. An unborn child as stubborn as its mother.
White pants soiled, blood between her legs spreading, moving with gravity. She could hardly shift, the aching so bottomless, the contractions in her gut deepening with every passing second.
Then.
Something fell from the sky and hit the dinghy, opened a hole in the rubber.
The dinghy was sinking. The floating balloon lost air, gained water.
Then.
Another hole opened in the rubber craft.
Panic rose. Her husband was dead, his head caved in, the man she loved no longer recognizable. El Matador no more. She did her best to look back, see if she was being chased, afraid that she’d see Matthew’s crushed head. Saw the silhouette of a man on the shores. Gideon. He was shooting at her. Another bullet fell from the sky and punctured the dinghy, its impact like an explosion. She didn’t see the bullet, impossible to hear it fall, just realized the dinghy had opened up in a new spot.
Winds were strong. Rain came down hard. The dinghy, losing air fast.
She crawled, put her hand over one of the holes, did her best to steer the craft and stay afloat.
There wasn’t enough air in the craft to try an evasive maneuver, not enough to zigzag.
She had to travel the shortest distance between two points, had to go in a straight line.
The sinking dinghy hit a wave and she slipped, was thrown, lost her balance, almost flipped into the Caribbean Sea. She wasn’t strong enough to struggle, unable to scream, a rag doll being tossed overboard, but another wave knocked her back inside the dinghy, flat on her backside.
Ahead of her, lights from the people they had left at the shore.
The woman who financed this horrific mission and the bodyguards she kept at her side.
Salty seawater and sand draining from her strawberry blond hair, she kept the dinghy going in a straight line, had to make it back to the dock. She needed to get to the hospital, give them a phony name, be up-front and tell the nurse or the doctor or whoever the fuck showed up that she had taken an abortion pill, had taken ecstasy the day before, didn’t know if there was enough E and marijuana left in her system for the drugs to mix, throw them cash, and get rushed to be seen by a doctor, get painkillers.
The hospital. There was only one. On the other side of the island.
The other side of the island might as well have been on the far side of the moon.
The roughness of the waters had added to her swelling sickness on the way over.
Now.
The Caribbean Sea did the same damage ten times over as she fled.
The E she had taken, angry at herself for taking the E, realized she had no idea where it had come from, had no idea where the boy from Swetes had picked up the drugs. Maybe her dead lover had given her some bad shit, had done to her what she had done to him, sex for sex, death for death.
The morning-after pill, she wondered if it was a
true
morning-after pill or just some poison, maybe a devout Christian had poisoned her and did to her what she was trying to do to her unborn child.
Matthew.
This had to be Matthew’s arrogant spirit refusing to leave this world without her.
’Til death do us part.
She held her head over the side of the deflating piece of rubber, regurgitating, dry-heaving, suffocating, nothing came up, just gagged.
She was covered in seawater. Sand. Bleeding. Decorated in her own vomit.
Rain came down hard, the heavens trying to drown her.
Like the child inside her belly, she was dying.
Like the dinghy she was in, she was sinking.
She had to swim or drown.
Blahniks in hand, she crawled out of the Caribbean Sea like a baby leaving a womb.
Not crying, unable to scream, struggling for air. Struggling to stay alive.
Little fish were stuck to her skin, fish shorter than her baby finger.
The two men with the Lady from Detroit saw her, her dinghy almost making it to the dock before it was submerged in water. She called out for help. Called out in the rain. Called out against the sound of the waves. One of the men held on to his hat and ran to the edge of the water to help her, didn’t come all the way in, did that like he didn’t want to get his designer clothes wet. She was drowning and a man was worried about his wardrobe. She gagged and looked at the man. Capas hat. His face was filled with disgust at what he saw.
She made it to the parking lot, the ground rough under her feet as the bodyguard pulled her to shore. She dropped her Blahniks, put a foot inside each one, caught her breath, adjusted to being back on firm ground, looked back toward Long Island, saw no one following, limped toward the parked cars.