She stood next to her rental car, its side-view mirror yanked off, wires hanging.
A long scratch down the side.
Another dent on the driver’s side, a crash she’d had when she fled the docks.
None of that mattered as she scanned the parking lot.
If Gideon was smart, he’d be at the airport. On a plane. Where she needed to be.
He would be a fool to stay. Too many dead bodies.
She told herself that she had nothing to worry about as she stood there in a tight dress and a bloodied Blahnik, standing with a scalpel in each hand, scalpels she had stolen from inside the hospital.
The village of Swetes was off All Saints Road, her route back to Antigua Yacht Club. Right before the speed bump at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the village of Tyrells. Maybe it was seeing the church in the distance. Maybe it was the pain, the cramps. She had to get back to the hotel, had to find out why her handler wasn’t answering, but she turned right, went into the villages, the roads in that area not paved like the main roads, that ruggedness not bothering her, a deeper mission on her mind.
She had about six thousand dollars in American money on her. All large bills.
Walking-around money she had brought on the trip with her, just in case. Cash for tickets, cash for rental cars, cash for emergency shopping, cash for everything, no credit cards, no paper trail.
Swetes. A village where everyone knew everyone.
Two girls walked her way, teenagers, jeans, sandals, low-cut sleeveless blouses.
She slowed down the car, dust kicking up, waved for the girls to stop.
The sweaty girls stared at her, both wearing baby powder on their chests, more than likely heading to the bus stop, on their way to town to pay bills for their parents, maybe heading to the market to buy food. They stopped, stared at the face of a stranger, a snowy-faced tourist.
Both girls said, “Hello, good day.”
“Anthony Johnson, the boy who was killed on the beach, can you take me to his house?”
The girls nodded at the same time. Both came to the car and got in the backseat.
They lived where they helped people they knew and helped people they didn’t know.
One of the girls pointed up the road. She drove that way, turned where the girl said turn, stopped in front of a yellow and red house. It wasn’t Jumby Bay. Or Hodges Bay. Or that area with the golf courses. The opposite of all of that. Small home. Situated on cinder blocks. Big black thing that collected water on the side. Maybe four rooms, bedrooms included. Where Anthony Johnson had lived.
She reached into the glove compartment, found an envelope, stuffed the money inside.
Six thousand American dollars. Somewhere between fifteen and sixteen thousand E.C.
She told the girls, “Take this envelope. Tell his family I heard about the boy being killed. I was at the hospital just now and heard about it. Had actually gone to the benefit they had for Anthony Johnson at Abracadabra. Saw the flyer there. Wanted to help. Some. Tell them . . . tell the boy’s wife . . . tell her that I lost my . . . that my husband died not too long ago. I’m a widow . . . like her. And I wanted to help.”
One of the girls said, “A we brother.”
“Your brother?”
The other girl said, “That’s our brother.”
“He was your brother?”
Both girls nodded.
She stammered; that response created unexpected, exponential sadness. “How is his wife?”
“She was pregnant. Three months. Baby die when she heard the news.”
“How old is she?”
“She seventeen.”
Tears sprang up in everyone’s eyes. Antigua. Small island. One big family.
She handed the girls the envelope. Told them to take that to Anthony’s wife.
When the girls went inside the home, she drove away wrapped in tears, guilt, and sadness.
She drove to the airport. Still in pain, the ache not as deep, no longer debilitating.
Parked in the roundabout where she could spy on the terminal, almost in front of the Sticky Wicket. Made it there just in time. Gideon. She saw him. He was alone. In line at the American counter, limping, backpack on his arm. She watched him limp to the front of the line and get his ticket. Then he vanished, went to the other side of the wall where people went to pay the departure tax. When he reappeared he didn’t have his backpack. It had vanished. Maybe he had checked the bag and she had missed that part, the distance at least fifty yards. What was important was he limped inside the terminal.
She waited.
Gideon had gone to the American Airlines counter. Only one flight on that airline.
The American Airlines flight took off.
She waited another hour. The traffic in front of the small airport thinned out.
Gideon never reappeared. He was gone. Gideon was off the island.
She took a deep breath, tossed the scalpels in the glove compartment, and left.
Falmouth Harbour.
She parked in a space in front of Sunseakers, below the rooms at the yacht club.
Lip swollen; she saw that in the rearview mirror. Hurt worse than it looked.
Lots of traffic was in both English and Falmouth harbors. More snowy faces by the hour. Stanford Antigua Sailing Week approaching. Everybody arriving. More yachts every day. Dockside supermarket crowded, surrounded by dinghies, parking lot packed. People from the superyachts and others who had winter homes had arrived. Shorts and sandals. Sipping tea. Coffee. Buying provisions. Seabreeze Café, Slipway Chandlery, Lord Jim’s Locker, that place that sold yachts, Jo and Judy’s Delightful Bookstore, all crowded with the pale and privileged. The world belonged to them, the rich and beautiful.
Colonists pretending not to be colonists.
She glanced out toward the
Alfa Nero,
then toward the yacht she had visited days ago.
One day she would fit in. She wouldn’t have to wear Blahniks to look like she belonged.
One more night here. She would pack and leave now, but she needed one more night.
The loss of blood. The medication. The pain remained, slowed her down too much.
One more guilty night.
Let the meds do what they were supposed to do. Let the bleeding stop.
She stood next to her battered rental car and called her handler again.
The phone rang and rang and rang. No answer. Concerned, but not too concerned.
Her mind on Anthony Johnson. Her heart on Matthew.
When she made it back home, if the neighbors asked, she would tell them Matthew had met another woman, an island girl, and left her to be with him. He’d moved out of the country. Matthew would’ve said the same if she had died on the job. A conversation they had had, half-serious, never thought that plan of action would ever be needed. But they had already worked it out, talked about that possibility when they first married, when they moved into a home and tried to live like normal people.
Across the nameless road, by the Skullduggery Café, she saw the man she had seen at the hospital. The man who looked like an aged movie star. The man who wore the white shoes. He was taking pictures of the yachts with his expensive camera. Maybe, like everyone else, he was in town for sailing week. George Clooney. The man looked like an older version of George Clooney. The man turned. In profile he looked more like Cary Grant. Looked better than Cary Grant, actually.
Room 29.
Matthew’s things were still there. As if Matthew would return at any moment.
Sadness came and she allowed the grief to do what it wanted to do.
She undressed and went to the shower, sat on the tile floor, let the water wash over her, and cried. Then she stood up, still crying, reached for the shampoo, and washed her hair.
She told herself that she didn’t have to leave Antigua. She had nowhere to go. Not right away. Their home was secure. A home that would have to get put on the market.
No way could she stay there, not in that big house, not without Matthew.
Six bedrooms. Four vehicles. Eight bathrooms.
She wondered if she could stay here. Rent a Caribbean-style home. Or lease a place back at Harbour View Apartments. Live where the locals worked hard all week, got paid on Friday, went to town on Saturday to pay their bills, and then went to church on Sunday. Or to one of the 365 beaches. She loved the weather, was on an island that had 365 beaches, and she wanted to skinny dip in each. She could let that be part of her therapy, giving her tears to the sea each day.
She missed Matthew. His voice still in her ears. His scent all over the room.
She didn’t care if he didn’t go to Barbados. Or if he had slept with Detroit.
Let he who is without sin . . .
At the end of the day, he was her husband.
She was going to do like Matthew had wanted. The things he had said were for her own good. She was going to lose some weight. Would diet after she went to the
Sex and the City
premiere.
Marriage was about compromise. Check into Crossroads after one last hurrah in New York.
She had to get a new I.D., become a new person.
She could take contracts and work from the West Indies. Have her broker find her when work was available, maybe do wetwork only in the islands, or travel to South America, always a death needed in Brazil, maybe even pick up a few jobs in the more exciting parts of Europe, pop in and out of London, Paris, and places like Florence, places with great shoes, clothes, and wonderful shopping.
When she needed to dance and party, when her mind was in that mode again, she could get a direct flight into Miami, dress in her beautiful Blahniks, get all sexy and party until dawn. She could go to South Beach and party and have fun, a widow in a single woman’s clothing, could drive down to Haulover Beach Park, trek down to the nude section of the beach, tan naked whenever she wanted.
That would be her new life. A widow. Living in Antigua. Traveling the world.
Once again she would rise up. Like a phoenix.
But first she had to cry. Let the tears dry on their own.
She finished washing her hair, dried off, looked at her mosquito bites, then put on lotion.
The television on CNN. Breaking news about a murder in Antigua.
The Lady from Detroit.
Another part of her pushed through the sadness.
Her instinct.
She paused where she was.
Something wasn’t right. She sensed it.
The man with the Nikon. The man in the white shoes. She had stepped out on the balcony with a towel wrapped around her body, and there he was, one story down, standing in the narrow, curved driveway. He was looking down at the brick design as if he were an architect. Then he looked up at her. He’d been everywhere she had been. He took several steps up the hill, that camera in his hand.
His jacket slipped open. She saw that he was carrying a holstered gun.
The man in the white shoes knew she had seen his weapon, simply nodded at her.
He wasn’t with the police. Wasn’t one of the four policemen of the apocalypse.
Her heart raced and she turned around, held her towel tight, hurried back inside her room.
Television still on CNN. Murder in Antigua. The Lady from Detroit.
She was startled. A woman was inside her room. Standing by the door, near the small kitchen.
A woman with hypnotic green eyes, eyes that startled her, made her pause.
A woman who supported herself with crutches. Her hair long, braided, hanging below her waist. Her dress long, sandals on her feet. More like a sandal on one foot. The other, wounded. She held an SR9 in each hand. Seventeen plus one times two.
There was no look of anger, no look of revenge in the woman’s bruised face. It was the look of a professional at work. All business. She wanted to tell her that it was over, that Detroit was dead, the woman who was sleeping with her husband, she was dead, had been killed by her. Wanted to tell her that she missed her husband, he was dead, killed in the line of duty, so to speak, that she was sad and angry but she accepted that as part of the trade they were in, part of the business, no hard feelings, no intention to come after anyone or harbor a grudge like Detroit had done, wanted to say that her grief was her own and she had no problem with being a widow, and that unlike Detroit she understood that when you followed hatred, you turned blind, everybody died, that maybe they could talk this out, maybe they could—
The first bullet hit her between the eyes.
The next four she didn’t feel.
Thirty-nine
sins of the mother
Hartsfield-Jackson
Atlanta International Airport.
A mountain waited for me, stood in the middle of the anxious crowd. I had just hobbled off the train at the baggage claim exit and made it to the top of the escalator. That mountain’s name was Alvin White. He saw my arm in the sling, saw my injured face that was covered in shades, nodded, and handed me a backpack. I took it and nodded in return. The backpack had the weight of a loaded .38.
I said, “You still have that other package?”
“The FedEx or the other thing I told you about?”
“Both.”
He nodded.
We headed past baggage claim and stepped out into the weather. Dark clouds. Rain coming down harder by the second. The muscle in my groin had become a tight knot, couldn’t walk too fast.
He said, “Looks like you had a little fun wherever you went.”
“Little bit.”
“Next time, take me along with you. I could help you out.”
“You have a passport?”
“I can get me one.”
It hurt me to ease down inside Alvin’s taxi, black vinyl seats cracking under my weight. The inside of the taxi still smelled like cigarettes and old socks. Once again I sat up front, watched him maneuver his mountain of muscles, stuff his right leg in first, then bring his body inside before he worked his left leg inside. His seat was all the way back. His head touched the roof of the car.