Hurricane (9 page)

He had a passport photo taken at Photo Place on the first floor. The flash put stars in front of his eyes and the young woman smiled when she handed him the photo. The kind of smile he wasn’t used to getting. He paid the cashier and was rewarded with another smile. He smiled back and then he caught his reflection in the glass camera case behind her and he understood. He hadn’t realized it in the salon, but out in public, reflecting back at him, he saw it. A softer, gentler version of himself. The girl in the salon had done an excellent job, taking a woman’s wig and cutting it down. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, a youth with moderately long hair. Gone was the tough guy, macho look.

And he felt different. More human.

A young couple passed by holding hands. The man, tall and neatly dressed with a Rasta hair style, the woman almost as tall, pretty, with close cropped hair. Both thin, both smiling, both with the rest of their lives ahead of them. He followed them with his eyes as they walked into a jewelry store.

Engagement rings.

He watched them through the glass for a few minutes before he realized that he couldn’t stand in the middle of the mall till five. Then he remembered the snap in Marietta’s voice. And he remembered that there was a roti place directly across from Rafter’s. He hadn’t had a roti in months.

He caught another cab.

He liked his roties without the bones and he liked to eat them with a knife and fork, but Trinis ate rotis, thick crepes wrapped, burrito like, around beef, chicken, potatoes, or a combination of all three, with the bones and without the cutlery. He’d be eating carefully, and with his hands, but he had plenty of time to weed out the chicken bones. He took a window seat that afforded a perfect view of Rafter’s across the street.

He was nursing his second Carib. He didn’t like drinking in the afternoon, but he wasn’t in the mood for a sweet soda.

“
Next beer?” the man behind the counter asked.

“
Sure, but cut me off after this one. Anything over three beers and I tend to fall asleep.” Broxton was the only late afternoon customer, so it was just him and the Indian Trinidadian serving him.

A police car pulled up across the street, blue lights flashing.

“
Do you have a back way out of here?” he asked, mentally kicking himself for not thinking about an escape route earlier.

“
Yes,” the counterman said.

“
Show me.”

“
Big troubles?” the man asked, and Broxton studied his aging features. Sagging mustache, hair growing from his ears, cracked skin, but sweet and clear eyes, noticing everything.

“
Yes, sir, but I didn’t do it.”

“
What?”

“
I don’t know, but whatever they say, it’s a lie.”

“
Through the kitchen there’s a door opening to the alley behind. Go left to the first street, then right, there’s a blue Hyundai, new, parked by the corner. Leave it in the West Mall parking lot,” he said, putting the keys in Broxton’s hand. Out the window they both saw two uniformed policeman get out and head toward the roti shop.

“
Why?” Broxton asked.

“
I have met the police, and they have met me. It was not a very pleasing experience. Go now.” The Indian offered his hand and Broxton shook it. “Quickly. I will talk to these two policemen till they are very tired of hearing my voice.” Broxton turned and made his way through the kitchen. People never ceased to amaze him.

Out the back door, he went left as instructed, but stopped when he saw a police car drive by at the end of the alley. Five thousand policeman in Trinidad and only a hundred police cars. It was rare seeing two in one day, much less two in under a minute. Whoever had the knives out for him had painted quite a story for the locals. Getting caught by them would be a bad thing.

And any second he expected them to come blasting down the alley, speeding, laughing, smiling, looking for him. The alley was a trap, and the only way out was through the back door of one of the businesses. The shops on the left opened on the street where the police were, the right side of the alley was fenced off. The high back fences of private homes. That meant big dogs, trained dogs, Rottweilers mostly. He hated guard dogs. He’d have to try his luck on the left.

He wiped sweat from the back of his neck with his left hand, and tried the back door of an auto parts store, two buildings away from the roti shop, with his right. Locked. He wasn’t surprised. Sweat trickled down his back. His underarms itched. He closed his hands into tight fists, attempting to squeeze out the tension. An old trick that sometimes worked. This time it didn’t.

He struggled to remain calm and tried the next door. Locked. The next building had an open barred door that closed over a wooden one, sort of like a super secure screen door, Broxton thought. Maybe the proprietor was expecting a delivery. He tried the wooden door and sighed with relief when it opened. He slipped in and shuddered with the loud sound the door made when it latched closed, but Rod Stewart was singing loudly, out of large speakers, about a big bosomed girl with a Dutch accent, and Broxton doubted that whoever was out front had heard him come in.

He locked the door.

The window in the top part of the door was covered by a blackout shade, the kind his parents had in their bedroom all those years ago, because his father liked to sleep late on weekends. He pulled the shade aside and peeked out in time to see a police car race down the alley from the right. A third police car. If he was caught, he was in trouble.

Letting the shade fall he looked around the room. He was in the back of a fabric shop and the room was cluttered with cloth. Colors of all kinds splashed against his eyes. Piles of cotton batiks were heaped along the walls in no particular order. Bolts of solids, checks, and florals were stacked in the center of the room. There was a small bathroom by the back door, a desk by the bathroom. It too, was covered in color. And the room was cold. The air conditioning was on high. Like most people who lived in the tropics, Trinidadians liked the inside of their homes and stores to resemble the North Pole.

The music stopped and the silence was loud. Instinct said hide. He turned to the bathroom. Then stopped. It would be the first place they looked, if they looked.

He heard muffled voices from the store out front. If they were the police he had only seconds. He clenched his fists again in quick desperation. The sweat on the back of his neck and under his arms felt like ice in the air conditioned room, mixing cold chills with nervous chills.

Time to act, and like a mole, he burrowed into a pile of batik, making sure his legs and feet were fully covered.

“
I’m telling you there’s no one back here.” The accent was white Trini, the voice was young and female.

“
He’s a dangerous man. We’re checking all the stores in the area.” African Trini. Normal. Most police were Africans.

“
A murderer?” The female voice.

“
That’s what we said.” The speaker was standing close enough to touch.

“
She was right. The door’s locked.” A second male voice. A second policeman.

“
Told you,” the girl said.

“
Okay, let’s go,” first male voice said, and Broxton sighed to himself. If he hadn’t locked the door the police would have searched the room and it would be all over. He took deep breaths and gradually slowed his pulse and allowed himself to think clearly. Marietta had called the police. He didn’t think she would, she must really hate him.

He wasn’t expected across the street for an hour yet, so they were just checking out the area to see if he was around, hiding, watching. They weren’t going anywhere for a while, which meant that he wasn’t going anywhere either.

He fingered the keys in his pocket and wondered what the roti man would think when he discovered the car hadn’t been used. Maybe the roti store stayed open late. Maybe the man didn’t have a second set of keys, but of course he did or he would have told him to leave the car unlocked when he left it. But maybe the second set was at home. Maybe, if he was lucky, the car would still be there after the police left.

In only a few hours he’d been transformed from policeman to criminal. Somebody very important, able to pull many strings, wanted him stopped. But stopped from doing what? Things had been slow. He hadn’t done anything to ruffle any feathers. All his cases were wrapped up nicely, no loose ends. No wild speculations, that wasn’t his style, he played his hunches close.

Except for that thing in California. He’d shot his mouth off about Stardust. He’d had a tip. He’d believed it, but it went nowhere. Until the schooner sank. Then they had to admit he was right. Whose feet had he crunched with that one?

He gave it some more thought and concluded that it didn’t make any difference. Stardust was gone. No one was going to invest half a million, US, and hire a team of killers because he was right about a load of drugs that had already been destroyed. No, it was something else, but what?

Then it clicked. After word about Stardust reached the embassy he’d wondered aloud during a working lunch if Fallen Angel was dirty as well. And he’d believed it, till he met Julie Tanaka. He refused to believe that any husband of hers had anything to do with cocaine. But maybe Fallen Angel was carrying drugs and she didn’t know.

But how? It made no sense.

His thoughts were interrupted by Rod Stewart’s gravelly voice drifting large into the back room and assaulting him through the pile of sound absorbing cloth. She was cranking it up loud. The cops must be gone. But they’d still be across the street and they’d still be patrolling the neighborhood. For the time being he was trapped. But he was better off than he’d been just a short while ago. The two beers were having their way and he fell asleep while Rod was singing about broken hearts.

He woke out of a falling dream with a start and a shiver. He hated those. In seconds he remembered where he was and he wondered if he’d cried out. It took him an instant to see that even if he’d yelled his head off it would have been all right, because even buried under four or five layers of cloth, he saw that it was dark.

Stretching, he pushed the fabric away and sat up, then stood and stepped out of his bed of batik. In a few seconds his eyes were accustomed to the dark. He checked his watch, seven-thirty. A cool Saturday evening and he had no place to go, but one thing was for certain, he couldn’t stay where he was.

It took him less than a minute to realize that he was locked in.

The windows were barred. The back door was latched and the barred door was closed behind it. He went out into the front of the shop. Same thing. Barred door, barred windows.

He looked up in time to see a shooting star though the skylight and he thought of Julie Tanaka, her fierce beauty burning bright as any meteor. And he saw his way out. No bars above.

Then he saw the phone. It was time to come in out of the cold. He picked up the receiver and dialed, let it ring four times, hung up and dialed again.

“
That you, Broxton?” An unfamiliar voice.

“
Where’s the man?” Broxton said.

“
Dead, like you.”

Broxton didn’t say anything.

“
Oh, yes, you are as good as dead. You will never leave Trinidad alive. We are everywhere and we are efficient.” The voice had a thick German accent coupled with a high, almost girlish sound. Broxton would know it when he heard it again.

“
My mother was a Jew,” Broxton said. “Just something I want you to think about while you’re waiting.”

“
Waiting?” the voice said.

“
I’ll be coming for you, but when I light the fire that roasts you alive I’ll be doing it for her, because of what you people did to her family.” The man was screaming into the phone when Broxton hung it up.

Then he turned toward the small refrigerator behind the cash register. He was hungry, his mouth was dry, almost raw. Inside he found half a sandwich and three cokes. He ate the sandwich and drank the cokes letting the caffeine jolt through him.

Then he eyed the skylight. When he was younger it would have been easy, but he wasn’t younger and it was going to be hard. The cash register would have to go. He unplugged it and set it on the floor. For a brief instant he thought about checking it for money, but he wasn’t a thief.

Then he pulled the counter under the skylight. Standing on it, he could reach the ceiling and he wondered if he still had enough power in his arms to pull himself out. But before finding out he’d have to break the glass. He picked up a five foot bolt of floral cotton, climbed up on the counter, squeezed his eyes shut and jammed the bolt up through the skylight.

The glass shattered and rained down on him, but he was more concerned with the wailing burglar alarm.

He tore a large piece of cloth off the bolt, then tossed the roll of cloth aside. The high pitched siren urged him on. He bunched the cloth into a bundle and used it to wipe the glass from around the edges of the skylight. When the sides were free of glass shards he dropped the cloth, took a deep breath, held it, thrust his hands through the skylight, jumped, and pulled himself through and onto the roof.

Blue lights flashing in the distance cut into the hot Caribbean night and he wondered who was pushing the locals. They were operating well above their usual efficiency level. He started to move away from the approaching police cars. The asphalt tiled roof was hot with the leftover heat from the day and it warmed his feet through his loafers as he made his way to the back of the building.