Текст книги "Cross Current"

Автор книги: Christine Kling

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

We got lucky and found a minivan pulling out of a parking space. I whipped Lightnin’ into the spot before a hooked-up Honda Civic with booming bass could beat me to it.

“You like to live dangerously, I see,” Joe said.

Although most of the sky was blue, a small dark cloud just overhead began to spit raindrops on us as we walked across the parking lot. We picked up the pace and ducked under the tent that covered the long rows of outdoor stalls.

“You ever been here before?” I asked Joe.

“No, can’t say that this is my sort of spot.” He seemed to draw into himself, as if he were afraid he might catch something.

I like grit. Always have. And the Swap Shop was one of the grittiest places you could find in South Florida. And that was saying something.

Within a few minutes, the rain had stopped, and the fierce sun was out again, pushing the humidity into the nineties. The odors from fried foods, sweet cotton candy, and sweat mingled with the steam that was rising off the asphalt, making it difficult to breathe. I half expected Joe to pass out.

Hispanic families and East Indian men manned most of the stalls. They called out to us as we passed, offering us their assorted car parts or their knife and sword collections or their T-shirts with off-color slogans. The blacktop beneath our feet was throbbing with the bass from the reggae music as we passed a huge array of subwoofers. I didn’t see many Haitians among the stall owners, though folks in the crowd of patrons seemed to speak more Creole than anything else. I figured that most of the Caribbean islanders probably sold fruits and veggies over in the food market. Joe and I asked an elderly security guard for directions and discovered that Paris Kids was a children’s wear store inside the main building.

“What’s the plan?” Joe asked as we headed toward the double glass doors.

“I don’t have one,” I told him. “I’m supposed to talk to a girl who works in this booth. She supposedly knows something about the Miss Agnes, maybe came over on board herself. I’d like you to just keep back, see if anybody shows an interest in us. The Capitaine guy is a dark-skinned man, well over six feet tall, with a goatee and a mustache. If you see anybody around fitting that description, let me know.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Consider me invisible.”

From inside the building, we could hear an announcer’s voice booming over a PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls . . .” and it was clear that we had arrived in time for the circus performance. The crowd was so thick that we had to turn sideways to fit through the doors and fight our way into the building. An old mirrored ball flung dancing spots of light around the crowd, and neon signs advertising gyros and pizza and Tic Tac Dough lottery cards provided the only other light. I saw the sign for Paris Kids on the far side of the food court and squeezed my way through the crowd in that direction. I’d already lost track of Joe.

When I made it to the shop’s door, I felt like I had just paddled my kayak into a side eddy of the river. I paused to catch my breath, and before I became aware of anything else in the shop, a woman was at my side.

“Can I help you?” She was a matronly Haitian woman in her mid-forties.

“No, thanks. I just want to look around.”

“Do you have something special in mind?” Her fingernails were long and painted with some kind of intricate designs. Little jewels glued to the nails glinted in the fluorescent lights.

“No, I just want to look around, okay?”

The store was filled with hundreds of little white dresses. There were maybe ten out of the hundreds that were either a pale pink or blue. The rest were all white.

“How old is your daughter?” the sales lady asked.

“I don’t have any kids.”

She made a sympathetic sound. “Awww, I am so sorry,” she said. “Are you shopping for something for a niece or nephew, perhaps?”

Hey, lady, I wanted to say, bug off. There’s nothing wrong with not having any kids.

Then the phone rang. "Pardon,” she said, and hurried into the back of the store. On her way through the door she hollered, “Margot! Viens ici!”

The young girl who emerged wore a deep, permanent scowl on her face and a large loose gray T-shirt that hid her body almost to her knees. A blue-and-white bandanna covered her head, and her face was makeup free. She looked about seventeen years old.

“Hi, Margot. I’m Seychelle Sullivan.”

She jerked her head toward the racks of dresses on the far side of the front door.

When we got there, I pretended to look through the dresses, sliding each little hanger around the metal bar. “Do you know who I am?”

She nodded.

“Juliette told me you would talk to me,” I said. “You know something about the Miss Agnes?"

“Yes.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Yes.” She didn’t say anything more, and I was beginning to think this was pointless when she added, “He killed my brother.”

The suddenness of her revelation startled me. “Who did?”

“Le Capitaine.”

“The captain of the Miss Agnes killed your brother?”

“Oui.” It sounded more like a sharp inhalation than a word. She looked out at the crowd and scanned the faces, then turned back to me. “Very bad man. In Haiti, he was Ton– ton Macoute. Everybody afraid of him.” She looked to the back of the store, and she sniffed. “I not. My brother was come from Haiti take me home. He pay Le Capitaine eight hundred dollar to come for me. Get away from Madame. That why Le Capitaine, he opened his head.”

“Your brother died of head wounds?”

“Oui, they told me Le Capitaine put everybody in the sea, then he cut Jean-Pierre. Push him in the sea, too. He like it when some can’t swim. He laugh.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice shaky. Her dark eyes gazed past me, reflecting the red circus lights like a pair of smoldering coals. I actually felt scared watching the hatred in her face. I didn’t know much about Haiti, but I had heard of the Macoutes—Papa and later Baby Doc’s much– feared security force. No wonder this guy was so good with a machete. “Your brother didn’t want you to work as a restavek any longer?”

She shook her head. “1 come to Florida eight month ago. No school, only work. Jean-Pierre say he take me to school. Now ...” She shrugged.

“Margot, I am trying to help another girl. She’s younger than you are, and she came on the Miss Agnes this week. She was coming to live with her father here in the States, and I need to find him.”

She shook her head. “All the girl come on Miss Agnes are restavek here in Florida.”

I turned from her and held up a dress as though for her approval. My eyes swung across the crowd, and I noticed a familiar face. Then the face was gone. He had melted back into the sea of faces, but I would know that pockmarked skin and that zigzag eyebrow anywhere. What was Gil Lynch doing at the Swap Shop? Following me?

“Margot!” The saleslady emerged from the back of the shop shouting.

“Ma’am,” I called out to her, “is it okay if Margot helps me pick out a dress for my niece? She’s a very sweet girl.”

The shop owner looked astonished that anyone would call this scowling girl sweet, but she was afraid to lose the sale, so she left us alone.

I pulled a dress off a rack and held it up, asking Margot to tell me what she thought. The music from the circus swelled, and the audience oooed. Apparently the elephants had entered the ring. I scanned the crowd again, trying to spot Gil. For just a second, I questioned whether he had really been there. Where was Joe?

The girl pointed to the lace around the collar of the little dress, and she said quietly, “You stop Le Capitaine?”

She wanted something from me that I couldn’t promise. I put the dress back, moved a little farther down the rack, and examined a pale blue dress with a deep V neckline. Why the hell would a seven-year-old kid wear a neckline like that?

“He know Madame,” she said.

“You mean the woman who owns this store?” I jerked my head toward the woman with the fingernail jewels and then whipped a dress off the rack and held it up as though for her opinion. “She’s a friend? Of the captain of the Miss Agnes?”

Again, she nodded almost imperceptibly. “No friend. Business. He name Joslin Malheur. He come see Madame two day ago. He pay her money.”

“Margot! Qu’est-ce qui ce pas?” Madame called from across the store. I didn’t know what she was saying, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was suspicious.

I grabbed the biggest dress off the rack. “I’ll take this one,” I said, handed it to the girl, and followed her back to the cash register. The older woman rang up the sale, her lips pursed, her long nails clicking on the machine’s keys. Margot bagged my purchase, her eyes downcast. When I’d received my change, I said to the girl, “You were going to point out the ladies’ room?”

We walked to the store’s entrance and were once again enveloped in the music and roar of the circus crowd. She pointed to the stairs and explained that I should turn left at the top to find the ladies’ room. I whispered to her.

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“He tell Madame he go back to Bahamas on Bimini Express.”

“Thank you very much, Margot.” I turned to go, but Margot reached out and grabbed my forearm.

“You help Juliette?” She gripped my arm even tighter and moved in, her mouth close to my ear. “Monsieur Gohin. He hurt her.” She turned around and hurried to the back of the store.

I plunged into the crowd and made my way away from the store and the prying eyes of Madame. My stomach churned as I thought about Margot’s last words. She had to have been referring to sexual abuse. Child slavery. I looked at the smiling crowds leaving the circus bleachers. Would any of them ever believe such a thing was happening in their backyards?

I’d heard of the Bimini Express. It was a little interisland freighter that usually sailed in and out of either Port Laudania or the Miami River. Back when I was a kid, Red used to work some jobs down on the Miami River. I’d gone with him, and I vaguely remembered seeing that name on a little freighter even back then.

Clutching my purchase, I wormed my way through the crowd that was now breaking up. Evidently the circus had finished. I looked everywhere for a familiar face, but there was no sign of either Joe or Gil. I decided to head over to the stairs to see if Joe was on the upper level, and he seemed to magically materialize at my side.

“How’d it go?” he said.

“I’ve been looking all over for you. How come I didn’t see you till you were right next to me?”

He winked. “Trade secrets.” He pointed at an electronics booth jammed with stereo gear. “See that store? It’s owned by a buddy of mine. He let me stand behind the counter. You weren’t looking at the people behind the counters.”

“You’re good,” I said.

He shrugged. “My buddy and me, we’ve been catching up a little about the old days. Things were really good back then.”

“Hey, Joe. You didn’t happen to see Gilbert Lynch go by while you were standing behind that counter?”

“Gil? No, why?”

“I could have sworn I saw him in the crowd. But, you know, it was just a glance and he was gone.”

“Even if it was him, Seychelle, I wouldn’t make too much of it. Gil’s pretty harmless. From what I hear, he’s not exactly firing on all pistons these days, but he’s never hurt anybody.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“So, we done here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“Is it okay with you if I stay? My buddy over here”—he pointed toward the booth—“offered to buy me lunch at a little Cuban place he knows about. That is, if you don’t need me anymore.”

“It’s okay with me,” I said. Actually, I felt relieved. I’d been wondering how I was going to get rid of him now that I had accepted his offer of help.

I tossed my bag in the back of the Jeep and headed out of the parking lot I had no doubt about where to go next. After talking to both Juliette and Margot, I figured Martine Gohin had some explaining to do. Abusing children may be an acceptable practice in her own country, but not here.

XXI

The traffic on Sunrise was miserable, and it was nearly thirty minutes later that I pulled into Martine’s drive. Her minivan was there, so I assumed she was home. Juliette answered the door, and she drew in a sharp breath when she saw it was me.

“I need to speak to Martine.” The child backed away, opened the door wide, and lowered her eyes. I could just about smell her fear. I would have to be careful that Martine never learned that Juliette had spoken to me.

“Seychelle,” Martine crooned, “what a nice surprise. Come join me out on the patio.”

“Martine, this isn’t really a social visit.” I stopped in the foyer and refused to follow her any farther into the house.

“Ah, you want to know if we have received any information at the radio station. I am sorry, but no one has called.”

“Thank you. But no, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

“I want to talk to you about Juliette.”

“I do not understand.”

“Martine, you know I’ve been running around trying to figure out how to get in touch with Solange’s father. Well, it’s become obvious to me that the Miss Agnes was in the business of bringing young girls to Florida who weren’t coming to see fathers or join relatives here. They were coming to be sold, to work as restaveks, like Juliette here.”

Martine’s mouth opened in a round O as she inhaled. “That is ridiculous,” she said. “What do you mean coming in here and making those accusations? Juliette is my niece.”

“Oh, please. Martine, don’t lie to me.”

“Miss Sullivan, you don’t understand a thing about Haitian culture.” As she talked, Martine’s hands flew through the air, making wide gestures. “We have traditions in my country that you will never be able to understand, but at least you could respect them. But no, not you Americans. You think all the world should be like you. You are so arrogant. You would like to see a McDonald’s in every city, your music on the radio, and all the world just like your country.”

“Martine, child slavery is not some quaint Haitian custom that needs preservation.”

She made that sound again with her mouth, expelling a puff of air through her pouty lips, and she rolled her eyes. “You come into my home. You make these ridiculous lies, these accusations—”

“And what about the captain of the Miss Agnes, this Joslin Malheur. You know him, don’t you?”

“Of course not.” She turned away and busied herself going through a stack of papers on a console table in the hallway. She had not turned away soon enough, however, and her eyes had widened almost imperceptibly at the mention of his name. She knew Malheur.

A phone started to ring in the kitchen. “Excuse me,” she said, still not meeting my eyes with hers. She hurried off into the other room. I could hear her muffled voice as she spoke, but mostly she seemed to be listening while the other party did all the talking. From the entry to her house, the living room opened up off the hall to the right, and I took a few steps forward to explore while I waited. The room was decorated with paintings and artifacts from Haiti. There was a carved gourd and a beaded flag on display on the bookshelf. On the top shelf of the unit lay a machete in an intricately designed leather scabbard. I was just reaching for the machete when Martine appeared in the hall. She had her pocketbook slung over her shoulder.

“Miss Sullivan, we are going to have to cut our visit short, I am afraid. That was the police dispatcher, and they need my translation services. I must go.”

“What happened?”

“There’s been a homicide,” she said, and waved me in the direction of the front door. “They need me to interview some of the possible witnesses. I really must be going.”

Martine opened the door, and we both walked out onto her driveway, squinting into the glaring sunlight. As she put the key in the driver’s-side door of the minivan, she turned to watch me leave. “We are finished, Miss Sullivan, non?"

I wondered if she was referring to our friendship or just this afternoon’s meeting, but I supposed she was right in either case. “I’m not giving up, Martine. I’m not going to let them send Solange back, and I’m going to report this restavek business to the authorities.”

She looked at me thoughtfully, then opened her door. Just before she climbed in, she paused. “Miss Sullivan, I am a civilian contractor for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. I have worked with them for almost five years. You think they are going to believe a word of this nonsense of yours?” She made that dismissive spitting sound again, then looked at her watch. “This is going to take most of the day. The Swap Shop,” she said, shaking her head. “They couldn’t have picked a place with more Haitians.”

“It’s at the Swap Shop?”

“Oui, probably some kind of gang activity. Kids these days, eh?” She slammed her door and the van started up.

I jumped into Lightnin’ and backed out of her way. After she had turned out of sight, I followed. I hadn’t been willing to ask her if it was a boy or a girl, but in my gut I knew.

When I pulled back into the Swap Shop parking lot, there were more than half a dozen police cruisers, several unmarked county vehicles, and a white van with the words Fort Lauderdale Police Crime Scene Unit emblazoned across the side. The sad part was how little attention the crowd of police vehicles warranted among the weekend shoppers; they passed by as though this level of police activity was something they saw every day.

Inside the building, it was different. A crowd had gathered around to peer in under the circus bleachers at the shrouded body lying on the cement floor next to a dusty carousel horse. Mothers stood on tiptoes, holding their children’s hands, the children’s eyes wide in their painted faces, their helium balloons bobbing overhead. An older black gentleman wearing red suspenders to hold up his sagging black trousers was mumbling a prayer, though it was barely audible over the calliope music being broadcast over the PA system.

On the far side of the building, families sat eating their McDonald’s burgers, people were buying Lotto tickets at the Tic Tac Dough window, and ladies were bargaining with a turbaned shopkeeper for imitation eelskin handbags.

She was just a kid who was trying to help me, trying to get back at the man she suspected of killing her brother. What part had I played in her death?

A woman started wailing somewhere in the crowd. I pushed my way to the front where bodies pressed up against the crime scene tape. The woman stood between two uniformed officers, her face covered with both hands, her fingernails brightly detailed little jewels sparkling in the flash of a camera. She lowered her hands suddenly and turned her back to me. She began to speak to someone on the far side of the crowd, but I couldn’t see who was there because the two patrolmen, who supported her on either side, blocked my view. I tried to get the attention of the female cop who was handling the crowd, to ask permission to speak to the saleswoman, as if I didn’t know who was there under that black plastic sheet.

I was concentrating so hard on getting her attention that I didn’t even notice who had walked up on the other side of me.

“It’s happening again, Miss Sullivan,” Collazo said.

Even with all the noise in that place, hearing his voice startled me. I jumped back and collided with him.

“Geez, Collazo, give me a heart attack, why don’t you.”

“I go to a scene, and somehow you are involved.” He had removed his jacket, and when I bumped into him, his freshly ironed shirt felt damp. He mopped the back of his neck with a handkerchief.

I pointed to the covered body and said, “I didn’t have anything to do with this.” But even as I said it, I knew I was protesting more to convince myself than the detective. She was dead because she had talked to me.

“Madame Renard, the store owner,” he said while flipping through the pages of his note pad. “She just identified you as a customer who was here this afternoon. You talked to the victim and bought a dress.”

He didn’t have to finish the thought. I’d been accusing myself the entire drive here.

I could not stop staring at the tarp. “She just wanted to go to school, Collazo.”

He pulled at the neck of his shirt, and the movement drew my eyes away. He ran a hand around the back of his neck where the tufts of black body hair curled over the top of his collar. The air-conditioning in the building was practically nonexistent, and the humidity was off the chart. “You came here to the Swap Shop to see her, and you were one of the last to see her alive.”

I nodded. “Someone set up the meeting. I wanted information about anyone who had been on that boat that sank up in Hillsboro, and this girl”—I pointed to the draped body– “her name was Margot. She had come over on the Miss Agnes, but several months ago.” I looked around at the crowds and the lights. “Collazo, are you telling me that this girl was murdered here in this crowded place, and no one saw anything?”

He nodded. “Either saw nothing or will say nothing.”

“What about the store owner. What does she say happened?”

He shrugged. “The girl was there. The owner went into the back room, came out, the girl was gone.”

“What about that snitch, that guy, Gil Lynch. I saw him in the crowd while I was talking to the girl.”

“Interesting.”

“And I came with Joe D’Angelo. After I talked to the girl here, Joe took off to have lunch with some buddy of his.”

“Miss Sullivan, start over. Tell me how you got here, what you talked about.” He had his gold pen out, and he flipped to a new page in that little notebook of his. I found it reassuring somehow: As long as Collazo made those little notes in his neat writing, he might help me make sense of this.

After telling him the whole story, I added, “The Haitian term for them is restaveks, but they are really child slaves. It’s not unusual for them to be molested by family members– they are seen as the property of the family. Apparently this restavek business has been going on for decades in Haiti, but Joslin Malheur, the captain of the Miss Agnes, and all his crew, they’ve imported the concept here to the U.S. They are in the business of bringing girls here and selling them into slavery. Margot said Malheur is a former Tonton Macoute. He likes to hurt people. Gets off on it.” As I was telling him the story, it began to sound more and more far-fetched. “I think he’s responsible for all these DART killings. Including this one.

“Miss Sullivan, you are telling me that these killings are about child slavery, here in Fort Lauderdale.”

“Yes, Collazo, that is exactly what I’m saying. Okay, so the restaveks aren’t the only part of their cargo—they do make money from bringing in your standard, old-style, illegal immigrants, too. In fact, this girl, Margot,” I said, “told me that her brother paid eight hundred bucks to come here to the States in order to take her away from these people.”

“These people. You mean the slavers.”

The tone of his voice told me what he thought about my theory.

“You’re telling me,” he continued, “that the police translator who is here somewhere right now taking witness statements is really a child slaver.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true, Collazo.”

“And this young Haitian girl was telling you all about this when most Haitians won’t say anything to an American.”

“The only reason she was helping me out was because she wanted to bring this Malheur guy down. He killed her brother. She said he was going back to the Bahamas on the Bimini Express—a little freighter that usually sails out of Port Laudania. Please, check that out, even if you don’t believe me.”

He didn’t say a word for almost a minute.

“Come,” Collazo said. He walked over to the body, now abandoned and covered and waiting for transport. I followed him, thinking he wanted to speak to me out of earshot of the crowd. He bent down and, with a flourish, pulled back the sheet. It was the last thing I expected him to do, and I didn’t have time to avert my eyes.

“What the ...” I turned aside and felt the bile rising in the back of my throat. A porous blackness began to creep in around the periphery of my vision. I put my hands on my knees and dropped my head, breathing deeply. I had seen her, and already I wished I could erase those few seconds from my memory. The left side of her head looked like someone had cut a deep groove from the top of her scalp all the way down to her eye, and dark blood mixed with grayish brains spilled out across the concrete and across her face. Her eyes and mouth were open, as though she were still screaming.

“They have determined that he does it with a very sharp machete. He must be an immensely strong man. The MO’s the same as the other four victims.”

“You could have just told me, Collazo. My God. I think I might be sick.” I was having trouble breathing, and my eyes filled with tears. “You bastard. I was just talking to her a couple of hours ago.”

“And that’s exactly why I showed her to you. Child slavery.” He cleared his throat and stepped in close, invading my space, making me feel sicker still. “I’m going to tell you a little secret about people.” He paused for effect, then said, “They lie.” He stopped and smiled, showing the wide gap between his front teeth. “All the time. People lie to us to try to get us to do things. Things they want us to do for them. Go home to your little tugboat, Miss Sullivan. Amateurs like you, you go out and try to play detective, and people wind up hurt or . . .” He gestured at the body. “I don’t want to be scraping your brains off the pavement next time.”