Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

Gleefully, Andre jumped into his Nissan Wingroad. He looked around quickly. No one was watching. He removed the fat stack of blues from the envelope and fanned the bills. One hundred twenty of them. And all his. No way any of this belong to Honesto. He forfeit he right to half the winnings when he try to cheat me. He tossed the Red Sox cap onto the backseat and started the engine. All he had to do now was drive back to Honesto’s, replace the passport, and lock the door.

Is still early, he thought, as he descended Lady Young Road, passed the Hilton, and approached the St. Ann’s rotary. Honesto won’t be back for hours. I have plenty time to drive to Ellerslie Plaza and deposit the money in my Scotiabank account. Better than carrying all this cash around. Is Trinidad. Anything could happen.

Half an hour later, his deposit made, Andre was again circling the Savannah, passing the Emperor Valley Zoo and the Botanical Gardens as he headed toward Belmont. The pink pouis were in bloom, their delicate, fleeting brilliance paralleling his excitement at everything the jackpot made possible. It ent often that justice happen, that nice guys finish first, he reflected. He swung left onto Jerningham Avenue and pulled up just before the entrance to the apartment building. He got out and scanned the surroundings. Deserted. Nice. Suddenly a ripe mango dropped before him. A good omen . Smiling, he stooped to retrieve it.

Andre knocked quietly on Honesto’s door. He waited. Nothing. After double-checking to make sure he was unobserved, he slipped inside. He took the passport from his shirt pocket, marveling at how easy it had been to get his money back. If I wasn’t such a basically honest guy, I might even be tempted— He stopped in the bedroom doorway.

“What the...?” Papers and clothing were scattered everywhere. All the drawers were out, socks and underwear hanging from them. The armoire and its fold-down desk were open, the contents of the pigeonholes strewn about. Then he saw the arm.

“Oh god!” He dropped the passport and walked around the bed to where Honesto lay on the floor. His head rested in a pool of blood — geyser blood from slashed carotids. His throat looked like it had been machete-chopped. Mechanically, Andre felt for the pulse he knew wasn’t there. “Who do this?” he wailed. Call the ambulance. No, the police. He pressed 999 on his cell. Oh god. Who could do this? Motive. Someone who heard ’bout the jackpot must have brought Honesto back to the apartment to steal the money—

“Port-of-Spain Police.”

Andre froze. Motive. I have motive.

“Hello? Hello?” And my fingerprints all over the apartment. Quickly he hung up and looked around wildly. From the floor he grabbed a shirt and began wiping the armoire pulls and the desk. The pen. The envelope from Republic Bank. The passport — what I do with the passport? Frantically, he searched for the green passport. There it was on the floor. He wiped it furiously and shoved it into a pigeonhole — then stopped. Everyone know, he realized slowly, how Honesto cheat me. I just deposit twelve thousand dollars in my account. And I on the security cameras at the bank — at both banks, dressed in the same clothes... He leaned against the armoire and slid to the floor, laughing uncontrollably.

Emperor Valley Zoo

Mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through the silk-cotton tree and onto the jaguar, setting its rosette coat ablaze. The cat, a big male, moved in an unbroken rhythm back and forth along its cage, whiskers almost brushing the dark iron bars. The end of the jaguar’s thick tail looped up a bit. His jaws were parted for the heat, and his tongue, tip curled to the roof of his mouth, floated over and under the air he sucked in and expelled with light gasps.

Roy watched Fiona lean over the waist-high fence, seven feet from the cage, stretching her back and neck toward the animal. He noted the ridges of her spine through her thin cotton top, and when the shirt slid above her jeans, he saw her smooth pale skin, the tiny footprints of freckles making their way down, he knew, to run across the right side of her hip, then up again, fading around her breasts in a splotchy sunset, like a birthmark disintegrating. Just above her hip, reaching for the back of her rib cage, was the bruise where he had gripped her last night while making love. It was blue-black and purple-tinged, like certain fleshy parts inside the jaguar’s mouth.

Fiona stared directly into the jaguar’s eyes. The cat stopped, instantly assessed Fiona’s new position, and returned her gaze with such gravitas — eyes unblinking in his steady large head, compact muscles and limbs tensed as if to throw himself through the cage, the fence, and onto her — that she straightened, stepped back, and took Roy’s arm. She tucked some loose strands of light-brown hair behind her ear.

“Why d’you suppose he reacted like that?” she asked, blue eyes startled.

The jaguar resumed strolling back and forth in its cramped cage. A fence sign gave the range of jaguars in the New World, and this one’s name: Lollipop . No other information was available.

“Maybe he likes you,” Roy said, still brooding over a tense conversation they’d had the night before. “Maybe you got too close. Like with De Souza?”

She released his arm. “But he was more beautiful than ever when he did that.” Fiona sighed with pleasure now.

“Really?” Roy frowned. The confines of the jaguar’s cage troubled him: it was cruelty, pure and simple. “How d’you suppose he’d look if he were a man?” Roy was a little taller than Fiona, but they were on an incline with Fiona upslope, so she was able to lower her head a bit, look Roy straight in the face, and ignore him. “Bet you’d want to interview him too,” Roy added.

“You are beginning to whine, dear,” she said in the playful voice she’d used earlier to deflate last night’s tension. “It’s time we visited the monkeys.”

Roy followed, feeling as if she were talking to a slightly troubled child. She half-spun to face him, giving her dazzling, genuine smile. He tried to resist, agitated that she could so easily change his mood. Fiona’s smile, as natural to her as brooding was to him, made a silent music in his head — the twirl and dip of Gaelic dances in spring, the merry, witty violins of Ireland, greenest landscape in the world, her childhood home.

Fiona laughed — an amused appraisal of the situation, perhaps, or maybe she was nervous. Roy glimpsed the inside of her mouth, her pink tongue, and was almost undone. “Come,” she said. “Come along, Jaguar Man.” She took his hand, and making deliberate eye contact, said, “Roy, I’d never compromise myself like that. De Souza is a creep. So forget it, all right?”

He wasn’t convinced. De Souza was a persuasive man. He wanted Fiona close by and had encouraged her to interview him. He had warned Roy that perhaps she was not only a journalist for the BBC. Possibly, based on recent scrutiny, Fiona was involved in surveillance work.

An elderly man, slim and shirtless with a scruffy beard, walked purposefully up from the alligator pond toward them. He wore a bright purple scarf, loose khaki shorts, and lace-less gray shoes. Halting a few feet from them he fingered his scarf, then crossed his long brown arms. His longish hair was matted, with dusty, sun-browned patches that would soon grow into clumps. He smelled of sweat and earth, but it was not unpleasant. His arms were decorated with silver watches strapped tightly from wrists to elbows. He addressed Fiona and Roy: “Good afternoon, Mr. Gentleman and Miss Lady. Dr. Edric Traboulay, at your service. This here cat you all was observing so intentionally is best referred to as Panthera onca , native to the shores of South and Central America. Very rarely do it harm humans, so please don’t be alarmed, Fair One.” The man was delighted with them, especially Fiona. He looked proud, licked his upper lip as if relishing the words he’d just spoken, and continued. “I taught zoology at the university — long ago.” He waved a hand past his head, as though dismissing a whole period of his life. “That was just after the colonial administration — the British, you recall?” He looked at Roy.