Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

“You can’t come away with me anywhere, can you, Roy?”

They crossed a gray wooden bridge, a structure he’d known since he was a child, and two swans, one black, one white, glided from beneath, silent as sunlight.

“Look at them,” Fiona murmured. “They have no room to run, to become airborne.” She stared at Roy.

Their long, elegant necks, their grace, even here, captivated him.

Fiona needed to say goodbye to people, attend dinners, drop off videos, pack, and arrange shipping. Still, she and Roy spent a few afternoons on the coast, avoiding discussion about her inevitable departure. But the sea’s distances, its green coast extending for miles into towering veils of haze, drew it from them. They bickered, attempting to gauge each other’s feelings. Then, late at night, after one or two bottles of wine, they made their love.

Roy had hoped the zoo would be a distraction as well as settle their debate about the jaguar’s range. Fiona thought the early colonists had killed them off, but Roy was uncertain. Years ago, the zoo manager told him that jaguars had never inhabited Trinidad. Yet the island was only a few miles from South America, and jaguars were excellent swimmers. Roy’s father used to tell a story of a jaguar crossing near the mouth of Guyana’s Demerara River, a distance of over two miles. And surely jaguars had roamed in pre-Columbian times, before the land connection to South America sank. Roy thought by now more information would be available. The current zoo manager — a young, worried-looking East Indian in sneakers, khaki trousers, and a blue open-necked shirt — didn’t know.

“Man, like you is the first person I ever hear ask such a question, yes. You all from foreign?” Roy was about to answer when the manager turned to Fiona, and no response was required. Fiona winked at Roy as the manager spoke freely. “I think it might have had one or two that was here. I hear a story that one drift across from Venezuela on a clump of trees, but some fellers in South shoot it fast. If that was happening regular before Columbus reach, maybe the Carib Indians kill them out. And what they didn’t kill, the Spanish would have kill, while killing the Caribs. As for jaguar bones, maybe no one ever really look.” He laughed regretfully. “It had all kind of madness in this place, yes. People who didn’t want to kill people they was living with here wanted to make money off them. Was that come first.”

Roy thanked the manager as someone yelled, “Boss! The bush doc reach again !”

“Oh God, man. Not Daniel in the Den of Lions.” The manager, looking back at Roy and Fiona, started in the direction of the big cats. A dark, barebacked figure was hastening away, silver glinting along his brown arms.

“Excuse,” the manager said. “Poor old fella, his mind not too good. Last week he enter the lion den and start telling them about Africa. Good thing we had feed them already.” He tapped his head, smiled at Fiona, and jogged off, shirt collar rising around his ears like little wings, his buttocks undulating in their tight trousers.

Still earlier that afternoon, in hills overlooking the western coast, Roy headed from his mother’s secluded home to Fiona’s apartment. He considered his mother. Two years into widowhood, abandoned by her husband’s friends, ostracized by island women who guarded their too-contented husbands with a furtive wickedness, she had emigrated to Miami where two of her sisters lived. She had sold half of her husband’s business interests and signed the rest over to Roy with the stipulation that he consult her before selling. Roy wanted to sell for a fair price to Norman De Souza, Minister of National Security, but the minister preferred the current arrangement he had with Roy, whose direct participation had been deemed “necessary for continued success.” It was a matter of security, he had said, until Roy would agree to sell at a significantly lower price. They are the ones you say no to , Roy’s father had written in his diary, which Roy discovered only after De Souza had intimidated him into laundering money through his businesses. Learn to see. Watch closely. Then learn to “play no,” not say it. Or better, misunderstand them. Act the fool. It’s your only chance .

Roy mulled over Fiona’s imminent departure, steeling himself for its inevitability, and pondered why she had come to the island. Six months earlier, the BBC had sent Fiona to Trinidad to research a documentary on the impact of drug trafficking on the island’s economy. She liaised with the British Consulate where she met Roy at a symposium on money laundering. De Souza had introduced them. Later, when De Souza realized he couldn’t sleep with Fiona, he became uneasy with her questions. He couldn’t understand her lack of fear. Don’t you read the newspapers, darling? One doesn’t pry into the drug trade. Do you know where you are? This isn’t jolly old England, you know. And even there now...

But at the symposium, an elegant sense of class and decorum had prevailed, an awareness of everyone’s importance, and especially of one’s own importance. New information was presented: thirty to forty percent of the island’s dollar was drug-based; some five to ten metric tons of cocaine were shipped through each month, with fifteen to twenty-five percent distributed on the island; drug-shipment interdiction hadn’t increased in five years; money laundering was now so lucrative that it had become impossible to arrest anyone notable; major crime connected with the drug trade, prostitution, and arms-trafficking had risen significantly in the last five years. Suggestions for solutions followed: combine police and army patrols; allow American/British armed forces to enter sovereign waters and airspace; secure hotlines for reporting suspicious activity — at this, Roy noticed some men in the audience smile.

Roy watched De Souza — two rows ahead in a pale gray Armani suit, jowls appropriately puffed over his collar, gold signet ring glinting — as he scribbled away in a notebook. His profile registered the concern of the powerful under the public gaze. A national television report following the symposium featured ten seconds of footage of politicians, businessmen, and De Souza and Fiona shaking hands. Fiona was to “produce a tourism documentary with a keen interest in safety.”

At the reception, Fiona meandered toward Roy and De Souza. Have you met Miss Hamilton, Roy? De Souza had asked softly, then grinned.

Not yet , Roy said, wanting to be far away from everyone there.

She’s with the BBC. He chuckled . I’m going to be showing her around, of course. Ah, Miss Hamilton.

Roy turned. She was tall and wore green slacks and a black blouse, low-cut. Her eyebrows were long, shapely. Eye contact was instant. Her hand reached toward him, so he had to look at her eyes immediately. She stared with intense, brief passion, like someone who’d fleetingly glimpsed horror — the expression concentrated in her gray-blue eyes, moist and unblinking. She might have been on cocaine, Roy mused. Then, with unmistakable poise, she glanced at De Souza, who had been staring at her prominent and flushed breasts. Delighted to meet you , Fiona said to Roy. The tight grip of her handshake made him curious.

And you , Roy managed to say.

The minister has told me all about you. Fiona lifted a glass of wine from a silver tray as an indifferent waiter strolled by. De Souza was not liked.

And have I been good? Roy asked, playing along.

That depends , De Souza said, on your plans . The minister winked at Fiona, his eyes unable to convey their boyish charm so overused of late.

And what are your plans? Fiona asked Roy.