Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

Roy shrugged, trying to smile like a good-natured fool. Up to my partner here. Is there anything we can help you with?

Matters of safety , Fiona said.

The minister was scanning the room. I can’t seem to get a drink , he complained. He snapped his fingers at a waiter who appeared to be deliberately avoiding him.

Roy gave her a week. She called after four days.

Roy drove under towering roadside trees, dipped below the view of distant sea, and began to smell the village at the foot of the hills, wood smoke and the sweet stink of garbage. A natural stream ran alongside the road. A small reservoir that had once been the water source for the village lower down and the wealthy houses in the hills was now abandoned. The village depended on the stream which began high in the mountains, in mist-cool, fragrant forests he’d seen as a boy; an evergreen, seemingly pre-Columbian world existed there, though today it was higher in the mountains and further away. Fantastic flowers, variously spurred, lobed and pouched, abounded. Some were epiphytes, bulging with purple, red, and blue. As a teenager, he’d been reminded of their textures and colors when he first saw between the legs of a woman. In a somewhat intoxicated, trancelike state in the dimly lit room, he’d stroked her and whispered, Botany .

What? She’d lifted her dark, beautiful head.

So he’d breathed her name. Annalee .

Up here, silly , she’d replied.

The land, rising steeply on either side of the road, held bush and trees, but these trees were smaller than the old-forest ones Roy had passed higher up. Sections were planted with vegetables and fruit trees. Shacks rested on stones and bricks. Overhead, the treetops met and the entire area was shaded, and the stream, wider here with occasional glints, trickled and swished. Roy crossed a narrow bridge. Below, dark-skinned young women sitting on rocks were washing clothes. Others, scantily clad in bras and panties, were bathing. Two of the bathers waved and smiled. And shaking themselves, they asked if he wanted them.

After the bridge, after the stream and women and cool shadows, the road entered hard sunlight. The land opened and dwellings became concrete, but the sense of hardship remained. Houses, little more than the shacks he had seen earlier, were close. Few were painted. Around a bend, boys ran and shouted at him, moving their cricket game in the road just enough for him to pass. One spat on the windshield as Roy slowed. “Gone!” another yelled.

Then Roy saw Freddie moving smoothly and quickly, tall, too slim, dreadlocked Freddie, resident drug dealer, called Red Boy when he was a child, and now a member of an armed gang with political connections. As children, he and Roy had hunted in the green mountains. Freddie waved for Roy to stop and ordered the boys back. “Them don’t know, eh,” Freddie nodded. “Times change.”

“Freddie.” They touched hands.

“Pass some water on the windshield, boss.”

Roy hesitated, then sprayed the windshield. Water and light thickened on the glass, and the world went briefly out of focus.

Freddie pulled a rag from his pocket, saying, “Leave the wipers. Lemme show them little bitches we is friends.” Roy felt foolish watching his childhood friend who’d taught him to make slingshots wipe the glass in front of him. He glanced at the boys. They stood apart, silent, mystified, and respectful. Freddie wrung the rag and said, “Gervase.”

“Freddie?”

“Come.” Freddie tucked the rag back into his trousers, leaving most of it exposed to dry. A boy of maybe twelve stepped forward, trembling. “ Come , I say!” Freddie shouted.

Gervase, head lowered, moved closer.

Roy shifted and said, “Freddie...”

“Chill, breds,” Freddie replied, raising a palm. Then to Gervase: “Watch Mr. Gonzales’s son. You hear your mammy talk ’bout Mr. Gonzales, right?” Years ago, Roy’s father had given Freddie’s parents financial assistance.

Gervase nodded.

“You hear Moses talk ’bout him, right?”

Gervase nodded again.

“And you hear I talk ’bout him too, not so?”

The boy nodded once more.

“This is Roy, Mr. Gonzales’s son. Watch him.”

Gervase raised his head and looked at Roy, who acknowledged him with a half-smile.

“Gone,” Freddie said.

Gervase turned but was unable to miss the slap from Freddie’s heavy hand. It caught the back of his head just beneath his right ear. He staggered, dropped to his knees, then rose and ran up the road.

Freddie reached for Roy’s hand on the steering wheel and held it between his palms. He bent to Roy. “Praise,” Freddie said. “Praise. I remember your father, I remember you.”

“Okay,” Roy said, wanting to go.

Freddie asked, “How the Lady? De Souza talk with you lately?”

Roy told him Fiona was fine, and that he hadn’t spoken with De Souza. Should he have? “Let you know later, breds.” Roy thanked him and drove off.

Fifteen minutes later, in her apartment in a sealed-off compound whose entrance was guarded, Fiona greeted Roy. He had been thinking about Freddie and his and Fiona’s discussion about De Souza the night before.

Fiona stared. “Are you all right?” Roy’s face was drawn. His arms rose for her and they embraced. “Roy,” she whispered. “Roy, talk to me.”

He did, but not about his father, Freddie, or De Souza. Then, after a cold drink, they went to the zoo.

It was 4:30. They were sipping beer at a table outside the tuck shop, half-hoping the zoo manager would return so they could learn more about Dr. Traboulay. Lovers had carved devotions into the old wooden tabletop. Fiona’s elegant middle finger circled the lip of her beer bottle carelessly, then slid to the label loosened with condensation.

Roy watched her intently. “Did you interview De Souza?”

“I did.” Her eyes were mischievous.

“I knew it.” Roy sat back, crestfallen. “Doesn’t sound like a good move to me, especially since he wants to get you into bed.”

Fiona’s expression changed. “At one point the phone rang, and he had to step out. From the look on his face I knew there was no surveillance in the room. Also, he couldn’t return in less than two minutes. And, of course, there were the steps, creaky wooden ones... dear things.”

“You went to his house ?”

“Of course, darling.”

Roy shook his head and huffed. “Who did you have call?”

She shrugged her shoulders, winked.

“He must really regret the day he met you.”

“Do you? ” Fiona lifted her face.

But Roy asked, “What did you find?”

She gave him her dazzling smile, exactly like the one at the jaguar’s cage earlier, and tapped her temple. “When he returned, he was completely flustered. We chatted a bit; I asked a few more questions, then I got up to leave. He walked me to the door.” Fiona drank the last of her beer. “He tried to kiss me.”

Roy paled. He glanced around and stood. “Let’s get out of here. All these cages make me sick.”

“Oh?” Fiona put her bottle down and rose. “Oh,” she said demurely. She took his arm. “Kiss me.”

Roy didn’t. He was unsure where she was going with this.

Fiona said seriously, “He actually did try to kiss me.”

Roy stepped away. “Stop it.” But his words lacked conviction. Something else was bothering him. “Did you go through his desk?” he asked, facing away from her, staring into the confines of the tuck shop.

“He grabbed my tits, shoved his hand between my legs, and tried to drool on my mouth. I kicked him where he deserved.”

Roy tried to stay calm. “Oh, so you didn’t go through his desk?”