Nick Stone: The King of Swords

'He killed a cop, Max, and we saw him do it,' Joe said. 'He started this shit. Not us.'

'Let's take this motherfucker in,' Max said to Joe.

Max cut open Boukman's trouser leg, located the wound-a long deep gash in the side of his thigh-and used his belt as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

Then, as he was bending down to pick Boukman up, he saw a flicker in the Haitian's swollen eyes and saw he was looking at him.

Boukman whispered something to him in the faintest, slightest breath, the words making the sound of a knife being sharpened on a whetstone.

Max bent down to hear.

He didn't catch it all. But he made out one word, clearly.

'Live.'

He waited in case Boukman repeated himself, or said something else, but he didn't.

Max hoisted Boukman up on his shoulders and carried him from the store and back into the street.

On the first Tuesday in October, Eldon Burns made the trip from Miami to Raiford Prison in Union County, to see Solomon Boukman. According to the warden, Boukman-now fully recovered after losing almost four pints of blood on the day of his arrest-had said next to nothing to anyone after he'd arrived. He answered questions in monosyllables, affirmative or negative grunts, or nods or shakes of the head. Only at night, in his sleep, did they hear him speak, but then in words no one in the prison could understand. He used a multitude of voices, none of them English. They'd bugged his cell and sent the recordings to language experts, who'd identified eighteenth century French, Haitian Kreyol and two West African dialects. The translations were identical. Solomon said the same thing in every language.

'You give me reason to live.'

'Your lawyer won't be coming any more,' Eldon announced after the guards had left him alone with Boukman in the interview room. 'Conflict of interest.'

Eldon sat down at the wooden table across from Boukman and observed him for a moment. He'd lost weight, to the extent that he resembled an anorexic teenager dressing tough in his standard-issue prison denim. His face was gaunt, his eyes baggy and his skin had the cold tone of burnt-out matchsticks, coupled with the sickly pallor common to prisoners with limited access to daylight and fresh air. He didn't look like much, but looks were deceiving. All the inmates at Raiford were terrified of him.

Boukman hadn't had advance warning of Eldon's visit, but he wasn't remotely surprised to see him. Or else he'd mastered the inmate's theatre of complete indifference to perfection: in prison you learnt to blend in with the walls.

Eldon reached into the padded envelope he'd brought with him and placed its contents on the table in front of Boukman. Three TDK C90 cassette tapes-black, grey and clear-each with dates written on the labels. Boukman glanced at them briefly, his expression unchanged.

'Think I didn't know you taped our conversations? Two copies for you'-Eldon pointed to the grey and clear tapes-'and one for Pruitt McGreevy-or, as we call him, Mr McGrievance. How much did you know about your lawyer, exactly?'

Eldon waited for Boukman to answer. He didn't. He merely sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Eldon noted he'd done up all the buttons of his shirt-front, collar and cuffs.

'All those high and mighty liberal principles of his,' Eldon continued. 'The man defends nigras pro bono, and all along he's got a pro-boner for under-age girls. Scandal like that-if it came out-would kill his career. He didn't want to be disbarred. I'm sure you understand. It wasn't personal.'

Boukman stared at Eldon, their eyes locking for the first time in broad daylight for many years. Eldon had almost forgotten those unique brown eyes with their bottomless stare, empty as skull sockets and filled with the same darkness. They were eyes old before their time, eyes that had lost their power to be surprised by anything life had to show them, no matter how shocking, cruel or atrocious. It took most criminals-even the hardest cases-years to perfect that inscrutability, that coldness and remove, but none of them even came close to matching Boukman.

'Even with the tapes, he couldn't have helped you. Cause you ain't gonna be tried for the drugs or the kidnapping or all that killing-those fucked-up voodoo sacrifices, all that shit you did. We don't care about that. You people kill each other every day. It's no story.

'But killing a cop, now that is a story. And that's what you're goin' down for. It's open and shut. Two highly decorated officers saw you do it. Your prints are on the murder weapon. Ballistics match. Done deal. The best lawyer in the world couldn't get you out of that. It's a straight-up death-row bounce. You'll get the chair.'

Boukman smiled very slightly at that, the ends of his mouth betraying the same hint of private amusement seen in his newspaper picture and mugshot. Then he leant forward and spoke, his voice no more than a murmur, 'Your "two highly decorated officers"-Max Mingus and Joe Liston-they were after me, but they never actually caught me. They caught a random taxi driver who killed a cop. If they're the best you've got, you might as well hand the city over to the criminals. But what am I saying? The city's already in the hands of criminals.' Boukman tilted his head at Eldon. 'Does Mingus know him and me were on the same team?'

'You've got nothin' left, Boukman.' Eldon ignored the taunt, but its boldness rankled. Why hadn't they killed this fucker in Lemon City? Why hadn't they let him bleed out? 'We've got it all-all your people, all your property, all your money. And your Haitian connections? I've got all those.'

'Enjoy…while it lasts. Because nothing that good lasts for ever.' Boukman's eyes glinted with knowing mockery.

Eldon snorted contemptuously and shook his head.

'What I don't get…You knew the jig was up in Opa Locka. You could've run. Split town. Split the country. Why d'you stay? Why d'you go to Lemon City-of all the other places you could've gone to?'

'I know my destiny.'

'Eva's bullshit again!' Eldon chuckled.

Boukman lost his smirk at the mention of Eva's name.

'Destiny can't be changed, any more than a bullet can be recalled.'

'So you knew it was comin' and you did nothin' to change it? You Haitians are a bunch of fucken' losers, you know that?' Eldon laughed.

'You don't know how this ends,' Boukman replied.

'Oh, I do,' Eldon said. 'It ends with you frying in an electric chair a year or two from now: your insides boiling, your flesh burning like paper and your eyes popping out of your skull.'

'It doesn't end that way at all for me,' Boukman replied. 'You'll cage me, but you'll never kill me.'

'You sure of that?'

Boukman nodded and sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

'Why?'

'Everything has come to pass. Everything has come true. To the letter. Right down to your betrayal.' 'Yeah?' Eldon was incredulous. 'Then why did you fucken' do business with me?'

'Destiny and bullets,' Boukman replied.

'Eva did some job on you.' Eldon laughed. 'Turned you into a permanent fucken' zombie! Did she know she was going to burn to death in her own house?'

'She didn't die in the fire,' Boukman said, with a slight touch of emotion. 'She was dead when I found her.'

'Carmine kill her?'

Boukman didn't answer. He crossed his arms tighter.

'Don't make no difference anyway. Case is closed. Good riddance.' Eldon thought he saw a shadow of hurt darken Boukman's eyes, but it was gone so quickly it might have been wishful thinking on his part.

'Why did you come here?' Boukman asked.

Eldon had ostensibly come to tell Boukman that his insurance policy-the tapes he'd been planning to use against him-had expired. But he'd really come to show that dumb nigger just how powerful and all-knowing he was.