“Well, you can’t argue that she didn’t, Theron,” Faustin said plaintively. “Look what she’s done for herself since. She’s a hotshot at Pilgrim Boone. Pilgrim Boone, Theron!”
St. Cyr sighed.
“You can’t be more wrong, Faustin. She did not make it out intact.”
12
Gazing into the infinite expanse of baby-blue sky and cotton-ball clouds from his business class seat on BWIA Flight 425, Theron St. Cyr decided he had to make things right with Drucilla Durane.
It was the morally right thing to do. It was a matter of pride. Besides, her connections could prove invaluable.
“Hot towel, Mr. St. Cyr?”
The flight attendant’s voice was rich with the flavors and cadences of the Caribbean. In one hand she held a small silver tray packed with tightly rolled, steaming face towels. In the other, a pair of silver tongs hovered in dainty repose above the tray.
St. Cyr stared blankly at the tray. His thoughts were locked on that morning in Marseille a lifetime ago.
“Towel, sir?” The flight attendant’s voice rang as prettily as ever.
St. Cyr’s thoughts zoomed back to the present, just in time to catch a quick curl of irritation at the corners of her mouth before she pasted on the smile again.
Normally, especially on flights that lasted more than five hours, he would have killed time by trying to smooth that edge and wrest a genuine smile from the flight attendant. It was an ancient and pleasurable game. A virile man; a pretty woman; a chasm between them. What else was he to do?
But this was not one of those times.
“Er, yes. Sorry, I was a bit distracted. Yes, thank you,” St. Cyr said, cupping his hands to receive the towel.
The attendant clung to her smile, dropped the towel into his hands and moved on.
The damp, fragrant heat of the towel brought St. Cyr fully back to the present. He shook out the square of soft cloth, pressed it to his face and took a deep breath, savoring the invigorating effect of the heat and the subtle herbal fragrance he could not identify. He was far more tense than he realized. He had left home just after 5 a.m. to catch the 7:15 flight to Georgetown.
He held the towel hard against his face until it went cold, and then dropped it next to the half-empty glass of orange juice he had placed on the tray beside his seat. He picked up the glass, drained it, and leaned back against the soft leather, eyes closed. His thoughts rolled back to the day Faustin gave him the whole sickening account of his encounter with Dru in Paris, from their confrontation in the bakery near the train station to his return to the empty studio the next morning. He had omitted nothing as he described the condition of the studio when he found it, not even the part about the blood on the screwdriver. Then he had declared, dragging out that irritatingly clinical precision he resorted to when he was being defiant in his guilt, that no matter what Theron thought of him from then on, he just could not hold back any of the facts about the “episode” with Drucilla Durane. After all, he, Theron, needed to know the whole truth if he planned to “take action to remedy the current situation.”
Even now Theron could feel the fury that had boiled in him that day as he listened to Faustin. The scene replayed itself in his head, reeling itself out frame by frame as if it were a movie. Theron saw himself heaping his foulest French on Faustin and topping it off in English, his voice rising above the happy-hour cacophony of Two Steps Down, a popular lounge for professional blacks in the brownstone neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Fort Greene. A hush swooshed down on the lounge then whooshed away. Faustin dropped his head and accepted his flagellation wordlessly.
“I warned Michel not to send you. I warned him,” St. Cyr muttered. His anger was spent but the gravity of what had happened in Paris settled on him like lead.
Faustin was defensive. “I didn’t want to go. I hated going. You both know I didn’t like to do that. It was too painful. But Michel begged and begged and I gave in.”
“He was supposed to take her to the new apartment.”
“He never said so. I didn’t even know it was ready. If I had known, I would’ve taken her there.”
“She wasn’t like the others. She was different. Jesus Christ, Faustin, any idiot could see that.”
“Yes. I knew that as soon as I saw her. But I had nowhere else to take her. I couldn’t take her to my place, or to Michel’s.”
Theron continued as if he hadn’t heard Faustin. He spoke as if to himself, his voice thick with resignation. “You should have heard her on the phone. Voice like a dagger. It’s as if she wants my blood.”
“I can imagine. She’ll get over it.”
“Like hell she will! After all these years she sounds as if it happened yesterday! Don’t give me that bullshit about time healing all wounds!”
The hush swooshed down and whooshed away again, leaving in its wake raised eyebrows, knitted brows, and fierce glares. Faustin warned in French, between gritted teeth, to keep it down before they were thrown out.
Theron flicked his wrist dismissively, but continued in a lower voice.”She’ll never get over it. Not that type of girl. Drucilla Durane hates me.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know the truth.”
“What the hell difference does truth make? The truth is whatever you perceive it to be.”
“So we change the perception.”
“And this ‘we’ would be who exactly? You and me?”
“You, me, one of us at least.”
Theron burst out laughing, knocking over his drink.
“You’re drunk, Theron,” Faustin said disapprovingly, mopping up the spill with a fistful of paper napkins.
Theron stopped laughing abruptly and looked straight at Faustin. “No, I’m not drunk, Faustin,” he said quietly. “Just think of the irony of the whole thing. There I was, playing God with my grand plan to outwit the Ramys of this world and look what happened. I became the Ramys of this world in the eyes of the one woman from that whole lot that had real street smarts.”
He paused, looked down into his near empty glass. “She was so…different,” he said. His voice was barely more than a whisper.
Faustin said nothing. St. Cyr continued, his voice steady, pensive. “Maybe you were right all along, Faustin. Maybe we never should have gotten involved in that kind of thing.”
The flight attendant’s voice, still lilting and silky and over-rehearsed, wafted into his thoughts.
“Your menu, Miss Durane.” Then her voice. “Thank you.”
Theron’s spine snapped into a straight line. He waited. When he did not hear the voice again, he sprang forward to stand up, only to be firmly restrained by his seatbelt.
He fumbled impatiently with the buckle, freed himself, and stood up so abruptly that his head collided with the luggage bin above. Ducking, he turned toward Drucilla’s voice. It had come from one of the rows behind his. There were no more than eight people in business class and they sat well away from each other.
The attendant was already moving down the aisle.
Theron scanned the rows. Only one woman sat between him and the dark blue curtain that separated business class from Coach. She was alone, in the window seat three rows back. She was bent over, as if reading, so that Theron saw only the top of her head.
No Afro. Permed hair. Too many years. Hairstyles change. People change. Theron fastened his eyes on the top of the woman’s head, willing her to look up.
She didn’t.
He stepped into the aisle and walked toward her, his heart hammering. He paused when he reached her row, taking in the figure bent over the menu.
Then, “Drucilla?”
She looked up, recognizing the voice, recognizing him, instantly, in spite of the years. If she was startled she did not show it. Her face was stone. She said nothing, just kept her eyes on his, unblinking.
For a moment Theron could not speak either. They remained locked in a stare until Theron blinked.
“What a coincidence meeting you thousands of feet
above the earth. This must be heaven.” He knew it sounded pitiful but it was the best he could do just then, in that moment, standing before her at last.
Dru cut her eyes away from him and bent over the menu again.
After their exchange on the telephone, Theron more or less expected the cold shoulder. It surprised him, nonetheless. Marseille was never far away from his mind.
He steeled himself and tried again. “I’d like to talk to you, Dru.” Even he was surprised at how firm his voice sounded.
“No, you don’t. You don’t want to talk to me because you don’t want me to make a scene.” Acid dripped from Dru’s softly spoken words. She had not bothered to look up when she spoke.
“You’re right. I don’t want you to make a scene. But I would like to speak to you.” St. Cyr felt his nervousness ebbing. He leaned his elbows on the back of the aisle seat in the row before hers.
“And what would you like to say to me?” Dru asked, her eyes traveling with deliberate slowness from the menu to his feet and up along his body until they made four with his.
Theron could not help but smile. It was Marseille all over again. Only this time the wall between them was several inches thicker than the wall between ordinary strangers.
Dru’s eyes were flat and cold, but they were on his. However little it was worth to her, he had her attention. So soon after they had spoken, it was more than he had expected.
A tremor darted through him. “May I sit?” He did not wait for her answer. He lowered himself into the aisle seat in Drucilla’s row and turned to face her.
Dru watched him, her face blank.
“I need to explain what really happened in Paris, Drucilla.” Not even a blink.
“Sadly, you misunderstood the whole thing,” Theron continued earnestly. “Faustin…we were not going to hurt you. Quite the contrary, we—” Dru’s eyes crossed.
“May I take your towel, Miss?”
The attendant with the fake silk in her voice was making her cleanup rounds. Deliberately ignoring Theron, she beamed a meaningful look at Drucilla. Dru read her message: If the gentleman is being a nuisance I’d be happy to rid you of him.
“Why certainly, thank you,” Dru said brightly, reaching across the empty seat between herself and Theron to hand the attendant the towel. Locking eyes with the woman, she beamed back: I’m okay. Grateful for the offer of help. Will let you know if things get out of hand.
Theron felt the exchange between the two women even though his own eyes had not left Dru’s face.
The attendant floated away and Dru turned her attention back to St. Cyr, her eyes moving once again with calculated patience. “You were saying?” she said, with a raised eyebrow.
St. Cyr pressed on. “Faustin told me what happened. That you took off the door and ran away. He saw your blood on the instrument you used.”
“So?” The second eyebrow arched up.
“You have to believe me, Dru. We were only trying to save you from those people who prey on women and girls traveling alone, especially women who are as young and as lovely as you were then.”
Dru’s lips pursed. Her eyes narrowed the teeniest bit.
“I’m sorry. That came out wrong. You’re still young and lovely, Dru.” An awkward smile, a rush forward. “I’m sure you remember that man in the Quartier Noir. The one who brushed against me. You said he was weird. That man’s name is Ramy. He is part of a gang that abducts women and sells them to the highest bidder—slave traders, body-part traders, pimps, sexual deviants, you name it. He had already spotted you and was after you. Believe me, you would not have escaped. But I intercepted him, you see. That’s why he was so angry with me. He—”
He broke off lamely. It was clear from the expression on Dru’s face that she did not believe a word he was saying.
He sighed and looked past her, beyond the window into the endless silver blue sky. He couldn’t blame her. If he were in her place, he wouldn’t believe him either.
Twelve years too late, his story was pitifully ludicrous. The silence between them was long and raw.
Dru spoke first. “Right. And I suppose you are following me to Guyana to make sure Ramy and his gang of abductors do not get to me.”
St. Cyr bristled. “Don’t flatter yourself, Dru. You are not the only one who travels on business.”
“Oooooh! Mr. St. Cyr is offended. Naughty me. I am sooo verree sorree, Mr. St. Cyr. It was not my intention to hurt your feelings.” Her lips puckered coquettishly as she taunted him.
St. Cyr struggled with the anger that roared into his head and lost. “That attitude does not become you, Dru,” he snapped.
“Now don’t you flatter yourself, Theron St. Cyr. I don’t give a rat’s ass what a lowlife like you thinks about what becomes me or not!” Dru snarled back, thrusting her face toward his.
They glared at each other.
The attendant cruised by yet again, coughing to announce her presence. She lingered long enough to beam a concerned look at Dru.
This time, Dru ignored her.
St. Cyr relented first, summoning to his mind that moment an hour or so ago when he had decided Drucilla Durane’s approval was worth fighting for.
“What can I do to make you believe me, Dru,” he said softly, rising to return to his seat.
Dru looked up at him, her mouth twisted in an ugly smile. “Not a goddamned thing, Mr. St. Cyr. Not a goddamned thing!”
13
Andrew Goodings checked his watch for the umpteenth time and sucked his teeth in disgust. He shifted irritably from one foot to the other and glared at the two uniformed agents idling on either side of the door that led to Customs, Immigration, and the passenger lounge.
The door was wide open. The line that waited in front of it was long and untidy as family and friends clung to their last moments with those departing for a new life in the United States. The first-time travelers stood out, their innocent Third World faces changing from excitement to fear and back. The handful of seasoned travelers feigned boredom and kept looking at their watches. The agents, engrossed in their conversation, ignored the line. This line was like any other on any given day: It represented a planeload of Guyanese running away from home.
Goodings sucked his teeth again and cut his eyes at the agents as if they had delayed the flight from New York just to spite him. If looks could kill, they would have been dead an hour ago.
“You shouldn’t be so angry, man. Don’t you know by now what BWIA really stands for?”
There was laughter in the voice that came from the woman standing next to him. Goodings sized her up: attractive, mid-to-late forties, average height, average weight. She wore tight black jeans, an oversized blue linen shirt unbuttoned to within a hint of her bra, and dark glasses. White strappy sandals showed off dainty, professionally manicured toenails lacquered fire-engine red. A length of bright blue silk hung from the back of the wide-brimmed straw hat on her head.
Goodings scowled at her, sucked his teeth yet again, and moved away. Midweek, the waiting room was almost empty. With no tourism industry to speak of and an economy so politically befuddled that much of the investment destined for the Caribbean bypassed it altogether, Guyana was hardly a favored port of call for international airlines. The lone BWIA flight coming in from JFK was bringing back mostly Guyanese traders, family members for a wedding or funeral, and perhaps a few government officials.
The woman’s mocking voice floated above the quiet.
“Well, aren’t you a sourpuss, Andrew Goodings! How well I remember the days when you couldn’t bring yourself to walk away from me!”
She could be Guyanese. It was hard to tell from her accent. She sounded like a Guyanese who had lived abroad for a long time—in the United States, perhaps with a stint in England.
Heads turned. Chuckles and giggles rippled through the waiting room. Goodings stopped in his tracks as if someone had thrown a stone at his back. He turned to face the woman and stood still again, squinting at her. Slowly he started
walking toward her.
All eyes in the waiting room kept pace with him.
A plump woman with a no-nonsense air seized the opportunity to champion the cause of wronged women everywhere.
“You tell ‘e aff, gyurl! Dese blastid men t’ink dey could jus’ suck we like cane den dash we ‘way like de peelin’! Tell ‘e aff good an’ proppah!”
More chuckles and giggles. Everyone looked expectantly at the woman, hoping she would indeed give Andrew Goodings a good and proper telling off.
“And who invited you to push your mouth into the people’s business? You’re damn presumptuous, lady!” The man who challenged the plump lady was short and skinny.
The no-nonsense woman swung her bulk toward him and looked him up and down, her hands planted on her hips. “Did you speak to me, Mister?” she asked haughtily, switching to straight English as much to match his highbrow tone as to make clear her ability, and intention, to do him serious harm.
She rolled forward, one hand on her hip, the other aiming her index finger at the skinny man’s forehead.
“Whom else am I talking to?” her accuser declared. He planted his feet apart and stood his ground.
The lined shuffled closer. A few picked sides and gleefully egged on their favorite. One of the uniformed agents stood up, stretched, and said loudly to his companion, “Just look at them. Dog buy rum, cow drink it, pig get drunk. Everybody minding somebody else’s business.”
He ambled over to the gathering crowd. “Okay! Okay! Break it up! Break it up!” he ordered, elbowing aside the onlookers. “Y’all Guyanese don’t have no shame? Y’all don’t know how to behave at a big international airport like dis?”
“Well, hear he! Look at what he callin’ a big international airport! Like you never been away, brudduh. Yuh should see what a real airport look like!” Laughter.
Goodings, meanwhile, was staring at his accuser. Hard as he tugged at his memory, he could not place her.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” His bushy eyebrows formed a sharp V as much from suspicion as from the effort to recall her face.
The Guyana Contract Page 14
