“So she is—Leila is Bernat’s buck-girl mistress.” Dalrymple’s voice was almost a whisper. Before anyone could say anything, he half-staggered to one of the chairs and plopped into it like a deflated sack. Compton Dalrymple was a broken man. And a frightened man.
Theron felt sorry for him. He had already made the connection with the story of the man in Venezuela named Alejandro. Dalrymple had every reason to be afraid. He had been sleeping with the mistress of Alejandro Bernat. Coincidence or strategy?
“And you, Mr. St. Cyr. You know the second man in the picture, don’t you?” Roopnaraine’s voice was still harsh. He was growing more and more desperate to de-link Compton from the crazy picture Theron St. Cyr was drawing about underworlds and operators and sabotage and murder. This wasn’t no flippin’ Hollywood. This was Guyana. Leila was a Guyanese woman. Since when did Guyanese women, and a country girl at that, know about that kind of life, much less get mixed up in it? There must be a simple explanation for that picture.
Besides, he didn’t like the idea of some Franco-American, or whatever the hell he was with his funny accent, pitying his best friend. Oh, yes, he had seen the look St. Cyr gave him.
Theron sighed and shook his head. He understood Roopnaraine’s protectiveness.
“Yes. I know him. He is dead now, thank God. May his soul forever rot in hell. He is from a time and a circumstance I thought I would never have to recall. You do not want to know of these things.”
“No, I definitely don’t.”
The silence between them hung heavy and long. Grudgingly, Roopnaraine pushed his anger aside and conceded that St. Cyr probably knew what he was talking about. He didn’t look or sound like a man who would just make up a story like that. He also seemed genuinely shaken by the whole thing. Roopnaraine spoke first, addressing Theron. “So what’s this Ramy doing with Bernat and Leila?”
In response, St. Cyr turned back to his laptop. He aimed the cursor at the picture and clicked. A page of text appeared instantly. Roopnaraine moved closer and the two men read it together. They read silently, for the most part. Every now and then one or the other would mutter a sentence aloud. The source of the report was one of the anonymous underground groups that fed information to crusaders for “the good of human society, the earth, and the environment.” Theron had dealt directly with them before he closed down his Tabatha project.
The report estimated, admittedly on circumstantial evidence only, that Alejandro Bernat was one of Latin America’s biggest drug lords who, so far, had steered clear of every Venezuelan and international law enforcement and intelligence agency. That he had “friends” in these agencies went without question, the report said. How else could he maintain such a squeaky-clean façade? How else could he move so freely in the world of blueblood? So far, however, no one has been able to finger any of these “friends.”
The other man in the picture, the report went on to detail, was Ramajun Musar, a trafficker in women, body parts, and every variety of hard drug that exist. He had been stabbed to death, supposedly in a botched delivery of kidnapped teenage girls to the middleman for a slave owner in Amsterdam. He was one of the “brokers” in Bernat’s drug empire. Unknown to Bernat, he was also an informant for all the major intelligence agencies. It is said that he was deliberately killed because some of his human-parts retrieval activities had become too demonic even for the agencies that protected him.”
Roopnaraine inhaled deeply and exhaled with a sound of disgust. “Right!” Theron muttered in agreement.
The report went on to estimate that Bernat should be desperate for new transshipment routes since U.S. authorities in their latest assault on drug trafficking were shutting down the known routes. The U.S. now had a new, far more sophisticated electronic arsenal in the form of a closet high school genius who had hacked his way into the labyrinthine global supply chain of illicit drugs while looking for a way to extricate himself and his family from trailer camp poverty.
Since he had no computer of his own, the genius had used one in the school library to run his operation. A fellow genius, suspicious of his rival’s sudden, unexplained manifestations of the easy life, followed his electronic footprints on the library computer and snitched to the feds. Instead of locking the genius away, the feds put his talents to use.
“They resemble a bit, Bernat and Musar,” Roopnaraine said, gazing at the laptop screen.
“Yes, I noticed that,” Theron said slowly. He turned to Roopnaraine. “Tell me, would you be able to find out if this Bernat is in Guyana? Or if he has been here in the last few days?”
“We could try. Why?”
“Just a hunch.”
Roopnaraine waited for more, but Theron said nothing further.
“So Bernat must have a connection inside Savoy,” Roopnaraine said. “Or in Pilgrim Boone,” Theron said, looking him dead in the eye.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
“Why? Your contract with them means that much to you?”
Roopnaraine smiled and glanced at Dalrymple, who was still slumped in his chair with his eyes closed. Roopnaraine knew he wasn’t asleep. Theron, following Roopnaraine’s glance, knew it too.
Taking his cue from Roopnaraine, Theron kept his eyes trained on Dalrymple and remained silent.
They waited.
Dalrymple did not disappoint them. He sat up abruptly.
“It damn well doesn’t,” he exploded, shaking his head from side to side. “As far as I’m concerned, that contract is shredded!”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if ridding himself of every attachment to Pilgrim Boone, Savoy, and Leila, whatever role she might be playing.
“Any idea who Bernat could be hooked into at Pilgrim Boone?” he asked, turning to face St. Cyr.
St. Cyr did not hesitate.”Featherhorn. A man named Grant Featherhorn.” Dalrymple shot up from his chair and stood over St. Cyr, looking down at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “Did you say Grant Featherhorn?”
“You heard me.”
Dalrymple threw up his hands up and turned away, rolling his eyes. “That’s highly unlikely, Mr. St. Cyr,” Roopnaraine said with amusement. “Grant Featherhorn is Pilgrim Boone’s top man in the entire Caribbean and Latin America region. You want to tell me he’s mixed up in running drugs? Drugs? Like a common criminal? I sincerely doubt that.”
“What makes you think he’s the one?” Dalrymple said.
“Some things someone said. A gut feeling. But you’ve both dealt with him. What kind of man is he?”
“Well—” Roopnaraine hesitated. He did not like Featherhorn, although he could not say why. He knew Dalrymple felt the same way about him. They had discussed it on more than one occasion. They even felt guilty about their feelings because Featherhorn had been nothing but professional, even humorous at times, whenever they met.
Maybe their dislike had to do with a coolness they saw—felt, rather—between Dru and him. They couldn’t put a finger on it because Featherhorn and Dru were always cordial to each other in public. Still, Dru always seemed to freeze up a bit when he was around. She never got close to him physically either. It was as if she found him repulsive.
For his part, Featherhorn treated Dru with the utmost respect, always soliciting her input and making a big show of giving her ideas careful consideration. And yet—
Roopnaraine looked at Dalrymple helplessly.
“Please, take your time,” Theron said with exaggerated patience.
“Well, he’s—he’s, er, most professional,” Dalrymple volunteered. “That much I can say. A very competent man. And democratic. Yes, that’s it. Democratic. Everyone’s ideas were important to him. He—”
“You both hate his guts, don’t you?” Theron interrupted impatiently. “Well, er, hate might be too strong a word, Mr. St. Cyr. It’s more a matter of, er—
“How does he treat Dru?” Theron knew he was being rude but he was beyond caring.
“What do you mean ‘How does he
treat Dru?’ “
“He treats her like shit, doesn’t he? On the surface, he seems all goody-goody and professional and nice. But she hates him, he hates her, and you two saw that, didn’t you?”
“Er—”
“Didn’t you!” Theron was shouting now. “Why don’t you say it? Why do you want to defend him?”
“Because deep down he’s the type of man who would crush you like a mosquito without a second thought, that’s why!” Dalrymple snapped before he could stop himself.
They all stared at each other in silence.
“That’s it. That’s it, Nelson. I never realized it till now,” Dalrymple continued, dropping into his chair again. His chin dropped to his chest and he sighed.
“Nelson,” he said glumly, without raising his head, “remember that time when Dru was in your office and Featherhorn called her there from New York? Remember how she looked before she picked up the phone? Remember the face she made after she talked to him? We figured it out then, didn’t we?”
25
“They’re in his room now.”
The breathing on the other end of the telephone line changed.
It was a barely perceptible change. More like a deepening. No, a lengthening. A lengthening, ever so slight, in the pull-and-push of each breath.
Leila heard it, nonetheless, because she knew him so well. “How long?” she heard him ask, his voice empty.
The emptiness did not fool her. That subtle change in his breathing belied the anxiety she knew her news had caused. So! There’s much more to this tête-à-tête that Compton and Nelson are having with St. Cyr than I imagined, she mused.
Suddenly, she was filled with trepidation, a rush of foreboding that made her hands grow cold and shake. The feeling stunned her. Hadn’t she and fear parted company years ago? Why, then, was it here again? Why was it now violating what she had made herself become?
Maybe it’s what I thought I had made myself become, she thought with dismay.
Her shoulders slumped. She was not afraid for herself. She had stopped coveting her own life long ago. No, this fear wasn’t about her. This fear, she realized with shock, this utterly unwanted sensation of being vulnerable, of possessing something so precious that she couldn’t bear to lose it, was all about someone else.
Compton! She was afraid of losing Compton Dalrymple! The realization was at once startling and damning.
How could she? How could she have allowed herself to become so attached to an assignment?
I want to know everything he and his partner know about the Savoy negotiations. Everything and everyone involved, Alejandro had instructed.
And that was all her seduction of Compton Dalrymple one year ago was supposed to yield.
Information.
Maybe it’s because he’s a good man, she mused.
Yes. Deep down, beneath the bluster and swagger, Compton Dalrymple was a decent man. And so, for that matter, was his best friend, Nelson Roopnaraine.
Andrew Goodings had been a good man, too. She had never regretted an assignment until this one. The newspapers, over several days, had covered his life story in full. The worst thing you could say about Goodings was that he seemed to think that he loved his country more than anyone else; that he knew more than anyone else what was best for Guyanese.
What is it like to have that kind of love? Leila thought. She suddenly thought of her parents and her stomach felt hollow. She hadn’t thought of her parents in years.
Why now? She knew the answer, of course. They were good people. Decent people. You live like a she-dog, her father had told her two days before he died.
Still feeling the sting of those words, Leila pushed the memory of her parents out of her mind and turned her attention again to Dalrymple and Roopnaraine. What difference did it make that they sometimes bit off more than they could chew with all those contracts from Americans and Asians and Europeans? So what if they made a ton of money because they were good at marketing themselves? Good at getting others to believe they were the best thing in Guyana since pepperpot.
And they were good. Are good.
They knew all the right words, had the right look, the right connections, made all the right moves. How could anyone resist them? And what they delivered wasn’t bad, either. It just wasn’t worth the big bucks they asked, and got, for it.
But why should she care? Their clients certainly didn’t seem to mind paying up, the way they kept going back to them with more work.
And yet Compton and Nelson were so maddeningly predictable, Leila thought, knitting her brow. They shared the same simple view of the world, a view they loved to hold forth on after they had emptied a bottle of XM rum. The way they saw it, the world was divided into rich and poor. Rich people, poor people. Rich countries, poor countries. Anything in between was transitory, en route either to the rich camp or the poor camp.
They also believed that every human being was born equal in the eyes of the universe. That no one had the right to dominate another human being, to rob another human being of his dignity or his life. Everyone was entitled to wealth and abundance, and it was up to each person to make the effort to acquire that wealth and abundance. Being born poor was no excuse. All it took was a dedicated effort, with proper use of the senses God gave you, discipline to put off immediate gratification and the guts and tenacity to smash any obstacle that tried to hold you back. If you couldn’t give it that much, then you deserved whatever you got for the crappy effort you made to pull yourself out of the rat hole.
Most important, Compton or Nelson would add, you had to have morals. Plain, decent morals like you learned in Sunday school. If people lived without morals life would be chaos, and when there is chaos, everybody loses.
“And you have to remember,” the other would chime in, raising his index finger and wagging it like a preacher sermonizing, “that the sins of the father will be visited upon you, unto the third and fourth generation. It’s true! Just look at ol’ man Jarvis. The most dishonest judge ever to warm the bench. Terrorized innocent people all over the country! Now look! His own grandson is keeping the jailhouse warm. And let’s not even talk about those Kennedys in America. You know what they said about Joe, his connections and how he made his money? And look at what happened to his sons and grandsons. So you see, de Bible don’t lie!”
Leila chuckled. She had been the audience for this philosophical outpouring many times since she started seeing Dalrymple. The poor, sweet, simple fools. Alejandro wouldn’t have a second thought asking her to get rid of them.
Her heart lurched. She would do it. If she had to take Compton’s life, she would do it. She would never disobey Alejandro. She couldn’t. Not after all he had done for her.
Or could she?
Her hand flew to her mouth. Simply posing that question was an act of betrayal. For the first time since she and her family had become involved with Alejandro Bernat—and try as she would, she could not remember her life without Alejandro Bernat in it—she had dared to entertain the thought that she might act against his wishes.
Where did that come from? Had she gone mad?
Furious with herself, she mentally lashed out at the cause of her betrayal. Those two jackasses! Why couldn’t they just mind their own business? Why the hell were they getting mixed up with St. Cyr?
“How long, Leila?” Bernat repeated. The ominous quiet in his voice sliced into her thoughts.
“A little over an hour,” she said into the phone, keeping her own voice neutral, knowing that he had already sensed and analyzed the lapse in her response. Calmly, she waited out the long silence that followed. As she waited, her thoughts, wayward and reckless, turned again to Dalrymple and Roopnaraine.
What a shock it had been to see them come into the hotel lobby at that hour, especially after Compton had told her that he would be at Nelson’s house until late that evening. There were no receptions or parties at the hotel. Hardly anyone was in the restaurants or at the bar. The place was deader than a doornail.
Not a thing was going on. That was unusual for the Pegasus.
Normally, at this time of the year, the hotel would be teeming with foreigners—business executives negotiating deals, would-be investors, Caribbean Community officials with matters to resolve at the secretariat downtown, a few tourists, and groups of party-hearty expatriate Guyanese who had come home for their high school reunion.
Now, however, the business people, investors, and Caricom officials were all in Barbados for a regional trade and investment conference. Because the highly influential Economist magazine was the organizer, the conference had attracted just about all of the Caricom heads of state and a long list of top government and private-sector speakers and attendees from Europe, North America, and Asia. The word in the snootier commercial and political circles was that anybody who was anybody with business in the region, anyone interested in doing business in the region, or anyone harboring political ambitions in the region, would be a fool to miss it.
Just this morning, Leila had asked Compton why he and Nelson were not attending. Compton had replied testily that they were catching too much hell with the Pilgrim Boone contract to go anywhere. His tone had irritated her. What was he snarling at her for? Was it her fault that they were catching hell over another one of their contracts that, for all their talk about morals, didn’t do a damn thing for poor people anyway? Compton had simply walked out of the house without another word and she, in turn, had simply shrugged and gone about her business.
As for alumni and tourists, Leila thought as she reflected on the scene in the hotel, most of them had been scared away by all the reports of crime in the media.
Ostensibly, she had been hanging out in the lobby with a couple of girlfriends who had come from London to bury their grandmother when Dalrymple and Roopnaraine arrived. In reality, though, she was watching Theron St. Cyr’s movements as Alejandro had instructed her to do.
The Guyana Contract Page 28
