Dead Fast

by A. J. Stewart

  Chapter Three

  THE BUILDING MARKUS’S family called home looked like they had moved in six months before completion. It was exposed cinderblock, no stucco, no paint. One side looked finished to lock up, a door and windows, while the other end bore only one wall, like the ruin of a Roman fortification, with a concrete slab poured below. Markus pushed the door open and we stepped into a dark house. There was light coming from a back room, and the smell of something hot and spicy permeated the air. Markus called for his mudda, and a woman in an apron appeared in the light of the rear room. She wore a substantial frown already, but upon seeing Danielle and me, the frown managed to deepen. She had a point. We probably weren’t the kinds of faces that appeared at her door with good news very often. She looked me up and down first: tall, lean enough for my age and wearing chinos and a shirt featuring palm fronds in a repeating pattern. It might have looked like the kind of gear an American tourist would wear in Jamaica, except that I dressed that way more or less every day back home. The woman then turned her gaze to Danielle. She wore a dress that matched the turquoise of the Caribbean waters, and her shoulder-length brown hair was tousled just enough to look like she’d done it on purpose.

  “Wat heppen ya, boy?” said Markus’s mother, wiping her hands on a towel that hung from the apron tie.

  “Nutten,” said Markus.

  “Nutten, my eye,” she replied, looking at us, maybe for answers, or maybe because she’d never had white folks in her home before. I left the talking to Danielle. She was better than me at plenty of things, and diplomacy was one.

  “Mrs. Swan?” said Danielle. “My name is Danielle Castle. We found Markus being assaulted in town.”

  “Assaulted?”

  “In a fight,” said Danielle, to clarify.

  It must have clarified it some. Mrs. Swan slapped her son hard across the cheek. His head snapped back, and the sound bounced off the cinderblock.

  “No, Mrs. Swan, you misunderstand,” said Danielle. “He was attacked. It appeared to be a robbery.”

  Mrs. Swan continued the frown at Danielle. I wasn’t certain the cop-speak was getting through.

  “Ma’am, it wasn’t his fault,” I said, not sure at all that this was the case, but feeling that I could sort that out after the tension had been removed from the room.

  “Who you, mista?” she snapped.

  “My name is Miami Jones.”

  “Miami? Wot kinda name be Miami?”

  I shrugged. It was a fair point. I wasn’t born with it, but I’d had it longer than I hadn’t, so it was as much me as my furrowed brow and my sandy hair.

  “He has a cut on his head,” I said, skipping her question.

  The frown didn’t ease, but she followed my eye and looked over the cut on Markus’s head, and then she directed us toward the kitchen.

  “Come, yah,” she said.

  We helped Markus into the back room, the only one with light. It was a small kitchen, with a wooden table and stackable plastic chairs. The source of the spicy aroma was a pot on an old stove. We deposited Markus in a chair and stepped back as his mother took a woven basket from a shelf, and then used some cotton buds to dab bright red ointment on the boy’s head. It looked worse when she was done, but I figured it was some kind of antiseptic, which would help. As I watched her work I realized she looked younger than me, which felt way too young to have a teenage son, and it made me feel old and crusty. When she was done she packed her things away.

  “Wash up now,” she said to Markus, and he stood and walked out the back of the house to the area that appeared to still be under construction. We heard the splashing of water, and Mrs. Swan turned to Danielle.

  “Wat ‘appen?”

  “We were walking in town,” said Danielle, “and we saw Markus in an alley with three others, and they hit him. One of them ran away with his shoes.”

  Mrs. Swan nodded to herself, and dropped the frown a little. For a moment she seemed far away, and then she was back, and so was the frown.

  “Tank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” said Danielle.

  “You should not be walkin’ about dis place at night. It’s not safe fo’ da tourists.”

  “With all respect, Mrs. Swan, it wasn’t us that was in trouble,” I said.

  “No, but you watch it, all da same.”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” said Danielle. “I am a law enforcement officer in the US.”

  “Police?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you know why these people would steal Markus’s shoes? Were they worth a lot of money?”

  “Some money, yah.”

  Markus came back inside, wiping his hands. I noted that his feet were still bare.

  “Markus, were they your only shoes?” I asked.

  He glanced at his feet and then back at me.

  “Nah, mon. You let him runweh wi’ my Nikes. Now I gotta run in me gym shoes.”

  Markus shook his head and walked away, out the front, not bothering to put on any footwear.

  “He has to run where?” said Danielle.

  “He da runner,” said Mrs. Swan, stirring the pot on the stove. “He run da fast races.”

  “Fast races?” I said. “You mean sprints? Like Usain Bolt?”

  Mrs. Swan smiled for the first time since we’d arrived.

  “Dot’s ‘im.”

  “And someone stole his racing shoes?” said Danielle.

  “Looks dot way.”

  “Does that sort of thing happen a lot,” I said.

  “If don dada say so, den yah.”

  “Don dada? Who is he?”

  “Not who, what. Don dada be de boss man. Whichever boss man don get his way.”

  “Boss man? What do you mean?” asked Danielle.

  Mrs. Swan shrugged and put a couple old coffee mugs on the table.

  “Tea?” she said.

  Danielle smiled. “Sure, thanks.”

  I nodded. I’m not much of a tea drinker, especially in hot climates. I’ve heard the tales about drinking hot beverages to increase your internal temperature, which in turn makes you more comfortable. It’s complete garbage. I don’t care how many scientists say otherwise, hot drinks make me hotter, end of story. On a broiler of a summer’s day, nothing quenches me like a nice, cold beer. But when I find myself in a foreign land like Jamaica, or Mississippi, I find it the gracious move to accept their hospitality.

  Mrs. Swan poured hot water from a kettle into a chipped china pot, and sat as we waited for the tea to steep. She didn’t seem to be actively avoiding the question about the robbery, but she wasn’t in any hurry to answer it.

  “Do you know why this happened, Mrs. Swan?” asked Danielle. I could see Danielle had kicked into sheriff mode and she could smell trouble.

  Mrs. Swan poured the tea into our mugs and then sat back and assessed Danielle, as if she could read her character just by eyeballing her. She gave Danielle a good long look, and it wasn’t so much the silence as the glare that drifted into uncomfortable territory. But eventually she must have seen something that prodded her forward.

  “It’s da sports. Da athletics,” she said. She sipped at her steaming tea, and then continued.

  “Dare’s no much for da boys to do, no’ much future here in MoBay,” she said, looking around at the bare cinderblock walls. “Sports be da way out. Da way to make some kind a life, udder dan workin’ in da hotels.”

  Danielle and I both nodded, but Mrs. Swan didn’t pay me any mind. She and Danielle sipped their tea. I was waiting for mine to drop below the ambient air temperature.

  “So this thing with Markus, it’s competitive,” said Danielle.

  “Dot’s right. Dare be a lot of pressure. If a child can run, or play cricket, or even da football, a lot of folks want to jump on dem coattails. You get it? E’rybody want a free ride outta town.”

  “So how does it end in a beating in an alley?” I said. For the first time since she had sat, Mrs. Swan looked me over, fortunately with less i
ntensity than she had when we had arrived.

  “E’ry boy dot makes it, ten udders do not. And da boys wit talent, dey find demselves wit a benefactor. Like it or not.”

  “A benefactor?” said Danielle.

  Mrs. Swan nodded economically. “Da equipment is no’ someting we can afford, but dare are always mon who can give da gifts, like my boy’s runnin’ shoes.” She spoke the latter half of the sentence like her tea had just been spiked with salt. “But dees mon, dey not always the best mon. Maybe my boy run too fast, an udder boy’s benefactor maybe try da dirty stuff. Steal his shoes, maybe hurt him, so he can run no more.”

  I leaned back in my plastic chair and watched Mrs. Swan’s face. I guessed if I had kids in this environment, worried about whether they were going to get home safe from training, I’d have a frown permanently etched across my face too. And on me, that would mean furrows a farmer could grow potatoes in. But I knew a little about her plight. Even in the States, promising athletes had a lot of people trying to grab hold of their limited coattails. I had been approached by agents while at college, which was against the rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and I saw guys get kicked out of school every year for infractions. I’d had college boosters, supposedly supporters of the school, threaten me with harm if I didn’t play a certain way or attend the opening of their used car lot or condo development. And when I made the pros, long-lost acquaintances came out of the woodwork like we’d shared a womb. Personally, I never had a problem telling people to crawl back into the hole they came out of, but for some guys, it was more than their coattails could handle.

  As we sat considering what Mrs. Swan had told us, Markus came bustling back inside. His mother stopped his motion dead just by lifting her palm up to him.

  “Where ya be?”

  “Algy’s house. He gotta phone.”

  “Who ya callin’?”

  “Mista Richmond, who you think?”

  “Don’t you be sassin’ me, child.”

  Markus hung his head. “Sorry.”

  Mrs. Swan jutted her chin at her son. “Wat he say, Mista Richmond?”

  “Dunno. I didn’t call ‘im. Algy not home. His phone neither.”

  “Who’s Mr. Richmond?” I asked.

  “He gimme da shoes,” said Markus, with a look that said I should have known that.

  “Benefactor,” said Mrs. Swan, with raised eyebrows.

  I nodded and looked at Markus. “They were racing shoes?” I said.

  Markus nodded. “Ya, mon. Spikes an’ all.”

  “And you need them?”

  “Trials comin’ up. Course I need ‘em, mon.”

  “And how do we get another pair?”

  Markus said nothing. His mother smiled, but she didn’t seem happy.

  “Mista Richmond,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, pulling my cell phone from my pocket. “Call him.”

  “You don’t understan’, mon. He in America.”

  “So? I have an American phone.” I handed the unit to Markus.

  “Call him. Call your Mr. Richmond.”

  Chapter Four

  MARKUS KNEW THE number by heart, and he paced around the kitchen with my phone to his ear. It wasn’t that big a space, so he looked like a hamster in a wheel. I heard him ask for Mr. Richmond, and that was the last I understood. Clearly he had reached some kind of minion because he waited on the line for a long time, and I watched those roaming charges ticking over like the gauge on a gas pump. Eventually Mr. Richmond must have come on the line because Markus started talking, listening, and then talking again. It was all gibberish to me. I love the Jamaican pat-wah, a singsong, pared down version of English, spoken at a pace and with an accent that was like the Enigma code for non-Jamaicans. It was like listening to French jazz, melodic and enjoyable, but thoroughly unintelligible.

  After a lengthy conversation, which I assumed was a play-by-play of what had happened in the alley, Markus listened, frowned and then held the phone out to me.

  “He wanna speak to you.”

  I took the phone and held it to my ear.

  “This is Miami Jones.”

  “Yes, Mista Jones. Dis is Desmond Richmond.” He made a big deal of pronouncing the o’s in his name. “I believe I am indebted to you, suh,” he said. He had the Jamaican lilt, but it had been smoothed around the edges by years away.

  “We’ve never met, Mr. Richmond. You don’t owe me a thing.”

  “Well, you saved my charge, from what I hear. So I thank you.”

  “Not necessary,” I said. “Markus was the one we helped.”

  “And he thanks you too, suh.”

  “Not so far.” I glanced at Markus, standing directly behind where his mother sat. “What is it I can do for you, Mr. Richmond?”

  “I wish to hire you, Mista Jones.”

  “You what?”

  “Yes, I know of you, suh. You see, I am based in Fort Lauderdale. I have seen you in the newspaper. You are the Miami Jones, yes?”

  I had been something of a small-town legend during high school in Connecticut, my football and baseball exploits getting my picture in the local rag back when there still was a local rag, and on local television in Miami when my baseball took me through college. I’d even made it onto ESPN when I was promoted from the minors up to the Oakland roster, back in the day, and I still rated a mention every now and then, when they ran stories about sports people who had made it to the top of their competitions but never actually got to play a top-flight game. They were pity pieces that always missed the point, but they and my occasional high-profile case meant that more people knew me than I ever thought my life merited.

  “I suppose I am,” I said. “But I don’t see what it is I can do for you, Mr. Richmond.”

  “Mista Jones, you are in Montego Bay. You can see for yourself. There are many happy people, but there are also many desperate people. People who will do anyting to get out. Even hurt young men like Markus, so they can ride their own athlete out of town.”

  “Who’s riding Markus out of town?”

  “It be a fair question, Mista Jones, to wonder of my motives. But am already out, suh. I got out under my own steam, and all I want is to help udder athletes do da same.”

  It sounded like a fair argument, but I had only heard the case for the defense, so the jury was still out on Mr. Richmond’s motives.

  “So how can I help?”

  “In a few weeks, Markus will run in da under-seventeen Jamaican trials. This is an important race. Making the national team, even at this level, opens many doors, like races in Europe and the United States.”

  “You want me to run it for him?”

  “No, Mista Jones,” laughed Richmond. “I want you to protect him. Make sure he is not hurt. Get him to and from trainin’, for the next few days. I will be flying into MoBay in a few days, so until I am there, I want to hire you to protect my boy.”

  It seemed like a reasonable request. We did the odd spot of protection and bodyguard work, usually the rich and famous jetting into Palm Beach or Jupiter, wanting the paparazzi or their wives or husbands kept well away.

  “I’m not cheap, Mr. Richmond.”

  “Nor am I, Mista Jones. Have your office here call me. I can arrange a retainer.”

  I cupped my hand over the phone despite the presence of a mute button I could never fathom, and leaned into Danielle.

  “He wants to hire me, to protect the kid.”

  Danielle nodded. “Do it.”

  “For a few days, until he gets here.”

  “Do it,” she repeated.

  “But our vacation?”

  “We’ve been here a day, and I’m bored out of my mind, MJ. Do it. It’ll be a good way to see the real Jamaica.”

  I wasn’t sure the real Jamaica was what the tourist board wanted us to see, but I dropped my hand from the phone.

  “Okay, Mr. Richmond. I’ll watch Markus for you.” I looked at the boy, and his body deflated. No doubt being esc
orted around by a white Yankee was going to do wonders for his street cred.

  “I just have one question for you. Who wants to hurt him?”

  “Markus won’t tell me exactly who it was beat him. He said he didn’t see them. Did you?”

  “I did, but I can’t say much more than they were some black dudes with dreadlocks, and that pretty much nails the entire country.”

  “Not to mind, suh. I am sure I know. You should watch for Mr. Winston’s boys.”

  “Winston.”

  “Yes, suh. Cornelius Winston.”

  “Alright, thanks. I guess we’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Yes, suh, you will. Keep my boy safe.”

  I hung up the call and looked at the three pairs of eyes on me.

  “So looks like we’re gonna be watching over you for a few days,” I said.

  “I done need no watchin’ over, mon,” said Markus.

  “All evidence this evening to the contrary.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Swan, long and slow as she pushed herself up from the table with the effort of an eighty-year-old woman, when to my mind she was well short of forty. “If yo gonna be stayin’, we best get some dinna on.”

  Chapter Five

  DINNER WAS AN all-star affair. News of Markus’s altercation had traveled fast, and a procession of friends, family and other hangers-on paraded through the house, inspecting Markus for damage and checking out the whities that had been put in charge of his safety in a country where we knew no one and Markus was surrounded by a small army of folks who wanted him safe. But everyone offered us generous smiles and shook hands with both Danielle and me. Someone fired up a grill in the portion of the house that was still under construction, and the bubbling pot that Mrs. Swan had been tending was moved out to a trestle table, along with bowls of food that people arrived with. Reggae tunes were cranked up from a speakers attached to an iPod. I wasn’t sure if it was a planned party, an impromptu get-together or just a communal way of eating, but either way it was delicious and fun. I was still pretty full from the beers and jerk pork, but I was offered a small plate of rice and something, and felt obliged to take it. Danielle took hers with a smile, obviously keen to try this real Jamaica she spoke of.