"There is a small problem, Professor," Claude-Michel began. "The houngan, he has some ceremony he must perform this evening, for someone who is with the dengue. You know the dengue?"
The professor and the woman both shook their heads.
"It is the fever, from the mosquitoes. Some call it the ‘break-bone fever,’ because it is so painful, like the bones when they are broken."
"Like malaria?" the woman asked.
Claude-Michel shrugged and shook his head. "Is worse. Sometimes, the people die. But it does not come back, like the malaria. After some days, the fever may go, but then for many weeks, you are not able to get up; is very bad. Tomorrow night, the houngan, he say. Is okay?"
"I suppose it will have to be," the professor said. "Is there anything that we can offer to help? Money for medicine, maybe?"
"You are very kind, Professor, but no. The houngan, he does the medicine. Even in the hospital, is nothing more to do than what the houngan do. Excusez-moi. I must get the glasses ready. Soon will be the ‘appy ‘our." Claude-Michel gave a little bow and retreated behind his bar to resume polishing glasses.
He watched surreptitiously as they finished their juice and got up to leave. They gave him a little wave as they left, and he smiled and nodded. They almost bumped into Martinez in the entrance way. Claude-Michel felt a chill run down his spine as he watched the way Martinez’s eyes followed the couple as they walked through the lobby and out the front door. He was relieved when Martinez continued walking past the entrance to the bar without coming in, although he was puzzled. Claude-Michel had expected Martinez to try to confirm a meeting for this evening with the houngan, and he had heard earlier, from Annie, the reservations clerk, that Martinez had checked out early this morning.
****
"Dengue fever," Dani mused. "Common around the swampy parts of the island. Your bartender’s right, too. There’s not much to be done for it. The best part is that once you get over it, you’re immune to it. The down side is there are four different varieties, so you can get it four times. The worst one is dengue hemorrhagic fever. It’s occasionally fatal; the others usually aren’t, unless you’ve got a weak heart or something."
"Can you take some preventive medicine, like for malaria?" Lilly asked.
"No. You prevent it mostly by using mosquito repellent. The government does a pretty good job of spraying to keep the mosquitoes under control, but there’s a lot of mangrove swamp around this area."
"Have either of you had it?" the professor asked.
"Once," Dani said, as Liz shook her head.
"Use the bug spray," she said, as Liz excused herself to start dinner.
"Dani, when we were in Bequia, you mentioned that you had some distant cousins in Martinique," Lilly said.
"Yes," Dani said, a question in her tone of voice.
"I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound nosy. I’m just fascinated by this whole notion that Martinique is part of France. It’s easier to grasp that the other islands used to be British colonies and that they’re independent, but Martinique isn’t."
"It’s not a colony. It used to be, but now it’s a département -- sort of like a state or a province, I guess. The people are French citizens. If you ask them, that’s what they’ll tell you. They have E. U. passports; they vote in the French national elections."
"Oh, I’ve noticed. It just seems strange. You think of France as being in Europe, and here’s a part of it, stuck out here on the far side of the ocean."
"I see what you mean, but think about Hawaii. It’s part of the U.S. and it’s farther from Washington than Martinique is from Paris."
"Good point, but I’ve always known about Hawaii; this notion of France is new to me."
"Well, while you’re getting used to it, don’t forget Guadeloupe and St. Barth's and St. Martin. And French Guyana. That’s just in the Caribbean. There are other bits of France scattered around. The French had a different perspective on equality and citizenship than most colonial powers, I guess."
"Do many French people have relatives in the islands, like you?"
"I really have no idea how to answer that. I’ve always known that I had some distant relatives in the islands, but it was just a concept to me. I didn’t really grow up visiting with relatives, except for my mother’s parents. I just recently learned from my father that he used to know some of our relatives here in Martinique."
Liz stuck her head up from the companionway and said, "Sorry to interrupt, but dinner’s on the table down here."
Once everyone was seated below, Liz said, "We have some more news on last night’s visitors."
Both Lilly and the professor perked up. "Do tell," Lilly said.
"First, I have to confess that I misled you last night on a couple of points," Dani said. Before they could ask any questions, she continued. "The man on the ladder was threatening me with a knife as he came down the steps, and I broke his leg with the hammer that I was using to work on the seacock. I knocked him out and chased his friend off the boat."
The professor was paying rapt attention, and Lilly was staring, open-mouthed, at Dani. "He was big, though, muscular. You did that? How…" Lilly asked.
"Dani hasn’t exactly led a sheltered life," Liz said. "But we can talk about that another time. You need to know about these guys."
Both guests nodded, and Dani said, "The second point I misled you about was the police. I didn’t call the police; I called a family friend who has a lot of connections in the islands. Police can really complicate things for transient yachts, so I wanted this man’s advice." She took a sip of wine and paused, making eye contact with Lilly and the professor in turn. They both nodded again.
"He sent a couple of men out to take care of the intruder. Over the course of the evening, they learned that he and his companion were part of a special ops detachment of the Venezuelan marines, and they were sent to kidnap you, Doctor Johnson. They were to take you ashore where a man named Martinez was planning to interrogate you."
"Interrogate me?"
"That’s what this Marine sergeant said."
"About what?"
"He had no idea. Believe me, he told my friends everything he knew."
"I want to talk to him myself. This is unbelievable. Where is he?"
"He’s unavailable. He won’t be answering any more questions."
"They let him go? He’s back in Venezuela?"
Dani stared at him, her cold blue eyes steady, betraying nothing as she studied his reaction.
"So you have no idea what these people could have wanted?" she asked him after he began to fidget with the silverware.
"N-none," the professor said, reaching for his wineglass and lifting it with an unsteady hand to take a sip. "No idea whatsoever."
"What happens now?" Lilly asked.
"That’s up to you," Dani said.
"I think we should go to the police," Lilly said.
"Maybe so. None of this makes sense," the professor said.
"And what would you tell the police?" Liz asked.
"Everything," Lilly said.
"And when they start asking you questions, like ‘Why didn’t you call us when it happened?’ and ‘Where is this man now?’ and ‘Whom did Ms. Berger call?’ how will you answer?" Liz asked.
Lilly and the professor both looked taken aback.
"This isn’t the United States, folks," Dani said. "The police here aren’t warm and cuddly. At best, they’ll think you’re deranged. At worst, they’ll lock us up indefinitely while they try to figure out what’s going on. That’s why I didn’t call them to begin with."
"But what if those men come back?"
"They’re in no shape to come back," Dani said. "The lucky one has a broken arm and a lot of stitches. The other one, well…just don’t worry about them."
"But your friend said they were working for somebody," the professor said.
"Yeah, but he also thinks it’s unlikely that they’ll chance a second attack on Vengeance. Whoever they are, t
hey won’t want to attract attention. If there’s another attempt, he thinks it will probably happen while you’re ashore. He has some experience with this sort of thing."
"What did he think we should do?" the professor asked.
"I’ll talk it over with him. First, he thought we should tell you about it and see if you had any idea why a Venezuelan undercover operative would want to interrogate you. For now, we should finish eating and get some rest," Dani said, picking up her knife and fork.
****
The houngan sat on one of the moldy bunks in the cramped, filthy cabin, feeling the steady rise and fall of the little ship as he listened to the thrumming of the propeller transmitted through the steel bulkhead behind him. He was familiar enough with small ships to know that he was somewhere aft, down in the bowels of the vessel. He’d caught only a brief glimpse of the vessel as Martinez and the soldiers had hustled him and the zombie aboard, but it had been enough for him to recognize that this was just another rusty little interisland freighter. Scores of the decrepit vessels plied the waters of the Caribbean, often owned by their crew, carrying whatever cargo could be found.
The two of them had been locked in this small, damp space for several hours now. The ship had gotten under way before they even reached this cabin. The only light was from a dim bulb in a wire cage, but the houngan knew that it must be almost daylight. He wondered what had happened when Richard DeMille had arrived at the bateye; he had not gotten an opportunity to explain to his people that he was going away for a while and that Richard would look after them. The zombie was on the other bunk, stretched out on his back, asleep or awake – it was hard even for the houngan to tell which.
His musings were interrupted by a series of brief, squeaking sounds as the steel clamps that secured the watertight entrance door to the cabin were released. The door creaked open and Martinez stood in the opening, peering in, apparently waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. "So, houngan, how do you find the accommodations?" he asked, with a sneer on his face.
The houngan rose to his feet and nodded in a deferential manner, clasped hands in front, head bowed slightly, not wishing to provoke this man. There had been violence in the bateye last night. The houngan had heard the screams and the sounds of blows as he was frog-marched down the rocky hillside to a large, dark-colored vehicle waiting at the paved road. He waited patiently for his captor to speak.
"You have a name, houngan?"
"Yes, señor. I am called Henri Giscard."
"So, Henri Giscard, I will have some work for you soon, once our little journey is over."
The houngan waited, eyes downcast.
"I will tell you about it when you are settled in your new home," Martinez said, with a mocking chuckle.
"You may speak, Henri. I won’t hurt you, as long as you cooperate."
"Thank you, señor."
"Don’t you even want to know where we are going, Henri?"
"Yes, of course, señor, if I may."
"You may. You are moving to the United States, to Florida. Excited?"
"What about my people, señor?"
"What about them?" Martinez seemed genuinely perplexed by the question.
"Are they also coming to Florida?"
Martinez roared with laughter.
"Ah, houngan, no. They aren’t with us. Only you and the zombie. I have some work for the two of you in Florida."
"What work, señor?"
"In good time, Henri, in good time. Your people are fine. Two of my men stayed behind in your village to take care of them, so you must not worry. In fact, they are enjoying the company of your pretty niece and her lovely children, as we speak. If you do as I wish, she and her children will be fine."
The houngan said nothing, his gaze on Martinez’s feet.
"Do you have any questions for me, Henri, before I leave you?" Martinez chuckled.
"What of her husband, Pierre?"
"The man with the broken ribs?"
"Yes, señor, that one."
"He unfortunately attacked my men as they went into your niece’s house. They were only defending themselves, you see, but they didn’t know he was so weakened. I am truly sorry, houngan." Martinez smiled. "Who beat him so badly, to begin with?"
"Police, because he had no papers."
"So, you see, really they are to blame. A healthy man would not have been so fragile, would not have died."
Martinez pushed the door closed, and the houngan watched as the cams on the water-tight door rotated to their locked positions, one after another.
Chapter 14
The sky had lightened enough so that the stars were no longer visible through the tree branches when the cock’s crowing woke him. Richard DeMille lay still as he struggled to remember where he was. He was stiff and cold, and his back was propped against a tree. Besides the rooster, he heard goats and the soft, early morning sounds of people beginning their day. He remembered with a start that he was in the undergrowth on the edge of the bateye where Henri Giscard lived with his congregation of illegal Haitians.
There had been trouble last night as he arrived, with soldiers herding the people into a group, prodding them with rifles, yelling at them. The soldiers had singled out two men. One of the men was elderly, but spry; the other moved awkwardly, as if drugged. They tied the men’s hands behind them and then tied them together with a rope around their necks, leaving six feet of slack between them. The leader of the soldiers dispersed the people, then, telling them to go on about their business, except for one couple with two young children. Two soldiers walked with the couple into one of the shacks, and then the rest of the soldiers led their two captives away.
Richard had first thought that the police were raiding the bateye; that the Haitians were to be deported. He realized that something else was happening when only the two men were led away on foot, tied with a rope. The police didn’t do things that way. At about the same time that happened, he realized that the soldiers spoke Creole to the Haitians, but they were speaking Spanish among themselves. They were certainly not gendarmes. He had decided at that point to wait a few hours before entering the bateye, hoping that he could find someone to talk with, to learn what was happening.
As he watched from the undergrowth, the door to the nearest shack creaked open, hanging crookedly on its hinges. An old man shuffled out, scratching at his torso, stretching his arms wide as he yawned. Rolling his head around to loosen the muscles in his neck, he turned and walked a few steps along the wall, paused, faced the wall, and began to urinate. When he finished, he walked back to the door and sat, back to the wall, on a wooden crate that looked too rickety to support him. As he gazed out into the lightening dawn, he took fixings from a pocket and began to roll a cigarette.
Richard stood and stepped out of the bushes, offering a soft-spoken "Bonjour," hoping to avoid startling the man.
It seemed to work. The man kept working at rolling the cigarette, never taking his eyes off of his hands. Richard had just decided that the man must be deaf when, still without looking up, the man said, "Who are you, and what do you want?"
Startled at the firm tone, so out of character with the man’s manner, Richard stammered. "I… I…"
"You what, boy? Come on over here. I won’t hurt you." He looked up at Richard for the first time, offering a toothless grin before he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and began feeling through his pockets for matches. He lit the cigarette and reached into the shadow beside him, pulling out another flimsy crate. He put it between them, and said, "Sit."
Richard sat down. "My name is Richard DeMille. I come from Port-au-Prince, but for many years now, I have lived here in Martinique."
The old man studied him for a moment. "Jean Balzac," he offered, extending a hand. Richard took his hand, surprised at the iron grip.
"Why are you hiding in the shadows, Richard DeMille from Port-au-Prince, the same morning the Spanish-speaking pigs kidnap our houngan?"
The steel talons around Richa
rd’s hand tightened a bit. He was on the verge of pain, imagining that at any moment, his hand would collapse, crushed in the man’s fist. "I came last night, to meet your houngan, at his invitation. As I arrived, I saw the soldiers, so I hid. You are the first person I have seen since the soldiers left, so I came to see if you could take me to the houngan."
The old man eased the pressure, but he still held Richard’s hand in a solid grip. "I don’t think that is quite everything you need to tell me. From your speech, I believe you are one of us, but I don’t believe you know the houngan. Tell me why you are here."
"You are correct. I have never met your houngan. I was sent by the mambo from the hounfor in Trois-Îlets. Your houngan visited her yesterday, to discuss a troublesome matter and seek her counsel."
"What troublesome matter?"
"A zombie and some outsiders."
The man finally released his grip. Richard began massaging his hand, hoping that the numbness would soon leave his fingers.
"Now will you tell me where to find the houngan?"
"I would, but I don’t know where he is. The soldiers took him and the zombie last night. Now, why are you here, Richard?"
"Your houngan and the mambo had planned that he would take the zombie and go into hiding. They had some arrangement to send the zombie away, to someone who would care for it. I suppose he waited too late to escape, your houngan."
"Yes, but why are you here?"
"I am a houngan, as well. I am here to watch over this bateye until Henri Giscard returns."
"Ah!" the old man said, relaxing visibly. "Joachim! Guillaume! Come out. It is all right. Bring us coffee."
Two burly men emerged from the undergrowth where Richard had spent the night. He realized that they must have known he was there the whole time. One man went into the shack and came out with four steaming cups of bitter Haitian coffee, two in each oversized hand, and the two new men squatted on their haunches as Balzac made introductions. As they drank their coffee, Balzac explained in soft tones that two of the soldiers remained in the bateye, holding the houngan’s niece and her children hostage to insure the houngan’s cooperation.
Bluewater Voodoo: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 3) Page 9
