Big slams his beer bottle on the mahogany counter. “Thousand fucking times you told me that. I hear it again, I’m going to bash your—”
Zoe interrupts. “Time to go, Boy Scouts. I’m closing.”
Big throws a questioning look across the counter at Zoe. “I’m always thinking, why’s a lovely lady like you running a bar?”
Zoe gives a weary smile. “Every time you’re here drinking, you ask that. It’s always the same answer: I have a university degree in philosophy. Can’t do anything with that except teach or tend bar. I had to support Noah through law school, couldn’t do that on a teacher’s salary. So here I am, still in the bar racket.”
Big keeps his questioning going, enjoying the beer buzz-cut of his words. “That Truth Dog of yours is a drinking man, sucks it up like a thirsty baby, but never comes in here. He stays away because he knows Big rules this roost. Your Dog’s a chickenshit.”
Zoe walks from the register to Big. She stares at his blurry, reddened blue eyes. “Okay, Big, I’ll tell you with no philosophizing why Noah is never here. You’re an amateur drinker—you drink in public places. Noah is a professional. A professional, he drinks alone. He doesn’t need an audience.”
Hard nods his head in agreement with Zoe. He digs a coin out of his pocket. He flips the coin in the air, catches it, and closes his fist on it. He holds out his clenched fist to Zoe. “What side my coin be comin’ down on? Be it heads, you go home with me. Be it tails, you go home with Big. You call it, bitch goddess.”
Zoe shrugs her shoulders and laughs. “You can keep flipping that coin until it loses its shine. I’m not going home with either of you.” She quickly scoops up Hard’s and Big’s beer bottles. “Time to leave, guys. No more telling each other true lies.”
Hard shifts his gaze to the end of the counter, where Hogfish sits alone, his head jerking erratically to music pumping through iPhone earbuds. Hard turns back to Zoe and gives her a mocking wink. “I gets it now. You be savin’ yourself for the Hog. That guy can barely make a bologna sandwich with what little pink meat he’s got between the legs.”
Big belches in Hogfish’s direction. “What’s left of his brain has been boiled like a lobster in a pot.”
Zoe moves down to Hogfish and leans across the counter to him. “Sorry, camper. Two o’clock at night. I want to close up shop. You’ll have to leave.” Hogfish’s glazed eyes roll; he doesn’t look at Zoe. She pulls the earbuds out of his ears. “I said you have to go.” He snatches the earbuds back from her, jumps off the barstool, and runs for the door.
Hard hoots as the door slams behind Hogfish. “That sucka be a spook! Spookier than his crazy ol’ man!”
Big slaps his open palm on the counter and hooks a macho grin at Zoe. “If Hog ever hassles you, give Big the word. I’ll snip his balls off and run them up the flagpole.”
Zoe walks back along the counter and stops in front of Big. “I don’t need you to protect me, not from Hogfish, not from anyone.”
Big’s grin widens to a belligerent smirk. “I’m serious as a triple heart bypass. Hog gets a weird-on with you, just nod in Big’s direction and he’s dust.”
Zoe pushes away from Big. “Hogfish isn’t hassling me. Leave the poor guy alone. It’s Hogfish that’s being hassled. Hassled by the world. That’s what happens to these vets that come back from wars they didn’t start. I know. My father got the same treatment when he came back from Vietnam, treated like shit or ignored like a freak. Cut Hogfish some slack or this bitch goddess will scrape those blue eyes out of your head with her pretty fingernails.”
Big throws his head back and shouts up at the fan blades cutting the air, “Goddamn, ain’t nothing sexier than a sassy woman!” He looks back at Zoe. “You’re a spur under my saddle, but I still want to ride you. Ride your gorgeous ass right into the sunset!”
Zoe steps outside beneath a neon BOUNTY BAR sign glowing blue above her in the humid night air. She locks the bar’s front door, puts the key in her purse, and zips the purse up. She tucks the purse under her arm and starts walking away. She stops, hearing shuffling from the other side of the deserted street. She looks across the street and stares into the shadows of a tall night-blooming cactus tree. She sees no movement. She glances up at the hanging orange lantern of the moon with halos of light thickening around it, indicating rain is close. She continues walking, heading along empty palm-lined streets snaking between century-old white clapboard houses with wraparound balconies and widows’ walks, once inhabited by ship captains and harbor customs men, now tarted up in shiny new tropical colors and surrounded by the electrical drone of motors powering air conditioners and backyard swimming-pool pumps. The houses are constructed cheek by jowl; their tall pitched tin roofs lean into one another as if to block any hurricane winds that might come rushing unannounced through the streets.
Zoe hears the fall of footsteps behind her. She stops beneath the leafy canopy of a woman’s-tongue tree. She spins quickly around and looks back to surprise whoever might be following her. She sees no one; she waits. She hears above her the rattle of seeds in the long pods dangling from the woman’s-tongue tree. The air brings the scent of a rotting dead rat. She hears footsteps again. She stays still. Her breathing becomes faster, her heart pounds. She smells her own fear exuding with the perspiration from her exposed skin. She jolts at a sudden screeching. She hears a thump from the porch of the house across the street. The entwined bodies of two black cats locked together in lust roll off the porch as they scream in sharp pain.
Zoe turns and walks on at a faster pace, her long legs in her white shorts flashing in the night. Nocturnal skink lizards on the cracked sidewalk skitter away. The sound of footsteps behind her grows louder. She doesn’t look back as she hurries to her two-story Bahamian-style house with its smooth plastered exterior of blush-pink walls and framed white windows. She opens the gate of the picket fence in front of her house and races up the flagstone steps. She unlocks the door, steps inside, and slams the door closed.
In the jungle-thick garden behind Zoe’s two-story house, insects chirp and frogs croak in the dense foliage. The insects and frogs suddenly fall silent as oncoming footsteps sound. A person’s heavy breathing wafts through the air.
A light inside Zoe’s house goes on from the second-story bedroom facing the garden. Through the bedroom’s open window, golden lamplight illuminates her as she hurriedly undresses. She stands naked for a moment, then quickly slips on a silk robe. A sudden gust of wind bangs the wooden plantation shutters against the sides of her bedroom window. She leans out from the window and grabs the wooden shutters. She is caught framed by light behind her; the wind blows her hair and flutters her silk robe. Her robe falls open, exposing the swing of her breasts. She grabs the open robe and pulls it tightly together. She slams the shutters closed.
In the garden, wind rustles the jungle foliage. The noise of insects and frogs starts again. Thunder rumbles overhead; lightning bolts crack the darkness and expose in the garden the upturned body of a Cuban death’s-head palmetto roach. Red fire ants swirl up from the earth around the brown-crusted hoary creature and begin devouring its multitude of legs flailing hopelessly. Rain shoots down from the sky.
Rain slashes onto Pat’s boat, anchored at the shrimping-boat dock. Pat, belowdecks, in a narrow berth, tosses and turns in her sleep. The rain above awakens her. Illuminated numbers on a digital clock next to her glow: 4:02.
A clanging bang from the deck above startles her. She jumps out of the berth and pulls on her clothes. She grabs a flashlight and a sharp fish-boning knife. She shines the beam before her as she climbs the spiral galley ladder to the top deck and steps cautiously out into the rain. She aims the beam in the darkness. The beam illuminates a long rope from the mainmast that was ripped loose by the wind and dangles down. At the rope’s end is a steel pulley, clanging against the deck.
Pat struggles to secure the rope back to the mast in the wind and rain. She ties the rope down, then shines the beam around the boat again
. Nothing seems wrong, she goes below. Rain continues to pound on the empty deck.
On the side of Pat’s boat, at the waterline, next to the heavy iron anchor chain, the skull head of a black-and-white-rubber-encased skeleton emerges from the water. The head turns slowly, revealing an iridescent skeleton face with two deep black eye sockets. Hard rain drums on the skeleton’s face.
The skeleton’s black-rubber-gloved fingers rise from the water and grab the anchor chain. The skeleton pulls out of the water, climbs hand over hand up the length of the anchor chain, and stands upright on the deck of the boat. Slung over the skeleton’s shoulder is a speargun. The rain beats on the skeleton as it moves stealthily across the wet deck. It stops before the closed galley door leading belowdecks. The skeleton does not move. It waits. The rain whips harder, thwacking against the skeleton’s tight rubber suit. The skeleton’s bony-fingered rubber hand reaches out slowly and clutches the latch of the galley door. It slides the door back, steps silently through the opening, and closes the door behind.
Halfway down the inside galley spiral ladder leading belowdecks, the flash of a thrown knife whirs past the descending skeleton. The tip of the knife’s blade drives deep into the wood wall behind the skeleton’s skull. The skeleton peers from its deep eye sockets into the surrounding darkness. Out of the darkness Pat appears, her breath bursting in a war-cry as she runs, swinging the barbed hook of a gaffing pole before her with a muscular hurl. The skeleton dives into the shadows. Pat’s gaffing pole swipes through the air, its flashing steel hooks seeking their target.
On the boat’s deck above, the wind howls in the rigging and around the tall mast. The wind picks up velocity; its howl becomes a high-pitched sound like screaming, screaming lost to all ears in the fury of a raging storm.
The morning glare exposes the shrimping-boat dock blocked off by police cars and yellow crime-scene tape; screeching seagulls circle above. On the deck of Pat’s boat, a team of latex-gloved investigators work methodically, gathering evidence. Among them are Luz and the Police Chief, scrutinizing a red X spray-painted on the deck’s plank flooring. The Chief glances at Luz with a look of dismay. “I was hoping Bizango had moved on.”
Luz stares at the boat’s boom net extended over the water. “No such luck. He’s back in business.” Tangled inside the net hanging from the boom is Pat’s naked, bloody body. A steel spear is pierced between her breasts, through her chest, and out her back. Her ears have been cut off. Her lifeless lips are closed shut by the sharp barbed metal points of J-hooks.
The Chief shakes his head. “Only thing different with Bizango’s MO this time is, he closed the mouth with J-hooks, not fishing line. Why J-hooks?”
“Could be simple. Could be that’s all he had.”
“J-hooks, for Christ’s sake. I still don’t get it.”
A rowboat in the water below the boom glides under the net weighted with Pat’s body. A police photographer in the boat aims his camera up and rapid-fires pictures through a zoom lens.
The Chief looks at the seagulls above, diving in downward swoops toward the mutilated body in the net. “Why Pat? She’s not involved with Neptune Bay Resort.”
“No rhyme or reason. Bizango must be—”
Loud shouting and banging come from belowdecks. Luz and the Chief run to the open hatch doorway leading below. They pull their guns and climb down the spiral ladder into the galley. They look around; the galley is deserted. They hurry through a low opening into the engine room. Next to a maze of greasy valves, pistons, and pipes stands Moxel, holding a gun to the head of the Haitian boy Rimbaud.
Moxel triumphantly announces, “Found this monkey hiding here.”
Rimbaud’s fatigued red eyes are terrified, his clothes dirty and ragged; his body is thin from lack of food.
The Chief rushes to Rimbaud. “What did you do to the white woman? How long have you been hiding on her boat?”
Rimbaud is too frightened to answer. He looks with pleading wide eyes at Luz.
Luz steps close to Rimbaud and speaks in a calm voice. “Son, what’s your name?”
Rimbaud bites his trembling lip and doesn’t answer.
“Son, I promise I won’t let them hurt you. Who are you?”
Rimbaud’s words blurt out in French to Luz. “Protect me! I saw a Bizango. Don’t let Bizango kill me.”
The Chief looks at Luz. “What’s he saying?”
Moxel shouts. “Yeah, what’s the monkey’s alibi!”
Luz shakes her head. “I don’t know what he’s saying. He seems to be speaking French. All I understand is the word ‘Bizango.’ ”
The Chief orders Luz, “Lock him up and get him an interpreter. I want answers.”
Moxel unhooks the steel handcuffs dangling from his belt. He grabs Rimbaud’s thin arms and roughly shackles the boy’s hands behind his back. He pushes the boy forward with a proud nod at the Chief and Luz. “I’ll book him. It was me. I got Bizango. I got the serial killer.”
Luz paces back and forth impatiently at the end of a long corridor in the Detention Center. A uniformed and armed guard marches to her with Rimbaud. The boy’s head is shaved; his skinny body looks lost in a bright-orange prisoner jumpsuit; his hands are cuffed.
The guard speaks to Luz quickly, with irritation: “Where’s the interpreter? He’s supposed to be here to get the prisoner’s statement.”
“Don’t worry. He’s coming. Take the handcuffs off the boy.”
“No way. He’s a murder suspect.”
Luz sees Noah, dressed in his rumpled seersucker suit, weaving drunkenly up the corridor. He stops in front of her and raises his hand in a salute. “French interpreter, reporting for duty, sir.”
Luz stiffens with anger. “Sober up! This kid’s being accused of murder! You’ve got a job to do!”
Noah turns and recognizes the shaven-head prisoner in the orange jumpsuit. He blurts out a laugh. “Rimbaud! He’s no murderer. You’ve got to be kidding. The kid is harmless. What kind of bullshit is this?”
The guard sniffs the rum scent of Noah’s breath. “It’s no bullshit, buddy. You have thirty minutes to get the prisoner’s statement before he’s locked up again.”
Noah tilts on wobbly legs. “A whole thirty minutes, how generous. With that much time I can get his entire life story and also read him Moby-Dick.”
The guard takes Rimbaud by the arm and pulls him across the hall. He shoves Rimbaud through an open doorway into a windowless room, then looks back at Noah. “You’re wasting time. Now you only have twenty-nine minutes. Get in here.”
Noah walks across the hall and steps inside the room. The guard walks out and shuts the door behind him.
Noah and Rimbaud sit across from each other at a bare table. Rimbaud’s bony jaw is set; his lips are clamped shut.
Noah takes out a black micro–digital recorder from his coat pocket. He sets the recorder on the table, turns it on, and speaks to Rimbaud in French. “I’m glad you’re alive. I’d given up hope. Why did you leave my boat the night of the Shrimp Fleet Blessing?”
Rimbaud’s eyes turn down. He stares at the bare wood surface of the table and doesn’t answer.
Noah slips out a pint bottle of rum from his other coat pocket. He takes a swallow and sets the bottle next to the micro-recorder. “Rimbaud, help me out. They’re holding you for murder. Why did you leave my boat? You were safe there.”
Rimbaud keeps staring at the tabletop. With his index finger, he traces out on the table’s surface an invisible spiraling circle.
“Listen, kid, I know what you’ve been through. You escaped the misery of Haiti and drifted on a rickety raft seven hundred miles in shark-infested waters to make it to this promised land. You lost your home, your family, everything, the same old sad story. There’s nothing going to change the sad story unless you let me help you. Tell me, why did you leave my boat?”
Rimbaud’s head snaps up, his eyes wild with fear, his French words shrill. “To save myself! I jumped from your boat because the sky was
exploding with fire!”
“The sky exploding? What do you mean? Ah, the celebration fireworks that were being shot off that night. It never occurred to me you’d never seen fireworks before. No wonder it scared the hell out of you.” Noah urges Rimbaud on with another question. “What happened after you left my boat?”
Rimbaud squirms, trying to make himself smaller inside his oversized orange jumpsuit. His words come out slowly. “I hid … on different … boats.”
“So that’s why you were on Pat’s boat.”
“Pat?”
“The woman whose boat you were found on.”
A loud knock raps on the closed door. From behind the door, the guard’s voice shouts, “Be quick. Hurry up.”
Noah looks directly into Rimbaud’s eyes. “Did you kill Pat?”
Rimbaud moves forward in his chair. He speaks in a low voice, afraid of being overheard.
Noah leans in, struggling to hear the barely audible words coming from Rimbaud’s trembling lips.
“One night, a skeleton rose from the dead. I was hiding, and I saw it with my own eyes. I saw Bizango.”
“Bizango? Who is Bizango?”
“A skeleton who rises from the dead. A zombie executioner. He is the great corrector between right and wrong, between good and evil. He is the ultimate judge. Bizango kills evil people.”
“You’re telling me a zombie skeleton rose from the dead and killed Pat?”
Rimbaud stares fearfully and nods his head in an emphatic yes.
Noah turns off the micro-recorder. He picks up his bottle and takes a long drink. He caps the bottle and slips it back into his pocket. He fixes Rimbaud with a solemn gaze. “I know you’re innocent, kid, but if the only defense you have is that you saw a zombie kill Pat, then you’ll be convicted for murder.”
A cloaked judge stares down from her elevated podium at the defendant’s table below, where Noah sits between Rimbaud and a young public defender. Behind the table stands a uniformed bailiff with a holstered .45 strapped to his waist. From the back row of benches, Luz leans forward intently, watching the proceedings in the crowded courtroom.
American Tropic Page 8
