“How long until the next call came?”
“Two weeks exactly, just like he’d promised,” Whitehall said. “I told him I was still working on all the logistics and that I needed more time. He accused me of stalling, said time was running out. Then we left for Florida and there was that incident in the skybox.”
“And you heard from him after that?”
“Oh yes, indeed, right way. Came on my cell phone as we were walking to the car outside the stadium. That voice again, the man asking if they had succeeded in getting my attention. I clicked off the phone without saying a word, didn’t want to discuss matters right there in front of everyone.” Whitehall paused, let out air. “I’ve beaten myself up about it ever since. Perhaps, if I’d just stepped away and spoken to the bastard, told him that I was doing everything within my power to make things work, we could have avoided that horrific scene at the airport. And Monk would still be alive.”
“Not your fault. I think that was bound to happen no matter what,” I said.
“Oh, really?” Whitehall said, “What makes you think that?”
“Just a feeling in my gut. Can’t put words on it yet,” I said. “Then, what, you got the next call right after the bomb at the airport?”
Whitehall shook his head.
“No, that was the odd thing about it. All the other times, the calls came almost immediately after the incident, but after the airport they didn’t get in touch for almost two days. I kept waiting and waiting, but it didn’t come until the evening of what happened on the road from Benton Town, when Otee had to shoot those two men. This time the man on the phone was angry, said he was getting tired of waiting. He said I had two days to get the money. Then he hung up. I left first thing the next morning to go meet with Freddie Arzghanian again.”
“And Arzghanian was ready to give you the money then?”
“Oh, yes, he had it all gathered together in neat stacks in two duffel bags.”
“So,” I said, “this may sound like a stupid question, but why didn’t you just take it?”
“I was ready to, believe me. But then Freddie began laying out all the conditions that came with the money. And I just couldn’t accept them. It would have meant returning to the way things were with him before and I had vowed not to do that. I had worked too hard, trying to make things right, and I needed at least the semblance of propriety. Both for my own shredded sense of dignity and for Alan’s sake.” He looked at Alan. “I’m sorry for my past, son, sorry that it’s come to haunt you.”
“We’ll get beyond it,” Alan said. “You did what you had to do.”
I said, “So let me guess. You got another call this morning, about the two guards who were shot last night?”
Whitehall nodded.
“He thought he was being funny. He asked if I had seen the writing on the wall. Meaning, what they’d written about dirty money, as well, I suppose, as what the future might hold if I didn’t get the money.”
“Did he give you any idea when he would be back in touch?”
Whitehall shook his head.
We sat there for a moment. Whitehall looked drained, exhausted. So did Alan for that matter.
That’s when we heard Ali in the kitchen.
“Omigod!” She appeared in the doorway, waving us to join her. “You’ve got to come see this.”
70
The TV on the kitchen counter showed some old footage of Kenya Oompong pounding a podium as she gave a speech. At the bottom of the screen, a red banner headline screamed: “Police Seek Bombing Suspect.”
Ali turned up the volume.
“. . . are searching for her in connection with last week’s bombing that killed four people at Sangster International Airport,” the announcer said. “Oompong is also a suspect in recent violence directed against Alan Whitehall, her opponent in the upcoming parliamentary elections.”
Then a new image appeared. This one showed police escorting someone else I recognized.
“According to investigators, a large stash of stolen weapons, incendiary devices, and other bomb-related material was discovered hidden beneath the home of Oompong’s mother, Mrs. Ida Freeman, of Martha Brae.”
The old woman struggled with her canes, a policeman on each arm helping her up a flight of steps at what looked to be the Jamaica Constabulary Force headquarters in Montego Bay.
“Police say they were alerted to the whereabouts of the weapons by an anonymous phone call,” the announcer said. “The weapons matched those stolen from the Libido Resort several weeks ago. And investigators say the bomb-making paraphernalia could have been used to detonate an explosion similar to the one at the airport.”
Then it was back to the footage of Kenya Oompong.
“Oompong eluded police when they attempted to arrest her after a political rally near the town of Buckley. Her whereabouts is presently unknown.”
Another story came on, something about the upcoming World Federation of Cricket tournament. Ali turned off the TV.
“Finally,” she said, “an end to this madness.”
She went to her father, leaned against him. He put an arm around her.
Ali said, “It’s over. Now, all they have to do is catch her.”
Alan was still trying to absorb the news about Kenya Oompong.
“I was so wrong about her,” he said. “I can’t believe she was behind all this.”
“She wasn’t,” I said. “She’s been set up.”
They all looked at me.
“By whom?” said Alan.
“By the same guys who are trying to blackmail your father.”
As if on cue, Darcy Whitehall’s cell phone rang. He stared at it. A second ring. A third. Then he flipped it open, said hello.
He looked at me.
It’s him, Whitehall mouthed.
“Yes, I heard,” said Whitehall. “We just got finished watching it on TV.”
He listened.
“Yes,” said Whitehall. “I understand.”
Whitehall put away his phone.
“Tomorrow,” Whitehall said. “He told me that if I did not have the money ready to give them by tomorrow, then the police would soon be coming after me, too.”
He pulled out a chair by the kitchen table and collapsed in it. Ali and Alan stepped to his side, comforting him.
“I tried to make it right. But there’s nothing more I can do.” He looked up at his children. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“It’s not gonna end like this,” I said.
They all looked at me.
“Do you know something we don’t?” Whitehall said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Matter of fact, I do.”
71
So I told them what I knew. And what I knew was mostly what Freddie Arzghanian had told me in his office when we’d had our little man-to-man talk. It went something like this:
Over the past year or so, at least three resort owners with whom Arzghanian did business—two on Barbados, another on St. Lucia—had been skimming from proceeds that Arzghanian expected to receive. Money laundering isn’t governed by the tidiest of accounting procedures, and Arzghanian allowed for a little fudging along the way, but things had gotten way out of hand.
When Arzghanian, along with Ramin and Hamil, his gentle and compassionate nephews, confronted the wayward associates, all three had crumbled. And all told the same story: they had been threatened with public disclosure of their misdeeds, and almost certain jail time, if they didn’t pony up the hush money.
“None of them had to come up with nearly as much as they’re asking from you,” I told Whitehall. “We’re talking a few hundred thousand in each of their cases. Still, as you can imagine, Freddie’s not real excited about these guys stepping in and becoming his silent partners everywhere he does business. He’s anxious to remove them from the equation.”
We were sitting around the kitchen table, sipping the coffee Ali had made. It was a strong brew, sure to keep me up half the night. That was OK.
The way this night was shaping up, I was gonna need all the buzz I could get.
“Are you sure these are the same guys?” Alan said.
“Pretty sure,” I said. “In every case, they’ve made first contact with their targets the same way they did with your father. By surprising them with a file, a very incriminating file, like the file your father found on his desk.”
“Which is identical to that file you brought here today,” Whitehall said.
“Page for page,” I said. “Given to me by the guy who did the research, put it all together.”
Whitehall said, “And that would be . . . ?”
“His name’s not important. He works for the DEA.”
“Does he have any theories on how these other people might have obtained the files that they’ve been using?”
I nodded.
“The files exist on a DEA database, shared by any number of field agents who can review them or add information as they gather it. For anyone with access, it would have been a simple matter to make copies.”
I finished my coffee. Ali poured me another cup.
Alan said, “So why did your contact at the DEA give you the file detailing my father’s transactions over the years?”
“He wanted me to use it to reel your father in, so he could help the DEA get the goods on Freddie Arzghanian.”
“In other words,” said Whitehall, “he wanted you to blackmail me, just like these other guys are trying to.”
I nodded.
“A more honorable goal maybe, but yeah, that’s pretty much what it amounts to.”
Whitehall said, “And you would have done that?”
“It never got to that point. Because Freddie Arzghanian put another offer on the table.”
“What’s his offer?”
“To make available his resources to catch whoever is trying to bring you down.”
“His resources?”
“His money. Five million dollars of it. What they’re asking for.”
Whitehall shook his head.
“I told you, just as I told him, I won’t take the money,” he said. “I’m done with Freddie Arzghanian.”
“It’s not a deal between you and Freddie,” I said. “It’s between Freddie and me.”
“You and Freddie?”
I nodded.
“And the DEA,” I said. “It would be to their great advantage to catch these guys, too.”
“No strings attached on my end?”
“Nope, all you have to do is sit right here, answer the phone when they call, and we take care of the rest.”
Whitehall eased back on the couch, thinking it over. He said: “Alright then, I can see what Freddie gets out of it. But what about you? Why do you want to risk something like that?”
“A friend of mine is dead. I want to catch whoever did it,” I said. “Now there’s also the matter of an old blind woman sitting in jail for something she had nothing to do with. And her daughter is still on the run.”
Alan said, “So you’re saying the same people who are blackmailing my father also set up Kenya Oompong?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
Ali let out a sigh, said: “What about Monk? He was in on it, too?”
“That’s my guess. He was down on his luck, needed the money.”
“But why would they kill him?” Ali said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But believe me, that’s the first question I intend to ask the two of them.”
“The two of them?” Whitehall said.
I nodded.
“Scotty Connigan and Jay Skingle,” I said. “Skingle you know. He’s the one who works for the U.S. Embassy, connected you with Monk. Guess they thought it would help to have someone on the inside, someone who was good with bombs.”
Which pretty much dropped the Big One on our conversation. The three of them sat there in stunned silence.
It was Whitehall who finally spoke: “You’re saying that Monk planted the bombs?”
“Two of them I’m fairly sure about—the one that blew up the maintenance building, and the one in the skybox. I’m also willing to bet that Monk stole the weapons from the main guardhouse and got them to Skingle and Connigan. They, in turn, passed them along to the people they hired to waylay us on the road from Benton Town and to whoever it was that shot the two guards last night. They even instructed the ones last night to leave the rifle behind, knowing that it could eventually be tied to Kenya Oompong.”
“So,” said Alan, “they were making it look like it was all about politics when it was really about the money.”
“Right. They even hired a bunch of kids to spray-paint NPU slogans on the Libido wall, just to underline it,” I said. “Otee and Boggy have located one of them. We’re supposed to have a little talk with him later on tonight.”
No one spoke for a moment. It was a whole lot to take in.
Then Whitehall said: “Back to the bombs. What evidence do you have that Monk had anything to do with that?”
“Nothing solid,” I said. “Only that he and Scotty Connigan served together in the army, the 61st Ordnance Division.”
It got blank looks all around.
“Didn’t mean anything to me the first time I heard it either. But it stuck with me and I made a couple calls before I came over here this evening. Finally got in touch with someone at the 61st Ordnance Division, stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Turns out, its full name is the 61st Ordnance Division EOD. Any guesses on what the EOD stands for?”
Nothing from any of them.
“Explosive Ordnance Disposal,” I said. “Monk DeVane and Scotty Connigan both served in the army’s bomb squad.”
72
It was nearly nine o’clock when we arrived at Camp Hill, a hardscrabble assortment of shanties on the outskirts of Montego Bay. We’d left Otee at Libido, where he could keep an eye on the Whitehall clan. Besides, he’d been none too anxious to return to the tin-roofed shack where a slender woman now stood in the doorway, watching us as we approached. Boggy had told me her name was Altycia Andrews.
She looked me up and down. Then she looked at Boggy.
She said, “You didn’t tell me no white man be comin’ wit you.”
“This is my friend, Zachary,” Boggy said. “He is only white on the outside. Inside he is a dark man.”
I don’t know where he got that, don’t know where he gets most of the stuff he comes up with, but the woman softened a little. There wasn’t a front door, just a dirty blanket where a door should be. She held it aside as we stepped past, into her one-room home.
It was as clean and tidy as a place like that could be. The hard clay floor showed signs of a recent sweeping. The stench wasn’t as bad as it had been outside, masked partly by fumes from a kerosene lantern that hung from the ceiling and partly by the souring smell of wet clothes that hung on a rack at the back of the room.
Altycia Andrews stood by a table where votive candles illuminated two photos of her dead sons. They were the same photos that had appeared in the Gleaner. Neville Andrews and James Andrews. Their funeral had been two days earlier. There were some flowers in vases around the table, most of them wilted now. And between the photos was a small pile of money, Jamaican dollars in various denominations, a sympathy offering from friends and neighbors, just a little something to help Altycia Andrews ease the pain.
I could see how the place might have spooked Otee when he visited earlier with Boggy. Nothing was registering on my personal duppy meter. But then, I’m just not tuned that way. Still, there was definitely something in that house, something that seemed to thicken the air and carry a weight of its own. Sorrow. A whole lot of sorrow. It showed on the face of Altycia Andrews, her cheeks hollow, her eyes weary and downcast. And it showed on the face of the boy who sat on an overturned wash-tub in a corner of the room.
Altycia nodded at him, said: “This be Terrance, my baby. Ask him what you need to ask.”
The undertone being, ask him what you need to
ask and then be gone.
Boggy reached out, took one of the woman’s hands and held it between both of his. She looked startled but she didn’t pull away. He kept holding her hands, speaking softly to her, as I stepped across the room and knelt by Terrance.
He was trying hard not to look scared, his eyes darting from his mother back to me. He was just beginning to fill out, to lose the little boy in him, to hop the fast track to manhood. For kids like him, in places like this, there was little in between.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you for talking to me, Terrance. I promise you that.”
The boy didn’t say anything. He stuck out his chin, defiant, and cut his eyes away.
“Someone gave you money to paint those NPU slogans,” I said. “Who was it?”
The boy shot a look at his mother. She said, “Go on. You tell de man what you know.”
The boy glanced at me, then dropped his head.
“Cuddy Banks,” he said.
“Who?”
The boy didn’t say anything. He kept looking at the floor.
His mother said, “He talking about Cuddy Banks. Cuddy be friends with Neville and James. Da two of dem dey be running with Cuddy all da time, be staying with him. Only Cuddy, he didn’t show to the funeral.”
I drew closer to the boy and hunched down so he couldn’t avoid looking at me.
“How many times did Cuddy Banks give you money?”
The boy didn’t say anything, but he held up two fingers.
“Twice?”
He nodded.
“How did it work? Did Cuddy round up you and some of your friends, show you where he wanted you to write things with the spray paint, and after that he’d give you money?”
The boy nodded.
He said, “He give us NPU gonzi, tol’ us to wear it.”
“Gonzi?”
Altycia Andrews said, “Gonzi, dat what dey call da party colors. NPU got its gonzi. PNP got its. You wear da gonzi, show who ya be for.”
Terrance stood. He turned over the washtub to reveal a pile of clothes. He sorted through them until he found what he was looking for—a red-and-yellow bandanna. He held it up for me to see.
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