Paradise Interrupted

by Penny Mickelbury

  “You’re still alive, so that means Monsieur le Presidente es morte. What did he say about the school and the clinic?”

  Carole Ann turned and found herself embraced by a laughing Jacqueline LaBelle. “Au contraire,” she replied with a grin. “Monsieur le Presidente is alive and well and seeing to it that the earth moving equipment will be in place on the North Coast Road promptly at seven o’clock in the morning to begin excavation of New Government Road. Or whatever it eventually will be called.”

  “How ever did you manage that?” Jackie’s amusement completely dissipated, to be replaced by shock. “Was he furious with you? Is he furious with me?”

  Carole Ann shrugged and resumed her search for an empty table. “I’m too hungry to talk about it, Jackie.”

  “I’ve got a table on the patio with a sea view. Care to join me?”

  “Lead the way,” Carole Ann exclaimed, following the young woman through the crowed room, noticing whom she noticed and acknowledged, who noticed and acknowledged her, and by whom she herself was noticed and acknowledged. By the time they reached the umbrella-covered table and seated themselves, she was ready to accede that indeed, Isle de Paix’s fifteen thousand residents did all know that she was on the island, but before she could decide how she felt about that, the young waitress she’d noticed earlier arrived.

  “Good afternoon, Madame,” she said in island-accented English, throwing a familiar grin toward Jackie.

  Carole Ann acknowledged the greeting with a smile. “I’m so hungry I could eat sand. Would you, as quickly as possible, bring me a Jax and the fastest, easiest appetizer you have? Then I’ll look at the menu.”

  “Jax and a ceviche,” the waitress said with a nod of her head toward Carole Ann. “Rum and tonic and conch fritters, Jackie?”

  “Yes, thanks, Helene,” Jackie replied, and they watched the waitress glide off and disappear around the corner. “Surely Uncle Philippe didn’t recommend that you come here,” Jackie said dryly.

  “No,” Carole Ann replied. “I stopped in by chance. I was looking for a place to eat on this end of the island and the packed parking lot beckoned. But why would Philippe ‘surely not’ recommend that I come here?”

  “Because,” Jackie said with a wide grin, “Henri Leroi’s sisters are the owners.”

  Carole Ann didn’t respond for a moment, due to the fact that she was cussing Jake in her mind: Right again, dammit! Not only hadn’t all of Henri LeRoi’s supporters ‘tucked tail and run’ for France, all of his immediately family obviously hadn’t felt the need or the desire to depart. “It really was a bloodless coup, wasn’t it?” Carole Ann asked, genuinely curious at the way things seemed to work on the island, and contemplating the nature of the virulent hatred that existed among and between political opponents in Washington. “And obviously the LeRoi family isn’t so disenchanted with the new regime that they didn’t feel uncomfortable remaining here.”

  Jackie laughed. “It has nothing to do with politics or democracies or dictatorships. At least, not the way you mean. The LeRois and the Collettes have been rivals for almost a hundred years. Kind of like the Capulets and the Montagues, and like them, nobody remembers the reason for the enmity. Just that it exists and always has and probably always will.”

  “So,” Carole Ann posed, slowly, musingly, “does that mean the LeRoi sisters would find me persona non grata in their restaurant?”

  “Are you kidding? They’re delighted!” Jackie chortled. “When they found out you were here instead of at Le Petit Paris or Le Champignon they danced in the kitchen!”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Carole Ann raised her hand to stop Jackie’s recital. “I’ve been here all of three-and-a-half minutes and I’ve been on the island less than seventy-two hours. How could they possibly know...”

  “Ma cherie, people on the island know everything about everything,” Jackie said with the same shrug and pursing of the lips that Philippe had employed earlier. “It is the way of things. I hated it growing up, and was so relieved to get to Paris and to Washington where I could own my thoughts and feelings. Then I found that I missed knowing that I was known.” She shrugged again and Carole Ann was spared having to respond by the arrival of Helene’ with their drinks and appetizers.

  “So people know who I am and why I’m here?” she asked after several moments spent savoring the excellent marinated fish and the marvelous beer native to New Orleans.

  “And where you live and the fact that, even though you live in Henri LeRoi’s house, you refused to drive his car. And by nightfall they will know that you demanded and won the cessation of construction of his excellency’s school and clinic.”

  Carole Ann sat back in her chair as a wave of discomfort washed over her. All of a sudden she felt the eyes of the room on her, knew that she’d been observed constantly since her arrival; knew that Jackie must have been alerted to her arrival since the front door was not visible from the table.

  “You’re part of the new government, Jackie. Part of the family of the new regime. Yet you seem scornful of it and of your uncle. Am I to assume that you take lightly your role as a liaison between the government of Isle de Paix and the other nations of the Caribbean?” Carole Ann made no attempt to conceal a growing wariness that was bordering on anger, nor did Jackie LaBelle conceal her reaction to it.

  Jackie sat up straight, her smile tightened on her lips. “Au contraire, Madame. I am both grateful for and humbled by the chance to serve my government in so important a capacity and at so young an age. But I am under no illusion about the nature of my employment. Philippe Collette did not wrest control of the government from Henri LeRoi. Henri LeRoi left because he realized that the island’s economy was crashing and that only an infusion of external capital— read United States capital— could save it. And he further realized that as long as he ruled, the U.S. would refuse aid. So, he left, and perhaps he needed to, in order to truly restore some form of democracy to this island. And that may finally be possible because, in truth, Philippe is not quite the snobbish bastard the other island ‘royalty’ are. Ergo, LeRoi made a bargain with the lesser devil. But in six years, when the next elections are held, the re-election of Philippe Collette is by no means guaranteed.”

  “Are you suggesting that Henri LeRoi will attempt to return?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing,” Jackie replied calmly.

  Carole Ann looked around, taking in the charm of the restaurant, the obvious comfort of the patrons, thinking that she certainly had a lot to learn about how things worked on an island, and wondering whether any of it was any of her business. After all, nothing in the GGI-Isle de Paix contract required that she understand the subtleties and internal rhythms of island life. Enjoying its beauty would be sufficient, she thought, gazing at the Caribbean to her right and the white sand of what apparently was a beach to her left. With the potential to be a jogging route, she wondered? The sight of a man walking across the sand interrupted her thoughts abruptly. Jackie looked up in surprise and followed Carole Ann’s gaze.

  “There are houses behind the trees and it’s a shorter walk through there to the beach than along the road,” Jackie offered, mistaking Carole Ann’s reaction for surprise at the emergence of the man from the trees.

  But that’s not what surprised Carole Ann; she knew that people lived within the forest groves, and had come to understand that on the island, walking was an accepted if not preferred means of travel. What surprised her was the fact that the man was Denis St. Almain, sans beard and dreadlocks. He was wearing a colorful print shirt and khaki slacks and sandals instead of an orange prison jumpsuit and slip-on tennis shoes— his wardrobe when last she saw him— but it definitely was Denis St. Almain and he was walking across the sand toward her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “There’s nothing I can do, Jake, except hope to stumble upon him by accident again, and in a setting where I could just walk over and speak to him. Jackie didn’t know him and I certainly couldn’t approach him or seem to take a
ny particular notice of him. And it’s not like I can look up ‘St.Almain’ in the phone book and start calling people, hoping that one of ‘em is where he’s staying while he’s on the run.” Carole Ann was talking to Jake on her newly secured telephone line, sipping coffee between yawns and trying to finish dressing, unable to halt the rising crest of frustration she was feeling.

  A GGI technician named Harold Collins had arrived the previous evening by boat bearing gifts: A computer, monitor, printer, scanner, shredder, and a telephone with a built-in scrambling device and, as a back-up, a mechanism that literally would howl if it detected evidence of an attempt to access the telephone line. Harold attached a “howler” to all three phone lines, virtually guaranteeing, he said, not that nobody ever could tap the lines, just that she’d know it if they did. They were up most of the night. First, Harold set up the computer and the other equipment. Then he re-arranged the furniture, placing the two desks closest to the interior wall next to one of the bedrooms, and the conference table on the other interior wall, the one adjacent to the hallway that led to the front garden. The sofas and coffee table he placed in front of the French doors with the admonition that she never discuss anything she didn’t want overheard while seated there. Then he positioned de-buggers at strategic locations throughout the room, and in her bedroom.

  “This is giving me the creeps,” she said to Jake while Harold slept in one of the guest bedrooms. “Who do you think is going to be listening to my nocturnal activities? That is, if I had any nocturnal activities worth listening to.”

  Jake snorted and muttered something she didn’t understand and which she had a feeling she was better off not knowing. Then he reminded her of the conversation with Jacqueline LaBelle that she’d just related to him, putting his own interpretive spin on it: “The president’s own family won’t take long odds on him, the ex-dictator’s family’s in a position to poison half the island, and somebody down there isn’t shy about using assault weapons, and you’re wondering why you need security? C.A., listen to everything Harold tells you, then write it down, then memorize it, then do it, goddammit! Otherwise, I’ll come down there myself. By the way, you’ve got your gun with you, don’t you?”

  She hung up on him. It was seven-fifteen and she was due at the construction site at eight. Fortunately there was no rush hour traffic on the island, which meant she could take the time to have another cup of coffee and a boiled egg and a roll. What she wanted was another four hours sleep! Despite the growing mound of corroborating evidence, she still was unwilling to embrace with any warmth the notion that there never could be too much security, especially if installing it kept her awake half the night. Perhaps heads of state and creators of secret recipes and discoverers of cures for diseases needed scramblers and howlers and shredders, but why did she? All she did was sell the stuff for a living, along with the concept that there never could be too much security...

  She yawned as she acknowledged the absurdity of it all, and made a final check of her purse and briefcase. She looked balefully at the tiny cellular telephone that, at Jake’s insistence, she’d become dependent upon and which now, according to Harold Collins, was useless because, even if she could get a signal on Isle de Paix, practically everyone in the Caribbean would be privy to her conversation. She took it from the briefcase and tossed it into the desk drawer. The .32 revolver in its case she dropped into the bottom of her purse and covered it with her wallet, make-up kit, a small bottle of sun block, and a baseball cap.

  She straddled one of the stools at the butcher block island in the middle of the kitchen and hurriedly ate her breakfast. he left a note for Harold Collins telling him to help himself to anything he found to eat or drink and assuring him that she’d return in time to take him to the airport to make his noon flight. She tossed a mango into her purse, and, when she opened and closed the kitchen door on her way out, she was cognizant of the fact that it would be the last time she did so without arming or disarming the security pad. Activating it would be Harold’s final act before leaving the island. ‘I do it at home, I can do it here,’ she told herself.

  The Jeep she was driving— the one she chose because it looked like half the vehicles on the island and therefore, she reasoned, would provide a measure of anonymity— received three horn blasts and five waves before she turned off Government Street on to the North Coast Road. She had refused to drive Henri LeRoi’s red Peugeot to avoid just this kind of notoriety. He’d been a populist dictator who had prided himself on his proximity to the people; a man who had walked the almost-mile to work and who had driven himself around the island. Living in the man’s house was one thing; driving his car quite another. Carole Ann hadn’t wanted the recognition, the notoriety, the possible resentment. It hadn’t mattered. She returned the horn blasts and waves and then, suddenly, wondered whether she should. Were they cordial greetings, as she assumed, or, in a less friendly vein, a statement that her presence was noted?

  A short, shrill siren blast pre-empted further mental wanderings, and she looked in her rear view mirror to see the black Lincoln Continental limousine belonging to Philippe Collette hard on her bumper. She controlled a flash of anger and pulled over to allow the uniformed driver to pass her and as the powerful car glided past, the president raised a hand in what seemed to her definitely not a cordial greeting. Well, she thought to herself, at least he’s got some protection, though the driver didn’t look as if he could shoot marbles.

  Both uncharitable suspicions was proved correct several minutes later when she joined them on the side of the road beside the earth mover and the dozen or so workers who would do manually what the heavy equipment left in its wake. The chauffer was studying his manicure and there was a definite coolness in Philippe Collette’s demeanor.

  “Good morning, Mr. President.”

  “Miss Gibson,” he said with a slight nod, his eyes behind a pair of dark glasses staring straight ahead at the large yellow machine. Though he wore the Guyaberra shirt and lightweight trousers not only commonplace but necessary in the heat of the islands, his bearing suggested that he was encased in the dark suit, starched shirt, vest and tie of his business executive days.

  “I assume we’re waiting for the foreman?” It wasn’t really a question but she posed it as such, as much to force conversation on him as to ascertain immediately whether there would, after all, be a delay; for she knew enough about construction sites to know that if the foreman were on the job, the workers wouldn’t be standing around idle.

  “There is a new construction manager and yes, we’re awaiting his arrival. On the ferry from Martinique.”

  Carole Ann allowed the remark to hang there between them as it had been intended to do for a few seconds before she spoke. “I suppose that means that Monsieur de Villages didn’t receive with a positive attitude the news that you don’t want his school and clinic, and as a manifestation of his displeasure, he has deprived you of two earth movers and one construction foreman.”

  Philippe Collette snatched the sun glasses from his face and looked down his nose at her. Again. “Might I inquire as to the source of your information, Miss Gibson?”

  She shrugged, the gesture not entirely successful in controlling the irritation she felt. “I’m a lawyer, Mr. President, and I’ve spent a career observing and calculating human behavior. And one of the most predictable of human behaviors is the power play, which very often is a result of pique. Mothers call such behavior temper tantrums and, as I recall, swat the offender on the fanny if it gets too out of control.”

  His lips lifted in a slow smile and he returned the dark glasses to his face. “I should have sent you to talk to his excellency. I imagine you’d have enjoyed yourself considerably more than I did.”

  “Well, Sir, that would have depended on whether I could have swatted him on the behind, or whether I had to kiss it.”

  The island president laughed, relaxed his shoulders, and nodded in the direction of a pick-up truck approaching at an almost break-neck spe
ed. “Our construction manager. I imagine you’ll enjoy him, as well.”

  The truck, relatively new and recently cleaned, skidded to a halt on the gravelly shoulder, spraying dust and rocks on those unfortunate enough to be too close to its arrival. In what seemed to be a single motion, the driver threw the gear into park, cut the engine, opened the door, and propelled himself outward, slamming the door. He was thin and wiry and his skin so leathered that there could be no doubt that he all but lived out of doors. His hair, long enough to appear in need of cutting, was bleached almost white. Dressed in jeans, a tee shirt and scuffed work boots, he looked like any construction worker anywhere. He took a quick look around and aimed himself toward Carole Ann and Philippe Collette.

  “Monsieur,” he said with a crisp salute, ignoring Carole Ann. “Je sui Paul Francois.”

  “Monsieur,” Philippe said with a curt nod. “Thank you for responding so quickly. Permit me to introduce Madame Carole Ann Gibson, from Washington, D.C. You will be working with her on this project.”

  “I don’t work with women.”

  “Then you and your truck had better take the first boat back to Martinique, Monsieur François,” Carole Ann snapped at him, turning away and heading toward her Jeep.

  “Miss Gibson! Carole Ann!” Philippe Collette struggled to control the panic and anger in his voice.

  “Sir?” She stopped and turned back toward him and found herself drained of her own anger at the look on his face and the slump of his shoulders. “Mr. President,” she said almost gently, “I really don’t have time to waste on pettiness. However because I am committed to this project, I personally will hire and have on site by the end of the week, a professional foreman. Of course, that puts us a full week behind schedule, but no doubt we can make up some of the time by working a Saturday here and there. In the meantime, so we don’t lose this day and the crew, I’ll get them started.”