The King of Swords (max mingus) (24 page)

M
adeleine Cajuste lived on a stretch of North East 56th Street cops called 'Shantytown Central', because all the houses there looked like they'd been sucked up by a Third World hurricane and dumped on the nearest available strip of Miami wasteland.

The houses stood on bricks or breezeblocks, just like gutted cars, and were made up of five pieces of wood so thin that if you stamped your foot in anger it went through the floor. The roofs were slim sheets of corrugated iron, which split in heavy rain, buckled and ripped open in the heat, or blew off in the wind. Many had clear-plastic sheeting instead of glass for windows. They were hard to tell apart because their colours, although not the same or even similar, all seemed to blend together into a universal shade of pallid grey, like the tone of an overcast day.

The Cajuste house stood out. It was painted pale yellow. There was glass in the windows, which were protected-as was the door-by thick steel bars, painted pea green. It told Joe that Madeleine was doing better than her neighbours.

The illusion was somewhat shattered when he reached through the bars and knocked on the window and made the whole structure shake.

No one answered. He knocked again. Rivulets of dry dirt poured off the ridges in the roof and ran down onto the ground, building up in little mounds. The curtains were drawn. He saw coloured lights glowing on and off in the room to the left of the door.

Outside the house next door, a Rottweiler started barking furiously at him from where it was tethered by a studded collar and chain to a hunk of cement, lunging at him impotently from its spot, half choking itself every time. From behind the flimsy steel fence separating them, Joe flipped the beast the finger and went round the back of the house.

He was surprised to find freshly laid grass there instead of dirt. A child's swing and a paddling pool with a rubber Donald Duck were there too. The water was filthy and smelled rank. Mosquitoes were hovering over it. Madeleine Cajuste wasn't home and hadn't been for a while: someone this house proud-even if that house was a cereal box turned on its side-wouldn't have left that pool out in that state.

There were bars on the back door and windows too. Just to be sure, he knocked again on the windows.

He went to the house next door. The dog snarled and drooled as he approached.

A woman's voice asked him who he was when he knocked on her door. This house was sturdier, but the windows were made out of greaseproof paper.

'Police, mam. It's about your neighbour,' Joe said, holding up his badge.

The door opened a crack. A tiny, very dark-skinned woman with a wild shock of unkempt snow-white hair and white bushy eyebrows peered out and looked him up and down.

'You comin' by now? I made that call a month ago. Why ain't nobody come see me?' Her voice was a croak buried so deep in her throat it barely made it into her mouth.

'I don't know, mam, but I'm here now. Is Madeleine Cajuste your neighbour?'

'Thass right. An' I ain' sin her since Easter, juss like I tole the lady police on the tele-fone.'

The Rottweiler was still barking, and there was more barking and growling coming from inside the house-a whole chorus-load. There must have been over half a dozen dogs in there with her. Joe briefly thought about their welfare and the old lady's, but he wasn't here for that and let the thought blow off his conscience.

The old woman stepped out the door and pulled it to behind her as she stood on one of the tiered breezeblocks that made up the makeshift steps to the entrance of her home. She was barefoot and wearing a lavender nightdress down to her ankles. The fabric was so thin and faded it was almost transparent. Joe could see she was naked underneath and wanted to wrap his suit jacket around her to give her back some dignity, but she didn't seem to mind the state she was in, so he let that one go too.

'You made the call on 30 April, right?' Joe said, speaking louder to make himself heard over the dog. The woman looked at it fiercely and clicked her fingers. The dog quieted immediately.

'Thass right. I use ta see her ev'ry day out there, playin' wit' dat baby.'

'She had a child?'

'Not hers. She tole me it belonged to that man she had livin' with her.'

'What was the man's name?'

'Sauveur. She said his name was Sauveur. Means "Saviour" in Hayshun. They's from Haydee, you know, them people.'

'So they weren't married?'

'She callt him her man. Dinn say nuttin' 'bout no marriage.'

'When d'you last see them all together?'

'On a Sunday. In the mo'nin'. I think they was goin' to church.' 'Why?'

'They was dresst up all fine an' dandy. Like what you do when you goin' to church. You go to church?' 'Me? Yeah, sure I do. Every Sunday, mam.' Joe smiled. 'What church did they go to?'

'I dunno. Fact, I ain't sure they went to church, zactly. You know, they's from Haydee. They still eatin' folks out there, what I heard.'

'Did she have the baby with her, when they went out that day you told me about?' Joe asked, trying not to laugh at what the old woman had just said.

'I think so. I didn't look too good though, you know. She wood'na left home without him.'

'Was the baby a boy or a girl?'

'Lil' boy. Sweet thang. Smiled a lot at me-and my dogs.'

'Was there anyone else with them when they left?'

'Juss the man drivin' the car.'

'What car?'

'A shiny black one. Fancy and long, kinda like you see at a funeral.'

'What did the driver look like?'

'I dinn' see no dryva. See, I guess't there were a man there cause they's all get in the back. Ain't no car can drive itself-yet.'

'Did you notice anyone coming to the house afterwards?'

'Except you, no. Why it take you so long to come anyway? A whole month done gone by from since I callt.'

'We're pretty busy, mam,' Joe said. 'I apologize.'

'You think somethin' bad happened to her, right? Else you wouldn't be here.'

'I hope not, mam. This is a routine visit. Miss Cajuste might've moved. Did they have any visitors? People who came by regularly?'

'No. But Madlayne's brother used to live wit her for a lil' time.'

'Her brother? What was his name?'

'John or Gene, somethin' like that.'

'What did he look like?'

'I never sin him. Just heard he was there, what she tole me.'

'When did he leave?'

'A long time back. I ain't sure when. One year. Longer. I dunno. He was good to her though. She tole me he sent her money regular. How she get them bars on the house, and that green grass there.'

'You ever see a man with a hat hanging around the house?'

'Near every man arown here wear a hat, 'cept you.'

'Tall guy, maybe my height. Fat.'

She shook her head and the thick white explosion she had for hair swayed like ghost wheat in a field.

'Did Madeleine mention any other relatives she had here in Miami?'

'Said somethin' 'bout a cousin over in Liberty. Went by the name o' Neptune,' she said.

'Neptune? Was that it? Anyone else?'

'Not that I can think of.'

'Well, thanks, mam, you've been mighty helpful.' Joe closed the notebook he'd been scribbling in. 'You did the right thing calling us.'

'You coulda got here sooner.'

'I wish we had,' Joe said. 'You have a nice day now.'

Back in his car he went through the missing person's list, running his finger down first names, looking for Neptune.

He found it.

Neptune Perrault, 29 Baldwin Gardens, North West 75th Street, Liberty City; reported missing: 27 April.

Baldwin Gardens was a project building. In Miami they built them way lower than in other cities, on account of the weather, but the principle was exactly the same: officially, affordable housing for the poor with great views thrown in; unofficially, concrete pens to crowd the minorities in like sardines. Meant for four to five people, the tiny apartments housed anywhere up to twice or often three times that number.

Joe took the stairs to the fourth floor, breaking into a sweat as he went up. The building reeked of piss, garbage, alcohol and too much humanity crammed into too small a space.

Neptune Perrault's corridor was dark, hot and wet. Joe heard TVs and radios bleeding through the thin doors, as well as conversations and arguments, most of them in a foreign tongue he recognized as Haitian Kreyol, a hybrid of French and West African.

There was no answer when he knocked at No. 29. He tried the apartment next door. Same thing.

Someone stuck his head out of a door at the end of the corridor.

'Police, do you know…?'

The head went back in.

He tried the next apartment along.

A young girl opened the door wide and stared up at him. She had wet cereal on her face and her hair in braids. She couldn't have been older than eight.

'Hello, sweetie. Are your mummy and daddy home? It's the police.'

A man shu?ed up behind her, red-eyed, half awake, a pair of orange Bermuda shorts barely clinging to his skinny pelvis, golfball for a navel. He had an old man's face, craggy, lined and droopy, but an anorexic teenager's body, bone breaking through skin, zero fat.

'Morning, sir. Police.' Joe held up his badge. 'You speak English?'

The man nodded silently.

'Do you know a Neptune Perrault? Apartment twenty-nine?'

The man nodded again.

'Have you seen him today?'

The man shook his head,

'What about yesterday? Or recently?'

Another negative shake of the head.

'When was the last time you saw him?'

'April,' the man said with a cough.

'Beginning, middle, end?'

'End.'

'End?'

'That's what I said,' the man replied. He had an island accent-one of the smaller ones, Trinidad or Barbados.

'How can you be sure?'

'I just am.' He shrugged, like Joe was stupid.

'Where d'you see him?'

'Outside Emmanuel's-barbershop across the road. He was getting in a car. He worked at Emmanuel's.'

'What kinda car?'

'Black limousine.'

'Was he well dressed?'

'Better than normal, sure. He was in a suit.'

'Did you talk to him?'

'No.'

'Were you friends?'

'He was a friendly person.'

'But were you friends? Did you like him?'

'He was OK. I didn't really know him too well, you know.'

Joe looked at him hard and then looked past him into what he could see of his home. Curtains drawn, several kids in the background crowding around a doorway to see what was happening.

'Did Neptune live with anyone?'

'Sure. Crystal. His girl.' He smiled lazily. Island Man liked her-probably why he hadn't been friends with Neptune, Joe reasoned: jealousy. Joe even went as far as to guess that Neptune might have warned Island Man off his woman.

'Tell me about this Crystal-she got a last name?'

'Never asked her that.'

'What she look like?'

He smiled again. Yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. 'Pretty lady,' he said. 'Built, you know.'

'Pretty lady, built. Very descriptive.' Joe stepped up to him. 'Height?'

'About mine. She was big down below. I like that.'

'Was she Haitian?' Joe asked, realizing that if he asked the man to describe her face he'd get a cell by cell fotofit of ebony booty. Exactly the way Max described three-quarters of his conquests and crushes.

'No. I think she said she was Dominican. Spoke Spanish only.'

'They have any kids?'

'Just them.'

'Visitors?'

'A few all-night parties.'

'You go?'

'No.'

'Ever see a tall fat guy with a hat around here?'

'No.' He shook his head.

'What's your name?'

'Why?'

'Just asking.'

'Arthur Jones.'

'How long you lived here, Arthur?'

'Two years this May past.'

'What about Neptune?'

'The same. We move in about the same time.'

'Was he friendly with anyone else around here?'

'Whole project knew him, mon. He cut everyone hair.'

'He cut yours?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

Arthur Jones smiled again.

'You fuck her?' Joe asked.

'Every night. In my dreams,' Jones said.

Emmanuel Polk was wiping down one of the three chairs in his barbershop when Joe walked in and introduced himself.

'Yeah, Neptune worked here,' he said. 'I was the guy made the call when he didn't show up for work on the Monday. In the eighteen months he worked for me, he was always early and always stayed late to help me clean 'n' close. Like they say, "a model employee".'

'Any police come by?'

'Sure.' He read from a card wedged into the mirror frame opposite the chair he was cleaning. 'Detective Matt Brinkley.'

'Right.' Joe nodded, not surprised they'd sent the worst guy in Missing Persons into Liberty City. Brinkley couldn't find snow in Alaska if it was pointed out to him. His specialty was helping old ladies cross the street.

The barbershop was small and cramped, two work stations on the right, one on the left, with a bench right next to it for waiting customers. On the wall were pictures of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, O. J. Simpson, Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Leon Isaac Kennedy and Carl Weathers in his Apollo Creed costume.

'When d'you last see Neptune?'

'Sunday, 26 April. Around midday. Came by to get his hair cut. Said he was goin' to some party his cousin was throwin'. I was cool with that, you know. I live just above this place and I was happy to do him a favour.'

'Was he well dressed?'

'Yeah, in a suit. Looked fly.'

'Anyone with him?'

'His girl, Crystal. Dominican. Didn't speak much English, but I know a little espaol, so we got along good. Nice girl.'

'What was her last name?'

'Taino. She said it's the same name as the tribe of Indians that lived on the island when Columbus discovered it. She had that look too. Like Pochahontas, only darker.'

'What else do you remember about that day?'