The King of Swords (max mingus) (42 page)

'
Think you'll ever catch him-the man with no face?' Sandra asked Max over breakfast.

'I don't know.' Max pushed away his plate and lit his first cigarette of the morning. Sandra had cooked them a shrimp and onion omelette on Cuban bread, which was delicious, but he didn't have too much of an appetite. In the three days that had passed since the Opa Locka shoot-out he'd eaten as sparingly as a piranha in a vegetable patch. 'If I was him, with all this heat, I'd be well out of here by now-out of town, out of state, out of the country. That's what any normal, right-thinking person would do.

'But Boukman ain't that person. He's not just gonna give up and walk away. All that power, all that money, all that control. He's used to it, he's used to having his own way. People like him don't leave their thrones. They die on 'em. He's gonna wanna restore order and hit back. When he does, I hope we'll be ready.'

They were staying in a room on the top floor of Atlantic Towers, a high-security, state-owned building off Flagler, used by visiting politicians and dignitaries, connected celebrities and by cops and Feds to stash star witnesses.

Sandra had been released from hospital two days ago. She'd been treated for shock, dehydration and the minor cuts and bruises she'd got when she'd crawled over to the car. Luckily she'd suffered no serious physical injuries.

A shrink had talked to her for an hour, prescribed a month's supply of Valium, given her a distant date for a follow-up meeting, and a number to call if there were any problems in-between. She refused to take the pills, saying she didn't need them; she was fine, she insisted. And outwardly, to Max, she appeared to be just that. She showed none of the typical signs of trauma: she slept soundly and ate regularly; she wasn't jumpy, stressed, or paranoid. In fact, she was almost exactly as she had been before. Max wasn't sure if this was simply down to innate toughness, or if it wasn't the silent build-up to a delayed reaction. He'd seen it happen in the past to cops involved in shoot-outs. They'd be business-as-usual for a few months and then, suddenly, flip out and go into meltdown.

Although she remembered her ordeal vividly, she couldn't provide much in the way of information. As soon as Max had told her to go into hiding, she'd packed and left her apartment. She was putting her case in the trunk of her car when a black Mercedes had pulled up alongside her. Bonbon was in the front passenger seat. A woman with a gun had stepped out and ordered her to get in. She'd been blindfolded and her mouth, hands and feet taped. When they had come off, she'd found herself alone in a bare, windowless room, with just a mattress on the floor and a pot to piss in. An hour later a man had come in with a telephone. He'd ordered her to tell Max that she'd been kidnapped and to go to the phonebooths outside the courthouse. He'd dialled Max's number and held the receiver in one hand and a gun to her head in the other. She was left on her own until the next morning, when the same man had brought her food and water and taken out her pot. She'd tried talking to him, but he'd ignored her. A few hours later he'd come in and blindfolded her. She'd been led out of the room, up some stairs, walked outside and made to get in a van. The blindfold came off moments before she'd been escorted out across the wasteground at Opa Locka.

After the shoot-out, they'd found Bonbon's body minus most of its head on I95, close to the scene of an eight-car pile-up. Two black men-one covered in blood-had stolen cars and fled the scene. Descriptions of both were vague. Later, in Kendall, the Desamours house had gone up in flames. A woman's body had been found in the remains. She'd been shot in the chest with a.44 at point-blank range. Max guessed it was Eva Desamours, but there was no way of knowing yet-all her skin had been burnt off, and they were still checking dental records.

MTF had issued the media with an artist's impression of Carmine Desamours, along with a photograph of a white pickup truck similar to the one Max and Joe had seen at the Desamours house. A day later the owner of a used-car lot close to the Omni Mall on Biscayne Boulevard reported that Carmine had part-exchanged the truck for an olive-green 1977 Chevy Impala.

As for a description of Solomon, they were nowhere close. The second black man who'd fled the I95 crash had stolen a Mustang, which was found abandoned on Maynada Street, Coral Gables. It had run out of petrol. At 11.45 p.m. a woman in a Volvo 262 reported that she'd been carjacked by a 'nigger with a gun' on nearby Hardee Road.

'How are the interviews going?' Sandra asked.

Along with the six survivors from the shoot-out, MTF had so far arrested twenty-seven SNBC members.

'No one's talking. They're all terrified of Boukman. We've threatened them with the worst we can do-life in prison or the death penalty. You know what this guy said to us yesterday? "You think you're bad? He's worse." I mean, what can be worse than life in prison or death, right?' Max laughed.

'The power of myth,' she said. 'If you catch him and bring him in, you'll shatter the myth.'

'You think?' Max asked. 'If we bring him in, no one's gonna believe it's really him. They're gonna say we made it all up.' He took Sandra's hand. 'Anyway, how are you feeling?'

'In a word-scared,' she said.

'You're safe here.'

'Not scared for me. I'm scared for you.'

'I'll be OK.' Max shrugged.

'Will you?' Sandra stared at him. 'You don't want to catch Boukman, do you? You want to kill him.'

'That's true.' Max crushed out his cigarette and lit another.

'That makes you no different to him. And you are different, Max. Completely.' Sandra sipped her coffee. 'What do you know about Haiti?'

'Papa Doc, Baby Doc, voodoo, cocaine.' Max counted them off on his fingers.

'I've read about it and I know some Haitians. Out there you're either very rich or very poor. There's no in-between, and 95 per cent of the population is very poor. They've got nothing but the dirt they walk on. You've got to understand Boukman, examine what made him the way he is, examine what drives him. He came up in a place where killing's a way of life, where things you took for granted when you were a kid, he didn't have.'

'What is this? Sympathy for the devil?' Max let go of her hand and laughed. 'He kidnapped you, Sandra, with the specific intention of killing you, and you're trying to what-understand him? There's nothing to understand about the guy. He's a sadistic scumbag.

'You know, most Haitians in Miami are hard-working, honest, law-abiding people. They live in the shittiest conditions this city has to offer, but you don't see them killing people. And they've all come from the same place as Boukman. So don't give me that sociological shit. That's for blackboards and trust-fund liberals.'

'You don't believe that,' she said.

'I do, you know.'

'Then you've had an empathy bypass.'

'No, I have not.' Max felt his anger rise. 'I empathize plenty. But I empathize with those who deserve empathy-the victims of monsters like Boukman. He ordered whole families killed. Whole families, Sandra-children-babies. That ain't about social inequality or global injustice. That's about right and wrong. You wanna examine people like him-do it in the fucken' morgue.'

Max looked away from her furiously and stared out of the window. The sky was a dense black, mottled with grey.

He felt bad for shouting at her. He shouldn't even have been angry with her, not after what she'd been through. He turned to apologize, but she cut him off.

'Inside that pissed-off head of yours, there's a compassionate, honourable, decent guy. I know it. I saw it in you the day we met. You've just got to let him out before it's too late,' she said.

'Too late? Too late for who?'

'For you. For us. But mostly for you. There'll always be another Boukman. And another after him. And another. They'll keep coming, long after you're gone. You can't change that, but can change yourself.'

The phone rang.

Saved by the bell, Max thought as he got up to answer it.

It was Joe.

'Carmine Desamours checked out of the Palace Motel twenty minutes ago. It's right near the airport. The manager called it in. Saw Desamours on TV. We've alerted the units.'

'Where are you now?' Max asked.

'MTF.'

'Meet me in the garage.'

He went back to Sandra and kissed her on the cheek. 'I gotta go.'

She stood up and hugged him.

He took her face in his hands and looked into her big brown eyes and almost didn't want to leave. He kissed her.

'I love you,' he whispered.

'I love you too,' she said and kissed him again. 'Please be careful.'

'I will.'

A
t 8 a.m. Carmine checked out of the motel he'd been lying low in for three days and hit the road.

His flight to Buffalo didn't leave until 10.45, but he had one more thing to do before he left town.

He drove to 63rd Street and pulled up by the kerb where Julita was standing.

She came over to the window, stick-on smile and eyes criss-crossing the street for cops. It took her a few long seconds to recognize him.

'Get in,' he said.

'Where we goin'?'

'Just get in quick,' he insisted.

They drove off.

'Cops are lookin' for you. You're in the papers. I seen this drawing of you on TV.'

'I seen that too. Didn't look like me.'

'Drawing was better-lookin',' she retorted.

He laughed.

'Bonbon's dead,' he told her. 'You see that on TV?'

'No, but I heard he was. I heard you killed him.'

'Who told you?' he asked.

'One of the girls. I figured it for bullshit. Everyone out here figured the same. We think it's just some story Bonbon put out to fuck with our heads. He does that a lot,' she said.

'Well, it's true,' Carmine said. 'Bonbon's dead.'

'So, you back in charge?'

'It's a new day, baby. You're unemployed. I'm takin' you home. Where'd you live?'

'Quit fuckin' wit' me, Carmine.'

'I ain't fuckin' wit' you. I'm for real. But I ain't got no time to convince you, so tell me yo' address.'

'I can't just leave.'

'Why not?'

'I got to earn my paper.'

The fat fuck had scared her good, brainwashed her, and the street had done the rest. It hadn't taken long. It never did.

'Bonbon's dead, Julita. DEAD. You don't owe him nuttin'. And you ain't hoin' no mo'. Address? Quick. Please.'

She told him.

Fifteen minutes later they were parked outside a sorry-looking orange condo in Little Havana, cracks snaking up the walls, bars on all the windows.

'You know I'm gettin' evicted at the end of this month?' she said. 'It ain't like it was with you. Bonbon took every last cent, gave nothin' back.'

Carmine opened the glove compartment and handed her a large brown envelope.

She looked inside. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes came so far out of their sockets he thought they were going to pop out.

'What's this?'

'What it looks like?'

$100,000. The least he could do. He wished he'd had more so he could have spared more.

'This-this is for me?' She took out a brick of C-notes. Her hand was shaking.

'Yeah. It's for you.' He nodded.

'Why?'

'Call it a goin' away present,' he said.

'You leavin'?' she asked, without taking her eyes off the money, as if she were afraid to, lest it vanished.

'Yeah.'

'Where you goin'?'

'Far away from here. An' I ain't never comin' back.'

She put the money in the envelope and closed her hands tight around the opening. She was shaking.

'Why you doin' this?' She searched his face.

'You know, I never tole you, but-er-in my own fucked-up way, I always kinda liked you, Julita. I always kinda liked you a lot. Prolly 'cause you reminded me of this Latin lady who was nice to me way back when,' Carmine said, looking out of the window to hide his embarrassment. He'd never told any girl he liked her. 'She was called Lucita. She had long black hair like yours. She used to sing me to sleep on her lap. Best place I ever been.'

'Lucita, huh?' She smiled. 'Maybe it was just my name you liked.'

'Yeah, maybe…Or maybe it was more than juss that.' Carmine laughed, remembering the first time he'd seen her dancing up on stage, hypnotizing those drunk drooling assholes with her magic ass and sinuous moves; then he remembered her black and vicious sense of humour, her way with one-liners-put-downs like knock-out punches.

'Who knows? In another life? You and me?' Carmine sighed, looking at her again.

'This life's all we got, Carmine.' She sni?ed, as her shock made way for tears, which mingled with her mascara and ran sootily down her face.

'Sucks, don't it? Only gettin' that one shot.' Carmine dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief, which he then gave her. He looked at his watch. 'I gotta go.'

She grabbed his hand.

'Let's all go. You, me, the kids.'

Carmine shook his head.

'No. First up, I ain't daddy material, Julita. I ain't no one's idea of a good example. And, as long as you wit' me, you ain't gonna be safe. Cops are after me, Solomon's after me. If I ain't dead, I'm in jail.'

'Then vaya con Dios, Carmine. I won't forget you.' She threw her arms around him and held him tight. When she pulled away she left her tears cooling on his cheek.

'No, please forget me,' he said. 'An' please forgive me for draggin' you into all o' this…this shit. Take care o' yo' babies. Take care o' yo' self. An' you get outta this place too, you hear? Get well away from here.'

Carmine walked straight past the two cops at the airport entrance without looking at either of them. He had on his gold-rimmed Ray-Bans, a light grey suit and an open-necked white Oxford shirt. He looked inconspicuously respectable, just another businessman with an attache case in one hand and a suitcase in the other, flying home after a convention.

It was a Friday, so Departures was busy, just as he'd expected. He scoped out the place. Plenty of uniformed police about and plenty of plainclothes too, failing to look like civilians as they scoured faces.

He'd already bought his ticket-under a false name: Ray Washington. He checked his bag in and held on to the attache case. It was where his money was.

His plane was leaving for New York in forty minutes.

He made his way to the boarding gates.

Up until then he hadn't been nervous, but now, suddenly, he went into panic mode. The noise around him-canned music, flight announcements, conversations-merged into a saw-like buzz. His heart began to pound fast and hard, his mouth dried up and sweat started dribbling down his forehead and temples.

He walked a little faster.

Up ahead of him was the entrance to the boarding gates. Two people were checking tickets behind a desk. Behind them were three cops. They were looking at every face that went through.

He remembered the gun he'd packed in his briefcase. He'd dumped Bonbon's Magnum and bought himself a.38 snubnose, just in case. He had to get rid of it before he crossed into the boarding area. They had metal detectors. Why hadn't he thought of that?

He regretted not simply driving away. Why hadn't he done that? Just left on the night of the shoot-out? What was he thinking? That it'd all blow over after three days? Why take a fucking plane? It wasn't like he was leaving the country?

Why in the hell did he have to be so damn smart only after he'd been totally utterly fuckin' stupid?

He stopped.

It wasn't too late. He could turn around, walk out, get back in his car…No, take a cab. What if the driver recognized him?

Shit.

OK. Start again. Turn around, walk out, get in your car, drive the fuck away.

Sweat poured freely down his face, got under his glasses, itched.

He noticed one of the cops behind the desk was now staring at him.

He turned around.

A crowd of people was coming towards him.

Passengers.

He started walking away hurriedly.

He saw someone threading through the crowd, slaloming past the moving bodies, looking at him the whole time.

And then he noticed there were more people winding their way towards him.

Four, no five, no six black men…including Solomon.

He stopped again and turned back to the boarding gates.

The cop who'd been staring at him was looking at a sheet of paper, and then back at him. He said something to the other two cops, who both looked right at him.

Carmine knew he was fucked.

He could surrender right now, or…he turned to face Solomon, who was getting closer. He opened the case and took out his gun.

He let the case fall. The money spilt out with a sound close to a splash.

People around him gasped and bumped into each other.

Someone asked him: 'Hey, is that yours…?'

He raised his gun, cocked it and walked towards Solomon. All around him people stopped where they were. He got a bead on Solomon and fired once. Solomon dropped to the ground and rolled away to his left.

Carmine aimed again, but, before he could get another shot off, his torso exploded with pain.

He was surrounded by onlookers, gawping, shaking, crying, blank-faced, curious.

His chest felt crushed. He was finding it hard to breathe. His shirt and jacket were the same bright red.

He was going to die.

He looked for Solomon in his audience.

He saw him, standing there, one of maybe twenty faces, staring at him impassively.

And then there was a new arrival, someone he recognized: that cop who'd beaten him up in the parking lot of Al amp; Shirley's.

Max Mingus.

Out of breath, red-faced. He had pushed in and was standing right next to Solomon.

Solomon was looking right at him.

Carmine wanted to get up and warn Mingus, but he couldn't. He tried to raise his arm to at least point Solomon out, but it was too heavy. He tried to say something, but his throat was fast filling up with blood.

He decided to use his eyes instead. He looked Mingus in the eye, locked into him and then moved his eyeballs sharply to the right. Mingus didn't react.

He started to do it again, but his vision blurred and then fogged up, the colours leeching away into the purest white he'd ever seen.

Fuck it, he thought. I tried, right?