Cross Current (26 page)

He gnawed on his last wing and began licking the sauce off his fingers. I watched each finger slide between his lips and then slip out, making the sound of a kiss. It took every bit of energy I had left to concentrate on what he was saying.

“Nowadays, everywhere’s changed. They’re building on every last scrap of land. And places where there is no more land, they’re just building straight up.” He finished cleaning his fingers and drank off the last of the beer in his glass. “Everywhere you go nowadays, the person serving your food, bagging your groceries, cutting your lawn, or cleaning your hotel room arrived here just a few months ago. And they got here by slipping past me.” He leaned back in his chair and pushed his plate of bones away. “They’re changing this place I call home, and I can’t stop it. I hate it.”

“So get over it, Rusty. All these immigrants make this place the town I love. The cultures, the languages, the religions, mix together here. Sure, Fort Lauderdale is no longer a little dusty, white-bread, cracker town. But hey, some of us happen to think that’s a good thing.”

He grumbled as he waved at the young Latina waitress, signaling her to bring our check.

Rusty and Carlos talked fishing on the way back to Cooley’s Landing. Carlos was saying how he and his dad had chartered with this great fishing guide, fellow by the name of Bouncer, who worked out of Miami. Carlos was saying it was like Bouncer had some amazing sixth sense—he just knew where the fish were, and with Bouncer’s help, Carlos and his dad had won some big deal tournament down in Key Largo.

I thought about how it was okay for a fishing guide to have a little inexplicable magic, but if it was a Haitian doing it, we called it hocus pocus. I felt the weight of the leather pouch around my neck. What did I believe? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t see the harm in a little extra insurance. I did not intend to remove the pouch any time soon.

I was jerked out of my reverie when the boat bumped up against the dock and the fenders squeaked as the air was squeezed out of them.

“Time to head for home,” Rusty said, hopping out of the boat first and reaching back to offer me his hand. Once on the dock, he didn’t let go. We both said good night to Carlos and started the walk back, still holding hands like a couple of kids.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said.

He didn’t say anything. We walked across the asphalt, listening to the sound of our shoes crunching bits of barnacle from the launch ramp. Just as we reached the grass on the far side of the launch ramp, Rusty pointed to the river on our left. “Look, a manatee.” He let go of my hand, put his arm around my shoulder, and pointed through an empty boat slip. “See those rings in the current mid-river?” Just then the fuzzy snout surfaced, and we saw the black nostrils and the little cloud of mist around them.

“It’s late for a manatee here,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Rusty said, and from the sound of his voice in my ear, I knew he was looking at me, not the manatee. Then he said, “I’m not very good at this,” and he placed a hand on the side of my face and kissed me on the mouth. While I would have to agree with him that his technique for getting there was rather abrupt, when it came to the actual kissing, he wasn’t half bad.

An alarm sounded several blocks over in the neighborhood, and we broke apart, taking an air break. The alarm continued to whoop, and I said, “Sounds like somebody can’t remember their code.”

“Damned gadgets,” he said. “What the hell good are they when everyone ignores them?”

I didn’t get to answer him. It was then I heard the shot. It wasn’t a little pop like they say gunshots make, and not a whomp like an explosion, either. It was a muffled boom. Like it had come from inside a house. We both started running.

XIX

I leaped up to the second step, and my sneaker slid in a puddle of something wet. Blood. I didn’t stop to examine it but took the rest of the steps two at a time, calling out Jeannie’s name as soon as I hit the landing. The alarm was still whooping, but I heard Jeannie’s voice inside.

“I’m in here,” she shouted.

The screen door was shredded and part of the wood frame hung in splinters. Where was Rusty when I needed him? I wondered if Jeannie was alone in there or if somebody was with her holding a gun to her head.

“Everybody okay?” I called out before approaching the door.

“Yeah, we are,” she said. “Not sure about the other guy, though.”

When I went to reach for the handle to open the door, I realized there was no handle left. I grabbed a piece of the dangling wood and made an opening between the screen and the shredded door frame big enough to climb through. Just inside, to the right of the door, the plaster was blown off the wall, the bare cinder block exposed. Jeannie was standing on the far side of the room, staring at the alarm system’s control panel, the shotgun still cradled in her arms. She turned to look at me, her eyes slightly out of focus, as I came through what had been the door.

“Damned if I can remember the code right now,” she said.

All three kids were standing in doorways in the hall, their eyes huge. One of the twins called out the code to his mom, and soon the alarm shut down. No sooner did it stop than the phone started ringing. In the distance, a siren wailed.

Jeannie took a few steps into the living room and looked around for the portable phone. “Geez,” she said as she stared at the damage to her door and wall. Her hands still gripped the shotgun tight across her body, and her fingers, wrapped around the stock, looked white and bloodless. I peeled her hands open and took the gun from her so she could answer the phone. As she lifted the phone, she winced and reached up to massage her shoulder.

The door frame scraped open, and Rusty slipped into the room, holding a handgun down low with both hands. I started to tell him that everyone was okay, but he swept past me, running in a sort of simian crouch, checking every room down the hall. Jeannie finished talking to the alarm company on the phone and hung up about the time Rusty came back into the living room, tucking his gun back into its holster on his hip.

“What happened, Jeannie?” I asked.

Rusty crossed to the front door and looked down into the yard.

“The bastard cut the screen with a machete,” she said. “I grabbed the gun when I heard the alarm go off. When I got into the hallway, he was coming through the door swinging that big old blade. I guess he heard me pump the action on the gun. He must have jumped back and to the left, behind the wall. I’m pretty sure I winged him, though.”

“The cops are here,” Rusty said, looking through the remains of the screen. He turned around and looked at Jeannie. “You definitely grazed him. I followed the guy through the backyard, over the fence, and into the street, but he must have had a car waiting back there. He was losing blood all the way. Anyway, get the kids settled back down. The cops will be up to talk to you when I’m done.” He started out through what was left of the door.

Jeannie made coffee after the kids got settled, and we sat in the living room, wired on caffeine and adrenaline but too tired to talk. A couple of uniformed cops had searched the apartment, examined the torn-up doorway, then just stood there, hands clasped behind their backs, staring at us, waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure. I should have known that a call that involved Solange and me would end up getting to Collazo. I shouldn’t have felt surprise when the raggedy screen door scraped open, and I heard his voice saying, “Miss Sullivan ... again.”

After Collazo, more uniformed officers came through the door, followed by several folks in plainclothes. I didn’t know if they were detectives or technicians. The living room was getting damned crowded. Rusty brought up the rear. They all huddled around the door and mumbled, examining the damaged wall and wood.

Collazo pointed to the shotgun lying where I had left it. He looked at Jeannie. “That weapon belongs to you.”

“You asking me?”

“Jeannie, that’s just his way,” I said. “He doesn’t ask questions. You get used to it after a while.”

She shook her head. “Yes, that shotgun is registered to me, and I am the one who fired it tonight at some dirtbag who was trying to break into my house, waving a machete around.” 

“He was entering through the front door.”

Jeannie glanced at me as though to say
What is this guy’s problem?
I just shrugged. I was enjoying the fact that his non-questions weren’t aimed at me.

Jeannie told the story with the accuracy that one would expect from a lawyer. Her description of the guy made me certain it had been
Le Capitaine
.

Cops and technicians had been coming and going, and none of us paid them much mind, but when Agent D’Ugard arrived, there was a noticeable straightening of the spines of all the men in the room. She nodded to Collazo and then headed straight for Rusty. When the two of them disappeared into Jeannie’s bedroom in the back of the house, my imagination went into overdrive. I was still staring down the hall when I heard my name.

“Miss Sullivan, your story.”

I blinked. “Oh, okay. Well, I need to back up a little and tell you about what happened earlier this evening. Then, maybe all the rest of this will make sense.” As I told Collazo what had happened in Pompano, I kept glancing down the hall, wondering what they were doing back there. Collazo took in the dead chickens and Voodoo rituals without so much as a blink. Unlike Rusty, this man knew his home turf. “I thought I had really paid attention on the drive back from Pompano, and I didn’t see anybody follow us back here. I don’t know how he knew where to find us.”

“That’s the problem with amateurs,” Collazo said.

” I have to agree with Detective Collazo.” It was Agent D’Ugard, with Rusty close at her side. They’d just come out of the bedroom. I checked for disheveled clothes or hair, then felt silly for doing it. I cursed my own dirty mind and wondered why I would even care.

“The events of this evening,” she continued, “as related to me by Agent Elliot, are proof enough that you cannot guarantee this child’s safety here.” She turned to Rusty. “You mentioned a group home where you house alien children.” Jeannie opened her mouth and started to protest, but Rusty jumped in and through sheer volume took control of the conversation.

“We need to move them all. Not just the child. None of them are safe here tonight. Even if we remove the girl, there’s no way of being certain they won’t come back here later looking for her. We need a safe house where we can keep this entire family protected.”

Collazo turned to Rusty, a faint smirk dancing around his mouth. “Mr. Elliot, nobody at the department is going to authorize taking all of them to a safe house. There is no evidence Ms. Black is in that kind of danger.”

“Look at my door,” Jeannie shouted.

“Ma’am, there are break-ins in this neighborhood every night.”

“Oh, so you think this was just some crackhead looking to make a score? With all the million-dollar waterfront homes less than two blocks away, you think some whack with a machete is going to choose this dump to rob?” Jeannie threw her hands into the air and began walking in circles, talking to herself. Collazo was right, though. There wasn’t really any way to prove that this incident had been directed at Solange.

“Listen, Maria, Detective Collazo”—Rusty nodded at them each in turn—“what about this idea: I have a little condo down on Hollywood Beach. What if I take them down there? It’s a three-bedroom unit. We could ask the Hollywood PD to keep an eye on the place, and I’ll sleep there tonight. What do you say?”

Agent Maria D’Ugard shook her head and whipped out a tiny cell phone. She walked over to the kitchen as she dialed.

Collazo wandered over to the door frame. The crime scene team had finished with their photos and the removal of several pieces of shot from the wooden door frame. He picked at the plaster with his fingernail and looked outside through the gaping screen.

When Agent D’Ugard finished her call and snapped her phone shut, I said, “May I speak to you for a minute?”

She jerked her head in the direction of Jeannie’s kitchen. Once out of earshot of the others, she crossed her arms and said, “Go ahead, Miss Sullivan.”

I didn’t think she looked too receptive, but I dove in anyway. “There’s something I found out tonight about this alien smuggling ring. Something I thought you and the DART people ought to know about.”

“Why not tell this to Collazo or Elliot? Why me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re a woman? I know that doesn’t make much sense, but what I am going to tell you is going to sound far-fetched. I’m certain the guys in there would dismiss it. You’re my best bet. Anyway, here’s the deal. It seems these people are importing kids and placing them as
restaveks
in homes here in the States.”

“And what are
restaveks
?” Her tone of voice couldn’t have been more mocking.

“In Haiti, when a family has too many kids, and they can’t feed them all, they send off some kids to live with and work for other families. They are basically child slaves. Now they are importing this practice to the United States.”

“So you think they’ve started up the slave trade again? Haiti? The first country in the Americas to outlaw slavery?” 

“Yes, strange as that sounds, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. There are child slaves working in the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, right under our noses.”

“Miss Sullivan, why don’t you leave the investigating to the professionals? That’s preposterous.”

“Think about it. They double their money. The family in Haiti pays to have their children taken to the U.S., and the families in the U.S. pay the smugglers to get a domestic worker who needs no Social Security or even wages. They don’t even send these kids to school. Remember the two girls who drowned off the
Miss Agnes
? Don’t you think it’s odd that we’re seeing so many more unaccompanied minors?” 

She uncrossed her arms and smoothed out the fabric across the front of her skirt. “I’ll certainly keep it in mind.” She turned and left the room, and I heard the sound of the screen opening.