“This is not the blan’s business.”
DeeDee understood and told him that he was loading a shipment of mangoes on the NANH late that night.
“I’m not sure I can get away at night.”
“Late-late. I am paying very well for this particular shipment-of mangoes. Give her a lot of champagne.”
“Mais oui.”
DeeDee paid off all the port officials with money from Madame Dumas and the NANH untied and set her bow northwest to round the peninsula and head to Miami. The mangoes helped the ballast but the freighter was still sitting a little too high in the water. They had to hope there were no storms. Izzy was surprised when he inspected that the mangoes were just piled in the hold without any crates. “It will take forever to off-load,” he complained. DeeDee shrugged.
Then Izzy noticed they were off course, but DeeDee explained that they had to make a quick stop.
“To take on more ballast?” asked Izzy.
There was no answer, but DeeDee was busy navigating. They dropped anchor by a reef-a strip of white sand and a grove of palm trees in the middle of the turquoise sea. Izzy saw nothing heavy to load on the boat.
Then the crew lifted the cover off the hold and Izzy was astounded by what he saw next. Haitian men and women, one child of about eight, under the yellow mangoes. They staggered up, their limbs stiff and their eyes blinded by the hot light. Some were almost naked. They were hurriedly helped to the beach on their shaky legs. There were eleven of them, including three who were dragged and appeared to be dead.
Shouting erupted in Creole. Arms flayed the hot air angrily. They were saying, “This is not Miami! You took our money!” Some pleaded, “Please, don’t leave us.” But DeeDee insisted that this boat was too big to bring them in and that small boats would come tonight to drop them on the Florida coast.
Izzy was angry and fought with DeeDee all the way to Florida. DeeDee’s answers made no sense to him.
“Why are we doing this?”
“Because we can’t bring them into Miami.”
“Why were we carrying them at all?”
“They needed the help, Izzy.”
“I have to tell the Coast Guard. They’ll starve in that place.”
“No. It’s all arranged. Boats will come for them tonight.”
“They said they paid. Who got the money?”
“The mango growers.”
They tied up on the Miami River. But they were not going to be able to return to Haiti: there was a coup d’etat. Little Haiti was intoxicated with the news. A new government was being formed. There were curfews. There was rioting in Port-au-Prince. In Gonaïves, a mob attacked the NANH warehouse, took everything, then tore down the building a chunk at a time with rocks and machetes. After a day, all that remained of the two-story building was a few steel reinforcing rods sticking out of the ground.
DeeDee soon vanished and it was said in Little Haiti that he was now an official in the new government. Izzy hadn’t realized he was involved in politics. He had never seemed interested in anything but commerce. Then a man approached Izzy one afternoon alongside his boat on the river. Izzy recognized him. He was usually in Bermuda shorts with an I Love Miami T-shirt, a Marlins hat, and a camera. But this day he was wearing a suit and showed Izzy something that said he was an FBI agent.
Kola had a new Coca-Cola cabinet. It was red-and-white metal with a glass door. A stray rock from the riot had dented one side but the door was intact.
Of course, it didn’t keep anything cold because Kola had no electricity. But it was a good cabinet and he kept it behind the temple to store his bones, herbs, potions, and powders. His Coca-Cola was still in the ground where it was cool.
Soon Madame Dumas began experiencing something completely new to her. She started to sweat. Even in her airconditioning she was sweating. It poured out of her forehead and ran down her fine cheekbones, and from under her arms a rivulet flowed to the small of her back; under her breasts, sweat soaked her stomach. Her pink silk shift had turned cranberry with wetness. And as the sweat poured out, she became weaker and weaker-while Jobo watched.
Madame Dumas collapsed on the living room floor and crawled to the couch. She looked up at Jobo with her arm reaching out at him. “Jobo, aide-moi.” Help me.
He only stared at her.
“I need a doctor.”
“I can’t get a doctor. The roads are closed. The coup.”
“Oh, yes, the coup,” she muttered, as though there was a secret irony to this that only she could appreciate. “Then the bòkò. Can’t he make a powder to fix me?”
“Mais oui,” Jobo answered, appreciating his own secret irony.
“Vas-y. Get something!”
Jobo left and did not come back for hours. When he did, Madame Dumas was not sweating anymore. She was stretched across the cool floor tiles-dead.
Jobo unceremoniously removed all her clothes and carried her out to the leopard cage. He opened the door and dumped her on the floor. The leopard, who he had not fed in three days, was so startled that he stopped pacing. He walked over to the body and sniffed it as Jobo started to close the cage. Suddenly, the cat leapt over Jobo, knocking him down, and off the porch into the bush, over the wall in graceful flight, and was never seen again. He might have run to the arid desert in the northwest and managed to find a way to survive there. Or maybe he ran along the Artibonite River to hide out in the mountains above the valley where many others have hidden.
The leopard had left Jobo with the question of what to do with the unwanted remains of Madame Dumas. He consulted Kola but neither could come up with a good solution. Several days later, while Jobo was still contemplating this dilemma, someone started clanging the locked gate. Jobo ran down and saw Kola framed in black iron snakes. He explained that Madame had a family that wanted both the house and the body. They wanted to bury it in France, but Air France had suspended flights because of the coup.
“Eh oui,” said Jobo, who had never seen an airplane close up, with feigned comprehension.
“Poutan!” shouted Kola, raising his stubby index finger to make a point. “I told them if they want to come get the body in a week or even two, I can use magic to keep it in perfect condition.”
“Magic?”
“Mais oui. And you have that magic in your house. It is the magic of meat.”
Now Jobo understood. “And they will pay?”
“Gwo nèg koute chè,” Kola said. You have to pay a lot for an important person.
Jobo smiled. “Anpil, anpil dola?”
“Anpil. Very expensive.”
After Kola left, Jobo went back to the cage and picked up Madame. She still had not stiffened much. He emptied one of the big top-loading freezers and dumped her in. She landed in a most undignified pose and was soon petrified in ice, to be thawed and served up properly by magic in due time.
Jobo was right. Once the freezers had been emptied, the people of Ti Morne Joli ate meat for three weeks. Many became sick because they were unaccustomed to such a rich diet. But it was not likely to happen again.
It was Damballah who finally confronted èzili, bribed her with dresses and bracelets and pink elixirs until she set the leopard free. The animal ran and ran and ran, as though he could run all the way back to Africa. But the ocean was there now. He ran so hard that he turned into a man. That was the first Haitian, and that is why Haitian people always struggle so hard to be free.
“I want to talk to my lawyer,” said Izzy.
“I think you need a new lawyer. He’s been arrested. Seems you were just a small part of the operation.”
Izzy thought, They arrested the Anglo. Isn’t that something? They got the Anglo. Then he spoke: “Why do you say that the goods were stolen? Everything was paid for.”