Whatever the reality, Striker had been the most broken up by the kid's murder.
Swan answered the phone at the fifth ring. Max spoke to him through a handkerchief over the receiver and in the only accent he could make fly Jimmy Canetjiouya.
'Striker?'
'Yeah,' Striker answered in a yawn. 'Who's this?'
'Never mind that. I got me a message to give you. Dean Waychek, guy that killed lil' Billy Ray? Wanna know where you can find him?'
Max didn't wait to hear the answer. He told him.
Max had met Swan once, very briefly, outside the police station, the day Waychek had been freed. Max had apologized to him. Striker six feet two of white-trash muscle,
I tattoos and freckles - had given Max the briefest of nods and the faintest of smiles, as if to say, You're a pig, so I hate you, but you're OK.'
Striker didn't say a word on the phone. He didn't even reply when Max asked him if he'd got the name of the motel.
But Max knew he'd got it all right.
Max hung up and got back in his car.
As he drove away he thought of Dean Waychek, remembered his smugness in the interrogation room, the way he'd been so sure he was going to get away with it.
'Adios, motherfucker,' Max said.
Carmine would never admit it to anyone, but he was scared of thunder. He didn't have a big quake-in-your-boots phobia, yet whenever the skies rumbled he'd get a sense of real and imminent danger, of something about to go very wrong in his life. He'd have to get out of the way, find a building to shelter in until it was over. He didn't like people seeing him afraid, especially not his Cards, current or prospective, and most of all he didn't like nobody knowing about the twitch he got in his upper left cheek, a spasm so strong and violent it jerked his face halfway up his skull, closing his eye and opening up the side of his mouth to show the world his teeth. He was getting it now, listening to the storm raging outside, through the walls of the bathroom, over the sound of the tap filling up the tub. He slapped himself hard to make it stop. As usual, it didn't.
He looked around the vast bathroom spotless white tiles covered the floor and walls; the large basin, bidet, toilet, deep bathtub and separate shower area were all gleaming, while all the fixtures, down to the pipes, were gold plated.
There were white scales and a mirror by the door. But the highlight was the turquoise aquarium that ran almost the entire breadth and half the height of the wall opposite the tub. It was filled with a multitude of beautiful fish which glided, wriggled, hung or hovered across various tiers in the tank, some close enough to the surface to grab, others occupying the middle and showing off their colours, while a few avoided the limelight altogether and hid out in the rocks and vegetation below. They, Carmine decided, were the schemers and scavengers, the ones with the agendas, the
plotters, the ones he related to the most. Sometimes, when the bathroom was dark, and the light, shadow and current in the tank came together in the right way to create a gentle, billowing effect that ran from one end of the glass to the other and back again, the aquarium resembled a magical bejewelled tapestry floating in mid-air.
When he was growing up in Haiti, his father had told him that thunder was the sound of the gates of heaven opening up so the angels could come down and kill the world's sinners. All the flashes and bolts of lightning were their swords, cutting the heads off the evil ones, and the rain that came afterwards was to wash their bodies away into the sea.
If he was good, his dad had told him, he'd never have to be afraid of thunder, ever.
Back then they'd all lived in a two-bedroom house overlooking the Carrefour slum in Port-au-Prince. They hadn't been rich but they hadn't been as badly off as their near neighbours who never had enough to eat and walked around in rags. Carmine's mother was a mambo, a voodoo priestess: she cast spells, read fortunes, talked to the spirits of the dead and practised abortion. She had quite a clientele, ranging from the poor-as-dirt country folk who walked ten days to see her, to senior government ministers and society women who'd come to the house in chauffeur-driven cars.
She was rumoured to have briefly cured one of Papa Doc's daughters of lesbianism and another of myopia. Carmine had been her hound her assistant as soon as he could walk. He'd helped her pick the herbs and prepare the animals she used for her potions, sat in the same room when she told people their fates with tarot cards, and, when he was old enough to know his way around town, he'd delivered messages from his mother's lips to the ears of her clients.
His mother didn't like talking about his dad. Depending on what kind of mood she was in, she would head off the subject when she sensed it coming up and turn the
6c; conversation in another direction, or she'd clam up altogether and shake her head threateningly, or else she'd get out and out aggressive. The closest she ever came to talking about his dad was when she'd tell him that he looked)ust like him, and that he was just like him, only even more of a loser. And she only ever said that when she got what he had dubbed the ShitFits terrifyingly intense rages she flew into once in a while.
Carmine's memories of his dad were few but mostly very fond. He remembered him as tall and handsome, always in a black suit and fedora, despite the heat. He was around the house a lot more than his mom: he used to sit outside smoking cigarettes Comme II Faut, the Haitian brand and either reading the Bible or a tattered brochure about holidays to America. He talked about how one day they'd go there together, just the two of them, father and son; maybe they'd even stay for good, not come back ever. He made Carmine promise not to tell his mom, just like he made Carmine promise to keep another secret from her too.
His mom would often travel to see her most important clients. She'd be gone for days, even weeks. When that happened all kinds of women would come by the house to see his father, mostly at night, but once in a while in the day too. They always woke Carmine up with the noise they made in the bedroom. He never complained. In fact it made him laugh. He remembered there being many different women at first, then it became just the one, his favourite. She was called Lucita. She was light brown and green eyed like his daddy, with the same soft curly hair too, only hers was longer and fell past her shoulders when she let it down. Her and his daddy spoke in Spanish as opposed to the Kreyol he usually spoke to everyone else. She always brought Carmine candy, stroked his face and asked him how he was doing.
She smelled great too, like marshmallows and French soap.
She was his first love.
7° The only memory he had of his mother and dad together was when they fought over him. She'd been the disciplinarian in the house, the one who made the rules and beat him for disobeying. She had a thin stick with flayed ends and dried buds growing out of the side. If he disobeyed her or talked back she'd beat him with it across the knuckles, which hurt like a bitch, or across the ass and the backs of his legs. At least that was the idea, but whenever she got it in her mind to beat him, a ShitFit wasn't far behind and when it overwhelmed her she'd switch from the stick to her fists and feet. One day she'd started beating him because he'd forgotten to run an errand. For the first time ever his dad intervened. He came into the room, wrapped his arms around her, picked her up and carried her, kicking and screaming, into the bedroom. Carmine heard them shouting well, more his mother for what seemed like for ever.