A Wanted Woman Part 40

"Comparing my wife to an animal is politics? The women in your const.i.tuency should stone you."

"Peter Kellman, for G.o.d's sake. We went to primary school together. We went to Coleridge and Parry Secondary and we did sports together. I know your mother. My mother and she go to St. Leonard's Anglican Church together. They used to go to Bridgetown together on Sat.u.r.day mornings. They eat fishcakes together. You are better than this. You are a man of G.o.d and this is not Christlike, my brother."

"You forget that I am a husband, a son, a father."

"I am a loyal husband, an obedient son, and a proud father as well."

"Above all, I am protecting my country."

His speech done, the politician took the hood off of his political adversary.

He was on the edge of an open grave. Inside of that grave was the CEO. His head was barely attached to his body. Kenny Omar Payne saw the dead man, the heavy JCB machinery, mechanical harvesters, and other ground-moving machinery.

He shouted, "Just give me lashes. Give me a thousand lashes. A million lashes."

"We are too old for lashes. Way too old for lashes."

"Think about my mother."

"You should have thought about her when you insulted my wife."

"Think about my wife and children being devastated at my funeral."

"This is your funeral."

Peter Kellman removed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped tears from his eyes, nodded at us, waved good-bye to his former friend, then walked away, went through the cane field.

His car started and drove into darkness. His headlights lit up the cart road and the sugarcane. Soon the only light we had was from the stars above. Petrichor took out a flashlight, positioned it so it lit up the target. We removed our masks. Kenny Omar Payne begged for his life.

My father's Bahamian daughter handed me a compound bow and carbon arrows. She took out one too. A wayward politician screamed loud enough to be heard in Bridgetown.

Two arrows took flight. Then there was silence. A cool night breeze washed over us.

I wondered if Black Jack had screamed. If Hacker had screamed.

We stood side by side, the stillness of the countryside accented by stars in the sky.

Petrichor said, "That man loves his wife."

"This is probably the most romantic thing a man could do for a woman."

FORTY-FIVE.

My father's Bahamian daughter climbed into the dirt mover and covered the grave. I hopped in a three-ton roller when she was done, came behind her, and began smoothing out the earth.

I saw her sending text messages while I finished flattening the gravesite.

We collected our murder tools, turned, and left, not a word spoken as we loaded the van. Petrichor drove the ominous narrow way, bouncing like we were horseback riding through the Grand Canyon. She popped in a CD, a soca mix that started with D'banj singing "Oliver Twist."

Her BlackBerry pinged. It pinged again. Again. Again.

She said, "That's my husband."

"How do you tolerate the pinging?"

"Send him a message for me, Goldilocks."

"Okay. What?"

"Tell him I'll suck his d.i.c.k real wicked when I get home. Tell him I might suck that bamboo and swallow that nut and I want to hear him moan like he's my b.i.t.c.h and suck him so good he will cry and beg me to stop sucking his fat d.i.c.k. Then I want him to pound my fat bread like-"

"Enough, enough. I will text that you will give him a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b and make love to him later."

"It has to be nasty or he will know it's not me."

While she turned around in pitch-black darkness, I did what she asked, then put her BlackBerry down. It pinged again and she asked me to read the message from her husband.

I said, "f.u.c.kin' seriously? You guys do that to each other?"

"A few times. Did it for the first time on my wedding night."

"Perverted nymphomaniacs."

"When I got married I finally understood why wedding dresses are white."

"To symbolize virginity."

"No, to hide come stains."

"That's gross."

"A good reason to never rent a wedding dress."

"When did you start having s.e.x?"

"Oh, are you back to having girl talk now?"

"You're out of control. How old?"

"Fifteen, more or less. With Nigel Collins. Guy was cute. I grew up in Bain Town on Finlayson. Guys sit around freestyle rapping and smoking spliffs big as Cuban cigars."

"Is that what Nigel was doing, getting high and freestylin'?"

"Nah. I met Nigel Collins over by the big pond on Thompson Boulevard."

"How old?"

"He was twenty-three."

"You met him on the streets by a pond?"

"He was going to the College of the Bahamas."

"You graduated at sixteen. College here is two years. He was twenty-three and still in college?"

"Okay, okay. He had graduated."

"If he had graduated, what was he doing hanging out at college?"

"Okay. He was twenty-six."

"What's the age of consent down there?"

She corrected me, "Up there."

"Up there, what's the age of consent?"

"For opposite-s.e.x s.e.x it's sixteen and for gay s.e.x, it's eighteen."

"That makes no sense."

"I guess they want you to try being Adam and Eve before you embrace the rainbow."

"To be clear, you were how old when you had s.e.x for the first time?"

"I was fifteen."

"Are you sure you were fifteen?"

"It was about eleven or twelve months before I turned fifteen."

"So you were new at being fourteen and he was almost thirty."

"He could've lost his job and gotten seven years at Her Majesty's Prison."

"You could've gotten pregnant and been given eighteen to twenty-one years."

"What, are you my mother?"

"What happened to him?"

"He ended up in Her Majesty's anyway."

"Why was he incarcerated?"

"Was caught smuggling cocaine with his sister. His sister was on the police force."

"You knew he was smuggling?"

"Had no idea. Just picked up the paper one day and he was on the front page, handcuffed, being led into jail, his sister at his side. That was the last I heard of him."

I paused. "I had s.e.x the first time two years ago."

"Wow."

"Only been with two guys."

"Three. You've been with three."

"Three." I sighed. "Tonight is the night that Parker and I have officially broken up."

"Why tonight?"

"I just had s.e.x with someone else. Parker had been my last lover. Well, the last man that had been inside. m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed a few, did a fake f.u.c.k, but that was work, that was business."

"Never went all the way on a job? Not once?"

"Almost did in Trinidad. Almost had to. Good thing they threw a man from the roof."

A moment pa.s.sed before she said, "The guy I hired for you tonight . . ."

"What about?"

"He pinged me twice while I was filling the grave. He sent a BBM."

"You paid him, right?"

"I paid him. He really wants to see you again."

"Not gonna happen."

"It was that bad, huh?"

We pa.s.sed a road sign showing the way to North Stars cricket ground, Animal Flower Cave, Farley Hill National Park, and Morgan Lewis. She drove awhile, looked for the road on which to make the next turn, then stopped when she came up on road signage for Barclays Park, Bathsheba, and Bridgetown. I saw a sign for Joe's River, where six had died in a bus crash a few years ago.

I said, "The island has train tracks, but there are no trains on the island."

"They stopped them a long time ago. Almost a hundred years ago. Ran from Bridgetown to Belleplaine. Didn't last two generations."

"Why? Having a train system would make a lot of sense."

"When you depend on the European man to build the trains, when he gets tired of you riding his trains, then the foreign man with money can close down the tr-s.h.i.te, s.h.i.te, s.h.i.te."