Dani Street raised her wrist so that the porch light lit up the face of her Rolex. It was the maid’s day off and she had two hours before her father came home, plenty of time. She was leaning against the porch swing, long legs barely covered in a bright, very short summer dress. The ambassador would be shocked, she thought, but the ambassador wasn’t home.
She looked past the circular driveway and out across the Queen’s Park Savannah, the tree-lined park that dominated the center of Port of Spain, on the other side of the street. Although it was just after dark, the lights around the park were on, keeping the night alive, and safe. A young couple was jogging along the Savannah, followed by a pair of frolicking German shepherd puppies. Off to her right a man was selling hot dogs and lemonade. Boys were playing cricket in the park. Lovers were strolling, holding hands. A young Rasta man was sitting, playing the guitar, his case open at his side, and every now and then a passerby would drop some coins into it.
It was a typical Friday night at the Savannah. Cool tropical breezes fanned a myriad assortment of trees after a hot and humid day. People were bustling, the night was alive. The sounds of the Rasta’s deep voice drifted across to her. She started to lose herself in his song of love and love lost, when her reverie was interrupted by the black Mercedes rolling up the circular drive.
She looked at the watch again. An hour-and-fifty-five minutes till her father bustled in the front door. The ambassador was always punctual, something that was close to impossible in Trinidad, but it was his punctuality that unnerved the Trinidadian political and social set and gave him his edge. The world, even Trinidad, marched to his drummer. He’d even taught the prime minister a thing or two about being on time.
The Mercedes stopped in front of the porch. She silently watched as Kevin exited the car. He closed the door with a soft push, barely enough to latch it, and even that slight movement made his biceps ripple. He looked over at her and smiled, then he moved toward the back of the car, running his hands lovingly along the top as he made his way. The car was only two weeks old.
“ I brought a case of that Venezuelan rum your father likes so much,” he said, opening the trunk.
“ He’ll be home soon.” She flicked the long blonde hair from her face. “What took you?”
“ We got in late. I’d still be at the airport sweating customs, but I whisked right through with Chandee and the prime minister.” He looked at his watch. “We have plenty of time,” he said, echoing her earlier thought.
“ How did it go?” she asked.
“ Good as gold, picked it up on the stop over in Caracas. Carried it in my shoulder bag the whole way, no problem.”
“ You have a sample?” she said, backing through the doorway.
“ Of course.”
She turned and he followed her into the house.
“ You want me to set this in the kitchen?” he asked. He was holding the case of rum as if it was feather light. He had a good body, the result of six days a week in the gym at Starlight Plaza.
“ Sure.” She led him through high-ceilinged rooms, first through the entryway, then a sitting room, then the formal dining room.
“ The table, is it new?” he asked of a massive oak table surrounded by nine chairs, four on each side and one at the head.
“ Yes,” she said, without turning around.
“ Nothing but the best for old Warren,” he said.
“ That’s right.” She pushed a swinging door aside and stepped into the modern kitchen. Her father loved the old house, but he’d had the kitchen completely redone. Cobalt blue tiled floor and counters, stainless steel range and oven that would be at home in the best of the world’s restaurants. She spent a lot of time in here with him, cooking, talking, laughing. The kitchen was his unofficial office, and on a small breakfast table sat his laptop and numerous papers.
“ He’s still working on that book? I thought he’d given it up,” Kevin said.
“ Still at it,” she said.
“ Nobody will ever print it,” he said.
“ I’ll get it printed. I still have a lot of clout in the publishing industry.”
“ Even so, it’ll never sell. Nobody cares about a race of people that died out two hundred years ago.”
“ They’re not all dead, but that’s not the point. It’ll sell because it’s good. People will want to know their story, how they lived, what they believed, because through them we learn more about ourselves. This book is so well written it would make you cry. He makes them come to life.”
“ Give me a break. Nobody wants to hear that Columbus killed the Caribs. Nobody cares about naked Indians. Nobody wants their idols trashed.”
“ Columbus didn’t kill them.”
“ You know what I mean. He started it.”
“ That’s like saying if my father gets drunk on your rum, your grandmother’s responsible. If she hadn’t had your mother, your mother wouldn’t have had you, and you wouldn’t have bought the rum. Where’d you get it by the way? You surely wouldn’t try and slip a case of rum by customs while you were smuggling in the coke.”
“ Margarita, last trip. I stopped by my place on the way over.”
“ You can set it by the sink,” she said, wondering if getting the rum for her father was the only reason he’d stopped off at his apartment.
“ Fine,” he said. By the time he’d laid the case on a long tiled counter she was leaving the kitchen and headed for the hallway. He turned to follow.
She heard him behind her as she entered the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. She opened a bureau drawer and took out a mirror and handed it to him. She eased the drawer shut with the eager anticipation she always felt when she did a test. It was the only time she allowed herself to use the drug.
“ Are they ready to ship?” she asked.
“ They sent five kilos with me. It’s all up front, to show their good faith. They want my principal to know they’re ready to go. Soon as I call them, the goods will be in route.” He untucked a shirt tail and wiped the mirror off. Then he blew his hot breath on it and wiped it again.
She pushed the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears as he lay the mirror on the bureau and pulled out a brown glass vial from his shirt pocket. She wet her lips with her tongue as he unscrewed the cap, and she started drumming her fingers against her thighs as he tapped the vial against the mirror, spilling out some of the white powder.
She sucked in her upper lip and gently bit down on it as he pulled out a credit card and a blue hundred dollar bill from his shirt pocket. He set the bill on the bureau and divided the cocaine into two equal white lines with the credit card. He picked up the blue bill and started rolling it up.
“ Put it away,” she said. “We’ll use mine.”
“ Got a problem with the local currency?” he said, tucking the bill back into his pocket.
“ The paper on these is better, they roll nicer.” She rolled the green US hundred dollar bill. She approached the mirror, put the rolled bill to her left nostril and inhaled. Then she did it again with the right. She closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath through her nose and let the cocaine rush to her brain.
“ Well?” he said after a few seconds.
“ Exhilarating. You’ve done very well.”
“ I try.” He sounded smug, and from the tone of his voice she knew the real reason he’d stopped by his apartment. She could never prove it, because she’d never met the Salizars. It had to be that way, both because of her father and because there was no way they’d ever deal with a woman.
She opened her eyes and nailed him with her stare. He met her eyes with his own and for a few seconds they were locked together, a contest of wills. He grinned, looked away and she bit into her lower lip, enjoying the euphoric high and resisting the triumphant smile. The bastard had stolen some of her cocaine.
“ You made the papers again,” he said.
“ Really? What was it this time?”
“ Picture of us leaving the Red House Ball last week.” His voice had a haughty kind of sneer in it that put her on her guard.
“ And what else?” she asked. There was no reason the paper would print a week old picture. She was popular, but not that popular.
“ Headline implied that there might wedding bells in our future.”
“ That’s not so bad then,” she said.
“ Why did you agree to marry me?” he asked.
“ You’re exciting, you take risks, you’re in love with me, you come from a solid British family, you’re great in bed and you’re the only person in the world that understands me.”
“ We are good in bed together, aren’t we?” he said.
“ Yes,” she said, but she’d had better. Of course she could never tell him that. Because like all men, when he wasn’t serving his ego he was trying to serve his penis. And like most men he never seemed to get either one right, where the penis wanted to go, the ego followed, dragging along the wagging tail of a man, like an eager puppy anxious to please.
“ Why do you do it, the coke I mean? Don’t you have enough money already?”
“ I’ll have enough when I’m satisfied,” she said.
“ I’m sorry, I’ve spoken out of turn. It’s just that it doesn’t mix too good with our other business.” He looked at his watch. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Life was never simple. She heard the tapping of the vial on the mirror again and exhaled, opening her eyes.
“ I won’t do another.” She was about to say more, but she was interrupted by the phone ringing in the other room. “I’ll be right back.” She dropped the rolled hundred on the bed. She left the door open on her way out and she was conscious of him watching her backside as she made her way down the hall to the living room. She knew he was licking his lips as her body moved beneath the tight summer dress, not a wiggle, not a bounce, but a natural, almost innocent teenage movement that locked men’s eyes onto her like they were radar trained. But she was no teenager and she was no innocent. They knew it and she knew it.
She turned back and saw him as he sat on the bed, she smiled, flicked the long hair out of her eyes again with her right hand as she picked up the phone with her left. “Ambassador Street’s residence,” she said with a Spanish accent, mimicking her Venezuelan maid.
“ Dani Street, please.” She recognized the smooth voice of George Chandee, only this night he didn’t sound as smooth as usual.
“ It’s me,” she said into the phone with her own voice. She looked down the hall, Kevin was off the bed and leaning in the bedroom doorway, staring down the hallway, watching her. She knew he could hear her every word. He looked at his watch. He wanted to do the cocaine, but he’d wait for her.
“ So you have an extra fiance I didn’t know about?” Chandee said over the phone.
“ I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“ A man named Broxton.”
“ Where did you meet him?” her voice turned wary.
“ On the plane. He told us about his marriage plans right after the bomb went off.”
“ Say again,” she said.
“ He said he was going to marry you.”
“ Not that, the other.”
“ The bomb?” Chandee said as Dani clenched her fist around the receiver and shot Kevin a cold glare.
“ Yeah, that.”
“ A bomb went off on the plane. We had a frightening flight. For awhile I didn’t think we were going to make it.” Now she knew why he wasn’t his usual smooth self.
“ I’ll get back with you,” she said.
“ Dani-”
“ Not now, I’ll call you, soon,” she said, and she cradled the phone.
She started toward Kevin. “I need a drink, how about you?”
“ Scotch and water.”
Her silky hair whipped around as she spun on her heels. She put a spring in her step and she knew that Kevin was feeling lucky. She’d never bedded him in the residence before.
In the kitchen she made two quick drinks, then started back to the guest bedroom. He was at the bureau, tapping out more of the white powder, dividing it into four white lines when she came back into the room. She set them down on the nightstand next to the bed, then came toward him.
“ Did some while I was in the kitchen,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“ Small ones,” he said, like that made it all right to do more. Then he said, “There was a man on the plane claimed to be engaged to you, so it appears that I’m not the only heart that’s fallen under your spell.”
“ Really?” she said, feigning surprise. “He said we were engaged?”
“ Something like that. He said he was coming to Trinidad to marry you.”
“ And you just assumed I’d say yes and jump into this stranger’s bed?” She curled her toes in an effort to keep the anger out of her voice.
“ He sounded so sure.”
“ Does he have a name?” Dani asked, still pretending ignorance.
“ Broxton.”
“ Bill Broxton?”
“ That’s him,” he said.
“ He’s an old friend.”
“ He works for the DEA.”
“ Yeah, I know that. He’s a systems analyst of some kind. We grew up together.”
“ He thinks you’re going to marry him.”
“ Then he’s wrong.”
He smiled, that seemed to satisfy him. She was beginning to have second thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t for her after all. However, as she’d just admitted to him, he was the only man on the planet that could ever understand her. But she didn’t like it that he’d pinched some of the coke, the deal was fifty-fifty. He was making enough that he didn’t have to skim off the top. And she didn’t like him not telling her what happened on the plane. And she really didn’t like his smug, holier than thou attitude. This was not going to be a marriage made in heaven, she thought and she wondered if there was going to be a wedding at all.
Then she thought of Bill Broxton. What would her life have been like if he’d married her way back then? Would she be a frumpy stay-at-home mom, or would she be an honest Josephine, balancing motherhood and career? But he’d never asked, he married someone else, and things were the way they were. She could never marry him now. It would be the end of everything.
Still standing, he turned toward the bureau and picked up the mirror with the cocaine on it.
“ I won’t do any more,” she said. She had strict rules and he knew it. Never do the drug, except when testing. She’d done her test, now she would have her drink.
“ Relax, these are all for me,” he said, as she studied the four lines, little snakes of white powder, on the mirror. He looked toward her, like he was expecting her to hand over the rolled bill. When she didn’t, he reached into his pocket, took out the blue hundred, rolled it, and quickly inhaled two lines. Then he picked up the small mirror and offered it to her with hope dancing in his eyes.
“ Why does it always come to this?” she said.
“ What?” he said.
“ You think if you get me high enough I’ll hike up my dress right here?” He was a better than average lover, but he was insatiable. He wanted more than she wanted to give.
“ Come on, Dani,” he said, pleading with his eyes.
“ Finish it, Kevin.” Why did she always give in? She was a strong woman, she didn’t have to spread her legs for him every time he snapped his fingers.
“ But they’re for you,” he said, still trying.
“ Finish it,” she said under her breath as she turned away from him and moved toward the bed. It was almost an order and, in the wall mirror above the bed, she saw his ears turn red. He’d been in Trinidad long enough to think like a Trini, and Trinis didn’t like women giving orders.
He opened his mouth, but stopped as she reached her hands over her shoulders and took her dress by the straps and started to pull it up, revealing first pale pink panties, then her bare back as she pulled it over her head and dropped it at her feet. She turned to look at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes, he was captivated by her breasts.
“ Do you like them?” she said. “So round, so perfect, nipples so hard, standing at attention for you. I’m hot for you.” She’d learned early on in their relationship that these were the kinds of things he like to hear. She didn’t mind saying them, it kept him excited and hard.
He could only nod as she stepped out of her panties and showed herself to him. They stood like that, facing each other for over a minute. She shivered a bit as he drank in her body. Then she hopped onto the bed and pulled her knees up under herself till she was sitting in a full lotus position.
“ Aren’t I just the most erotic thing you’ve ever seen?” she said, and using both hands she brushed her blonde hair, silky with a little sweat, off her breasts and back behind her ears. She looked at him, her full lips curved up in a half smile, her mouth partly open, her clear blue eyes, unblinking. He was hard in a heartbeat.
“ Say it, Kevin, do you like what you see?” She’d turned her voice from the cool businesslike tone she usually used into an animal husky kind of thing that was like a razor shooting down his spine to his erection. He looked like he was going to explode, just looking at her. She was excited too, but she couldn’t get that stolen coke out of the back of her mind.
“ Go on, say it, do you like what you see?”
“ Yesss,” he hissed, sounding like the snake that tempted Eve. He couldn’t take his eyes from her breasts.
“ Then finish it.” She nodded toward the cocaine on the mirror still in his hand.
“ Yes,” he said, obeying her. She was still glorying in the rush she received from the two lines she’d done earlier, reveling in the electric tingles that danced on her skin and shivered down her spine. She took a deep breath, held it and lay back on the bed, arms behind her head, legs spread wide.
He pulled at his clothes.
“ Hurry,” she said, “I want you in me.” Now the words were for her as well as him.
He kicked off his loafers, ignored the socks and pulled his trousers and boxer shorts down, shaking them off as he made his way toward the bed. He left the silk shirt on, but she ripped it off him as he climbed on top of her.
“ In me now,” she urged, and she took hold of him and guided him into the heat of herself. She thrust up at him and he pounded down. Her nails raked along his back, drawing blood.
Time stood still as he thrust himself at her, seeming to push himself in deeper and deeper. She was engulfed by pleasure, lost in it, surrounded by it. She was on the edge, straining, close to the mountain top, but unable to take that last step. She felt like he was going to burst inside of her, but she kept him on the razor, slowing her movement just when he was about to blast off, making it last longer for him and for her, until there was nothing she could do to stop him and he exploded with a sigh. But she wasn’t there yet so she dug her hands into his buttocks, pulling him into her, pumping, keeping him hard. She wouldn’t let him quit, and to her amazement, he didn’t. She was on the edge of exhaustion, panting heavily, every muscle taut, every nerve glowing, drenched in sweat and her heart was thumping, threatening to beat out of her chest.
And then it happened.
She screamed as the orgasm shot through her, lightning quick and thunder deep. Then it was over and she knew exactly why she was marrying him, but she had to get some things straight first.
“ Good lord,” he muttered, as she rolled him off. He flopped over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, panting and gasping for breath as she willed her heart to slow it’s rapid breathing.
“ Cocaine and sex, a powerful combination,” she said.
He pushed himself into a sitting position. “It’s never been that intense for us before,” he said.
“ Darling, would you cut me a couple of lines.”
“ But your rule?”
“ I think I can break it today. What do you think?”
“ Sure.” He hopped off the bed and went to the bureau.
She reached a hand behind herself and snaked it under the pillow while he was tapping out the cocaine. When he looked up she was back in the lotus position, but his eyes were glued to the chrome-plated thirty-eight police special she held in her left hand.
“ Don’t point that thing at me,” he said, stepping back.
“ I give the orders around here,” she said. Whatever happened, their relationship was forever altered.
“ Yes, okay.”
“ Make four lines,” she said.
“ Yes, sure, anything.” His hands were shaking as he tapped more cocaine out onto the small mirror. “Shit,” he said, “too much.”
“ That’s all right. Now divide it up.”
“ All of it? There must be close to a gram here.”
“ Yes,” she said. “All of it.”
He made the lines, licked his finger and tapped it into some of the residue on the mirror and then rubbed it across his gums. She saw his quaking shivers.
“ Do two of the lines,” she said.
He picked up the blue hundred, and made two of the white snakes disappear.
“ I killed the last man who disappointed me. Do you believe that?”
He looked at the steady way she held the gun, as if it was an extension of her left hand, and nodded.
“ Look at my breasts.”
He moved his eyes away from the gun.
“ See how the nipples are hard. See how you make them stand up.” She pinched her left nipple with the thumb and index finger of her right hand. The gun never wavered. “They are very hard. I’m still excited. Do you believe that?”
He nodded.
“ Do the rest of it.”
He hesitated.
“ Do it,” she said and he quickly inhaled the rest of the cocaine. Now he would be flying and too shit scared to lie.
“ This isn’t right,” he said. She knew he was trying to figure out what went wrong, trying to figure out an angle. He was slippery, but tonight he was out of grease. “What’s going on?” he asked, melting under her stare.
“ My bomb went off on the plane.”
“ I was going to tell you about that,” he said.
“ When?”
“ As soon as I got here, but you looked so good in that dress I forgot.”
“ You said that wouldn’t happen.”
“ I was assured,” he said.
“ I don’t want to hear about your assurances. I want my bomb.”
“ I’m sorry,” he said.
“ When they start reconstructing things, they will find the bomb maker and through him, you, and through you, me.”
“ Not a chance,” he said. The man I hired is first rate. He’s a stand up guy, from the IRA. I know him. He’d do the time before he ratted.”
“ At least it wasn’t one of your Middle East terrorist friends. They give up their mothers the second someone shines a light in their eyes.”
“ No, no, he’s IRA, those guys never talk. They won’t find him,” he said.
“ I hope you’re right.”
“ I’m right,” he said, sweating. “Come on, put the gun down.”
“ You stole my cocaine.”
“ Bullshit.”
“ That’s why you stopped by your apartment.”
“ I stopped by to pick up the rum and my neighbor. He followed me over in your surprise. The poor guy had to take a taxi back.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“ Go look out the front door. It should be parked behind my Mercedes by now.”
“ You didn’t,” she said, lowering the gun.
“ I did.” He grinned.
She dropped the gun on the bed, put on her dress, and ran to the front door. “Kevin, it’s gorgeous.”
“ Is the color all right?” It was bright red.
“ It’s great.” She approached the new Porsche convertible.
“ Now say you’re sorry about sticking that cannon in my face,” he said.
“ Oh forget about that,” she said, turning toward him. “And get your clothes on so we can take it for a spin.”
“ About the bomb,” he said ten minutes later as they approached the light before Western Main Road, “do you think that way is wise? You’ve been pretty lucky with a rifle all the other times.”
“ Senator Rowland’s car went off a cliff,” she said.
“ That’s different,” Kevin said. “You were supposed to make that one look like an accident.”
“ I can’t shoot Ram,” she said, downshifting. It was a risk telling him. She hated to show weakness, but he had a right to know why.
“ There’s too much at stake,” he said.
“ I didn’t say I couldn’t kill him. I just can’t shoot him. I’ve tried. I had him lined up with the crosshair between his eyes, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. He’s a friend. Like a wise old uncle. I know him. I like him. I almost admire him. It’s not like the others.”
“ We can’t back out now,” he said.
“ I know that. That’s why I want to use a bomb and a timer. I’ll be long gone. It’ll be out of my hands.”
“ There’s someone here that can do it. I can have you fixed up by tomorrow evening. I didn’t want to use him, because he’s so close to home. But now I guess I don’t have any choice.”
“ Good,” she said. “Then we don’t have a problem.”