Contraband – Chapter 1
Meeting the policeman was a mistake. His edginess, coupled with the secluded
location, confirmed it. In the waning light, he scanned the uneven road
surface before parking the Jeep under a cluster of trees.
Two minutes later, an unmarked Camry drew up behind him and a portly figure
stepped onto the soft shoulder. He approached the window, taunting Paul with
a toothy grin.
“Good evening, Mr. Weekes.”
Paul cut his eyes toward the officer. “You wanted to see me?”
Sarge’s close-set eyes flashed malice at him. “Yes, I wanted to discuss my
proposition in detail.”
“If I’m not mistaken, I told you no last time.”
“Maybe you should think about what you stand to lose if you no longer have
my help, Mr. Weekes.”
The implied threat annoyed Paul, but he refused to backpedal. He pinned the
officer with a stare and propped his arm on the window of the Jeep. “You
know what I hate most?”
Sarge shook his head involuntarily, his gaze fastened on Paul’s eyes.
“Greed.” Long seconds passed before Paul spoke again. “You probably think
greed is what drives me to do what I do, but it isn’t.”
By the slight angle at which he held his head, Sarge waited for an
explanation. Paul gave none, but his thoughts crept into the unpleasant
landscape of his childhood. He cut them short.
In the fast-approaching darkness, the wind whistled through the tamarind
trees, whipping them back and forth in a frenzy. Sarge threw a quick glance
around him, scouring the road in both directions. “You know what I do for
you could land me in prison?”
Paul frowned. “And I suppose that’s why you think I should pay you twice as
much to provide the same service? You knew all of this when we made the
deal.”
“Yes, but spot checks are more frequent and penalties are stiffer-”
“I don’t give a shit. What I do know is that I won’t be shelling out any
more money to you.”
The policeman’s shoulders heaved as he considered Paul’s words. Then he
stepped away from the door and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his words
were soft, but determined. “Okay, Mister Weeks. We’ll see what happens when
you don’t have me to watch your back.”
Paul turned the key in the ignition. “Now there’s another thing I don’t
like. Threats. Be careful yours doesn’t bite you in the ass.”
He drove away and left the other man staring after the vehicle.
* * *
The creeping fog wrapped around the Hiace, restricting them to a crawl.
Vince drove with care, but Paul and Rohan also kept their eyes on the road.
In the grayish-white mist, Paul saw Sergeant Singh’s face. If that greedy
shit carries out his threat, we’ll all go straight to jail. He pushed the
vision aside. We should be safe for now, anyway.
He sucked in a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, determined to shrug off
the anxiety dogging him since the previous day. Intuition told him he was
courting disaster by making this particular trip.
During unguarded moments, Paul wished for a simple life, but unlike most of
Xantrope’s citizens, he took dangerous risks. On this tiny island close to
Jamaica, crime was rare to non-existent, giving Xantrope the reputation of
being the most peaceful country in the Caribbean. The inhabitants, a diverse
blend of Indigenous and Asian Indians, Negroes, white Europeans and Chinese
had co-existed for hundreds of years, farming the land as their ancestors
had before them.
But things and times change, Paul thought, and cursed the unhealthy fixation
which drove him to continue putting his freedom at risk. He avoided his grim
thoughts by studying the shuttered houses dotting the countryside. Some of
them haven’t been repaired since the last hurricane.
They crested the next mountainous strip of road and he scanned the valley
below. The rising sun highlighted small shrubs that formed dark punctuation
marks on the lush pasturelands.
A metallic flash drew his attention and narrowing his eyes, Paul made out a
police car, half-concealed behind a clump of bushes. His lips twisted in
amusement. They were up to their regular tricks, trying to trap speeding
motorists. He kept his eyes on the group of four officers standing around
the white cruiser as the van approached the spot check. It was then he saw
a second car and felt Rohan’s body tense beside him. “Just take it easy.
Sarge is in the group. Everything’s under control.”
The men grunted an acknowledgment and Paul absently noted the low hum of the
radio, playing an old reggae tune he thought somewhat fitting…police and
thieves in the street... He eased forward to address Vince. “If anything
goes wrong, you know what to do.”
Rohan and Vince gasped as a policeman stepped into the road and signalled
them to stop. Paul ignored the thumping in his chest, muttering under his
breath. “What the heck does he think he’s doing?”
Rohan groaned. “Oh, God!”
Paul hoped he wouldn’t end up wearing Rohan’s breakfast. Apart from poverty
and incarceration, Paul couldn’t imagine anything worse than being covered
with another man’s vomit. He willed Rohan to sit still and stop licking his
lips. One glance would identify him as the weakest link.
Paul made a mental note to replace him; the time for sentimentality was long
past. He kept Rohan employed partly because of his circumstances; he had
more children than was sensible, which meant he always needed extra money.
However, Paul was not foolish enough to jeopardize his entire operation out
of sympathy for one individual.
Vince pulled over and parked the van on the soft shoulder, waiting for the
man who sauntered up to the driver’s side. All three were acquainted with
him, but Paul gave no indication that he had ever seen him before. Vince and
Rohan followed his lead.
The officer’s shoulders filled the window and came close to blotting out the
sky behind him. Paul studied Sarge’s pockmarked skin and the hair falling
over his beady eyes. In turn, Sarge exposed his teeth in a mocking grin,
forcing Paul to hide the involuntary smile about to lift his lips. Sarge’s
teeth always reminded him of Chiclets.
In the hush before the man spoke, Paul registered the line of blackbirds
calling from the nearby light wires. Did the cluster of officers behind them
have any knowledge of his connection with Sarge? Paul flicked a glance
toward the policeman, conceding he now had the advantage.
Sergeant Jonas Singh spoke in a sugar-coated voice. “Good morning,
gentlemen. We’re conductin’ a routine spot check. Documents, please.”
Vince opened the glove compartment and took out a plastic pouch. He
extracted the insurance certificate and title for the vehicle with a
trembling hand, and pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet before
passing everything to the officer.
Sarge examined the license, then stared at Vince. He did not hand the ID
back to him. Next, he perused the papers. After a long interval, he spoke.
“Any guns, drugs?”
“No offica! We don’ have nothin’ like dat in ’ere!” Vince said, on a
half-laugh.
Paul stayed motionless as Vince lost his grip of the Queen’s English, along
with his composure. He raised a hand and let it fall to grasp the steering
wheel, neglecting to wipe away the moisture from his forehead that
threatened to seep into his eyes. Between them, Rohan sweated relentlessly.
We’ve become careless, Paul thought, because we’ve not been stopped for at
least a year. He hoped Vince got hold of himself quickly. If his nerves
unravelled any further, the other officers would suspect that they were not
ordinary citizens going about their day-to-day business. To add to their
predicament, Sarge knew what they carried inside the van. He’d stopped them
out of spite.
Paul surveyed the unending landscape, fighting to keep his relaxed pose,
while his brain worked overtime. He allowed a slight smile to play around
his lips as he rehashed the conversation with the Sergeant on the previous
day.
Paul recognized the power the policeman held over him, but knew he had room
to manoeuvre. If Sarge was exposed as a dirty cop, he’d be thrown out of the
force and also lose his pension; jail time would be certain. But Sarge moved
sooner than Paul expected.
He made a bad error when he neglected to alter his delivery schedule.
Sergeant Singh knew his routine as well as he did, since he’d provided safe
passage through police roadblocks during their year-long association. Sarge
knew when Paul moved ground provision, including yam, sweet potato and
cocoa, to the Farmer’s Co-Operative Warehouse for export and when marijuana,
still illegal on the island, was included for shipment to the United States.
Being a cautious man, Paul had made provision for the day he might find
himself in trouble with the law. If the police held them, Vince would claim
ownership of the goods and Paul had to pay for legal representation. He’d
also compensate Vince for his incarceration, if that ever happened, as the
charges for possession and sale of marijuana did not attract heavy fines or
lengthy prison sentences.
However, both Paul and the policeman knew who masterminded the operation. As
he recalled the officer’s sharkish grin during their meeting on the
preceding evening, Paul maintained his peaceful expression, while inside,
his gut roiled.
Sarge had chosen payback instead of negotiation. Paul was shafted.
The officer cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to ask you to come to the
station with me.”
Paul turned his head to meet Sarge’s eyes. They held a glint of triumph, but
Paul refused to give him the satisfaction of begging, for he suspected that
was the motive for confiscating the documents and requesting a station
visit.
They followed Sarge’s marked car, in which he travelled alone. Before they
entered the sprawling one-story building, he handed the papers to Vince,
along with his driver’s license. In a gruff voice, he ordered Vince and
Rohan to sit in the small area near the front entrance and motioned for Paul
to follow him. Paul recognized the ploy as the first step in a game of cat
and mouse he had no intention of playing.
He walked through the door Sarge opened for him and inside the closed room,
the two men faced each other. At 6’4”, Paul towered over the Sergeant, a
squat man at 5’5”. The room was empty, except for a scarred wooden table and
two metal chairs. Paul grimaced at the musty odor creeping into his nostrils
– he imagined it to be the combined smell of other people the police had
terrorized into submission while there. Well, that sure as hell won’t be my
lot!
After a stretch of unyielding silence, Sarge stepped back and waved Paul to
one of the seats. Paul sat, folded his arms and waited, aware that his
appearance bothered the other man. As far back as he could remember, his
unusual looks disturbed people around him. His skin was the colour of a
pecan nut and his thick hair, which he kept neatly trimmed, fell somewhere
between kinky and straight. His nose was just shy of being narrow and his
thin lips carried a hint of fullness at the bottom.
But it was the color of his irises that made him different. They tended to
shift according to his mood and on the island, eyes like his were viewed
with awe and suspicion. The islanders believed those born with grey eyes had
supernatural powers. In addition, they made a startling contrast to his wiry
hair and swarthy skin.
Paul used his physical attributes to his advantage only when necessary and
at those times, thought nothing of intimidating his opponents. He knew the
effect an intense stare from him had on most people and had long perfected
it.
When Sarge emerged from his reverie, Paul cocked an eyebrow at him.
“See how easy I can wreck your business?” Sarge strutted around the room
before stopping to face him again. “What you think would have happened if I
made them search the van?”
Paul’s gaze did not waver, but he was getting irritated with Sarge for
wasting his time.
Sarge narrowed his eyes. “I can still order a search, you know.”
Paul tamped down his annoyance and watched a slow flush travel up the
policeman’s neck. Sarge turned his head away for a few seconds, but Paul
sensed what the officer was about to do before he did it and so was prepared
when his palm slammed against the table.
Paul quirked his lips at the attempt to startle him and waited for a few
beats before speaking so softly that Sarge had to tip forward to hear him.
“If you were going to arrest me, you would have done so already. Talk your
talk and let me go about my business.”
Sarge gave him a sour imitation of a smile. “Don’t get ahead of you’self,
Mister Weekes. It’s not too late for an arrest.”
“What would you tell them?” Paul inclined his head toward the front of the
station. “We’re exchanging telephone numbers or catching up on gossip? As it
is, you’re going to have a hard time explaining why we’re here now.”
The officer bared his teeth before he spoke. The combination of his glossy
eyes and big teeth made him reminded Paul of an enraged mouse. He suppressed
a chuckle and warned himself not to annoy Sarge any further, considering his
unpredictable temper.
“Just watch you’self, you damn hoodlum.” Sarge straightened, adjusted the
gold braid on his uniform and sauntered away. “I’m goin’ to be generous and
give you some more time to think about our, ah, arrangement.”
The door opened and a young man popped his head inside. “Sarge, someone’s
here to see you.”
“Comin’ in a minute,” he said.
His glittering eyes turned back to Paul when the door closed. He walked
forward to spread his hands on the table. “You’ll be hearin’ from me soon.”
Paul eased to his feet, flicked an imaginary speck off the sleeve of his
white shirt and imitated the policeman’s stance. A flicker of the eyes
betrayed Sarge’s discomfort, but he held his position. Paul stared him down.
“If you think I’m going to give you a dollar more than you’re getting now,
you’re out of your greedy little mind.”
Sarge’s gaze shifted to where Paul’s thick eyebrows met in a faint line,
before he eased back from the table and snapped. “We’ll see about that.
You’re free to go. For now.”
Both Vince and Rohan leaned against the wall, heads back, chin pointing
toward the roof. At the sound of Paul’s footsteps, they turned in his
direction and though their faces betrayed relief, neither of them spoke
until they were outside.
“What him want?” Vince asked, cocking his head toward the building.
“He’s gettin’ greedy,” Paul said.
Vince snickered. “I hope you tell him once and for all, where to get off.”
Paul laughed, but he understood the magnitude of the problems Sargeant Singh
could cause. Paul glanced at his watch, hoping their contact was still in
place at the warehouse. The forced delay had cost them precious time.
They crunched about on the gravel, waiting until the heat was just bearable
before getting into the van. Vince would have to burn rubber to prevent them
making a useless trip.
* * *
At the vast, noisy warehouse, they joined the line of creeping vehicles
waiting to unload their produce. Vince backed the van into Dock 3 and both
he and Rohan got out to oversee the removal of the crates, while Paul dealt
with the paper work.
“What’s up Weeks?” The agri-officer greeted Paul with a handshake. His gaunt
face creased into a gap-toothed smile.
“Not much. All is well?”
Shipley wiped a hand over his mouth in a back and forth motion and slid the
other down the front of his uniform shirt to rest at his side, with his
fingers twitching. “Yes, except you’re late and I’m almost at the end of my
shift.”
In the time they had been associated, Paul was never late. He offered the
briefest of explanations. “I got held up.”
He handed Shipley the completed declaration forms for the foodstuff,
acknowledging the delay could have been disastrous. The management rotated
the officers often, their way of keeping them honest in a climate of
increasing illicit trading. That was the thought behind the shorter and
sometimes random shift changes. Had they arrived any later, Shipley might
have been off duty and the trip wasted.
“How many crates this week?” Shipley asked, sitting down to write.
“Sixty.”
As he laboured over the form, Shipley’s elongated head bobbed in
slow-motion. Paul’s attention wandered to the neighbouring dock, where a
stocky man haggled with a warehouse worker about overloaded crates in his
shipment.
“Contents?” Shipley asked with his pen poised over the sheet.
“Yams,” Paul snapped.
He had little patience for this part of the procedure. He had prepared the
required documents, but Shipley always insisted on observing all the
formalities while he completed the paperwork on his side, as though being
officious would make the marijuana he allowed through customs any less
illegal.
After what felt like an hour, Shipley got up for a cursory inspection of the
crates, which should have been thorough, as stipulated by his employer. All
farmers were required to pack their goods for export in labelled crates.
Paul’s produce boxes were stencilled ‘PLW Farms’.
The crane, loaded with half the shipment, was on its way, moving deeper into
the warehouse when Shipley’s supervisor strolled on to the bay. “Shift
change inspection!”
Oh, shit! Paul sighed and ran a hand over his hair. What the hell else can
go wrong?
Shipley, Vince and Rohan wore bland expressions, giving no hint of anything
out of the ordinary, but Paul sensed their fear. At a glance from him, Rohan
lowered his panicked gaze to the floor. Mere seconds remained before he
started falling to bits.
Paul acknowledged the second speed bump of the day, knowing that trouble
came in threes.