The Downtown Massive by Austin Mitchell - HTML preview

CHAPTER SIX

 

Top dancehall artiste, Junor Balance held his birthday party on Saturday night at Scotty’s lawn in Linstead. The party was an annual event and brought out some top stars as the artiste was quite popular and was at most other artiste’s birthday bashes.

At these birthday bashes most artistes performed free of charge as the celebrating artiste would also do the same for them. Ken Lyrics performed several hits from his latest album and received several encores.

The backing bands were the Augustus brothers, Kurt Sherwood and Sons and the Miguel Boothe band. There was also a sound system clash involving Flex Tone, Gem Tone Hi Power, Roller Tone Hi-Fi with Gem Tone presenting the best set. Several female dance hall artistes also performed, including Annette Dillon, DJ Jeanie, Princess Dee and Queen Janella among others.

Apart from Ken Lyrics other artistes coming to pay respect to Balance were Tony Little, Max Berry, Baller-Jerry, Gurvy, among others.

Douse reached the party at one o’clock that morning. Nykola was with him. Several taxi men had also come down too. He knew that several top ranking Dons would also be there along with their crews.

He could see crate loads of liquor and champagne bottles as the niceness of the dance took hold of the patrons. He didn’t expect Bobby Deacon and his crew to be there. Carloads of patrons from Kingston and the rural communities had also made their way to the dance.

Douse left Nykola to go outside and urinate. He was returning inside when a man beckoned him over. He didn’t know the man, but went nevertheless.

The man introduced himself as one of Bobby Deacon’s lieutenants. He told Douse that his name was Bidey.

Douse had heard the name before. Bobby Deacon had told him that this was the contact man. His description of the man fitted him. He was of medium height, around thirty years of age and was copper colored like himself.

“Bobby Deacon wants you to come and check him at his safe house.”

“So how do I get to him? I don’t even know where he is right now.”

Douse realized that when he had called Bobby Deacon, he hadn’t asked him for directions to his safe house.

Bidey told him about the lies Shadow and Coltrane had fed to the police. He told him that they were talking to their lawyers about him surrendering peacefully to the police. They hadn’t reached that junction as yet. Bobby Deacon still feared that Coltrane had paid off certain rogue elements in the police force to hunt him and his fighters down and kill them.

Bidey further told him that Bobby Deacon wanted him to phone him. They parted company with Bidey telling him that only himself and another fighter were there.

They had seen several of Coltrane’s and Shadow’s fighters in the dance. Douse returned inside. Patrons were getting down to doing their stuff.

Balance new song was now being played. He went over to Nykola and they were dancing to the music when he saw Keswick coming over. He put up his hand in acknowledgement of his greeting.

When the song finished playing, Keswick came over and Douse introduced him to Nykola. Keswick took him aside and told him about the war between Chulky and the Balty fighters.

He also told him that fighters from both sides were at the dance. Douse knew how tricky the situation could become as it wouldn’t take anything to ignite tempers. He had no doubt that there were several heavily armed fighters around.

He had picked up a gun from a man who loaned these commodities to willing borrowers for a fee. He and Keswick parted company with the man telling him that he didn’t see any members of Shorty Paul’s crew in the dance.

Nevertheless, Douse knew that the man’s crew members could be outside waiting to ambush him as he came outside.

Douse and Nykola enjoyed themselves as the dancehall artistes were in full flight. Tony Little did a full set and got a lot of encores. Next on stage was Gurvy and he really had the audience begging for more.

By the time Balance came on stage day was already breaking and Douse and Nykola left soon after that set was finished.

That Sunday morning, Douse decided to call Bobby Deacon for directions to his safe-house. He got the directions and told Nykola that he had gotten a trip to go to Clarendon.

He drove out at around eleven o’clock. Nykola wanted to come with him, but he told her that it was a trip to take some people to May Pen.

Bobby Deacon had told him that the safe house was in Leeds district, in a community called Rennals, several miles south of May Pen. Douse didn’t believe he would have to do so much driving to reach there. The road to the community were very bad and he had to negotiate it very carefully.

Of course he pulled off the road on at least two occasions to ensure that he wasn’t being followed. Bobby Deacon had told him where to come off the main road.

He told him that he had to drive for about twenty minutes on a dirt road. He had gone about two miles on it before he saw that it was ending. He stopped the car and came out of it. As he came out of the car, a voice called to him and he whirled around to see where it came from. He was surprised to see a man in a tree. He was holding a M-16 assault rifle.

The man couldn’t be more than twenty five years of age. He had his gun trained on him.

“Who are you looking for, my friend?”

“My name is Douse. I’m looking for Bobby Deacon’s headquarters.”

The man looked him over carefully.

“So you’re Douse, what’s going on? So you find our base. I’m Linkman,” the man said as he dropped out of the tree.

“Linkman, I didn’t know that you guys were so far up in the country.”

“It’s a wise move Bobby Deacon’s grandfather made when he bought this property. Now it’s come in useful to us. It’s pretty big too. While we’re here we’re growing our own food.”

“So where’s Bobby Deacon?”

“He’s over there,” Linkman said, pointing to an older type house on top of a hill.

He and Douse made their way up to the house. Bobby Deacon was in his customary hammock.

“What happen, Douse? So you find us. You can really follow directions though,” the young Don greeted him with a handshake.

On the way up Douse could see several fruit trees in full bearing. Orange and grapefruit trees abounded. There were several pineapple suckers in full bearing in the yard.

“I didn’t know that the journey would be so long.”

“What are you drinking, Douse? You must be thirsty after all that driving.”

He called a woman’s name and presently Douse saw a girl coming out of the house.

Her name was Carolyn. Bobby Deacon told her what they needed and she disappeared inside.

“They are a lot of them up here. Most of the fighters have found a woman. The people don’t trouble us and we don’t trouble them. They know that we’re fighters and that we’re on a mission. We go way up into the hills to train. They can hardly hear us when we are practicing with our big guns,” Bobby Deacon told him as Carolyn brought their drinks.

“Say hello to Mr. Douse, Carolyn. He’s one of my best friends.”

She said hello rather shyly to Douse and returned inside. She couldn’t be more than nineteen years of age, Douse thought, but already a woman with rounded hips and firm breasts.

Douse took a sip of his fruit drink.

“This property belongs to my grandfather. It’s pretty big, about twenty acres. He died in the United States a couple of years ago. None of my other relatives are interested in it as most of them are abroad. The other property down in St. Catherine belongs to one of my uncles. He’s in England with all of his children, I doubt if any of them will ever return to Jamaica. Three of the fighters are staying there now. They come up here to train with us. It’s about five acres.”

“Things look quiet up here, though, compared to what is taking place in the city.

Last night Keswick told me that Chulky had to fight off several attacks by the Balty forces.”

“I heard that too, but as soon as we get in our shipments, we’re going to help Chulky. I never liked that guy, Balty and the crowd he keeps. I know that they got the right amount of goods from Chulky but they’re just greedy and maybe probing his defenses to see how weak he is.”

“As I explained to you Bobby Deacon, this guy Shorty Paul is after me for what I did to him. I feel vulnerable driving a taxi and not having my gun on me.”

“Remember that I told you about the funding we’re going to get. Most of the Yardies hate Coltrane for what he is doing to Shadow. We have an agreement with one of them. They want us to commute the death sentence that we passed on Shadow but we’ll see how that works out.”

“I thought you would have been at Balance’s birthday bash?” Bobby Deacon laughed and then he became serious.

“We knew that a lot of Coltrane and Shadow’s fighters would be there, plus I understand that Talbert was there. We just didn’t want to go and have to shoot up Balance’s session. There was a little session being held up the road. It went on nice with lots of girls so we just decided to cool out there.”

“Still, it went on nice I’m telling you,” Douse stated.

“Douse, let’s go up into the hills and see what Dixie and the other fighters are doing,” Bobby Deacon said going into the house. Presently he came out with two rifles slung across his shoulder.

He gave Douse one of the guns. It was a Tech-9 submachine gun.

“It’s one like that you want to protect yourself down in the city Douse,” Bobby Deacon said as they set out for the hills and the shooting range.

As they climbed the hill, Bobby Deacon said.

“Once we get rid of Coltrane we’re going to be the ones running things.” “Bobby Deacon, it’s a long time since I’ve held one of these machines.” “The Tech-9 is a wicked gun, my youth,” Bobby Deacon replied.

They reached the top of the hill now from where they could see Dixie and some other men having target practice.

As they came into view, Dixie waved to their lookout and Douse saw a man on another hill with his gun trained on them.

“Why so much security, Bobby Deacon?”

“Although I told you that everybody up here more or less mind their own business you know how people are. With the reward money they’re putting out for these guns you never can tell what some foolish person might get in their head to do.”

They came down into a valley and began to take another hill to where Dixie and the other fighters were.

Douse could now hear the shots as the fighters practiced at their targets. There  were nine fighters up there apart from Dixie. Douse was introduced to them. They were Weller, Broady, Kenton, Jordan, Knox, Druze, Markie, Easton and Colin. They had an assortment of weapons.

When he examined them, he could see that they were a couple of M-16s, Uzis and AK-47s. They also had two Ingram submachine guns using too. Douse realized that they were using blank shots and it was mostly target practice.

As the big guns bucked in his hands Douse realized that this was what he had missed, the power of being behind one of these machines. That was why he was so restive. He thought that Weller was the best shot.

He learned that the man had escaped from prison in the United States. He was wanted on murder charges in more than a dozen states in that country. A friendly syndicate had recommended him and Broady to Bobby Deacon.

Douse was feeling hungry when another fighter, Easton brought two baskets of food for them. They all sat and ate while arguing about the guns and what they were going to do to Shadow and Coltrane.

Douse pointed out some marijuana trees growing nearby to Bobby Deacon. The young Don laughed and explained that this was where they got their supplies from.

After the meal was over Broady produced a bag of dried marijuana leaves. He also produced some rizlass and the men were soon smoking the marijuana made cigarettes.

“Douse, a lot of guys want to join us to become fighters, but we have to be careful because some of them just want a gun to go and rob and kill.”

“You have to be careful whose hands you put a gun in these days, Douse. Most of the youths you see around here don’t want to go to school. It would be foolish of us even to recruit any of them because that would almost certainly bring down the police on us,” Dixie reasoned.

“So how are you guys going to recruit fighters?”

“Although we said that we won’t use anybody from up here, we’ve actually seen two guys from a nearby district who we’re thinking of recruiting. We’re scouting around and if we see anybody else who looks promising, we’re willing to talk to them.”

So far we have seen two other guys from up here and one from our other base.

We’re going to put them through a series of tests before we recruit them.”

Bobby Deacon then explained to Douse about their fight with Coltrane’s fighters.  He told him about Shadow’s treachery. He told him about their escape from Bryan Street and the running gun battle, they had with Coltrane’s fighters. He also told him about the loss of four of his fighters. It was the sandbags piled high at the back of the van which had saved them. It allowed them to hide behind them as they fired at their attackers. They were surprised that only one of Coltrane’s fighters was wounded as they had seen several of them fall after being shot. Bobby Deacon said that all of them, had picked up gunshot wounds, but none fatally, except the giant, Lambie. A friendly doctor had attended to their wounds.

They had to leave the badly wounded Lambie at the Lionel Town Hospital. The next day they heard that he was dead.

Douse was absorbing what Bobby Deacon was saying. He didn’t know that it was so bad.

The fighters got up and stretched lazily. Douse looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly three o’clock.

“Bobby Deacon, it seems that I have to leave you now as I might get some evening work.”

“Well, we’re nearly finished for the day, but I’m glad you came. We’re really getting these guys into shape. Both Shadow and Coltrane won’t know what hits them when we get these guys fully ready.”

Douse stood up and stretched.

“You guys are really doing some good work. I hope you find the right type of guys you want. I think Coltrane’s getting a bit too big. You have to hit him soon before he becomes too big for you to handle.”

Bobby Deacon threw away the last of his marijuana cigarette and stood up.

“Dixie, I’m returning to the house with Douse. Let the guys take another fifteen minute break, then you can put them through their paces again,” he said before motioning to Douse and the two of them set off down the hill.

“Dixie’s a good lieutenant Douse, but he has this woman, Myra. She got into a whole heap of debt to a Yardie general, Cudjoe. She asked Sam’s woman, Del, to deliver some goods from one of her suppliers, but the girl has disappeared with the stuff and by all accounts may have sold it.”

Douse had heard the rumors about Sam’s woman. He knew that she carried a gun, but Myra was a marks woman, too. She had shot and wounded a man and a woman, when they had both invaded her house one night.

He didn’t think Dixie was worried about her safety, but how was she going to repay the money which could run into thousands of dollars? Del on the other hand must have been trained by Sam when he was one of Shadow’s best fighters.

“How is she going to repay the money?”

They were now coming down into the valley and still had a hill to climb to reach Bobby Deacon’s house.

“Well, she can’t get any more couriers out of the island because of the machines at the airport. They wanted her to go to one of those small islands, but she doesn’t want to leave her children and Dixie. He said that she’s in business with a guy by the name of Tony Delfosse.”

“She supplies him with cocaine and marijuana and he’s bringing in guns from Haiti for the local market. She picks up a commission, but Dixie wants to help her out so he’s kind of anxious for us to re-take our bases. He feels she would be safer then.”

Douse had heard about Tony Delfosse. The man had been a director of Anglin Insurance Brokers, a medium sized firm. He had been accused of insider trading and had nearly gone to jail. He had only heard of him because it was that company which handled the insurance for the car.

“Delfosse is a slick guy. I hope he doesn’t let her down,” Douse warned.

“I had to get Cat Dundas and Mack Dennis to vouch for him before she would have anything to do with him.”

“Bobby Deacon, Sam and I are good friends. I wouldn’t like his woman to get hurt.

I’ll have to try and get his number to give him a call and update him on the situation.” They were now descending the hill to the gang’s headquarters.

“That’s why I’m glad you came to see me, Douse. We heard that Shadow was also after her. You know that he made several attempts to snatch her supplies, but never once succeeded. We had to use Calton’s fighters to protect her. You see what I’m dealing with,” Bobby Deacon explained as they arrived in the yard.

Bobby Deacon called his caretaker and told the man to look some produce for Douse to take with him.

He then called into the house and a shorter girl than Carolyn came out. She was dressed in tights. She resembled Carolyn so Douse thought they might be sisters.

“Bring some drinks for us Kamla, and meet Mr. Douse he’s one of my best friends.”

She said hello to Douse and went back inside. Douse didn’t think she was as shy as Carolyn.

“If you thought she was Carolyn’s sister you’ve guessed wrong. They are actually cousins. She’s Linkman’s woman. If you came up here you’ll have no trouble finding a girl,” Bobby Deacon assured him just as Kamla brought their drinks.

Douse laughed at Bobby Deacon’s assurances and took several gulps of his drink. “Bobby Deacon, I have two women and you know that Abigail has a son for me.”

“I wouldn’t want you to forget about your women, Douse. It’s just that the girls up here are so young and fresh.”

Douse burst out laughing.

“Bobby Deacon, you’re not easy, but looking at Carolyn and Kamla I have to agree with you.”

It was Bobby Deacon’s turn to start laughing. Douse drained his glass and stood up.

“Bobby Deacon, it’s getting late. Guess I have to get a move on if I want to get  some work for the evening.”

Bobby Deacon stood up and came to shake Douse’s hands.

“Douse, drive carefully and hail up people like Chulky, Keswick, Nully and anybody else who you know would like to hear from us. Tell them that we’re safe, but we’re coming so all our enemies had better watch out,” Bobby Deacon warned as Douse departed.

Mr. Kenneth, the caretaker had cut sugar cane for him, along with pineapples and breadfruit. He had also picked some coconuts and dug some yams and sweet potatoes.

At the lookout point he exchanged a few words with Linkman before going to where his car was parked. As he came up to the car he again wondered if he had been followed. Although he had stopped the car twice, it was still possible that the Coltrane organization had set somebody to follow him. It could also be the Shadow organization. He was highly suspicious that Bus-up had been put at Cross Roads as a plant by somebody to watch him.

Mr. Kenneth brought the foodstuff for him and they packed them into the car trunk. He gave him three hundred dollars.

Douse thought that if a person had been following him they would only have to know where he had turned off on the main road to locate Bobby Deacon’s safe house.

He got into the car, but didn’t drive off immediately. Linkman wouldn’t have been able to pick up such a person as the dirt road had a lot of twists and turns. They were a few houses on both sides of the road and the many trees would have blocked his view.

He drove off and was on the main road in a few minutes. When he reached Old Harbor a man shouted to him and he stopped the car. It was Ambrose. He used to operate out of Half Way Tree but had gotten a house near Old Harbour and decided to relocate. He and Douse chatted for a few minutes before the latter drove off.

When Douse came into Cross Roads he saw that the time was just a few minutes past six o’clock. There was just a sprinkling of cars. Noah greeted him and told him that work was slow from in the morning.

Douse knew that most persons travelling on Sundays were either coming from visiting friends or relatives in the rural areas or coming or going to church. He did two trips into Vineyard Town then decided to quit and go to visit Nykola. He bought some fried chicken and chips for the two of them to enjoy. Before that he gave Noah some of the sugar canes, grapefruits and a pineapple.

When he reached Nykola’s house he stopped the car beside her gate and got out. Her mother was abroad and that was why he could spend time with her. Most of the guys on the corner had gotten used to his car. Many of them knew him as a dangerous man.

Douse always traveled with a machete in his car and a ratchet in his waist. He had gained the respect of most of the youths in the area when one day a driver, Hopeton, nearly crashed into his car. The man came out of his car with a machete intending to slap him up. Douse had instead slapped him up and made him flee.

He locked up the car, opened the gate and went in, making for the front verandah and called out to her. When he didn’t hear her, he called again as the verandah grill was locked. Lights were on in the house, but none was on the verandah.

When she came on the verandah, he called out to her as she turned on the lights.

“Hi baby, see I’ve brought some things for you,” he told her, showing her the bag of chicken and chips. “I’ve bought some things from the country for you too.” She had on a blue housecoat and slippers.

“Why don’t you take them back to your baby-mother and your baby?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re playing me for the fool, Errol. You think I wouldn’t find out about her?

And as for her calling you here, why did you give her my number?”

“So you don’t want the food and the other things? If you let me come in I can explain everything to you.”

“I don’t want any of the food nor any explanations from you. She was before me so I suppose you belong to her.”

“If you let me come in, as I said I can explain everything. Okay, she has a child for me, but there is nothing between us. It’s just me and you, baby.”

Nykola started to cry.

“I should never have started a relationship with you. I knew that you were a bad guy from the very start and I let you get into my life with your sweet talk. I want you to leave my house now or else I’m going to call the police to put you out.”

“You don’t have to get that emotional, Nykola.”

“Please go Errol, you don’t have to worry about me. I was always on my own and I don’t need you to feel safe.”

Douse could have roughed her up and threatened her, but he was feeling tired. He had to find out from Abbie how she had gotten Nykola’s number to call her.

“You’re going to regret this,” he shouted at her. He turned his back and began walking to the gate.

She didn’t reply, but he heard when she slammed her front door. Damned her, he thought.

He got into his car, but didn’t start it immediately. He wanted to throw away the blasted chicken and maybe go into New Kingston to pick up one of those women. It wasn’t something that he liked doing and he had just about cut out that part of his life but he felt frustrated at Nykola’s behavior. He would go down to Washington Gardens to see what Abbie wanted.

When he reached her house he parked his car in front of her gate. Only a light was on in the living room as far as he could make out.

He didn’t lock up the car, but as he went to the gate her sister, Justine, came on the verandah. Her boyfriend, Duncan came out too.

Justine was just turning nineteen and was a first year student at the university. She was taller and a little bit fairer that Abigail. Douse had dropped her home from school several times. He had to drop her off at school several times too when Abigail called him to drop her at work.

“Errol, Abbie has been trying to get you all day. Oshane took ill, he was vomiting and she and mummy had to rush him to the hospital.”

Duncan greeted Douse and left saying that he had some homework to do.

“I’m going up there to see what’s going on,” Douse stated. He was wondering how Abbie had failed to get him on his cell phone as he hadn’t turned it off.

“They phoned shortly before you came and said that they would soon be home.”

“I was in the country today, maybe that’s why she wasn’t getting me on my cell phone.”

He had hardly finished speaking before they saw a car come up to the gate and stop behind his car. He recognized the car as belonging to Danny. He did trips from Cross Roads to the Bustamante Children’s Hospital.

Abbie’s mother, Pamela came out of the car first with Oshane all wrapped in a towel. Then he saw her coming out of the car. She was a medium sized girl, with some amount of baby fat around her waist.

“Errol, we tried all day to get you,” Pamela informed him. “I went on a country trip, mummy.”

Danny pulled open the car door too, and came out.

“Douse, are these your people? I didn’t know,” he remarked, shaking his hand.

Abbie had taken the baby from her mother, who went inside the house probably to get money to pay Danny, Douse thought.

“Yes, Danny, I was out in Clarendon on a trip.”

“Douse, as it’s you, just settle with me tomorrow,” Danny told him and went to his car and drove off.

Pamela came out of the house.

“Abbie, how come the driver has gone and I told him that I was going for some money to pay him?”

“It’s all right, mummy, he knows Errol. He says he’ll settle with him when they meet again.”

“So do you want the money to give him, Errol?”

“It’s okay mummy, Danny and I are brethren as he said when we meet we’ll settle things.”

“Well, all right then, Errol. Abbie bring the baby inside out of the night air.” “Come, Errol, let’s go inside,” Abbie told him.

“What was wrong with Oshane?”

“He drank some milk. Apparently it went against him. I will have to find the carton to see if it was stale or not. The doctor said that’s why he was vomiting. He gave us medication to give him.”

Douse took Oshane from her and they went inside. Pamela was seated on the verandah. Justine had apparently gone to her room.

“Errol, after you and Abbie finish talking, I would like to talk to you.”

Pamela Walters was a strikingly good looking woman of about forty eight years of age, she was of average height. Widowed two years now, Abbie was the first person to inform him of her liaison with Melvin, a bread-van driver. He would stay with her during the week and go home on weekends to be with his woman and children.

Douse and Abbie went into her room. He put Oshane in his bed as Abbie closed the door behind them.

“Errol, I’m not asking you for anything, except support for Oshane.” “So you think what I’m giving you isn’t enough?”

“I know about your other woman. I’m not going to fight her for you. I would never want to go into that area to fight one of those girls over a man, even if he was my husband.”

Douse looked at her. If only she knew Nykola. He and she had become friends when he had been driving a taxi for Albert.

He was glad that the pregnancy test she had done had come back negative. “Nykola is just one of my regular customers.”

“Errol, I’m still young. I’m not going to kill myself because a man gave me a baby and no longer wants me,” she declared and started to cry.

“You don’t live at your sister’s house as you’ve always claimed, you live with her.

All I want from you is support for the baby.”

What the hell Douse thought, two women crying on him in one night. He felt it was time to go home. He took out his wallet and gave her five thousand dollars.

“You can take that and buy some things for Oshane,” he told her, standing up and putting the money on the table.

“That’s how you want it to work, Errol? You just throw some money at me at times like this and I’m supposed to be satisfied. Well, I’m not, I want a weekly allowance from you.”

“You know I’m not in a regular job. You can’t call the money from taxi operations regular money.”

She took the money off the table and threw it at him.

“If that’s the way you’re going to behave you might as well take back your money.

I’ll have to do with the little