CHAPTER ONE
Douse had changed after nine months in prison on a wounding charge. Since his release two weeks ago, he had decided to cool out a bit and not hang out at any of his usual haunts. He had urgent business with Bobby Deacon, one of his former cellmates. He had promised to let him in on certain deals, but he had lost his number and had no way of contacting him. Bobby Deacon had been serving a two year prison sentence for trying to extort two Chinese businessmen.
As he stood at the corner of Orange and Beckford Streets, a hand dropped on his shoulder. He spun around to find a short, thickset man in front of him. The man looked to be in his early thirties. He had on a cap, was dressed in a t- shirt, jeans and sneakers.
"Douse, what’s going on? It’s a long time I haven’t seen you!”
The two men shook hands vigorously.
"Tad, what are you doing here? I heard that you were in the States," Douse said as they finished shaking hands.
"Yeah, I was over there, but they deported me."
"What are you saying, Tad? I can’t believe it."
"I spent nearly three years over there, a couple more and I would have almost made it.”
Tad cast his eyes to where some loader men were jostling to get passengers into the taxis they were loading.
“It’s a business marriage, I did, but when I went over there, it’s a different thing the woman was dealing with. I have to turn gardener, butler, chauffeur, everything. Well, I did what they wanted, to get my stay. Then I left and went to live with a girl I knew from out here. After a while my money ran out and I had to go and sell marijuana.”
“I was going on good in the business until one day I only saw my wife turn up. She said that I had to help her or else she was going to tell the police about me and what I was doing.”
“So why did they deport you?”
Tad looked over at the taxi stand. He saw two loader men having a tug of war over a female passenger.
“I gave my wife some money, but you know how the hustling with the marijuana is. Lots of people have to get a cut out of it.”
“So why did they deport you?”
Tad looked over at the taxi stand. He saw two loader men having a tug of war over a female passenger.
“I gave my wife some money, but you know how the hustling with the marijuana is. Lots of people have to get a cut out of it.”
“One day the police raided my house and found some marijuana. I suspected that it was my wife and a rival seller who tipped them off.”
Douse looked around, wondering if anything had changed.The place was still crowded with vendors hawking their wares while keeping a wary eye out for the authorities. Shoppers wandered by, some only feasting their eyes on the shop windows, while others carried several parcels as they went from store to store. Extortionists thrived in the chaos that was Downtown, Kingston. Douse recognized several three card men. Grocery shops and wholesales lined both sides of the streets. Music blasted from various jewelry stores.
“You’re not the only one who got into trouble,” Douse declared. “I’m just coming from the General Penitentiary.”
“What are you saying, Douse? What did you go to G.P for?”
“I was driving a taxi for a woman by the name of Hortense. Her boyfriend, Shorty Paul, got jealous because she liked me. He told lies about me, that I was robbing her blind and came after me with a knife and I slashed him up.
“Right now he’s in prison on a wounding charge, but I have to watch out for his friends because I don’t know what they might do.”
“Those guys can’t do you anything, Douse. It’s a long time you’ve been firing guns, those guys, whoever they are, are a set of novices.”
Douse chuckled and moved out of the way of some juice vendors hustling through the crowd.
“Bag juice, juice with ice, guava, orange, pineapple,” they cried out.
"I want to go to England. I hear that they have lots of women over there just ready to get married to you so that you can stay there permanently.”
"I have to reach back New York to deal with that guy, who set the police on me. As for my wife, I heard that she ran away and is now living in Florida.”
Douse looked at his watch and realized that it was several minutes past twelve o’clock.
He slapped Tad on his back.
"Let’s go and eat some food, Tad."
***
At Cross Roads, Bus-up got on a coaster bus headed for Downtown, Kingston. A man on Orange Street had offered to let him in on a business deal and he wanted some more information. As he sat down, he noticed a man staring at him through the bus window. He looked familiar, but he couldn’t place him.
An elderly woman came to sit beside him and he gave her the window seat. A young woman shouted from the back of the bus.
“Driver, aren’t you going to drive off the bus? Don’t you see that it’s full?”
“That’s how they behave, if the bus isn’t packed like a sardine tin, they aren’t satisfied,” a middle aged man remarked.
“All of you can go on talking. Does anyone of you know how much gas oil cost?” the conductor asked.
“Ruddy, lock the door, I’m going to pull out now,” the driver shouted.
As the bus drove off, Bus-up glanced through the window and saw the man still staring at him. Rahtid, it was Sam! He looked over his shoulder as the man pulled out a cell phone and ran to a nearby motorcycle.
He had to get off the bus! He jumped up and pushed through the crowded passage. "Bus stop, driver!"
"What happen to this man? He doesn’t know where he’s going?” the driver asked. Ruddy locked the door tighter.
"It’s the wrong bus I took!"
"Big man, you don’t know Town?" the driver asked. He glared at Bus-up.
“You make little school children better than you.”
Ruddy and a few of the passengers laughed. Bus-up grounded his teeth. “Didn’t you hear what I said, driver? Let me off the bus!”
The driver went faster and looked over his shoulder.
“Your face looks like you were running and bucked up in a wall.’’ Some of the passengers snickered.
The driver drove past two bus stops, ignoring several would be passengers. Bus-up was sorry he wasn’t going as far as Parade so he could deal with both the driver and the conductor. The two men were strangers to him. This must be a new bus on the route, he thought.
Standing on the bus step, he saw his opportunity; a trailer was emerging out of a side road, blocking the bus and traffic coming from behind it. Bus-up pushed Ruddy away, jerked the door open and ran across the road. He spotted a taxi letting off a passenger.
"Drop me up at Barbican."
"It’s two hundred dollars from here."
"Don’t worry yourself driver, I have enough money to pay my fare."
Bus-up had no money for his fare, but he would do what he had to do when he reached his destination.
***
Tad and Douse sat in the upstairs restaurant on Orange Street and waited for their order of stewed peas and locally grown food. Both had ordered the same meal.
"I’m down here looking for a man who robbed some money from the Don last year."
"Plenty money, Tad?"
Tad leaned in close and whispered, “More than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
"What! Anybody rob that amount of money from the Don must dead."
Their food arrived and both men dug into it.
“We held him several times, we bust up his face and yet he doesn’t want to talk."
“So what do you think he could have done with so much money?” Tad swallowed before replying.
“He said that some men held him up and took it away. He can’t tell us who it was and he can’t describe them.”
“Maybe he gambled it off or gave it to some woman.”
“We’ve heard all sorts of rumors as to what he did with the money. The latest was that he bought a car. But we have never seen him driving it.”
Douse decided not to ask him how the Don got hold of such a large amount of cash. It was unlikely that he could have collected it at any one time from the extortion business. It had to be from cocaine or marijuana.
A steady stream of customers passed through the restaurant while they ate.
"The next time we see him if he doesn’t come up with the money, we’re going to do him something bad."
They sat there having their meal and swapping stories. Douse elaborated some more about prison life. Tad told him some more about his time in the United States.
Tad pushed away his plate and finished drinking his lemonade. After they paid their bills and got up, his cell phone rang. He went into the passageway to answer it. He came back to Douse, frowning.
"The man I was telling you about, was coming Downtown and Sam was trailing him but he gave him the slip. We have to find him and deal with him," Tad stated, as they left the restaurant.
“You want to come with me?” Douse nodded.
“Sam is around? I thought he was in Canada.”
“He was over there, but some slip up with his papers and they deported him.”
Douse ran behind the man up a lane past some Chinese shops.
He was surprised when he jumped on a Trail motorcycle. Douse got on the pillion and they roared away.
They rode up Orange Street to where Sam was waiting for them on Slipe Road. He was a tall man, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He looked to be in his early thirties. He was swearing when they reached him. Douse stared at his motorcycle which was a shiny, seemingly brand new Honda.
“Douse, what’s going on? You’re back on the streets again,” Sam greeted him and the two men touched fists.
“It’s about two weeks now since I came out,” Douse told him.
“I can’t find any trace of the guy, Tad."
"Nobody saw where he went?"
“It looks like when the trailer blocked the road he escaped. Those people over there say they didn’t see anything."
"I wonder if they know who they’re dealing with?" Tad asked as he cranked up the motor-cycle.
“Douse, don’t feel any way, if those guys want to try a thing you know where to find me and I’m sure Sam will go too.”
Sam nodded in agreement and Douse touched fists with the two men.
"I feel that the boy is hiding out somewhere around here. I’m going to ride around and see if I find any trace of him," Sam told Tad as they parted.
***
Tad dropped Douse in Parade and shared some information with him about his Don, Shadow. He told him about the conflict between him and Coltrane. There was also conflict between a young Don, Bobby Deacon and Coltrane. War was likely to break out at any time between these opposing forces.
Douse had heard about Coltrane before he went to prison. He didn’t know that the man had gotten so big. Tad explained that it was all Shadow’s fault. They had alerted him to the fact that Coltrane was taking away areas from him. Several of his operatives had defected to Coltrane because he was paying them better wages.
Douse was an eager listener, but he didn’t let Tad know that Bobby Deacon had been his former cellmate.
Before they parted, Douse assured him that he would come and see him.
Douse decided to take a look at some places he hadn’t seen in a long time. He avoided areas where enemies were likely to be hanging out.
Many businesses had relocated Uptown because of the extortionists and those that remained did so at their mercy. He wondered whether businesses Uptown were also at the mercy of those guys. He finished his tour by having a malt beverage at a small restaurant on Harbor Street.
While having his drink, he reflected on what Tad had told him about Shadow. As far as he knew the man used to go around with a shotgun slung across his shoulders and a handgun jammed in his waist. He had been freed of numerous murder charges when witnesses out of fear for their lives failed to show up at his trials.
He had witnessed Shadow at the forefront of several battles with Cassius forces. Both of them had fired barrages of gunfire at each other, but miraculously had never managed to score a hit.
What sparked off the war between the two men was the brutal murder of their leader Phantom. Both men accused the other of being responsible for his death. Shadow felt that as the older man, he should be the new leader. Cassius objected and said that Phantom had named him as his successor. Both of them, then began marshalling their forces for all out war.
After he defeated Cassius forces and took over his bases, Shadow had tried to recruit him. He told him that he wasn’t interested.
He knew that people like Phantom, Shadow and Cassius had seen action during the 1980 political violence in the island. He had heard so many rumors as to which side each man had fought on, that he wasn’t sure anymore.
He knew that Shadow must be at least sixty years of age, which would make him the oldest living Don in Jamaica. Most Jamaican Dons were either cut down early in life by rivals or the police or deported to the United States to serve long prison sentences. A few were in the local prisons serving sentences for their crimes.
What he knew was that even after Phantom, Cassius, Shadow and Coltrane, there would be other bad men trying to carve out their own space in the lucrative hustlings being served up by Downtown, Kingston. There had been a host of such men before. Men such as Carbide, Riggsy and Biggerton were some of the names that came to mind.
***
He took a taxi back to his sister’s house in Franklyn Town. Things were moving too slowly for his liking. He had to make contact with Bobby Deacon very soon. He relaxed in his seat behind the driver. He took another glimpse at the front seat passenger who looked familiar. A young girl was sandwiched between him and another man. She was medium sized and of brown complexion.
They drove on East Queen Street and continued into Windward Road. Douse got more comfortable in his seat. Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught the girl looking at him and smiled to himself.
The front seat passenger said something to the driver that Douse didn’t hear. The man eased sideways and reached into his pocket. The action was fast! Douse wasn't sure if the man had a gun jammed into the driver’s side!
"Hey guy, turn into the next lane!"
A thought flashed through Douse’s mind that the other man could be in league with this man.
He sprang across the girl and grabbed him.
"Turn in where? If you try anything with the driver I’ll cut your friend’s throat."
He pressed his knife to the man’s neck. The girl screamed and then burst into tears. He fished into the man’s pocket and took out his ratchet knife. He drew him across the girl to sit beside him. The girl scrambled out of their way and huddled in a corner of the car.
"Stop over there so, driver!" Douse shouted.
The driver brought the car to a stop. Douse flung the door open, pushed the man out, still holding the knife to his neck. The other man jumped out too, but hesitated when he saw Douse holding his friend.
"What happen, aren’t you going to let him go?" the man demanded, holding his hand close to his body.
Douse could smell the man he was holding, perspiration.
“You’d better give me your knife or else I’m going to take your friend away and kill him.”
Still the man hesitated. Douse pressed his knife to his victim’s throat and blood trickled down his neck.
The man jerked and cried out.
“Are you going to let him kill me, Distant?”
Distant stood still as if he didn’t know what to do.
“Watch me and him if he cuts you again, Leon.”
Douse drew his knife across Leon’s neck and blood dropped on his shirt collar. “You want to do something about it, bad boy?”
Distant edged towards Douse who held Leon tighter.
Distant at last shut the knife and threw it at Douse’s feet. But Douse wasn’t fooled. “Lift up your shirt and empty out your pockets.”
The man did as he was told.
Douse released his hold on his prisoner, and pushed him away from him as a small crowd began to gather.
He picked up Distant’s knife and got back into the car. "I must meet you again,” Distant warned.
“The two of you are idiots,” Douse shouted at them as the car drove off.
“Driver, you’re really brave to have hung around,” Douse told him. “Several taxi men I know would have run away, probably even leaving their car.”
“I couldn’t do that. It’s so they prey on us and the police aren’t doing a thing to stop it.”
The driver refused to take any fare from him.
“Lord, I have to thank you because I don’t know what those two men would have done to me,” the girl declared.
“That’s nothing, my sister. I wasn’t going to hang around and let them do you anything.”
Still Douse was surprised that the men weren’t armed with guns. He had to put it down to them believing that the old taximan and his passengers would be an easy target. He still had an uneasy feeling that he knew both men. Maybe his time away in prison and the fact that he was now bearded may have made them fail to recognize him.
The girl gave him her name, cell phone number and told him where she lived. He guessed that she was in her early twenties. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go into her area as he didn’t want any little boys screwing up their faces at him.
***
"Drop me out right here so driver," Bus-up said, leaning forward.
The driver brought the car to a stop and turned around.
"Your fare, big man."
His mouth dropped open when he saw the knife in Bus-up’s hand. Bus-up pulled the car door open and jumped out.
“You old thief, it’s so you expect to get a free ride in people’s car.”
The driver grabbed his machete, flung the car door open and charged after Bus-up. Bus-up looked around and saw the driver gaining on him. He jumped over a wall, landed in a lane, on both sides of which were zinc fences. He then slipped into a nearby track and followed it until he was sure he had outrun the taxi driver.
***
When Douse reached home, Barry was cooking. He had been married to his sister, Cherry, for about eight years.
"Cherry said that you are to finish up here, so that I can come for her.”
Barry knew that he was a good cook. Whenever they had a cookout he was always in the mix of things.
"Cherry loves studying, I wish I was like her. I just hope that she gets through this time,” Douse stated.
"Those children must be asleep by now. She says that she feels more confident this time. I just feel that she’s going to get through,” Barry opined.
"Two youths tried to hold up the taxi that I was in. I had to grab one of them and put my knife at his throat.”
"That’s why I have my machete in my car all the time. I want one of them to try anything against me.”
"I’m going for Cherry now, so later, Errol, " Barry said and went towards his car.
After the man left, Douse finished the cooking, he didn’t feel like eating and decided to take a nap.
Later on that evening, Cherry tried to wake him up.
“Errol, how come you’re sleeping so much? Why are you so tired and you’re not working? Aren’t you hungry?”
“No, I’m all right, I’ll eat something later,” he told her and dropped off to sleep again.
Some time later that night, there was a series of gunshots. Cherry shook him.
"Errol, wake up, they’ve shot Barry!”
I must be dreaming, he thought, as Cherry hit him in his back and he sat up. "What happen?"
"They’ve shot Barry! You have to take him to the hospital!”
She ran outside as he flung on some clothes. He glanced at his watch before putting it on, midnight!
Rushing outside, he saw some men putting Barry into the car. There was a lot of shouting in the yard as the neighbors converged on the scene. He took the car keys from Cherry.
"He’s not dead?"
"He got shot in his left side!"
She was crying. The three children had woken up and were crying and holding on to her.
Marion, their neighbor, Woody’s wife, agreed to stay with them. “By the time you return, they might be sleeping,” she told them.
He helped Cherry into the car where Greta, one of the neighbors was holding Barry. He helped Miss Marion and Woody shepherd the children back into the house.
Douse got into the car and started it. Clinton, Greta’s husband, got in the front passenger seat.
He sped out to Windward Road and in no time they were in the yard of the Kingston Public Hospital.
Cherry shouted to some orderlies on duty.
"Help me with my husband, gunmen just shoot him!"
Some male workers rushed to the car with a stretcher and wheeled Barry towards the emergency ward.
"Is he dead?" Cherry shouted at one of them.
"The doctor has to look at him first, lady," the orderly replied.
Douse parked the car in the customer’s parking lot, locked it up and came into the waiting area, joining Greta, Cherry and Clinton.
"He’s dead, I’m sure of it. He wasn’t breathing nor moving,” Cherry sobbed.
She stared into space, talking to herself.
"Let’s wait on the doctor, Cherry," Greta tried to comfort her. "Those men are very wicked. It’s about ten years now I know Barry and he’s not a troublemaker," Clinton declared.
“All Barry does is to run his taxi from Downtown to the airport. I’ve never heard of him being in any confrontation with anybody,” Greta put in.
“He went outside to lock up the car and when he was coming back inside they shot him. They didn’t take anything from him. It’s only God knows why they shot him,” Cherry wailed.
Douse met her eyes and then looked away. He had an idea of what she was thinking.
He edged towards the door.
Sirens wailed outside and orderlies rushed inside with victims. ‘Gunshot wounds’ floated to Douse several times. A couple of men with serious knife wounds were also brought in.
He turned around in time to see the grim look on the doctor’s face as he approached Cherry. He heard her cry out.
“Lord, my husband is dead!”
She fell against Greta, crying as if she would never stop.
Greta made her take a seat on one of the benches. When she recovered, she requested that Douse drive them home.
The hospital didn’t release the body until three weeks later as they had to do an autopsy on him.
Douse acted as his sister’s chauffeur taking her around as she made preparations for the funeral. They held a wake in Barry’s village of Guava Ridge in West Rural St. Andrew on Saturday night after which the funeral took place the following day. It was a rainy weekend, and it rained heavily on the day of the funeral.
The rains made the roads very muddy and several mourners had their clothes and shoes muddied up.
After the funeral Douse was in a pensive mood. He suspected that the two men involved in the carjacking might be friends of Shorty Paul. He was sure that they were the ones who had killed Barry. In any case the gunmen’s bullets had been meant for him. Although he had decided to stay out of trouble he might have no options but to take up the gun again.