Public Enemy

7

The idea of Tortola’s having a prison was akin to building a second Louisiana Superdome on the moon. The permanent resident population of the island fell somewhere in the range of twenty thousand people, with another ten thousand or so planted around the other islands in the chain. This sort of population usually rated a town jail at best, but since the esteemed leaders of the local government saw the BVIs as a semi-sovereign nation destined someday for independence, it only made sense that such a place should have its own prison. They ordered one up that could house 110 inmates.

When he came in through the main entrance, Cooper noted-as he had the first three times he’d been here-there was no razor wire on the chain-link fence rimming the property. He asked the RVIPF guard at the front desk how many overnight guests they had staying here this week.

“Fourteen,” the guard said, “includin’ the smuggler come in this mornin’.”

Cooper knew these guys loved to use the word smuggler. The word was an important element in the RVIPF’s basic training regimen-Roy handed to each new trainee a boxed DVD set featuring every episode of the Miami Vice television series, on which such trainees were quizzed incessantly. Accordingly, Cap’n Roy’s troops reveled in anything even close to a drug bust.

Cooper told the guard he was here to see the very smuggler he’d just mentioned. The guard nodded, took his ID, and started in wordlessly on some paperwork behind the counter. Cooper knew three of the remaining thirteen inmates to be a set of Colombians Roy and Riley had caught a year ago toting a catamaran full of cocaine bricks, the idiots moored right in the main Road Town marina with their stash. The drug runners had offered the waitress working the dockside restaurant a baggie of uncut coke as payment for their sixty-eight-dollar tab, not including tip. The waitress, who happened to be Riley’s niece, had made a call from behind the bar, prompting Cap’n Roy and his boys to come on down to the restaurant and haul in the patrons before the Colombians had finished their cappuccinos. By Cooper’s count of the penitentiary population, with the three Colombians, the deposed former chief minister, and Cap’n Roy’s new smuggler catch, this meant there were nine local convicts, up here on the hill doing hard time in the Caribbean sunshine between the three square meals a day and free cigarettes they got as part of the sentence. This being at least twice what any local job got you.

Those hotel room tax dollars hard at work.

The guard buzzed him in, where he was met by another. The second guard took him down a shiny hallway with recessed overhead halogen lighting. Midway down the hallway, the guard peered into a small window, which was built into a door. Satisfied, he waved, and another, unseen guard-Cooper thinking it was probably the guy at the front desk again-flipped a switch and the door unlocked itself. The guard pulled it open and gestured that Cooper was welcome to go in ahead of him.

Cooper took him up on the invitation and came in to face the seated figure of Powell Keeler III, nickname Po, legal resident of Southampton, New York, date of birth June 14, 1962. All this per the bio dictated to him over the phone by Cap’n Roy, Cooper thinking the Hamptons made sense for somebody who captained boats for a living, something the chief minister told him “Po” had insisted was the case.

Po Keeler sat opposite a countertop built into a wall that cut the room in half. A large rectangular hole in the wall was covered only by half with a Plexiglas shield, so that an inmate could easily climb over the shield whenever he saw fit. Holes had been pressed through the section of Plexiglas so that any sound waves that didn’t make it through the opening one foot above could pass freely through the Plexiglas shield at face level. Cooper thinking maybe he’d invite the prison’s architect out to the Conch Bay Beach Club, where they could have him install a furnace and forced-air heat to combat the ninety-degree temperatures.

Keeler himself, Cooper observed, was tan enough to pass for a professional yacht charter captain. He had the general appearance of a New England WASP but with too much sinew. The wisp of hair at his forehead seemed too long, the skin on his neck a little too riddled with age spots-the sort of blemishes that bond traders, stuck inside all week making their money, didn’t get. And Keeler looked sloppy: among other features, Cooper could see that one of his nostrils displayed a short crescent of snot crust. Biff from Connecticut wouldn’t allow something like that to be seen, even while incarcerated.

Cooper pegged Keeler immediately for the upper-crust equivalent of a belonger, the BVI term for noncitizens who, after a period of living in the islands, were granted limited rights of citizenship. Po Keeler hung out with the wealthy, but didn’t quite fit the mold. A belonger. Cooper also thought he might have seen Keeler around somewhere; as many tourists came to visit the West Indies, those who made a living in its marinas were few, and you could always tell the type.

Cooper flashed Keeler one of his fake ID cards, going with an FBI laminate this time. On the cab ride over, he’d stuffed it into the part of his wallet that flipped easily out and back.

“Got some questions for you, Po,” he said. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything you had going out in the yard. They put a pool in out there yet?”

Keeler flipped his hand limply.

“Whatever,” he said.

They were both seated now, on opposite sides of the half-ass Plexiglas shield.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened here,” Cooper said.

Keeler looked at him for a minute.

Then he said, “Who the fuck are you?”

“Po,” Cooper said, “maybe I should climb over this bullshit divider and beat your ass until you’re lying on that million-dollar linoleum floor in a pool of your own blood and a busted-up face. Maybe then I talk to one of the guards, have him bring in whoever it is he tells me’s the randiest, longest-dicked rapist in the joint, then go out and fire up a Cohiba while he pulls an Abu Ghraib on whatever virgin orifices he’s able to find on that lily- white temple of yours. Be honest, I think a guy they’ve got in here now, name of Big Boy Basil, could use the exercise. He is one fat, stinking lummox of a man.”

Keeler looked at him for a while, not really reacting, maybe watching to see whether Cooper was planning on making a move, or maybe whether Cooper was going to break out laughing at the joke, if in fact it turned out to be a joke. After his moment of study, Keeler shrugged and said, “Hell, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police chief. ‘Cap’n’ somebody, man called himself.”

“Cap’n Roy.”

“Whatever. Like I laid out for him, I’m down here doin’ what I do. I transport yachts once in a while. If somebody needs it, you know. I charge a nominal fee, let them handle the insurance, and deliver it home from wherever they left it, or maybe vice versa.”

Cooper noticed Keeler performed a kind of involuntary nod-a short jerk of his head down and to the left-at the conclusion of every sentence. It looked as though his subconscious mind was unable to hide his pride at completing the full sentence each time he pulled off this amazing feat.

“This time around,” he said, “I’m taking that Trinity back to its home in Naples. West coast of Florida. Was. Fuck. Owner of the boat just took his family through the ABCs, on down to Caracas.”

Cooper translated: the ABCs were Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, down at the base of the Antilles chain.

“You start in Caracas?” Cooper said.

“Yeah. Near to it, anyway. La Guaira.”

“That where you picked up the load too?”

Keeler studied him again before answering.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s where I caught it. I don’t mind telling you guys. Told ‘Cap’n’ what’s-his-name too-Rudy, or whatever-in the spirit of cooperation. Because I want to get out of here, ya know? But I’ve been meaning to ask: is anybody going to give me a phone call around here? I need to call my attorney, all right? Nobody has given me my call.”

Cooper shook his head, trying to avoid smiling as he spoke.

“That’s in the good ol’ U.S. of A. where you get your call. They don’t give ’em out ’round here. Pay phones are for shit anyway-you’re trying to call a lawyer in the U.S., you can forget it. Never make it through. But,” he said, “in the spirit of cooperation, I’ll see what I can do.”

Keeler doffed one of his involuntary nods and said, “Whatever. Look, I take some money on the side. Ship a few things people need shipped on my transport runs. People know I do it, so word gets around, you know? So I’ll get a call, maybe a visit-like this time, guy coming down the dock in the marina before I leave. You know? So anyway, if I can, I take a few boxes along for the ride. Make a few extra bucks for my trouble. I’m strict on my rules: no drugs, no firearms. I know my way around with the Coast Guard task force teams, you know, how to steer clear. They don’t give a shit about anything but drugs and guns.”

“Usually,” Cooper said. “Usually you know how to steer clear.”

“Fuck me. I knew it was a mistake the minute I did it. This time, the guy on the dock I told you about was offering thirty grand up front plus twenty more on delivery. Eight crates, he says. Eight crates and two guys who come along with the crates.”

“Fifty grand? Sounds like a little more than the going rate.”

“It is. All the more reason to pass on a bullshit deal I never should have taken. Truth is, I figured the two guys who came along for the ride were part of the cargo. Maybe even the whole thing. I was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guy shows me the letter they had from the State Department, looked legit, which he said would satisfy any customs officer, allow these guys safe passage. Said they’d pass any inspection. I figured at the time that the extra money was for the stowaways, you know? That the shipper, he was making something up about what he was shipping, the part that these guys had to come along with, when the deal was, they had something up their sleeve with these two guys and they needed to bring ’em into the U.S. aboard my ride.”

“Like they were terrorists maybe, then.”

“Well, yeah, but-” Keeler stopped and kind of froze, looking as though this was the first time he’d actually considered the scenario: Po Keeler the stooge, Cooper thought, delivering al-Qaeda operatives into the belly of the beast for a few grand cash money. “No, look,” Keeler said, “that wasn’t what it was. What it was wasn’t much better, though, was it? Not for me. Fuck me-how did I know these assholes had guns in their suitcases? These punks were like those mariachis in that fucking Antonio Banderas movie.”

“Must have missed that one,” Cooper said.

Keeler shrugged.

“Quit bullshitting me, Keeler. Where’d you get the crap in the crates?”

Keeler made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. Cooper supposed he intended it as a grunt.

“All that gold and shit?” he said. “Man, I told you already. And I didn’t know anything about what was in the crates until that buddy of yours showed me the pictures he’d taken.”

“Buddy?”

“Whatever. Look, I don’t ask any questions. Except two. Like an airline ticket agent, you know? Same two questions all the time. Only mine are, ‘Any drugs?’ ‘Any guns?’ Otherwise, I go as low as half up front, rest on delivery, cash only, negotiable rates. Got a friend in Mustique with a dog comes and sniffs out any drugs-guns too. That dog smells anything, I dump the load in the deep blue sea. Otherwise I stay out of it.”

“Who was supposed to make the pickup in Naples?”

“Deal was, somebody will come down to the boat. Whoever it is shows up, he gives me the twenty grand, he gets the crates. Pretty standard deal. No names, no numbers.”

“So anybody who shows up at your destination with the right amount of cash can take possession of the goods?”

Keeler shrugged. “Their rules, their problem. Not mine. Anyway, I don’t want to know any more than that. Know what I mean?”

“Who made the deal with you in Venezuela? The guy who came down the dock.”

Keeler didn’t say anything for a second or two. Instead, he looked Cooper in the eye. Maybe, Cooper thought, Keeler was acknowledging that Cooper had found his way to the one piece of information he actually had to offer. Keeler was obviously a schemer-kind of guy who could always work his way out of a scrape-and Cooper had the feeling Keeler was sizing him up. Calculating how Cooper might be of use in getting him out of this bind, now that Keeler was about to give up the only worthwhile piece of information he had to give.

“The guy in Venezuela is somebody I’ve talked to a couple times,” Keeler said. “He made a few of my deals. Makes ’em for another guy-his boss. Bastard isn’t making any more of my deals, though. Motherfucker. But let me ask you something.”

Cooper waited.

“That card you flashed me. Your wallet. Said you were FBI.”

“Yup,” Cooper said.

“But you aren’t. FBI, I mean.”

“Nope.”

Cooper watched the schemer at work.

“You aren’t part of the local constabulary-that part’s easy. Still,” Keeler said, “he is a buddy of yours. Isn’t he? The police chief, or minister or whatever. Cap’n Rudy.”

“Everybody pretty much knows everybody else ’round here, Po,” Cooper said. “And it’s Roy.”

“Okay-buddy, acquaintance, whatever, I don’t give a fuck. Here’s where I do give a fuck: you have any idea whether that bastard’s planning on turning me over? Extraditing me. Giving me up to the Coast Guard, or whoever.”

Cooper said, “If you’re asking whether I’ve got some inside scoop on the chief minister’s intentions, the answer is no. If he has any intentions at all.”

“It’s better for me if he doesn’t,” Keeler said. “See, here’s how it works. Local country holds me, right? Then down the road, sets me free. Far as the Coast Guard, the rest of the U.S. law enforcement organizations are concerned, I never even hit the radar. Nobody files shit, so they forget about me, and I’m all set.” He nodded. “Your buddy extradites me, though, and I get brought up on charges. Maybe some bullshit terrorist charge, way you mentioned it could seem like. Besides anything else, you know what that means for me? Means nobody’s insurance pays out. Not mine; not the guy owns the boat. Not a red cent. Means I’m out of business.”

Cooper watched him.

“So anyhow,” Keeler said, “I’m thinking I might have a friend or two, might be able to help your buddy out. Maybe even the guy owns the Trinity. Give your buddy a few things he’s looking to get. Maybe slip a few zeroes into his numbered account in, what, the Caymans, maybe?”

“You met him,” Cooper said, “right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“He strike you as the kind of guy be opposed to a proposition like that?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

Keeler looked at him, Cooper thinking the man was probably trying to decide precisely what he had meant by There you go.

“On the other hand,” Cooper said, “the good chief minister tends to listen when I offer advice. And if I don’t hear in the next thirty seconds or so who it was came down that dock in La Guaira, my next stop will be the civic center, where I’ll drop by Roy’s office and recommend he extradite you ASAP.”

Another involuntary nod came quickly from Keeler.

“The guy in Venezuela,” he said. “He said he came ‘on behalf of Ernesto Borrego.’”

Cooper took this in. The name didn’t mean anything to him.

“Actually he didn’t say ‘Borrego,’” Keeler said. “He called him by his nickname-El Oso Blanco, I think it was. Or maybe El Oso Polar-I can never remember which.”

Cooper didn’t need Keeler’s translation of what followed.

“You name the language,” Keeler said, “but anyway, they call him ‘The Polar Bear.’ Good luck reaching the guy who came down to the dock-I’ll give you his pager, but he was a messenger, nothing more. You want to know who arranged this thing, it’s Ernesto Borrego-the Polar Bear, or whatever the fuck. I’ve worked with his people before. He’s into a lot of shit down there.”

Keeler gave Cooper the messenger’s pager number, and Cooper stored the digits in the part of his brain the many years of bourbon hadn’t yet destroyed.

“What about in Naples,” Cooper said. “Anybody there?”

Keeler shook his head.

“No,” he said, “only Borrego. That fuck. And you don’t need to pull any Abu Ghraib shit on me, man. That’s all I know.”

“Catch,” Cooper said, and tossed his boxy little satellite phone over the top of the Plexiglas shield. Keeler caught it, regarded the thing, then looked at him.

“Your phone call,” Cooper said.

Keeler didn’t waste any time. He punched out a number, waited for the assistant to get his lawyer, then ran through a half dozen issues without worrying whether Cooper was listening in. Then he broke the connection and threw the phone back over the shield.

Cooper caught it, stood, and knocked on the hallway door. Within four or five minutes the door chunked open and the guard who had brought him to the room showed up to escort him out.

He turned to Keeler.

“Live slow,” he said.

Just before the door closed behind him, he heard Keeler say, “Whatever,” and then the door was locked down again and Cooper headed back out into the sunshine.