Haiti Noir

When he was already thinking of sneaking out of the cocktail party, a high-ranking Haitian civil servant introduced him to a woman who said she was Dominican. She was a tall, beautiful brunette named Maria Luz and was barely out of her thirties. Her auburn hair contrasted with her gray-green eyes. There was a sense of mystery about her that made her even more attractive. She was wearing a crimson dress deeply cut in the back. Very quickly, her accent made the inspector suspicious. He detected a fraud. Why did the lady want to pass herself off as a Dominican? He knew how fond Haitian men were of Dominican women. She knew it too, obviously. She assumed that identity so she could sell herself better, Zagribay thought. She was probably the mistress of some politician or rich man. But she introduced herself as an important executive of an NGO whose activities spanned all five continents. Like Doctors Without Borders, it provided primary health care for the most impoverished populations. Her story was plausible. In recent years Haiti had become a paradise for all sorts of NGOs. There were an awful lot of them. But Zagribay wasn’t quite convinced. A professional reflex. It took him some time to get rid of the lady-who was rather clingy. But in exchange for getting her to leave, he had to give up his cell number.

Three days later, at the Toussaint Louverture airport where he had come to pick up a deportee expelled from Miami, he saw her sneaking out of a diplomatic lounge and rushing into the plane heading back to Florida in the company of Fanfan, his childhood buddy. Fanfan, whom he considered a close friend, had never mentioned Maria Luz, although he had been very open with him about his many other extramarital affairs. What kind of relationship could he possibly have with that scheming high-society woman?

Unlike his fellow citizens of some social standing, Fanfan had welcomed him back to Haiti with real joy. It was as if they’d only parted the day before. Fanfan, who was better connected in the capital’s social circles, had been instrumental in speeding up Zagribay’s hiring in the police department. Fanfan knew the chief well.

“We exchanged a few favors,” Fanfan had said by way of explanation. He had never emigrated and didn’t feel particularly proud about it. “Life has turned out differently for me, that’s all,” he’d say. “And unless you’re totally down on your luck or forced to, you don’t leave your country once you’re past forty.”

Fanfan lived in a superb villa in Belvil, a gated community modeled after those in Florida. Belvil was a small island of cleanliness and urbanization, in complete contrast to the huge, chaotic cesspool of Port-au-Prince. A city within the city, built in part, according to rumors, with drug money, as the country had become a hub for exporting narcotics to the United States.

You couldn’t access the house of Zagribay’s childhood friend without being seen by the two cameras-one in front, the other in back-connected to the main entrance. And one of the three guards, armed with a shotgun, showed up at the entrance before you arrived. The house was also surrounded by a wall three and a half yards high and spiked with steel nails, so that in order to get inside without permission, you’d need a grappling hook. A real bunker, that place. Zagribay had never known what his friend did to enjoy such protection. Fanfan had just reluctantly confided to him that he was in some kind of business. Import-export, he had said vaguely, like many people in this country who had a fortune with dubious origins. But that couldn’t be true for Fanfan, who had introduced him to Marxism when they were teenagers. Perhaps all that security was there to protect his wife and two children.

The accidental encounter at the airport led Zagribay to take a closer look at Maria Luz. First, as she’d been relentlessly pursuing him-practically harassing him-he let her get close. Their first meeting took place in Pétionville, at a restaurant called La Cascade. He would have preferred lunch but Maria Luz had insisted they meet for dinner.

“The place is so romantic at night,” she had whispered.

Zagribay had agreed, out of fear of looking like a bore. He showed up thirty minutes early. He liked to take a look at a meeting place ahead of time, a pure professional reflex. Maria Luz arrived on time. In a city where the fear of being kidnapped produced a great deal of paranoia, he was surprised to see her turn up alone, without a chauffeur or bodyguard, at the wheel of her gleaming SUV. The inspector didn’t know how to interpret this. Was she reckless? Was it a calculated risk? If this was the case, to what end? Maybe she was being followed from afar by another car? While hurrying to open the door for her, he looked around, but no one else showed up.