Haiti Noir

He’d had a hard time waking up that day and had almost run to the station where the trucks left for Port-au-Prince. They were all full already, and time was passing. He looked desperately at his watch several times. Then a friend he hadn’t seen for a few years walked over and jumped for joy when he spotted Orélus. Pierre had left Saint-Marc for the United States when he was a teenager. His school friends heard from him once or twice, then silence. Orélus was sociable and liked companionship. They embraced each other with mutual warmth. They exchanged the usual questions friends ask after a long absence, but Orélus couldn’t help looking intently at the trucks to see if luck was smiling on him at last. Pierre asked him what was making him so impatient. When Orélus explained that he needed to get to Port-au-Prince for his work, Pierre told him not to worry. A friend was going to drive to Port-au-Prince that morning and he was alone. Pierre called that friend on his cell and the man agreed to take Orélus with him. Orélus thanked Pierre warmly for putting an end to his anxiety.

Ten minutes later, Orélus was comfortably seated in a brand-new SUV with four-wheel drive. He immediately stopped worrying. He exchanged a few words with the driver, whose name was Dudley and spoke Creole with a strong English accent. Although the guy was driving extremely fast, Orélus was so relieved that with the help of the air conditioner, he dozed off after the first few minutes. He remembered being suddenly awakened by the squealing of the brakes on the asphalt and realizing that the driver had just dodged a truck speeding in the opposite direction. Orélus promised himself not to fall asleep anymore. He tensed up a bit. All the more so as he noticed Dudley glancing constantly at his rearview mirror, trying to keep the car behind them from passing. Orélus knew those drivers-all too many of them-who staked their honor on the wrong things. And risked their lives for totally childish reasons. He said to himself he’d rather get there fifteen minutes late, but alive. Orélus told Dudley in a tone neutral enough not to offend him that he wasn’t in that much of a rush and it would be a good idea to let the impatient madman on their heels pass them. Taking advantage of that moment, when Dudley wasn’t paying attention, the vehicle went ahead and passed them and, to Orélus’s great surprise, swung a quick right and blocked their car.

Three men got out, each with a gun in his hand. The first came over to the driver’s door and aimed his 9mm at Dudley’s head. He made him get out and sit in the backseat. He then sat down next to him, against the left door. Orélus thought it was a classic attack by an armed gang, as happens sometimes on these roads-until the moment when Dudley said, “Elien, what’s happening?” And Elien answered, “You’ll find out what’s happening soon enough.” So Dudley knew them. This left Orélus completely at a loss.

The second armed man had already walked around the other side of the vehicle. He asked Orélus to move to the back of the car, pushed him in right next to Dudley, and sat down against the right-hand door. The third man got behind the wheel and took off fast. Orélus had the feeling he had landed at the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong person. He also knew that people sometimes lost their lives because of such unfortunate coincidences. They weren’t far from Titanyen canyon: all the ghastly stories about the place came back to him. Titanyen, an isolated garbage dump where organized gangs and politicians got rid of their unwanted corpses. Orélus thought of his daughter who would never know her father, and his wife, left helpless.

It was eight a.m. Two trucks, one coming from Port-au-Prince, the other going to the city, sped by them without noticing anything. He was given the order to lower his head and not raise it again unless one of them asked him to. Orélus lowered his head. From the questions they asked Dudley in a threatening, cold, sarcastic tone, like killers in a movie, Orélus became acutely aware that not only was he caught in the middle of some dirty business-some very dirty business-but he knew nothing about it.

“What did you do with the packages that were unloaded at Fort-Liberté? Where’s the money from the sale of the merchandise? This is the last time you’re gonna enjoy yourself with other people’s money. The party’s over-got it, Dudley? Over. Because, you know, the boss, he’s not happy. Like, really not happy. You thought you could be a wise guy, well, forget it. Take a deep breath, because you don’t have long to live.”

Then Orélus remembered a piece of news that had made the headlines two months back: a plane crashed in the middle of the countryside in the Fort-Liberté area and two SUVs arrived on the scene a few hours later to take away the cargo. So he was caught in an affair involving the drug cartels.