Cemetery of Swallows (5 page)

“By the way, while we're on that subject, is there any hitch regarding his repatriation?”

Delmont slowly ran his fingers through his hair. “Let's be clear, Superintendent, we have only one plausible political argument in the context of the extradition agreements between the two countries: the offender is French and his victim is ‘supposed' to be French as well. That has allowed us to undertake negotiations that should move in the right direction. Two or three days from now, if things go well, we'll have the official papers and you can leave with your prisoner.”

After he'd registered in a corner of his brain Delmont's doubt regarding the victim's nationality, which he planned to ruminate on later, Mallock couldn't help asking: “If things go well? Is it possible they won't?”

“We . . . I don't know, but so far as I'm concerned, I'm always in doubt. In a country like this one, you can't be sure until your plane's wheels have left the ground. There will be negotiations right down to the end, and concessions to be made at the last minute: that's how things work. It's a complex process whose details will remain strictly confidential. If the French government follows my advice without either resisting or giving in, we'll move slowly but surely toward a positive outcome for both parties.”

Mallock understood that the ambassador wouldn't say anything more on this subject. And he chose not to pursue the matter or allude to the exceptional powers that the government had given him for his investigation. In any case, Delmont must know about that, and it would be more elegant not to brag about it. Nor did he find it necessary to mention his personal connections to Manu. It is incredible how often, over time, you realize that most of the time it's better to keep your trap shut when you feel safe with someone and feel a desire to spill the beans.

He limited himself to a polite formula: “I want to thank you for having done so much to help Manuel Gemoni. His sister and his wife will be very grateful to you.”

“To tell the truth, I've only done my job, and I'm far from satisfied. You should thank instead a man called Juan Antonio Servantes, my Dominican counterpart. He was very cooperative. We would both have liked to move Manuel to another hospital so that the leg where the second bullet was lodged could be operated on before he is taken back. We still haven't been able to arrange that. By the way, I've made an appointment for you with Professor André Barride. He offered to pick you up tomorrow morning at your hotel, the Blue Paradise, and take you to see Manuel and negotiate his transfer together. He's an expatriate surgeon who knows the country even better than I do. I called him last night, and he says he has managed to set up Manu's transfer to a private clinic where the operation can be performed. I sincerely hope that everything will go well. Manuel didn't seem to be a bad fellow. On the contrary, he's a good guy. Anyway, I'm preaching to the converted. You know and like him, as I understand it?”

Mallock should have suspected it: “Through his sister, Julie Gemoni, who works with me.”

Delmont smiled faintly. “That young man is as likeable as his victim was detestable.”

Even if still very far from suspecting what he was going to discover, what Delmont meant by “detestable” interested Mallock in the highest degree. But he really no longer had time for it. His two guys were waiting for him down below and his bed was beckoning to him from the other side of the island.

“Could I call you from my hotel tomorrow morning to ask you a few questions about Tobias Darbier?”

“Of course, Superintendent, that's what I'm here for.”

“Thanks in advance. I've got to go now, I have to hurry if I want to reach the hotel before nightfall. And then there are two pairs of mustaches in uniform parked in front of your building who must be getting tired of waiting.”

The ambassador smiled as he accompanied him as far as the door. “For male Latinos, the big tuft of hair under the nostrils is part of their virility, but it's far from being the only one. Burping after drinking beer and carrying a revolver between his
cojones
are still indispensable.”

Mallock burst into laughter. He rarely laughed, but when he did, the walls began to shake and his conversation partners looked at him with concern.

There was madness in his laughter.

 

Down below, the two Dominican stallions were obediently waiting for him, sipping beers. Mallock smiled when he thought of Delmont's remark. They were clearly eager to resume their bumper-car game. Even before Mallock had time to close his door, the car took off with wheels spinning.

The superintendent decided to rely on God, and turning his eyes away from the road, he took up the subject he was dying to discuss.

“Who was this Tobias Darbier, in fact?”

The answer emerged from Ramón's mouth in a sibylline manner.

“
El Comandante
Darbier was not really well-liked around here.”

Mallock divined that this was a prudent understatement, a diplomatic euphemism that was begging to be encouraged.

“A real bastard?”

Ramón nodded. “A real piece of shit.”

Mallock waited a few minutes before he continued:

“A complete biography of this guy would help me understand why this young Frenchman came here to kill him. We could close the case and move on to something else. Among policemen, we have to tell each other everything, right?”

Double-cream Cabral glanced at Jiménez in the rearview mirror. The latter stopped smiling long enough to imperceptibly nod his head. Then the captain knew he could start talking, move on to telling secrets, or at least the ones that could be shared between Europeans and islanders.

“He was without any doubt the most hated man on the island. A complete asshole. A foreigner to boot, and white! At least half of the Dominicans would have liked to kill him themselves. He thought our little island should be under his boot, or at least he did in his heyday. That ‘chalk-face' talked about the Dominican Republic as his ‘empire.' He even thought about raising his own army to invade the other side of the island, Haiti. But at the same time, he was trying to remain unnoticed by foreigners and by the puppets who were running the country, so he dropped the idea.”

“What did he look like?” Mallock said, encouraging him and disregarding Double-cream's assumed xenophobia.

“A caricature of a monster. He had a beige complexion and an S-shaped nose, with a negroid mouth, light blond eyes, and curly hair. Long scars on his face. He was about 6' 5” tall. As he got older he shrank. He had more murders on his conscience than anyone else on the island. He was hated as much as he was feared.”

“How did it happen that he hadn't been killed earlier?

Ramón grimaced.
He'd have liked to have done it himself
, Mallock thought.

“He was too well protected, surrounded by a veritable army of paid bodyguards. He paid them well and they were extremely effective. Most of them had belonged to the former dictator's security team. Darbier's
brutos
allowed him to escape more than thirty assassination attempts during the past seven years. So what happened to him is not really surprising. What's surprising is that it was a young gringo from France who killed him. They must not have known he was on the island.”

Mallock remained silent. Pensive. The slightest bit of information could be of the greatest importance. It might help him find a motive for this crazy act and above all it might help him gather extenuating circumstances for the trial. Since there was no doubt about premeditation, they would be crucial.

Amédée was being bounced around in every direction, and his ankle was beginning to hurt from slamming his foot on an imaginary brake pedal. Jiménez Cappuccino was passing on the right, using the crumbling, narrow emergency vehicle lane, weaving in and out and blowing the horn every three seconds, never losing the smile that he seemed to have stuck on his face that same morning, like his mustache, with neoprene glue.

“How did Darbier end up in the Dominican Republic?” Mallock asked again, in the most relaxed tone he could still manage.

“His story is the same as the island's. He arrived in 1946 and spent the first three years working for the dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.”

The way Ramón pronounced this name made it seem that he was spitting three times on the ground.

“Trujillo, the head of the national guard, had overthrown Horacio Vásquez, the first president to win a free election, in 1924. For thirty years, that fascist dominated the island, and believe you me, it was not a nice little banana republic. He ruled by terror, torture, and political assassination. My father was one of the twenty million Haitians massacred by the national guard on Dominican territory. My mother was Canadian, from the Quebec area. That explains my ability to speak your language and the color of my skin. ‘A bit of milk in very black coffee,' my mama used to say.”

The word “mama” was touching coming from such a hulk of a fellow.
El capitán
Ramón Double-cream Cabral had loved his mother, and he probably still mourned her, Mallock thought. He was also pleased to have chosen such an appropriate nickname for him. Beneath his walrus-like appearance, he was in fact a cream of a man.

“May 30, 1961, is a holiday for the whole island,” Ramón continued. “Abandoned by the Americans after he tried to have the Venezuelan president, Betancourt, assassinated, Trujillo himself was assassinated. It happened in Moca. One of my friends has kept as a memento the chromed swan the bastard had had installed on the hood of his car. So far as I'm concerned, he should've thrown it in the sea. That shit Tobias was not only an ally of the dictator, but also a friend of Balaguer, his vice-president. The surviving family and that whole little world divvied up Trujillo's fortune after he was assassinated. At the time, people spoke of a billion dollars, without counting agricultural land and industries. When you get that rich on an island like ours, you also become untouchable.”

Mallock found that way of putting things very significant. It was true, and it was terrifying. The last dictatorships, which could be classed as part of the world heritage of inhumanity by Unesco, namely North Korea and Cuba, were overhangs from an earlier period. On the whole continent of Africa and in many countries, the leaders had blood on their hands and didn't have to answer for it to anyone.

What Ramón went on to say confirmed this. “Darbier had five pretty difficult years during the presidency of Juan Bosch, Balaguer's perennial opponent, and then during Godoy's presidency. As incredible as it seems, Balaguer became president again in 1966. Not only had he manipulated the elections, but he was able to take advantage of the Americans' complicity. They didn't want another Cuba so close to their shores.”

El capitán
Ramón Double-cream Cabral gave a loud beer-belch before continuing: “Though Balaguer's dictatorship was not as violent as Trujillo's, it was still twelve years of undivided power for the dictator's former right arm. And, once again, twelve years of good business deals for
el comandante
Darbier, who was always at his side. Amber, rum, sugar, coffee, cocoa beans, and tobacco, that was their gold.”

“Was he finally assassinated?”

“Balaguer? Absolutely not. Starting in 1978, they both worked behind the scenes, for eight years, in fact. Particularly under the presidencies of Guzmán and Blanco. And then, in 1986, guess what?”

“I think I see . . . ”

“Yes, indeed: the people called the former dictator to power once again. And Balaguer, with his henchman at his side, was president until 1996. And everything started up all over again. Ten more years of exploitation and exportation of amber, rum, sugar, coffee, cocoa beans, and cigars:
para tabacos hechos a mano
.”

“And now?”

Cappuccino joined the conversation by pointing, with his left hand, to the mauve paint that covered many of the trees and fences:

“We play
los colores
. . . That
es el color
of Bosch's party, but he has . . . retired. Peña Gomez and Jacobo, the two . . .
contradictores
, chose
blanco
and
azul
. They're dead now. The people is a . . .
con
, that's what you say, isn't it?”

“The syntax is good, but as for public opinion, it can hold its own,” Mallock told a beaming Jiménez. “What about Balaguer?”

Mallock, more and more curious, was discovering a whole world of corruption and bright colors.

“He's blind and an invalid; he's ninety-three years old,” Ramón said. “And you won't believe it, but he's running for president in the May 16 election.”

“I suppose he has no chance of winning?”

“Don't count on it, he's the king of alliances. I think he's probably going to win again. Even if Hipolito Mejia, his new opponent, seems to be off to a good start.”

“But why?”

In perfectly choreographed synchronism, Mallock saw the two policemen shrug their shoulders:

“You have to think that people are less afraid of an old dictator than change and the settling of political or ethnic accounts,” Ramón said. “And then a dictatorship always has two main actors: the dictator and the people that serves as his accomplice. Don't forget that in Europe Hitler and Mussolini were elected democratically, Superintendent. Stalin and Lenin . . . a little less democratically.”

The laughter in the car was interrupted by a sudden swerve. A few seconds in the ditch, and then back on the road. With a former choirboy's reflex, Amédée surreptitiously crossed himself.

 

 

 

 

Six
P.M.
: the car had left the embassy more than an hour earlier, and they still hadn't covered even a quarter of the distance. Here the road was broad and for the last few miles, miraculously, paved. They were in the northern part of the San Cristóbal region.