THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTERS - BOOK 1 OF THE TINKERBELLE EXPRESS

CHAPTER ONE - THE PRICE OF INATTENTION

“I never knew any man cured of inattention.”

                                            Johnathon Swift

They were rolling the last skid of rum off the truck. It was the third, and final load of the day from the new De Villiers Small Batch Rum Distillery. After this, they were going home to a Friday night of fettin’ mon. Woooeee! Pautty mon! Ennless jive! They were both jammin’ in day heads as dee fouklift rolled down the truck's ramp to the dock. Lionel and Calvin were a couple of illegal Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country to try and outrun their criminal pasts. Venezuela had a thriving criminal culture, and that culture didn’t tolerate people they considered traitors. Peace of mind dictated that if they didn’t want to be criminals for the rest of their lives, or dead, it was best they turned over new leaves. And here they were, acclimatizing to the good life in Trinidad with steady jobs. They were happy to have a second chance but not too taken with it to miss an opportunity, no matter how brief, to party.

The front wheels of the forklift always caught for a bit as the front of the overloaded tow motor dropped to the diamond-plate ramp apron. The skids of rum the the tow motor was carrying came from the distillery to the distributor they worked for on skids triple stacked, shrink-wrapped and more than a bit wobbly after a bouncy trip on pot-holed Trinidadian roads. The skids were approximately a meter taller than Lionel, who was a well-muscled six feet tall. The forklift rocked. Without Lionel’s steadying hand, that was all it took. The stack, strapped ten levels high with a hundred 1.75 litre bottles of top-quality rum, began to lean forward. If Lionel had been watching, instead of jammin’, and swaying to the beat in his head, he would have saved the load as he’d done nearly every day for the past four years. That was his job. But he didn’t. Instead, while he bopped to the imaginary beat, the load swayed and leaned as the front wheels of the loader hesitated on the raised nubs of the diamond plate. Its immense bulk hovered over him for an instant before it toppled over on top of him in slow motion. As it touched his back, he spun and tried to catch the load. At thirteen hundred pounds, it was far too heavy once in motion. He went down with  it in a crescendo of shattering glass and splashing rum, accompanied by harmonized shrieks from Calvin and Lionel.

The crash as the bottles and rum smashed, skittered and washed across the warehouse floor brought Fredrick, the shift boss, running. He expected to see a pool of blood seeping out from under the bottles. But no, there the bastard was, still moving. Fucking idiot. He could see Calvin still on the forklift, grinning his fool head off. One look from Fred, though, and the grin was gone.

Only the drunk, and the brain-dead, could survive a massive load like that falling on them and remain unscathed, Freddy thought. If this were Lionel’s first accident, he might have seen it as funny. Now, it was far from funny, and he knew those broken bottles were going to cause him grief. That was thousands of dollars TT lost to foolishness. Who was going to pay? "Lionel,” he barked. “Clean that mess up an’ see me in my office.” He stomped back to his cubicle.

“He plenty piiissssed, mon,” said Calvin, looking down at him from inside the tow motor cab. Lionel slowly disengaged from the surviving bottles and broken glass, careful not to touch any edges, or press down on any shards, as he rose gracefully to his rum-enriched, sandalled feet. He was a well-muscled man, tall and very agile. In America, he’d have been a professional athlete of some sort. Here in Trinidad, he was a nobody special.

An hour later, he’d cleaned the mess, been fired and was wondering what he was going to tell his mother as he trudged to the bus stop. He was angry with himself and worried. He had bills to pay, and now, after the cheque in his pocket was spent, he was goin’ to be officially broke. If he had not been paid at lunchtime, he wouldn’t have the cheque at all. He was rushing to the bank to cash it before the distillery put a hold on it or cancelled it. 

He owed most of that cheque to his dealer. He needed another job before his next payment was due. He needed income. The people he owed money to were known for being unsympathetic when their loans were not paid on time. He trembled even though it was hot. He was a bottom-rung dealer himself who used. So far, he’d been able to hide it from Rodney, but he knew coke had a way of making itself known. He’d thought he could use it lightly and be happy. For him, it only took three weeks from the first snort to the state he was in now.

The following Monday, he started job hunting, but as an unskilled, illegal alien with a reputation, he was still jobless three days later, and running out of short-term options. The weekend was a couple of days away with his next payment due and payable. He needed money fast. There was no way anyone was going to loan him money if they found out he was out of a job again. He didn’t want to go back to his former lawless ways. The weekend's fete had not been fun, what, with the jobless situation weighing on him, tonight would be even worse. He’d thought he’d give it another couple of weeks before he resorted to panic. That was the extent of the plan. Reality stepped up the timeline.

Rodney, his dealer, was a former stevedore. Not tall, but heavily muscled and not at all friendly. He went to his money, he didn’t wait for the money to come to him. If the debtor did not pay, he suffered injuries commensurate with the amount owed and the days late. Lionel had managed to borrow enough to cover this week, and he had enough to last til next week, when another payment was due.

Rodney, though, always had his ear to the ground. He was in Lionel’s mother’s front room when Lionel arrived home. “Lost yu job. I know it. Playin’ de fool. I’m playin’ wid a moron hea. How you goin’ pay next week, fella?” Rodney, the loan shark, kept tabs on how his money was being earned and paid. It was only good business.

“No problem, mon, I be back wid de cash.” Rodney, not known for patience, grabbed Lionel and backed him violently into a corner of the room, and smacked him. Lionel’s mother screamed. 

“Where you get dis money den?”

“Sorry, bro, it’s offline. You don’t want to know. It’s an express while I looks fo’ nudda action. Don’t yu grief me.”

“No chance o’dat. Lopez is goin’ wid you to make sure de cash is paid or yo is an organ donor. Yo, mudda too.” Lionel’s mother, Annabelle, eyes bugging out of her head, heaved her bulk off the sagging sofa and started whacking Rodney with her newspaper, screaming at him. Rodney was having none of it. He shoved her away, and she collapsed on the couch. It bottomed out on the floor. By the time she could catch her breath, Rodney was gone, so she started in on Lionel. That ended when she told him to get out, stay out, and don’t come back until he was clean, and flush. She was done with his antics.  

The following day he hitched a ride down to Mayaro to check out the action and to hook up with one of his old gang members. Before that though, he made a detour to the beach to check out the possibilities. At the beach, he spotted a cute little red-haired girl. He stopped to watch. He was soon fascinated. She not only had red hair, she looked like an exotic Oriental toy. 

He watched, but he wasn’t conspicuous about it. He blended in. Black folks are common everywhere in Trinidad and with their flamboyant dress, they're a colourful part of the landscape. He sat on a low block wall near the tree line and watched as the little girl played in the sand by herself. But he wasn’t just watching the little girl. One glance was all he needed to determine the girl was premium merchandise. 

Her parents caught and held his attention. They were Caucasian. He wondered how they came to have an Oriental daughter with red hair when they were both brunettes and white with an overlay of matching sunburns. They didn’t seem at all concerned about their daughter. They were complacent, inattentive and probably here because they had stressful jobs somewhere and they were worn out.  He studied the family dynamics. Both parents spent a lot of time with their eyes closed. The kid could be doing anything. She wandered by a few times without paying any attention to him. Her parents weren’t watching for long periods. He’d moved kids before. It was a little dangerous, but there was good gross in it if you had a buyer rather than trying to hold the kid for ransom. He knew people who would pay well for a little jewel like this one. 'That be where de amateurs got caught,' he mused, 'collectin’ de money from de parents got you caught yo sef.' 

The setup was typical. Lounge chairs, beach umbrellas, a table with drinks, an ice bucket, books that weren’t being read and a plastic bottle each of belated suntan lotion. The towels had the scarlet ibis motif and he could see earbuds from Sony Walkman’s plugged into Mum’s ears and Dad’s. He’d be back tomorrow with help if his last faint hope for a job didn’t pan out. He looked at the time. Tree in the aft. Same time, same place tomorrow he thought. The job was already sliding sideways in his head as a new adventure fired up his imagination.

That evening, back in Port of Spain, time was up for Lionel, the job had vaporized while he was liming down in Mayaro. He didn’t care, his mind was zeroed in on the little red-haired girl in Mayaro. If she was still there tomorrow, she was his.

By now, it had to happen. If he didn’t make some serious cash quickly, he’d be taking a swim with a concrete block tied to his ankle. He borrowed a car and met with his partner to plan the hit.

The car was borrowed from another ex-Venezuelan friend in Port of Spain who did not know Lionel or Jocko’s history of child trafficking. The friend expected his car back the next morning. Jocko Pennilo, otherwise known as Penniless, was Lionel’s former partner in crime. He was as broke as Lionel and happy to have his old partner back in the business, just in time as far as he was concerned. He was just as desperate as Lionel was for the same reason. Penniless was himself recently homeless. Since he had no income and no savings, he’d set up a temporary homestead in the Nariva swamp. He knew it couldn’t last long before someone got suspicious, but being as penniless as his name stated, he had no choice. He was more than happy to assist with a quick kidnapping. Especially if all he had to do was return the car to Lionel’s friend after the deed was done. His involvement was invisible and deniable. There was no chance of getting caught.

Thursday at approximately 3 pm was set for the grab. That was New Year’s Day. Everyone would be grogged out from partying the night before. They had the borrowed grey Toyota and packed it with essentials. When you’re planning a beachfront kidnapping, your essentials are different than your normal trip to the beach. Waterproof gorilla tape, cable ties, a man-sized Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey bag (a rare import from Canada), a blanket, plus rum, six coconuts, a cutlass, assorted knives, a gun, bullets and a flat of water along with toiletries. Where they were going, there would be no amenities or toilet paper. Both Lionel and Jocko were so done with army ants sporting huge pincer-like jaws lurking on leaves. The food box was well stocked with ice packs, beer and another containing the other essential - goat rotis, along with some fresh shark and bake to eat on the way. 

Jocko had stolen a set of licence plates last night so their new car couldn’t be identified if they were spotted. They parked on the Mayaro Beach road in the deep shadow of some large trees overhanging the dirt track that ran parallel to the main road. It ran north and south up the coast. The Nariva Swamp just north of Mayaro was the perfect hiding spot after the grab. As an internationally known wetland full of endangered species and lots of poisonous snakes, it was also home to any number of hardened criminals who lived there permanently. They were even more dangerous than the snakes. No one trespassed in the swamp for long, but there was no choice for now. That was the one risk in this caper: their planned hiding spot. Lionel was dressed for the beach, wearing sunglasses, a floppy hat and dark clothes to convey the cool persona that was more front than substance in his case. His black features were hidden in deep shadow by the wide brim of his straw hat. He stalked through a vacant lot still heavily populated with tall palm trees and dense shrubbery to the beach. The tree cover was really what was left of the lower reaches of the Nariva swamp. A creek was visible in some places beneath the dense foliage. It had never been cut back and it added to the local ambiance. It was dense and very tricky to walk through without getting hurt if you weren’t used to it. He was used to it. His size 15 feet were protected by leathery soles that only come from rarely wearing shoes or sandals. Poverty doesn’t buy you shoes. He’d been dirt poor all of his life. He intended to end that right now with this little gem of a girl. He expected she’d bring double or triple the best haul he’d ever made.

He scoped the beach from the tree line. There they were, the two lounge lizards parked in their east-facing recliners, table loaded for a long session of baking in the sun. Their umbrellas were resplendent in pastel colours planted behind them, shade advancing as the afternoon waned. The mandatory iced drinks and snacks were presumably presided over by the soothing sounds of a steel band on their Walkmans. The parents looked settled in for the long haul. Lionel took a stroll along the tree line to assess the scene. There weren’t that many people yet, but more were coming. It was going to get busy soon. That was good. He absently licked his lips in anticipation.