Cross Current

“You ever been here before?” I asked Joe.

“No, can’t say that this is my sort of spot.” He seemed to draw into himself, as if he were afraid he might catch something.

I like grit. Always have. And the Swap Shop was one of the grittiest places you could find in South Florida. And that was saying something.

Within a few minutes, the rain had stopped, and the fierce sun was out again, pushing the humidity into the nineties. The odors from fried foods, sweet cotton candy, and sweat mingled with the steam that was rising off the asphalt, making it difficult to breathe. I half expected Joe to pass out.

Hispanic families and East Indian men ma

“What’s the plan?” Joe asked as we headed toward the double glass doors.

“I don’t have one,” I told him. “I’m supposed to talk to a girl who works in this booth. She supposedly knows something about the Miss Agnes, maybe came over on board herself. I’d like you to just keep back, see if anybody shows an interest in us. The Capitaine guy is a dark-ski

“Sounds like a plan to me. Consider me invisible.”

From inside the building, we could hear an a

When I made it to the shop’s door, I felt like I had just paddled my kayak into a side eddy of the river. I paused to catch my breath, and before I became aware of anything else in the shop, a woman was at my side.

“Can I help you?” She was a matronly Haitian woman in her mid-forties.

“No, thanks. I just want to look around.”

“Do you have something special in mind?” Her fingernails were long and painted with some kind of intricate designs. Little jewels glued to the nails glinted in the fluorescent lights.

“No, I just want to look around, okay?”

The store was filled with hundreds of little white dresses. There were maybe ten out of the hundreds that were either a pale pink or blue. The rest were all white.

“How old is your daughter?” the sales lady asked.

“I don’t have any kids.”

She made a sympathetic sound. “Awww, I am so sorry,” she said. “Are you shopping for something for a niece or nephew, perhaps?”

Hey, lady, I wanted to say, bug off. There’s nothing wrong with not having any kids.

Then the phone rang. "Pardon,” she said, and hurried into the back of the store. On her way through the door she hollered, “Margot! Viens ici!”

The young girl who emerged wore a deep, permanent scowl on her face and a large loose gray T-shirt that hid her body almost to her knees. A blue-and-white banda

“Hi, Margot. I’m Seychelle Sullivan.”

She jerked her head toward the racks of dresses on the far side of the front door.

When we got there, I pretended to look through the dresses, sliding each little hanger around the metal bar. “Do you know who I am?”

She nodded.

“Juliette told me you would talk to me,” I said. “You know something about the Miss Agnes?"

“Yes.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Yes.” She didn’t say anything more, and I was begi

The sudde

“Le Capitaine.”

“The captain of the Miss Agnes killed your brother?”

“Oui.” It sounded more like a sharp inhalation than a word. She looked out at the crowd and sca

“Your brother died of head wounds?”

“Oui, they told me Le Capitaine put everybody in the sea, then he cut Jean-Pierre. Push him in the sea, too. He like it when some can’t swim. He laugh.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice shaky. Her dark eyes gazed past me, reflecting the red circus lights like a pair of smoldering coals. I actually felt scared watching the hatred in her face. I didn’t know much about Haiti, but I had heard of the Macoutes—Papa and later Baby Doc’s much- feared security force. No wonder this guy was so good with a machete. “Your brother didn’t want you to work as a restavek any longer?”

She shook her head. “1 come to Florida eight month ago. No school, only work. Jean-Pierre say he take me to school. Now ...” She shrugged.

“Margot, I am trying to help another girl. She’s younger than you are, and she came on the Miss Agnes this week. She was coming to live with her father here in the States, and I need to find him.”

She shook her head. “All the girl come on Miss Agnes are restavek here in Florida.”

I turned from her and held up a dress as though for her approval. My eyes swung across the crowd, and I noticed a familiar face. Then the face was gone. He had melted back into the sea of faces, but I would know that pockmarked skin and that zigzag eyebrow anywhere. What was Gil Lynch doing at the Swap Shop? Following me?

“Margot!” The saleslady emerged from the back of the shop shouting.

“Ma’am,” I called out to her, “is it okay if Margot helps me pick out a dress for my niece? She’s a very sweet girl.”

The shop owner looked astonished that anyone would call this scowling girl sweet, but she was afraid to lose the sale, so she left us alone.

I pulled a dress off a rack and held it up, asking Margot to tell me what she thought. The music from the circus swelled, and the audience oooed. Apparently the elephants had entered the ring. I sca

The girl pointed to the lace around the collar of the little dress, and she said quietly, “You stop Le Capitaine?”

She wanted something from me that I couldn’t promise. I put the dress back, moved a little farther down the rack, and examined a pale blue dress with a deep V neckline. Why the hell would a seven-year-old kid wear a neckline like that?

“He know Madame,” she said.

“You mean the woman who owns this store?” I jerked my head toward the woman with the fingernail jewels and then whipped a dress off the rack and held it up as though for her opinion. “She’s a friend? Of the captain of the Miss Agnes?”