Free Scorpion by Ken Douglas Page A

Trinidad was governed by any law, it certainly didn’t apply to the highway, Broxton thought. Everybody was in a hurry to get somewhere. Everybody wanted to pass the car in front and nobody wanted to be passed.
    “ Do they always drive like this?” Maria asked the taxi driver.
    “ Mostly, except me and a few others that have lived long enough to develop common sense. And of course the man that’s been following us since the airport.”
    Broxton turned and looked through the back window. “The green BMW? How can you be sure he’s following us?”
    “ We’re in Trinidad. Look how people drive here. That’s a new sporty car. How come he doesn’t pass?”
    “ If he’s following us, he’s following the wrong people, I’ve got nothing to hide,” Broxton said.
    “ I don’t either,” Maria said.
    “ So should I ignore him or lose him?” the driver asked.
    “ You could lose him? In this?” Broxton said.
    “ Not if we were racing to the Hilton, no, but I can lose him.”
    “ I’d like to see that,” Broxton said.
    “ So you shall,” the driver said, and he settled back and continued on down the highway. “I’m going to pass Port of Spain and go out toward Chaguaramas where all the foreign boats anchor, so take it easy and enjoy the ride.”
    Broxton and Maria sat back and looked out the windows, the desire for conversation killed by the car following. The scenery flashing by was covered in green and dotted with billboards bearing familiar names—KFC, Pizza hut, McDonald’s—and although the billboards were in English, the houses on the side of the road reminded Broxton more of Mexico than America. There were a lot of poor people in Trinidad, and Broxton wondered why he hadn’t thought about it before. When he’d first been given the assignment he’d imagined Trinidad as a sort of south seas tropical isle. Tropical it was, but Trinidad was firmly planted in the twentieth century and it looked like poverty was endemic.
    “ Port of Spain just ahead,” Dependable Ted said, slowing down. “We’ll be stuck in traffic for ten or fifteen minutes till we pass.”
    Broxton turned to look behind and couldn’t see the BMW.
    “ He’s back there, ’bout ten cars,” Ted said. “But not to worry, once we pass the yacht club we be losing him good.”
    “ The city reminds me of Nairobi,” Broxton said.
    “ Why, ’cause we’re all black?”
    “ Maybe, but it’s more than that.”
    “ Maybe ’cause we were both colonized by the British.”
    “ That could be,” Broxton said.
    “ We’re not all black, you know, ’bout ten percent white and the rest split ’tween African and Indian. That’s Indian from India not the American kind.”
    “ I’d never really thought about it,” Broxton said.
    “ But the white people run things,” the driver said.
    “ How’s that?” Broxton asked. “Isn’t this a democracy? Don’t you have elections?”
    “ We do. The government was African, now it’s Indian an’ the prime minister’s a light skin Indian fellow, but it makes no difference. Once they get elected they think they’re white and they start stuffing their pockets.”
    “ That’s a shame,” Maria said.
    “ Way it is,” the driver said.
    “ The same all over,” Broxton said.
    “ True, true,” the driver said.
    Then they were past Port of Spain, the beach still at their left, the sun starting to hang low in the evening sky and the traffic had thinned considerably. Broxton noticed the bars on the windows of the homes that flew by. “It looks like you have a lot of crime.”
    “ Not like you do in most your big American cities. Peoples just over react. Nobody wants somebody breaking into their house.”
    “ A mall,” Maria said, looking out at the buildings to their left, between them and the beach.
    “ We have some malls in Trinidad. Not great big ones like you do. But they’re nice, just the same. And up ahead is the yacht club. We gets a lot of foreign boats in Trinidad.”
    “