chapter 2b 

(The Traitor)

Moïse Berri 

and the Reconstruction of the Haitian 

Space Agency

by Jude Jarda

2b 
The Traitor

While Chuck Three-Brothers is busy putting the final touches to his bizarre plan of robbing himself, Jones Brooklyn is trying to understand the last arithmetic lesson he recently grasped over the Internet. Jones refuge is forty feet away from Chuck's hideout. It is basically a military tent, but fully equipped with electronic materials, computers, weapons and a large quantity of various chemical products. An AK-47 Kalashnikov is hanging above the entrance, the barrel pointing down like the Sword of Damocles. The trigger of the assault riffle is attached to an ultra-resistant monofilament fishing line with a refractive index very much similar to water. The fiber thread disappears behind a commode and reappears two inches above the floor in front of a hammock. It finally enters a nineteenth century coffer that is nicely adorned by two Colt Peacemaker revolvers with ivory grips. A dozen laptops and smart phones are plugged into a diesel generator. The place is a mess, but Jones many possessions indicate that he is a settled bachelor. The antique furnishing blends well with his gadgets, game consoles, LCD television sets, sound systems and drum machines. Jones Brooklyn's dining room consists of six chairs and a table that probably came from the same restaurant. The tent is decorated with souvenir photos, newspaper articles, car calendars, and a collection of Hollywood stars portraits, sports magazine covers and snapshots of famous and unknown politicians. Jones Brooklyn's love for fashion shows in his modest residence; what he doesn't wear anymore lies on the muddy floor or is sewn to the ceiling to close the holes and keep the place dry when it rains. Colorful tablecloths and plastic sheets protect his weapons, computers and music equipment from dust and keep them out of sight from potential thieves. 

Jim Falafel just left Jones's HQ. He came to give Jones his cut of the weekly loot; a sum of seven hundred dollars. Jones is upset. He clearly remembers Chuck talking about a state of accounts mentioning a profit of seven thousand dollars for the last seven days. That was before collecting the two thousand dollar ransom for releasing the Red Cross driver. According to the math teacher from the Lycée Notre-Dame de France, on the Internet, eating twenty-five per cent of a pie is like eating one piece of the pastry cut in four equal parts. Before Chuck Three-Brothers got in the picture, splitting the booty of the Diabbakas was a very simple task. It was ten bills for you, ten bills for me. The division was visual and palpable. The day Chuck brought the notion of percentage and fraction in the equation, everything became complicated. How come four piles of seven hundred don't add up to seven thousand if it is indeed twenty-five per cent? Jones Brooklyn calculates. The answer is obvious. Chuck Three-Brothers is screwing everyone. He separates the profits at his own advantage since he joined the club. Where Jones Brooklyn is from, that type of behavior deserves a severe sanction. 

The Baudouin-Lacroix twins enter Jones's tent on the tip of their toes. The two bogus Rastafarians walk around with extreme prudence. Touching the almost invisible fishing line is out of the question. That would be a stupid way for a self-designated wise guy to die. Yves, aka, Yves Lacroix, also known as Lefty and sometimes called Loverboy, pulls a chair in a safe corner and stays quiet, looking extremely concerned. Yvon, aka, Yvon Baudouin, also known as Righty and sometimes identified as the Cherokee, approaches Jones with his index finger placed upon his lips and whispers: 

“Mistaken identity, Emcee Jones.” 
“Wooooh! What the hell is wrong with your breath, you fuck'n reptile? Your mouth smells like death.” 
“Shhh!” 

“Why do you have to be so close to communicate with me?” 

“I don't want Chuck Canada to hear what we have to say.” 

“There is at least ten tons of cement between Chuck's rabbit hole and my place. It's not the case with your sick dog's breath. I just have to put some music and pump up the volume a bit, you stupid ass bitch.” 

Jones Brooklyn opens a file from his music sequencer. That gives him an opportunity to show his new internet site and let the twins hear some clips from his upcoming rap album, entirely plagiarized on the works of Mos Def, De La Soul and Q-Tip. 

“Okay, now, tell me what's consuming your monkey brain, Baudouin?” 

“The guy you asked us to keep an eye on,” starts the right handed twin known as Cherokee. 
“Is not the man we've been planning to abduct for the last four weeks,” ends the clearly disappointed left handed twin known as Loverboy. 
“In the beginning, we really thought it was him, Billionaire, you know, the guy in the film, the largest employer in town?” Cherokee continues. “There was no doubt in our mind that we were dealing with the same dude running the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation. I got this close to him during President Martelly's visit last year. And I never forget a face. Now, here is the situation: you promise us riches in return for our loyalty; we gave it all to you. What do we get in return? I say, deceptions.” 

“What the chuffing hell are you talking about, you inbred retard?” 

“Either you know something, but think we're just too dumb to understand, either you don't know but… no, let me rephrase that. Either you know, but you're acting like if…” 

Jones Brooklyn pulls out a pistol from his waist at the speed of light and places the barrel between the nose and the upper lip of Yvon Baudouin-Lacroix. Based on the highly irregular and uncontrollable nervous movements of his left eyelid, Jones patience has attained its limits and Cherokee is unfortunately going to die. 

“You stop fucking with my brains right now, Cherokee. The next thing that comes out of that stinky mouth of yours better make sense or I'll gladly put an extra hole into it.” 
“Chuck Canada played us, Emcee Jones. You snatched the wrong guy. The man you took from the senator's mansion is not the president of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation.” 

“Yeah? So who is he, then, tell me?” 
“We have absolutely no idea, man. One thing is certain; he is either Jewish or Muslim.” 
“Wait a second! fumes a suddenly furious and out of his mind, Jones Brooklyn. You think I'm bluffing because I didn't pull the trigger yet? Do you want me to pour some acid in your ears? Guess how many dorks like you I've killed with that Colt since I started shaving? Tell me a number, take your pick, come on, just test me! I'm the one who went inside the villa of the senator to grab Billionaire, you fool. I knocked him out myself. As I recall, the sun was arising and I wasn't drunk like Chuck and Gargarine. I've been spying on the target for months. I shook hands with Billionaire at the Kompa Lakay Club. Blindfold me and I will locate the man with my nose, because I know the scent of his cologne. A very feminine fragrance, by the way. There are more pictures of him in my computer than there is of naked chicks. Come take a look.” 

“That is really strange,” says Yves Lacroix, as he gets closer to the computer screen chosen by Jones Brooklyn to show the veracity of his claim. 

The twins are astounded by the first close-up picture of the individual. Unless cloning people is already feasible, the hostage that Jones left under their surveillance is definitely the man everybody in town calls Billionaire, Director, sometimes Brainer or The Architect. It is without a doubt the head of the Vilaj Espwa project and the very popular president of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation. It is indeed the show off who takes control of the Kompa Lakay Club on every Saturday night, always drinking Champagne in the middle of the dance floor and surrounding himself with a bunch of wet groupies.

Yves Baudouin-Lacroix details the origin of the misunderstanding. His brother and him were having fun, harassing and terrorizing the important prisoner. For instance, they kept threatening of severing his testicles and sewing them on his forehead using dental floss, if they didn't get a positive response for the ransom they've asked for in time. Billionaire began to cry and to implore the sky in a language containing tons of h's and throaty sounds. He begged the twins to set him free. He swore on his mother's grave that his family was poor, that there was no way anyone he knew could raise such an amount of money for his release. Billionaire added that he was indeed working for the Foundation, but only as a paid actor and a double for the real president. He never took part in any official decision. All he did was playing this puppet role to divert the attention from the real rulers of the organization. Billionaire was so terrified that he ratted on some of those deciders. He mentioned, Philbert Hans-Orville Grosbois, a powerful lawyer based in New York City, Gustave Amaury Quick, an international financier from Boston, and also Deodas Demosthene Legitime, a well known businessman living in Montreal, and the brother of Sixte Osmer Legitime, the philanthropist who left his fortune in the hands of the Foundation. The hostage wrote some digits on a piece of paper; an account number linked to a financial institution, located in the Province of Quebec, that could possibly lead to the people masterminding this great conspiracy. The twins were flabbergasted when Billionaire declared himself a Moroccan born in Marrakech and being named Yosef Cohen-Abitbol. He was in Haiti only because his deeply indebted Palestinian impresario had promised him a large paycheck at the end of this unusual acting gig. Believing that their prisoner was delirious because of an empty stomach, Yvon Baudouin-Lacroix offered him the leftovers of his grillot, rice and plantains plate. The captive jumped on the food, but while chewing, he suddenly became suspicious. He wanted to know what type of meat that delicious thing in his mouth was. Billionaire forced himself to throw up when the word pork was pronounced. Therefore, the Baudouin-Lacroix twins concluded that Billionaire was Jewish by name, Muslim, according to his place of birth, and practicing both religion every time the question of banned food surfaced as a topic. 

Jones Brooklyn had stopped listening to the twins for a good while. He is now convinced that they are using drugs behind his back, despite the interdiction in the Diabbakas ethics charter. On the other hand, he concedes that Billionaire must be an amazing actor, good enough to manipulate the twins to the point of rendering them sensitive to human sufferance. Jones advises Yvon and Yves to forget about everything the hostage told them and concentrate on more serious matters. He orders Yvon Baudouin, the right-handed twin, to head for Carrefour, where Jones set up a meeting between him and a visitor from abroad that he recruited on Facebook. The bloke is supposed to be an ex-member of Chuck's Quebecois gang, recently converted to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Brikoleur, as he is known in Carrefour, will meet him in front of the Sports center of the commune. Yves Lacroix, the left-handed twin, is sent to Jacmel, to gather information from a guy who spent time in jail with Chuck back in Montreal. It is fair to believe that this Paquito Luis Villacampa holds a lot of information on Chuck Canada and his secret stash of money.