Page 46 of Return of the Spider

Sampson pulled our squadcar into a parking stall a block off the shore. Despite it being October, the resort town was surprisingly busy.

I commented on it as Sampson climbed out.

“It’s the warmth,” he said. “We haven’t had a really cool day yet. Might as well be August.”

That was true. Temperatures along the mid-Atlantic had been in the seventies or higher since August.

I got out, regretting the jacket almost immediately, feeling sweat beading on my brow and the nape of my neck. “I hope Donovan’s right. I’m going to have to dry-clean this coat, I’m sweating so much.”

“Good chance she is right,” John said. “Jibes with what Costa told us.”

“It does. Worst case, we have spicy crab for lunch.”

“Hope my gut can handle it.”

We walked past a British pub, crossed a street, and made our way to a restaurant in the middle of the next block.

This wasTANTE COCO’S HAITIAN CRAB SHACK,according to the sign, and it featured eight picnic tables inside, five of which were occupied, two by older tourists, two by younger couples, and one by three surfer dudes in their late teens. The reputed gang leader of LMC 51 was nowhere in sight, although both Costa and Donovan had told us that Patrice Prince was often here. Prince loved the crab and spice in Tante Coco’s secret boil recipe.

The spice in the air tickled my nostrils and made my mouth water.

The other patrons hardly looked at us. They were eagerly breaking shells with wooden mallets and picking out the crab until they had suitable piles to gorge on.

The waitress, a big gal in her thirties, came out with several large sheets of brown wrapping paper that she taped to the top of one of the empty picnic tables. Then she nodded to us, set out two mallets, shell crackers, metal picks, plastic bibs, and a pile of napkins and motioned to us to sit.

“Your drink order?” she said in a light Haitian accent. “We have cold Pepsi products, homemade lemonade, Coors beer, and boxed white wine that isn’t half bad.”

“Lemonade,” I said.

“Same,” Sampson said.

The waitress turned to leave. I said, “Can we see a menu?”

She shook her head. “Boil’s the only thing we serve.”

John said, “Boil for two, then.”

“Way ahead of you,mon ami,” she said and went through a set of double doors.

About five minutes later, she returned with the drinks. Shealso brought warm corn bread in a basket and a heaping bowl of fresh coleslaw, both of which were some of the best I’d ever had. The boil that followed was equally impressive.

I’d been eating boiled crab since I was a kid, and I wasn’t bad at making them myself. But the spices used at Tante Coco’s gave the shellfish a smoky beginning and a fiery ending with just the right amount of balance between sweet and heat.

We were halfway through the mound of crabs set before us when a lean, powerfully built Black guy in his mid-twenties wearing Versace sunglasses, a black T-shirt, and dark slacks and sneakers came in. He scanned the place.

I did my best businessman-having-lunch-with-a-client act, laughing with Sampson as I picked at a crab leg. Versace left.

“Scout, probably,” I said quietly.

“My bet too,” Sampson said.

Three minutes later, Versace returned, this time followed by another big dude wearing a similar outfit. The waitress came out, taped wrapping paper onto the empty table next to us, and nodded at them.

The second guy went to the door and waved. A third man, the tallest of the three, entered. He wore pressed black slacks, black loafers, a black long-sleeved shirt, and Vuarnet cat-eye sunglasses with a mirror finish.

It was like Maria had said. When Patrice Prince came through the door and made his way to the table next to us, I felt a sense of menace, though I could not pinpoint exactly what about him was causing it.

Prince ignored us, sat between his two men, and began speaking in Haitian Creole. I put down my crab mallet, took off my bib, reached in my jacket, and retrieved my ID and badge.