“He thinks he is.”

“Bullshit.”

They fell quiet again, and the noise of the traffic on Old Keene Mill Road was suddenly apparent, a low hum. Finally, Sutton said, “You can’t really ‘beat’ the polygraph—” As Bonilla started to object, Sutton held up his hand, as if he were answering a question in class. “Hear me out,” he told them. “What you can do—if you’re really good—is muddy the results.”

“What about drugs?” Bonilla demanded. “A couple of Valium—”

“Even with drugs, the most you could do is create some ambiguities.

But that’s not what I’m seeing on this test. There aren’t any ambiguities. Every indicator’s crystal clear.”

“So where does that leave us?” Adrienne asked.

“Well, if it looks like the truth, but you know it’s a lie, I suppose it’s possible…”

“What’s possible?” Bonilla insisted.

“That he’s a psychopath—”

“Bingo!” Bonilla exclaimed.

“It’s very rare,” the polygrapher remarked, “but it may be that Mr. Duran—whoever he is—it may be that he’s not wired the way you and I are.”

“How do you mean?” Adrienne asked.

“A psychopath is someone who’s devoid of empathy, someone who lacks all moral dimension. So we’re talking about a person who doesn’t really distinguish between good and bad in an ethical sense. It’s just a question of what feels good—for them. So lying doesn’t generate any stress at all. And these machines… well, that’s what they measure. So…”

“But when you asked him to lie, it did cause stress. You showed us. ‘Is my shirt yellow?’”

Sutton smiled. “Right. Well, the truth is that when I said you couldn’t beat a polygraph machine, what I meant was that you couldn’t fake the truth. But you can fake a lie.”

“How?”

“By generating stress. Some criminals know this and use various techniques to produce polygraph results that are ‘inconclusive.’ Because if every response reads as a lie—even clearly truthful ones such as verifying one’s name… “ He shrugged. “The results are useless.”

“What techniques?”

Sutton shrugged again. “Long division works well. The operator poses a question. The subject does a little math as he responds to the question, the stress caused by the calculation makes the response look like a lie. Or you could bite the inside of your mouth, pinch yourself. Pain shows up as stress, too.”

“So,” Adrienne said, “you’re telling us Duran knew that he had to make the responses that were clearly lies look like lies.”

Sutton pressed his hands together. “Well, Eddie did say the both of you were surprised when this guy agreed to the test. So maybe he’s been around the block a few times.”

“What he’s saying, Scout, is that your boy is a cold son of a bitch—is that about right, Paulie?”

Sutton nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “If you’re right about who he is… it’s a wonder he’s got any arms and legs.”

“What do you mean?” Adrienne asked, looking puzzled.

Bonilla chuckled. “He means—”

Sutton nodded. “The guy’s a snake.”

Leaning back against the seat of the taxi, Duran watched the windows run with steam, and listened to the tires’ sloshing in the rain. He should have felt better. He should be happy. It was obvious from the polygrapher’s body language that he’d passed the test with flying colors. Which ought to have left him feeling… validated, or something. But all he really felt was a vague unease—as if “the other shoe” had yet to drop.

Up front, the windshield wipers were working overtime, but not to much purpose. The rain was falling in microbursts, puffs of fine spray followed by sheets of water that slowed the cab to a crawl.

“This is some bad shit,” the driver remarked.

Duran nodded and, noticing the tiny flag on the dash, replied without thinking, “Lavalas.”

The driver did a double take, and glanced at his passenger in the rearview mirror. “Pale Creole, zanmi?”

Duran looked at him. “What?”

“I said, pale Creole—no?”

Duran shook his head, uncertain what he meant. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

The driver chuckled and shrugged. “Just a few words, then. Lavalas—big rain.”

Duran nodded, uncertain how he’d known the word. From television, maybe, but… zanmi meant ‘friend.’ Somehow, he knew that one, too. Christ, he thought, and looked out the window at a smear of glowing, red taillights.

“Looka that!” the driver exclaimed. “Standing watuh!”

Duran saw that, up ahead, a Lexus was stalled in a pool of water. The water covered most of two lanes, and all the traffic had to squeeze around it.

“You mind a little music, chief?”

Duran shook his head. “No. Music would be fine.”

The driver shoved a cassette into the console. “I wish I had some konpa for you, but my other customers, they don’t like the horns. So, I carry Marley… “ The tape began to play.

“No, wo-man, no cry…”

The cab inched forward and stopped, inched forward and stopped, strangely in tempo with the music. Duran sat back and closed his eyes, thinking, Konpa… But whose konpa? Eklips’?… Sweet Micky… Tabou. Where did he get this? How did he know this music? From television? He didn’t think so. It was more like—déjà vu, or that reincarnation business he’d been thinking about.

And it made him shiver.

Because something was going on in his head, and whatever it was, it was totally beyond his control. It was as if his identity, his sense of self, was peeling away like paint from an old house.

There were moments when he seemed to remember—actually remember—another life. The cabbie’s voice—Pale Creole, zanmi?—and his round, black face… They were Haiti in the flesh. He could smell the place—a montage of jasmine, rum, and sewage. It was a place he’d been to, a place he really knew. He was sure of that. But when? And why? He couldn’t say. All he knew was that his memory of Haiti was three-dimensional and eidetic, unlike so many other memories (unlike, for instance, the memory of his mother). It was real, and not a pastiche of television shows and articles.

Nor was that all. There were other memories he couldn’t explain, or fragments of them.

He seemed, for instance, to know a lot about mycology. This expertise had surfaced in the supermarket, when he’d been picking out shiitakes. Suddenly, he’d realized that the terminology of mushrooms was as familiar to him as the names of presidents—a litany of boluses, gills, and mycelia. Where did that come from?

I remember when we used to sit…

And sailing. He’d owned a sailboat once, he was almost sure of it. Somewhere with a lot of fog. Portland, maybe, or Vancouver. But, no. Those were just names he’d picked out of the air. He didn’t see them, really. But the sailing—he could feel the water sliding under the hull, taste the spray, see the light dancing on the waves, feel the salt grit on his skin.

But it was all so ephemeral. No sooner would the memories begin to surface than they’d disappear. And no matter how hard he tried to hold on to them, no matter how hard he tried to explore them, they dissolved in his mind as completely as cubes of sugar in a cup of tea. And then he was left, not with a memory, but with the memory of a memory.

In the government’s yard in Trenchtown…

The driver was on Connecticut now, driving past the National Zoo. A bloodred pool of neon light lay in the darkness outside the Monkey Bar, blinking on and off. Duran shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking away from the street.

There was one memory that he didn’t want to surface, that he tried desperately not to recall. It was an image that made his stomach turn, a tableau of ochre walls in a suburban abattoir. Gore congealing against the stenciled border where the wall met the ceiling. It was everywhere, the blood. Thick and clotted, it pooled on the floor and stuck to his shoes.