A Darkening Stain (24 page)

‘You're not in the business of giving me money, by any chance?' I asked.

‘Nope.'

‘You don't want to be a client of mine?'

‘You're
my
client.'

‘I am?'

‘That's what I been told.'

‘I'm not buying.'

‘It's already paid.'

‘What?'

‘Your name
is
Bruce Medway? I mean, I don't wanna be rude but you're not sounding like the right guy for the job.'

‘What job?'

‘Whoah!' he said, and put his hands up. He took the towel off his shoulder and wiped himself off. ‘That's nothin' to do with me. I'm just the supplier.'

‘Tell me what you got.'

‘A .380 Browning with a spare clip,' he said, pleased with himself to get the line out like that.

‘You've come from the Italians.'

‘You don't look like the kinda guy with a loada these jobs stacked up.'

‘What do those kind of guys look like?'

He dropped his head and put two fingers up to his eyes.

‘You like the movies?' I asked.

‘I
love
the movies,' he said. ‘Gotta satellite dish cost me twelve thousand bucks, I watch them alla time. You?'

‘Yes. I like them too. Beer?'

‘Coke. I don't drink alcohol, don't like the taste.'

I dispatched the
gardien,
told him to bring food as well, Lebanese pastries.

‘Where are you from?' I asked.

‘In Africa?'

‘You're Lebanese.'

‘Yeah, from Beirut.'

‘And here?'

‘Lagos.'

‘You know the Italians pretty well?' ‘We've done business before.'

‘I imagine they have a lot of demand for your kind of service.'

‘It's the nature of their business, you know. Africans need a lot of control sometimes.'

‘Don't want them running off with their own ideas.'

‘Right.'

The drinks arrived and the pastries. We ate and drank.

‘Do you ever talk to these Italians?' I asked. ‘About work.' He shrugged.

‘Did you ever talk to Carlo and Gio?'

‘You gotta be kidding.'

‘Gio's interesting,' I said. ‘An interesting guy.'

‘Gio never said a fuckin' word.'

‘That's right, he only spoke Italian.'

‘I don't think he spoke much of that either.'

‘I haven't seen those guys in a while.'

‘I heard they got whacked,' he said, not often he got to use that word.

‘Somebody
killed
Gio?' I said, impressed.

He gave me a furtive look and I nodded him on.

‘I heard that's the guy you're gonna deal with.'

‘You found a talkative Italian.'

‘They get bored. They like to talk to someone different.'

‘Did they tell you why I've got to deal with this guy?'

‘Because of Carlo and Gio,' he said, the ground feeling a little swampy underneath him now.

‘No.'

‘Oh, right,' he said, nodding at his lap.

‘It's something to do with the boss ... Mr Franconelli.'

‘I didn't hear that,' he said, fear glimmering now.

‘What
did
you hear?'

‘I mean I didn't hear you say his name.'

‘What did you hear?'

‘This isn't gonna go back to the guy you just mentioned?'

‘That you know things about his business and his associates that you shouldn't?'

‘Hey, look, they tell me. What can I do?'

‘Keep your mouth shut.'

‘OK.'

‘Tell me what you heard about this job,' I said, playing the hard-on, ‘and it won't go out of this room ... any of it.'

‘I heard it was something personal.'

‘Definitely not business?'

‘I don't know. I just heard it was a personal thing. Now I gotta...'

‘Show me the gun,' I said.

He laid a cloth-wrapped weight on the table and pulled a clip out of his pocket. He opened the cloth and ran through the niceties of the Browning .380. He was not a happy man any more. I let him know he was safe with me as long as he didn't blabber. He left a few minutes later, that towel on his shoulder sodden, heavy with fear.

I hefted the gun. Guns and me did not go together. Whenever someone gave me a gun, someone else always took it away.
People could see that guns didn't belong to me. Maybe this time, though, there was no way out. Maybe this time I was going to have to use it. Then rather than Marnier, Bondougou came to mind—Bagado, Bondougou and the words lose-lose.

The cleaned and well-oiled gun shone dully in the late afternoon light. I sipped La Beninoise—as Heike once said—the only woman who'd ever got close to me. Yes, I'd done some lose-lose recently. I'd told my lie, lost Heike and I had no doubt I was going to lose something else by killing Marnier. And if I hadn't told the lie ... the big lose. The biggest lose there is.

That's when I got it. Lose-lose. If Bagado did nothing, Bondougou would slowly crush him to death; he wouldn't be a policeman any more, just a husk of a policeman. If he ‘got rid' of Bondougou, killed him or had him killed, he'd lose that moral integrity so precious to him and perhaps do a life sentence too.

I called Bagado at the Sûreté. He wasn't there. I wrapped the gun in the cloth and stuffed it down my chinos. I drove back to the house, put the gun with Daniel's revolver and his money and tried Bagado again. Still not there, but not gone for the evening either.

At 6.30 p.m., I called Traudi. I had nothing to say to her and Heike wouldn't be talking, but I had to know she was all right.

‘Kann ich mit Heike sprechen?'
I asked.

‘You don't fool me, Bruce Medway. Not even in German on the phone,' said Traudi.

‘I wanted to make sure she was OK.'

‘I wouldn't know.'

‘You haven't seen her?'

‘She's not here and I haven't been in today.'

‘When's she coming back?'

‘To you?'

‘No, to you.'

‘She's not staying with me.'

‘Who's she staying with?'

Silence.

‘Are you still there, Traudi?'

‘I'm still here,' she said, weighing something up. ‘She's staying with Gerhard.'

A little fanfare of triumph came down the line. I slammed the phone down, didn't want to hear any of Traudi's crowing, and collapsed on the sofa writhing as if a kidney stone had come loose.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Entrez,'
I roared, and headed for the kitchen and the fridge. I poured a whisky, downed it and poured another. I went back into the living room. Carole was standing by the door in a black sheath that just about covered the gusset of her panties. She was on some black stilettos so high she didn't dare look down.

‘What do you want?' I asked her in savage French.

‘Same as you,' she said.

‘How would you know?'

‘Whisky. I like whisky,' she said, and with a practised sashay she tok-tok-tokked to the couch, ‘with soda.'

I turned back into the kitchen and laid out a whisky with ice and Perrier. She'd managed to sit down somehow without her dress snapping up around her waist. Her muscly legs were crossed tight. I handed her the drink, noticed the lipstick, red this time, and the heavy eye make-up.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I came to see how you were.'

‘For Jean-Luc?'

‘No.'

‘I heard an interesting thing last night.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘This person said the only wife of Jean-Luc's he knew about died.'

‘Jean-Luc means wife in the broadest sense of the word,' she said. ‘Where's yours?'

‘I'm not married and she's not here.'

‘Still working?'

‘No. She's not coming back.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘That lie I had to tell about what happened in Grand-Popo, I had to tell it in front of her. She wasn't happy.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You don't sound it.'

‘Why don't you sit down?'

‘Just tell me what you want.'

‘I came to see you,' she said, putting her drink down. She stood up and walked over to me, shoulder height to me in her heels.

‘I'm not seeing anybody,' I said. ‘Does Jean-Luc know you're here?'

‘He doesn't control me.'

‘He controls most people.'

‘You know,' she said, her finger in the corner of her tiny mouth, ‘he can't do it any more ... since his accident.'

‘I guessed.'

‘But he still likes me to have fun.'

‘And report back ... with all the details.'

She smiled up at me, glossed her lips with her tongue and then dropped her eyes. She hooked a finger in my trouser belt. I locked my hand on to her wrist. There was a knock at the door. Everybody crowding round to see me all of a sudden.

‘Entrez,'
I shouted.

Carole didn't move.

The door opened. Bagado walked in and took in the tableau. Two uniformed policemen appeared behind him. Carole unhooked her finger. I let go of her wrist.

‘I was just leaving,' she said, and tottered away from me.

The dress had ridden up at the back over the lower part of her buttocks so she had to tug it down as she walked deliberately past the three men at the door, one of the policemen tracking her all the way out and down the stairs.

‘I've been trying to call you,' I said.

‘We've just come from your office,' said Bagado.

‘We must have just missed each other,' I said. ‘Do you want a drink? Your friends probably do. Take a seat.'

‘Not this time.'

‘I see.'

‘I'm taking you in for questioning. I've been
ordered
to bring you in for questioning,' he rephrased.

‘And these two?'

‘They're going to search the premises,' he said, motioning them forward.

‘Up and down?' I said, but he didn't react. ‘What are you looking for? What's the questioning about?'

‘I'm just bringing you in.'

‘And the questioning?'

‘Commandant Bondougou.'

‘And these guys?'

‘They're looking for a weapon. A murder weapon. That's all I know.'

‘You'd better get on with it then,' I said, and socked back the whisky.

The uniformed boys, and they were on the brink of puberty, tossed the place into a heap, making free use of the army-issue boots they were wearing and enjoying themselves as much as any adolescent in an amusement arcade. Possessions for the possessionless African were fascinating and all my things were handled, sniffed, squeezed and bunged on the central heap. Bagado looked into the void, his head still, his mind ticking, his jaw muscles working over his spearmint thoughts.

‘Who did I kill?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' he said, without looking round.

The boys went into the kitchen. Bagado's eyes followed them. Pans cascaded on to the floor. He shook his head. Ice trays and precious amber bottles followed.

‘Happy Hour,' I said. ‘Don't take them downstairs, Bagado.'

‘Is it down there?'

‘Something's down there. Something they could make something of if they wanted to ... but it's nothing. I haven't killed anyone. I don't even know who I'm supposed to have killed.'

‘I know, I know,' he said. ‘My sense of humour's warping with my circumstances.'

‘Bondougou must have enjoyed sending you.'

‘Have you got any insect repellent?'

‘Not on me.'

‘You're going to need some where you're going.'

‘Where's that?'

‘The locals call it
La Boite de Nuit.'

‘The Night Club?'

‘Because it's hot, sweaty and dark and unspeakable things can happen in there. They hope the name takes the spike out of the horror. I'm told it doesn't.'

The boys crunched out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. The mosquito net tore. The mattress shot out into the dining room.

‘How long?'

‘Depends how badly he wants to speak to you. Anything from six hours to six days. You'd better give me your watch if you want to see it again. Put some money down your underpants.'

‘This is getting a little Devil's Island for my taste.'

‘We learnt a lot from the French. How to soften men up. But Africans are very hard. Maybe you won't have to be down there for so long.'

‘A night out of my own bed and I'm all aquiver.'

‘Two hours off the whisky...' said Bagado, leaving it open ended, giving me a sad, sleepy look.

‘That medicine man of yours is working.'

‘I'm trying not to let it show.'

‘Maybe you should get him working on Bondougou.'

‘We haven't got that far yet,' he said. ‘Now put your hands behind your back, I'm going to have to cuff you.'

The pre-pubes came out of the bedroom with some of my clothes stuffed down their tunics.

‘
Rien.
'

‘Allons y,'
said Bagado, snapping the cuffs.

We went down the stairs. The boys looked at Moses's flat. Bagado told them to take me to the car. Carole's Renault 5 was still across the street. They folded me into the back seat. Bagado came in after me. Carole's headlights flared and swung across the back of our heads as she turned the Renault towards Sekou Touré.

We drove to the Sûreté. Bagado tried to lighten my load with some chit-chat. The boys' ears wagged in front but didn't understand.

‘I didn't tell you about the postmortem on those five stowaways we found on the
Kluezbork II.
'

‘No. No, you didn't,' I said, my mind trying to veer off
La Boîte de Nuit.