Bingo's Run (13 page)

“And, please, sir, of what address?”

I paused. If I said the Livingstone Hotel he would either laugh or charge me tourist rate (ten times the Kenyan rate). If I said, “St. Michael's Orphanage,” Father Matthew or Wolf might find out that the Master's art was worth millions—and take it. If I told Cigarette Smile that I lived in Mathare 3A-Kibera, word might get to Dog and then to Wolf—and my art dealer business would become Wolf's. “No address,” I said—the commonest address in Nairobi.

“Perfectly good,” the man said, his smile unchanged. He wrote across the top of the yellow pad:

I said, “Hunsa, he like to be called ‘tha Masta.' ” I knew Hunsa liked that; titles make people happy and cost nothing.

Cigarette Smile looked up at me. He still smiled, ripped off the top sheet of paper, tore it in half, and laid it next to the pad. He wrote across the top of the next sheet of yellow legal pad paper:

I smiled at him. “Good, ya.”

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Mwolo, for consulting Kepha Legal Associates. Have an excellent night.”

He tore the yellow sheet off the pad and slid it to his left, to a large woman who sat at the desk next to his. In front of her table was an old couple, so thin they looked like two twigs. They shuffled away as if caught in a gentle wind. I took their place. The air smelled of old, and I wondered if the Kepha wrote contracts to make people young; people said the Kepha could do anything.

The woman behind the desk was twice as big as Cigarette Smile in every direction. It looked as if she floated, because so much of the plastic chair sank into her that it was invisible. She wore a bright blue wrap dress that made me think of the hotel swimming pool. She had banana-size purple-painted lips, and her eyelids were bright silver-green. Her head scarf was yellow, brown, and white, and shot through the middle of it, like a flame, was bright orange hair. Her head was so bright with color that I
looked down. I saw that her ankles hung over her sandals as if they had spilled off her. Swimming Pool glanced at my piece of yellow paper and her giant pale-purple lips smiled. “Welcome, Mr. Mwolo. That will be four thousand shilling.”

This soaked up nearly all the money I had taken from under the bus. “Ya sure?” I asked. It was a lot of money for a piece of paper, even legal.

The purple grin grew. “Mr. Mwolo, I completely respect your question and it is excellent.” The woman blinked silver-green, paused, and went on. “Please understand, Mr. Mwolo, that the Kepha Legal Associates provide the finest legal service. We are honored, Mr. Mwolo, to have your business, and the fee is four thousand shilling. However, should you have goods you wish to deposit instead, we are delighted to receive those as payment.” Her closed-lip smile signaled that the answer was over. It was the same as with white—the price was the price.

I pulled four thousand shillings from my pocket and handed her the notes. With fingers each as wide as a chicken leg and electric-yellow fingernails, she counted the money. She said, “Thank you kindly, Mr. Mwolo. Please have a very excellent evening, and gratitude for choosing Kepha Legal Associates.” She turned and dropped the money on the floor behind her, where the notes separated and scattered like leaves. A boy in a white smock floated in, collected my money, and left. Swimming Pool lifted my four-thousand-shilling piece of yellow paper in the air, her arm a giant branch, and shook it.

There was a scraping sound. I looked round at the teacher's table. The Indian girl had gotten up from her seat at the teacher's desk and was walking across the room. She took my long yellow sheet and went back to her chair. Then she called out in a clipped voice, “Mr. Bingo Mwolo.” And so I went and sat opposite her.

The girl looked younger than Cousin Sheila. She wore a plain
pale-green cardigan with a pink rabbit sewn on the pocket. Under the cardigan she had on a white blouse. Her breasts were not large enough to make the rabbit move or even sniff. No jewelry, no makeup, no expression. Her hair was tied back with a rubber band. She wore jeans and clean white tennis shoes. Her unpainted fingernails were neatly cut. The girl never looked at me, but her shining black-dot eyes never stopped their flickering around the classroom. She said, “Mr. Mwolo, you want a contract for an artist?” She stared at the desk nearest the exit.

“Ya,” I said.

She said, “The artist is named Thomas Hunsa?”

“Ya,” I said. “He like to be called tha Masta.”

“Is he Kenyan?”

“Ya.”

“From Nairobi?”

“Ya.”

Each word was as neat-clipped as her nails. She said, “You want a one-way exclusivity, point-one-five commission, five-year binding, sole-agency?”

I did not understand a word of this. “Ya,” I said.

She rolled my yellow sheet into her typewriter and started to punch the typewriter keys. After every burst of letters she yanked on a chrome handle, a bell rang, and she started a new line. She typed the way she spoke, in short, snatched phrases. She did not seem to read what she typed—her eyes continued to flicker around the room.

An argument broke out near the exit. The man behind the desk shouted at a woman with more hair on her face than I ever had, “You are a fool, madam. The contract I wrote is perfectly excellent.”

The little Indian sprang up as if somebody had stepped on her ponytail. She flew across the classroom like a cheetah dressed for
school. The Indian screamed at the man, “Show me the client's contract!”

Trembling, the man handed the Indian a sheet of shaking yellow. The Indian snatched it and, without a glance, ripped it up. She threw the pieces at the man, and as the yellow leaves fluttered over him she screamed, “Redraft it.”

The Indian turned to Swimming Pool, whose lips were a giant purple O, and said, “Refund the client her fee.”

“Yes, Kepha Kepha,” the purple-lipped Swimming Pool whispered, her silver-green-topped eyes cast down.

Kepha Kepha walked back to her desk, sat back down opposite me, and in a few minutes finished her work on the typewriter. She pulled the yellow sheet out of the typewriter, took a pen, and signed it. She handed the pen to me and pointed to a pale blue line under which was typed “Bingo Mwolo.” She said, “Sign there.” I obeyed.

The Kepha said, “You get Hunsa to sign here”—she pointed to an empty line next to mine. Under it was written, “Thomas Hunsa—Master Artist.” She added, “If he cannot write, have him place his mark.” She nodded at me to go. I got up, walked past the hair-faced woman and the scribe, who trembled as he wrote, and left through the exit.

The matatu headed out to Hastings. It was past midnight and the bus was quiet. I read the Kepha contract. The first paragraph was straight talk:

What was typed next filled most of the page. It was impossible to understand it, because the words were pure legal.

At the bottom of the yellow page was the space for the three signings. My signing and the Kepha's were done. My handwriting was untidy, but Kepha Kepha had signed her name in neat letters. Typed under her name were the words
Witnessed by Kepha Kepha, LLB. Attorney of Law, Nairobi, Kenya
.

Now I just needed Hunsa to sign.

I got off the matatu at Hastings. It must have been 3:00
A.M
. It was quiet as I walked down Salome Road. Most of the electrics were off—the power had been cut or people were asleep—and the streets were lit by the moon. My walk had already changed; I walked dealer style. There were no children outside Hunsa's house, although cans of half-used paint lay scattered about.

“Jambo, Thomas Hunsa Sa!” I called from the doorway of his house. Hunsa did not answer. I called again. No answer. I panicked that the white in Hunsa's brain had killed him, but then I thought that perhaps he was just asleep. I went in and slid between
the canvases, cardboard, and pieces of wood, but still no Hunsa. “Tak,” I said to the empty house. Where was he? I had to get the contract signed before Mrs. Steele could find Hunsa and become his dealer.

I ran to the blockhouse next door. The steel gate was locked, so I rattled the gate and shouted, “Help, help! Emergency.” I shouted again and rattled the gate harder. After more screams, a woman's voice mumbled through the door, “What you want?”

“Jambo, madam,” I shouted. “I'z sorry to trouble you. But, madam, ya know where Thomas Hunsa tha artis' is? It is a very great emergency.” I wailed, “The artis' motha is dead.”

I heard the sound of four bolts being unlocked, and then the door opened. Lit from behind was an enormous woman in a bright pink housecoat with a flower pattern. She was just taller than me and wider than the door. In the gray of night she looked like a pink rhinoceros. She mumbled, “Hunsa's motha dead?”

I called through the gate, “Yes, ma'am, she very dead.”

The woman said, “God in heavin! Hunsa probably out drinkin' if he not in his crazy paintin' house.”

I called, “Where he drink, ma'am? We'z have to bury tha motha right away. Ha flesh rottin'.”

The rhino's voice softened. “Hunsa probably in tha Warehouse with all them otha' sinners.”

I did not know where the Warehouse was. “Madam, is tha Warehouse near tha bus stop? I mus' go an' get him before his motha jus' bones.”

“The other way,” she said, and pointed her hoof down Salome Road. “You will hear tha music. Then jus' follow the noise of Satan screamin'.”

I shouted, “Thank you, ma'am. God be praised.” I felt bad about the dead-mother lie, but I guessed that was what it took to be a dealer.

I ran down Salome Road. Not far down, I heard a music beat crack the air:

Closer, I heard the music. It did not sound like Satan screaming (although I had never met Satan). It was a girl's song:

Light shone out of an alleyway from where the sound came, and I ran down it toward a long, lit warehouse. Over where the door once was hung a crooked sign:

The warehouse was a tattered wreck. None of the walls were straight—each went its own way. The roof had only a few sheets of mabati left; most of it had probably been stolen to make other roofs. It was lit by a string of electric bulbs, stars, and the moon. It was jammed with people. Everyone drank, laughed, chatted, or kissed. Almost everyone was smiling. Some sat on chairs, broken boxes, and benches, while others danced. I pushed through legs and searched for Hunsa.

The girl's song went on:

The crowd cheered. I stepped between legs and through the people. The crowd had formed a circle, and in the middle were the singer and two men. The singer looked like a worker woman. She was wide and strong. She had no lipstick and a large smile. She wore a dark green dress and gripped the microphone as if it was life itself. A tall man in a bright flowered shirt played on a keyboard. The third, a younger man, muscle-chested, pounded with sticks on a wooden box. In front of the box was a steel bowl crammed with money, all Kenyan.

I could not see Hunsa. I kept pushing through the people, and at last, beyond the crowd, there was the Masta. Thomas Hunsa still wore his filthy, paint-splattered robe. His long matted hair swung to the music. There was no roof above him, just stars, the moon, and heaven. He stood in front of a plank of wood almost as tall and as wide as himself and hurled paint on it with his bone-handled brush as if the music was color. The painting was an explosion of pleasure.

A few children were scattered around Thomas Hunsa. They knelt and crouched about him, all pointed in different directions. Each child bent over paper, wood, or cardboard and painted like the Masta. Some used brushes; others rags. They dipped into the Masta's paint, but he did not seem to care. They painted happiness as the Masta taught.

The girl sang more: