Djibouti (23 page)

X
AVIER CHECKED WITH
D
JIBOUTI
Marine wanting to know who it was took out the
Buster,
while Dara met with the chief of police himself to hear what happened to the boat. Now they were in Dara's suite at the Kempinski exchanging what they'd learned.

“One of the young guys workin there, Ubu Kalid,” Xavier said, “took this African out for a test run, see if he liked the boat.”

Dara said, “Jama?”

“Sounds like Jama, but neither one of 'em came back.”

“
Buster
caught fire,” Dara said. “The chief thought at first she got too close to the gas tanker. But he said the feds told him no. Whoever stole the boat set it on fire.”

“They could tell, huh?”

“They knew it wasn't the dead guy aboard.”

“Wasn't Jama?”

“A white guy. The chief likes to make investigations social occasions when he can. We met at Las Vegas for lunch.”

“Lunch meaning drinks.”

“I had a gimlet, the chief three or four martinis,” Dara said. “Would you like something?” He shook his head, Xavier on the settee in the suite's living room, Dara standing, moving around some, smoking a cigarette, looking cool in her white shirt and tan skirt for a change. Looking cool to Xavier anytime.

“The chief said he was white but looked like a colored man where the fire burned him. He smiled saying, ‘I understand that's what you call Nigras in America.' No identification on him, but the FBI printed him. They'll find out who he is.”

“You sound relieved,” Xavier said, “it wasn't Jama? You need him for the movie?”

“He set fire to our boat,” Dara said, exhaling a hard stream of smoke. “He shot the white guy twice and left nine-millimeter casings in the wheelhouse. Police Chief Ali Zahara—I finally learned his name—said it will turn out to be the same weapon that killed Qasim and the four Somalis the time Jama escaped.”

“So he's still roamin the land,” Xavier said. “Maybe tryin to use the dead guy's ID.”

“How can he? The guy's white.”

“In a few days he can be black in the passport. If that's what Jama has. Djibouti, man, you can become anybody you want, long as you able to pay for it.”

Dara came over and Xavier made room for her next to him.

“If he's in the film I want to know what happens to him.”

“Wouldn't mind runnin into him again, huh? If you both still around, I think you can bet on him runnin into you. Find out you're stayin here, if he don't already know it. You want to give him a chance to find you?”

“Why's he after me, 'cause I know his name?”

“Even if you didn't. I think Mr. James Russell Raisuli's got the hots for you, girl. Likes the way you step out on the
edge talkin to him,” Xavier said. “You ever see
Hiroshima
? You haven't, have you?”

“That TV movie?”

“How we got around to droppin the A-bomb on Japan. The real Harry Truman's in it and you see an actor playin Harry Truman. I mean in key scenes where they don't have the real Harry Truman on film they use the actor. Understand what I'm sayin? The real Harry Truman and the one playin him come in and out of the movie, cuttin from one to the other in different scenes, and it works.”

“The actor looks just like Truman?”

“Enough. Plays the piano.”

Dara seemed to think about it, frowning some.

She said, “Who do you see playing Jama?”

 

L
ATER ON
D
ARA WENT
to Billy's suite to see how Helene was doing: Helene in bed, her upper right arm taped to her body, the hand sticking out of her camisole. Dara said it looked like it was growing out of her tummy.

“The room service guy,” Helene said, “asks me how my hand's doing. I try to tell him it's not my hand, it's my fucking shoulder. I'm afraid the tape's gonna flatten my boobs. Billy says don't worry about it, we'll have them inflated. Billy doesn't have a doctor here so we're going home. Wait two days for Air France or hire a private jet to get us to Paris. He wants me to see a doctor in Houston he calls his bone guy. Billy separated his shoulder one time playing polo.”

Dara said, “Fell off his horse?”

“This Mexican hit him from behind,” Helene said, “because Billy was beating him.”

“Too bad,” Dara said, “you have to interrupt the cruise.”

“Till I'm all better. I'll stretch it out as long as I can, see if I can develop complications. Billy said, ‘When you fell off your bike, you got right back on, didn't you?' If he thinks I'm gonna fire that gun again, he's out of his fucking mind,” Helene said. “He's down at the bar talking to the FBI again. They found out we were on the island, Billy told them yeah, having a picnic. We saw the ship explode and he got us out of there fast. This was the first time the FBI talked to him. They wanted to know why we had a Donzi for the trip instead of his yacht. He said they called
Pegaso
‘your pleasure boat.' Billy said he was thinking of getting a Donzi for fun and wanted to see what it was like. He can buy anything he wants, so they believe him.”

“But they're talking to him again?”

“Billy said 'cause we're all they have, the only ones they know were at the scene. This time he's gonna tell them when they identify the guy who was shot, they'll find out he's Rolland Buck Bethards. Billy said they'll ask him how he knows and he'll tell them, because he hired Buck to find James Russell, aka Jama Raisuli. He'll tell them Jama, now, could be using Buck's name.”

“Xavier thought the same thing,” Dara said. “But how does Billy know the dead guy's Buck?”

“He hired him to find Jama, didn't he?” Helene said. “And I guess he did.”

 

J
AMA DID THE SIDESTROKE
no more than twenty yards, put his feet down, found the bottom and walked the rest of the way to the beach. He had his bag, had his gun, had money, some he hadn't counted yet, the passport. He believed he could throw it away without looking inside. They'd ID the white dude and put his name on their watch list. He had to get dried off before he
joined the gang at the grass house. Wouldn't that be something it was a real grass house? Get high waiting for the taxi. Whisper in Jackie's ear…think of something cool this soldier-girl never heard before. Or keep it simple, ask her she wants to fuck. He believed girls having tattoos on their body liked you to be direct.

He imagined taking his clothes off in the grass house and sitting there nekked waiting for the gang to wake up. Shit, leave the clothes on, they be dry soon.

Get to Djibouti and become one more nigga till he became somebody else.

X
AVIER CROSSED THE ROOF
to Dara's dining room and kitchen, stuck his head in the door and said, “Billy's on the webcam, and Muffie.”

“Why didn't you call me?”

“I want to smell whatever you cookin.”

Dara lived on the top floor, had her studio on the second floor, and kept the first floor full of movies, books and music, tapes of almost everything she'd ever seen since she was twelve.

It looked like she was getting ready to fix a trout, court-bouillon it in white wine, some spices. Or she might go meunière with it. No aromas yet, he followed Dara down the wood stairs to the studio, her big desktop Mac with a thirty-inch screen waiting on the worktable. “It's ready,” Xavier said. Dara waved him over next to her and clicked the pad. Now Billy's face filled the screen.

“There you are,” Billy said. “Xavier told us you cookin. What y'all havin?”

“You get home,” Dara said, “you turn up your Texas sound?”

“I'm away from here too long, I start sounding like a Yankee.” He said, “Here's Muff,” sat back in the sofa and there she was, her hand sticking out of her blouse.

“Hey, y'all, I'm pickin it up too, being around this good ole boy too long. As you can see, I'm still laid up, but nobody here asks me how my hand's doing. They've all fallen off horses. You know what he's gonna have me doing next?”

“Lemme guess,” Dara said. “Riding?”

“Chasin after hounds. They do that here.” Helene ran a hand over her breasts. “This tape is itching me to death.”

Dara watched Billy lean in saying something to her. Helene punched him in a girlish way. “I think I'm marrying a sex fiend.”

“Where are you, still in Texas?”

“Near Houston. At one of Billy's winter places. The rest are in other countries.”

Dara said, “Xavier and I are trying to find a movie in all the footage we've shot.” She turned to him saying, “He wants me to write a feature motion picture and make up stuff we don't have. I still want to do the real thing, a documentary.” She said to Helene, “You remember Jama? I showed you shots of him in his Brown University T-shirt?”

“Yeah, and I said he looks like Will Smith.”

“That's right,” Dara said, “you did,” remembering it now.

“I bet Will Smith would sell his soul to dress up like an Arab.”

“What are you doing,” Dara said, “besides healing?”

“Nothing much. Billy sent a crew to bring
Pegaso
home. But we're not gonna continue the cruise right away, darn it.”

“That's a shame,” Dara said.

“He can be a meany sometimes,” Helene said. “He knows how much I love sailing around the entire fucking world.”

Dara watched him say something to her again and Helene
hit him with her free elbow. “Billy kids around but he's sick over losing Buck. He says he was a stand-up guy I would have liked a lot.”

“And respected,” Billy said, “like a brother.”

“You know I was talking to Buck,” Dara said, “when Jama pulled up in the car and shot him.”

“The first time,” Billy said, “then shot him on the boat, twice. Xavier's right, you make this a documentary, how you gonna show all the action stuff happened you don't have?”

“Jama takin out five people with five shots,” Xavier said, “one each. That's movies. But you have to shoot it. Dara can make a feature anytime she wants.”

Billy said, “How much would it cost?”

“Fifteen million,” Dara said, “below the line.”

“That's like fixed expenses, the ones you know you gonna have,” Xavier said. “The camera equipment, all the lights, the best boys and their grips and gaffers, the camera crew…What else? The pirate boats and people we use as extras.”

Dara said, “We've got pirate boats.”

“Not with actors in 'em. We have long shots we can use, the skiffs racin out to board some kind of vessel.”

Billy said, “How much for actors?”

Dara said, “How much can you spend?”

Billy said, “I'm in the picture?”

“In this instance,” Dara said, “if you put up the cost of the picture, you're the producer.”

“What if I want to be in it?”

Xavier said, “Play yourself?”

“I bet I could do it,” Billy said. He looked at his watch. “But right now Muff's due for a workout with her trainer. We'll talk at you later.”

“He means my therapist,” Muff said, rolling her eyes at Dara.

 

D
ARA HAD A WHEELED
cart with a glass top she used as a bar, bottles of different kinds of spirits, even a siphon for zapping the drink with a hit of soda, always on hand in sophisticated 1930s movies, sitting on the bar while William Powell stirred Myrna Loy's martini. Xavier couldn't recall Dara ever using the siphon, but saw it as a cool touch for a bar.

Ever since they got home they'd been talking about their movie, four days now: Xavier pointing out holes where good stuff was missing. Xavier telling her, Girl, you know how to make a feature, you've seen every one ever made.

This evening they were slouched at either end of Dara's tan corduroy-covered couch with its ochre and orange pillows. On the coffee table two glasses of after-supper port, hadn't been touched yet.

“I bet,” Xavier said, “you can make a real movie without anyone in it sayin ‘besides.'”

“Or waste time with backstories. What you see is what happened. We do have to hire a few stunt people. You know what holds me back, don't you? Making up an ending.”

“You'll think of one. Beginnin, the pirates; middle, Djibouti stuff; end, maybe end it on that island, the ship burnin. Say the right words over it, Muffin blows up the tanker and stops al Qaeda from blowin up Djibouti. Lake Charles'd be better, save a port in the U.S.”

“We're making a comedy?”

“Get the right girl to play Muff. All her lines she says straight, not puttin on anything. The audience can laugh, it's all right. But Muffin's real.”

“I asked her who she saw as Jama.”

“Will Smith. I heard her. He's Jama if you can pay him.”

“He opens a picture,” Dara said, “earns his money. Who do we see as Idris?”

“I was thinkin of a young Omar Sharif for one of them.”

“He's too dark.”

“Too serious.”

“That's what I mean.”

“You know who'd kill to play Harry?”

“Harry,” Dara said.

“Man loves to act. You wouldn't have to direct him much.”

“I'd have to hold him down,” Dara said. “But he might not be bad. Harry wants to be known.”

“We can get actors from over there, stars. One of the guys in Clooney's picture
Syriana
.”

“The ship blowing up,” Dara said, “is documentary footage.”

“The black Toyotas,” Xavier said, “crossin the desert from Eyl to Djibouti, what did Idris tell Jama? Qasim? What did Harry say to 'em. I think that trip can be a trip.”

Dara was nodding. “It could move the plot.”

“See the boys get out and take a leak.”

“Talking to each other now,” Dara said, “Idris and Harry.”

“Where are they when the boys escaped. I bet they arguin.”

“Harry's having a drink.”

“They at a bar in the African part. Harry's nerves are showin.” Xavier handed Dara a glass of port and picked up the other one. “I bet you go into Jama's backstory some. How he became a Muslim—”

“In prison.”

“Most likely. Went over to Djibouti and got into jihads for al Qaeda. He can tell it in two lines.”

“But not why.”

“He don't even know why. He joined 'cause he's fucked up, likes to show off, fire guns at people, the sound. Loves it. That's
as deep as he is,” Xavier said. “You still thinkin doc-u-men-tary, start cuttin what you have, wishin you had things you heard about. In Bosnia wishin you had women gettin beat up by their hubbies for gettin raped. You got more of what you don't have in this one, you shoot it documentary.”

“All right, let's say we're casting a feature.”

“What we been talkin about.”

“I write a script—”

“Scenes with Dara and Jama,” Xavier said, “somethin stirrin between them. This other nigga's sittin on the sidelines; he wants to go home, but Dara decides to hang around, see what happens. She's reachin too far, gonna hurt herself.”

“I fall for Jama?”

“Girl, he falls for
you
. You the star, he tells you everything you want to know about him and al Qaeda. You get me to watch him, he don't disappear on us. We go to that island 'cause he told you it's where he's blowin up the LNG ship from. Helene's the only one could play herself. She's been actin all her life. Billy, you won't have to pay him you let him do Billy. Idris and Harry, get a pair of young Arab stars.”

“And who plays Xavier, the old seafarer,” Dara getting with it, “some young buck?”

“Not too old, but never heard of Goat Weed.”

Xavier got up from the couch with his glass of port. “If I'm spendin the night, you mind I use your shower?”

“I'd be grateful,” Dara said.

“Who you see playin you?” He waited for her to tell him. Something she likely hadn't thought of. “You the lead,” Xavier said. “There a lot of good women in the business gonna want this part. Watch that movie again, all the Italian chicks goin after Daniel Day Lewis. It's
Eight and a Half
with music and comes out
Nine
.”

Going into the bathroom with his port he heard the phone ring.

A few minutes later Dara opened the door to the shower, Xavier filling the tiled space, body soaped, his face raised to the spray.

“That was a friend of Harry's. He's here to read for a part in a zombie picture. Would like to stop by and say hi.”

“You have to read to play one of the undead?”

“All I know is Harry told him I make movies. He'll be here in a few minutes.”

“What's his name?”

“Hunter Newhouse.”

 

T
HE FIRST THING
J
AMA
did he got to New Orleans, he phoned Coleman Correctional in Florida and said he was calling about a death in the family of one of their inmates, Tariq Bosaso, and gave them a number for Tariq to call, saying he was Hunter New house, a lawyer representing the family.

Tariq called saying, “Who is this? Who's dead? I don't have no people anymore, all died on me.”

Jama said, “You remember a boy read the Koran and could recite it from memory? Don't say my name.”

“This is you speaking to me?”

“Home on leave from the
jihad
. You read about a gas ship blowing up off East Africa?”

“Man, it played on TV a week. Was al Qaeda done it?”

“Young fella name of James phoned the ship and she blew. You ever hear anything like that?”

“Come and visit me, I want to hear what you been doing.”

“I will I have time. First I got to take care of bidness,” James said. “Tell me where I get a piece in this town.”

“What kind you need?”

“One I can slide out of my pants.”

“Gonna cost you.”

“I flew here first-class from Paris. Tell me where to get the gun and I'll tell you who I'm gonna shoot.”

 

D
ARA'S BUZZER BUZZED AND
she pressed the switch to open the door downstairs—two doors on Chartres, one for the first floor and the other for upstairs. She opened the door and looked straight down the stairway she would fall down in dreams until she'd won her first award. She saw a figure come in the same time Xavier called, “Dara…?” She turned from the door, open now, and heard, “Where's my Aqua Velva?” She told him it was in the cabinet, turned back to the door and Jama was a few steps below her looking the same, grinning at her.

“Who's that, your nigga? You live together?”

“Tonight's his sleep-out.”

“Likes Aqua Velva means he's got cheap skin. Tell him that, we have time. You gonna invite me in?”

“Yeah, Xavier'll want to see you.”

Jama said, “You want to know something? You aren't as different as I thought. You live with that nigga, he contaminates you.”

“What did you think I was,” Dara said, “a virgin?”

“You were yourself, always you every minute. Different than other women.”

“Tell me what you've been up to.”

“I blew up that ship.”

“I thought Helene did. It doesn't matter.” She saw Xavier come out of the bedroom in his white briefs looking right at Jama.

“He says he blew up the gas ship.”

“He might think he did,” Xavier said. “Was Helene blew that ship up. With a rifle, fired it and the ship blew.”

Jama said, “Listen to me. There were explosives with a cell phone we planted. I call the number…It was in the newspapers they found it was explosive charges blew open the pods of lethal gas.”

“But was Helene must've touched it off,” Xavier said.

They were standing in the living room, Jama in front of the coffee table, Dara and Xavier a couple of strides from him.

“You don't combust a combustible ship,” Jama said, “with a rifle.”

“You do this one. Had steel-cuttin rounds in it. You still usin a Walther?”

Jama unzipped his jacket to show them a new Walther stuck in the waist of his pants.

“You must've got it here,” Xavier said. “Don't let it slip down in your pants.”

“I can pull it before you move.”

“You practice in front of a mirror like Bobby De Niro in that picture?”

Jama said, “‘You talkin to me?'”

“That's the one. You see a lot of movies?”