The Catch: A Novel (19 page)

Munroe locked eye contact and attempted to walk around him.

He stepped fully in her way, and a whisper of movement brushed her from behind. She didn’t turn, allowed hearing and instinct to see in a way that sight never could; knew the shadow she’d first picked out among the foliage had drawn closer and hemmed her in.

She unsheathed the knife, and the cold wash of the hunt bled up from the metal and into her hand, mixing violence and exhaustion into an aching thirst.

“Let me pass,” she said, and the man who blocked her way took a step toward her.

He put off the odor of rotting garbage, of unwashed skin and unwashed clothes, and his eyes had the bloodshot glassy quality of one who’d fried whatever higher-thinking ability he’d once had through
sniffing too much glue. She repeated the demand in Swahili and in response his fingers twitched and the curve of his mouth gave way the slightest bit.

“Where is the other
mzungu
?” he said. “The
mzee
, where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You know. You were the one who took him.”

“Yes, but he’s gone now. You killed his
askari
. You scared him, so he left with the boat for Malindi.”

Footsteps and rustling leaves, darting glances and a shift in posture, told her that others were moving in from the edges. The longer she stood here, the more advantage she gave away, so she took another step to the side, and the man in front matched her and blocked her way again.

“I want the
mzee
,” he said.

“You can have the old man if you go to Malindi.”

“You take me to him.”

“He left without me. I don’t know where he is.”

He continued to gape as if he didn’t comprehend, as if she’d deviated from the script and he had no cue cards, no one to tell him how to interpret her words, which meant he was just a tool, not the leader of this little gang—not in any meaningful sense.

Glass shattered behind her and the pathway darkened, though light from other lampposts and from hotel windows kept the area from plunging into black. The knife, warm in her hand, begged to be used, and she held on, conflicted, wanting blood yet wanting even more to know whose bidding these men served and why they’d killed Sami to get to the captain.

In the near distance, laughter and conversation filtered back from the pool, and from farther beyond there was music, but no sign of the
askaris
or staff or tourists. She’d wandered too far toward the periphery to make a potential strategy out of waiting for an interruption from passersby. There was even less chance that if she called for help it would find her in time to do much—and the very thought of
that
offended her.

Another crunch of glass and another light out and the pathway
fell into deeper darkness. She could sense the others encroaching now, circling from the shadows. Munroe breathed in the salt-tinged air and the darkness, and inside her chest the tempo quickened, a beat that answered the call of the blade and pleaded for release, for permission to be let loose. “Let me pass,” she said. “I don’t have the man you are looking for, and if we fight, you may kill me, but several of you will die first.”

His shoulders shook with silent laughter, an answer that said he wasn’t afraid of the knife, that he was equally armed and she was outnumbered, that what he did tonight would guarantee money to put him into another drug stupor, and that any thought beyond that became meaningless. Munroe turned from him. Wouldn’t bother to counter what payment he’d been offered, because he’d demand the money immediately, and if she proffered it, he would attempt to take it from her and they’d begin again exactly where they were right now.

Others from the pack formed a loose circle. She counted five by their breathing, by their smell; assumed that there were still more to come; sidestepped through the closing gap and slipped from the pathway to the grass, to darkness, where instinct could rule where sight failed. Maneuvered from one tree to the next, darting through the dark as she once had through the jungle, while her pursuers tracked her, calling to each other like hounds after the fox.

They were fast and they were many, sprinting after her, dashes of shade and shadow winding along parallel and then in front, and by the time she’d reached the beach, they’d closed the circle again and she had counted eight.

Another man stepped front and center, different from the one who’d blocked her way on the path: shorter, better built, and his eyes were clearer, though not by much. In English he said, “Where is the old man?”

“I don’t know,” Munroe said.

“If you don’t tell us, we will kill you.”

She’d been dead many times already. There was nothing they could take that had not already been demanded, no pain that had
not already been inflicted, no fear they might incite through intimidation. “You’ll kill me anyway,” she said, “and I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“You have the boat, you have to know.”

“Had,” she said, measuring distance, judging threat, anticipating weapons. “I had the boat. I don’t have it anymore.”

Movement reached out from beyond her field of vision and she danced to the side with the speed that was her greatest weapon—dodged a hefty stick that swung and missed and circled back to strike again. There was no argument or rationale to be had, no option but to fight, to kill or be killed. The calm of the impending battle and expectancy burned through her veins.

“Where is the
mzee
?” the short one said again, and she didn’t answer.

Like his predecessor, everything about him said that he, too, was just one of the crowd, not their leader, but even if he’d been the boss and could tell her what she wanted, trading from a place of weakness when she was in no position to protect her interests would only weaken her further. If she died tonight, the secret of the captain’s location would die with her.

She was still too close to accidental witnesses, too close to the hotel that had her name, her passport information. If she survived the night, she’d be blamed and forced to flee before fighting the battle she truly wanted. Another of the pack stepped in, another stick, another dodge, another dance, and the lust for blood, euphoria in anticipation of the kill, rose higher, flooded her senses, took her to the point of no return.

She danced again, dodged again, ran farther down the beach into the dark space between hotels, where heightened instinct would work to her advantage. Couldn’t outrun them forever.

Backed up against a retaining wall, she cut their advantage in half, and this time willed them closer. Searched for the leader, the one that she could take down first to cause the others to weaken, but there was nothing in their posture or formation to point to one
who gave the orders. Another stick came at her in the dark and the pressure inside her chest tore free. History became the present, the nights of the past the now, and the first rush of the fight bled from her chest into her fingertips. She struck with the speed of survival, speed carved into her psyche one knife slice at a time, speed that had kept her alive, speed born from the refusal to quit or be conquered; she moved faster than the nearest man had time to react.

Knife plunged into trachea. Yelp choked into gurgle. Blood spread over her hands, warm and sticky, sending her soul into the ecstasy of a crack addict’s high. A blow fell from the side and connected with her shoulder. Landed hard enough to drop her to one knee and she laughed with the pain.

They struck fast in the moonlight, blows crashing down, wildly crashing down. She spun and connected, dodged and slashed, and the pain built, intensifying with each blinding hit. She struck and dipped, lunged and parried, and the bludgeoning came again and again, unrelenting, maddening, blows to her chest, her back, her head, and finally brought her fully to her knees.

Sand to their eyes, she bought time and bought fighting space. Rose again and was struck down again, and knew then that the fight was unwinnable. She would die tonight. And still she fought. With each plunge and slice of the knife, regret welled up from a place deep and buried, rose from the secret place where thoughts that shouldn’t be felt were locked away for safekeeping. Like Sami, there would be no way for those she loved to know; like Sami, she would be a man gone to sea and never returned while those who mattered ever waited for her to come home.

Sight failed and darkness descended and the knife in her hand, alive with its own passion, struck and struck again until consciousness faded and it was over.

Suffocating
. Drowning in sand. Drowning in blood.

Munroe struggled for air.

Couldn’t find air. Move. Had to move. Turn from the blockage.

No arms. No legs. She fought for air. Found only sand. Only blood.

Suffocating.

Something seared into her side. Pushed. Rolled her over and her face was free and she found air.

Air
.

She gasped. Sucked oxygen.

Pain reached into her chest and ripped out her organs.

A scream ricocheted through her body.

Hand to the knife. The knife.

There was no knife.

A shadow, a face, a body above her against the night.

She struggled for the knife, but there was no knife, and darkness washed over her and she was gone again.

W
ORDS
. M
AYBE WORDS
. English words. Reaching to her, calling to her.

We are friend. We are friend. We are Sami friend
.

Sifting. Rising. Falling. Hands reaching.

She fought to keep the hands away. Feeble attempts from arms no longer connected to her body.

She couldn’t move.

The knife, where was the knife? Couldn’t find her hands.

Try to crawl. Try to turn.

The night sky screamed again, rained acid tears, burned.

All of her burned.

We are friend. We help you
.

H
ANDS ON HER
hands. Vises on her wrists. Fingers prying against fingers and she knew then that they took from her the knife that she clung to yet couldn’t feel or find. They pried fingers that she couldn’t move, couldn’t control, and gradually the weapon was no longer hers.

Somewhere out in the darkness she could taste and smell blood.

Her blood. Their blood. Someone’s blood.

She didn’t know, didn’t remember.

The hands lifted her and she screamed. Or perhaps the scream was only in her head, while pain racked her body beyond the point of bearable. She fought to see but the night swirled on in circles that made her stomach retch and perhaps she vomited, or perhaps it was the motion of the boat. Yes, a boat, a small boat that carried her away from the place of death—death that nobody had seen—or maybe it had been seen the way Sami’s death had been seen.

The police would come. They would look for her.

Would they look for her?

A
IR
. M
ORE AIR
. More pain. No sound. No sight. Movement. Hands grabbed hold and took her shoulders. The night sky screamed again; stars shed blood. Inside her head the chaos came, darkness and voices from the past, chanting, calling for action, propelling her toward bloodshed.

She reached for the knife again, but there was no knife.

There was no reaching.

Only in her head.

There was water. Water on her feet. Her fingers.

Hands, rough and gentle, transferred her from the boat, and the sting of salt water touched her and her feet trailed, splashing behind, and darkness descended and there was nothing.

M
UNROE
’
S EYES OPENED
to light streaming through vertical slats, woke to piercing pain inside her head, a pain that filled her so completely that she didn’t know where the hurt began or ended, pain that pushed her toward the edge of insanity and said that someone had died in the act of inflicting it.

Waves of blackness rolled in and enveloped her with dizzy nausea.

In place of memory she had only fog, darkness, and pounding, so much pounding inside her head. Her eyes shut of their own accord and her hand fumbled for the side of the bed, to feel what she didn’t have the energy to try to see. She touched dirt for the floor and on the dirt a pile of rags or material, and beside it the knife. Her fingers drew it closer and her fist wrapped around the handle. She pulled the blade toward her and rested it, clenched within her hand, upon her chest and fell back into the oblivion where pain only licked at the edges of awareness.

H
ER EYES OPENED
again. The light was not as bright and her thoughts were a little clearer. That meant time had passed, and the urge to get up, to move, ordered out from inside her chest, but her muscles wouldn’t respond. Her body shook and each breath brought the primeval urge to scream, screams that she held back while they rattled and ricocheted around her head. She had no recollection of how she’d come to be here, only the sensation of kindness, of favor, and that somehow she was safe.

Her head turned right, toward the slats again, and she squinted against the light, trying to focus, to find some solid image among the blur of shapes and shadows, until gradually the edges sharpened and it wasn’t slats that the light streamed through but the spaces between
the sticks that formed the outer walls of the room. Above her, thatch-worked fronds were the ceiling.

Her eyes rolled from ceiling to wall and back, and then shut. It took a moment to draw the connections, but they were there, threads of meaning, and then they tied together and she recognized in the walls and the ceiling the same wattle and daub of the houses and little villages that had fronted the Mombasa–Malindi road.

Her fingers felt for the mattress, old, thin, and lumpy, covered with a threadbare sheet and permeated with the smell of age and mildew, and she struggled to open her eyes again, to focus. Could see from the colors, knew from the scent, that the clothes she wore were not her own, understood that except for the knife, everything she’d had when she’d gone into the hotel, including the money in her boots, was missing.