Vultures in the Playground

  The man with the tribal scars bulled into Archie and grabbed him, trying to wrestle him down to the ground. Archie pried loose and spun free, swinging his fist with all the velocity he could muster, catching the man square in the temple. He crumpled to the blacktop. Archie sprinted for the back gate.

  “Stop!” said the guard, trotting after him, cudgel raised high over his head. Something pinged off the metal fencing followed by loud crack from the loading dock. Archie glanced over his shoulder. The workmen had scattered and taken cover. The red-haired man stood, carefully aiming a pistol at him, taking potshots.

  The guard stopped chasing and dropped to the ground.

  “Alfred! Get the fuck after him. I’m not going to shoot you!”

  Archie zigged and zagged. Bullet strikes converged on his destination—the back gate. He dove behind some sacks of Portland cement stacked on a pallet. Rounds ripped into them, creating puffs and cascades of powder.

  The white men who had been loading the truck rounded the corner building. Both carried assault rifles. Before they could get their bearings, he scrambled to the gate, undid the latch and pushed, diving into the gap, rolling in the dirt as semi-automatic bursts tore into the corrugated steel.

  People who had been walking on the street ducked behind parked cars. Archie ran in a crouch, picking his way through a stretch of shattered curbing. He spotted the cab parked just ahead, but there was no sign of the driver. He sprinted over and peered in the window. James lay sprawled across the seat, looking groggy and puzzled. He cringed from Archie’s sudden appearance at the window.

  Archie pounded his fist against the door.

  “Get up, goddamnit! We gotta go. Now!”

  James slid behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine coughed to life. Archie hopped into the frayed and sprung front seat and slammed a door that sagged on its hinges.

  James popped the clutch into gear just as the men with the assault rifles burst out of the gate on to the sidewalk. Children fled. A woman screamed. The taxi kicked up a cloud of dust as it surged away, narrowly avoiding a group of spectators who had begun to gather. The men held their fire.

  “Why were they shooting at you?” said James, his voice all rushed and agitated. “What did you do in there?”

  “Nothing. I just offered to buy my passport back from the guy who stole it. Is that a crime?”

  James made a sign of the cross. His forehead glistened with sweat.

  “Here. Have another one of these.” Archie flipped him one of the hundreds he had planned to spend on a bribe to recover his passport.

  “I don’t want your money,” said James, panting. “I am finished. You tell me where to take you and then it is goodbye. This is your last ride with me. I am not risking my life.”

  “I’m sorry, James. I had no idea that was gonna happen.”

  James turned onto the larger road that cut through one corner of the shanty town. It was the road Archie had been looking for the other night, the one that led to the embassies and the Liberty Hotel. How close he had meandered lost! One alley removed from safety.

  He stared straight ahead, pondering an alternative universe, drinking Club beer in the hills of Nimba County, as they rolled down the wide avenue, lined with yellowed and dying palms.

  “So where to boss? Where do you want to go? You tell me and I take you. And that will be it. Understand?”

  Archie nodded, but he didn’t know what to say. He had no idea where he should go. The French Embassy? The Cubans? Sneak across the Sierra Leone border and hope he got a better vibe from US officials in Freetown?

  The only option that made sense was to go back to the US Embassy in Monrovia, but he was still weirded out by that phone call. But what would be the risk? It was the middle of the day. The place would be busy. Too many witnesses for them to try any hanky-panky. Besides, he was a US citizen. He shouldn’t be fearing his own government. Should he?

  He pulled out a bandanna and wiped his brow. The embassy was out of the question. He just couldn’t summon the courage to tell James to take him there. His instincts wouldn’t allow it. Too many little things still nagged.

  James kept glancing over as he drove, patiently awaiting instructions. Archie’s pulse pitter-pattered double-time. He wasn’t ready to deal with anything stressful right now. He needed time to decompress.

  “Let’s get out of town. Do you know of some place with internet? Some café.”

  “Near the airport, there is one.”

  Archie nodded and slunk down in his seat. “Let’s go. Stay off the main road if you can. And watch out for beige Humvees.”

  ***

  Vendors selling skewered meat and balls of sweet fried dough lined the road leading up to the airport. At the corner of the drive leading up to the terminal, James pulled up to a concrete shack with corrugated steel doors. It looked dark inside. The place had no sign.

  “This is it? The internet café? Are they even open?”

  “Yes, they are open. You just go inside.”

  “So I should pay you now. You need to go, right?”

  James shrugged. He avoided Archie’s gaze. “It is okay. I can wait for you.”

  “But I thought—”

  “It is no problem, man. I was just a little freaked. Everything is cool, now. I can stay.”

  “Alright.” Archie pulled out his wallet. “Listen, James. Any sign of trouble, you take off. Don’t worry about me, okay?” He handed him another two hundreds.

  James shook his head. “So much. This is too much, man. It is not necessary. ”

  “Hazard pay. For all the risk I’m putting you through.”

  James took the money and pocketed. Archie got out and entered the shack. Its shadows harbored four desks with beat-up Dell computers sharing a single dial-up line. A young woman sat before one playing Tetris as a battered fan kept the hot, dusty air aswirl. Over a radio, a man blathered on in dialect so fast and inflected, Archie barely recognized it as English.

  The woman rose and pointed to a rickety plastic chair across from her.

  “How much?” said Archie.

  “Two dollars for one hour.”

  Archie handed over a pair of greasy singles. He sat down at a keyboard that retained only the ghosts of the letters that once graced the keys.

  A rotary dialer clicked, a modem squealed and buzzed. “You want Hotmail?” The woman reached over his shoulder and took the mouse.

  “Um … Actually Gmail. But thanks, I can handle it from here.”

  He spent the next ten minutes waiting for Google to load. “Christ! Is it always this slow?”

  “In the morning, it is faster,” said the woman. “Now is now the busy time. Don’t worry. It is loading. It will come.”

  He tapped his fingers and waited patiently, watching each element of his home screen accumulate one graphic at a time.

  The monitor flickered and went black. The radio went silent. Seconds later the power returned, and Archie watched as the computer rebooted back into Windows.

  “Ah, fuck it. Just keep the money.” He got up and left.

  He got out his phone and called Melissa. It was late evening in Baltimore. She picked up after a few rings.

  “Archie?”

  “Hey. Can I ask you a favor? Can you go on-line and look up something for me? There’s this company called Xtraktiv. They spell that with no ‘e’ at either end and a ‘k’ swapped with the ‘c’. I’d be grateful for anything you can find out.”

  “Like …what exactly do you want to know.”

  “Just … what they do, who they work for. Stuff like that.”

  “Are you okay? You sound funny. A little strained or something.”

  “Well … it’s been a long day and I … uh … I’ve been laid off.”

  “What?”

  “But supposedly I’ve been offered some other job I never applied for. I don’t know. None of it makes any sense.”

  “Does this mean you’re coming home?”

 
“Well. Yeah. But not until I get that passport re-issued. Maybe you can help me out. There’s a photocopy of the face page in the top drawer of my desk. Take it to the Post Office and find out what it takes to get me a new one. I’ll pay for expedited service.”

  “But … why not just go to the local embassy?”

  I sucked air through my teeth. “It’s … complicated. Let’s just say … I can’t.”

  “Archie, they won’t just re-issue your passport to me. I mean, it’s your passport. Why would they?”

  “I don’t know. It’s worth a shot, no? Tell them my situation. See what they say. See what they let you do for me.”

  She issued a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll try.” A steel drawer slammed. “Found your copy.”

  “Thanks, Melissa. You’re a gem.” He strolled out of the internet café, studying the traffic for anything untoward. “So … how’s everything on your end? Wild parties? Cooking meth in the basement?”

  “Oh yeah. All that and more. Orgies. Oh! I forgot to tell you. My mom’s visiting this weekend. I hope you don’t mind if she stays in—”

  “Oh, you don’t have to ask. She’s welcome anytime. Hey, how are my kitties doing?”

  “They act like you never left. I think they like me better.”

  “Traitors.”

  “So, anything I find out about this company, want me to email it?”

  “Um, no,” said Archie. “I don’t have access. Call me.”

  “Will do. You stay safe. Okay?”

  “I’ll try.” The line clicked off.

  Archie started towards the taxi, but then paused. He held his index finger up to James and turned back down the drive towards the terminal. If things had gone to plan, he would have been returning to Monrovia tomorrow to catch a flight to Ghana. No chance of that happening now. While he was here at the airport, he might as well go ahead and cancel.

  He slipped through the glass door, into only slightly cooler, much mustier environs. The terminal was dead. The earliest flights to Europe didn’t leave until eleven. Only a few local hops were listed on the departure board, including a flight to Bamako on Air Mali.

  He shuddered in remembrance of a flight he had once taken through a nasty thunderstorm on engine. Some expats called that airline ‘Air Maybe.’

  Check-in for a flight to Accra on Ghana Airways was just finishing up. The woman behind the counter was wrestling with the last overstuffed suitcase. She hoisted it onto a conveyor belt and turned, startled to see him. “Can I help you?” she said, with some annoyance.

  “Yeah … um … I was due to fly to Accra tomorrow but I think I need to reschedule or … maybe even cancel.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Parsons. Archie Parsons.”

  She stooped over her terminal, and clicked away at a keyboard. She squinted and pursed her lips.

  “You have already checked in.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your flight, it was rescheduled and you have checked in. Your bag is already on the plane. It is to be boarding soon.”

  “What are you talking about? I never—”

  “I am sorry, sir, but you have checked in. My colleague checked you.”

  Archie’s skin prickled.

  Another woman came walking out of the luggage bay. “Johanna, do you remember checking in this man?”

  The other woman gawked at Archie. “This man? I don’t think so.”

  The first woman huffed and set her chin. “But I saw him, I am sure. Here.” She pointed at the terminal screen. “Archibald Parsons. He has a seat assignment, a boarding pass, no?”

  “Boarding pass? What? How could I—?”

  “May I see your passport, please?” said the first woman sternly, her eyes narrowed to sharp slits.

  “I … I don’t have it.” Flustered and confused, Archie turned away from the counter and stormed across the lobby to the exit.

  He started out the door. Down the drive, a police van had pulled in front of James, lights flashing. “Oh shit.”

  He went back inside, finding a bench tucked between two posts that offered a view outside. He picked up an evangelical tract that someone had left and pretended to read it.

  A white man emerged from a snack bar at the end of the corridor, one of the few Caucasians in the terminal. That alone sufficed to draw Archie’s attention, but his eyes were drawn as well to the navy blue courier bag slung over the man’s shoulder. It was just like the one that had been stolen from him at the Liberty Hotel—Swiss Army logo with frayed white on red embroidery; electrical tape covering the strap where the leather had cracked. What were the odds that this was not his bag?

  The man wheeled around and came towards him. Archie pulled down the brim of his hat and studied the Holy Roller pamphlet, learning of the many ways he was destined for Hell. This was old news to him. He had already been there and done that several times over.

  He felt the man’s gaze brush him. Archie glanced up and was startled by how much this guy resembled him in the general topography of his face, the geometry of his eyes and mouth. He even dressed like Archie.

  Their eyes never met. The man passed him and continued down the hall.

  Something about the way he carried himself bothered Archie. He walked with long, loping, athletic strides. And he held his chin too high, as if the back of his skull held a counterweight. When a woman with a cane impeded his progress, he seemed annoyed, as if he were someone who expected a clear path through life, for whom the world was his private playground.

  When the man was a good ways down the corridor, Archie got up and followed, trying not to make it too obvious, moseying down along the row of ticket agents as if he were shopping for a vacation.

  The man stepped into the washroom. Archie hesitated outside the door until a righteous fire had built inside his chest and stoked his courage. Stomach sinking, he followed after the man, his footsteps echoing in the nearly empty terminal.

  The washroom floor was puddled with water dripping from a leaky sink. The man went into a stall and closed the door. Archie walked up to the door of the stall and stood before it, trembling.

  “Occupied!” boomed the man in the stall. He was American.

  “Who … who are you?”

  “Say what? Get away from me. Fuck off.”

  “That’s my bag you’ve got. Where did you get it?”

  There was a scuffing and a scramble as the man tried to open the stall, but Archie grabbed the top of the door and held it closed.

  “That’s my bag. Give it back! Slide it underneath and I won’t say anything.”

  Something heavy pounded into Archie’s fingers. His grip released. The door pulled inward and the man burst out of the stall, pants unzipped, belt buckle dangling. He lunged at Archie with what looked like a Nokia phone, but with a protruding, three inch trapezoidal blade.

  Archie lurched back, narrowly avoiding the blade. The man’s shoes squeaked and gave way. He skidded on the sopping floor and hurtled face first against a heavy porcelain sink. There was a nasty crack of bone. His fingers went limp and dropped the cell phone blade in a puddle. He collapsed like a sack of dirty clothes, wheezed twice and went silent.

  “Oh my God. Are you okay?”

  The man lay still in the puddle, his head cocked at a grotesque angle, water seeping into his clothes. Archie pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. He detected no pulse.

  Archie crouched over him, glancing nervously towards the door. He slipped his courier bag off the man’s shoulder and found a boarding pass tucked into his thick, dog-eared American passport. Archie opened the cover to find an eight years younger version of Archie Parsons staring back at him.

  A distorted woman’s voice bellowed from an overhead speaker.

  “Flight 66 to Accra is now ready for boarding. Please proceed to the gate.”

  Chapter 7: Accra

  Archie queued up to go through security, but he kept glancing back at the washroom door. He kept telling himself
that what had just happened to that poor man was an accident. It was not his fault. The guy had attacked him with a knife. And besides, he was a criminal. He had Archie’s stolen passport, for God’s sake, and was planning to use it.

  A more responsible, less paranoid person would probably report the incident. Walking away was wrong. Maybe if it had happened anywhere else but Liberia. This was the wild west of Africa. Who knew how the police would react? Running made sense.

  Archie wondered if the man had his wallet and credit cards. He should have checked. He was tempted to go back and see, but there was no way he could return to that washroom now and face that corpse. Any minute now, someone would walk in and discover the body and pandemonium would break out. The shit would hit the fan and he would be in the middle of it. He was lucky the terminal was so vacant this time of day, lucky they had so few security cams.

  As he passed through the checkpoint he felt certain he would be seized or at least questioned, if nothing else, for the panic that reddened his face, for the sweat soaking the back of his shirt. He probably even smelled guilty.

  To his surprise, they let him through, unmolested other than having to remove his shoes and belt, just like the innocent passengers before him. The flight was boarding. He went to the gate, down some stairs to an exit opening onto the tarmac. A wash of heat enveloped him; humidity invaded every pore.

  A burly airport guard watched his every step. Archie piqued his ears for the outcry that would signal the discovery of the body in the washroom. He was certain someone would tackle and handcuff him.

  “Enjoy your flight,” said the guard, and Archie stepped out into the sweltering afternoon, crossing the tarmac to the waiting plane.

  In a daze, he climbed the steps leading to the little Ghana Airways turboprop and entered the plane. It was an odd-looking airliner, boarded from the rear, with high wings hanging above the windows, and a vertical luggage compartment directly behind the cockpit. There were only twelve rows of seats, two by two across.

  He hunkered down into a window seat. The armrest was missing its foam cushion. His forearm contacted cold, bare metal. The vacant seat in front of him angled back in full recline. It offered no resistance when he pushed it, and flopped back when he let go. Its hinge was broken.

  He peered through the windows of the terminal for signs of a security contingent, scanned the tarmac for vehicles flashing their lights, but all remained calm. The cabin doors closed. The stairs pulled away. Luggage bays slammed. To his disbelief, the plane began to taxi.