Djibouti

  The man in the baseball cap was waiting at the mouth of the cove, up on the bank holding a nickel-plate revolver on him. Some kind of tropical white flowers decorating the hem of his Hawaiian shirt, black flowers on the top part, black on black you could hardly make out.

  Jama said, “That’s a good-looking shirt you got on. How much it set you back?”

  Buck Bethards said, “You don’t remember me? I’m the guy you shot the other day at Marshal Foch Square.”

  Jama grinning at him now, slipped his hand inside the flight bag sitting on the wheelhouse table.

  “That was you?”

  “Gonna take you in this time,” Buck said. “The hell you doing out here?”

  “I blew up that tanker.”

  “You did, huh.”

  “Dialed a phone number and set it off.”

  “You’re a real terror, aren’t you?”

  “I’m giving it up,” Jama said, his hand on the Walther’s grip. “You a cop or what?”

  “I was military, now I’m on my own.”

  “You gonna shoot me?”

  “I’m taking you to Djib on those homicides. Or I can check, see if there’re warrants for a James Russell in the States.”

  “Russell,” Jama said. “How much you want?”

  “What I want is to see your hand come out of that bag.”

  “I’m getting a cigarette.”

  “Shame on you.”

  “Want one?”

  “I quit. Listen, I want you to take your hand out of the bag before I count to five. Give you time to make up your mind. You don’t, I tell my client you passed away on Gilligan’s Island. Last seen taking a stroll.”

  Jama said, “Lemme tell you again. I blew up that ship with a phone call. I’m the same as you, man. They pay me to do a job, I do it.” Jama said, “You mind if I bring out my cigarettes? Man, I have to see can I talk you out of this.”

  “I’ll count to five,” Buck said. “One…”

  Jama let him get to three. He took the bag in his left hand and half-turned to sidearm it at Buck, Jama’s right hand coming out with the Walther and shot Buck in the gut to relax him, cause him to sag, and shot him in the chest to kill him, from less than twenty feet. There was life in him for a few moments, his eyes open, looking at something he couldn’t believe.

  Shit, then had to go in the water again to get under Buck and dump him on the deck, the nickel-plate gone. Once Jama was aboard he started the engine and steered Buster deep into the cove and shut her down. Be for the next hour or so. He heard patrol boats out there and saw lights playing through the mangrove; the boats had too much beam to come in the channel. While he was waiting Jama dug Buck’s passport and wallet out of his back pocket and dropped them in his bag. Look at them when he had some light. For now he kept the boat pitch-dark and sat there waving at mosquitoes. Finally asked himself, You going or not? Started the engine and putt-putted out of the cove.

  It was too late to send Buster out to catch fire, Aphrodite looking almost burned out. What he did was start his own fire below-decks, sloshed a can of gasoline around and dropped a match down the ladder, heard it go wooosh and Buster was on fire, her bow aimed at the hulk burning a few miles off. Jama put on his life jacket and hung his bag of personals against his chest to hold on to it. About a hundred yards out he set Buster on autopilot and slipped over the side.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  XAVIER CHECKED WITH DJIBOUTI 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?”

  LATER ON DARA 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.”

  JAMA 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.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  XAVIER 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.

  DARA 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.”