Brief Encounters With Che Guevara_ Stories - Ben Fountain [62]
This was a running tease, his insistence on seeing her devotion to the news as a bright girl’s interest in current events. They both knew she watched mainly for the sedative effect.
“Oh, they’re still getting rich,” she said. “And wondering which Third World country they need to bomb next. Being an American these days, that’s sort of like being a walking joke, right?”
“Come now, no one holds you responsible. Have you had anything to eat?”
She shook her head.
“Then join us. Come have dinner and forget the news.”
“I would,” she said in mock distress, “but I never know what to say to your friends.”
“Nonsense, you’re perfectly charming. All of my friends adore you.”
Adored, sure; white women of any description were in short supply. “Who’s that black man you were talking to?”
Starkey accepted the drink from Bazzy; his hands around the glass were like plump beef filets. “That’s Kamora. The diamond officer at the heliport.”
“I knew I’d seen him somewhere. So he’s a friend too?”
“After a fashion. He dropped by with a bit of news.”
“Good or bad?”
“Well, you’ll probably be pleased. Though it’s not so nice for me.” Starkey cut her a look; in the dim light of the bar his eyes were wine-dark. “They arrested a man in Antwerp today, someone from Ferrin’s outfit. Trying to pass a batch of Salone diamonds, apparently.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not.” Starkey’s face was grave. “Rather a shock, isn’t it? Everyone knew the ban was good PR, but nobody thought they’d actually try to enforce the damn thing.”
For months pressure had been building for an industry embargo on unregistered diamonds out of Sierra Leone, the “blood diamonds” that kept the rebels in operation. Years ago the RUF had charged out of Liberia pushing some vague Marxist rhetoric about liberating the country, their rationale for an agenda that mainly involved robbing, raping, and murdering every peasant they could get their hands on. They kept their columns well-stocked with ganja and coke, and it was the rebel foot soldiers—most of them teenagers, some no older than ten or twelve—who’d filled the DP camps with amputees. “Chopping,” they called it, their signature practice of hacking off one or both of their victims’ arms. “Short sleeves or long?” they were said to taunt as they raised their machetes.
“Go on, Jill. I give you permission to gloat.”
Jill was staring stonefaced at the TV. To feel conflicted at this point was impossible—there was no conflict, not when she thought about the suffering she’d seen.
“I’m not gloating. I just don’t see how they can do it.”
“They can’t,” Starkey agreed, “but they could definitely slow it down. And trade’s been sketchy enough as it is the last few months.”
Jill sipped her rum. “So what are you going to do?”
“Oh,” he said easily, “no sense running off in a panic. I’ll stick around a bit, see if they’re serious.”
“And if they are?”
He consulted his drink. “Suppose I’d have to follow the trade in that case. Mono or Guinea, that’s where you’ll see the stones turning up.”
“Gee, Starkey, you’d actually cut out on us? Think of all the great fun you’d miss around here.”
His laugh was phlegmy, coarse, as raw as Bazzy’s blender pulverizing ice. “Well yes, I really should think about that. All the fun one might miss in dear old Salone.” He turned fond as his laughter trailed off, his eyes tender, fixed on hers as if he meant to coax out some sort of therapeutic truth. Jill turned back to the TV—she felt, rather than heard, the faint break of his sigh, his feathery chuckle as he leaned in close.
“Do you know how good you look right now? You’re a gift, Jill, that’s what you are to me. You’re just amazing, love.”
She felt warm, slack; her eyes went slightly out of focus. Was this what it felt like to be loved? Before Starkey she’d never let anyone talk to her this way, and lately she had trouble remembering why.
I want the hardest place—she’d actually said that when she signed her contract. She’d spent two years in Guatemala with the Peace Corps, then three years in Haiti with Save the Children,