Brief Encounters With Che Guevara_ Stories - Ben Fountain [68]
By then she already had the diamonds. They were in a cloth pouch stuffed at the bottom of her daypack; she’d gotten them the day before, while the trucks were unloading at the Bomi depot. She’d slipped away on the pretext of delivering some letters, crossed the square by a small cinderblock mosque, and followed the street past rows of mud-brick houses and sludgy garden plots. Except for a few pot-bellied children she was alone on the street—people, dogs, goats, every other living thing had sought shelter from the sun, and peering out from under the bill of her baseball cap Jill watched the street vibrate under the onslaught of light, its outlines shimmering like a half-formed mirage. In two minutes her blouse was soaked through with sweat. No one could handle sun like this for long, and she concentrated on her breathing and the motion of her legs, pulling awareness into herself as a way of saving strength. She was not, she noticed with some satisfaction, very afraid; the dense bricks of cash in the daypack gave her a sense of purpose, their heaviness pleasant on her shoulder, somehow steadying. Presently she saw what she was looking for, a hand-painted sign announcing the CHAZ=3 BAR wired to a tamarind tree by the street. She passed through a gap in the palm-thatch fence and followed the path up to the bar, a small wood-frame structure with a rusting metal roof and bushpoles supporting the porch overhang. The door stood open, the interior a bruise of shadows; she didn’t falter until she heard voices inside, and then she was scared in spite of all the guarantees, in spite of Starkey’s calm coaching and her own resolve. Afraid, and suddenly weary to the point of despair; this was part of the deal now, the drag-weight of fear. Another thing she’d have to carry for the rest of the trip.
She kept going because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Petrik was there, a wild-haired Russian for whom the payoff seemed to be a mere sideline, a distraction from the main business of the day, which was convincing Jill to go back to Koidu with him. “I’m rich,” he declared, slouching against her—they were sitting thigh-to-thigh on a plank bench. Four Leonean soldiers sat at the table with them, dark, strapping men in camouflage fatigues who fell out laughing at everything Petrik said. His security, Jill guessed, the hired help; Petrik scowled but otherwise ignored their hazing.
“I’m rich,” he insisted as the soldiers cracked up. “I know it looks not possible but is true, seven years I do nothing but work! Seven years in this shithole, one more year I take my money and I go home.”
“Good,” said Jill. She’d accepted a warm orange Fanta. The soldiers and Petrik were pouring gin from a filthy plastic jug, everyone sluggish and greasy-looking in the heat. The old lady who ran the place sat at the next table over, a tiny, frizzle-headed woman with immense earlobes. From time to time she reached for the jug and poured herself a drink.
“You tell Starkey, I do one more year for him.”
“I’ll tell him,” Jill said.
“Stay with me,” the Russian said, begging her with puppy eyes. “I go crazy for you baby, I take care of you. When you with me you don’t worry for nothing, okay?”
“I have to go back. I’m sorry.”
“I give you everything baby, you know it’s true!”
“I’m sorry. I promised Starkey I’d be back in two days.”
“Fuck Starkey, he’s not the boss around here!” The Africans howled and slapped the table. “Me! Only Petrik is the boss in Kono! Just stay one night baby, I go nuts for you. Only one night Petrik asks you for.”
“I can’t,” Jill said, wondering how much choice she had in the matter.
“Just one night. Please baby.”
“I’m sorry. I have people waiting for me.”
To Jill’s horror he slumped over and started