Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [61]
First I see the American. Lit like a ghost beneath the tube lights of the pool table, his wrist in plaster. He leans against the edge of the baize, tilting back a bottle of beer. His blue cap turned backwards. Two Kenyan men stand guard beside him, smoking. I take a seat in a coffee shop across the road and watch girls walk in and palm rolls of money into his good hand. They pay him to work the bar. He stays sitting on the table and only stands when white men wander in from the street. He sidles up to them and gestures across the room with sweeping arms. Demonstrating his wares. Then he returns to perch again on the edge of the pool table. The only black man he stands for is the passenger of a silver Mercedes. The driver pulls right up on the pavement outside, gets out and opens the rear door for a tall, thin man, whose skin pigmentation has left pale patches on his face, like a map. He steps from the car and struts into the bar. He shakes the American’s hand without looking him in the eye. But the gesture is transaction, not greeting. The fold of bills slip into his top pocket.
I ask the waiter of the coffee shop, a young guy wearing a faded Arsenal shirt, if he knows the owner of the Mercedes. He gives me that shrug of the shoulders signalling the answer is going to cost money. I give him a $10 bill. ‘Mvembo,’ he says.
Mvembo reaches out and balances the cast of the American. He shakes his head. I move my chair a little further towards the rear of the coffee shop, into the shadows. Mvembo only stays long enough to pick up three girls and leave. Again the driver holds the door as he gets in the Mercedes. Along with the three girls who clamber into the back. If one of them is Kemi, my lead on Dominic Toon has gone.
Still the American marshals the bar. More girls and drinkers arrive, and along with them more cohorts around the pool table. Two of the Kenyan bodyguards argue and square up. The American steps between them, says something and they back down.
It would be a suicide mission for me to walk in and begin questioning the girls. I think of his knife stuck in my back.
I order a beer to follow the cappuccino. Just the one. I need my wits about me. I watch the waiter go over to a motorbike parked in front of the coffee shop. He tops up the oil. After he washes his hands I call him over to my table. I gesture for him to come a little closer and ask if he wants $100. He looks around. Does he believe me? Then he says if I want to put my dick in his ass there’s not enough money in the world. I shake my head.
‘Two favours,’ I say. ‘One, go over to the Paradise and tell a girl called Kemi that a rich admirer is waiting for her in the coffee shop. Two, park your motorbike around the back of this building and sit on it with the keys in the ignition.’ I deal him five $10 bills and say I’ll give him the rest after a ride to the edge of town. He looks around the coffee shop, the peeling lino and buzzing flies, old men smoking. I know the answer.
‘Kemi?’ he confirms. I nod. ‘I know her.’ He puts the money down the front of his pants then straddles his bike and revs the engine. The other waiter shouts something but he opens the throttle and spins out a turn. I hear the bike thrummed down an alley between this building and the next. The engine stops and my getaway vehicle and driver enter through the back door. He looks at me, nods, and takes off his apron. He looks young walking across the road in his football shirt. I feel guilty for buying a favour, but I’m out of options.
The American only glances at the waiter as he enters. He greets one of the Kenyan men with a nod. Once past the front door I lose him in the glitzy lights and smoke. And then the sluggish clock ticks. Two minutes or twenty would feel the same until he comes back across the road. I have my eye on the rear door, and curse myself that I didn’t ask for the bike keys as part of the bargain. Before the waiter returns to my table he ties his apron back on. Then