Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [62]
Kemi has made me wait long enough to drain a second bottle of beer. The American stops her at the entrance. I guess he asks why one of his staff is taking a break. She points to the café. I push my chair against the wall, away from the glare of the naked bulb. Even from this distance I can see she’s a beauty. She comes walking across the dirt street as though a red carpet’s been rolled out. She wears a skin-tight dress with a circle cut-out to reveal her pierced navel. Her scraped-back hair shines. And when she flashes her eyes at the waiter, I understood how Dominic Toon had crumbled.
The old men smoking at the next table turn to watch her sit down. She snaps something in Swahili and they go back to their cigarettes and tea.
‘So?’ she says curtly. ‘You want to go somewhere?’
‘Here is fine.’
‘Fine for what? I not some cheap girl who’ll fuck you in café.’
‘No, no.’ I say. ‘I just want to ask you a couple of questions.’
Then she kicks the chair back and stands to leave. ‘You waste my time. I have people to pay money and this is costing me.’
I pull $50 from my wallet. ‘Sit down,’ I say. ‘Tell me about Dominic Toon.’ She takes the bill and tucks it into her bra. Then she sits. I look over her shoulder to the Paradise and see we’re being watched. I nod at the waiter to sit on his bike.
He undoes his apron once more, stands nervously at the end of the counter and says, ‘I wait here.’
Kemi taps her varnished nails on the wooden table. ‘Who you want to know about?’
I say his name again. She shakes her head. This is getting expensive, I think, pulling out $50 more. She has the money palmed and inside her bra with the sleight of a magician.
‘Yes, an English boy. He look like that rock star. About a week ago. He very kind. And generous.’
I ask if she knows where he is now. She shrugs her shoulders and looks to the street. I unpeel another $50 and again she quickly steals it away.
‘I not sure, but I know he came from Australia because he try to give me Australian dollars. I say no good, he have to change them.’
Before I ask another question, I notice the waiter fidgeting, sweating, glancing back towards the Paradise. The American and his two Kenyan thugs stride across the road. I have about five seconds. ‘Where’s he now?’
She smiles and says, ‘This a big planet.’
Nearly $100 flutter out when I empty the wallet on to the table. ‘Where?’ I shout, but she’s too busy collecting the notes to answer.
Now I’ve stood I’m out of the shadow, revealed by the yellow of the naked bulb. The American shouts something from the middle of the road and starts running.
‘The bike,’ I snap. ‘Go.’ The waiter is a deer in the headlights, frozen with the keys in his hand. I rip them off him. He moves to take them back and I clip him under the chin. He falls, clattering over the chairs.
The American has paused on the street outside the café, and the Kenyans are shooing customers from the outside tables. No witnesses to my murder. Then the American storms inside. He pulls a matt black handgun from beneath his shirt. I tip tables and duck out the back door, run for my life.
And Kemi is a step in front, kicking off her heels and running, turning only to shout, ‘Home. Your boy gone home.’ Then she darts between the buildings.
Her voice is the last thing I hear before the revved engine. And the gunshots. I accelerate up the street between bullets, the first one fizzing past my left ear, the next shattering the rear window of a taxi. I twist back the throttle and lean into the rushing wind.
And I guess I broke the wrist he uses to shoot with, because he empties the entire clip without finding the target.
Terra Incognita
The resurrected hadn’t tended the flames, though I swear I’d have preferred a ghost as company to the burning bike. And the black smoke? Just the sump oil, leaking on to the glowing embers and igniting in the wind. No one’s come to stretcher me home. And the reverend still grins from the grave. Now with a told you so look to his smile.
Have built up the fire and unscrewed the front mudguard from