Elmore Leonard - Djibouti

The time came in bed, Jama spent and having a smoke, he told Hunter, "It's James." Tired of him begging in homosexual ways, some cute, some woeful.

"James Russell. All right? My name while I was doing time. My name before I turned to Islam and became an al Qaeda gunman."

Hunter said, "Oh, my God," spacing the words, and Jama had to hold him for a minute and got him to sit on the bed. He was all right after, by the time Jama got his shave. Full of questions till Jama told him, "Let's wait till we finish here." He didn't mind being called beautiful, but the guy beat it to death. Said he was Russell's love slave. This grown man who could have all the cooze he wanted, anywhere, turns it down as the way to go. But when he cranked up his homo shit with the gestures, he'd let it come out, knowing he was secure with a lover, and Jama would feel himself getting semihard. But no comparison to the ones he got thinking of Red Sea chicks and the number one, Celeste, his Ethiopian. The one Idris thought was his girl, set her up nice. Two days with Hunter were okay. The third day he couldn't take any more and ended the relationship.

Jama wedged his passport into a pair of Hunter's Reebok sneakers. By now it was hard to tell it was a passport, though it was readable inside. He'd make up a story how it got this way for Customs and Immigration when he got home. Tell them a Nile croc ate it and he had to cut the passport out of the croc's tummy.

He put on a pair of hundred-dollar jeans, the cuffs folding on the sneakers just right. He put other stuff, T-shirts and some of Hunter's panties and some aftershave, in a black flight bag, plain, no writing on it. He slipped on a pair of Hunter's shades that didn't fuck up his vision too much, ones he'd been wearing. Hunter had all kinds of glasses, all the cases here in his desk drawer. Jama brought them out looking at different styles. He picked up a case and this one was fat and soft with bills Jama pulled out, fifty, sixty new hundred-dollar bills. Six grand plus the three hundred he got from Hunter's billfold, sixty-three hundred, man. Where do you want to go?

There were a couple of things he would do first because he wanted to and had made up his mind.

Find the two Arab snobs, Idris and Lord Harry, and shoot them each in the head.

Then locate Aphrodite, loaded with frozen natural gas and-according to Qasim-C4 explosives, shape charges among the tanks, and watch the ship blow up Djibouti, the gateway to Islam. Or the back door to the West, the dividing line between God and Allah. Watch the city burn, people running for their lives. Qasim showed him how you could blow up the city with a cell phone from a safe distance. They had taken Qasim's cell days ago. But didn't Hunter have one? He believed so.

He had Hunter's car. Use it later tonight to dump his body. This afternoon he would stroll down the rue de Marseille to the Djibouti Airlines office and see about flights south to Nairobi, take it easy for a time, spend some of the money Allah had given him for being a good boy. Then come back…No, he should do it first. Kill anyone who knew his name.

THIS TIME DARA AND Xavier came to Idris's apartment on rue de Marseille. Idris had Harry staying with him, the shutters closed tight.

"You haven't been here before?" Idris said. "I thought you had. I leased this place when we were paid for the Faina, the Ukrainian ship with the Russian tanks. I took home, as you say, two hundred thousand. I'll tell you the truth, I never got less than a hundred thousand as my cut on any ship we hijacked. One three hundred thousand, that giant tanker sat out in the water with a price tag we kept knocking down. The Sirius Star was a serious pain in the ass. Dara, excuse the nasty reference, but that's where the pain was, the anxiety giving me the trots."

"Too bad you're out of it," Dara said. "Pirates are still working. I think they've taken over seventy ships by now, the gulf full of the world's navies trying to find them."

"The boys in the skiffs," Idris said. "Oh, it was a time. Being half drunk to hijack a ship and earn a hundred thousand dollars, often dropped from a plane. I had friends among the men in the middle, lawyers, fellows doing nothing for their money, making a few phone calls. They took care of me because they knew I could provide them with ships."

Dara said, "You wish you were still at it?"

"No, I've had enough. Fourteen ships." He said to Dara, "You like another glass?"

"Maybe half," Dara said.

"Lemme do it," Xavier said, picking up the martini pitcher. "I know what Miss Dara means she say a half." He had the reach to top off their stem glasses without getting up. He said to Dara, "You recognize the stone slab cocktail table and the bamboo furniture? Same as down at Eyl."

"I'm selling that house," Idris said. "Why would I want to go to Eyl? I have offers. Booyah Abdulahi, you remember him? He's still doing quite well. Booyah will give me two hundred thousand for the house. Everything in it, I told him it's worth three times that. We'll see."

Dara said, "You couldn't need money."

"No, I have it in banks I don't worry about."

"Then why are you and Harry still together?"

"He's a good friend."

"No, he isn't."

They heard a toilet flush.

Idris said, "He's always in the bathroom grooming himself. Always takes a pistol with him. All right, I thought he was a good friend at one time. I bought four hundred machine guns from him, Uzis, and sold them to warlords for twice what I paid. One of them pompous, I charged three times Harry's price. Harry comes out of the bathroom he's calm, almost himself, but I don't know what he's thinking."

"He has a home here," Dara said, "doesn't he, in the quarter?"

"He's afraid to go home and find Jama waiting for him. He doesn't say it, it's how he acts."

"How does Jama know where either of you lives?"

"Ask and find out. People always watching to see what we do, where we go. They're curious." Idris produced an eight-shot Sig auto from his clothes. "Jama comes, I'll be waiting to shoot him."

"Harry has money?"

"Of course he does. From the sale of arms."

"Then why don't the two of you get out of town?"

"We talk about it. Decide it's better to see it end here. Jama's a fugitive, he can't simply go about as he wants."

They looked up to see Harry come out of the hallway from the bathroom with a Webley revolver, the 1915 British Army model, held in his right hand. He looked quite himself in his starched shirt with epaulets, smiling at Dara, and came over saying, "Our lovely friend Dara," to give her a kiss on the cheek. "I must say we're in dire need of all the friends we can gather." He said, "My friend Xavier," and reached out to take his hand. "By any chance have you a notion of what we might do?"

Xavier said, "You look like you know what you doin."

Dara said, "Why don't you call the cops?"

"Have them sitting around the apartment," Harry said, "drinking tea? We had paid guardians before and they proved worthless."

"Well, let's keep in touch," Dara said, "all right? Call if you think Jama's around and you'd like Xavier to give you a hand."

It got Xavier looking at her.

"We ready to go?"

"As soon as I visit the facility," Dara said.

Xavier watched her walk off toward the bathroom while Harry poured himself a martini in Dara's empty glass and topped off Idris's drink.

"Jama comes by," Xavier said, "you fellas gonna be able to shoot him?" IN THE LIFT DESCENDING to the main floor Dara said, "Those guys kill me, sitting around drinking martinis with their guns out."

"You had two," Xavier said. "You all right?"

"I'm fine."

"I never heard you call the toilet a facility before."

"It's a gun room," Dara said, "AKs in the shower stall, one for each of them."