Elmore Leonard - Djibouti

"That's good," Billy said. "'Room to roam.'"

"Around in," Helene said. THEY WERE IN BILLY'S suite, Helene and Dara having martinis with anchovy olives, talking, catching up. Billy was off to see people, Xavier went to see the police to tell what he knew about Jama.

"Billy started calling me Muffin," Helene said. "I don't know why. A person's face is either a bird, a horse or a muffin, right? What am I?"

"A bird."

"See, he didn't start with Muff. I was Muffin till he shortened it to Muff, but I don't think it has anything to do with mine. He's smoking a cigar and gets the urge to go down on me?"

"Disturbs your reading?"

"I could be doing the wash. Especially doing the wash and I'm a mess. My crotch smells like a fifty-dollar Havana."

"It must turn him on."

"Yesterday, he was General Jack D. Ripper again, but no precious bodily fluids, he was talking about drones, nobody has to fly the planes anymore. Grouched about that for a while. I think he wants to be a hero. Loves to talk about guys doing heroic things in the war. I asked Billy if he could imagine doing it and he said, 'I'd like to see what it's like.' What does that mean?"

"I'm guessing," Dara said. "He'd like to be known as a war hero who got the Medal of Honor posthumously without dying."

"Or," Helene said, "he wants to get the medal for making a phone call that saves some important guy's life. But now he's talking about doing it. Blow up the gas ship and get away before the gas fire catches up with us. He says he isn't worried."

"But you are."

"He says he may get a cigarette boat for the job, a Donzi."

"If you'd rather not go with him," Dara said, "don't."

"We're shipmates, and shipmates stand together," Helene said. "He's the captain and I'm the fucking crew. 'Bogey off the port bow, Skipper.' When I'm on watch. You don't go down to the galley, you lay below."

"It sounds like fun," Dara said.

"He's serious about it."

Dara said, "With a six-hundred-caliber rifle. You think he knows what he's doing?"

"He sure sounds like it."

"You two must be getting along."

"He loves it when I aye-aye him."

Helene sipped her martini. Put an olive in her mouth, took another sip and bit into the olive.

"God, this is good after champagne every day. I told you it's all he has?"

"But you don't have to drink it."

"My body requires alcohol to get through this."

"It must be a fine line," Dara said, "between keeping up your appeal and staying high enough to see it through."

"It gets tricky," Helene said. "I have to watch I don't fall overboard." IDRIS STOPPED BY THE hotel in the afternoon, smiling at Dara and Helene having their party.

"The turn of events does not give you pause?"

Dara said, "What turn of events?"

"Jama being loose," Idris said. "You not concerned about him?"

"Xavier's turning it over to the police," Dara said, "giving them Jama's real name. He's their case now."

"So we don't worry about him, good," Idris said. "I'm going to Paris for a few days to catch my breath. Come back and take up piracy again. I miss boarding ships."

Dara said, "If I had the energy I'd be right behind you, make you a movie star."

Idris said, "Yes, thank you," accepting the martini Helene offered him. He sipped it and closed his eyes knowing he'd have another one. Dara lighted a cigarette and gave it to him and he said, "Why do I want to go to heaven? I'm experiencing my reward here."

"I hate to tell you," Helene said, "but it's been a while since we were virgins."

"You are women of the world, and we don't see many of that kind here." Idris said, "Am I crazy to go to the gulf? More than thirty warships there bumping into each other? Over one hundred freedom fighters"-giving Dara a nod-"have been put in jail in Kenya. Most of them waiting for trial and go to prison for ten years. But," Idris said, "I believe pirating is still a good business. At least for someone knows what he's doing. I believe when I get boats with motors of a high power, I will make another fortune."

Dara said, "What's Harry doing?"

"He's drinking, but not too much," Idris said, "and taking methamphetamines. It makes him feel like Superman. He makes sudden moves. Turns holding his pistol."

"Riding on tweek," Helene said.

"He drums on chair arms," Idris said, "to music in his head."

"Does he have a little dance step?"

"He tells me with all the details of shooting a tiger in Bengal, from his seat on an elephant. He tells me he has local blokes, like they're his beaters, lookin for Jama. Scare him out of where he's hiding. Harry tells me he'll shoot the bothersome bugger and that will be the bloody end of it."

"He'll fuck up," Helene said.

"He can't do it alone," Dara said.

"He tells me he has help."

"They'd better be armed and dangerous."

"Two leftover Somalis," Idris said, "guards on the trip from Eyl. They're related to the four he killed to escape. They both want to shoot Jama."

Dara said, "Or is he James now?"

A TAXI DRIVER EVER TRIED to charge him too much, Jama would place the barrel of the Walther against the man's neck and ask him in Arabic, "Again, please. How much is the fare?" The driver would say, oh, he made a mistake and sometimes wouldn't charge for the ride. One time the driver was slow, maybe wondering if he should jump out, but first asking, "Is this a robbery?"

What's the matter with him? Of course it was a robbery. Jama took his money, drove off in the taxi a few blocks and left it in the street.

He used taxis because he'd left Hunter's banged-up car back of his building, through with it, he believed, and through with his Ivy League outfits. He wore a kikoi, a white one that fell past his knees, a scarf he knotted around his head, and had stopped shaving. He dirtied up Hunter's white sneakers, needing fast shoes he ever had to make a run. He hung out in the African quarter till people started asking where he was from, if he was selling khat. That wasn't a bad idea. He bought up a clump a khat-seller had and went around peddling it marked up some. He believed he was being watched. He didn't know it for a fact, but believing it was enough. Each night he changed where he stayed, holes in the walls called hotels.

He talked to sailors hanging around the docks. One of them told him the LNG tanker was out there in the Gulf of Tadjoura waiting for stores. He heard the crew, the Filipinos, had quit and were looking for ships.

Jama was thinking he should have stayed at Hunter's. Have booze, all the ice he wanted. Food in the freezer. He was sorry he had been hasty about Celeste. Have her stay with him at Hunter's place, back in the saddle again out where a friend was a friend. Wherever that was. If the phone rang he'd say, "Hunter? He went to Egypt. Me? I'm taking care of his cat Putie." Give the caller shit like that in a nice voice.

He still had a key. HARRY WAS CLOSE TO biting his nails, tempted, feeling a need to get it done. He said to his Somalis, "Come on, let's stay on it, for Christ sake. Check the African quarter, you know what he looks like. You drove all the way from Eyl with him. He could be dressed like an American or he's gone back to being Arab."

One of the Somali lads said, "I know the back of his head, his hair. I sat behind him two days looking at it."

The other Somali said he was never in the same car with Jama. "But I know he has hair on his face, a beard."

Finally they had traced Jama to the rue de Marseille, Harry out of his car wanting to pace, move around, but managed to hold on to himself. His two Somalis stood waiting, smoking cigarettes. In the dusk, the sky losing its light, the street of apartment houses was already dark. Harry's Bentley, delivered today from Eyl, stood at the curb waiting.