Elmore Leonard: Djibouti

"He told you that?"

"An inducement, giving me a goal."

"It could be a long wait," Dara said. "He seems in good health. He doesn't smoke."

"Cigars," Helene said. "You think I'm out of my mind?"

"You must like him-"

"I do. He's kind…he's thoughtful…He's funny sometimes. He calls Obama 'that spear-chucker we got in the White House,' but Billy likes him, I can tell." She looked at Dara's reflection again.

"You married?"

"I've been too busy," Dara said, "to think about it."

"But you're not, are you, a lesbian? Some of the girls I work with are. They're nice, not especially bitchy. Sometimes I'll tell a guy I'm one to shut him down."

Dara said, "I like guys. But I like whatever I'm doing right now, whatever I want, more. I lived with a lawyer once-he didn't want to get married either. He'd tell me why we were better off single living together and go through a, b, c, once in a while, d. He'd thought of another reason."

"What's c, having sex anytime he wants?"

"He talked constantly. He'd say things he thought were funny. He'd start telling me a fact, anything, about world populations and go on and on. One time I asked him a question about the Supreme Court he could've almost answered yes or no. He started talking and I wanted to shoot myself."

"You were fucked, and you did it to yourself," Helene said. "Billy tells long stories about investigations-I guess for the government-and makes it sound like he's in it. Billy goes, 'Me? No.' Takes a swig of champagne. 'But I know things.' He's either a lovable jerkoff or, I don't know, maybe some kind of CIA guy. But you know what's weird? Wherever we are, I know somehow he's going to hand me a glass of champagne."

"He turns you down, you're still a runway star with the hair and the body."

"If I ever get in shape again. You're the first person I've felt I can talk to. You know why I'd marry him, all the bullshit aside, because he's a fucking honest-to-God billionaire. I knew you'd smile. He doesn't have to be funny. He can talk all he wants. But why is he always handing me a glass of champagne?"

"I wouldn't think to get you drunk and seduce you."

"I'm practically bare-ass on the boat. No top, ever, out of sight of land. He doesn't want some sneak with binoculars seeing what he's got."

Dara said, "What's the problem?"

"I don't know how long I can last."

"If you want to quit, go out in the boat tomorrow and throw up."

"I don't get seasick."

"Put your finger down your throat. Or, stay with it and write a book. Tell what happens going around the world with a billionaire. And maybe around and around. You could get an advance, I think at least a million, and a pro to write it for you. What's the difference?"

"If he turns me down, I write the book in my own words. And if I marry him I don't have to write the book."

Dara said, "I'm gonna stop worrying about you."

They got back to the table as Xavier and Billy Wynn were coming with a Somali in a white suit, the shirt open, a yellow scarf looped about his shoulders. Xavier calling, "Dara, we got us a pirate." FIVE OF THEM SAT around the table with bottles of Blanc de Blanc Billy brought from the bar he said for openers, Xavier anxious to introduce his pirate.

"Dara, like you to meet Idris Mohammed."

Idris rose to his feet and bowed.

"Commander of a gang of swashbucklers run out in the gulf and hijack whatever ships look good. Idris say he's never lost a man or killed any crew on the ships."

"I can't tell you," Dara said, "how happy I am to meet you. May I call you Idris?" It got a look from Xavier.

Her pirate had those Somali cheekbones in a thin face, a good-looking guy with a neat beard and white teeth smiling at her. He said, "Yes, Idris, of course," with an African accent.

Dara asked him, not wasting a moment, if he thought of himself as a pirate, or had a more acceptable name for what he did. Idris smiled.

"I think of us as the Coast Guard giving fines to ships that contaminate our seas, thousands of them leaving their waste in the waters we once fished."

"You were a fisherman?"

"My family."

"You speak English so well-did you ever live in America?"

"You detect that, uh? Yes, Miami University in the state of Ohio for part of several years."

"Wow," Dara said. "What did you study?"

"It was my understanding you don't study too much there."

Dara smiled and then Idris smiled.

"You're my first pirate," Dara said. "Did Xavier tell you what we're doing?"

"Making a movie, yes, about pirates. If I can help you I will. My home is in Eyl, in Somalia, but I'm here at least a week each month. I have a residence in the French Quarter and a car to get me around, a Mercedes-Benz drophead. It's black, completely black, with dark windows to keep out the sun."

Sounding proud of it.

"You drive to Eyl?"

"Once in a while. Or I travel with a friend who has a Bentley and a driver."

"That wouldn't be Ari the Sheikh Bakar, would it? Known to his chums in England as Harry?"

"Ah, you are the one he met on the plane from Paris. Of course, Dara Barr, the filmmaker. I saw him briefly this afternoon. Yes, he said he met you, but you haven't called him."

"I did, but there was no answer."

"Harry keeps busy. He runs around being the good guy."

"He said his job is to talk to pirates."

"Yes, he does that, tries to convince us there is no future in piracy. I tell him, who needs the future? We can make enough now to improve our lives. There is nothing dishonorable in what we do. The sea is our life."

"Ask him," Billy Wynn said, "how much he thinks he'll get for that Saudi tanker?"

Idris said, "It's taking months, isn't it?" a pleasant sound to his voice. "That one isn't mine, so I don't know if progress is being made in negotiating a payment."

"They started out wanting twenty-five million," Billy said, "the ship and its load of crude worth ten times that."

"Well," Idris said, "they could settle for only two or three million, it would still be profitable."

"You know," Dara said, "there are warships hunting you. The American navy, the French, German, Greek, even the Chinese."

"Yes, I think I saw one or two warships," Idris said. "I believe they're painted gray?"

Having fun with her.

"You and Harry," Dara said, "are sworn enemies, but it sounds like you're friends."

"Dear, we met in this club two years ago, and had a good laugh we find out I'm the bad guy and he's the good guy. I tried to get him to quit acting respectable and become a pirate. You know what he said, 'I don't need to make money that way. Mother sends me an allowance. Whatever I need.'"

"He sounds like a cool guy," Billy said. "I should talk to him."

Then Idris asked Dara if she'd like to go for a drive. Dara hesitated a few seconds before she asked him to swear in the name of Allah he was a pirate and not putting her on. He swore he was a man of honor from Miami University in Ohio.

Xavier said, "Girl, we leavin town oh-six-hundred. That's A.M."

Too late. Dara was walking out with Idris.

Xavier settled back, thinking, Now you worried about her goin out with an African pirate, after puttin up with Bosnian thugs and white supremacy assholes makin her pictures? She's gonna shoot him in his Mercedes and fit it in someplace.

THE FIRST DOCUMENTARY FILM Dara Barr shot on her own was called Women of Bosnia and it won an award at Cannes. Dara stayed on the women, no men in the picture identified, only the women after the men had used them.

She made Whites Only intercutting neo-Nazi white supremacists with Klansmen wearing robes of different shades. It won Best Documentary at Sundance: skinheads and coneheads exposing their racism to Dara's camera.