Elmore Leonard: Djibouti

Get to Djibouti and become one more nigga till he became somebody else.

XAVIER CROSSED THE ROOF to Dara's dining room and kitchen, stuck his head in the door and said, "Billy's on the webcam, and Muffie."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I want to smell whatever you cookin."

Dara lived on the top floor, had her studio on the second floor, and kept the first floor full of movies, books and music, tapes of almost everything she'd ever seen since she was twelve.

It looked like she was getting ready to fix a trout, court-bouillon it in white wine, some spices. Or she might go meuniere with it. No aromas yet, he followed Dara down the wood stairs to the studio, her big desktop Mac with a thirty-inch screen waiting on the worktable. "It's ready," Xavier said. Dara waved him over next to her and clicked the pad. Now Billy's face filled the screen.

"There you are," Billy said. "Xavier told us you cookin. What y'all havin?"

"You get home," Dara said, "you turn up your Texas sound?"

"I'm away from here too long, I start sounding like a Yankee." He said, "Here's Muff," sat back in the sofa and there she was, her hand sticking out of her blouse.

"Hey, y'all, I'm pickin it up too, being around this good ole boy too long. As you can see, I'm still laid up, but nobody here asks me how my hand's doing. They've all fallen off horses. You know what he's gonna have me doing next?"

"Lemme guess," Dara said. "Riding?"

"Chasin after hounds. They do that here." Helene ran a hand over her breasts. "This tape is itching me to death."

Dara watched Billy lean in saying something to her. Helene punched him in a girlish way. "I think I'm marrying a sex fiend."

"Where are you, still in Texas?"

"Near Houston. At one of Billy's winter places. The rest are in other countries."

Dara said, "Xavier and I are trying to find a movie in all the footage we've shot." She turned to him saying, "He wants me to write a feature motion picture and make up stuff we don't have. I still want to do the real thing, a documentary." She said to Helene, "You remember Jama? I showed you shots of him in his Brown University T-shirt?"

"Yeah, and I said he looks like Will Smith."

"That's right," Dara said, "you did," remembering it now.

"I bet Will Smith would sell his soul to dress up like an Arab."

"What are you doing," Dara said, "besides healing?"

"Nothing much. Billy sent a crew to bring Pegaso home. But we're not gonna continue the cruise right away, darn it."

"That's a shame," Dara said.

"He can be a meany sometimes," Helene said. "He knows how much I love sailing around the entire fucking world."

Dara watched him say something to her again and Helene hit him with her free elbow. "Billy kids around but he's sick over losing Buck. He says he was a stand-up guy I would have liked a lot."

"And respected," Billy said, "like a brother."

"You know I was talking to Buck," Dara said, "when Jama pulled up in the car and shot him."

"The first time," Billy said, "then shot him on the boat, twice. Xavier's right, you make this a documentary, how you gonna show all the action stuff happened you don't have?"

"Jama takin out five people with five shots," Xavier said, "one each. That's movies. But you have to shoot it. Dara can make a feature anytime she wants."

Billy said, "How much would it cost?"

"Fifteen million," Dara said, "below the line."

"That's like fixed expenses, the ones you know you gonna have," Xavier said. "The camera equipment, all the lights, the best boys and their grips and gaffers, the camera crew…What else? The pirate boats and people we use as extras."

Dara said, "We've got pirate boats."

"Not with actors in 'em. We have long shots we can use, the skiffs racin out to board some kind of vessel."

Billy said, "How much for actors?"

Dara said, "How much can you spend?"

Billy said, "I'm in the picture?"

"In this instance," Dara said, "if you put up the cost of the picture, you're the producer."

"What if I want to be in it?"

Xavier said, "Play yourself?"

"I bet I could do it," Billy said. He looked at his watch. "But right now Muff's due for a workout with her trainer. We'll talk at you later."

"He means my therapist," Muff said, rolling her eyes at Dara. DARA HAD A WHEELED cart with a glass top she used as a bar, bottles of different kinds of spirits, even a siphon for zapping the drink with a hit of soda, always on hand in sophisticated 1930s movies, sitting on the bar while William Powell stirred Myrna Loy's martini. Xavier couldn't recall Dara ever using the siphon, but saw it as a cool touch for a bar.

Ever since they got home they'd been talking about their movie, four days now: Xavier pointing out holes where good stuff was missing. Xavier telling her, Girl, you know how to make a feature, you've seen every one ever made.

This evening they were slouched at either end of Dara's tan corduroy-covered couch with its ochre and orange pillows. On the coffee table two glasses of after-supper port, hadn't been touched yet.

"I bet," Xavier said, "you can make a real movie without anyone in it sayin 'besides.'"

"Or waste time with backstories. What you see is what happened. We do have to hire a few stunt people. You know what holds me back, don't you? Making up an ending."

"You'll think of one. Beginnin, the pirates; middle, Djibouti stuff; end, maybe end it on that island, the ship burnin. Say the right words over it, Muffin blows up the tanker and stops al Qaeda from blowin up Djibouti. Lake Charles'd be better, save a port in the U.S."

"We're making a comedy?"

"Get the right girl to play Muff. All her lines she says straight, not puttin on anything. The audience can laugh, it's all right. But Muffin's real."

"I asked her who she saw as Jama."

"Will Smith. I heard her. He's Jama if you can pay him."

"He opens a picture," Dara said, "earns his money. Who do we see as Idris?"

"I was thinkin of a young Omar Sharif for one of them."

"He's too dark."

"Too serious."

"That's what I mean."

"You know who'd kill to play Harry?"

"Harry," Dara said.

"Man loves to act. You wouldn't have to direct him much."

"I'd have to hold him down," Dara said. "But he might not be bad. Harry wants to be known."

"We can get actors from over there, stars. One of the guys in Clooney's picture Syriana."

"The ship blowing up," Dara said, "is documentary footage."

"The black Toyotas," Xavier said, "crossin the desert from Eyl to Djibouti, what did Idris tell Jama? Qasim? What did Harry say to 'em. I think that trip can be a trip."

Dara was nodding. "It could move the plot."

"See the boys get out and take a leak."

"Talking to each other now," Dara said, "Idris and Harry."

"Where are they when the boys escaped. I bet they arguin."

"Harry's having a drink."

"They at a bar in the African part. Harry's nerves are showin." Xavier handed Dara a glass of port and picked up the other one. "I bet you go into Jama's backstory some. How he became a Muslim-"

"In prison."

"Most likely. Went over to Djibouti and got into jihads for al Qaeda. He can tell it in two lines."

"But not why."

"He don't even know why. He joined 'cause he's fucked up, likes to show off, fire guns at people, the sound. Loves it. That's as deep as he is," Xavier said. "You still thinkin doc-u-men-tary, start cuttin what you have, wishin you had things you heard about. In Bosnia wishin you had women gettin beat up by their hubbies for gettin raped. You got more of what you don't have in this one, you shoot it documentary."

"All right, let's say we're casting a feature."

"What we been talkin about."