Elmore Leonard: Djibouti

"I write a script-"

"Scenes with Dara and Jama," Xavier said, "somethin stirrin between them. This other nigga's sittin on the sidelines; he wants to go home, but Dara decides to hang around, see what happens. She's reachin too far, gonna hurt herself."

"I fall for Jama?"

"Girl, he falls for you. You the star, he tells you everything you want to know about him and al Qaeda. You get me to watch him, he don't disappear on us. We go to that island 'cause he told you it's where he's blowin up the LNG ship from. Helene's the only one could play herself. She's been actin all her life. Billy, you won't have to pay him you let him do Billy. Idris and Harry, get a pair of young Arab stars."

"And who plays Xavier, the old seafarer," Dara getting with it, "some young buck?"

"Not too old, but never heard of Goat Weed."

Xavier got up from the couch with his glass of port. "If I'm spendin the night, you mind I use your shower?"

"I'd be grateful," Dara said.

"Who you see playin you?" He waited for her to tell him. Something she likely hadn't thought of. "You the lead," Xavier said. "There a lot of good women in the business gonna want this part. Watch that movie again, all the Italian chicks goin after Daniel Day Lewis. It's Eight and a Half with music and comes out Nine."

Going into the bathroom with his port he heard the phone ring.

A few minutes later Dara opened the door to the shower, Xavier filling the tiled space, body soaped, his face raised to the spray.

"That was a friend of Harry's. He's here to read for a part in a zombie picture. Would like to stop by and say hi."

"You have to read to play one of the undead?"

"All I know is Harry told him I make movies. He'll be here in a few minutes."

"What's his name?"

"Hunter Newhouse." THE FIRST THING JAMA did he got to New Orleans, he phoned Coleman Correctional in Florida and said he was calling about a death in the family of one of their inmates, Tariq Bosaso, and gave them a number for Tariq to call, saying he was Hunter New house, a lawyer representing the family.

Tariq called saying, "Who is this? Who's dead? I don't have no people anymore, all died on me."

Jama said, "You remember a boy read the Koran and could recite it from memory? Don't say my name."

"This is you speaking to me?"

"Home on leave from the jihad. You read about a gas ship blowing up off East Africa?"

"Man, it played on TV a week. Was al Qaeda done it?"

"Young fella name of James phoned the ship and she blew. You ever hear anything like that?"

"Come and visit me, I want to hear what you been doing."

"I will I have time. First I got to take care of bidness," James said. "Tell me where I get a piece in this town."

"What kind you need?"

"One I can slide out of my pants."

"Gonna cost you."

"I flew here first-class from Paris. Tell me where to get the gun and I'll tell you who I'm gonna shoot." DARA'S BUZZER BUZZED AND she pressed the switch to open the door downstairs-two doors on Chartres, one for the first floor and the other for upstairs. She opened the door and looked straight down the stairway she would fall down in dreams until she'd won her first award. She saw a figure come in the same time Xavier called, "Dara…?" She turned from the door, open now, and heard, "Where's my Aqua Velva?" She told him it was in the cabinet, turned back to the door and Jama was a few steps below her looking the same, grinning at her.

"Who's that, your nigga? You live together?"

"Tonight's his sleep-out."

"Likes Aqua Velva means he's got cheap skin. Tell him that, we have time. You gonna invite me in?"

"Yeah, Xavier'll want to see you."

Jama said, "You want to know something? You aren't as different as I thought. You live with that nigga, he contaminates you."

"What did you think I was," Dara said, "a virgin?"

"You were yourself, always you every minute. Different than other women."

"Tell me what you've been up to."

"I blew up that ship."

"I thought Helene did. It doesn't matter." She saw Xavier come out of the bedroom in his white briefs looking right at Jama.

"He says he blew up the gas ship."

"He might think he did," Xavier said. "Was Helene blew that ship up. With a rifle, fired it and the ship blew."

Jama said, "Listen to me. There were explosives with a cell phone we planted. I call the number…It was in the newspapers they found it was explosive charges blew open the pods of lethal gas."

"But was Helene must've touched it off," Xavier said.

They were standing in the living room, Jama in front of the coffee table, Dara and Xavier a couple of strides from him.

"You don't combust a combustible ship," Jama said, "with a rifle."

"You do this one. Had steel-cuttin rounds in it. You still usin a Walther?"

Jama unzipped his jacket to show them a new Walther stuck in the waist of his pants.

"You must've got it here," Xavier said. "Don't let it slip down in your pants."

"I can pull it before you move."

"You practice in front of a mirror like Bobby De Niro in that picture?"

Jama said, "'You talkin to me?'"

"That's the one. You see a lot of movies?"

"In Arabic, with French subtitles, or English."

"Bobby De Niro speakin Arabic."

"It looks real."

Xavier said, "Dara…?" and saw Jama's eyes shift and his hand go to his gun. He didn't pull it. "You want to offer Jama Russell a glass of port?"

"No, I don't," Dara said. "He comes here to shoot us 'cause we know his name."

"Everybody knows his name," Xavier said. "He's got to think up a new reason to shoot people."

"We have to watch him pose and swagger, act like an asshole," Dara said, "and I want to hit him with something." She turned looking around and picked up a sculpture from a lamp table: two girls sitting on a toadstool back-to-back, a brass piece six and a half inches high, but heavy. Dara raised it looking right at Jama.

And Xavier said, "Why don't you throw it at him?" IT WAS THE SAME way he pulled it on Buck: drew the Walther as he sailed the flight bag at him like a Frisbee. Only it was aimed at Jama this time. Jama saw the brass statue coming at him and threw up his hand and rolled his shoulder the same way Buck did-giving Jama time to shoot him-giving Xavier the moment he needed to come at him with bare hands and take the Walther by the barrel sliding out of his pants and twist it hard and shove it into him, Jama pulling on the gun and it fired. Xavier held on to him face-to-face and said, "Boy, I think you just killed yourself."

Dara came over as Xavier laid him on the coffee table and pulled on his legs so his head would lie flat on the glass.

She said, "He's still alive."

"Can't believe it happen to him."

"Look at his eyes," Dara said. "He's thinking, But I was holding the gun."

Xavier said, "I didn't mean it to happen this way."

"What do we tell the police," Dara said, "he committed suicide?"

"He's been tryin to all his poor-ass life," Xavier said. "It finally took."

Dara said, "Is this how it ends?"

"What, your movie?"

"Djibouti."

"We must be close to it."