Robert Wilson - The Big Killing

‘There can’t be that many white people up in Korhogo.’

‘Ten, mebbe fiftee', ‘s ‘nough.’

‘The drop? Why did you call it the drop?’

‘You callin’ it transaction. I callin’ it a drop.’

‘Where and when is this drop?’

‘Outside of Abidjan, west side, down by the lagoon Ebrié, eight-thirty tomorrow night.’

‘Why there?’

‘The white man no wan’ come to Abidjan, he no wanbe seen there, he have his own problems, I donno why.’

‘Why don’t you just go to Korhogo and cut out the middlemen?’

‘We’ – he pointed to himself who could easily pass for plural – ‘we no wango Korhogo, too much far, too much long.’

‘Well, it sounds funny to me, Fat Paul. Nothing criminal. Remember.’

‘I rememberin’ everythin’ and this no funny thin', you know. You jes’ givin’ a man a package an’ he givin’ you some money. You takin’ you pay from the money an’ givin’ us the rest. I’m not seein’ anythin’ crinimal,’ he said, getting the word wrong and not bothering to go over it again.

‘What’s in it?’ I asked rattling the package, and Fat Paul didn’t say anything. ‘A video cassette?’

Fat Paul nodded and said, ‘What you puttin’ on a video cassette that’s criminal?’

‘How about child pornography?’

‘Hah!’ He sprung back from the table. ‘This nothin’ like that kind thin'.’

I gave him his package.

‘You not gonna do it?’

‘I’m going to think about it.’

He smiled and raised his eyebrows.

‘Mebbe I’m helpin’ you think. I’m payin’ two hundred and fifty thousand CFA do this job, a thousand dollars, you understandin’ me?’

‘But none of it upfront?’

‘You workin’ for African people now, we no have the money ‘fore somebody give it. Not like white people, they always havin’ money…’

‘Well, now I know what you want, I’ll think about it.’

‘You got any questions you wan’ aks?’

Tomorrow. I’ll have some questions tomorrow.’

‘You tekkin’ long time think up you questions. How many you got?’

‘If I knew that I’d ask them now.’

‘You jes’ give the man the package. And the man’ – he slowed up for my benefit – ‘the man he give you an envelope, wax sealed like this one. In the envelope is the money. You don’t have to coun’ it. Just tek it. Give one hand, tek the other. Is ver’ simple thin'. I mean, Kwabena he could do it without troublin’ he head ‘cept he black. He only jes’ come down from the trees. Still scratching hisself under the arms. No be so, Kwabena?’

Kwabena grinned at Fat Paul’s insult with a twinkling set of ivories and so little malevolence it would concern me if he was my bodyguard.

‘Don’ be fool',’ said Fat Paul, reading my thoughts, ‘he lookin’ kind and nice like mama’s bo’ but, you see, he got no feelin'. He got no feelin’ one way ‘rother. You go run wid the money. I say, “Kwabena, Mr Bruce go run with the money.” He find you, tek you and brek you things off like spider thing. You got me?’

‘No plobrem,’ said Kwabena slowly.

‘Time we goin',’ said Fat Paul, looking at a watch on a stretch-metal strap which was halfway up his forearm. ‘Leave Mr Bruce time for thinkin'. Time for thinkin’ all these questions he gonna aks. I’m goin’ rest, lie down, prepare mysel’ for the big game.’

Kwabena helped Fat Paul to his feet. The waist of his dark-blue trousers had been made to go around the widest part of his body so that the flies were a couple of feet long, the zipper coming from an upholsterer rather than a tailor. He was bare-ankled and wore slip-on shoes because he couldn’t get over his stomach to put on complicated things like socks and lace-ups.

‘I like you, Bruce,’ said Fat Paul.

‘How do you know?’

‘You smell nice,’ he said, and laughed. He laughed hard enough so that I hoped he wouldn’t bust his gut and he was still laughing when he left the shack, hitting the doorjamb a glancing blow and nearly bringing the whole thing down. A dog appeared at the door, attracted by the laughter, thinking it might mean good humour and scraps handed down with abandon. The barman hit him on the nose with a beer-bottle top and he got the picture and took off with his bum close to the floor, leaving us with only a thin thread of music on the radio for entertainment.

With Fat Paul gone and the Ivoire Soir finished I sucked on the grande modèle and fingered my face which still had a few livid marks from a beating I’d taken nearly a month ago. This was just the surface damage and it reminded me why I was even passing the time of day with a lowlife like Fat Paul who deserved the kind of attention you give a dog turd on the pavement.

Heike, the half-English/half-German woman I loved, who’d got mixed up in the ugly piece of business I had been involved in last month, had left Africa and gone back to Berlin from where she’d written saying she was looking for work.

B.B., the overweight Syrian millionaire to whom I still owed money after my last job working for him, was employing me, not on my daily rate, but on a small monthly salary and some expenses, which made the little I owed him feel like a twenty-five-year mortgage.

I was supposed to be handling the sacking of a Dane called Kurt Nielsen who was running B.B.'s sheanut operation in Korhogo. This was what B.B. had called his ‘small problem in Korhogo’ which didn’t seem to be a problem at all, just a way of B.B. amusing himself by keeping me dangling on a string.

Kurt Nielsen had been messing with the local girls, keeping bad books and, worst of all, not calling B.B. I’d asked him what was wrong with playing around.

‘Thass what I’m saying, Bruise,’ B.B. had said. ‘He not playing. He fall in lov'. Dese girls you don’t fall in lov', you play. Is nice and light. You fall in lov’ an’ ever’ting spoil.’

B.B. didn’t want him sacked until he had a replacement which he was finding hard to get. That’s what he said anyway. I knew different. I knew it was because we’d agreed that I would start charging my daily rate when I’d got rid of Nielsen and B.B. hated the sound of my daily rate.

He’d made life sound attractive by offering an all-expenses-paid holiday in Grand Bassam until I was needed. Then I’d found that any expense was too much for B.B. and we’d been fighting over small change ever since. The only expense he considered legitimate were telephone calls which I had to make every day and which would finish with the same line: ‘Calm, Bruise. Wait small. Now is not de time.’

Bagado, my Beninois detective friend, who had suffered a cracked collar bone during our last job, had come out of plaster and into continued unemployment in Cotonou. He had no money and the resources of his extended family were already overextended. I sent him money which I was borrowing from my Russian friend, Vassili, who was also helping me run Helen, my cook, who, although she wasn’t cooking for me, was looking after a sick uncle of hers who needed medicine.

Moses, my driver, was with me but we couldn’t afford much expensive Ivorian petrol so the car stayed put and Moses practised whatever it was he felt he hadn’t perfected with the local girls. This was proving expensive for him and therefore for me, and I was threatening to cut out the middleman.

‘Who the middleman, Mr Bruce?’ he would ask.

‘You, Moses.’

He clapped his hands and laughed at this and went through a succession of deep thoughts without finding the hidden meaning.

In an ideal world Heike would come back. Something awkward and sharp amongst all the food that B.B. shovelled into himself would get caught in his throat and he’d pass on into a better world. Bagado would get his job back in the police force. Helen’s uncle would get better. I’d get some decent work and Moses would get a short sharp dose of the clap. Only the latter was a serious possibility.