Robert Karjel - My Name is N

‘Your M. Bagado? He still won’t get anywhere.’

‘You’re covered then?’

‘You don’t think I can work out of Cotonou without a lot of…support. Very expensive support, I might add. You must realize by now, Bruce, that’s the beauty of Africa. Everything is possible avec la graisse.’

‘This isn’t port business. It’s police business. And Bagado doesn’t…’

‘Let me ask you something,’ he said, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the last. ‘Have you heard of Bondougou? Le Commandant.’

The name disappeared into the smoke over Marnier’s shoulder and then on into the darkness of the room.

‘I see.’

Marnier gave me a huge Gallic shrug and stubbed out the butt in the tuna can available. He picked up the refilled glass of whisky.

‘Your health.’

‘Yours too,’ I said, pouring myself one and joining him. ‘You need it more than I do.’

‘If I stopped smoking,’ he said, ‘I’d come apart. The tar glues me together.’

‘I don’t want to think about that for too long,’ I said. ‘Are you hiding or aren’t you? You went through quite a performance to get to me.’

‘You came to see me first. I don’t know all your connections yet. Maybe someone has asked you to find me,’ he said, shrewd eyes on mine.

‘Is that why you’re keeping my phone occupied?’

‘Expensive but safe.’

‘So somebody’s after you?’

‘Somebody’s always after me.’

‘You’re that kind of businessman.’

‘Sometimes people disagree with the way I make things work.’

‘For them or for yourself.’

‘Ha! Yes,’ he said, and fingered the couple of inches of thick scar tissue he had between the corner of his mouth and jawline.

‘Maybe you’re not being so honest about how your face was cut up,’ I said.

‘It was a machete attack.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Let’s talk about what you’re going to do for me.’

‘Good, I’ve got a home to go to.’

‘How nice,’ he said, irritable now, the breathing going suddenly. ‘I want you to take me to Grand-Popo.’

‘You’ve got a wife. She’s got a car. Renault 5 Turbo. Fast, comfortable.’

‘Carole’s been under enough strain as it is.’

‘What are we going to do in Grand-Popo?’ I asked. ‘The beach is nice.’

‘I’m going to meet somebody.’

‘For dinner. I’ve heard the Auberge isn’t bad. Better for lunch, though.’

‘Perhaps. I’ve taken a small house so we’ll have some privacy.’

‘Who are you meeting? If that’s not too intrusive.’

‘A man from Togo. That’s all you need to know.’

‘But we’re going to meet in this house you’ve taken, not out on some open piece of wasteland in the dark. I don’t like those kind of meeting places and I’ve been to a few in my time.’

‘Now you’re adhering to that little self-knowledge of yours.’

‘And why not?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m in no condition to be stumbling around in the dark.’

‘When do we go?’

‘Tomorrow. You’ll be told what time. Make the whole day available…and night,’ he said, standing and taking a bent brown envelope from his back pocket. ‘This is the first half. Two hundred and fifty thousand CFA. The rest when we get back to Cotonou. That is your rate? Two hundred and fifty thousand a day?’

He stubbed out the cigarette and picked up the revolver and mobile phone. He stuffed the revolver into his waistband and pocketed the phone.

‘We’re still connected,’ he said, patting his phone. ‘I’ll let you have your line back in five minutes. It’s been a pleasure, Bruce.’

‘Jean-Luc,’ I said, and we shook hands.

He left and I put the phone back on the hook. I went out on to the balcony and watched him appear underneath me. He glanced up and nodded. He hailed a taxi moto and just about managed to get his leg over the back of it. He waved without turning round and the moped wobbled off into the orange-lit pollution of the city. I waited five minutes and put my call through to Carlo in the Hotel de la Plage.

We met in the booze section of the supermarket. I told him what he wanted to know and that if he was going to follow he’d better be discreet but keep close because if it was going to happen it might be sudden and it might not be in Grand-Popo. Carlo fingered the bottles and nodded with his bottom lip between his teeth.

‘You want to tell me how to do my job some more?’ he asked.

I picked two bottles of white wine off the shelf.

‘You didn’t tell me he’d taken a beating since the photograph.’

‘He has?’

‘He’s a mess,’ I said.

Carlo tutted, shook his head.

‘Machete attack in Liberia,’ I said, as we walked past the fruit on the way to the checkout. ‘Lucky to survive.’

‘Mr Franconelli said he was a hard man.’

‘They tell me the peaches are good.’

‘Maybe I’ll get a kilo,’ said Carlo.

‘You do that.’

I got back home at 8 p.m. with the two bottles of Sancerre. Heike was in and on the iced water. I joined her and she served me with a raised eyebrow.

‘I don’t mind watching you get off your face, you know,’ she said.

‘Maybe I mind,’ I said. ‘Don’t want you to see something you don’t like.’

‘Something I’ve never seen before?’ she said, snaking an arm around my neck, crushing me into a kiss.

‘I was going to say…something that could sneak out after I’ve had a few which you’ve never noticed before, being in the same condition, as you are most of the time you’re with me.’

‘You think I could stay young and beautiful drinking the way you do?’ she said, stroking my face hard, trying to iron out those creases.

‘I was also going to say that sobriety’s a very unforgiving state.’

‘Then you must be a very forgiving person,’ she said. ‘But with nothing to forgive. You’re flying already. I could smell you from the door.’

‘That Sancerre’s going to go down as well,’ I said. ‘And when I’ve finished this glass of water I’m going to have a Grande Beninoise. I’ve been talking a lot and it’s dehydrated me.’

‘I’m glad you’re not reforming just because you’re going to be a father.’

‘Maybe in the last few months before D-day I’ll start trying to be good.’

‘They’ve already got a brain after two months. They hear things.’

‘But they don’t know what they mean.’

‘Babies are very tonal,’ she said.

‘It’ll learn to sleep to the clinking of glass.’

‘Because it’s all crap after that.’

‘Well, I’ve just been told I’m very interesting.’

‘By your drinking pal?’ she said. ‘That’s a very sad thing for you to be saying, Bruce Medway.’

I opened the beer and drank it like I said I would. We sat down to eat, a Spanish chicken dish called chilindron, which was good for the climate. The chilli kept the sweat up. I idled over the Sancerre while Helen cleared the plates and brought the Red Label out, which she put down with a thump and a sigh. I sent her back with it and she gave me one of her half-lidded, muddy-eyed looks that told me I wasn’t fooling her.

‘Don’t hold back on my account,’ said Heike.

‘I’ve got to go out tonight,’ I said.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Clubbing.’

‘Anybody I should know?’

‘It’s work.’

‘You shouldn’t bring it home with you.’

‘I wouldn’t, but the guy I want to see runs a bar down the Jonquet and it doesn’t get going until midnight.’

‘Which bar?’

‘A place called L’ouistiti. I’m told it means “marmoset” – you know it?’