Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Did I think that or say it out loud? Nobody’s here and it’s a quiet Kingston evening. I really need to go home. Claire’s bitching about having to move one second, then calling all her friends in Buenos Aires as if they’re really her friends to ask if the American school has gone to the dogs. Meanwhile I’m trying to think who do I know still in Argentina and who would I actually want to talk to? God, maybe we can just go back to simpler times where I meet with whoever is there to make sure the president’s hands don’t get dirty, brief them about what’s going on in their world, slip them some cash and promise these itchy-fingered bastards that sure I can look into the procurement of some new toys. And if they were especially good, we’d even organize a nice little holiday at Fort Bragg.

Lord, it’s a hell of a thing to miss days when work actually worked. Me in Argentina, hearing from an agent in La Paz that we finally got Che. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about Che Guevara. I was thinking about Argentina and how much it’s changed since 1967. Claire, the way she is on the phone you’d think she’s just slipping back into a space her friends kept warm for her. That’s my wife, always assuming everything is exactly as she left it. I think she’s just happy to get the fuck out of Jamaica. When she told me that she and Nelly Matar had had words, boy was she pissed off when I added finally . Such fucking hypocrites these Syrians in Jamaica, and all so goddamn vulgar. I mean, I know they were shopkeepers, but at least the Chinese are never like that.

— I merely asked if Matar’s Cash and Carry Downtown was her family’s place. I mean, nothing’s wrong with an honest business. For some reason she took great, great offense.

— Can’t imagine why.

— Oh please, Barry. Either you’re a shopkeeper or you’re a snob. You can’t be both. Besides, if I had to tell her one more time that the kinds of hats she wears are only meant for days at the races I would have just yanked the damn thing off her head.

Always thinking about the other person, that’s my wife. I am an accountant. An efficiency guy. This is why the strangest bunch of fucking people think they can unload whatever shit on me. I mean, I get it — nobody seeking crucial info would ever think to ask Barry Diflorio. One other thing the Mrs. doesn’t seem to know. Argentina is still in the middle of a fucking shit show.

The Egyptians used to strip their rabble-rousers buck naked, bolt them down on all fours, cover them in bitch piss and let a bunch of dogs loose that would mistake them for bitches in heat and butt-fuck the poor losers. And this Shah was worse. Yet four days into February shit hit the fan. Roger Theroux called me. Bill Adler was at best a fucking mediocre agent but Roger was the real deal, maybe the best we got that was actually American. I knew somebody in Washington who knew both Roger and me, asked if I wanted to see his report on Iran. Theroux said something way different from what the Company told Carter. He was right there, on the ground, and said that it was like Cuba in 1959, only worse because this was all re ligious.

I can see why a report like this wouldn’t make sense to Carter, or anybody. Religion? Revolution is liberals, hippies, communists, Baader-Meinhof bullshit, and the thing driving this was religion? Come on, it’s nineteen seventy fucking nine. Half of these Saudi and Iranian kids were living in Paris, wearing tight jeans, getting butt-fucked more than the average American fairy — how did religion rise again? And then Roger Theroux got kidnapped.

They roughed him up pretty bad. Accused him right away that he was CIA, set up some sham court, convicted him and sentenced him to death all in less than a month. Thank God or Allah, I guess, that Roger knew his Koran. When I finally spoke to him he said, Barry, I demanded to see that fucking Mullah. When the fucker finally showed up, because believe me he took his time, I said, look, you can go through it and go through it again, but nowhere in the Koran is this kind of action sanctioned. And if you do this you go against the will of your own God and Prophet. They let him go. And even with all that, two days ago still came like a fucking surprise to Washington. You gotta wonder: How does something manage to be surprising and inevitable at the same time?

I don’t think she’s read anything about Argentina. Probably best to leave that alone for now, besides I’m sure that things haven’t affected her friends much. Will she at least miss the house? She certainly put a lot into it, but she was always like that. Even if she was staying in a hotel for two days she had to rearrange it, make it hers. I’m trying to think of what I’ll miss, other than jerk chicken. What the fuck, Barry Diflorio, three years and you sound like you were visiting via the Love Boat. Maybe I should tell her. That neither of the poets she used to invite over for dinner has been heard of since 1977. Or the dancer, or that white-haired homosexual Umberto she thought was so charmingly communist. I can see him wearing white, head to toe, right up to the very last.

When that bomb blasted its way through that Buenos Aires apartment building in ’78, for a second I thought it was de las Casas. But he’s back here in Jamaica, probably to finish what he couldn’t in 1976 and Lord knows what that will be. I do know that he is not to be touched. Worse, he knows it. And nobody is replacing me, though somebody is definitely replacing Louis. Far as I know he was even supposed to have landed a few days ago. I don’t know if my not even knowing his name is Clandestine being efficient or the agency being incompetent. At least somebody thinks it’s not wise to close the book on Jamaica just yet. You never know with this country, these people. Sometimes it sounds like I’m talking about the Philippines.

I still want to know who wrote that damn report and who authorized it, or how fucking soft is this president that they would need to goose up that report so badly. Not in a revolutionary or even a prerevolutionary situation . Jesus Christ. Then three days ago, the rebels finally overwhelm the Shah’s troops and everybody is looking on stunned. Everybody but Roger Theroux.

And I’m looking at an office that I won’t have to ever see again, wondering how much I tell the wife. Umberto is going to hit her the most, she’s been calling their home for weeks now, convinced that they have either moved or she must have written down the wrong number. At one point she even asked me if they gave her a wrong number on purpose, and I really didn’t know what the hell to answer. The weirdest thing is that when she asks her other friends about him they have nothing to say. I mean, it’s so strange that none of them say anything. Not even the Figueroas, who live only five doors down. Even if they don’t know what specifically happened to him, they know something happened.

Politics shape policy. That’s been on my mind all week. That and Bill Adler. He called me again two days ago, funnily enough, both him and Louis. He was feeling particularly pissed off about being finally kicked out of the U.K.

— Come on, Bill. As small as America’s dick is, those limeys will stretch across the Atlantic to suck it.

— Good point. I knew I was biding time, but was kinda hoping, you know.

— Bad form, even for an ex-agent.

— Not ex. Fired.

— Tomato, tomahto. How’s Santiago?

— I hear it’s sunny in the summer. Really, Diflorio, Brzezinski won’t find this conversation half as interesting as Kissinger did.

— Maybe not, but didn’t you hear? We’re cutting costs all around. Anybody waiting for their phones to be debugged is shit out o’ luck. Speaking of cutting costs, how’s—

— How’s that broken record you can’t seem to fucking fix?