Johnson Denis - The Laughing Monsters

“Right. One million. You already said.”

“I haven’t said it to them yet. Maybe I’ll say two.”

“Who’s going to let you string them along all that way with just this little piece of dogshit?”

“The question to ask is — who could pass it up? Who could say no? If the claim is at all credible, they have to give it the full treatment.”

“Credible? It sounds completely and obviously false, Michael — can’t you see that? What words can I use? Nonsensical. Impossible. Out of keeping with reality.”

“Reality is not a fact.”

“Around here it certainly isn’t. God.”

“Reality is an impression, a belief. Any magician knows this.” Like a cartoon villain, he rubbed his hands together. “Oh my goodness, Nair, you just tickle them in their terrorism bone, and they ejaculate all kinds of money. If you mention the name of one of the Muslim Most Wanted — boom, they put on a circus for you.”

“You’ve skipped another question, haven’t you?”

“What. What’s the question?”

“Who is this ‘they’? Are they a fantasy too?”

“Of course not. Kruger works for them.”

“Who? Who are we dealing with besides this Kruger? Do you even know?”

“We’re dealing with the Israelis.”

If I’d had to stand up from my chair at that moment, I’d have failed. I was that shocked, and that much afraid. “Then you’re dealing with the Mossad.”

“Their involvement is likely.” And he seemed proud of it. He smiled with all his teeth.

“You’re scamming Mossad.”

“They know me. If I say I have it, they’ve got to take me seriously and get together the cash.”

The rain roared, or it was my head, but in any case the sense of things rushed away on a flood. “Michael … Michael…”

“Nair. Nair.” He got his face close to mine as if he thought I couldn’t hear. “I know those people. You know I know them. I was trained by them.”

“Michael, be quiet.”

“Let me tell you about it.”

“No. I’m feeling bewildered. Please shut up.”

He complied. I didn’t say a word. In the silence, which was nevertheless quite loud, his folly bore down on us like a tremendous iceberg. Its inertia was irresistible. In this room, in Africa, reasonable arguments were just mumbo jumbo.

“Is that enough quiet? Can I talk now? Because I want to explain one thing: I’ve got contacts, I know Mossad — ever since my training in South Africa. I can call them anytime that we want to cancel, and the whole thing’s canceled. Never happened.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, man — call them now, and call it off. Cancel everything. Mossad? You’re insane.”

“All right. I’ll cancel if you say so.”

“I just said so.”

“But let’s wait until we take it one tiny step further along. Let’s meet with these guys and their Geiger counter, and walk away with twenty-five K. Then no more. Nothing further than that.”

“No brigands versus Mossad. No showdowns at the table.”

“Exactly. And if they don’t like our lump of shit tomorrow — no loss. At least we tried.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes — tomorrow. I told you, full disclosure.”

“Fuck it, Michael. I’m done.”

I got up, making a loud noise with my chair, and headed out the door toward a place to be determined later.

“How done?” Michael called after me.

* * *

In two minutes I arrived at the bar pretty nicely drenched. I took a table where I could watch the storm.

At the bar sat Spaulding, his cranium wrapped in a big white turban. He pointed at it. “What do you think?”

What I think — I thought to myself — is you’re spying on me.

I checked my watch. Time to lift the drinks moratorium. An hour past.

As I looked around for the barman, Spaulding came over to me. “Shit, Nair, I sort of didn’t recognize you yesterday. You know — without the uniform.” He set a full drink before me, saying, “Cheers, mate. It’s made with Baboon Whiskey.”

Like that, I drank half of it down. “Have a seat.”

“I really can’t. Car’s waiting. I’m checking out.”

I nearly said, Good. “Where are you off to?”

“Oh, God knows. The itinerary’s a bit complicated. Entebbe to start. What about you?”

“Just here. Then home again.”

“Home again to—”

“Amsterdam.”

“Amsterdam! I love the hash. Do you go to the coffee shops?”

“Every day. Wrap up in my turban and get out my hookah and set fire to all manner of shit.”

He laughed and said, “Happy trip, Nair,” and headed off briskly, with a sort of half salute that knocked at his stupid head-wrap.

A bit sweet, but the drink had a kick. I signaled the barman. “Let’s try a vodka martini.”

Rain swept across the pool’s face, and then it stopped. The sky was half-and-half — one storm had passed, another was coming. My first drinks in three days were going to my head, expanding my consciousness. I didn’t like it. I gulped the vodka without tasting it and made my way to my bungalow and changed into shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and lay down. The TV lit up when I tried it. I watched Ugandan news, a report about a pair of twins conjoined at the shoulder — in other words, a two-headed baby — who had died, and then one about a child whose face had been eaten by a pig. Its fingers as well.

This information drove me out to a chair on the verandah. The sky was stuffed with thunderheads nearly black. I shut my eyes yet felt aware of the garden at my elbow, the blooms opening as if in a time-lapse, the stalks lengthening. Blossoms like dangling red bells, blossoms like tiny white fountains, fuzzy yellow caterpillars on brown twigs, a squad of snails lugging their small shelters up the spears of a plant.

The moment was dark as evening, but all was bathed in a great vividness. The rain shot out of the sky, hard as hail. A wondrous assurance lifted me, a force positively religious invited me to stand and shed my shirt, to drop my shorts and kick them from my feet. No need of clothes when clothed in African magic, and I walked naked across the grounds through the booming and the lightning with the sweet rain pouring all around, and soon I stood looking down into the swimming pool. Everybody else was indoors, and through this whole experience no other person was visible anywhere in the world except the bartender, all alone behind the bar under his awning a few yards from the poolside, watching as I jumped into the water and drowned.

From this dream I woke to another: I lay on my back beside the pool while Michael Adriko kissed me, breathed fire into my mouth and down my throat. I rolled over retching and coughing, my lungs tearing.

I came awake again on a lower rung of reality, still lying on my back, but now in my hotel room, wrapped in a shroud, shivering. Michael sat beside me on the bed.

I said, or tried to say, “You spat in my mouth.”

“What happened to you, Nair?”

“Somebody drugged me.”

“You didn’t drug yourself?”

“I had one whiskey and one martini. Maybe the olive was bad.”

“Bad? You mean evil?”

“What? Stop talking to me.”

“Davidia is here,” he said.

“Where?”

“Where? Here!”

“I’m not there,” her voice said, “I’m here, on the verandah. Can you hear the crickets? Are those crickets?”

All around the music, like little bells. “Some sort of insect, yes,” Michael said.

“Spaulding did this to me. Was it Spaulding, do you think?”

“It could be anything. A virus, a bite from a spider, or even a spell, a curse — people have such powers. I’ve seen too much to laugh at it.”

“That fucking towel-head dosed my martini.”