Instruments of Darkness. Robert Thomas Wilson
I put my empty glass down and poured us both some whisky into fresh glasses with ice.
‘Do you know anything about Kershaw?’ I asked.
‘I know what he looks like.’
‘You’ve never spoken to him.’
‘B.B. likes to keep things separate.’
‘You got anything to tell me?’
‘He lost a bit of weight.’
‘Thanks, Jack, don’t strain your brain. Did you speak to Madame Severnou?’
‘She’s calm now.’
‘I’m glad about that,’ I said, mustering some acrid sarcasm to spread on my tone. ‘I was worried for her. I’d hate to think of her out of pocket or inconvenienced. It must be tiresome to have to send the hit squad out every time someone questions your integrity.’
‘Bruce,’ said Jack, ‘calm down. What I meant was that the misunderstanding that made her do that has been cleared up.’
‘What misunderstanding was that, Jack? It must have been a pretty big one, and if they’re that big I normally see the dust cloud coming over the horizon well before.’
‘She thought that when you gave her the non-negotiable copy you were acting on my instructions. That…and she didn’t like the way you handled it.’
‘Look, I know this woman is used to people throwing themselves on the ground in front of her so that she doesn’t get dust on her toenails, but she has to understand that I’m there representing you in a deal where with very little effort she gets to make fifty thousand dollars.’
‘Without her…’
‘Spare me the horseshit, Jack. You could sell that rice to anyone. They’re screaming for it. You’re doing her the favour and, don’t forget, she did short you by a hundred thousand pounds.’
‘I’m going to tell you this, Bruce’ said Jack in a voice that wasn’t used to getting annoyed but when it did it was time to hit the deck, ‘and then I want you to mind your own fucking business. The fifty million CFA is for some cotton fibre I’ve bought from AAICT and her fee. I didn’t know that she was going to turn it round that way but it’s done now and it works out the same. More important, she got me the contact with AAICT and this is her payback.’
‘What about the four suits coming round to my place with half a brain between them?’
‘Madame Severnou trades with other people’s money. If she loses it, they get upset. She has to protect herself…’
‘Against me?’
‘She was annoyed with me and she was going to send the message back through you. She wanted to remind you of your position in the deal. She wanted to show you that she was a principal and that principals have to be respected.’
Jack wanted to think of another five reasons why Madame Severnou should have sent the gunmen round but couldn’t, so be poured himself another drink and refilled my glass. He was calming down now. He forced one of his cheesy grins on me which I swatted away.
‘Why didn’t you just give her the original?’ he asked in one of those voices of disarming simplicity that normally get the people who use them hurt.
‘She’s the sort of woman who you shake hands with and she checks her jewellery, you check your fingers and when you get home you find she’s taken the shirt off your back and some of your skin’s gone with it.’
‘She’s not that bad.’
‘She resents the fact that you’re breathing air that she could be breathing.’
‘You’ll warm to her eventually.’
‘Like I will to a puff adder on coke. And anyway, why didn’t you explain all this shit to me?’
‘I didn’t think you’d give her the copy.’
‘You pay me to manage things for you in Cotonou. If you want a gofer…’
‘All right, Bruce. I admit it. I should have been clearer.’
Jack defused rows by conceding but not giving an inch. We both sat down on a couple of wooden loungers with foam rubber mattresses. Jack balanced his drink on his belly and looked up at the stars which weren’t there. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offered me one without thinking. He plugged one into his mouth, lit it, and drew on it as if he was trying to keep his cool in the trenches. He let the smoke trail out of his nose and from between his teeth and it disappeared off behind his ear.
He leaned forward and split his legs on either side of the lounger. He reached for an ashtray, put it in front of him and winced with his right cheek and eye.
‘I have no sympathy for you, Jack. You get less than you deserve.’
‘I bear the scars of love,’ he said, as if it was a terrific bore.
‘Love, Jack? I didn’t think that was your scene.’
‘Love, African style,’ he cautioned me with his cigarette.
‘How does that go?’
‘She likes me. I want her. She lets me. I pay her.’
‘I’d forgotten how romantic it was.’
‘The women here aren’t fools.’
‘Who said they were?’
‘They’re not fooled into thinking romance exists. They know what exists.’
‘Let me guess. Money and power?’ Jack somersaulted the cigarette in his hand and stabbed the air with it. ‘Exactly. Haven’t you noticed, I don’t go with white women any more?’
‘I haven’t consulted my black book recently.’
‘Well, I don’t. They’re too complicated.’
‘You don’t have to pay…’
‘…money. That’s what I mean. You sleep with them and before you know it you’ve got a relationship, they’ve moved in and they’re supervising your life like it’s a school project. Jesus. What I want is…’ He trailed off.
‘What do you want, Jack?’
‘I don’t want that.’
‘Whatever you do want, you’re not finding it.’
Jack wasn’t listening any more. I had exhausted his attention span between thoughts about sex. He smoked an inch of his cigarette in one drag and let out more smoke than a bonfire on a wet November afternoon.
‘There is one white woman I would like to have,’ he said from behind his smokescreen. I didn’t respond but sipped my whisky and did some passive smoking.
‘Elizabeth Harvey.’
‘Never heard of her. Is she a movie star?’
‘You know her. She’s married to that American banker.’
‘Clifford Franklin Harvey the seventh.’
‘The seventh?’
‘Americans always have Christian names like surnames and numbers like royalty.’
‘What do you think?’
‘She doesn’t look like one night stand material to me.’
He gave me an alarming grin followed by a diabolical laugh and some vestiges of smoke left in his lungs from the last toe-reaching drag came out of it.
He took the final drag from his cigarette, which was so hot he had to whip it out of his mouth before his lips blistered. He crushed it mercilessly into the ashtray.
‘You’re