EBOLOWA 21

21

Douala, Cameroon.

 

He tossed and turned his bruised body but all it did was increase pressure on his bladder.  He was bursting.  He got up gingerly and worked his way from bunk to bunk to the wall at the end.  Something scuttled across his feet as he unzipped and urinated all over the stone floor.  He zipped back up and counted the bunks back to his pallet bed.  He finally fell into a light sleep, only to be promptly invaded by the door being flung open and a piercing flashlight shone into his eyes.

“Get up,” the shaven head said.  “Time to go.”

The two gendarmes were standing in the corridor smoking, the big one leaning against the wall with his thumbs hooked into his belt.

“What time is it?” he asked.  They’d taken his watch.

“Like the man said, time to go,” said the driver and they bundled him along the corridor and back up the stone steps.  The big man seemed subdued and mercifully less inclined to beat him up.  The sky was tinted pink with the first light and he could hear the buzz of traffic in the distance.  Across the road a woman was blowing on a flickering brazier.  He was pushed into the back of the Peugeot and they took off.  The city was waking up.  Workers scrambled into buses and pushed bikes loaded with baskets, and the aroma of charcoal and roasted corn filled the air.   

The traffic was light and they got to the Securité in no time at all.  The front office was brightly lit and they were greeted by the night shift sergeant who was stretching and yawning, ready to go home.  He jerked his thumb at the corridor behind him and released the bolt on his gate and the driver guided Harry through.  The big man brought up the rear and Harry was taken into a side office to be fingerprinted.  He didn’t bother to raise the question of civil liberties. He needed to talk to somebody nearer the top.

He wiped the ink on his pants and watched the print man gather up his kit and head for the door.  Just as he got there it opened and in marched a tall slim man with a pencil moustache and wearing a perfectly laundered uniform.  He was as light skinned as Harry Belafonte and was carrying a thick envelope and a couple of cellophane evidence bags.  One had Harry’s blood stained clothing in it; the other had Castile’s gun.  He put them on the desk and sat down and gestured at Harry to do the same.

“I’m Inspector Atangano of the Douala Gendarme,” he said, “I gather you understand French?”

Harry nodded, “but what I don’t understand is what I’m doing here.  I reported the crime and made a statement to Inspector Takere - - “

The pencil moustache cut him short, “ex-Inspector Takere.”

“He planted the gun in my car.  He let the killer escape and sabotaged your investigation as revenge against the French administration - - “

“There is no French administration.  Cameroon has been independent since 1960.”

“I know but Takere was fighting old battles.”

“Takere was - - is - - working for the Lagos oil mafia.”

Harry couldn’t believe it: getting people right was part of his job.  “He told me he was going to work for Shell.”

“That’s what he told everyone, but we’ve been watching him for months.  Him and Baba Kingibe - - “

“Who?”

The pencil moustache gave him a forced smile. “The man who gave you the gun in Lagos.”

Harry felt the ground sliding from under him.  He was back in the world of Uncle Joe Stalin where black was white and the truth turned inside out and people went to the firing squad thankful the ordeal of interrogation was over.  Memories of the AVH slipped cold steel under his ribs and ran it against his heart.

“I didn’t meet anyone in Lagos,” he said.  “And Takere found the gun in Castile’s truck.”

Atangano drummed his fingers on the desk with exaggerated impatience.  “Let’s not waste time play acting Mr Kaplan.  You’re a bit player, a hired gun - - “ He broke off to give him a pitying look.  “But we’re prepared to consider your situation if you cooperate.“

“I am already.  I’m telling the truth.”

“Takere and Kingibe are small fry, runners,” he said with icy deliberation.  “What we need is the identity of the man behind them, the shark you did business with.”

“My business is with Dr Candace Fayol,” he said battling to keep his outrage under control.  “I’m a licenced Private Investigator looking for the story of her sister Annie Fayol, who worked out here as a photo journalist on Life Magazine.  I’d never even heard of the Lagos oil mafia until yesterday. There’s a copy of our contract in my bag.”

“Ahh, Monsieur,” Atangano said with a reptilian smile, “we already knew about your cover story. Very clever.”  He rapped his fingers on the desk and leant forward with an air of fraternal confidentiality.  In his hand was Harry’s Illinois gun licence.  “There is one thing you can clear up for me.  It’s not an important point, you understand, but I’m curious.  Colleagues tell me I’m fastidious - - an obsession for detail.  I just wondered if you specified that the gun had to be the same model as your own, or if it was one of those random instances we call a coincidence?”

The snake was about to strike and anxiety gripped the pit of Harry’s stomach.  He could see what was going on: Takere was a pawn, they both were, and somebody with a lot of clout was pulling the strings.

“A total coincidence,” he said, “like everything else.  I’d like to speak to the US Embassy.  It’s my right - - “

But before he could get any further, the Inspector had jumped to his feet and banged the desk with both hands.

“Your rights,” he screamed.  “How typically American to talk about rights!”  He leant close enough for Harry to catch the scent of his cologne.  “But what about Cameroon’s rights, M. Kaplan, eh?  Answer me this if you’re so keen on rights.  Who gave white men the right to carve up Africa?  God?“ 

He straightened up and spun round and walked away.  Harry tried to get up but a heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“That’s got nothing to do with me and I’ve got a right to see somebody from the Embassy.  I’ve been falsely arrested.  My client will make representations at the highest level.”

It felt as if Candace was all he had. 

The Inspector checked his stride for a second but then came back and stood over him, still fuming.  “I’ve already talked to your people in Yaoundé,” he snapped.  “They assured me you would cooperate.“

“I told you I am cooperating - - I reported the crime for God’s sake.  I could’ve walked away.”

The man folded his arms.  “This is not some gangster movie you know.  Our future is at stake.  Oil prices are going through the roof.  Your own government understands as much.  They’re supporting our drive against the racketeers - - “

“Sure, I understand,” he said breaking in, “you’ve got my support.  I did my best with the Hertz car.  Whoever was driving it will know the names - - “

The Inspector slammed his fists onto the desk and leant across into his face.  “I told you I need names not support, names of the people who run this business and if you want to get back to Chicago you’d better start remembering them.”

And with that, Inspector Atangano of the Douala Gendarme turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

They’d taken his clothes and left him some baggy prison shorts and a tunic shirt and rough sandals that were made out of car tyres and a size too small.  He tried to stay calm but it wasn’t easy.  He was in a big hole and a long way from home, even if they’d moved him from the dungeons to Douala jail.  Takere had set him up, which still didn’t make sense, and whoever was pulling the strings obviously had clout.  The scale of the thing bothered him: the coincidence of Castile’s death and the way the pencil moustache taunted him about random instances as if they’d been playing him from the moment he touched down. 

No matter which way he looked at it the so-called coincidence kept popping up.  How did they know he was going out to Castile’s place?  Was it Stokes, or did Eileen O’Connell have something to do with it?  The CIA were capable of anything, but nothing added up and Harry wondered if he was losing his grip and getting paranoid.

He couldn’t do anything in jail either.  Just being there was bad enough.  The perimeter was rough and ready with chain mesh fences and straggling barbed wire and searchlights as dilapidated as the ones on the border posts in Hungary.  There were two long dormitories made of corrugated iron with no windows and a row of filthy latrines with buckets and a couple of spigots and sinks to wash in.  He kept an eye on his fellow prisoners.  He was an event: a white man from Chicago and everybody, jailbirds and guards alike, were agog to see what a real life Mafia hit man looked like.

They called him Al Capone and Chicago Man, which he didn’t bother to correct: maybe a hard reputation would play to his advantage.  Most of the inmates kept a wary distance, sneaking glances, and one or two tried to sidle up and touch his hem like he was some kind of macho superman, but a couple of others, bigger guys with nastier looks, eye-balled him close up as if to say they weren’t impressed and spat in the dust at his feet.  He knew it wouldn’t be long before one of them decided to up their prison kudos by taking a crack at him.

The other thing was he was hungry.  He hadn’t eaten since the Mountain Hotel and the prison didn’t do five star meals.  It didn’t do meals at all, just dried up maize porridge that pigs would baulk at.  On the far side was a compound next to the exercise yard where wives and mothers were herded like livestock and allowed to pass dishes of beans and rice through the barbed wire.  A troop of guards spoiled the picnic atmosphere by striding around with baseball bats to make sure nothing else got through. 

The noise was as shrill as a parrot house and the smell of food so distracting that Harry almost missed the bulky figure being checked in at the gate.  Then his heart leapt and he crossed over to the wire trying to look cool, calm and collected because Chicago hit men didn’t rush anything.

“Jesus Hans,“ he seized the Dutchman’s hand, “am I glad to see you.”

“Likewise.  It was tough finding out where they’d put you.   I came prepared.”  He took a baguette wrapped in foil out of his bag.  “The specialité that the gendarmes so rudely interrupted.”

“Oh my God.”  Crunchy bread and moist white meat laced with fresh mayo and green leaves.  Harry sunk his teeth into it and wondered if anything had ever tasted better.   Mayo squirted onto his chin and he scooped it up.  “Oh Jesus, Hans - - ” He took another bite.  “It’s even better than the other night.”

“Last night you mean.”

“Jesus, yeah. Last night.”

One of the guards came over with an empty Fanta crate and the Dutchman slipped him some money before sitting down, his big gut resting on his knees.  He winked at Harry, “this is Joseph, good friend of mine.  He’s going to make sure you don’t starve.  We’ve had this arrangement before: a chef I knew who went wild with a chopper.  Problems at home.”  The guard grinned and whacked his nightstick into his hand before moving off.  The Dutchman took a folded newspaper out of his bag.  “You’ve hit the headlines.”

The words jumped off the page: “OIL MAFIA MURDER: CHICAGO HITMAN ARRESTED.”

Harry swore, “Takere set me up.  He planted the gun in my car.”

“Never.”  Ouweneel shook his head.  “I’ve known him for years.  He’d never do a thing like that.”  He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket.  “He sent this up to the Hotel for you.”

Harry tore open the envelope.  Inside was a handwritten note stapled to a shiny new Shell business card bearing the name of David J. Takere, Head of Security.

“Dear Mr Kaplan,” the note said, “my card as promised.  And apologies, I left something of our friend’s in your car by mistake.  The car was too small - - it was sticking into my stomach!  Feel free to keep it as a memento!  Yours, DJT.  PS you’ll always be welcome in Port Harcourt.”

Harry exhaled, “so I wasn’t wrong about him.”

“I told you he wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Somebody did.“ Harry pinched the flesh at the top of his nose.  “The gendarmes knew what they were looking for and had a photographer ready.  They even had a story of where I got it.“

“I know.”  Ouweneel passed him the paper.  “It’s all in here.”

“That’s what I mean.  They saw me coming.”  Harry chewed some more of the baguette.  He studied the photographs in the newspaper: Castile’s body, the oil trucks, a close-up of the gun, and him blinking into the flash.  “Whoever it was has got the gendarme helping out big time,” he said, looking up, “somebody with a lot of clout - - ”

“Like Nkumbé.”  Ouweneel rocked back on the crate.  “You think he’s got his finger in the pie?”

“Could be, but not why he’s gone to such extremes.”  He frowned.  “That’s the bit that doesn’t add up.  It didn’t look like a Mafia killing to me.”

Ouweneel shrugged, “maybe it’s a case of different place, different Mafia.”  He took a bottle of wine out of his bag and pulled the cork.  “Drink?  Left over from last night?”

“Oh my God yes.”  Harry took a long swig.  Waves of relaxation flowed through him and he closed his eyes and it seemed a long time before he opened them again.  The Dutchman was smiling grimly.  Harry grabbed his beefy arm and said, “Jesus Hans, you got to help me get out of here.”