Djibouti

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

UBU KALID, AN ASSISTANT at Djibouti Marine, drove Jama in a golf cart out to the pier where several trawler yachts were tied up. He said, "This first one we see is the Coaster 40. It has two staterooms and is designed for comfort and not paying too much money."

Jama said, "How you know I speak English?"

"From words you use with Arabic. You say you don't want a fucking dhow, you want a small vessel with a cabin. I think fucking is a good word you can use different ways in speech, angry, being critical, or simply to say it. Or you want to show you have surprise, you say, 'What the fuck am I doing?' I know French since I was a boy. My boss say I have to learn English too, for doing business with Americans."

"I see you wear a white shirt and a necktie," Jama said, "dressed for business. Your glasses, good. Make sure your fingernails are always clean too." He said, "What's that one down there has orange trim on it?"

"Oh, Buster 30," Ubu said, on the pier now. "Buster is one tough little power cruiser. It has a Saab engine that will produce two thousand five hundred rpms a minute."

"What's that get you," Jama said, "ten knots?"

"If I tell you six and a half," Ubu said, "will you be disappointed? Two travelers were out in Buster for a month and return very happy with her."

"Tall black dude and a white chick name Dara? They friends of mine," Jama said. "Told me, take her out for a shakedown, she's all the boat you need."

Ubu said, "A shakedown?"

"A trial run. See she behaves, easy to maneuver around."

"But you want her only one day. This is for pleasure?"

"I'm taking my girlfriend out for a night cruise. See if we can set off some fireworks."

Ubu didn't like the sound of that.

"You mean explosions?"

Jama said, "No, man, like in the movies. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant are fuckin on the sofa and out the window you see the fireworks goin off, the same as what's happening in the room."

Ubu said, "They have fireworks, Grace and Cary?"

Ubu staring at him, trying to get it.

"Fireworks," Jama said, "you shoot off Roman candles, rockets that burst in the air, it's meant to be the same as fuckin, what the two major stars are doin the same moment. Does Grace get up and go in the bathroom? You know Cary Grant ain't wearin a slick. See, what should be the real part ain't even real."

Ubu frowning now, trying hard to understand.

Jama said, "Forget it," and went aboard with his bag over his shoulder. He wore his kikoi in the streets, his head scarf. He had on his jeans and a cotton jacket now, visiting Djibouti Marine. He stood on Buster's deck watching Ubu coming from the golf cart with life jackets and Jama's cardboard box of provisions.

Jama went below to look around. He didn't care about any of it, the galley, the head; he'd be on the boat twenty-four hours, no more than that. Still, he kept looking. The mattress in the bow…He tried to see the two sleeping together. Couldn't do it. Not with that high-ass nigga, that old man. She was polite, didn't use any tone of voice on you. She'd give the old man some shit how he was her best friend, her buddy, her protector…her employee. He was pretty sure they'd cleaned the boat. He started looking in drawers. There were papers in one they'd missed, a pamphlet had her picture on it…He closed the drawer as Ubu came below wearing a yellow life jacket and the box of provisions he placed on the counter.

He said, "You know the rental charge for Buster is four hundred dollars a day."

"Let's get going. I'll pay when we get back."

"You have the rental fee?"

Jama reached in a back pocket and brought out his roll of bills. "You want your money?" He peeled off four hundred, said, "Here," and handed the bills to Ubu.

Ubu said, "Thank you, sir, for the fucking money," grinning at Jama. THEY WERE OUT IN the Gulf of Tadjoura now, Buster chugging along. Jama said, "I want to see how close we can come to that ship." Jama had the wheel, pointing Buster toward the LNG tanker now.

Ubu had come in from the deck using his shirttail to wipe his glasses. He put them on and said, "No, you get close they tell you to give way, get away from the ship."

"You think we're being watched?"

"Yes, of course, from the sky. Soon a boat or a helicopter approaches you don't turn away."

Jama cocked the wheel and they headed off to starboard.

He said, "I don't have to be too close. I phone a cell number and the ship blows up like that, boom. Becomes the biggest fire you ever saw in your Arabian life." He saw Ubu thinking but didn't know if he got it.

Yeah, he did. All eyes now.

"You going to blow up the LNG ship?"

"And haul ass out, man, fast as this love boat'll go."

"You don't return Buster to us?"

"If I have time."

"I become fired from my job."

Jama saw panic setting in and cut the engine. He said, "Let's go out on deck while it's quiet," and pushed the young guy in his shirt and tie, his clean glasses, saying, "Go on. I'm right behind you." Ubu stepped out of the wheelhouse and Jama came after him, taking his Walther from the bag hanging on his shoulder.

Ubu stood on deck looking toward the LNG tanker, more than a mile to port now, Jama waiting for him to see the gun pointing at him.

"I'm taking the boat," Jama said, "but I don't need a deckhand. Nothing for you to do."

Ubu turned as Jama began talking and now had his eyes fixed on the gun, Jama thinking he'd start pleading for his life. No, he held on, this boy learning English, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He said, "I don't know why you want to shoot me. I don't do nothing to you. Are you a robber? Take the boat. There is nothing the company would expect me to do about it."

"You're doing good," Jama said. "Standing up 'stead of crawling on the deck to kiss my shoes, these Adidas given to me by a buddy of mine." He said, "You want to get off the boat, go ahead."

Ubu Kalid looked at the sea lying almost still in the fierce glare of the sun, and looked at Jama.

"I don't know how to swim."

"You don't have to, you float ashore on the tide."

"I don't know how to float."

"Lay your head back and relax your body," Jama said. "I never told you my name, did I?"

"Yes, Mr. Jama Raisuli."

"That's what I been going by. My real name's James Russell."

"Russell," Ubu said, "that's a good fucking name."

Jama pushed him over the side. He watched him fighting the water and yelled at him, "Be cool, Ubu. Take it easy." He saw the boy looking up at him, eyes staring in his glasses, trying to calm himself now, Jama realizing, Shit, he'll never sink wearing the life jacket. He put the Walther on the jacket, right below the kid's face, and shot him twice.

He'd use the boat hook to pull him alongside. Get the jacket and the four bills he'd paid him. HE HAD TO SHOOT him. Couldn't let him drift off. He wanted to say something like, Don't take this personally. You're a witness, that's all. It had nothing to do with the kid knowing his real name. Then why'd you tell him? He thought the kid ought to change his. Ubu. That wasn't a name for a man spoke pretty good English. Why'd you tell him? Jama told himself. Because he knew he'd have to shoot Ubu and wanted to have a good reason. Man, everybody knew his name by now. He'd have to change it. Get it done while he was still in Djibouti, passport with a different name, like Hunter. He knew of people in town forged things like that.

Find Dara next. Settle with her.

After. Once he blew the ship. He was here to blow it and he would. Said, You can write that down, to himself. See to Dara after. He didn't know yet how he'd find her but he would. Right now he was heading the Buster toward that big hump of coral sticking up out of the gulf, the main Moucha, the daddy. HE'D BROUGHT BANANAS AND a sack of dates, a gallon jug of water, cheese, pita bread and a fresh bunch of khat he chewed to stir up scenes of Celeste loving him all over his body. He fell asleep and opened his eyes to sunlight. But by the time he'd eaten the same things for breakfast-dates, he'd never had one before he was over here-clouds were coming in low, streaks of clouds, parts of them gray. He wanted to look around, see where he was.

Buster was tied to a branch in a cove full of mangrove on the south side of Big Moucha. He'd seen outboards along the beach, people standing in water up to their ankles. Jama pulled the dinghy off Buster and paddled through an aisle in the mangrove that took him to a strip of beach and a view of the other side: a row of cabanas on the beach, people sitting under thatched palm umbrellas, looking at the sky. He knew this Moucha was popular with scuba divers. Get in the water and mess with reef sharks and manta rays. There was a gang of dive boats, tarps shading the decks and dive platforms on the stern, the ones on deck looking down through clear water, Jama believed, at divers fucking with the fish. Now he watched a girl step off the platform and thought if he was a shark, man, he'd nip off her rack for appetizers. He could hear their voices, words coming in French and some English, now they were laughing. Jama wondered for four seconds could he make up a story and join them, How y'all doin?

And one turns out to be a scuba-lovin cop never forgets a face from a poster.

Best follow this beach around and look for the highest part of the island. Least thirty feet off the sea. Then go on back to Buster. Chew some khat and see if he could get Dara to show some life. He'd sleep till it started to get dark.

What woke him up at four thirty in the afternoon, got him standing to look out past the mangrove, was the sound of a big outboard coming this way.