The Night Ranger

13

BAKAFI, KENYA

The King Fahad Infirmary was better than nothing. But not by much.

It had six narrow beds draped with mosquito nets stretched thinner than a drag queen’s panty hose. It had three almost expired bottles of doxycycline. It had one patient, a woman, her cheeks sunken, belly swollen, breathing a slow unsteady rattle. And it had a doctor, or at least a man in a grimy white coat, napping in a chair when Wells carried Wilfred inside.

Wells laid Wilfred on the bed farthest from the dying woman as the doctor walked over with no great urgency. He extracted thick plastic glasses from his pocket and wiped them cleanish on the hem of his coat. He rustled in his pocket for latex gloves, pulled them on, laid a finger against the bloody gauze taped to Wilfred’s thigh.

“You have AIDS?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“No HIV, no AIDS.”

The doctor pulled off the gauze. The ride had loosened the tourniquets and blood trickled from the bullet hole. “What happened?”

“Shot myself.”

“Shot yourself?”

“When bad things happen to good people,” Wells muttered.

“What time?”

“Three, four hours ago.”

The doctor laid two fingers against Wilfred’s neck to take his pulse. “You feel cold?”

“Little bit.”

The doctor looked at Wells. “How long did he bleed before you put these on?”

“A few minutes. His jeans were soaked.”

“I can try to take out the bullet, but I don’t recommend it. My best advice, I stabilize him tonight. Clean the wound, give him antibiotic so it doesn’t infect, fluid for the blood loss, elevate the leg, put pressure on. You take him to a hospital tomorrow.”

More or less what Wells had expected.

“But I have to stay here tonight to watch him. Stay up all night. It cost fifteen thousand shillings”—almost two hundred dollars.

“Supposed to be free,” Wilfred said.

“Can’t stay awake on this government salary. Can’t buy coffee.”

“Fifteen thousand’s fine.” Wells reached into his pocket, peeled off the shillings. The doctor opened his mouth like a frog after a fly as he stared at the roll of bills. Wells realized too late that he should have kept the money hidden.

“I give him medicine for the pain, five thousand shillings more.”

“No more for this hustler,” Wilfred said. “I take the pain.”

Wells peeled off five thousand more and then stuffed the rest of the money away. “What about her?” He nodded at the woman.

“She got cancer. Liver, kidney, who knows. She gets big like that because the fluid builds up in her, she can’t get rid of it. Tumors under her skin. Lumps like stones. Whole body shutting down. Even mzungu medicine can’t save her now. She have a better chance with the witches. I tell her family, take her back, but she crying all the time. Stinks. They don’t want her in the hut.”

Wells handed the doctor the shillings. “Give her what she needs.” If he couldn’t save this nameless woman’s life, at least he could ease her death. “You understand.”

The doctor nodded. Wells squeezed Wilfred’s hand. “I’m going over to the hoteli, see if anybody knows about our friends on the bikes.”

“Remember. Don’t eat the mutton.”

“Or the ladies,” the doctor said.

—

On the way to the hoteli, the phone that Wells had taken at the camp buzzed. The incoming number started with a 254 country code: Somalia. The same number had come up as Wells was driving to Bakafi. Someone was worried. Wells decided to leave him guessing. Wells would make a direct approach only if he couldn’t find the bandits another way.

The hoteli was ramshackle, crowded, loud. A good time. Bars lined two walls. The deep sour smell of marijuana smoke was heavy in the air. Rick Ross pumped from tall speakers, Every day I’m hustling, hustling, hustling, as a band set up against the far wall. The women huddled at two circular tables in the center. They wore low-cut dresses and neon lipstick and wide smiles. They were big and pillowy. If they weren’t prostitutes, they were doing a good job of pretending. But the men weren’t paying them much attention. They were focused on Arsenal and Man U., live, nil-nil in the first half. The reach of English Premier League football always impressed Wells.

His entrance created a pebble-in-a-pond stir. Men slid their eyes over, then did their best to ignore him. Wells suspected he would have drawn a stronger response if the game weren’t playing. The women were his best bet. They would make it their business to keep an eye on outsiders, potential new clients. Wells could find out what they knew for a few hundred shillings.

As he closed in on the center table, a woman in a bright yellow dress patted the empty chair beside her. “Come here, baby. You look lost.”

“Maybe.” Wells sat.

“You been found, then. I’m Julia. What’s your name?” Everything about her was oversized, from her hoop earrings to her breasts to her voice.

“John.” He reached out a hand. She held it as she ran her other hand up his arm, squeezed his biceps.

“Nice muscles on this one,” she said to the table. She leaned in, smiled. Up close, Wells could see the desperation under the glamour, the maze of blood vessels in her eyes, the bruise along her jaw, the sweet liquor on her breath.

“You come down from Dadaab, John.”

Her English was good enough for the conversation he wanted. “I’m looking for someone.”

“And here I am.”

“A man.”

She leaned back, wagged her finger at him.

“He rides a motorcycle, a dirt bike. Hangs out around here. Somali. You know him?”

“What you want this man for?”

Wells put his face to her ear. “Let’s go outside, talk in private.”

“It cost.”

“Doesn’t everything in this world?” Wells draped an arm around her smooth shoulder. “One thousand shillings to go outside. One thousand more, you tell me anything.”

“Two thousand and two thousand.”

Wells nodded. She grazed his cheek with her warm sticky lips. “Naughty boy.” She stood with a grace that belied her size, led him through the men clustered around the televisions. The back side of the building was plain brick. Why paint what no one would see? About thirty meters away was a tin-roofed hut. Wells glimpsed a mattress inside. No doubt the women took clients there.

“Two thousand.”

Wells handed over the bills, careful this time to hide the rest of his cash. She tucked them in her pocketbook, cheap shiny black vinyl, and came out with a pack of Embassy cigarettes and a lighter. She handed the lighter to Wells and he sparked her up.

“A gentleman.”

“Been called a lot of things, never that. You know this Somali?” Wells felt the night slipping past. He had to find these bandits, or at least get close to their camp, before Langley and the Pentagon and White House took over. He had twelve hours, fifteen at most.

“Lots of Somalis in Bakafi. You have picture?”

“No. But I can tell you he rides a dirt bike. Wears a white T-shirt. This would be the last few days.”

“Yeah, some of them hanging around. Three, four boys. They in a gang we call the White Men. Always wearing white shirts like you say. They do business with me one time. Quick boys.” She touched his arm. “You quick, Mr. John?”

“They Shabaab?”

She inhaled deeply on her cigarette, shook her head.

“No, no. We don’t see Shabaab here for three, four months. Plus they have rules. They want to sex, they make big fuss before, pretend we getting married. Then afterwards get divorced. It all nonsense. Take too much time.”

Temporary marriage was one of Islam’s cruder aspects, designed more or less explicitly to coat prostitution with a gloss of respectability. It was common among Shia. Sunnis like Shabaab usually rejected the practice, but maybe Shabaab’s leaders had decided to allow it to relieve the libidos of their teenage fighters.

“So these White Men, they’re Somali but not Shabaab.”

“What I say. They mostly bringing in sugar when they come. Sometimes other food, too, sacks of maize.”

“It’s a big gang?”

“Don’t know.”

“They have guns?”

She laughed. “What you think this place is?”

“They rob people on this side of the border? Shoot them?”

“They okay. Don’t make trouble. Come and sell they sugar and go on back to Somalia.”

They made trouble last night. “Did you talk to them this time?”

“No chance. They stand around, watch the road. Nobody bother them and they don’t bother nobody.” She finished her cigarette, threw it down, stamped it out with a gaudy pink heel. “These stupid questions, mzungu. Missing out on business. Give me ’nother thousand now.”

Wells handed over another thousand shillings. She put the bill to her lips, kissed it. She was drunker than he’d thought.

“You too rich. Think too much about money, not enough about women.” She put a fresh cigarette in between her lips and he lit it.

“Do you know who’s their leader?”

“What leader?”

“The White Men.”

“Back on that again? Name Wizard. Some these boys, they say he’s magic. Put up his hand to stop bullets. Nothing kills him. One time he dead, brought himself back to life.”

“Neat trick. Ever seen him?”

“Not sure.”

“You have any idea where in Somalia they live?”

“You think they drawing me a map?”

“A town, anything.”

“Never been to Somalia. Never been and never will. What else?”

Wells wondered if the other women might have more information. Or maybe the shopkeeper who bought the smuggled sugar. But before he could say anything else, the back door of the hoteli popped open and a man came out with a pistol loose in his hand, a dumb sideways grip.

“Police.”

The guy wore a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. But Wells had seen firsthand that Kenyan cops didn’t always wear uniforms. Anyway, the pistol was real enough. Wells had left his weapons in the Cruiser. He thought about disarming the guy. Then heard a second man approaching from behind, the back corner of the hoteli. This one held an AK.

Wells raised his hands. “These real police?” he murmured to Julia.

She ignored him, walked to the man in the jeans, kissed him full on the mouth. He looped his left hand around her ass, squeezed through the dress. When he let go, she walked inside without as much as a wave to Wells. “I thought we were friends,” he said.

“Hands on the wall,” the guy in jeans said.

Wells did as he was told. He wondered if James Thompson had come to and convinced the Kenyan police to arrest him. But Thompson didn’t know where he was. More likely the cops had simply heard he was at the hoteli, decided to check him out.

“I’m sorry, sir. Is something wrong?”

“Name.”

“John Wells. I have the right permits, if you’re wondering.” Though Wells had a feeling those papers wouldn’t do much good here.

“Did you leave your driver Mr. Wilfred Wumbugu at the King Fahad Infirmary?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us what happened to him.”

“He shot himself. An accident. I taped him up to stop the bleeding and brought him in.”

The officer stepped close, raised his arm. A moment later, the pistol crashed into Wells’s ribs. A silver spur of pain ran up his right side. His knees buckled. He steadied himself, controlled his breathing.

“The truth this time.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

This time Wells relaxed as the pistol hit, twisted away a fraction. Still the cop made solid contact and Wells felt his ribs waggle under the blow.

“The clinic doctor says that Mr. Wumbugu couldn’t have shot himself. Admit you shot him.”

The accusation didn’t make sense. If Wells had shot Wilfred, why would he take him to the hospital? Or pay the doctor fifteen thousand—

Then Wells thought of the naked greed that had flashed through the doctor’s eyes when Wells pulled out his roll of cash. The doctor had told the cops about the money, and they were shaking him down. He couldn’t even blame them. To them, he was another foolish mzungu carrying more cash than he or anyone needed. Fine. They wanted money, they could have it. As long as they’d let him go.

“I’m sure we can work this out. What does Wilfred say?”

“Doctor say that Mr. Wumbugu can’t talk. He in too much pain. Meantime, we gon’ hold you.”

Wells couldn’t lose the night to these two. He wondered if he should tell them what had really happened this afternoon at the camp. But the Kenyan police were invested in the story that Shabaab was behind the kidnapping. The cops would accuse him of lying, lock him up until someone senior told them what to do.

Wells chanced a quick look over his shoulder. He thought he could take the pistol off the cop behind him. But the other had him covered with the AK.

The cop leaned close enough for Wells to smell the Tusker on his breath. He ran his hands up Wells’s legs, around his waist. The money was in the right front pocket of Wells’s jeans, so if the cop wanted it now he would have to get intimate—

“What’s this?”

“Money.”

“How much?”

“Funny question for a felony investigation, isn’t it?” Wells braced himself for another smack, but the cop was too focused on the money to notice.

“Take it out, give it to me.”

Wells handed it over.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

The steel cuffs snapped tight around his wrists.

—

The men in front of the hoteli chattered to him in Swahili as the cops frog-marched him along. Wells guessed they weren’t wishing him luck. Fortunately, the Land Cruiser still had half a tank of gas and two five-gallon jerricans in the back. Wilfred had insisted on the extra fuel, and Wells was glad for it now. If he could get to the Toyota, he could get a long way from here. But first he had to shuck these cops. He didn’t want to kill them, either. They were in the way and corrupt, but those weren’t capital crimes.

The station’s main room had two steel desks back-to-back and tatty maps of the region taped over concrete walls. An anticorruption poster featured a smiling female officer in a fresh blue uniform: Asking for money for police services is illegal in Kenya; if your rights have been violated, dial— But the number to call had been torn away.

The cops marched Wells to a corner and cuffed his right arm to a chain dangling from the wall. He had two pieces of furniture: a scuffed wooden stool for sitting, and a plastic bucket for a toilet. Wells realized that his mouth was dry, his belly empty. He hadn’t eaten since he’d thrown up this afternoon. The hyenas and the firefight seemed to belong to another world. The cop with the AK disappeared through a door at the back of the room. The other parked himself at a desk and counted the money he’d taken, taking his time, snapping off each bill, smoothing it flat against the desktop. Either he didn’t care that Wells was watching this blatant theft, or he wanted Wells to see.

Finally, he tucked it into a plastic bag.

“Evidence.”

“Take it,” Wells said. “I don’t care.”

The cop reached under his desk and came up with two big bottles of Tusker. He popped the tops and flicked them at Wells and walked into the back room, humming to himself, leaving Wells alone, locked in a corner, staring at the clock mounted high on the wall above the torn poster. Every tick mocked his uselessness.