A Darkening Stain

‘You said he’s on a cellphone,’ said Carlo.

I wrote the number for him on a beer mat. They talked some more and Carlo nodded into the bar. Then he got up and said he’d speak to Franconelli, ask permission. Gio sucked on his Coke through the lemon and ice cubes.

‘You speak any English, Gio?’

‘No.’

Well, I tried.

We sat there for ten minutes. Two sailors were playing pinball in the bar and the girls were all over them. They shrugged off the flashier-looking but tougher Nigerian girls. They preferred the smaller, plumper Beninois girls who had a sweeter act but were no less focused on the bottom line.

Gio ordered another Coke to slurp. The waiter didn’t have to ask me. Carlo rejoined us.

‘Mr Franconelli says you’re to do what you’re fucking told and find Jean-Luc Marnier and don’t ask any questions about stuff that doesn’t concern you.’

‘Right.’

‘You ask me you’re better off not knowing dick. That way it’s safer.’

‘You mean if I was indiscreet…’

‘Mr Franconelli will know and he will not be happy.’

‘As unhappy as he is with Marnier?’

‘Maybe more unhappy…I don’t know. I don’t know why you want to know this shit.’

‘Only that it’ll help me know where to walk and not to walk with Marnier. He sounds like a complicated man who’s sensitive to trouble. If he’s going to trust me enough to come out of hiding I’d like to know where he’s sensitive, don’t want to lean on his bad arm if he has one.’

Carlo and Gio exchanged a look.

‘But now that you’ve put it the way you’ve put it maybe I don’t want to know as much as I thought,’ I said.

‘Probably you don’t,’ said Carlo.

‘Maybe what I’ll do is ask you some questions and you give me “yes” and “no” answers. How about that?’

‘We could try that.’

‘Does Marnier import goods for Franconelli, here, in Benin?’

‘Yeah. He has done.’

‘Has he handled it the way Franconelli expected it to be handled?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Has he been cheating on you guys?’

Carlo ducked and weaved as if this was not the real issue but could be part of the problem.

‘Is this a wrist-slap or is Marnier headed for the big elsewhere?’

Carlo rattled a couple of sentences out to Gio. Gio shrugged, said nothing, giving his usual expert opinion.

‘That depends on what he says to us,’ said Carlo.

‘Why didn’t you get Gio to talk to the ragazza? I’m sure she’d have sung to him if he’d asked her nicely.’

‘That’s not how Mr Franconelli wanted to work it.’

‘Good family man?’

‘If you like.’

I finished my beer. Gio looked into the bar at one of the Beninoise who had her hands down one of the sailor’s trousers while he was playing the pinball machine. He wasn’t fighting too hard and he was losing a lot of balls.

‘Anything else?’ asked Carlo.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, a little nervous at how things were coming to a close, worried that Franconelli had chosen me specifically for the job and that once it was done maybe I’d find myself taking a look down the barrel of a Beretta and getting an eyeful – visions of Gale Strudwick face down in a Lagos swimming pool, the rain coming down on her hardening flesh.

We stood. Gio’s chair fell backwards and landed with a sharp crack that made me start. Gio smiled at me, which was not nice. Worn teeth with a discoloured crust up by the gums over a dark, hollow Palaeolithic mouth, maybe a stalactite coming down at the back there.

‘Twenty-four hours,’ said Carlo.

Gio patted my cheek with a surprisingly soft and dry palm.

6 (#ulink_c49e5abe-2f85-5421-9f61-cc243b4018f7)

The usual evening train pushed through the traffic, horn honking, heading out across the bridge to the industrial zone with a line of empty cars that screeched and grated on the rails embedded in the tarmac. I stopped off at the Lebanese supermarket round the corner from the La Verdure and bought a half of Bell’s and some black wrinkly olives imported directly from the Bekaa Valley. I went back to the office with my goodies. The gardien was off somewhere doing what gardiens do best, not looking after the place. The door of the office wasn’t locked as it should have been. I opened it, stood on the threshold and looked in. It didn’t stink of beer any more, which was good. I put a hand in to turn on the light.

‘Leave it off,’ said a voice in English with plenty of French sewn into it. ‘Come in and shut the door behind you.’

Someone was sitting in my chair, backlit by the glow from the streetlights and supermarket hoardings on Sekou Touré. The people who come to my office these days just don’t recognize their side of the desk. I got annoyed.

‘Who the hell are you?’ I asked.

‘You’ve been looking for someone. Have you forgotten already?’

‘Well, you’re not Marnier, not with all that ronronnement in your voice.’

‘Only cats ronronnent.’

‘You know what I mean. So who are you?’

‘I’m representing Marnier. Jean-Luc’s not ready to come out into the open yet.’

‘Well, that’s tough because I’m only going to talk to Marnier, the man himself. And while we’re talking about talking, you can do your talking from the client side of the desk and let me sit in my own chair.’