28

Mike Kedzia was at the bar, waiting for a glass of Champagne. I carefully positioned myself in his way, so that when he turned around he couldn’t avoid bumping into me. Some of his drink splashed on my shirt.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said. “How clumsy of me.”

I assured him no damage had been done. “There’s hardly anything on my shirt. You know what they say about Champagne not staining.”

“Either way, please accept my apologies.”

“It’s nothing. But your glass is practically empty now. Allow me to fix that.”

I took his glass and handed it to the bartender. At the entrance to the mansion, the ambassador—a tall, fiftyish, and undeniably distinguished man with white hair—had begun his speech, and the partygoers were edging closer to hear him better. Darkness had spread throughout the gardens. In this part of the world, the night nudges out the day as abruptly as someone flicking off a switch. Swarms of insects were swirling around the glow of the outdoor lanterns.

I extended my glass toward Mike Kedzia, who was staring at me.

“Souleymane Diabaté,” I said as an introduction.

“Mike Kedzia.”

We clinked our glasses.

“To unlikely encounters, which are always the best kind.”

“Yes, to excellent encounters.”

The fact that he didn’t recognize me boded well. I wondered how much he knew about Rafael’s bloody dealings. And I couldn’t help noting that Kedzia didn’t correspond with my mental image of a pitiless drug trafficker.

We chatted for a half an hour or so and I seized the opportunity to question my new friend about his professional activities. He dished out the same spiel that was on the company website. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him I was a visual artist, even though I didn’t know exactly what that entailed. When pressed for an explanation, I went off on a tangent, which seemed to satisfy him. Judging by the ravenous looks he was giving me, I could have just as easily been talking about how poorly the CFA franc was doing.

“I’m not a big fan of small talk,” I ended up saying. “And I’m hungry for more than bite-size appetizers.”

Kedzia looked at me even more intently. “You’re not afraid people will notice our absence?”

I chuckled. “Are you kidding? These people are too busy showing off to care about what anyone else is doing. Plus, I couldn’t care less about what they’ll say.”

The gendarmes saluted us as we left. Once on the street, Kedzia took out his cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“My driver. It’ll only take a few minutes for him to get here.”

“No need to bother him. Where do you want to go?”

“My place, if that’s all right with you.”

Deep down, I let out a sigh of relief.

“Not at all. That’s perfect. My car’s parked nearby.”

We walked to the Land Cruiser in silence. As I inserted the key I asked which way—to keep up appearances. He directed me the whole way, and I was thankful that his hand didn’t stray to my thigh. I parked on the street and stealthily retrieved my Glock from under the seat after he got out. His caretaker opened the door and greeted Kedzia while making it a point to ignore me.

“Perhaps you should send your staff home,” I whispered. “I can be very loud when I get excited.”

Kedzia gulped and nodded enthusiastically. The Pajero was parked under an awning. I looked around nervously. This would be a bad time to bump into Coulibaly, but luck seemed to be on my side. The house was decorated tastefully. Kedzia pointed to the bar and asked me to pour us some Scotch while he told his staff to go home. He left like the wind. It almost made me feel bad. When he returned, a bit out of breath and all excited, he accepted the Scotch and took a big swallow. He coughed, and his eyes filled with tears.

“So, are we alone now?” I asked.

“The house is all ours until tomorrow morning.”

He came close to me and swept his hand over my chest. His fingers stopped on the buttons of my shirt. Just as he started to undo one, I grabbed his hand. Using a technique I learned in my anti-gang training, I bent it backward—hard, but not hard enough to break it. He cried out in pain and then grunted when I shoved him away with a kick in the gut. He fell into an armchair. I pulled out my gun, and his face quivered at the sight of the black barrel.

“No, please don’t kill me. I have money—”

“Shut your mouth.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Just shut up.”

He quieted down at last, and his eyes filled with tears. Still pointing my gun at him, I checked the windows to make sure we were alone. Reassured, I closed the heavy drapes.

“What do you want from me?” he said after a few moments.

“Answers to my questions,” I responded, sitting down on the couch across from him.

“What questions? I don’t understand. I’m just a simple—”

“Don’t bother,” I said wearily. “Let’s be clear. I’ll ask the questions, and if I think you’re lying, I’ll put a bullet in your knee.”

He nodded and stared at me with terrified eyes that were so wide, I thought for a minute I might have a hard time killing him.

“Let’s begin. Why did you have Bahia Tebessi killed?”

“Who?”

I leaped up and struck him with the barrel of my weapon.

“Don’t hit me,” he wailed. “I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

The Glock’s sight had left a bloody groove on Kedzia’s face. He sobbed as he reached up to touch it.

“My face… You’ve disfigured me.”

I sat down again. I could already feel a migraine coming on. Doing this was very unpleasant.

“Consider yourself lucky. You can still walk. I promised a bullet in the knee, and I won’t be so nice the next time. So?”

Kedzia sobbed again.

“I… I don’t know anything. I’m not the one who gets things done at my company.”

“What company?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Cartagena. I take care of ordinary operations and accounts. I’m an accountant by training. For everything else, it’s my associates who—”

“What associates?”

“Rafael and Rodrigo.”

“Why do they want to take me out?”

His eyes got big again. He looked at me as though I were the devil himself.

“My God, you’re Solo Camara?”

“In the flesh,” I said.

“They want to eliminate you because you’re interfering with their plans, and your timing couldn’t be worse,” Kedzia said, wringing his hands.

“How’s that? What are you and your pals up to?”

He lowered his voice. “It’s a huge operation. If we mess up, our directors in Spain won’t forgive us. Rafael doesn’t want to take any risks.”

“You should shut your huge trap, Alejandro.”

The voice cracked behind me like a horsewhip. I spun around. Rafael Ortega de la Torre was pointing an enormous shiny revolver at me. He wasn’t alone. Two henchmen, also armed, were just behind him. One was the fat Hispanic guy I had already seen with him. I assumed he was Rodrigo. The other was black, of the same ilk as the two guys I offed.

“Set your gun down, Mr. Camara.”

I hesitated.

“Now!” he barked.

Defeated, I put down the Glock.

“Now slide it toward me.”

I kicked the weapon toward the Spanish man. He picked it up, keeping the outsized revolver pointed at my belly.

“You really like the glitz and glam, don’t you, Ortega? Big shiny guns and all that. You know what they say about guys with big weapons?”

“They generally don’t say anything unless they’re looking for a bullet.”

I let out a little laugh, but I shut my trap when I saw his jawline tighten. Then Rafael put his revolver in his shoulder holster and raised my Glock. He started walking toward Kedzia.

“Good thing you got here in time. He was going to—”

Rafael fired twice. Kedzia collapsed in his chair, his eyes bulging.

“You’re fired, Alejandro,” Rafael said, sneering at Kedzia. My gun was smoking in Rafael’s hand.

“What the fuck, Rafael,” Rodrigo shouted. “You know who that fag is.”

“I couldn’t take the fairy anymore,” the Spaniard replied calmly. “He was going to fuck everything up anyway.”

“Christ, Rafael,” Rodrigo groaned. “We’re dead if the Colombians hear about this.”

“Fuck the Colombians.”

Rafael approached me, still holding my Glock. He put his free hand on my shoulder.

“You’re subject to bursts of violence, Mr. Camara, aren’t you? So it won’t surprise anyone when the police discover that you killed a poor businessman who tried to get in your pants.”

“That’s a bit far-fetched, don’t you think?” I countered.

“This is Mali, Mr. Camara. It was your weapon that killed him, and I’m sure you were seen together at the French ambassador’s house. That’s basically all it’ll take to make you the killer. If, however, someone starts asking the wrong questions, I just have to shell out a few million to fix the problem.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“His driver. He recognized you when he saw you arriving with his boss, and thinking Kedzia was in danger, he called us. So there you have it.”

Rafael gave Rodrigo a little nod, and before I could say anything else, the back of my head exploded. I was in an ink-dark well with a million sparkling shards of something whirling around me.