Despite a torrential downpour during the night the heavy vines of purple bougainvillea on the walls of the American Club were already covered with gray, gritty dust by the time Jacques pulled into the parking lot a little before noon on Saturday. The American Club was set well back from the Avenue de Shaba. Behind the high walls there was a gravelly parking lot where Jeep Cherokees and Ford Broncos, orange with mud, baked in the sun alongside the chauffeur-driven cars of the embassy crowd or the businessmen from local establishments of General Motors and Goodyear and British American Tobacco and Gulf Oil or any of the other international corporations with headquarters in Kinshasa. Like other well-placed “Europeans,” Jacques Delpech belonged to the American Club, which, along with other European clubs and “cercles” around town, gave the large expatriate community a social center.
The late morning sun stung at Jacques’ neck like angry bees as he hurried past the long, airy dining area where a handful of American teenagers sat at picnic tables and watched a video of Indiana Jones and drank Gatorade.
Inside the club’s small restaurant he found Sam Wofford sitting at a corner table, drinking beer with Carter Everett and Joe Snead and a sunburnt younger man whom Jacques had never seen before. They were all eating hamburgers and french fries, except Sam, who sat with three open bottles of Simba in front of him.
“Jacques! Hey Ho! Pull up a chair,” rasped Sam, his breathing shallow and labored.
“I thought you wanted to play tennis.” Jacques shook hands with Carter Everett and Joe Snead and held out his hand to the pink-faced younger man.
“Jacques, Bill Donovan. Bill, Jacques Delpech. President and Directeur Général of Delpech Breweries,” Carter Everett said.
“Among other things,” Joe Snead muttered under his breath, and they all turned to look at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jacques asked. He spoke English with the slightly dainty, lilting accent of the Indian nanny who had cared for him as a child.
“Only that Jacques Delpech, well, you’ll find this out for yourself, Bill. Jacques Delpech is a very big man in Kinshasa. Ain’t that so, Jacques ol’ boy? In tight with the Man.” Snead reached out and pushed Jacques’ shoulder with a pudgy hand. “And now big buddy Boketsu is back. Minister of mines. Somebody’s going to make some serious money, eh, Jack-O. What do you say?”
Jacques raised his hand and signaled for a beer. He ignored Snead, who tilted back his chair and grinned around the table. Snead was a man close to fifty with the chronic greasy look of the overweight. He dressed in polyester and wore white socks, even when taking his winter vacations in Europe. He draped his thinning blond hair across his scalp from a point just above his left ear and fancied himself a ladies’ man but could never get beyond the odd fanny pinch and sly feel for fear that his wife Doris with her mean terrier eyes might turn on him. Snead had been in Zaïre for over five years and somewhere in Africa for the last fifteen. He headed the Zaïrian operation of Americo International Construction and Development Corporation, and some said that he had it written into his contract that he would not have to serve in the United States. Not until his bundle was made. Everyone in the European circle knew that Snead took big-time bribes and made big-time deals. More than one wife had at one time or another taunted her husband with Doris Snead’s jewelry and clothes. Most wives didn’t understand how diamonds and Chanel suits and Johannesburg plastic surgeons could materialize out of tractor deals and road and bridge contracts, but Doris Snead did.
A grimy fan barely stirred the air in the close corner of the clubhouse. Outside the dirty window children splashed in the pool and tried to get the attention of their mothers who sat clustered in groups, gossiping and rubbing themselves with suntan lotion. On the far side of the pool Jacques saw Nicole, her black hair twisted Indian style into one thick braid, her head held stiffly out of the water, gliding about in that awkward dog paddle Frenchwomen do to keep their hair dry.
Sam Wofford absentmindedly pulled on his beer and watched Nicole make her way slowly around the pool toward a young diamond dealer sunning himself on a lounge chair.
“Looks like a water moccasin, that Nicole,” Sam said. The other men turned to look.
“With the embassy, Bill? USAID?” Jacques asked the young man, who had turned back to his hamburger and french fries.
“No. Bill’s a second secretary. Political section,” Carter Everett said. Bill Donovan chewed and nodded in agreement.
“Upstairs,” Joe Snead said, rolling his eyes as he brought his chair forward. “Upstairs,” he whispered melodramatically, “Bill works upstairs with the big boys at the embassy.”
“Christ!” Carter Everett said. “Cut out the shit, Joe.”
Sam snorted and swung his bleary eyes from Carter to Joe and back again. He looked pleased as a kid, and Jacques realized that he was drunk.
“I thought we were going to play tennis, Sam,” Jacques said, as Carter Everett and Bill Donovan stared at Joe Snead.
“Not today, m’ friend,” Sam spoke slowly, slurring his words. “Today I’m self-destructing. Sittin’ right here self-destructing all morning long. Goddamn tropics. Makes you self-destruct . . .” His voice trailed off. He frowned at Carter as if Jacques’ interruption had made him miss something important but he could not seem to remember what.
Carter had leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his hands steepled over his empty plate. His lean, patrician face was unsmiling and severe as he stared at Joe Snead. Bill Donovan, sensing the tension, had pushed away his half-eaten hamburger.
So, Bill Donovan is CIA, Jacques thought, big deal. And it was just like Joe Snead and his nasty fat boy routine to needle Carter Everett and at the same time let everyone know that there was nothing in Kinshasa, Zaïre, that could get by Joe Snead. Not even the secrets of the second floor of the American embassy were safe from him.
Carter Everett was not a man to make any effort to disguise his dislike of Joe Snead. Carter had served almost thirty years with the CIA, most of them in posts in Africa. It was said that Mobutu himself had requested his return as Chief of Station in Kinshasa, where he had spent three years in the late seventies. Washington had obliged, believing that Everett was exactly the right man to “handle” Mobutu.
The rickety screen door slammed shut, and Nicole Scott, followed by the young diamond dealer padded over to the table in bare feet. A damp towel cinched in a sarong around her waist, Nicole leaned against Jacques’ chair and placed a proprietary hand on his shoulder. A silly grin spread over Sam Wofford’s broad face.
“Hullo, gang,” the young man said. He winked at Sam and picked up one of his beers and drank. “Coming down to ski on the river tomorrow? The company boat’s been overhauled good as new. Guaranteed not to stall and dump you in the middle of the river.”
Carter Everett yawned and stretched. “Not tomorrow. Poker night tonight. I don’t know yet whether there will be a tomorrow.”
“I’m in,” Sam said, shifting his hefty frame drunkenly. “Don’t forget now, Carter, I’m in. If I’m not there at eight, send your driver ’round for me. Just send for me. I’m in, hear me, Carter?”
“Aw, come on, guys. The more the merrier. Josh Hamilton’s got three new parasails. And the crocodiles won’t be biting. Bring out the embassy boat, Carter. Nobody uses it anymore.”
“Next Sunday maybe,” Carter Everett said.
Nicole swayed into Jacques’ shoulder but smiled at Carter. Nicole Scott had been married for over ten years to a German freelance agronomist, who worked mainly for the Lever plantations in the bush. When he returned to Kinshasa, he and Nicole took up whatever kind of marriage they had together until he drifted off again. During his apparently unregretted absences Nicole taught French at a vaguely respectable institute and sought out clients for private lessons among the expatriate executives. She was a tall, rather mannish-looking woman made ardent by vanity and her desire to raise her status in the expatriate community. In the summer when a CEO’s wife left early for vacation, Nicole discreetly took up with the husband, always with the hope that one day she could move into the wife’s place for good. She was one of those women marooned in the tropics, grown soft in the life of privilege granted even those Europeans, like her, who were shunted to the periphery of that life. She had become a well-known local convenience.
Jacques shrugged off Nicole and pocketed his cigarettes. “I’m off,” he said, starting for the door. “Let me know when you want to play tennis, Sam.”
“Hey, m’ friend,” Sam said drunkenly, “Hey, Jacques! Don’t you want to watch me self-destruct? I’m goin’ to sit here all afternoon and self-destruct.”
Carter pushed back his chair and stood up.
“Wait up a minute, Jacques. I’ll be right with you.”
They walked in silence toward a circle of shade under a flame tree.
“I hear you’ve been cleaning up after Josh Hamilton again,” Carter said.
“Somebody has to. He’s not big enough to do it himself.” He turned to look at Carter, cool and clean in the torrid heat. “How did you hear about that?”
“I spend just about every night in the cité. Remember? People tell me things. Anyway . . . the little girl’s family is very grateful for all you’ve done.”
“Josh and Fiona have been white people in Africa too long. They’ve forgotten that there are some things you don’t just walk away from, have a servant draw you a nice cool bath, pour you a strong drink, and then dismiss it all. They’ve been in that big house up on the hill too long,” Jacques said.
A Jeep-load of young Peace Corps workers pulled to a stop in a swirl of dust and grit. They kicked off their sandals and, whooping noisily, ran toward the pool.
A moment later, a tall, remarkably pale young blonde wearing a short white beach wrap strolled into the gates from the Avenue de Shaba. She paused a moment, set down her straw bag, and with a graceful gesture, gathered up her thick, unruly hair into a pony tail.
Jacques and Carter fell silent as they watched her walk toward the pool.
“Probably somebody on temporary duty at the embassy,” Carter said.
“What makes you say that?”
“She was carrying The Bongo Banner, the embassy newsletter, in her beach bag.”
Jacques turned his head, staring after the girl.
“And she’s wearing a wedding band,” Carter said.
Jacques laughed. “Hell, Carter, sometimes I think you see too much.”
“Don’t forget my poker game tonight,” Carter said.
“Okay. If I’m not running too late. I’m going to put in an appearance at a party in Djelo Binza.”
“Boketsu?”
“Yes.”
“Feel good to have your best buddy back in town? And in good odor with the Man?”
Jacques hesitated a moment. “Yes and no.”
“Think he’ll behave himself this time?”
“As far as I can tell. Looks to me as if he’s pretty much teacher’s pet now.”
“I hear Mobutu may have shelled out as much as twenty million to get Boketsu back into the game.”
Jacques felt as if a stone fist had hit him in the stomach. “That much?” he whispered.