White Bone Page 4

  “Please?”

  “You’re saying he’ll let me through?” Grace would handle a kid like this better, he thought. She knew how to say no and mean it.

  The boy reached for Knox, reconsidered and, instead, waved him ahead and to his left. “Think about it. How do I get a tip if I make trouble for you, mister? That’s not good business.”

  Knox laughed and turned some heads. Knox didn’t do many things small. “A tip, is it?”

  The kid signaled to the uniformed meathead. The guard opened the gates for Knox. Knox passed through without incident.

  “Eastland Safari. This is correct?”

  “Excuse me?” Knox grabbed the kid by the arm, spinning him. He’d misjudged the boy’s weight. He turned him hard. Some heads turned. Knox released the boy. “Go away! We’re done here.”

  “Through there. An Eastland driver is waiting, holding a sign with your name.” The boy pointed to a frequent-flyer tag on Knox’s overnighter that identified him by name.

  “What?” Knox said, taking a moment to process that the boy was thinking two steps ahead.

  “You want my help, or you want me to leave?” the boy said.

  Knox laughed quietly. “You can go now. Thank you.”

  “Maybe you need a guide in Nairobi. A driver. A woman.”

  “Maybe you should be in school.”

  “I’m Bishoppe.” He pointed again to the man holding a folded newspaper with Knox’s name written in marker across it.

  Knox scanned the crowd. Eyes came at him from everywhere. He was entering a country where he was a different color and bigger than the average. People noticed. Knox was used to it. He’d learned to distinguish quickly between random curiosity and pointed interest.

  Now he singled out two men in particular who were working hard to ignore him. Fished two U.S. dollars from his pocket. “Sorry, no shillings yet.”

  “Dollars. Euros. Shillings. No problem, mister. You need to change to shillings? I can get you the best rate!”

  Smirking, Knox handed the boy the money, feeling two dollars was too much, yet somehow not enough.

  “Welcome to Kenya, Mr. Knox. Please, enjoy your stay.”

  “Bishoppe,” he caught him by the arm, this time far more gently. “Tell me, is there a car park outside?”

  “Of course.”

  “A taxi stand?”

  “To the right, sir. But you already have a driver.”

  Knox pulled out another five dollars. He didn’t like the looks of the two men keeping tabs on him. Belatedly, he snapped off the frequent-flyer tag. His brother, Tommy, must have strapped it on. Answering a sign with his name on it wasn’t the best course of action, he thought. Maybe Winston had failed to call off British Intelligence; maybe in Kenya guys like this just stood around waiting for guys like him.

  “Tell a taxi to pull around to the far side of the car park. The driver is to wait five minutes. If I don’t show, he can keep the five dollars.” He gave Bishoppe an additional two dollars for his trouble. It disappeared into a pocket. Knox studied the kid, liking him. “Don’t run off with the money. Don’t burn me on this.”

  Knox walked past his driver. He and Bishoppe split as they started out of the building. One of the two men interested in him followed Knox. Another got on the phone, his back turned.

  Outside, drivers for hire, hucksters and families waited on a concrete road divider. They wore Western dress—the men, business informal; the youngsters, jeans; the women, dresses and skirts. A mood of excited anticipation hung in the warm air.

  Knox coughed against the blue exhaust that snorted from tailpipes. The roar of jets taking off covered the sounds of vehicles. The people in conversation were like actors in a silent movie. Cigarette smoke spiraled from pursed lips; the clouds hid eyes bloodshot with fatigue.

  A few lights shone from high atop concrete poles, spreading a canary glow across rows of late-model vehicles crushed together in an overcrowded parking lot. The driver holding his name in his hands called out curiously, “Mr. Knox?”

  Again, Knox cursed his height and skin color. The driver caught up and asked for a second time. He was small, late forties, with graying hair at his temples. He wore gray slacks and a white shirt that had started the day pressed. Knox told him to keep moving and to keep up.

  “You drive for Eastland?” Knox said, naming the safari company Winston was using as a liaison.

  “Ten years.”

  “Did you drive the Chinese woman?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Her hotel?”

  “I am to take you to the guesthouse, not the Sarova Stanley.”

  “You will do exactly that,” Knox said. “Open the boot like you’re putting my bag inside, but drop it and kick it aside. Then get behind the wheel and drive to the guesthouse.”

  “I drive you.”

  “Not exactly. You will drive, but I won’t be with you.”

  The man trailing him had been stopped by traffic from crossing the access road. This was no longer just curiosity. He was being followed. He assessed his surroundings. There were two service vans in the lot. Both were tall enough to conceal a crouching Knox.

  He spotted Bishoppe talking heatedly to a taxi driver across the busy one-way service road. Could he trust this kid? Over the years of buying and selling in third-world countries, he’d dealt with hundreds of such boys. A nickel for a favor; a dollar for a treat; they’d pick your pocket or steal your bag if given the chance.

  “You would like me to call in?” The driver pulled his flip phone from his pocket. “You wish to speak to Tina?”

  “Do this just as you would any pickup,” Knox said, reaching into his pocket. “Tell me which is your car. No pointing please.”

  The man described a silver hatchback.

  “No need for that, sir!” Offended by Knox’s reaching for a tip.

  “I’m being watched. Two men, maybe more. One on the phone. They picked me out as I approached you at arrivals.”

  “You stand quite tall. Police have many questions these days. Many eyes here at the airport. Troubling times, as I’m sure you are aware.”

  “The bombings,” Knox said.

  “Exactly. Nairobi is most dangerous at night, Mr. Knox. For you, very dangerous.”

  “The trunk. Leave my bag. Then drive out of the car park and off to the guesthouse. If they follow you, would they normally see me get out upon arrival?”

  “No. There is a gate. A guard. I will drive inside.”

  “Excellent. Please thank the Barr-Latners for their generosity. I will contact them in the morning.” Winston had arranged the husband-and-wife safari guiding service to look after him; Knox had not expected to be a guest in their home.

  “My card.” The driver passed it to Knox surreptitiously. “You may call at any hour.”

  They went through the ritual of pretending to put the bag into the back. Knox walked to the far side, kicking his bag farther afield. He opened the door, ducked and closed the door as if he’d gotten in. Then, bag in hand, he slipped behind the adjacent van and began to move, his heart racing. He stayed low and reached the second van, remained in the crouch as he hurried out the far side of the parking lot.

  The taxi was waiting. Knox tossed his bag and followed it inside.

  “The Sarova Stanley plea—”

  His satchel lay firmly in the grasp of Bishoppe, who smiled broadly back at him. Bishoppe rattled off a series of directions to the driver in Swahili. Turning to Knox, he spoke, grinning. “We will avoid the highway. Traffic into the city is very bad this time of night. Too many trucks.” The boy shouted something more to the driver in Swahili. The taxi charged off.

  Knox leaned back and stole a look into the parking lot. The hired car had pulled up to the exit gate. He’d lost sight of the two men. But the pang of nerves remained, as d
id more questions than he could answer.

  “National Police,” the boy said. “The two men.”

  Impressed, Knox nonetheless didn’t speak.

  “You are a criminal?”

  “Far from it.”

  “Police?”

  “You weren’t invited. Here. The taxi.”

  “I did you a favor. Why are National Police waiting for you?”

  “They weren’t. Mind your own business.”

  “I think maybe you are my business.”

  Knox suppressed a grin and turned toward the window.

  The overcrowded, narrow roads were in a state of decay. Axle-wreckers. It was nearing midnight, yet a seemingly endless migration of people on foot filled either side of every road, the men in dark trousers and T-shirts, the women in skirts and colorful tops. Backpacks. Purses.

  Knox asked the kid about the boxy vans that outnumbered all other vehicles. Called matatus, they were commuter buses packed with fifteen to twenty in a seating arrangement meant for nine.

  Day-Glo-vested motorcyclists serving as single-passenger taxis weaved through the slow-moving traffic. Where traffic in Shanghai had struck Knox as choreographed, Nairobi felt more like a slugfest. Why couldn’t Winston have donated money to a clinic in San Diego?

  The roads lacked streetlamps, were lit only by vehicles and the glow from billboards and shop signs along the route. Their taxi driver took back streets as he and the boy argued, his eyes periodically finding Knox in the rearview mirror.

  Downtown Nairobi still retained some of its British colonial character, the art of marrying landscape to architecture. Almost every city block offered a stark contrast between poverty and affluence, a confused, schizophrenic identity.

  The taxi pulled to the curb. A bellman opened Knox’s door and welcomed him. The air smelled better here. Knox was about to pay the driver when Bishoppe snatched the cash from his hand, snapped off a ten-dollar bill and handed it to the driver, who argued loudly. The boy returned the rest of Knox’s cash with a huff, saying the driver was a greedy thief.

  Knox paid the kid five dollars out on the sidewalk, believing it a small fortune to the boy, and thanked him.

  “What time tomorrow?” Bishoppe asked.

  “There is no tomorrow. We’re all done here.”

  “There is always tomorrow,” the boy said. He shook Knox’s hand heartily. Despite the childlike look of the boy’s frayed shorts and broken flip-flops, Bishoppe’s composure struck Knox as businesslike and solicitous.

  “You need pharmacy? Liquor? Woman? Phone card?” the boy called over his shoulder.

  “Jack of all trades,” Knox said, smiling. A fourteen-year-old pimp.

  “You like to gamble?” the kid said, misunderstanding.

  “SIM card.” Knox showed him his mobile. “At least two hundred megs of data.”

  “Twenty, U.S.”

  Knox gave him ten. “I’ll wait in the lobby. Make it fast.” The boy took off like Usain Bolt.

  “Was this boy bothering you, sir?” the bellman asked.

  “No, no. I’m fine. He’s fine. You know him? See him around?”

  The man gave Knox an insulted look. Knox didn’t push it.

  The luxury hotel shut the ragtag world out. Knox might have been in any city. The lobby exuded an old-world pretense; the service was overdone. At the front desk, Knox withheld any questions about Grace’s stay. Night shift; they wouldn’t know.

  He ate dinner at the bar amid lingering business suits and low-cut dresses. Bishoppe returned with his SIM card and no change. Knox said goodbye; Bishoppe, “See you later.”

  9

  Knox slept for five hours and awoke to a smudge of pink dawn in a charcoal sky. Using the new phone chip, he sent a text of an airplane emoji to Dulwich. That would give Dulwich his private number.

  While he awaited a thermos of coffee, he used the television to go online, accessing his own company’s catalogue and account information. At 3 A.M., Dulwich’s alias had ordered a Jade Buddha. At 3:05 A.M., the order had been canceled.

  A bubble—of what? Fear? Anxiety?—lodged in Knox’s throat: Grace had failed to make contact for the second night in a row. He spent thirty minutes doing sit-ups and stretches in front of BBC News and then took a long, very hot shower. He had Winston’s prioritized list of trusted contacts. He also had a sinking feeling in his gut.

  He left messages—with a journalist; an activist; several environmental NGOs; the British embassy—referring to himself as a small-business owner who was friends with Graham Winston. Then he waited for his phone to ring.

  A journalist named Bertram Radcliffe invited him to lunch at the Jockey Pub at the Hilton. Knox loaded up on shillings from a lobby ATM and used the hotel’s back street doors. As he turned toward the Hilton Tower, the sound of light-footed flip-flops approached at high speed. Knox stepped aside at the last minute and grabbed the boy by the arm.

  “Bishoppe,” he said, swinging the boy before getting a look at him, “I thought we had an agreement.” He set him down to his right and continued walking. The boy caught his breath and tugged up his shorts. A motorcycle’s roar cut the air.

  “You would like a tour. Safari, maybe? I can get you a driver very cheap.”

  “Go back to the airport. Find another tourist. I work alone.”

  The boy struggled to match him stride for stride. Looking back at him, Knox saw his brother, Tommy, laboring to keep up in the early days of their brotherhood, long before Knox fully understood Tommy’s challenges. Carefree kids. No yesterday. No tomorrow.

  A pang of want surged through Knox, a reflexive anger at the unfair and random nature of disease. Normalcy had escaped his brother and him at an early age. Tommy defined his life now.

  Bishoppe still hadn’t left. In spite of himself, Knox exploded. “Scoot! Go! I’m not buying!”

  “I am not selling.” The boy stopped, allowing Knox to walk on without him. “Those men at the airport,” he called out, paying no attention to the passersby around them. “One was special police for certain. The other, he meets only the British arrivals.”

  Knox stopped. A steady procession of Kenyans spilled around him, some taking mind, some oblivious. A flag, mounted at a rising angle from a building across the street, snapped in the wind. Down on the sidewalk, there was no breeze whatsoever. Knox took in the sharp human scents; mixed in with them was the stench of burning charcoal. Everywhere he looked, he kept seeing Grace’s face.

  He eyed the boy, wondering what he was playing at. The two of them, staring, their gaze broken by passing pedestrians. The boy approached in fitful glimpses, postures and poses.

  “He follows them out. Never greets them himself. He speaks to his phone a lot.”

  “Them?”

  “He works with a British High Commission driver. This man, he meets them. Never a taxi, these people, always a Land Rover. Black Land Rover or Range Rover. The special tags.”

  “Diplomatic tags.”

  “Yes. Exactly this. Sometimes more than one car. Also, sometimes security. But always this man in the terminal. The same man that followed you.”

  Knox regarded the child.

  “I know the airport and everyone in it.”

  Knox understood well how small a place could and did become, how familiar one could be with a large group. He’d worked in Tiger Stadium the summer of his senior year in high school. Within weeks he’d known many of the crew by sight and dozens by name. The team remained at large, but the stadium’s cleanup crew, food service, the managers, even security and a few police—Knox had considered them friends by the time school started. He didn’t doubt a bored boy’s ability to see things others did not, even in the chaos of Nairobi.

  “The other man. Follows them for how long?”

  “Sometimes a car meets him at the curb. Sometimes not.”

 
; “What kind of car?”

  “Mercedes? Toyota? Shit car. Old car.”

  “Drives himself?”

  “Not always.” The boy looked hurt. “You don’t believe me? I try to help you and you don’t believe?”

  “You’re playing me. Why?”

  “What does this mean, ‘playing’?”

  Knox tried to penetrate the consuming black of the boy’s eyes but found it impossible. He’d dealt with extortionists and kidnappers more easily read. He recalled the boy negotiating with him in the backseat of the taxi.

  “Did this man follow me last night?”

  Knox had looked for a tail, but it had been nighttime on unlit roads.

  “I will help you if you want me to help. That is your choice.”

  Knox reached for his pocket.

  “No money. Americans, it’s always money. What have I done? Nothing. Look, I am not done helping you. Where is it you are going? I can watch for other men.”

  “No, thank you.” Knox offered him twenty shillings and the boy took it.

  “As you wish,” Bishoppe said.

  Knox thanked him and continued toward the distant hotel, all the while reading the shadows and determining the boy was still following ten yards back. Knox fought to keep from smiling. Grace would like this kid.

  The Hilton, standing like a forty-story toilet paper tube atop a five-story cube of concrete, declared itself at the end of the street. A perimeter of trees was fronted by a row of parked cars. He saw a dry, scrubby-looking park to the east, the trees in need of a water truck. Knox allowed contact with a pedestrian, turned just enough to steal a look behind. The boy had made him paranoid.

  He looked for anyone following. Saw nothing obvious. Ahead, more cars, and more cars still in the distance. Knox tasted the dry mouth of fatigue. He hoped like hell his gut was wrong about Grace. Tried to convince himself again that she’d had to lose the phone for self-preservation. She was smart and cunning. She had a plan. They would laugh about it all by the end of the week.

  He was lying to himself.

  He hated that.

  10