by M L Rudolph
“Okay. You work for Indiana Bank. You do have banks in Indiana.”
Matt didn’t respond.
“You invest millions in shipping,” Jean-Louis continued to lay out Matt’s assignment. “You like commodities like palm oil, timber, cotton. You are amazed at the scope of this building project. You heard Côte d’Ivoire will build a basilica that will be bigger than St Peter’s in Rome. It is famous in Indiana. All over America. You will compliment him on the President’s vision.”
“What vision? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Matt said.
“You listen. You follow. You act impressed. And remember I’m translating. As long as you act the part you will not displease his eminence. People who displease his eminence have gone to jail, or disappeared. As an American though, best case for insulting a Minister, they probably deport you. Worst case….”
“That is the worst case….”
“No. Worst case, you disappear into an Ivorian prison until they contact your bank.”
“But…?” Matt objected.
“Exactly,” Jean-Louis rebutted.
By now Jacques had followed the Peugeot to a cluster of modest trailers within direct view of the construction zone. He killed the engine next to a lone trailer where a sense of great and important activity prevailed. Men and boys carrying sheaves of paper, trays of drinks and plates of food, ran in and out with a look of determined haste. Or was that fear? A half dozen armed guards hovered at the trailer menacing each person who entered.
“Let him control the conversation,” Jean-Louis said. “I will guide you. It should not take long. Most of all you must flatter him. Be very impressed.”
Matt was confused and intimidated by this feudal display of power. Could a wrong word or gesture really mean jail? Or was Jean-Louis lying to him again? Could disappointing a tin-pot minister in a two-bit jungle town be more heinous than aiding and abetting a murder? What kind of country was this?
Matt was being asked to assume the identity of an American banker in front of an all-powerful Ivorian minister, all the while afraid he’d be associated with a murder he didn’t commit, in a language he didn’t understand, as translated by a criminal he didn’t trust.
What did any of this have to do with taking Melanie’s letter to Karl?
Chapter 11
Thirty minutes later Matt sat drumming his fingers on the back seat. The officers had abandoned their Peugeot and disappeared into the hive serving the Minister. Jacques slouched in the front seat; Jean-Louis remained vigilant. Sally gazed out her window at the slow steady progress of a group of men swinging heavy bags over their shoulders then carrying them about a hundred feet and stacking them next to skids of concrete blocks.
To Matt’s untrained eye, a broad swath of jungle had been cleared and leveled where teams of workers engaged in make-work. What would a banker see in a place like this? What if the Minister asked him what he thought? He didn’t even know what he was looking at. Jean-Louis said a basilica larger than St Peter’s in Rome? He didn’t have that kind of vision, or even see the purpose of such a project in the middle of a jungle where the natives lived in mud huts and walked to get around. A pair of dust-caked boys kicked at a heap of construction trash as if probing for hidden treasure.
Sixty minutes later, a big rig with a loaded trailer pulled up. Jacques snored, neck cocked at a painful angle. Jean-Louis, chin in hand, watched the truck driver jump down out of the cab and leave the engine running, gray smoke leaking from the upright exhaust. Sally sat quietly, either in shock or indifferent to her surroundings, occasionally moaning and shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
Two men in sharp western suits emerged from the Minister’s trailer and walked in the general direction of the Mercedes. “Here they come,” Matt said, perking up, still uncertain how to act but needing to do something, anything, other than wait for some unseen power figure to decide his fate.
Sally sat up and shifted her gaze to the approaching men. Jean-Louis pushed at the glove box to make sure it was latched. Jacques stirred groggily, cleared his throat, and stroked the amulet around his neck.
Then with only a passing glance at the Mercedes, the two smartly dressed men walked by, absorbed in themselves, and headed down the rutted trail out of sight.
“How much longer is this going to take?” Matt asked.
“As long as the Minister wants it to take,” Jean-Louis said.
Matt’s back had grown too stiff and painful to stay cramped in the back seat. He was tired of waiting; if something didn’t happen he was ready to make it happen. He kicked the door open and got out.
Alarmed, Jean-Louis jumped out and came around the car to confront him. “What are you doing? They said stay in the car.”
“I can’t anymore. My ass hurts. My back aches. I’m hungry. And I need to piss. Need any more reasons?”
“If they say wait, we wait.”
“You wait. I’m going for a piss.”
Matt looked around for a suitable spot. They were parked on a slight elevation; the terrain rolled away in all directions. Clusters of mud buildings poked up from the deep jungle. A bog ran in a giant horseshoe around the cleared construction zone. A scraggly tree gave him a splash of privacy where he lowered his zipper and looked out over a long open space surrounded by a low mud wall. A group of workers in yellow hard hats walking toward a compound of trailers stopped and waved at a pair of sleek sedans bumping slowly along. The limos continued across the uneven terrain until they connected with a dirt road.
“Aren’t those the Minister’s cars?” Matt yelled over to Jean-Louis who stood with his arms crossed at the hood of the Mercedes.
Matt peed behind the tree and watched the vehicles forced to stop behind an ambling herd of cattle. A horn blasted repeatedly. A bony steer cast a disinterested look at the sound, then turned back to continue strolling with his herd. The lead car carefully nudged the rear of a trailing cow with its bumper. The beast stumbled briefly then trotted to catch up with its fellows. The lead car tried to pass on the shoulder, but unable to maneuver past thick brush, was forced to fall in behind the cattle.
Next, doors flung open and two uniformed men jumped out to shoo the herd off the path. The officers ran in front of the lead steer and walked backward, waving their arms and hats at the beasts in a flamboyantly unsuccessful attempt to redirect them. The officials resembled a pair of tap dancers failing miserably to entertain an audience of distracted four-year-olds. One officer stumbled and fell on his butt in the dirt then scrambled to dodge the approaching hooves. The beasts lumbered along, indifferent to the delay they were causing to his eminence the Minister of Planning of Côte d’Ivoire, a very powerful person.
A driver raised a pistol out his window and fired three rapid shots overhead. The two unlucky officers assigned to shoo the cattle ducked and danced their way into the trees at the side of the road. After a pair of quick steps at the gunfire the cattle settled back into their languid pace until reaching a trailhead where one by one the beasts trotted up and off the road and into the trees.
The government entourage crept past the last beast then with a burst of dusty acceleration abandoned the pair of hapless officers in their wake.
“If they turn left toward the highway,” Jean-Louis said from beside Matt, “then we can depart.”
Chapter 12
Matt and Jean-Louis watched the Minister and his troupe turn south to enter the highway toward Abidjan. “We must go before those clowns come back and take their frustration out on us.” The two officers abandoned by the minister had also watched the Minister drive off and were now trudging heavily back up toward the compound.
In front of the Mercedes, Jacques was bantering with two skinny teenage boys, the tall one wearing a torn cocoa tee shirt with ragged linen cutoffs. Sally leaned on her open door in her baggy clothes and looked on disapprovingly.
“Get back in, both of you,” Jean-Louis ordered Matt and Sally. “I will deal with this.”
Sally scowle
d at her uncle, who responded with an innocent shrug. “You can’t quit can you,” she said in English, shaking her head in disgust as she walked over to a gnarled tree trunk.
Jean-Louis smirked at Matt and shrugged again. That’s how it is, he seemed to say, whether you approve or not. Then he reached in the window to pop the glove box and pulled out a British passport.
Jean-Louis walked the document over to the boys and handed it to the older of the two who grabbed it, flipped through the pages, pulled at the binding, then passed the booklet to his companion. Jean-Louis and Jacques didn’t show any concern for the two officers coming up the hill. The older boy shifted his weight nervously and looked around.
Matt shared the boy’s anxiety. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of an obviously illegal transaction on top of everything else that was going on. He walked over to Sally sitting on the tree stump.
“What are they doing?”
“My uncle’s an idiot, that’s what.” She struggled to speak, her mouth fat with pain.
“How are you?” Matt switched his attention to her. “I’m so very sorry about what happened.”
She turned her injured cheek away. “Nothing to do with you.” Her voice flat and emotionless, she remained aloof.
“I want you to know if there’s anything I can do.…”
She shook her head. “You killed him. That’s enough.”
“I didn’t kill him!” Matt shouted, attracting the attention of Jean-Louis in the middle of his transaction. Then he lowered his voice and repeated, “I didn’t kill Robert. I tried to stop them.” He jerked his head toward the other men. “They were the ones beating on him. Not me.”
Sally might have smiled on the healthy side of her face. “So either way. You helped.”
“I did not.…” Matt couldn’t tell if Sally was mocking him—one more frustrating moment he couldn’t decipher. “Believe what you want, but I didn’t, I don’t, kill people,” he said.
Frustrated at being falsely accused and constantly misunderstood, he stormed back to the car, and for the lack of anything better to do, got in and slammed the door. No one noticed, or cared.
Inside, the butt of the pistol grip poked out of the open glove box. Matt looked around at everyone occupied with either haggling or daydreaming. He might have been invisible.
On impulse, he leaned over the back seat, grabbed the gun, and shut the glove box, then dropped back into his seat, pulse hammering and cheeks on fire. The grip was cool. A sudden surge of power overwhelmed him along with a sense he’d stepped on to a tenth story ledge, forcing him to stand absolutely still to survive.
Still no one noticed. Sally sat on the tree trunk, staring out over the village nestled in the jungle. Jacques watched Jean-Louis haggle with the boys. And Matt held a small handgun on his lap in the back seat of the Mercedes unsure if he’d just improved his situation or made it worse.
He’d definitely have to fight off his companions, somehow, after they discovered the missing gun. They wouldn’t let him keep it. Was he ready for a standoff – gun in hand? What if he took out the bullets and returned the pistol to the glovebox? He fiddled with the grip looking for a release for the clip. But wouldn’t Jean-Louis have extra ammo? Matt had zero experience with guns.
He stuck the weapon in his jacket but its weight created an awkward bulge. Then he shoved the gun behind his belt at the small of his back.
Through the windshield, he watched the older boy pull out a roll of money and pay with some mangy CFA notes. The other boy hid the passport in his clothes and the pair sauntered away.
Jean-Louis called Sally, everyone got back in the car, and Jacques drove off before the two abandoned officers came into sight at the top of the hill.
For the first time since he arrived, Matt felt like he had some control.
Chapter 13
The road north of Yamoussoukro alternated between asphalt and ribbed hard pack. Rains had washed out sections of road as if a giant ogre clawed a fistful of earth for his own nefarious purposes, creating obstacles for motorists and disrupting the long distance truckers headed south with food stuffs for the marchés of Abidjan. Broken down trucks and cars created further hazards, though Jacques always seemed to know in advance when to watch out.
After night fell, it became hard to recognize the type of terrain they traveled. The headlights of the Mercedes carved a strip of visibility along the two lane road, fleeting shadows hinting at the jungle world rumbling past.
Gradually, a half-moon rose, casting its silver glow over the countryside, carving a semblance of dimension into the jungle shadows.
“Korhogo,” Jean-Louis said from the front seat. “A little village where we stop for food and petrol. Jacques will check the car. Then we keep going to Bamako. You should get to your hotel tomorrow.”
Matt wasn’t inclined to believe anything from Jean-Louis any more. He’d proven to be a smooth and accomplished liar.
“I said Bamako, monsieur.”
“I heard you.”
“It is your next stop, no? You have a reservation?”
“I still lost my money and tickets. And I don’t know anything about the place.”
“Your hotel, they probably have a very talented concièrge.”
Sally let out a girlish snort, or was it a laugh? Leaning against the door, she appeared to feign sleep. The moonlight caught her good cheek, hiding her injuries in shadow. Her legs curled beneath her, delicate wrists poking through the end of her long sleeves, her chest swelling with each gentle breath. It was like watching a child sleep: all attitude and urgency subtracted to reveal the essence of the person in repose.
Sally was driven by a youthful determination to build a better life. What had she done to deserve such treatment? That callous act of brutality made Matt think of Melanie. Every bit as determined and youthful, in spirit if no longer in body. What had she done to deserve such ruthless treatment at the hands of her cancer?
It started with a cough, she said, at the lake cottage last December, on a midnight walk, bundled against the cold. The divorce agreement stipulated joint possession of the small lake property and they agreed to alternate occupation. Odd, the lawyer advised, but the arrangement worked for Matt and Melanie. Neither of them could have afforded the place alone, so they split the costs and kept the property, mainly for Karl’s sake.
Under the leaden December sky, Melanie grew suddenly breathless and unable to summon the strength to continue the hike. She struggled back to the cottage and fell into an exhausted sleep which she chalked up to fatigue, or the onset of flu.
But she slept well past morning and woke up coughing, with a gray pallor that told her this was no ordinary flu. She shuffled around the small kitchen to make an English muffin and jam. But even that small amount of food didn’t interest her. She slept the day away and called in sick for Monday. Her doctor noticed more than flu and started a series of tests which ended with Melanie taking her news to Matt that February night.
A couple more hours into the drive, pale yellow strips of flame defined the horizon. The road crawled through hillocks then along a straightaway toward the burning area, the flames growing brighter, sharper, on approach, until gradually the smell of smoke entered the car. Jacques’s face shone cool and hot, one cheek bluish in the moonlight, and the other cheek yellowish from the brush fire nearing the road.
A section of rigid washboard forced Jacques to slow down. A rattle at the rear of the car grew to a clatter, then to a thudding, until he rolled to a stop and got out to inspect.
Jacques announced a flat tire and everyone stepped out into the warm night air to watch him get out the jack, crank up the car, and jerk free the shredded tire. He worked the spare out of the fully packed trunk, positioned it on the wheel drum, and started the lug nuts.
At the edge of the burning headlights, a group of human shapes emerged. Jean-Louis reached in the front window of the Mercedes then backed out into the dark. Matt stiffened at the surprise intrusion and mov
ed to position the car between him and the visitors. More shapes, maybe ten or more, materialized.
Jacques remained crouched, working the tire iron.
Gradually, Matt detected young male faces. Boys. Shorts. Sandals. Nothing threatening. Curious boys on an evening prowl? The clan closed in on the car and Jean-Louis’s disembodied voice engaged the boys in banter.
So far everyone seemed friendly. A distant animal howled and the boys laughed among themselves. One boy in a collared shirt walked directly into the headlights and fiddled with the Mercedes hood ornament.
Matt remained in safe proximity to Sally, tuned in to any sudden change of mood. “Where’d they come from?” he asked, keeping his voice down.
“Village boys. They probably live nearby. Saw us stop.”
“What village?” He’d seen nothing but night for the past several hours.
“Ask Jacques. He used to drive a truck everywhere. He knows all the villages.”
Jacques tightened the last lug nut then stood up with a firm grip on the tire iron. He walked to the open trunk and put a few bottles in a plastic bag.
“He always packs Coke and Marlboros to give out.”
With the tire iron in one hand, Jacques carried the bag to the boy at the hood ornament.
The boy looked inside the bag then back at Jacques and smiled. A few of his fellow scavengers crowded around to check the contents, poking inside to get a look.
“That was easy,” Matt said, still wondering what he was watching.
Jacques came back to ratchet down the car.
“But how do you know who to give gifts and what to give them?” Matt asked Sally. “It looked like that whole thing was expected.”
“If Jacques doesn’t give the boy those Cokes, they would still be here. They would be looking through the trunk starting to ask for things.”
