by M L Rudolph
“And your exams. I feel like I’m partly responsible. I hope you don’t miss out….”
“Stop being sorry,” she said, speaking heavily through her swollen lip. “You had nothing to do with Robert. If anyone is responsible for what happened to me, it is Jean-Louis. He knows it. And now Mòmuso knows. She is very angry with him.”
Matt looked around. “I’d love to see that.”
“She is making him tell her everything,” she said, with a look of satisfaction. “He can’t lie to Mòmuso.”
As if on cue, Jean-Louis walked out of one of the mud homes with his mother and announced he would be taking Matt to the hotel.
At the Pont des Martyrs Bridge, Matt gaped at the vast expanse of the surging Niger River reflecting the yellow afternoon sun. Standing men piloted pirogues against the backdrop of distant amber hills. Red dust rising from the density of commerce and transport drifted across the river’s expanse.
Matt remembered that near here Mungo Park first saw this river nearly two hundred years ago. When he expressed his astonishment at the sight to the local king, that king asked, “Don’t you have rivers in your country?”
Matt relished that anecdote but never felt close to it until now, here, driving slowly over the bridge. He understood the person of Mungo Park, unable to communicate a sense of wonder to a man who’d never traveled. For Matt had never traveled, and Mungo’s tale never came alive before today.
Matt wondered if Karl had stood here and been reminded of the tales of Mungo his father once recounted? And if Karl did stand on these banks and watch this river, had he felt any closer to his father as a result?
Jean-Louis drove to the Hôtel du Mali perched on the north bank of the great river. He parked near the entrance, and inside he presented Matt to the concièrge.
—Monsieur Reiser is a very important banker from Indiana. Take good care of him, he said. —He has already met with the Minister of Planning in Côte d’Ivoire, and he will be meeting with the American Ambassador tomorrow. Very important person.
The concièrge acted suitably impressed and personally handled the check-in for this VIP.
Jean-Louis paid the concièrge, then asked Matt to come outside with him. Next to the Mercedes he handed over an envelope with the logo of Le Grande Hôtel Abidjan.
Inside Matt found a stack of 10,000 franc CFA notes. “What’s this?” He looked around the parking lot to see if anyone was watching.
“This is what is left from Le Croc.”
“But you already gave it to me.”
“Le Croc gave me all the money you changed at the airport. He didn’t want it. My job was to get you out of Abidjan, and for providing that service, I was to keep whatever money was left. This is what is left.”
In order not to explode, Matt let himself be distracted by an arriving yellow taxi which dispatched a man in a cream boubou and skull cap, carrying a small suitcase. Matt waited until the man entered the hotel.
“So this is my money?”
Jean-Louis nodded. “Like I told you.”
“You had it all along.” Matt grabbed a fistful of Jean-Louis’s shirt. “I was right. You are part of this.” He jerked Jean-Louis into him. “You could have saved me a lot of trouble by just giving me my money back in Abidjan.”
Their noses nearly touched.
“I should break your lousy neck.”
“Do what you have to.” Jean-Louis appeared ready to accept whatever punishment the American decided on. “I can’t change what happened to you. But after what happened to Sally, I’m done with Le Croc and that kind of work.”
“I don’t care if you are, or not.” Matt laughed bitterly and shoved Jean-Louis away. “You’re not even worth beating up. You’re a thief and a liar. Right up to the last minute.” A realization occurred to him. “Sally made you promise to give me the money, didn’t she? Or was it your mother?”
“Sally never approved of me helping Le Croc. My mother never knew.”
“When did she learn about this money?” He waved the envelope. “Do you involve her in your schemes?”
“She knew who robbed you, if that’s what you mean.”
“You must be very proud of yourself. The way you provide for your family.”
Jean-Louis ignored this comment. “Sally believes the only reason Robert attacked her was because I didn’t have the courage to confront Le Croc.”
“And you still work for Le Croc, don’t you?”
“No. I am done.”
“You don’t mind if I don’t believe a goddam thing you say, do you?”
“We all make our own way in life.”
“Yes, we do. But some of us try to make the world a better place.”
“Naïve,” Jean-Louis said under his breath as he stiffened into the aloof manner of a concièrge. “Let me leave you not only with your money, monsieur, but with a suggestion for your safety. Forget Abidjan. You flew in, flew out. Just like you planned. The rest never happened.” He hardened his stare. “I wish you luck, Monsieur Reiser. Your son has a very determined father.”
Chapter 17
Back in the hotel, in a combination of Pidgin English and Pidgin French, Matt asked the concièrge how to place a call to Melanie. She’d now waited two days since the last call.
“Better to call from embassy?” Matt asked, and tapped his wrist where his Timex once sat. “Faster?”
“It is possible,” the concièrge said with a smile and a nod. The concièrge didn’t exhibit Jean-Louis’s flair nor did he speak English with the same ease, but he showed a determined eagerness to serve. Matt ordered the call and crossed his fingers it would go through before he took a taxi to the embassy
Upstairs, Matt showered, downed a little whiskey from the minibar, and ordered an omelet and fries from room service plus a large bottle of mineral water. He brushed his teeth with his finger and inspected his beard which had filled in from four days without shaving.
Now: Toiletries. Malaria pills. Underwear, shirts and socks. Shit. He’d already been through this once and now he had to stock up a second time.
Downstairs, Matt asked the concièrge if the yellow taxis out front were trustworthy. “No stickup.” He pointed his fingers like a pistol.
“No, monsieur,” the concierge grinned. “No Al Capone.”
Matt jumped in a waiting taxi and said, “L’ambassade américaine.” And just like that his confidence grew; he could get around on his own. He had just got off to the worst start imaginable in Abidjan. He didn’t need help from strangers. Karl was out there somewhere and Matt would find him.
“I’d like to speak with Deke Fletcher,” he said to the Malian man on duty at the entrance to the embassy. “I’m sent by Consular Officer Chandler Bigelow in Abidjan.” He took his—should he tell him it was stolen—passport out of its pouch and slid it under the bulletproof glass. He stood back expressionless as the local employee compared him to his photograph. In the faint reflection in the glass, Matt pulled at his whiskers hoping his appearance hadn’t changed to the point of raising questions about his identity.
“Would you turn your face to the side, sir,” the man said to make an additional comparison to the photo. “Thank you, sir. Please wait here.” He kept Matt’s passport and picked up his desk phone. Matt took a seat on a plastic chair in the anteroom and once again pondered the radiance of Jimmy Carter’s peculiar smile.
Within minutes, Consular Officer Deke Fletcher came out to greet him. The young officer wore a smooth-faced mahogany tan over a button-down shirt and bright red tie. He exuded youthful vigor as he handed over a carbon copy of a telex. “This came in almost right after I got Chandler’s telex to expect you.” The two men stood alone in the spare air-conditioned anteroom. “So I thought I’d bring it out. You can’t keep it, but you can have a quick read.”
Matt half-expected Consular Officer Fletcher to be evasive, or at least annoyed with him for blowing off his appointment with Bigelow back in Abidjan, but the junior officer acted eager to hel
p. Matt scanned the faint carbon copy of the telex with optimism.
“Apparently it’s good news?” Deke brushed his thick brown hair out of his eyes. “The gist of it is that Karl Reiser, your son, right? He registered with the Embassy in Ouaga.”
“Where?”
“Ouagadougou. Upper Volta. Next country to the east.”
“I don’t get it.” Matt took a moment to absorb the news.
“He must be working in-country. We encourage Amcit residents to register with their embassy, and it looks like he did. So just in case—and it has happened—we need to get out an emergency order. Like to evacuate. We keep a pretty close eye on these situations.”
“Situations?”
“Unrest. You know. Things can get out of hand pretty fast sometimes. Right now things look stable, but even so, the students are planning a march in Bamako tomorrow and the President’s got his plane on standby just in case. But we don’t expect things to get hot.” Fletcher noticed Matt’s discomfort with the talk of unrest. “There’s no cause for alarm here or in Upper Volta. Chad, now that’s another story. The rebel activity over there’s getting intense.”
“Rebel activity?”
“In Chad, yeah. Hardly any chance it’ll spill over the borders. All I meant to say, was that’s great news about your son. It’s like we almost found him.”
“How close is Chad?”
“Two countries to the east from Upper Volta. But you don’t need to worry about that. Upper Volta’s calm. All the same, I’d recommend you stay in touch with the embassy wherever you go, keep up-to-date on our travel alerts. You aren’t traveling alone are you?”
Matt kept hold of the telex and looked around to find a seat. His back suddenly ached and he realized he was exhausted; he should have taken a nap at the hotel. He dropped back in his chair. “I was expecting to find him here in Mali.”
“You alright?”
“I’m just. Is there a? I’ve just been going non-stop. Do you have a candy bar or something?”
“Wait here,” Fletcher said, as if there was the tiniest chance Matt might have somewhere better to go. “I’ll be right back.” Fletcher disappeared inside the secure area and returned wearing a blue blazer and carrying a brown file. “How about we go for a burger and Coke? We have a café on the premises. The Ambassador’s wife runs it actually. Best cheeseburgers in the country. I’ve got a little paperwork to go over with you. We could do it there.”
“Sure, but, uh, my passport?” He looked over at the receptionist station. “Should probably get that before we go, shouldn’t I?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, that is kind of the reason for the paperwork. Seems you reported it stolen. Then you didn’t keep your appointment with Chandler. He sent me an alert just in case you showed up. No biggie really. Let’s go over to the café. We can talk about it there.”
In the clean and well-lit Embassy café, a table of American men and women, fresh, pressed, and friendly, chattered over long-necked beers in one corner. A ceiling fan circulated the air; French doors opened to a courtyard fountain. Paper plates holding cheeseburger, potato chips, and a fat dill pickle, sat in front of Matt and Fletcher.
“We’ve had a spike in passport thefts lately,” Fletcher explained. “Can’t just let you go around with a stolen one. Even if it is yours. Got to square the reports.” He tapped the file he brought along. “I’ve got all the forms we need right here.” He drew a ballpoint pen from inside his blazer and clicked it. “When did you first notice the passport missing?”
“Oh, c’mon,” Matt said, leaning back and putting his hands on the table. “I already did all this. It’s got to be in your system somewhere.”
“I’m sure you can appreciate how serious this could appear. You report your passport stolen. You turn up in another country, which means you had to use it to enter.…”
“Hey, think about it. If I was trying to do something illegal, I wouldn’t come to the Embassy with a hot passport, would I? I’m here looking for my son. Last known address, Mali. That’s all. It’s my passport. That’s obvious. It was stolen. I got it back. I just forgot to fill out a report.”
Fletcher set his pen down, dug into his burger, and watched Matt.
“One morning at the hotel, the receptionist just handed it to me and said someone turned it in.” Matt thought this would be a foolproof explanation—an anonymous return.
“So that’s Le Grande Hôtel in Abidjan, is it?” Fletcher said, hand over mouth, chewing.
“That’s in the report.”
“I don’t suppose you remember the name of the receptionist. They usually wear nametags. You might have noticed.”
“No. Sorry. I didn’t.”
“Then can you describe her? Or maybe it was a him? Can you describe him, then?”
“I don’t remember who was at the desk. I only remember getting the passport back. I was so surprised.”
“You’re not sure if the person who handed you your passport was a man or a woman?” Fletcher made a note and put down his pen. “I bet you can remember.” He took another bite of his burger.
The young Fletcher didn’t seem the overeager junior diplomat any more. He had an agenda beyond the forms he needed to complete.
“Probably a woman. They were all women, I think. Maybe one was a guy. But I only spoke to him on the phone. So it was probably a woman, yeah. There aren’t that many. Hell, if you want to interview them, then talk to all of them, if that’s what you’re after.”
Fletcher looked down to write in his file, his hair falling forward like a curtain making it hard for Matt to read him.
“What did you talk on the phone about?” He looked up at Matt. “To the male receptionist, that is.”
“What?”
“You said you talked to a male receptionist on the phone.”
“I don’t know. Nothing. What do you usually talk to a receptionist about? I probably ordered a car or something. To go to the Embassy. Or buy clothes. I don’t remember. I just flew in. It was a pretty stressful time for me, you know. Like I reported, I was drugged. Who knows what I had in my system?”
“And you were robbed,” Fletcher said sympathetically.
“Exactly right. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the nametags of hotel staff.”
“Good looking vest. Buy it here?”
“Had to. I lost everything but the clothes on my back.”
Fletcher appeared to ease up and sipped his Coke. “That’s just rotten luck.” He flipped through his file and filled out the heading of a second sheet.
So far, Matt had been too busy responding to eat. With the pause in the third degree, he attacked his burger. A native waiter passed by, balancing a tray of cheeseburgers for the lively young professionals at the corner table.
“How’d you pay for them?” Fletcher looked directly at Matt as he chewed. “The clothes, I mean. How’d you pay for them? You said you had nothing.”
Matt used table manners to gain a moment and finished chewing; he grabbed the paper napkin from his lap and wiped his salty hands as he swallowed. Then he took a sip of Coke and with exaggerated calmness, said, “You’re treating me like I did something wrong here, when I’m the one, a fellow American by the way, who’s been the victim in all this. I gave Chandler Bigelow, your friend, all the information he asked for. That’s everything I knew at the time. I shouldn’t have to go over all this again.”
“Well, you kind of do if you want your passport back.” Fletcher took a long pull on his Coke. “Listen. Abidjan is rife with passport theft. You had your passport stolen, then somehow got it back—which by the way is rather unusual. I’d like to think as a fellow American you’d want to do everything possible to help us find the people who put you through this ordeal. If for no other reason, so a fellow countryman never has to suffer what you did.”
“Well, yeah. Why do you think I went to the Embassy in the first place? Anyway, Bigelow told me you don’t get involved in matters of local crime.”
�
��And that’s right. Not our jurisdiction. But passport theft and trafficking across international borders, well that kind of gets us interested. And it’s why we advise Interpol.” He tapped the file in front of him. “Something that you might not consider important could have tremendous significance for our investigation.” He clicked his pen and set it down. “You seem like a good guy, Mr. Reiser. Are you sure there isn’t something you’ve left out? Like how you got to Bamako?”
Matt felt interrogated. And further he felt he wasn’t in a position to lie to a representative of the US government. Especially since they held his passport. And he’d fled a crime scene. And worse: he aided and abetted a murder.
Matt flashed to an image of rooster-like Le Croc strutting up to his son and cuffing him in Le Grande Hôtel lobby. He could help catch this scumbag by sharing the right information, but he needed to be careful with his version of events so he didn’t implicate himself in Robert’s death.
“Do they serve beer?”
Fletcher nodded and waved for the waiter.
While they waited, a rare gap in the ambient conversation allowed in the trickle of the courtyard fountain from under the shade of a lush jacaranda tree; someone laughed; then the comforting sound of American English captured the room. From the corner table Matt heard talk of Ouagadougou. A female voice said, “They do have an airport, you know.” Then more laughter.
The beers arrived. Matt took a deep pull. Then he started over.
“After I met with Bigelow, my driver ran into a young man on a moped. He didn’t seem to be hurt. He was able to get up and ride off. It turned out he was the son of a local thug everyone calls Le Croc.”
Fletcher, head down, scribbled to keep up with Matt.
“Robert was the son’s name. I don’t know and haven’t heard any last names. Anyway, Robert was fleeing my hotel. He’d just been chased out after raping a girl who happened to be the niece of the concièrge. In my dealings with the concièrge, I learned that Le Croc was behind my mugging and would have also been responsible for the theft of my passport. I didn’t know any of this when I saw Bigelow.”
