Night Must Wait

by Robin Winter

  Now he was Lindsey Kinner's bodyguard, hired by that funny woman Sandy. He smiled in the darkness. Lindsey Kinner should have been like him, a killer, because she was like him, an orphan. Maybe it was learning that her parents were dead that first convinced him to take her employment. Or maybe it had been the loopy charm of Sandy Hemsfort, who first offered him a drink before offering him a job.

  He hadn't needed either, and had drunk the beer and toyed with the idea. But Sandy looked at him with those green-gray eyes, grinned and said, "Wilton says you're our man," and he'd felt the blood rush that usually came after a killing. The blood rush that made his hands shake and his eyes blur. Wilton, the only woman and the only white who had ever frightened him and Sandy mentioning her as if she could be her friend.

  Sandy didn't make the mistake of repeating herself. She went on talking about food and politics and the beer as though she'd never said anything involving that name, and he'd played along, waiting for the next blow. When it came, he rolled, agreeing, rationalizing it as a temporary job until he figured out the lay of the land and could set his own terms on quitting.

  It wasn't only that Wilton could have imprisoned him with her evidence. It was the understanding in her eyes when she found him, a twelve-year-old poring over diagrams in the enormous green medical text. She was possibly five years his senior, but already teaching at the orphanage. He'd flipped the pages but not fast enough, and when she looked down at the picture of the naked female form, she considered him without a word, those black eyes still, and he knew that she saw what he really wanted to learn. Not about sex, breasts and vaginas, but all about where the vital organs nestled, where the thick arteries pulsed, where the bones lay that might impede a blow. He'd wondered what she read in his face, wondered if he'd imagined the knowledge in hers. Only a year later she offered him a first contact. He left the orphanage and his old name forever.

  Something not quite a sound caught his attention, and he looked, recognizing David, his old assistant. David on his rounds. Oroko scanned the street once more, then moved out from the darkness half a pace, signing David over to him. They exchanged a grip—his fingers signaled men, behind door, business unknown, for sport, join me.

  Chapter 16: Wilton

  February 1967

  Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria

  Out on the streets of Lagos, Wilton walked on edge. Even when the task merely entailed crossing a crowded room, mouthing some prearranged joke, lifting a certain glass, or requesting a particular mix of martini, she feared. She tried herself against the passion of fear, testing. Felt how it drove her heart, tightened her skin and senses. Never take anything for granted. This might be a time she failed. God was watching, but He made no promise of protection.

  And there had been failures. If only they'd succeeded in saving Balewa after the coup, the only leader with a reputation for honesty—he might have led them out of disaster. A Bageri of the North, a Muslim, he had everything they needed. She remembered sliding from her car in earliest dawn, her heart choking her. Her sandals slid in the mud. She looked down at the long lumpy shape of him, the stiffening splashes of gore on black robes and grass. She remembered the final telling slackness of Balewa's slender fingers half curled on nothing.

  If only they'd saved him as prime minister, he might have held Nigeria united. Sparing him would have prevented the public from concluding that Igbo officers took over the government. Because he died, two thirds of Nigeria believed the coup had been an Igbo play for power, not the altruistic execution of corrupt rulers. Perception. So much depended upon perception and ambition. The same ambition that made the Igbos rise in the ranks of the army, so they held the guns that January execution night over a year ago.

  Tonight demanded speed. God go with me. Wilton carried two forged documents on microfiche. She touched the flat envelope, small like a gift card that she'd tucked deep into her pocket, and thought of Gowon, young head of the government. He'd stopped that crazy Northerner, Murtala Mohammed, from invading the Igbo East with troops. She owed him, they all did. She could buy Gowon a few days, sow some confusion, shift the balance. These letters that implied collusion between the old corrupt politicians and Gowon's present opponents might help him consolidate power.

  Tonight felt bad. She thought over the back entryways she'd used, hurried arguments against earnest young men with damp foreheads, and she checked herself in the window of the store she passed. Nothing looked awry in her appearance. She seemed no more than a slender young man in faded tans, a flat cap on her head. A bit of a dandy, the splash of cologne signaling confidence, the body language of a cocky young stud. She sauntered down the alley. When she walked with fear, she walked with God.

  She came down the crooked stairs, out the unguarded door. A pair of hands snaked out, bit into her arms and yanked. An explosion of pain.

  Chapter 17: Sandy

  February 1967

  Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria

  "What the fuck?"

  The knock straightened Sandy from her maps of the Jos Plateau, plans for her next trip startled away. Way after hours. She checked the clock—ten o'clock and a bit. God, way past time to head out of the office unless she simply wanted to camp out on her bench for the night. Lindsey wouldn't worry. She'd slept there frequently enough. The knock came again on the door.

  "I have your friend," Oroko's voice came through the hollow metal door. Cripes. What the hell? Sandy unlocked and yanked her door open. Oroko and a young stranger supported a slumped figure between them. The heavy stink of blood.

  What friend? Short-cropped curly black hair? This wasn't what it seemed. Oroko came in, awkward with the weight and drag of the body. His companion helped carry, then stood back. Oroko eased the slack victim onto the bench. It was Wilton, she'd colored her face dark. She looked drunk. Strange. The hair was wrong. No, not boozy, knocked silly. Sandy noted blood on Oroko's sleeve and his glance of regret at the ruin of his shirt.

  "She is not so badly injured," Oroko said. "I brought her to you, for discretion."

  "What the hell happened?"

  The lights flickered and went out. Sandy swore, backing to her desk in the sudden black, groping for the kerosene lantern that always waited there, the box of matches ready.

  "God damned fucking electrical company," she said. "Talk. Tell me."

  Oroko did, the other man maintaining silence through the lighting of the lantern. Sandy turned up the flame.

  "I saw a man I recognized," Oroko said. "I knew to terminate him, so when I saw him drag your friend here into a building, I completed my job and David and I silenced his two companions. We identified Professor Wilton and brought her to you. I believe she is your friend."

  He'd recognized Wilton disguised as a Nigerian man? He made it sound incidental and simple, in his exceptional English. Sandy didn't challenge him and his coincidences. She checked Wilton's pulse. What did she know about pulses, but it seemed like the thing to do. She was better at cuts and bruises, little stuff, and Wilton had plenty of those. The tension she could see in Wilton's neck told her Wilton was conscious, but waiting. All right.

  "Thank you. No one saw you?"

  "They are not of concern," he said.

  There was more to this story, but she didn't want to talk in front of this stranger who might or might not be reliable. Maybe she could discover more from Oroko tomorrow, but she wouldn't bet on it. Good man, puzzling, but perhaps the rest of the story would be best heard from Wilton. Poor Wilton.

  "And who is this gentleman?" she said.

  "David—my brother."

  "Same mother, same father?" A necessary question in a country with polygamy.

  "Same village." She knew, maybe since he spoke a fraction too fast, that he hadn't spoken exact truth. He knew he hadn't covered well, she noted that too because he rechecked her expression. He didn't try to say more; he wasn't going to make the error of adding anything to a failed lie.

  "I would like to thank him," she said, her hand going to
her money belt, but Oroko stopped her with a slight frown.

  "It is my favor that he performed," Oroko said. "I am the one who thanks him."

  "I see," Sandy said. "Thank you," she added and saw the flash of the white in his eyes. She'd surprised him. She must always make certain to thank Oroko then. Good to keep him a little off balance. Besides, courtesy had its place. The sounds of the two men retreating diminished down the corridor.

  Wilton moved. Sandy settled her butt on the corner of the desk and watched. Wilton sat up as if it hurt and glanced about.

  "I owe you," Wilton said. Sandy frowned at her—Wilton should see that there was no getting around her by making nice, and she swung her sneakered foot to and fro.

  "I was lucky," Wilton said.

  Sandy gestured. "You're fucking wearing a wig. And make-up."

  "If I traveled as white, I'd receive too much attention."

  Wilton turned in the kerosene glow and looked about the office with wide eyes and Sandy looked about too, wondering what Wilton was looking for. A microphone? A wire running where it shouldn't? Utilitarian shades of gray and cream, with the main colors lent by the geological maps that covered the walls and some of the tables. Just a touch of comfort added by the long padded bench, where Wilton sat. Wilton stripped the tight-fitting wig from her head and let her hair loose, veiling the bruises on her face.

  "Does what happened tonight have anything to do with your being a witch doctor?"

  "Where did you hear about that?" Wilton said. "No. I'm no witch doctor. Never will be, God forbid. You shall not suffer a witch to live." Sandy nearly apologized.

  "Thank you for sending Oroko away. Sandy, what do you believe in?"

  "God," Sandy said, startled into a private truth. "Damn it."

  "Oh yes, but that's not what I meant. Do you believe in Lindsey? Do you believe in me? Whom would you choose?"

  "Lindsey," Sandy answered. She couldn't imagine following Wilton. She'd lead too far into the other world.

  Delight altered Wilton's plain and narrow face, such that Sandy had to smile back although she didn't get it. Wilton up to her strange tricks again.

  "When you say you believe in Lindsey, who is she?" Wilton turned her head. Her neck must hurt, the way she moved. She stretched, not waiting for an answer, and went around to Sandy's desk and opened the bottom drawer. Wilton took the bottle of Johnny Walker Black and poured a generous slop into one of the crystal tumblers sitting on the shelf behind the desk. How'd she know the whiskey was there?

  "But kid," Sandy couldn't help saying, "you're no drinker. You ain't used to it. Not neat shit. Water? Ice?"

  "No." Wilton took a hard swallow and shuddered. "Tonight I want it straight."

  Wilton hadn't been so fey for years. Even back in college, in the nights when they wasted sleep as if it came free and talked as if words could satisfy, she'd seen this Wilton only twice. Once when Wilton's father died, once the night they all pledged to join her in Africa.

  "You love Lindsey," Wilton said. She covered Sandy's sputter of horror with sure words. "I know, 'none of that mushy stuff…that's disgusting.' I know, Sandy. But if you didn't love her better than yourself, I would tell you lies, and tonight I'm tired of being alone in what I know. Even if I can say these things only once, it'll be a pleasure to do so in payment of my debt to you. To you, Porthos, most loyal of all the musketeers. Companion to our Athos."

  "Musketeers," Sandy said. A shared favorite novel among the friends back in college.

  "I tire of being court fool. As do you," Wilton said.

  Sandy turned the heavy tumbler in her hands and looked at Wilton's slender shape. Who sat there really?

  Wilton's hand moved in boneless gesture, its shadow like a snake's.

  "Lindsey loves you too, of course, shoulder to shoulder into the fray you go, and all that. But she doesn't think about you any more than that, nor should she. You do what you do, so she doesn't have to think about it. You have her back, with Oroko's help. He's the best there is. I know. Together you'll keep her safe, but God, it won't be easy. "

  Wilton settled on the bench, letting herself down with care, and now she leaned forward, eyes enormous in her narrow face.

  "What do you think when I come by on my visits? What do you expect when I come and go? 'There goes little Wilton on her endless trips. Restless. How many birds out there for her to study and paint? Well, I guess her birds are restless too. Wonder when she'll publish her bird book. Wonder who reads the stuff. Sort of a glorified tourist, concerned about politics because it interrupts her collecting. A mad dog of an American. Sneaking around after her birds, talking to the hunters, talking to the schoolteachers, carrying her binoculars and cameras.'"

  She took another swallow of her whiskey and laughed. "No, it's not the alcohol talking, Sandy. I'm like this because I nearly died tonight. It would have been a bad death, so the air seems very sweet. I wish you were drunk though, because I'll wish someday that I'd never spoken. But you'll never tell, even if you believe me—Sandy never breaks her word, and who would you tell anyway?"

  Wilton looked into the corner of the room and smiled as though she saw something beautiful in the dark.

  "Oh, I remember the first time I saw my Lindsey. She stood in that high-ceilinged room at the college reception desk, her face like something carved in white stone and the spirit in her like flame. Her savage intellect, famished for glory. I knew then what a power she might become. What I might make of her. Yes, you should follow her lead.

  "You, Sandy, have kept Lindsey safe, and I have kept her successful. She holds the strands of my informant net. But God knows, there have been failures. For all my planning, I lost Balewa."

  The sudden note of grief jolted Sandy. She reached for the bottle, not taking her attention from Wilton's intent stare. What did she mean by that? Could Prime Minister Balewa's assassination have been averted? As if Wilton, at least, had known the conspiracy to topple the government when Lindsey didn't? The hair prickled on the back of Sandy's neck at Wilton's meditative tone.

  "The corrupt leaders had to die. What alternative but to have the military kill them? The army as judge and executioner. No other group was so dedicated, so tribeless, so believing in the ideal of One Nigeria as the army was. But I didn't anticipate the rest of Nigeria would see only tribal identities, identities the coup officers themselves forgot. If we could have saved Balewa, the only honest ruler, a Hausa and a Muslim from the North, the whole equation would have changed. He represented legitimate civil authority, and the military gunned him down with the rest. I could have stopped that but for a car accident. I lost an informer and I didn't know until too late."

  "A car accident." Sandy tested, surprised at how natural her own voice sounded. "What freaking car accident?"

  Wilton caught herself in a gasp of laughter and shook her head.

  "Sandy, I owe you just so much, but no names or places. Our purposes converge in Lindsey. We're on the same side. Don't worry."

  "Screw that. What in hell are you doing?" Sandy said.

  "I create a maker of kings. Lindsey will choose leaders for Nigeria's future."

  "Goddamned mysteries, Wilton. Sometimes I swear your cheese slips off its cracker."

  "Lindsey will appoint. She wants that power. I help her to it by reaping what my father sowed. I inherited his friends and contacts. I've lived in this land most of my life, and I have sown on my own. There's a web of people who owe me, and I use their obligations to advance Lindsey. You and I make Lindsey a power, hidden but potent. The new Federal Government leader, Gowon, will listen to her. Lindsey shall have influence but no glory. Which is hard, because it's the glory that she craves, whatever she says to the contrary."

  "You're frigging drunk. Why were you out pretending to be a man?"

  "Yes, let's say I'm drunk." Suddenly sad and faded, Wilton bent, using her old anxious gesture to brush the hair from her face. The biggest bruise on her right cheek deepened fast, even through the brown stain on her fac
e. But she fixed a challenging owlish look on Sandy in the kerosene lamplight. "Out on my own as a woman, wouldn't I look a whore? It's that simple. Don't look for mysteries that have no significance.

  "After all, Sandy, why would a man Oroko knows and hates, want to kill me?"

  Sandy flinched. Every time she thought she followed what Wilton meant, Wilton confused the picture.

  Wilton slumped, pulling back over herself that look of a tired helpless woman.

  "Oh, don't fret. It was all a mistake. How could a man Oroko hates know me? In disguise, too? My attacker and his friends are dead. Mistaken identity. And I've been spewing silly extravagant stuff, Sandy, merely to tease you. It's nothing but accident and circumstance, of course. Lagos is filled to bursting with killers and would-be killers."

  She sighed. "I'm drunk. Don't worry about my ramblings. Oroko saved my life and I got a little crazy tonight. We're all a little insane these days. I stumbled into the wrong place, wrong time, ran afoul of thugs. So lucky Oroko and his chum came by. So sorry for my nonsense, but you looked as if you'd believe anything. The robbers must've mistaken me for someone else. This evening was a mugging gone wrong."

  She was lying again. Sandy squinted in the dim light as if she might be able to see how. What the fuck was going on? A disguise, a beating. Would Oroko know what lay behind it? Would she violate Wilton's trust by asking him?

  Wilton slid down onto the bench in a long slow slump. The body seemed almost a child's, thin boned and limp, the spilt whiskey smell filling the hot room. Sandy stopped her before she slipped all the way off the bench, straightened Wilton on the pillows. The electric lights flickered and came on. Sandy caught her breath.