Murder on Safari

by Peter Riva

  Everyone knew Mary Lever from the newspaper reports. The world’s leading herpetologist and renowned “Dinosaur Lady,” she was to reptiles, turtles, and snakes what Jane Goodall was to Chimpanzees. And Pero knew he had played the right card when Sheryl’s head snapped up.

  Sheryl’s eyes lighted up and she giggled. “Maybe I can help, but can I get her autograph?” The thought of the autograph of the niece of the famous Jimmy Threte, her pastor, was already making her day.

  Pero promised he would ask her, but what could Sheryl do to help Pero first? She thought fast, her eagerness driving her on, “I’ll file you a flight plan to Pangani and then on to Arusha . . .” Pero started to interrupt, Sheryl held up her hand “But you’ll divert to Arusha first if I give you the UN mail pouch to carry at the last moment. It takes priority. You can be angry that it is an inconvenience going to Arusha first. Don’t unload any of your cargo, just let Miss Mary Lever off and give the mail pouch to the UN security guards.”

  Pero leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. A perfect solution. Pangani’s customs were a piece of cake. In Arusha, Pero might never have gotten that underwater camera on the manifest through customs. It was a secret cargo that Pero had yet to share with Heep.

  Dusty and relatively unclean as true safari returnees always look, they all piled into the two taxis Mbuno had collared and sped off to the InterConti, as it is known locally. In the center of town, on City Hall Way (one of the few street names never de-colonialized), the InterConti is the only useful hotel for camera crews. They have ascari—guards—on every floor. When theft of equipment means loss of shooting schedules, an insurance claim has little meaning. Better to have a guard in place.

  On the way into town, Heep explained that his call had confirmed the claim was in and good. Simon’s people would get around five hundred thousand dollars for “accidental death whilst filming.” Their production insurance premiums would shoot up, but that’s life. Or death. Five hundred thousand dollars in Kenya had the buying power of two million in the States. Heep seemed genuinely happy at the insurance news. Pero knew it would help assuage Heep’s sense of guilt for hiring Simon.

  At the front desk, reception, Pero collected four keys and told the porters to bring the few bags they had selected, and the crew and Pero walked into the elevator. An officious desk manager, stuck his hand in the closing door, causing them to spring open, “One moment please, you have not registered properly. Which person is in which room, and is he” indicating Mbuno with disdain, “staying here”?

  Pero peeled his fingers off the doorjamb and told him to go check with Mr. Janardan. The doors closed. On the fourth floor, overlooking the pool and the Pool Terrace restaurant, the rooms were all next to one another. Pero took the first one, with Heep next to Pero. Ruis and Priit in the end one and Mbuno sandwiched in-between. Mbuno seemed concerned. Pero guessed it was his first stay in a fancy hotel. Even on safari, in luxury accommodation, his place (and preference probably) would have been with the other drivers or scouts in simple accommodation with few modern amenities.

  “You okay here Mbuno? Anything you need?”

  “Is that TV like you have?”

  “Yes. You want to see something?” He looked at Pero, puzzled. “I mean, is there a program you want to see, some type of program?” Pero turned it on. It was set to the hotel’s information page, the penthouse restaurant, the Mistral, was being featured.

  “Asanti. That looks nice. Where is it?”

  “Upstairs, the roof restaurant. We could eat there if you want,” and privately regretted it when he said it.

  Safari scouts and drivers had one set of clothes, worn thin as a uniform. If it got dirty, they washed it at night and wore it damp the next morning if need be. One set of shoes, one pair of socks, one sweater, one shirt, one pair of long cotton trousers. After a week, they sometimes smelled pretty rank. It was the body ordor, from the beer. Mbuno never drank on duty, or anytime Pero had ever seen. He was an expert scout, preferring not to give away his presence to the wild game, the nyama, because of body odor. But Mbuno’s clothes were filthy, dusty, scuffed. So were Pero’s, but as Pero paid the bill, no one would dare complain to his face.

  But Pero knew, right then, Mbuno had nothing else to wear and Pero didn’t want him being made uncomfortable by another snooty hotel clerk. Pero went over to the phone, said good-morning, gave his name, and asked who he was speaking to. Jane was her name. Pero then asked Jane, please, to find and get him Mr. Ranjeet’s, the clothing shop on Latema Road, off Kismathi Road, past the old Stanley Hotel, on the phone. “Of course,” she replied.

  “Asanti,” and he hung up.

  Pero showed Mbuno the window curtains’ pull, the shower thermostat (“not two taps, just the one with a temperature control like the car heater knob”) and the off button for the TV. Pero didn’t bother to explain the remote control. Hell, it was even too complicated for Pero. It was all the new rage in Nairobi luxury: Internet, satellite, pay-per-view, thirty-seven channels, radio stations, and inter-room text messaging. Mbuno saw Pero staring at the damn thing and smiled “Asanti Mr. Pero, I will leave it showing the restaurant,” (at that moment it changed to the pool) “or the swimming pool. I still cannot swim, but it is pretty.” Most Kenyans cannot swim, Pero remembered.

  The phone rang and Pero greeted Mr. Prabir Ranjeet, asked how he and Acira, his wife, were. “Everything is just fine Mr. Baltazar, just fine. Can I help you with any little thing?”

  Looking at Mbuno, Pero guessed he was a medium T-shirt, a fourteen-collar shirt, a thirty-two-inch waistband and sandals, say size ten, or nine English. Pero passed all this information to Mr. Ranjeet, and asked for a safari kit, top to bottom. “Climate Mr. Baltazar?” Pero told him Pangani, coastal, and he replied “Ah, hot and humid, most fine. A hat as well?” Pero told him he’d never seen a Waliangulu with a hat, and he laughed. “Is all this for your usual driver?” Pero told him it was, Mbuno specifically. “Ah, Mr. Mbuno, he’s very famous, very famous, been a guide for many, many years. I will do my very best, Mr. Baltazar, my very best. And I will, of course, add a sweater.” All locals always had a sweater for morning or evening. They felt the chill at anything lower than eighty. “May I suggest that I get my cousin, Petam to send you over a pair of sandals?” Petam Bagotas were world-famous leather crossover sandals with tire re-tread for soles. All the rich and famous sported them if they came to Kenya. They were strong (until the glue gave out or the cotton threading rotted) but more importantly impervious to thorns. Pero looked at Mbuno and asked, “Petams for you Mbuno?”

  Mbuno looked at his feet, clad in thin black dusty Chinese plimsoles, looked up and shrugged, but smiled. So Pero told Prabir to deliver a brown pair, not black (that was for city folk) along with the clothing, send the bills to the hotel, his charge, usual mark-up for fast service, fourth floor, room 422, to Mbuno personally and take no snobbery from the desk clerk.

  Mr. Ranjeet was laughing, “You always make us foreigners here proud Mr. Baltazar. Mr. Mbuno shall have his items within an hour, maybe two.”

  “Thank you, old friend,” and he range off.

  Mbuno asked what the schedule was for the rest of the day. Pero told him he had the run of the hotel, but please, no visits home or outside. He could call home as he always does, “just use the phone there, push zero and ask Jane to get you the number. But I need to know where you are, always.”

  Mbuno said he would eat and then help Ruis and Priit with the batteries. They had taken the recharger off of the plane. Number one rule in filming: make sure the batteries are always fully charged. The hotel’s current was steady and reliable. Pero asked if he was hungry and Mbuno asked if the crew was going to eat together. Pero told him yes and that he would be in about ten to fifteen minutes to pick everyone up, if that was okay. Mbuno nodded and commented, “I think I will try the car heater shower just now.”

  In his room, Pero dropped his soft case on the bed and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face
. He stood at the basin, gripping the porcelain tight and dripping pink gray dust water off his nose. Simon’s death and the remnants of adrenaline rush, twice today, the early start, and a restless night while he screwed up his courage to make that damn leap off the cliff face was beginning to take its toll. The sadness seems to grow within him, and he realized he looked tired. He splashed some more water on his face erasing the dirt streaks. Ah, there you are Pero, now I can see you, now that this dirt and grime are off. Pero looked, eye to eye, and told himself it would be fine, everything would be fine, remnants of his mother’s intonation of comfort evident even to Pero. Well, if I’m honest, I never really grew up, just got older. The wrinkles on the brow and the graying of the temples stood as only a proof of time not a change of personality. Silently Pero said sorry to Simon once more.

  Ten minutes later, Pero rounded up Mbuno with wet hair, Ruis, Priit, and Heep (as usual, he was showered and changed—always the first coming in from safari) and they headed down to the Pool Terrace. At the elevator, the floor guard, the ascari, pushed the down button and saluted. It was odd, but boyishly charming.

  The waiter seated them in the corner as they were disreputable, except for Heep. Pero didn’t mind, he wanted his back to a wall. He immediately explained the flight plans for tomorrow and everyone, except Heep, seemed okay. Heep wasn’t happy they were going to Arusha. He said Mbuno and Pero should stay tight, close, with the crew if they went there. Pero understood. Heep and Pero had had a bad experience there about ten years ago. Heep was absentmindedly rubbing his left arm where it had been broken by a passing truck on the main through road in town.

  “Look Heep, this will be a quick in and out, only for Mary Lever’s testimony, so we’ll stay put at the airport.” Heep still looked miserable. He hated those tribunals.

  To change the subject, they planned out the rest of the day. Ruis was going to stay in “and sit with those Brit Air girls over there,” pointing to some really lovely flight attendants poolside, definitely not in uniform, in fact, not in much of anything. Heep said he was exhausted and would rest, getting ready for tomorrow. Pero knew he would run up a huge phone bill with LA and Amsterdam. He always did. He had a family to father, long distance. Besides, he wasn’t made of stone, perhaps he needed a cry, it was what Pero was thinking, just over the edge of control.

  Priit said he had video logs to fill in so they, naturally, covered the problem of how to label and log that morning’s hang glider flight on the official location record. In the end, everyone agreed they owed it to poor Simon to log the footage as being of him, not of Pero. The shoot contract with the TV cable company called for so many dollars per second screen time for the “on screen talent.” Heep had been careful not to put anything “in the can” that could be confused for Pero’s image. “It was all distant, pinprick on the horizon shots. I zoomed in on the blue wing and vultures as you crossed off the cliff face, not even your legs were showing. It’ll read as Simon.”

  Lunch was buffet style, it always was here. They all loaded their plates, none more than Mbuno. For a man over sixty-five, he could out-eat them all—mostly meat, slabs of it. They all ordered water or, in Heep’s case Tusker Beer, it was his favorite, one at each end-of-day meal. “It makes Budweiser taste like piss water.” Laughing, they agreed that was as good a company slogan, if ever they had heard one before. After the one beer, he drank tap water, only tap water, as usual.

  Water for foreigners came from the bar in bottles for health reasons. The bar bill was always a serious, pencil-pusher problem at accounting time in LA, “We don’t refund bar expenses.” Pero always gave up in the end. It was a tossup, refuse their crew to buy bottled water, make them drink the local stuff and fall days behind schedule as they stay on the toilet, busting a gut. Heep, on the other hand, always drank the local water. After drinking most of the local water across the globe, he was immune.

  After lunch, on the way to the elevator bank, Pero asked Heep if he was okay, he said he was, just hated the Arusha diversion. Pero told him that the past was the past; this would be okay, Pero was sure, “We’re not leaving the plane, I promise.”

  “Yeah, right, you’re the boss—just don’t say I didn’t warn you, I don’t trust the tensions there. And now I have the other call to make. I don’t want Simon’s Margarie finding out from the police.”

  “Okay, Heep, but stay here at the hotel. No going out to console her. They may be watching Simon’s by now. How many other hang gliders are there in Kenya? They can find out pretty fast, if and I say if, Heep, they have a mind to. We want to get out of the country without being spotted, okay?”

  “Got you. Understood. But Pero, should I mention the half mil?”

  “Well, they need to know if he had a will or stated beneficiary. That’s who will get the insurance. Don’t raise her hopes in case she’s not it. On the other hand, give her money if you think she’s strapped. Wouldn’t put it past the Park’s people to evict her from his house. They weren’t married . . .”

  “Bastards if they do. Okay, Pero I’ll handle it.”

  “Good, thanks Heep, for all of us. Oh, and say hi to little Kim but no crying.”

  He answered good-naturedly, “Oh, shut up you bastard.”

  They piled into the elevator and Pero shot a glance to the desk manager, daring him to provoke a scene again. He glared back, but stayed behind the wooden counter. Upstairs, Pero walked Mbuno back to his room and gave him the electronic key (with a demonstration, a few times). The ascari hovered nearby and offered to help. Mbuno said he had decided to stay put in the room, waiting. Pero knew he would, patience was any tourist scout’s stock in trade. Pero needed to get to appointments in town and the ascari would keep him safe.

  CHAPTER 6

  The US Embassy

  After a shower, Pero dressed in clean clothes and went down to the lobby to conduct hotel business with Mr. Janardan—to arrange payment vouchers to be presented, as usual, to Flamingo. Pero went past the front desk and ducked through the “Employees Only” entrance to the offices. Like most hotels, decor money was spent on the guests’ presentation area. Back here, the peeling yellow paint and surplus government desks looked shabby and were. It reconfirmed the management’s pecking order. Work in this room you are a servant to the hotel and the guests. Naturally, the manager, a taciturn Swiss gentleman, had plush, polished mahogany, offices in a separate wing. Back here, however, Mr. Jonathan had a broken glass-paned door, British-made Sellotape holding the crack in place. It seemed never to dampen his spirits.

  “Mr. Baltazar, how very, very good to see you again.” It was his standard effusive, Asian, singsong greeting, whether Pero had been away for just a few days or months, as was the case now.

  Pero’s reply was always the same, it was their ritual: “Keeping the whole hotel together, I see Mr. Janardan.” He extended his hand, “I’m glad to be home.”

  They cleared away money business and Pero gave him what Pero thought would be his schedule and next hotel booking needs. Mr. Janardan apologized for the officious desk clerk (“A very snooty Kikuyu but he has relatives . . .”), but Pero told him not to worry. Mr. Janardan asked if Mr. Mbuno was being treated “properly now.” Pero assured him he was. Mbuno knew the young ascari on their floor and the ascari now stood outside of the “mzee” Mbuno’s door like it was his honor to protect him. They shared a laugh when Pero joked that even he would have to ask the ascari to disturb Mbuno from now on, “he is a now a very VIP guest!” Mbuno would love that one.

  Pero handed him a USB memory stick that Heep had palmed to him before lunch and Mr. Janardan plugged it into the slot in his computer. It held only one image, the choice of the ones Mbuno had taken of Chief Methenge and guards with Simon’s remains in the background. Pero explained the sad story, minus the bullet holes of course. “You want this in the Standard or the Nation, Mr. Baltazar?”

  “Oh, let’s spoil the chief and give poor Simon a good send off, so both.”

  “Very good, I will arra
nge for the Chief to be interviewed. Is he to be their guest, as last time?”

  “Aw, come on! Not like last time, let’s make it a quick stay.” They both laughed. Chief Methenge had stretched his one interview out for a week at the InterConti at the company’s expense. And there were some scandals when his wives came to stay, all six of them, frolicking by the pool.

  “Three days then, one for each paper and a day for good will. You are still spoiling him. Word will get around. If they book a seat on a regular flight to Ramu, he will have to leave or face the drive back.” It was a good carrot to hang before the Chief, regular flights left Ramu Friday and returned, with tourists, Monday. And maybe this time he would bring no wives.

  “Thank you Mr. Janardan, efficient as always.”

  As he walked Pero out, making a point to bow a little while the “snooty Kikuyu” was looking on, the Swiss manager walked past. He stopped and bowed too and they shook hands. Pero had been a guest here for over twenty years and had referred hundreds of guests. Pero was the perfect client for the tidy, Swiss, Monsieur Cachet. He always paid his bill, on time or in advance, he left the rooms in order with the maids tipped (and happy), he never changed rooms after he was checked in (something hotels hate), tipped on the way in, never on the way out, and left appropriate, constructive, comments where needed to help the staff do better next time, thank you very much. Oh yes, M. Cachet and Pero had a perfect understanding. Pero couldn’t stand him personally, but admired the way he ran the establishment. M. Cachet tolerated Pero better than most guests who are, all of them, an inconvenience to the perfect running of a hotel. An empty hotel was always perfect; it was guests that made his life untidy.