by Chris Abani
Dr. Brewster, Sunil said, I need to talk to you.
As urgent as you might feel that need is, Sunil, you can’t just barge in here. Brewster was wheezing a little from the oxygen pumping from the portable tank, not much bigger than a thermos, in his lab-coat pocket. A hose snaked up to his nose, held in each nostril by a discreet clip. Brewster used the oxygen to stay alert for the long hours he put into work, and at seventy-five he probably needed it.
I just got an order to sign for thirty dead apes, Sunil said.
Brewster looked at Sunil with a blank expression.
Bonobos, Sunil said, as though that would jog Brewster’s memory.
So what? We run a lot of animal experiments here.
So I didn’t authorize any tests on bonobos. I was wondering if you did.
Listen, Sunil, I made it clear when I hired you that you answer to me, did I not?
It’s just that thirty bonobos are a lot, and I wasn’t consulted on it. I would like to be consulted on experiments that are being signed through my lab.
How long have you been here now, Sunil?
Six, seven years, why?
Wrong answer, Brewster wheezed. You should have said, long enough to know that’s just how things run here.
I don’t like wading through shit like this. It’s too much to ask.
Just hold your breath and swim upstream, Sunil. Don’t take it all so personally.
Sunil smiled tightly. He wanted to say that in South Africa it was always personal. But he didn’t.
Brewster was watching Sunil closely.
Fine, Sunil said. He was awkward and uncomfortable as any boy would be in the principal’s office. Just then Sunil’s phone rang.
Take it, Brewster said, waving his approval.
Sunil took out his cell and looked at the caller ID. It was Detective Salazar. He vaguely remembered the man, but he did remember the case from two years ago that had led Salazar to consult him. Dead homeless men dumped out by Lake Mead. Sunil had been brought in as a psychological consultant. But since, unbeknownst to Salazar, the institute had dumped the bodies in the first place, Sunil was really more of a spin doctor. Protecting the institute.
Salazar, he said.
Dr. Singh, so good to get hold of you. I have a problem I think you can help me with.
Listen, now is not a good time—
The bodies have started appearing again.
Sunil looked at Brewster and turned away, thinking, Shit, shit, shit.
I can’t really help, Detective, he said.
Yes, you can. I think we’ve arrested the killer and I need you to come down to County and administer a psychological evaluation.
You caught the killer?
Yes.
So why do you need a psychological evaluation?
It’s complicated.
It always is with you, Salazar.
They are Siamese twins.
Conjoined twins?
Yeah. I found them out by Lake Mead and there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether they were committing suicide or covering up a crime scene.
The duty psychiatrist could handle this, Sunil said.
No, Salazar said. I am convinced it’s the same case we worked on.
Then surely it’s a police matter.
No, I need your help on this.
Okay, look, I’ll call you back in an hour.
Can you make it sooner?
I’ll do my best, Sunil said, hanging up.
What was that about, Brewster asked.
It’s a police matter.
All the more reason I need to know what it’s about, Brewster said. Can’t have any potential security breaches.
Remember the body dumps from two years ago?
Of course, he said.
The police think they’ve found the killer and want a psych eval from me, but I don’t think I’m going to do it.
What’s the matter with you, Sunil? This is perfect for us, and in particular for your project.
The killers are apparently conjoined twins.
Imagine the opportunities. We’ve never had the chance to study the brain chemistry of a monster before.
Sunil flinched at the medical term for genetic abnormalities. I study psychopaths, he said. Not monsters.
And conjoined twins can’t be psychopaths?
They can be, yes. But we have to be careful about finding psychopaths everywhere. My research has to be very focused and free of anything that could devalue its science. Besides, we both know that there is no killer.
There’s always a killer, Sunil, Brewster said with a smile.
Sunil hated Brewster. It was Brewster who said what everyone must have been thinking when they first met Sunil: You don’t look Indian. You are very dark; you look black.
Which was true. Sunil was very dark, near black, with kinky hair, but still, he was pretty sure he looked Indian enough. After all, there were plenty of dark-skinned Indians.
But when Brewster first said it, Sunil had wondered if he was referring to the fact that he didn’t look Native American, and felt his anger rise. But he realized years ago that it never helped to go down that path, so he explained that he didn’t look Indian because he was half Zulu, and no, they didn’t have Zulus in India, at least not that he knew of, but they did have them in South Africa. And yes, he added, there were a lot of South African Indians. Mostly in Durban, thank you very much, even though Sunil was from Johannesburg. Well, I’ve never met an Indian like you before, Brewster had insisted. What kind of Indian doesn’t have a lilt in their voice or talk with their hands and head? In that moment Sunil had been glad the man was over seventy; otherwise he might have given in to his urge to hit him.
There was something else about Brewster that bothered Sunil. He reminded him of the old guard of apartheid: privileged and smug in their power, but even worse, carrying a deep conviction in their own rightness. Sunil liked his job, though, so he tempered his response. But that’s the thing with fights; if you fold too early, you keep folding.
I don’t really know that much about conjoined twins, Sunil said. How their biology might affect their psychology.
That’s okay, Brewster said. I will have the research department put a file together for you and have it delivered to your doorman tonight. It’ll be there before you finish at the hospital.
Fine, Sunil said. He had to admit to himself that he was curious.
Just make sure to sign the papers so we can have them for at least seventy-two hours, Brewster said. Here, at the Desert Palms, not County.
This isn’t the way I like to work.
Just go get me those monsters. With the weekend, we might get away with holding them for five days, Brewster said.
Sunil returned to his office to get his stuff. The elevator took only a moment to get to him.
As he stepped into the lobby and walked briskly to the front door he passed the usual Halloween decorations. There was one new addition this year: a hanging skeleton. He paused for a moment to regard the lynched figure and wondered if it was inappropriate before heading outside, where he heard the peacocks that roamed free through the grounds screeching. He paused by his car and inclined his head up at Brewster’s window, throwing a malevolent look in the dark. He never noticed the car seven spaces down, from which Eskia watched his every move.
Ten
Eskia started up his engine and pulled out of the institute’s parking lot, tailing Sunil. He had been waiting all day in his car, and he was hot and irritable. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and reached forward to turn up the air and the music. Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” filled the car, and Eskia whistled along. Tailing Sunil right now was not really necessary; it was more for the fun of it. Having intercepted Sunil’s phone call from Salazar on the cell-cloning software he was run
ning on his laptop, he knew Sunil was heading to County to interview conjoined twins suspected of being serial killers. It would probably be quicker just to meet him there, but Eskia was a dedicated hunter, trained for years to follow his prey until he had secured the kill, and in this case he intended to do just that.
Eskia was an operative of South Africa’s Security Services based in a clandestine unit that didn’t officially exist. The clandestine units still operated the same as they had under apartheid—assassinations of enemies of the state, spying on politicians, stealing secrets from other countries, starting wars in other countries, carrying out renditions for other governments for a price, and more. But he wasn’t here in Vegas in an official capacity. This was personal.
Eskia had joined the security arm of the African National Congress while still in college. You could say it was a family tradition. His father, Isaac, had been a weapons expert for the ANC. He built bombs and trained others to build bombs. A chemist, and later a chemistry teacher, trained in Moscow, he returned in the ’50s to an oppressive state. Six weeks after he came back, he was assigned a house in Soweto and an all-black school to teach in. It seemed he was content to do nothing more than teach young blacks chemistry and try to live a quiet life. That was until the Sharpeville incident when the police had fired on and killed young schoolkids peacefully protesting. As he watched the tear gas fly, the Casspirs tear through the crowds, and the children fall in bloody masses, he felt himself change. A couple of weeks later he joined the ANC and sought out the armed units. While he adored Mandela and believed in the need for a peaceful transition to self-rule, he couldn’t stomach what he had seen. His soul ruptured that day, a rupture that would never fully heal. He turned to violence and, in turn, violence turned itself to him.
Eskia’s mother was in labor with him the day Isaac decided to build his first bomb. It was an experiment he wasn’t sure would work, and he hadn’t told anyone about it.
It was 1965 and a mild day in Johannesburg when the gentle mannered Isaac stood on the edge of that downtown street and stared at the small rivulet of water running at the edge of the concrete. Across the street history awaited; taking a deep breath, he stepped off and crossed quickly to the small chemist shop. He emerged a few minutes later with a package wrapped in brown paper: ordinary household chemicals that were harmless on their own but volatile when mixed. They were forbidden in Soweto and it was illegal for a black person to be in possession of them. As he walked, he tried really hard to appear nonchalant. It was the days of the pass laws and he couldn’t afford to be stopped by the police. Ahead, two policemen demanded passbooks from a black couple, and Isaac pressed into the shadows of an alley to wait.
Passbooks, known in those days as dompas, controlled everything. They laid out your race, where you lived, where you were allowed to travel. Passbooks, carried only by blacks, Indians, and coloreds (the light-skinned non-whites who were a mix of races, and the Indians), made them guest workers in their own country.
Isaac stepped back onto the pavement. The policemen moved on. Isaac trotted over to the taxi rank and got aboard a taxi bus headed back to Soweto. If he got caught now, he would go to prison for bomb-making, having never made his first bomb. But it was his lucky day.
It was also the last day he built bombs himself, from then on restricting himself to teaching others. But it wasn’t enough for him. A veteran of the Second World War, he missed the rust of blood. So he began hunting for Boer, as he put it, laughing at the pun. His old Lee-Enfield rifle was his weapon of choice. And with time, Eskia became its constant companion.
Eskia pulled up to the hospital and studied the façade. Sunil would be in there for much of the night. Eskia hacked into the hospital records. His fingers moved fast over the keyboard of his laptop. Thank God for broadband Internet cards; it made spying such a breeze these days. He didn’t know the names of the twins, but it would be easy searching under “conjoined.” How many could there be? Sure enough, their record popped up—it was still pretty blank. It had their names and the date. Even their vitals hadn’t been added. Eskia was bored.
There was nothing interesting happening here, so he decided he would break into Sunil’s office tonight and steal his hard drives. All Sunil’s research should be on them and he could sell that for a lot of money. Or at the very least the research could be used as a bargaining chip. What for was not clear yet, but then he’d only arrived a few days ago, plenty of time to get into trouble. He started his car. The only question was whether to stop by his hotel first, so he flipped a coin.
Eskia pulled out of the hospital parking lot, headed back to his hotel: New York, New York. Why was it that Vegas had to wring every last gag out of things? Everything here was a pun on a pun, so many times removed that it was not clear what the original joke had been, or if there had even been one in the first place. As he drove past the ziggurat of the MGM, black and polished, like an ancient Aztec temple cleaned up for a visitation by aliens, he thought of ways to hurt Sunil. He knew just the thing.
Smiling, he turned on his phone and used the voice-dialing function.
Call Asia, he said.
The phone rang.
Hello, Asia said on the second ring.
Eleven
Sunil’s drive over to County was slow, and he played with the idea of taking the Strip. Natives always avoided that route, so taking it seemed like a good idea. Going up West Flamingo Drive, he made a right onto Las Vegas Boulevard. As he’d guessed, there was less traffic, although the sidewalks were packed with people.
The Halloween crowds poured up and down the Strip like a thick sludge. Fireworks, set off by the Bellagio, fired straight up and out of its fountains, filling the sky with mushrooms of dazzle. Sunil was reminded of the old bomb parties the casinos used to host back in the ’50s, when the U.S. government set off nukes in the nearby desert, sometimes as close as six miles from the city. The casinos sold package tours to see U.S. history in the making: the end of the Commies and the death of the Red Threat. People flocked by the thousands to the dawn parties to watch the mushroom clouds. Minutes after the display, they would return to gambling or turn in to catch some much-needed sleep. Seats on the terrace, where one could watch the explosions while sipping on a cocktail, were fought over. Those unable to afford the parties or terraces drove out to ground zero and hiked as close as possible. The Atomic Energy Commission never turned them away, even when there were families with children.
Sunil watched the light show across his windshield, fireworks ceding to electricity. The radiance gave the impression that the city was a mirage. At a stoplight, where the traffic was held up not so much by the red but by the endless stream of pedestrians in costume, Sunil saw a young woman, a girl really, eating fire. Slowly, with what seemed like reasonable trepidation, she dipped the long-stemmed tapers into a clear fluid and lit each one. Holding the flaming stem delicately, she tilted her head back and pushed the fiery tip into her mouth, where it died with an audible sigh. Something about that girl took Sunil back to a memory of Dorothy, lighting and blowing out votives set at the foot of a statue of Jesus in the corner of her hospital room. Flame. No flame. Flame. No flame.
The duty psychiatrist, a small mousy man, was waiting outside the ER. Sunil recognized him as he approached from the parking lot but couldn’t remember the man’s name. They’d probably met at a conference; Vegas was the city for that. The doctor snuffed out the cigarette he was smoking in the sand-filled ashtray by the automatic doors.
Dr. Singh, he said.
Hello, good to see you again, Sunil said, holding out his hand.
Dr. Alan, the duty psychiatrist said, taking Sunil’s hand limply. Sunil had never gotten used to the fact that American men didn’t shake hands as a matter of course.
Of course, Dr. Alan, Sunil said.
Look, I’m not happy with you doing this; I just wanted to express my position.
Noted, Dr. Alan, S
unil said, but you should tell that to the police.
I already did.
Good. Have you seen the twins?
Yes.
Can you tell me anything about them?
Their twinning is rare.
How so?
One twin has only a small torso and head growing out of the side of the other one. Quite disturbing, even from a medical point of view.
That is odd, I’ve never even heard of a modern case of undifferentiated twins. How old are they?
In their late thirties, I think, much older than you would think. They are also pretty unresponsive.
Well, thank you for letting me interview them. Is the policeman who brought them in still here?
Yes. Just over there, Dr. Alan said, pointing into the ER. I think his name is Salazar.
Thanks again, Sunil said, heading inside toward Salazar.
I’ll meet you in Exam Room 3. The twins are there, Dr. Alan said.
Sunil paused: That’s okay. I’d rather see them alone. You understand?
Fuck you, Dr. Alan said, turning away.
Sunil ignored him and walked down the hall, tracking Salazar to the snack shop around the corner. Pausing by the door, he took it all in—shelves of chocolate and candy, sugary treats and drinks, and nary a piece of fruit in sight. It was as if the hospital were trying to drum up repeat business. He recognized Salazar straightaway. He looked like every cop Sunil had ever seen, and he’d seen plenty.
Officer Salazar, Sunil said, offering his hand.
Dr. Singh. Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would remember me.
Of course I remember you, Sunil said. So tell me what happened exactly.
