The Big Killing. Robert Thomas Wilson

pushed himself off the oil drum, picked up a strip of packing-case wood with a nail in the end and went over to where George was standing by the hole in the wall. He tried to push the nail out with his fingers and failed, so swung it against the wall where it made a sharp crack like a festive squib. The thin man inside Fat Paul jumped about a foot, and nearly got away, but his elephant-seal body caught him and set off a crescendo tremble which he quelled manually.

      George’s sunglassed head turned under beta-blocker control. A gun came from under his jacket in the armpit. He swept the room and put the gun back in his armpit again and turned to look out across the lagoon, thinking he was the Ice Man in some sharp, smart, budget thriller. Fat Paul said something rapid and savage in Tui and restuck a slick of hair that had fallen loose.

      ‘Fuckin’ man,’ he said for my benefit. ‘I send you back to the forest…you fuckin’ person!’ he yelled over his shoulder.

      ‘Nervous?’ I asked.

      ‘No,’ he said loudly, then calm again: ‘What you got for me?’

      ‘I’m surprised you’re here.’

      ‘Why?’

      George’s right hand was down by his side, the fingertips tapping the outside of his thigh. Kwabena dropped the strip of wood. Fat Paul held his cheek and chewed the end of his little finger.

      ‘Remember what we talked about on the beach?’

      ‘We said lot of things.’

      ‘Snags. Remember that?’

      ‘Fuckin’ snags,’ said Fat Paul bitterly, so that I nearly laughed. ‘Tell me.’

      ‘Maybe you know already.’

      ‘Tell me anyway.’

      I was standing in a shaft of light, the sun hot on my head and a shoulder. I moved towards a pillar. Kwabena moved opposite me four or five yards off, his smell strong in the heat.

      ‘I checked the drop point in the afternoon,’ I said. ‘Someone was watching. I thought it might be the guy who was going to give me the money, thought he might be checking to see if I was white and reliable. I went after him and got close enough to see he was in a dark saloon. When I went back to make the drop at eight-thirty the other car was there, but not a saloon – a Toyota Land Cruiser. The white guy was in the driver’s seat but there was an African sitting next to him. The white man was taking a long nap with a piece of wire around his neck, tied to the head rest. The African had things to say, but with a torch and a gun. That’s what I mean by snags. Big snags. Big snags you didn’t tell me about.’

      ‘You’re here,’ he said, as if I was making a big fuss.

      ‘And I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s going on.’

      ‘Sure you would. Were you followed?’

      ‘I didn’t look.’

      Fat Paul fluttered his fingers and George disappeared out of the hole and Kwabena set off past me down the pillared corridor.

      ‘Why’d you make the drop out there, Fat Paul?’

      ‘That’s the way he wanted it.’

      ‘Like hell he did.’

      ‘You just in it for the money, what do you know?’

      ‘My mistake.’

      ‘You too hungry. No chop enough.’

      ‘So why didn’t we do it at a petrol station, or a bar outside Abidjan? Why did we go out there in the boondocks?’

      ‘Boondocks, snags, you teachin’ me things I don’t know. Is good,’ he said, patting his molten-tar hair. ‘But you aksin’ too many questions, my likin'. What you wan’ know everything for? You the paid help.’

      George pulled himself back through the hole in the wall, slipping on the rubble outside. He held up a hand, the lump in his armpit visible. I took out the package and shook the cassette out into my hand and threw it on the floor towards Fat Paul. Kwabena came from behind me and picked it up.

      ‘Not what I’d call an “important film”.’

      ‘You learnin’ fast,’ said Fat Paul, now standing and giggling. ‘You enjoy the show? They big boys, huh? Mekkin’ you white boys feel small?’

      ‘So now you know the competition’s out there,’ I said. ‘One man dead, nearly two. The real thing must be important.’

      ‘You still wan’make some money?’

      ‘I made that mistake already.’

      ‘No, you right. This corruption thing with money too bad. You do it for free this time. Is better for you.’

      ‘You know how to annoy people, Fat Paul.’

      ‘People been annoyin’ me all my life,’ he said, quick and loud. ‘White people tellin’ me I’m fat. Tellin’ me that all the time, like I don’t remember. So I call myself Fat Paul jes’ so they know, I know.’

      ‘I’ll be leaving now and I won’t be seeing you.’

      ‘You staying right where you are and doin’ what you told,’ he said.

      ‘Is that right?’

      ‘You got no option.’

      ‘Don’t order me around, Fat Paul, and don’t make threats. That way we might stay friends the last thirty seconds I know you.’

      I walked back down the pillared corridor until I heard a noise like a golf ball being hit into a mattress and a piece of wooden beam in between two pillars disappeared in a burst of powder. I stopped and turned to see George with his gun in his right hand and the suppressor he’d attached resting in his left palm.

      ‘You involved now, Bruce Medway,’ said Fat Paul, smiling. George slapped the heavy suppressor on his palm. Kwabena put his hand down his trousers and straightened himself out.

      ‘For the moment,’ I said.

      ‘To the finish,’ said Fat Paul, shaking his head. ‘The only stupid thing you doin’ is lookin’ too much the money. Mebbe I give you no money you do it right.’

      ‘I lose interest when I work for free.’

      ‘I tell you something might help you,’ he said, beckoning me with a flap of his hand. I walked over to him. He took a package off the oil drum where Kwabena had been sitting, identical to the one I’d had, and tapped it on his thumbnail. ‘You a clever man, Bruce. It make sense not to use your car. Hirin’ the Peugeot was good thinkin', and changin’ the numbers a good idea, tekkin’ out the light a better idea…’

      ‘The policeman?’

      ‘And the bartender.’ He nodded. ‘You drink three beers. Leave eight-fifteen. They find a Land Cruiser with a dead man down by the lagoon this mornin'. Tyre marks clear in the mud after the rain. They doin’ autopsy findin’ time of death, should be eight/eight-thirty. This lookin’ dicey for you, they find you were there. You understandin’ you involvement now?’

      ‘It’s coming to me.’

      He held the package over his shoulder and Kwabena took it and handed it on to me.

      ‘Another film?’

      ‘You no need to know nothin’ this time.’

      ‘Who’s it for?’ I asked, looking at the blank envelope. ‘There’s no Kantari this time.’

      ‘Mebbe we findin’ there’s other people in the market.’

      ‘So where’s the drop?’

      ‘We call you.’

      ‘I’m in the Novotel. I’ve got another job starting tonight.’

      ‘That’s