the midst of a divorce and was having cash-flow troubles. He’d quit journalism to become partner in a safari hotel west of Nairobi, but he sold his stake during the divorce—staying on, he said, as the “resident manager.” There was something a little sad about Sam Sullivan, as if he were always swimming against the current, forcing a level of enthusiasm.
“In fact, we had a couple the other week from the States,” he said. “Very famous couple, evidently. Oh, I can’t think of her name.”
Mallory waited.
“Anyway, it’s been—what, five years? Four and a half?”
“Three. Nearly three.” Both men drank their beers.
“I’ve wondered about you, from time to time,” Jon said. “How you were making out. If you were still here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“Well. Nairobi hasn’t been the most hospitable place, I guess. Has it? Particularly since the elections. Still a little corruption, too, I see.” He nodded at the newspaper.
“Not much. I really don’t follow the news anymore. Don’t have time.” Sam set his beer on the table. He was grinning at something.
“What?”
“You know how Tusker got its name?”
“Tusker?”
“The beer you’re drinking. Know how it got its name?”
“I think I may have heard this—but, no, I can’t remember.”
“British chap named Hurst,” he said, keeping his eyes on Jon’s. “George Hurst. Owned a brewery here in the capital with his brother. Back in the 1920s. One day, he was hunting out in the Valley—not far from where my lodge is, actually. And the poor fellow was mauled by an elephant. Tusk went right through him. Gored him through the belly. The other brother decided he would name the beer after him. Not Hurst, mind you, the elephant.” Sam exploded in a loud, surprising laugh and reached for his bottle. “Absolutely true story, my friend.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“So anyhow.” He set his lager down, keeping a hand on it. “What’s all this about being followed?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to figure out. I think someone’s been tailing me since I came here.”
“And you’re here for—what? Writing some sort of travel story?”
“Mmm hmm. Researching one.”
“Sure you’re not just being paranoid?”
“No. Although, in a sense, that’s what I want to find out. That’s what I want you to help me with.”
“This is the ‘proposition’?”
“Yeah. It’s a strange request, in a way. You might laugh.”
“I might. But go ahead.”
“I’d like you to help me distract them.”
“These imagined tails.”
“For just a few minutes. Fifty minutes would do. I’d pay you generously, of course.”
Sam licked his lips once, sizing up Jon Mallory. “How much did you say?”
Jon laid a legal-size envelope on the table.
Sam lifted it and discreetly counted the notes—twenty-seven thousand Kenyan shillings, about $300. More than Jon could easily afford, but he was gambling it would pay off.
“Okay.” Sam shrugged. “Not bad, I suppose, for fifty minutes’ work.”
“Not even work, really. I just want you to walk. Up and down University Way and Koinange Street. Stop at a bistro, if you’d like, have another lager, maybe a bowl of chowder.”
Sullivan laughed. “Now you’re starting to sound a little deranged, mate.”
“Will you do it?”
“Of course I’ll do it,” he said, tucking the envelope into his pants pocket. Then he waved the waiter over for more lagers. “But would you mind telling me why this is worth twenty-seven thousand shillings to you?”
“I just want you to divert attention.”
“From you.”
“Right.”
Sullivan sized him up all over again, as if he were someone different now. He waited until the new bottles and coasters were on the table and the waiter was gone before speaking again.
“I won’t pry into your business, mate, but how do I know I can trust you? I mean, I’m not going to get killed, am I?”
“No, of course not. Stay on the main roads. Go to public places. No one wants to kill me. They just want to follow me. To see where I’m going.”
“Why?”
“Good question.”
“Yeah.” He drank from the new beer. “And here’s another one: How are we going to make them think I’m you?”
Mallory slid the bag across to him under the table. Sam peered inside.
“Stop in the men’s room by the entrance before you go out. Take the bag with you, and put on the sweatshirt and the hat. Then go out. Stay on the main roads, as I say. Return here in one hour. Go back in the rest room, leave the sweatshirt and hat in the bag, then join me back here in the bar.”
Sam’s smile turned to a hard, grim expression. “Well. If it’s worth twenty-seven thousand to you, I imagine it’d also be worth fifty thousand shillings. Considering the risks I’ll be taking.”
“Probably would,” Jon said. “Except I don’t have fifty thousand.” He sighed and pulled several bills from his pocket, leaving him with just a few hundred shillings.
Sam Sullivan took the money. Jon looked at his watch.
“Okay? So we meet back here at 8:15.”
“Okay.”
Sam took the bag and walked to the men’s room. Jon watched him as he emerged a few minutes later wearing the bright yellow sweatshirt and safari hat. He walked outside without a look back.
Outside, he stayed in the shadows—alleyways, awnings, tall buildings—walking past markets and shuttered apartments. The night sky was dark and cloudy. If it took ten minutes to reach 3C Garden Road, that gave him twenty-five minutes to find whatever had been left for him.
SIXTEEN
GARDEN ROAD WAS SOMETHING of a misnomer. At the east end was a well-worn dirt field, once a playground, apparently, with a single wood-plank bench and a rusted swing set and a broken whirly-go-round that probably hadn’t been used for years. The next block was a row of rundown apartment houses, some boarded up. Incongruously, a group of old men sat on rusted chairs in front of one, speaking loudly in Swahili as he passed across the street. Jon hugged the shadows and pretended not to notice.
No. 3 was in a five-unit, one-story building, toward the middle of a mostly abandoned block. The apartments were lettered: A, B, C, D, E. Jon opened the screen door to 3C. He tried the knob, felt flakes of rust under his fingers. Locked. He gazed up the street, listening to the hum of electrical wires, the now-distant voices of the men.
He examined the door frame carefully, top to bottom, right side then left. Found that there was a keypad on
