nodded at the woman.
“She got cancer. Liver, kidney, who knows. She gets big like that because the fluid builds up in her, she can’t get rid of it. Tumors under her skin. Lumps like stones. Whole body shutting down. Even mzungu medicine can’t save her now. She have a better chance with the witches. I tell her family, take her back, but she crying all the time. Stinks. They don’t want her in the hut.”
Wells handed the doctor the shillings. “Give her what she needs.” If he couldn’t save this nameless woman’s life, at least he could ease her death. “You understand.”
The doctor nodded. Wells squeezed Wilfred’s hand. “I’m going over to the hoteli, see if anybody knows about our friends on the bikes.”
“Remember. Don’t eat the mutton.”
“Or the ladies,” the doctor said.
—
On the way to the hoteli, the phone that Wells had taken at the camp buzzed. The incoming number started with a 254 country code: Somalia. The same number had come up as Wells was driving to Bakafi. Someone was worried. Wells decided to leave him guessing. Wells would make a direct approach only if he couldn’t find the bandits another way.
The hoteli was ramshackle, crowded, loud. A good time. Bars lined two walls. The deep sour smell of marijuana smoke was heavy in the air. Rick Ross pumped from tall speakers,
His entrance created a pebble-in-a-pond stir. Men slid their eyes over, then did their best to ignore him. Wells suspected he would have drawn a stronger response if the game weren’t playing. The women were his best bet. They would make it their business to keep an eye on outsiders, potential new clients. Wells could find out what they knew for a few hundred shillings.
As he closed in on the center table, a woman in a bright yellow dress patted the empty chair beside her. “Come here, baby. You look lost.”
“Maybe.” Wells sat.
“You been found, then. I’m Julia. What’s your name?” Everything about her was oversized, from her hoop earrings to her breasts to her voice.
“John.” He reached out a hand. She held it as she ran her other hand up his arm, squeezed his biceps.
“Nice muscles on this one,” she said to the table. She leaned in, smiled. Up close, Wells could see the desperation under the glamour, the maze of blood vessels in her eyes, the bruise along her jaw, the sweet liquor on her breath.
“You come down from Dadaab, John.”
Her English was good enough for the conversation he wanted. “I’m looking for someone.”
“And here I am.”
“A man.”
She leaned back, wagged her finger at him.
“He rides a motorcycle, a dirt bike. Hangs out around here. Somali. You know him?”
“What you want this man for?”
Wells put his face to her ear. “Let’s go outside, talk in private.”
“It cost.”
“Doesn’t everything in this world?” Wells draped an arm around her smooth shoulder. “One thousand shillings to go outside. One thousand more, you tell me anything.”
“Two thousand and two thousand.”
Wells nodded. She grazed his cheek with her warm sticky lips. “Naughty boy.” She stood with a grace that belied her size, led him through the men clustered around the televisions. The back side of the building was plain brick. Why paint what no one would see? About thirty meters away was a tin-roofed hut. Wells glimpsed a mattress inside. No doubt the women took clients there.
“Two thousand.”
Wells handed over the bills, careful this time to hide the rest of his cash. She tucked them in her pocketbook, cheap shiny black vinyl, and came out with a pack of Embassy cigarettes and a lighter. She handed the lighter to Wells and he sparked her up.
“A gentleman.”
“Been called a lot of things, never that. You know this Somali?” Wells felt the night slipping past. He had to find these bandits, or at least get close to their camp, before Langley and the Pentagon and White House took over. He had twelve hours, fifteen at most.
“Lots of Somalis in Bakafi. You have picture?”
“No. But I can tell you he rides a dirt bike. Wears a white T-shirt. This would be the last few days.”
“Yeah, some of them hanging around. Three, four boys. They in a gang we call the White Men. Always wearing white shirts like you say. They do business with me one time. Quick boys.” She touched his arm. “You quick, Mr. John?”
“They Shabaab?”
She inhaled deeply on her cigarette, shook her head.
“No, no. We don’t see Shabaab here for three, four months. Plus they have rules. They want to sex, they make big fuss before, pretend we getting married. Then afterwards get divorced. It all nonsense. Take too much time.”
Temporary marriage was one of Islam’s cruder aspects, designed more or less explicitly to coat prostitution with a gloss of respectability. It was common among Shia. Sunnis like Shabaab usually rejected the practice, but maybe Shabaab’s leaders had decided to allow it to relieve the libidos of their teenage fighters.
“So these White Men, they’re Somali but not Shabaab.”
“What I say. They mostly bringing in sugar when they come. Sometimes other food, too, sacks of maize.”
“It’s a big gang?”
“Don’t know.”
“They have guns?”
She laughed. “What you think this place is?”
“They rob people on this side of the border? Shoot them?”
“They okay. Don’t make trouble. Come and sell they sugar and go on back to Somalia.”
“No chance. They stand around, watch the road. Nobody bother them and they don’t bother nobody.” She finished her cigarette, threw it down, stamped it out with a gaudy pink heel. “These stupid questions, mzungu. Missing out on business. Give me ’nother thousand now.”
Wells handed over another thousand shillings. She put the bill to her lips, kissed it. She was drunker than he’d thought.
“You too rich. Think too much about money, not enough about women.” She put a fresh cigarette in between her lips and he lit it.
“Do you know who’s their leader?”
“What leader?”
“The White Men.”
“Back on that again? Name Wizard. Some these boys, they say he’s magic. Put up his hand to stop bullets. Nothing kills him. One time he dead, brought himself back to life.”
“Neat trick. Ever seen him?”
“Not sure.”
“You have any idea where in Somalia they live?”
“You think they drawing me a map?”
