Bite

by Nick Louth

  The bar was in a bare room behind the stage, and consisted of a bleach-blonde with a thistle tattooed on her freckled shoulder selling Heineken and Amstel bottles from the crate. Max bought a bottle and watched as the woman bit the cap off, and spat it forcibly into a corner.

  ‘No opener?’ Max asked.

  ‘Some wanker thieved the bastard,’ she replied in a broad Glaswegian accent as she pushed the foaming bottle into Max’s midriff.

  Max went back and watched the band until with a final explosive riff, the set ended. After a gruff thank you, and desultory applause, the lead singer leapt down and started disconnecting leads and cables. A door opened at the back and the huge figure of Janus emerged, hands full of beer and mineral water bottles for the band. He didn’t seem to notice Max.

  The bassist unpeeled her wetlook dungarees to the waist to reveal a tie-dyed T-shirt. She took a long slug of her drink and edged her way carefully off the tiny stage. She was wearing absurd spike heeled PVC ankle boots and her eye makeup was a thick black racoon stripe from ear to ear. Max had edged to the back of the room, next to the guy at the sound mixer board, and was just beginning to ask him about Janus when the bassist sashayed up, the straps of her dungarees flapping at her knees. ‘Hi Max, glad you could make it.’

  ‘Lisbeth. I didn’t recognise you.’

  ‘And I didn’t recognise you, but now I do, even though you have changed your appearance too. Come and have a drink with me.’

  Max felt the envious glance of the sound man as Lisbeth took his hand and led him away. He bought another beer and a bottle of mineral water which he gave to Lisbeth. They moved to a dark uncrowded corner. ‘So you know who I am?’

  ‘Yes. You are a fast runner, but now I’m not running away. Not in these heels.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I don’t care how you make your living, I just need the laptop back.’

  ‘Not possible, sorry. I don’t have it.’

  ‘You sold it?’

  ‘No. I was paid in advance. The person who wanted it told me exactly where it was.’

  Holy Polio had just started playing and Max had to bellow into Lisbeth’s ear to make himself heard. ‘Look. My girlfriend, Erica, has disappeared. All I want is to get her back. Her laptop has her agenda and her e-mails in it, and I just need to check them out. I’m convinced that she agreed to meet her abductor, and there will be an e-mail from him. Why else would he want it but to cover his tracks?’

  ‘I don’t know why he wanted it and I didn’t ask. I know my job. I do it and I don’t ask questions.’

  ‘But this isn’t just a thousand buck computer, it’s a woman just like you, whose life is in danger.’

  ‘Sorry, Max.’ Lisbeth took a swig of water and flapped the hem of her T-shirt to get air to her midriff. ‘I am very hot here. Feel.’ She took his hand and pressed it to her damp taut stomach.

  ‘I don’t care about the computer itself. Even if you can get a disc copy of the e-mail files, that would help. And I can pay. I do have some money, not a lot, but some. We can either do it this way or via the cops, whichever you want. You are a thief, after all.’ They were now very close.

  ‘I want to help you Max. You are a nice man, but this is not a business for nice men.’

  ‘I ain’t so nice. And I’m not letting it go.’

  Lisbeth lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, inspecting Max’s face with a look bordering on pity. ‘I didn’t know about your girlfriend disappearing, and I’m sorry about that. Okay?’

  ‘I don’t need your sympathy. I need his name.’

  ‘I will try to help you, but it is very dangerous. Give me your hand, Max. Then you will understand.’

  Max sighed. ‘This touchy-feely thing is getting a bit much for me.’ He let her take his arm. She put the palm to her midriff, and then started to work it down her dungarees. She giggled as she wriggled to make room for it behind the clinging material.

  Max started to pull back. ‘You are one weird kid. I just know you’re getting off on this.’

  She leaned forward and blew smoke into his face. ‘Trust me. Feel, just a few centimetres lower.’

  ‘Are you kidding me. I know what’s down there. Or are you going to tell me it’s a dick hiding down there instead?’

  Just short of the crinkly hair, Max could feel something on her skin. His eyes widened as he traced its jagged length. ‘Jesus. Are you into home surgery or something?’

  ‘Good scar, yes? Feel. What does it say?’

  ‘You’re telling me this butchery has a meaning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t read braille. Can’t you just tell me?’

  ‘No, not here. Try to feel it. It’s the name you want. His name, he never wanted me to forget it.’

  Max hadn’t thought his fears for Erica could intensify until this moment. ‘It feels like he left you his address and zip code too. Christ, didn’t this caveman ever learn to use a ballpoint?’

  Lisbeth pressed her body against him, her hot, moist face in the curve of his neck.

  ‘There’s an A, an N, a V or is it a W? Hey, keep still down there will you. How can I read if you keep wiggling your ass around.’

  ‘I’m sorry, the skin is very…sensitive.’ She licked Max’s neck.

  ‘That’s enough.’ Max pulled his hand out and eased her away. ‘Whatever your kink is Lisbeth, I’m not into it. If you’re going to tell me, then do it. But quit fooling with me.’

  ‘Every time I take a shower, every time I undress he is there, like a rape that never ends.’ If anything her smile broadened, a brittle mask stretched over the pain. ‘It makes me embrace him and hate him, just as all women simultaneously embrace and hate their own bodies. He made himself a part of me.’

  ‘Why did he hurt you?’

  ‘He was angry about something I did.’

  ‘I guess.’ Max looked at her. ‘So why didn’t Janus protect you from this?’

  ‘Janus is very strong, but he has his limits. The man who cut me has no limits, no human feelings and the strength of the very Devil himself.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ Max muttered.

  ‘No-one ever could have protected me, except maybe my Johnny. And Johnny’s long gone. Thirteen years next Friday.’ Lisbeth raised her glass. ‘Here’s to you Johnny.’

  Max lifted the beer bottle to his lips. The bitterness washed over his tongue, fizzing in his throat, but all he tasted was cold fear. What had to be done still had to be done, but now it was tougher, and it made him feel even more alone. He looked at Lisbeth.

  She was studying him too, and then she put her hand on his arm, tight. He could feel the perspiration on her hands. ‘I can help you, Max. But if you report me, and the police link me to this man, I’m dead. You understand? He’ll find me and what you felt down here would be nothing to what he would do to me. So you must promise on your life, your soul, never to reveal my role in this.’

  ‘Lisbeth, I don’t give promises lightly, but I always keep them. If you help me find Erica, I promise I’ll go to hell and back for you. But I need his name, where he hangs out, some idea how to find him.’

  ‘You can’t do it alone. He will kill you without a second thought and you will be just another dead tourist floating in a canal. Find some proof he’s holding Erica, then go to the cops with that.’

  ‘Okay. I might have some help anyway.’ Max thought of Loebe’s offer. A man with a gun was going to be very useful. ‘So what is that name?’

  Lisbeth leaned forward and whispered in his ear. ‘His name is Anvil.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how can I reach him?’

  Lisbeth put her finger to her lips. ‘Later I’ll show you.’ A jostling ahead signalled Gradgrind Spine’s arrival in the bar. Max was introduced to singer Jay, guitarist Nico and drummer PJ. They bellowed in each other’s ears over the wall of noise and sank a few beers while Max and Lisbeth stared at each other. Lisbeth yelled something to Nico and was given a fel
t tip pen in return. She reached out for Max’s hand and scrawled on his palm. Then she folded his hand into a fist and waved a goodbye to him. She looked to one side, pointed urgently, and stepped back. Janus was carving his way across the room. He was scowling at Max.

  Nico leaned close to Max and shouted in his ear. ‘I think you should leave now.’

  Max shook his head. His back was near the wall and the only way out was past Janus. He squared up as the big man arrived.

  ‘You, outside.’ Janus’s physique was almost bursting with power, like a gun when the trigger is nine-tenths squeezed.

  ‘I think I want to finish my beer.’

  Max only half raised the bottle to his mouth. No point in tempting a man to knock your teeth in.

  ‘You don’t take a hint, do you?’ Janus signalled to someone across the room, and suddenly the music died. In the hush, all eyes were on him.

  ‘Leave him alone, Janus,’ Lisbeth said. ‘I invited him.’

  ‘Paid my money,’ Max raised his fist to show the inky star. ‘Reckon I can stay till the end.’

  Janus pulled Lisbeth away, and the rest of the band stepped back. Lisbeth tottered in her precarious heels until Nico steadied her. She looked almost excited, her eyes glittering.

  ‘For you, the end just arrived,’ Janus whispered.

  Five years after leaving the Coast Guard service, Max’s self defence mechanism still slid smoothly into place: breathing was shallow and quick, muscles relaxed for rapid movement. He was braced, right foot back, right hand low grasping the beer bottle by its neck, left hand raised defensively like half a prayer.

  Maybe that was all the chance he had. Max had never seen a big man move so fast. The fist exploded like an H-bomb of pain against his ear, and momentarily lifted him from the ground. Gasping, Max rode with the blow, and ducked the next left-hander which came over the top. Dust showered him as Janus’s giant fist imbedded itself deep into the plasterboard wall.

  Max grappled with the huge arms and fired his right knee high into Janus’s groin. The big man growled, but the left hand didn’t waver. He seized Max by the throat, the stub of thumb over the windpipe while the right fist swung back like a demolition ball. Max grabbed the stub and ripped it back just in time to extricate his neck. He swore he felt the wind from the punch, just over his head.

  Something in the crowd got Max’s attention. A thin guy with an orange beak of gelled hair had called Janus’s name. Flat in his outstretched hand was a snub-nosed revolver, offered butt first, ready for the taking.

  Arm a survival instinct with combat training, fuel it with adrenaline and all human hesitation is evicted. Max drove from his legs, firing himself like a missile aiming his skull at the delicate underside of Janus’s nose. Instead he got the jaw full on. Janus’s teeth crashed together and his craggy head folded back with a growl of pain. For a second the full length of Janus’s neck was exposed like a soft fruit, goading a merciless response. Max felt himself break the bottle on the wall, his arm taking the jagged glass neck in a wide fast sweep.

  In his mind flashed the wretched face of Samuel Ng, four Coast Guard bullets in him already, the blood pouring from his mouth, and Samuel saying help me, help me. No I can’t help you, you lost the plot, Samuel. That’s the point. You throw yourself in the coldest, deepest part of human nightmare and then you realise you can’t swim. No-one can swim there, Samuel. No-one.

  Max was bellowing when the bottle struck, and he could feel the rip of muscle and skin, and hands clutch at him, felt the hot blood on his hands. Only when he opened his eyes did he realise they had been closed, and when he saw what he’d done he squeezed them shut again and wished himself blind for ever.

  We are all terrified. We really have to get out in a hurry in case of KPLA reprisals. Sister Margaret and Georg spent all day on their backs, spattered in oil underneath the Land Rover, but managed to patch up the broken sump. Still the clutch is a problem. Only Georg believes it is better to stay here than break down in the bush. Amy made the mistake of asking Sister Margaret how much luggage she and Annette would need.

  ‘But we’re not going,’ Sister Margaret said quietly.

  ‘Are you crazy? You will be a major, major target if the KPLA return.’

  ‘Amy, look at these people.’ She indicated the gaggle of women and children gathered around the Land Rover. ‘Where can they go? What about the blind and the sick? Our place is with them.’

  ‘Listen, honey. If you are determined to be a martyr go ahead. Just remember that Africa managed just fine before the Catholic church, and will do so again after…’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Amy,’ Georg interrupted. ‘I’m trying to listen.’ He had his head pressed to a shortwave radio. ‘The government is announcing a major defeat of the KPLA. That’s bound to provoke the KPLA to strike back, to prove them wrong.’

  Tomas has just come back from photographing the bodies at the pond. He was pale, but excited, and now he wants to write my witness account for a story to go with the photos. He is itching to get back to Kisangani with his scoop. I just can’t see it like he does. All I can see is that boy’s face, sinking into the mud beneath an army boot.

  (Erica’s Diary 1992)

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alone at her microscope, abandoned by her colleagues, Saskia Sivali awaited the arrival of Professor van Diemen. Her heart jumped when the lift doors creaked apart and three sets of double doors on the long corridor boom-boomed like an approaching drum. Then she heard the rapid, angry squeal of moulded soles on linoleum before the diminutive professor burst into the laboratory.

  ‘It had better be good, Ms Sivali.’ The professor tore off his jacket and threw on a tattered white coat. Sweat stains had darkened the armpits of his blue shirt, and his face was reddened to beetroot. ‘I’m missing Jürgen Friederikson’s paper on adhesion enzymes to be here.’

  ‘We have a very sick patient with something very strange in his blood. Perhaps a new strain of malaria.’

  ‘New? For God’s sake woman, there hasn’t been a new Plasmodium species in a hundred years.’ Van Diemen emitted an exasperated sigh. ‘Okay, which microscope?’

  She pointed to the Olympus. Van Diemen pulled a chair over to it. ‘If you weren’t sure, you could have got Veldhuis or Hazelhof to check for you, ‘ he said, raising the seat so he could reach the eyepieces comfortably.

  ‘I did. They agree with me,’ Saskia said quietly. ‘That’s why I paged you.’

  For a few moments Van Diemen just harrumphed, and twiddled with the focus knob. When he finally looked up his features had softened. ‘This is fairly spectacular. Did you check for dual infection?’

  ‘Some, yes. He is negative for yellow fever, dengue fever and viral encephalitis.’

  ‘Retinal haemorrhage?’

  ‘Yes, and plenty of it.’

  He stared out of the window deep in thought before returning his gaze to the Olympus. ‘Hmm. Yes. This is almost like reptilian or even avian parasitic infection. But humans cannot get animal malaria.’ His tone had softened considerably. ‘Have you sent a sample for PCR?’

  ‘Should be ready in thirty minutes.’

  Polymerase chain reaction testing would be the proof, looking for the unique genetic signature that each known parasite possessed. A positive would tell you what the infection was, but a negative would only tell you what it wasn’t.

  In the meantime Saskia and Van Diemen combed through the hospital’s blood slide library, checking dozens of samples of animal and human malaria against the Erskine blood sample. Finally Van Diemen had to agree. Nothing matched.

  While Van Diemen scrubbed his hands at the sink he cross-examined Saskia about the patient and the progress of symptoms. He listened carefully until Saskia mentioned that fever began only a day ago. Van Diemen snorted his disagreement. ‘Unlikely. What you are telling me is that this infection developed at three to four times the speed of falciparum malaria. He’s seven per cent infected now, right?’

  ‘Yes.�
��

  ‘Then in three or four days he wouldn’t have a single red blood cell to call his own. No, the degree of infection and the presence of gametocytes indicate not less than two weeks.’

  A technician leaned through the door and tossed a clipboard on a desk. ‘PCR results,’ he said.

  Van Diemen grabbed it and scanned down the page. ‘Negative, negative, negative, all the way down. My God.’ He passed the clipboard to Saskia. ‘Well, that’s the proof. For the last hundred years mankind only had to deal with four kinds of malaria. Now we seem to have found number five.’

  Two battered trucks full of government troops roared into Zizunga this morning before heading on north east. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Among them are some of the village men conscripted last year, and there were many happy scenes of reunion, and swarms of delighted children. The troops seemed well-fed, well-equipped and in high spirits. A moth-eaten hyena head had been mounted on the radiator of the lead truck with the letters KPLA daubed on its nose.

  There were two surprises. Travelling with them was Dr Jarman Herrera, pale and gaunt. We had assumed he would be away for weeks, but he said he had heard news of the skirmish and felt he had to return to look after Sophie’s precious monkeys. Georg is overjoyed because he has brought with him the Land Rover clutch part we need.

  For me the second surprise was greater. Behind the second truck, talking to Jarman was a tall western soldier in filthy Zairean fatigues. He had his back to me, but I recognised the huge build and stripes of pale skin under the mud. He was the soldier who had saved my life, who had ambushed the KPLA, and cut off the ears of the dead. Somehow I felt he knew I was there. Perhaps I should have gone up and thanked him. Instead I felt very frightened, and walked away.